You roll a 3...

[Dausuul]

Do you have any idea of the chance of rolling 4 ones on 4d6?

It's somewhere around 0%. More accurately, it's close to 0.077%. Odds are, you'll roll that sum once in 200 throws (or there abouts).

Once in 1,296 per ability score.
Once in ~200 per character.
Once in ~36 per party of six characters.

So if 36 groups make characters using 4d6 drop lowest, one of them (on average) is going to have a character with a 3. I think there are more than 36 groups who make PCs using this method.

 

[drothgery]

Once in 1,296 per ability score.
Once in ~200 per character.
Once in ~36 per party of six characters.

So if 36 groups make characters using 4d6 drop lowest, one of them (on average) is going to have a character with a 3. I think there are more than 36 groups who make PCs using this method.

...except that the odds of a character with a 3 having stats that are otherwise good enough to play (even by the by-the-book 3.x definition of a 'hopeless character') are not good.

 

[Reynard]

...except that the odds of a character with a 3 having stats that are otherwise good enough to play (even by the by-the-book 3.x definition of a 'hopeless character') are not good.

Good thing that wasn't the supposition, then. The likelihood of the proposed array is irrelevant.

What surprises me most about some of the answers is there seems to be people that would refuse or suicide such a character, and even, it seems, walk from a table where the GM -- after everyone agreeing to roll stats -- actually "made" one play the character.

 

[Water Bob]

How many of the dicey things can we do in one post?

Can we do 200? Doubtful.

Hey! Got close on that second throw!

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What surprises me most about some of the answers is there seems to be people that would refuse or suicide such a character, and even, it seems, walk from a table where the GM -- after everyone agreeing to roll stats -- actually "made" one play the character.

I'd be tempted to put the 3 in Con, in a dungeon crawl. There would be two reasons for this suicidal behavior:

1. I'd like the challenge. We had a guy in a 3E-ish game be quite succesful with a 5 Con (though he did bump it every chance he got).

2. If I played the power option, I'd be afraid all those other great stats would cause resentment.

So milk it for all its worth as long as possible, but with everyone knowing that there is an expiration date on the carton.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd be tempted to put the 3 in Con, in a dungeon crawl. There would be two reasons for this suicidal behavior:

1. I'd like the challenge. We had a guy in a 3E-ish game be quite succesful with a 5 Con (though he did bump it every chance he got).

2. If I played the power option, I'd be afraid all those other great stats would cause resentment.

So milk it for all its worth as long as possible, but with everyone knowing that there is an expiration date on the carton.

Kind of like the tuberculosis-sickened Doc Holliday...


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh3xpSJwmk4&feature=youtube_gdata_player]YouTube - ‪Doc Holiday "I'm Your Huckleberry"‬‏[/ame]

 

[Argyle King]

3rd Edition - Either a sorcerer (I could dump STR) or a Druid (I could dump STR; if I need it, shapeshift into something with better STR.)

Pathfinder - no idea because I'm not familiar with the system enough

4th Edition - There's not really much of anything you couldn't still play with a 3 somewhere as long as your other stats were good. You'd have a few skills which you'd be total crap at, but, otherwise you'd be fine since you can pick between two attributes for all of your defenses.

Personally, I'd probably play a Warlord and dump DEX. Yes, that means my initiative would be terrible, but --when playing a Warlord-- I usually like to see how the battlefield evolves before pulling out some of my big guns anyway. If I go the CHAlord route, I could just wear heavy armor; with a TAClord, I can use INT for my AC.

 

[Jhaelen]

What surprises me most about some of the answers is there seems to be people that would refuse or suicide such a character, and even, it seems, walk from a table where the GM -- after everyone agreeing to roll stats -- actually "made" one play the character.

I'm not surprised. In fact that's precisely the reason I've forbidden rolling for stats in my last campaign:
One player once asked to be allowed to roll and I agreed. What happened was that he wasn't satisfied with the results and then opted to create a new character at one level lower (i.e. effectively suiciding the character with the rolled stats) using point-buy.

In my experience players are only interested in rolling their stats because they hope to end up with a character that is better than what they could get using point-buy, no matter what they tell you.

(The worst are the players who show you a piece of paper with the stats they rolled up at home - yeah, right ... )

I actually had to learn this the hard way: Once upon a time I tried to prevent a player from suiciding his pc, insisting he had to play him just as he was, like everyone else. Needless to say the session did not go well. In the end I gave in and learned a valuable lesson: Always, always, always let players use point-buy!

 

[sjmiller]

Do you have any idea of the chance of rolling 4 ones on 4d6?

It's somewhere around 0%. More accurately, it's close to 0.077%. Odds are, you'll roll that sum once in 200 throws (or there abouts).

To play Mr. Probability here, the chance of rolling four 1s is 1 in 1296 or roughly 0.077% (as you said). So, technically, you will most likely roll it once in 1296 rolls.

Sure, it is a statistically small number. However, I have seen it happen more than once in my years of gaming. Heck, I have done it myself a few times.

 

[sjmiller]

In my experience players are only interested in rolling their stats because they hope to end up with a character that is better than what they could get using point-buy, no matter what they tell you.

Not to derail the conversation, but I prefer to roll my attributes because I do not like the cookie-cutter characters I see from point-buy. That may be just me, but but that is what I see. Plus there is the fact that I started gaming well before point-buy systems were invented. I am used to rolling stats for D&D.

Back to the main subject: I think I could play a character using those stats in just about any order. There are 720 different combinations and I bet I could make a fun and playable character out of each one.