D&D General You Were Rolling Up a New Character, and Just Rolled a 3. What Is Your Reaction?

[Horwath]

In fairness, if 18 is supra-genius then 3 is (in modern terms) disabled.

Even more so given that anything less than 3 is essentially non-functional.

Indeed.

For me, a 3 Int means coherent sentences are out the window but that 3-Int character can still be a hero.

Agreed completely.

also the problem with intelligence in D&D that is a combination of int, wis and cha.

some say wisdom is willpower, OK, but why is "willpower" key for perception, survival, insight?
That would be cunning or "intelligence" rather than willpower

and animals have up to 14 wisdom.
that is high cunning.

maybe int should be reserved for just abstract thinking, mathematics, etc.
or how much you can learn.
bonus skill points in 3E were a good description of what Int should be.


turn int, wis and cha into:

Cunning and Willpower

Cunning:
bonus skills,
key ability for all current int, wis and cha skills and tools
bonus languages

Willpower:
all current int, wis and cha saves.
magic ability for all classes. attack, DC, damage

 

[DammitVictor]

It’s the defects that make the character.

This is true, and people say it a lot, but it's not true in the sense that people say it.

Character flaws make characters interesting. Foibles, blindspots. Things that cause characters to make mistakes and errors in judgement, things that make them imperfect human beings. The sort of thing, in short, that bad authors and many roleplayers-- without judgment-- are unwilling to let their characters do.

Being weak, or clumsy, or sickly aren't interesting. They're the flaws that authors and players give their characters when they don't understand the assignment.

I'm not going to argue about this, I'm just stating a preference. I'm a normal standard person in real life, for a game I want to be a bit bigger than life.

I'm disabled in real life. Physically, mentally, socially... kinda like the dungeon wheelchair thing, I respect that some disabled people want to play "someone like them" in a fantasy setting, and some people want to explore those limitations in a safe, nurturing environment.

I have no such desire, I have never had any such desire, and I wish they would show me the same basic courtesy without lecturing me about the "immaturity" of my preferences. When I play D&D, I want to play the characters that D&D uses to explain its classes, and the NPCs from the novels-- Conan, Jiriel, Geralt, and Drizzt Do'Urden don't have dump stats, and they are flawed, fascinating characters.

So, yeah. I'm not going to play a character with a 3 in any ability score. That's not fun for me; thinking about it's not fun for me. I like semi-random chargen to give characters a more "organic" feeling than pure point buy... but my games have high floors by design unless a player wants to play a handicapped concept.

 

[DammitVictor]

Dumping Wisdom is always the answer!

Why?

Because you get to let loose your inner gonzo idiot for as long as the character lasts.
And because you'll probably be rolling up a new one in fairly short order.

Problem is, I generally want to play my inner gonzo idiot with really strong senses and inhuman determination. In my experience, the correlation between willpower and common sense with high Wisdom is the inverse of real life.

For me, if you're not at least trying to play to your stats (particularly the low ones) you're cheating.

I feel like the disconnect between this sentiment and overgeeked's... in addition to myriad other problems... is why the Discourse on this topic is so incredibly aggravating. I do find it curious why so many people simultaneously argue that PCs need to have low ability scores as "interesting character flaws" and that a low ability score doesn't have to "mean anything" besides the mechanical penalty to the actions it covers.

Also, plenty of dumb people think they’re smart, bores think they’re charismatic, wimps think they’re tough, fools think they’re wise, and so on. The rolls will be what the rolls will be.

Dunning Kruger is not Fred's heroic older brother.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

Dunning Kruger is not Fred's heroic older brother.

I've got a nasty cold, and this set off a five minute coughing fit.

 

[delericho]

...what is your initial reaction?

Swear vociferously.

Then play the character.

(I haven't been with a group that rolls stats in a long time. I don't think I'd play with a DM who tried to insist on it, and given the choice I would strongly tend to go for point buy/standard array. However, I have run games for players who prefer to roll, and that's fine - I'm happy to let people have that choice. My only requirement, other than rolling out in the open, is that players who choose to roll have to then play the resulting character in good faith (which means no "suiciding" a bad character). Since I'd expect that of others, I'd want to make sure to do the same myself.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Assuming you are creating a new character, and
assuming that you DO roll your stats, and
assuming you DID roll a nat-3...
...what is your initial reaction?

I'll add more options as I think of them (and as people start commenting.) This is just for fun, nobody panic!

Per the instructions in this post, I am required to vote 1: "This is a disaster!"

It is precisely this sort of issue which makes me want to never
ever
ever
ever
ever

ever​

roll for stats.

