Plaguescarred
D&D Playtester for WoTC since 2012
I'd be curious to know what's the probability to get at least one score below 8 when rolling?
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D&D 5E Would You Let a Monk Roll for Stats?
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
For 4d6 drop 1 you have a 30% chance for at least one ability 7 or below.
Sure, but that is not really relevant to the discussion. A Monk with high rolls has no "problem" in the game.
If you can play a 27 point buy fighter without problem, you can play a 30 point buy-equivalent Monk without a problem. The fact that a 30 point-buy fighter or a 22 point-buy Wizard would be even more powerful than said Monk is not really relevant to that.
What you roll on abilities is what drives what classes are viable and further defines where a certain class would be ranked in terms of others at the table. High ability rolls will absolutely make up for class, race and subclass weaknesses or to put it another way, class, subclass and race strengths can almost always more than make up for low ability rolls.
Now certainly playing the most powerful class with the highest rolls will necessarily put such characters ahead of everyone else at the table, but I don't see many players who design characters that way.
Zardnaar
Legend
If dice rolling us used and I roll really well I'll usually pick a weaker class that interests me.
No one had played a Monk yet (2015/16 maybe) and didn't really know how to run one.
I have never had this happen and probably would not enjoy playing with people who do.
What I have seen happen is a fellow player throw a fit when his characters luckstone turned out to be cursed. We were low level and he moaned that this "ruined his character" and "he didn't want to play any more if he was attuned to a bad luck stone". The DM let him do something to unattune to it. Personally, I wanted to ask him to leave the game and he eventually did leave in a fit over a different issue about 9 months later
The player that would suicide his character because of poor rolls is that same kind of player IMO, especially when powerful build options can almost always overcome even very, very poor ability rolls. I mean if he rolled nothing higher than 11, I could see that as a reason to just throw in the towel, but I have never seen that on 4d6d1 in 40 years of D&D and anything above that is salvageable in 5E.
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In 5E, this is my experience as well and what I see from most other experienced players.
I also think I misread what I qouted you on .... I think I missed the word "less"
Li Shenron
Legend
Monk or not, even though I recommend fixed array first (mainly for beginners, standard or variant) and point buy second (if you don't spend ages making your decision), I would allow rolling for stats.
But stats rolling should be used only by people who enjoy randomness AND the challenge of playing a more difficult PC with flaws, not by those who are looking for gambling. Meaning that they should be ready to willingly play a resulting inferior character without complaints. People who gamble way too often do so just because they think they'll win, and don't understand that when it goes bad they're going to ruin the fun of others if they keep complaining or playing badly as a result.
A trick to check if a player should roll or not could be, as soon as they ask you if they can roll for stats, show them first a fixed array with clearly bad scores that could result from rolling poorly and ask them to look at it and think carefully if they would play a character with those scores. I believe many gamblers will cringe and not roll. If they claim they would, most likely they will roll better anyway, and if they still complain you'll remind them what they claimed about an even worse array.
But stats rolling should be used only by people who enjoy randomness AND the challenge of playing a more difficult PC with flaws, not by those who are looking for gambling. Meaning that they should be ready to willingly play a resulting inferior character without complaints. People who gamble way too often do so just because they think they'll win, and don't understand that when it goes bad they're going to ruin the fun of others if they keep complaining or playing badly as a result.
A trick to check if a player should roll or not could be, as soon as they ask you if they can roll for stats, show them first a fixed array with clearly bad scores that could result from rolling poorly and ask them to look at it and think carefully if they would play a character with those scores. I believe many gamblers will cringe and not roll. If they claim they would, most likely they will roll better anyway, and if they still complain you'll remind them what they claimed about an even worse array.
I wouldn't let one player roll while making the rest use point buy.
Some games the players roll, some they use point buy. Monks certainly favour/benefit from high rolls more than most classes.
Zardnaar
Legend
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