Hello!

I played in my first adventure (dragons of stormwreck) with a couple friends, and volunteered to DM the next one. I got the beginners Lost Mine adventure, but I suggested my players create their characters themselves instead of using premade ones. Using random stat generators and race / class modifiers, my players have rolled an 18+2 = 20 as their main stat. Is this common at the start of an adventure, or should I as the GM decide to reduce this, say to 17 or 18, before starting the adventure?

I appreciate your advice!

Eh, this early on, don't worry about it. The game system is structurally sound enough that it won't really matter after a few levels anyway. 

 Thanks for the tip, I'll leave it as such then :)

I'll just add this to say: if everyone's new, and only one of your players has such a high stat, then the others might feel a little outshined by the "more powerful" ally. 

I don't like doing rolled stats generally because it can create situations where some players are strictly better than others at just about everything. It's not necessarily a problem depending on your players, and if everyone has relatively high stats then you don't have to worry. But I wanted to mention it just to be sure. 

If you're going to use rolled stats... you should use the stats they roll. I don't recommend using rolled stats, but rolled stats with arbitrary DM adjustments is the worst of both options.

should I nerf my players' stats?

Never, it breaks the social contract of the game.

Don't adjust the player characters, adjust the world. When you do so, it should be in the name of player fun not to unburden the DM of their job.

I played what I call 'rollies' for years and as a player and DM, we did titan-like rolls of 4d6, reroll 1s, drop the lowest. The average stat total was usually somewhere in the mid-80s to low-90s and almost everyone would have their prime stat maxed out.

It never really disrupted the game so I wouldn't waste time worrying about it. A DM's time is better spent worrying about other things like keeping the party on task, having the world respond to the party's petty crime and senseless NPC murders, and making sure the players are having fun.

As the DM you have the ability to buff the enemies if needed. If one player is significantly better in stats than the rest maybe work out the difference and offer the other players some free points so they aren’t left behind?

I would note that just having people make new characters, using point build or standard array, may save you headaches down the line, but don't try to take half measures.

I cannot stress enough that, again, for a first-time DM, playing with a first-time bunch of friends; having characters with slightly higher stats than normal is like the least worrying thing about the experience. The game works in a bounded accuracy system with hard caps on the upper end of stats. They will be "slightly stronger" for like a handful of levels at best and then most of the power will get lost in the wash of actual class abilities. 

Once the DM has their footing, worrying about player stats can be a "next campaign" problem resolved when the players make new characters again.

Quote from Metamongoose >>

I cannot stress enough that, again, for a first-time DM, playing with a first-time bunch of friends; having characters with slightly higher stats than normal is like the least worrying thing about the experience. The game works in a bounded accuracy system with hard caps on the upper end of stats. They will be "slightly stronger" for like a handful of levels at best and then most of the power will get lost in the wash of actual class abilities. 

Once the DM has their footing, worrying about player stats can be a "next campaign" problem resolved when the players make new characters again.

 
This,👆all of it. With sauce on top.

Quote from teemto >>

Hello!

I played in my first adventure (dragons of stormwreck) with a couple friends, and volunteered to DM the next one. I got the beginners Lost Mine adventure, but I suggested my players create their characters themselves instead of using premade ones. Using random stat generators and race / class modifiers, my players have rolled an 18+2 = 20 as their main stat. Is this common at the start of an adventure, or should I as the GM decide to reduce this, say to 17 or 18, before starting the adventure?

I appreciate your advice!

 If you're worried about balance, I'd highly suggest talking to your players and asking if they'd mind switching to Point Buy or Standard Array. You can explain that as you're all new to the game it means that you as a DM don't have to worry about balance, that everyone is on the same footing and no-one has an unfair advantage over a fellow player.

Phrasing in this way has always helped in the past. In addition I'd highly recommend limiting a group of newbies to the Players Handbook (PHB). Lost Mines of Phandelver, and Dragons of Stormwreck Isle really aren't designed for all the weird and wonderful classes beyond the Player's Handbook. This then provides an opportunity for you all the learn the basics as you go. Of course as you get more familiar with the game you have the opportunity to say to player - hey, we're all pretty familiar, shall we expand out to include the other source books?

That's my approach anyhow, and it's worked for the last five or so years when I've run games with people new to the system and game.

In my experience having at least a few players with an 18 +2  at level 1 is pretty common if you are rolling stats. I would not worry about it, at all.  

I have a player in one of my campaigns who rolled 5 18s and a 9.   The average roll for all of the stats for the rest of the party was around 13.5. We are about a year and a half into the campaign and as far as I can tell the one player with really good stats has really had no negative effect on the game. That player fails/succeeds saves and attacks pretty much the same as everyone else.     

