I've seen a suggestion that your roll six sets, then you take any line of six (you could take the top row, left hand column, diagonal, right hand column, etc), then the next player etc. You can't take a line already taken. It could be interesting, but I could see a hierarchy of stats forming though.
Personally, in campaigns with people that.I know and trust me, I roll 4d6 and keep the three best. If I'm doing a one-shot with people not so close to me (or joining their campaign), I'll do Point-Buy so I can prove my entire build and show I'm not cheating. I've never been asked about cheating...but it's just something I like to do.
I have never played in a game where the DM lets you pick between rolling or taking point buy.
When my LGS was doing one-shots, they never bothered to ask about how you got stats. Just turn up with a filled out character sheet and you're golden. In my campaigns, I'm happy for people to either Point-Buy or Standard Array. I'm also happy with rolling, but I ask them to do it with us present (so if it's high, we're all assured that it's genuine luck), so in practice that means you have to be there for session 0. I've never been in a campaign or even a game that mandated that I use any particular method of stat generation.
You can switch between point buy and standard array because standard array is the results of point buy with those particular scores.
Rolling can produce significantly more powerful characters especially if you do two sets. It can also produce barely usable characters
Let me turn it around a bit, what style of play are you going for? Heroic fantasy, nitty gritty realism, semi normal adventure, something else? What you want to,play helps decide what rolls. If you want semi-real or low fantasy then straight 4d6 drop one is the simplest and best, for high/heroic fantasy I have players roll 4D6 drop the lowest until they get a set with 3 rolls of 13+ and nothing below a 9. With ASIs they should be able to have great stats for heroic play. I’m not a fan of standard spread or point buy as getting anything above a 13 is either close to impossible or too expensive in trade offs
Me and my friend group has played a few short and casual campaigns recently but now i'm starting to make a more serious campaign and wonder how you roll stats. Earlier we have just rolled a d20 but i have also seen the roll 4d6 thing so i just wonder what you think is better.
The best way? There is no best way. I would suggest, and I hope DM's back me up on this: You are creating superpowered mortals, not simple guards or parlor trick spell casters. My suggestion would be to try the Random Generation first, and see if it is better or worse than than what you would get with the Standard Array. Which ever one is better go with that.
Trust me I tried the RG and all of my rolls sucked. You should not be stuck with a sucky rolled character, unless it's a one shot high level which then you have many abilities and magical items to compensate.
My group just did the roll 4D6 drop the lowest with the caveat that if you rolled below a certain point threshold you could re-roll your stats until you got something acceptable. It made sure nobody rolled low enough to feel completely useless.
I really like the idea of the group collectively rolling for stat arrays and choosing which ones to use together, though. I might give that a try sometime.
Standard array is good for new players, as is the 4d6 drop the lowest and arrange as you prefer.
For a more challenging adventure through official 5e content going with 6+2d4 reduces starting ability scores and weakens the PCs compared to the monsters.
We tend to use the 4d6 drop lowest method: rolling dice is part of the fun. However, if someone gets more than one roll <10, we usually re-roll the lowest score(s). Also, we tend to use the standard array as a fallback if someone rolls badly.
I do rather like the idea, at some point, of making a random character by starting with the sequence of dice rolls (though I’d probably stick with the 4d6 drop lowest method), as CorpseCandle suggests.
I do rather like the idea, at some point, of making a random character by starting with the sequence of dice rolls (though I’d probably stick with the 4d6 drop lowest method), as CorpseCandle suggests.
Can be a fun way to do it. :) Will work just as well with the 4d6 option of course.
Most of the time, we start with a character concept and build from there, but sometimes it’s fun just to see where the dice take you…!
When I DM - I do roll 4d20 take the highest - 18/19/20 are all capped at 18 mathematically that works out to an average of 14.24 However you do have a chance of 1 or 2 bad stats.
Or if its new players being introduced to the game 17/16/15/14/10/10 - 13.67 but a tighter grouping with less variation
Both are slightly higher than the 4d6 - lowest d6 average of 12.24
If your going with the rule of fun concept I think its always a good idea to allow the group to have the stats to use all aspects of their character.
I don't know about the "best" method, but I have no issues with rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest die for each of the 6 stats. Arrange each result in any order you wish on the sheet.
I didn't actually realize there was so much variety in rolling stats. This has been a fun read and if anyone else has any more, I'd like to see it. I remember needing to roll over 20 times with the 4d6 drop lowest method to get an 18 and nothing below 10 (was just bored one day and wanted to see how long it would take).
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You can switch between point buy and standard array because standard array is the results of point buy with those particular scores.
Rolling can produce significantly more powerful characters especially if you do two sets. It can also produce barely usable characters
Let me turn it around a bit, what style of play are you going for? Heroic fantasy, nitty gritty realism, semi normal adventure, something else? What you want to,play helps decide what rolls. If you want semi-real or low fantasy then straight 4d6 drop one is the simplest and best, for high/heroic fantasy I have players roll 4D6 drop the lowest until they get a set with 3 rolls of 13+ and nothing below a 9. With ASIs they should be able to have great stats for heroic play. I’m not a fan of standard spread or point buy as getting anything above a 13 is either close to impossible or too expensive in trade offs
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
The best way? There is no best way. I would suggest, and I hope DM's back me up on this: You are creating superpowered mortals, not simple guards or parlor trick spell casters. My suggestion would be to try the Random Generation first, and see if it is better or worse than than what you would get with the Standard Array. Which ever one is better go with that.
Trust me I tried the RG and all of my rolls sucked. You should not be stuck with a sucky rolled character, unless it's a one shot high level which then you have many abilities and magical items to compensate.
My group just did the roll 4D6 drop the lowest with the caveat that if you rolled below a certain point threshold you could re-roll your stats until you got something acceptable. It made sure nobody rolled low enough to feel completely useless.
I really like the idea of the group collectively rolling for stat arrays and choosing which ones to use together, though. I might give that a try sometime.
4d6 drop lowest is what I most often use. I've also sometimes said that if you don't like your rolls you can use standard array.
I believe the standard array is quite fair and a good teaching tool for those new to D&D.
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Standard array is good for new players, as is the 4d6 drop the lowest and arrange as you prefer.
For a more challenging adventure through official 5e content going with 6+2d4 reduces starting ability scores and weakens the PCs compared to the monsters.
We tend to use the 4d6 drop lowest method: rolling dice is part of the fun. However, if someone gets more than one roll <10, we usually re-roll the lowest score(s). Also, we tend to use the standard array as a fallback if someone rolls badly.
I do rather like the idea, at some point, of making a random character by starting with the sequence of dice rolls (though I’d probably stick with the 4d6 drop lowest method), as CorpseCandle suggests.
Most of the time, we start with a character concept and build from there, but sometimes it’s fun just to see where the dice take you…!
When I DM - I do roll 4d20 take the highest - 18/19/20 are all capped at 18 mathematically that works out to an average of 14.24 However you do have a chance of 1 or 2 bad stats.
Or if its new players being introduced to the game 17/16/15/14/10/10 - 13.67 but a tighter grouping with less variation
Both are slightly higher than the 4d6 - lowest d6 average of 12.24
If your going with the rule of fun concept I think its always a good idea to allow the group to have the stats to use all aspects of their character.
Just my $.02
I don't know about the "best" method, but I have no issues with rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest die for each of the 6 stats. Arrange each result in any order you wish on the sheet.
I didn't actually realize there was so much variety in rolling stats. This has been a fun read and if anyone else has any more, I'd like to see it. I remember needing to roll over 20 times with the 4d6 drop lowest method to get an 18 and nothing below 10 (was just bored one day and wanted to see how long it would take).