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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 5925258" data-attributes="member: 40961">You can't fix the negative effects of randomization by using random skew.  That just makes it all the more tragic when that one player actually fails to roll well, even though you sweetened the odds for him.Take rolling for ability scores.  You're right that the odds of rolling truly badly are fairly low.  You get to roll 3 dice and add them up, so its bell curved.  You get to assign the scores where you please, so you can bury the worst scores.  In 3e, you even threw out ability score sets that were beneath certain thresholds.  But you know what?  Even with all of that, there's still going to be one guy out there who rolls the minimum legal set of ability scores, and there's still going to be one guy who rolls ridiculously high.And take hit points.  Someone in the thread suggested rolling twice and taking the better roll.  You can do that.  It will reduce the odds of someone rolling 1s repeatedly as they level up.  But you know what?  There's still going to be someone out there who repeatedly rolls snake eyes when they level up.  It will happen less often, but it will still happen.So you have to ask- is randomization of these character elements really adding anything that 1) justifies the cost, and 2) can't be replaced with some other mechanism?I think the answer to both questions is no.</blockquote>