Of course, I still do so if that is what the GM tells me is required, but I will ask if PB is allowed, and I will note to the GM my extremely consistent bimodal luck. That is, my stats will, nearly without fail, be either so garbage even the GM will be like "...okay yeah please reroll that", or they will be so stupidly good that at least one other player's envy is likely. I don't get "average" stats. I get either rank garbage or solid gold. It's quite tedious, because what I want is "good and eminently reasonable", but I almost never get it.

It's why I refer to rolling for stats as "ability roulette". I have no interest in playing a game where my skill is utterly irrelevant because a couple of dice said "HAHAHAHA F@#$ YOU!!!" six months ago. The primary thing that determines success or failure should be player skill. That doesn't mean luck has no place--it means that luck should not be so overwhelming that it turns skill into "well it didn't really matter". When my participation doesn't actually change the outcome, I am a mere witness, not a participant.

 

[Cergorach]

It's going into anything but INT...

Putting it in DEX or WIS could be hilarious!

 

[Horwath]

Per the instructions in this post, I am required to vote 1: "This is a disaster!"

It is precisely this sort of issue which makes me want to never
ever
ever
ever
ever

ever​

roll for stats.

Of course, I still do so if that is what the GM tells me is required, but I will ask if PB is allowed, and I will note to the GM my extremely consistent bimodal luck. That is, my stats will, nearly without fail, be either so garbage even the GM will be like "...okay yeah please reroll that", or they will be so stupidly good that at least one other player's envy is likely. I don't get "average" stats. I get either rank garbage or solid gold. It's quite tedious, because what I want is "good and eminently reasonable", but I almost never get it.

It's why I refer to rolling for stats as "ability roulette". I have no interest in playing a game where my skill is utterly irrelevant because a couple of dice said "HAHAHAHA F@#$ YOU!!!" six months ago. The primary thing that determines success or failure should be player skill. That doesn't mean luck has no place--it means that luck should not be so overwhelming that it turns skill into "well it didn't really matter". When my participation doesn't actually change the outcome, I am a mere witness, not a participant.

we kind of do modified point buy and modified roll sometime(but mostly it's avoided).

pointbuy:

6: -1 pt
8: 0pts
10: 1pt
12: 2pts
14: 3pts
16: 5pts
18: 8pts

pool: 20pts
no bonuses from species/background, it's in the pool.

rolling(optional)
(4d3 drop lowest) multiply by 2,

this also gives spread of 6 to 18 as point buy.

it also avoids odd numbers in generated scores

 

[Evaniel]

I prefer standard array and point buy for the games that I run to avoid drama and hurt feelings (much like @Clint_L). However, when I get a chance to roll? Let's go!

I recently played an X-Crawl Classic character with a 3 Intelligence but slightly-above-average scores in Stamina and Personality. Delbert was a good time in a capitalist dystopia!

 

[AlViking]

This is true, and people say it a lot, but it's not true in the sense that people say it.

Character flaws make characters interesting. Foibles, blindspots. Things that cause characters to make mistakes and errors in judgement, things that make them imperfect human beings. The sort of thing, in short, that bad authors and many roleplayers-- without judgment-- are unwilling to let their characters do.

Being weak, or clumsy, or sickly aren't interesting. They're the flaws that authors and players give their characters when they don't understand the assignment.


I'm disabled in real life. Physically, mentally, socially... kinda like the dungeon wheelchair thing, I respect that some disabled people want to play "someone like them" in a fantasy setting, and some people want to explore those limitations in a safe, nurturing environment.

I have no such desire, I have never had any such desire, and I wish they would show me the same basic courtesy without lecturing me about the "immaturity" of my preferences. When I play D&D, I want to play the characters that D&D uses to explain its classes, and the NPCs from the novels-- Conan, Jiriel, Geralt, and Drizzt Do'Urden don't have dump stats, and they are flawed, fascinating characters.

So, yeah. I'm not going to play a character with a 3 in any ability score. That's not fun for me; thinking about it's not fun for me. I like semi-random chargen to give characters a more "organic" feeling than pure point buy... but my games have high floors by design unless a player wants to play a handicapped concept.

I regularly play a character with some kind of character flaw because I want to RP someone interesting that other people can play off of.

I slept on this overnight and there's another aspect to all of this that's bugged me in the past. While ability scores don't really represent the nuance of human variation, I try to play my character based on their stats as close to what that person would be like as I can. But there's no way I could do that for a 3 without it coming off as mockery. It may not be mockery of anyone I know or anyone someone in my gaming group personally knows but to me it would still to me come off as making fun of a real person somewhere. Having a 3 intelligence, or any other ability, is not a joke to me.

I don't want to overstate my case because I also want to play someone who I could see as part of an elite special forces operation and I don't want ability score lottery, especially for a long term game. But the other part? That's still always going to be part of it.