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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DammitVictor" data-source="post: 7985520" data-attributes="member: 6750908">Roll 5d6 (best 3), reroll 1s and 2s unless you roll five of a kind. Any five of a kind is equal to 18 plus the face value of the dice (thus 19-24). Roll seven times, drop lowest. Players had to roll their abilities in front of the DM, while the DM's own DMPCs all had statistically questionable results.This approach may have had long term consequences on my perception of what kind of game D&D was, but I think D&D also has a problem with its own perception of what kind of game it is: compare any of its own ability generation methods for PCs-- deterministic or random or in-between-- with the ability scores it gives named PCs. Has anyone ever done a comparison of the relative point-buy values of every named PC in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting for 3.X, or a statistical analysis of the rolls they had to have made?The point buy math in modern D&D is balanced around the idea that to have the scores you need to function in your primary and secondary attributes, one or more of your tertiary attributes has to be below average for a standard memeber of your race... but with the exception of Caramon and Raistlin Majere, I can't think of any canonical D&D protagonist heroes for whom that's the case. As someone with multiple dump stats in real life, playing someone with similarly diminished capacities... isn't an enjoyable roleplaying challenge, and it doesn't really fulfill the need for escapism that I want D&D to provide me.It was mentioned upthread that I like systems that combine deterministic and random elements. I like them because they combine that guarantee that your character will be minimally viable with the possibility of happy surprises from randomized mechanics.The method mentioned upthread-- which I didn't invent-- is taking a standard (or low) point buy, and then rolling for your stats in order, taking the better of the point-buy value or the rolled value for each ability. This means both that while you have a chance at a "happy surprise" on your primary abilities, you're more likely to end up with better scores in your secondary and tertiary abilities-- which is what makes organic rolling methods more interesting. It also introduces some measure of risk-reward to the process, as rolling over your high scores "wastes" the points you spent on them and, while you're more likely to roll over your low scores, dumping them imposes the risk of having to play them that way.I originally proposed a more heroic point buy with 3d6 or 4d6k3 to represent the better of two values from the same average and range, but the more I think about it... the more I think I prefer pairing a lower point buy with 5d4, as I think this will make the dice more exciting without drastically increasing the risk of unsatisfying characters.Another method I've proposed on multiple occasions is based on TSR's Alternity Science Fiction Roleplaying Game, which is a standard class/race/level system: the default method in the PHB is unweighted point-buy, but there are three random systems in the GMG. The first is just a standard rolling method, but the second two are interesting: you pick your species or your profession first, and then each ability score has its own rolling method that guarantees you meet requirements.  You're guaranteed to meet minimums and you're unlikely to roll catastrophically low for abilities important to your concept. Only hitch in Alternity is that it doesn't make provisions for rolling above species maximums on your profession rolls, which is easily solved.Could easily do the same thing with D&D. Each race and class gets its own little table, pick your race and class, pick which formula you want to use for each ability. (Default is, of course, use the better one.) Very, very simple formula for 5e is that every class gets 12+2d4 for their Prime Requisite, 8+3d4 for their other Save Proficiency, and 4+4d4 for the other four abilities. For race/subrace, +2 is 12+2d4 and +1 is 8+3d4, and all Humans are Variant Human.</blockquote>

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