Thanks for all your input! Unfortunately we had to delay the campaign by one week (schedules are hard :( ), but I get now that it shouldn't make a big difference and I'm relieved about not arbitrarily reducing their stats. Probably for the next one I'll suggest point buy. Plus I should mention that last time we played, we weren't a very talented group of adventurers and nearly died a few times in some ""simple"" encounters, so some good stats might allow my group a few mistakes... ;)

Quote from teemto >>

Thanks for all your input! Unfortunately we had to delay the campaign by one week (schedules are hard :( ), but I get now that it shouldn't make a big difference and I'm relieved about not arbitrarily reducing their stats. Probably for the next one I'll suggest point buy. Plus I should mention that last time we played, we weren't a very talented group of adventurers and nearly died a few times in some ""simple"" encounters, so some good stats might allow my group a few mistakes... ;)

I've had player characters die in Lost Mines of Phandelver so don't be fooled by what appear to be simple encounters. Heck, I recently had a level 12 Wildfire Druid taken out by a CR2 Intellect Devourer despite it being a party of 5 level 12s. Combat balance is tricky and encounter balance is tricky. It requires practice and a little flexibility sometimes. You'll get there though.

Quote from teemto >>

Hello!

I played in my first adventure (dragons of stormwreck) with a couple friends, and volunteered to DM the next one. I got the beginners Lost Mine adventure, but I suggested my players create their characters themselves instead of using premade ones. Using random stat generators and race / class modifiers, my players have rolled an 18+2 = 20 as their main stat. Is this common at the start of an adventure, or should I as the GM decide to reduce this, say to 17 or 18, before starting the adventure?

I appreciate your advice!

 For a first time player (and DM), it is not going to destroy anything. BUT, you make sure this does not become precedent. Going forward, if you decide to allow players to roll stats (which is a bad idea in general), you must have them roll the stats in front of you. Yes, players will mess with dice rolls, or roll dozens of times until they get what they want.

Echoing some of the other comments ... high stats really aren't that much of a balance issue in 5e. You might need to add a few extra creatures to fights but maybe not depending on the tactics the party uses so just go with the stats they have.

The biggest issue can be the variance in character power between average or low stats and high stats. If everyone has a 20 starting in their primary stat then they are all pretty much on the same footing so that should also not be an issue in this game. Stat variance CAN be an issue when players feel that their character is over shadowed or outclassed by a character with high stats. This can often depend on how the player runs the high stat character since if they stay mostly in the background then the high secondary stats are rarely noticed. On the other hand, if the character with high stats is always joining in on the skill checks and other situations then they may succeed much more often than other characters which can cause some issues with the other players. Depends a lot on the players and the DMs so some games work fine but others might have difficulties.

Finally, if you don't do this already, I'd suggest having a session 0 where you get together, create the characters or at least their stats together as a group and discuss the basic rules of the game .. eg are you going to allow players to attack other players without having a good reason to do so? Are you going to allow evil alignments? Ask why are these characters adventuring together ... what is it that brought them together as a team/group and what is it that keeps them together? Having the players and DM chat about these questions together can often help set the tone for the adventure and possibly avoid some problematic situations down the road.

MARTINtheACTOR How was Wildfire druid killed by one intellect devourer against 5 level 12 players?

Justafarmer how is rolling for stats bad in general?

We often use a 73 point build. It's common for players to have 18 or 20 at level 1 in our games. 

I personally like characters that are great at some things and absolutely trash (like -2) at some. 😄 

4d6 (drop lowest) seems to result in very average builds throughout, with some exceptions. This is my least favorite. Lots of 0-2 modifiers, very few - and very rarely super high either. 

Sometimes we allow players to go 18+racial in main stat and then raw 3d6 in order of appearance. 😄 maybe rerolling con if it's ridiculously low, because it can ruin balance for everyone. 

One of the biggest problems for rolling stats is that most people can't commit to it properly. Someone who rolls 11 foe every stat will ask for a reroll, where someone who rolls 14+ in every stat will not.

I've always rolled for stats, and the best ideas I've seen are:

1: Everyone rolls at the table, and you can pick any stat set you want, not just the one you rolled. This keeps the randomness, but also keeps the party balanced to each other.
2: Roll stats, and you can move 3 points of it around, adjusting any stat by up to 2. That way if you roll just above average for everything and get 13's in everything, you can have 11,12,13,13,14,15 instead by moving things around, then apply the usual +1,+2 for racial.

Next time I will likely go point buy, for the control, evenness, and making the party an expected power level. Rolling for  stats works both ways - players have to accept the risk of their character sucking, and the DM has to accept the risk of the character being amazing at everything. Both result in less fun games, in my experience.