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.
Standard array, or 27 point buy, are the best options. There are no hard feelings when someone shows up with a PC that has two 18's and says "I rolled that", and the DM says "roll it in front of me", or as you said, the PC with a high score of 13. The balanced scores from Std Array or Point Buy make the game easier for the DM as well.
One of the biggest problems for rolling stats is that most people can't commit to it properly.
People want to roll... and get lucky. Rolling for stats and rolling badly just feels... ugh.
There is a value to rolling stats, in that it may cause you to come up with ideas you would otherwise ignore, but (a) that requires roll stats in order, no allocating them where you want, and (b) I've never come up with a good way of keeping that value while also being remotely fair.
I have always used the roll 4d6 drop the lowest number, six times(for 5e). Then I have my players do it two more times. So they end up with three sets of six numbers. They choose which set they want. They might have one set with two high numbers and the rest low, and one set with all 12ish numbers. Then the choice is theirs. Do they take the set with a few higher than average numbers, or do they take the set with an +1 in every stat. The three sets pick one usually evens things out across the party.
I also always give them the option before they start rolling that each player can choose to do point buy instead of rolling(no one has ever decided not to roll, because rolling dice is fun). But that decision has to be made before we start rolling. They can take the safe route or the adventurous one.
I also have everyone roll their stats at session 0, I tell everyone to have a good idea of who and what they want their character to be as far as class and back-story before session 0. But everyone rolls their stats together at the same time. I find this avoids any interparty suspicions about stats. Especially when it comes to the multiple 18s. This is exactly what happened in the campaign I mentioned in my above reply where I had a player roll 5 18s and a 9, we were all there and all saw it.
Side note Rolling 18 on 4d6 drop the lowest is really not as rare as some people try to make it out to be. Out of six rolls for the six stats you have around a 10% chance of rolling an 18(feel free to check my math on that…math = not my strong suit).
There really is no best option, standard array, point buy, rolling. Do what works for you and your players. None of these options are going to “make the game easier for the DM.”
I am currently running three campaigns here is the breakdown of the rolled stats for the PCs.
Beyond the Vail campaign
Aasimar Sorcerer/Paladin: 8, 16, 17, 13, 9, 17
Elf Sorcerer/Warlock: 10, 10, 15, 13, 12, 16
Genasi Monk: 11, 17, 14, 11, 15, 13
Dwarf Paladin 18, 12, 15, 10, 9, 14
Fairy Wizard: 11, 15, 15, 18, 11, 12
Dawn Breaker Campaign
Orc Warlock: 16, 11, 15, 15, 12, 14
Tiefling Bloodhunter: 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 9
Half Orc Paladin/Warlock: 16, 12, 13, 12, 12, 13
Gnome Cleric: 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 17
Goblin Ranger/Rogue 9, 17, 17, 10, 13, 7
Campaign 3 (ran out of cleaver names)
Lizardfolk Rogue: 15, 17, 16, 9, 14, 13
Gnome Druid : 11, 11, 12, 15, 16 , 14
Dragonborn: Sorcerer: 12, 11, 15, 15, 13, 15
Dwarf Fighter : 17, 14, 15, 13, 11, 13
Dwarf Fighter: 16, 14, 15, 12, 8, 12
Pretty much all of these are higher overall stats then you would get with point buy or standard Array. All of these are legit rolled states that I watched them roll, either with my dice,(which I know are not loaded) or on the character builder on DND beyond. I personally don’t think it has any actual, meaningful, bearing on the game at all. In my experiences the odds of seriously missing a DC, way over shooting the DC, missing the DC by 1 or getting the DC by 1 are all about the same and average out over the course of a long-term campaign regardless of player stats, there is for sure a bonus to the PC for having 18+2 in their main stat at level 1, but it doesn’t break the game it might come into play 25% of the time when they are using that stat for a roll.
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Standard array, or 27 point buy, are the best options. There are no hard feelings when someone shows up with a PC that has two 18's and says "I rolled that", and the DM says "roll it in front of me", or as you said, the PC with a high score of 13. The balanced scores from Std Array or Point Buy make the game easier for the DM as well.
People want to roll... and get lucky. Rolling for stats and rolling badly just feels... ugh.
There is a value to rolling stats, in that it may cause you to come up with ideas you would otherwise ignore, but (a) that requires roll stats in order, no allocating them where you want, and (b) I've never come up with a good way of keeping that value while also being remotely fair.
I have always used the roll 4d6 drop the lowest number, six times(for 5e). Then I have my players do it two more times. So they end up with three sets of six numbers. They choose which set they want. They might have one set with two high numbers and the rest low, and one set with all 12ish numbers. Then the choice is theirs. Do they take the set with a few higher than average numbers, or do they take the set with an +1 in every stat. The three sets pick one usually evens things out across the party.
I also always give them the option before they start rolling that each player can choose to do point buy instead of rolling(no one has ever decided not to roll, because rolling dice is fun). But that decision has to be made before we start rolling. They can take the safe route or the adventurous one.
I also have everyone roll their stats at session 0, I tell everyone to have a good idea of who and what they want their character to be as far as class and back-story before session 0. But everyone rolls their stats together at the same time. I find this avoids any interparty suspicions about stats. Especially when it comes to the multiple 18s. This is exactly what happened in the campaign I mentioned in my above reply where I had a player roll 5 18s and a 9, we were all there and all saw it.
Side note Rolling 18 on 4d6 drop the lowest is really not as rare as some people try to make it out to be. Out of six rolls for the six stats you have around a 10% chance of rolling an 18(feel free to check my math on that…math = not my strong suit).
There really is no best option, standard array, point buy, rolling. Do what works for you and your players. None of these options are going to “make the game easier for the DM.”
I am currently running three campaigns here is the breakdown of the rolled stats for the PCs.
Beyond the Vail campaign
Dawn Breaker Campaign
Campaign 3 (ran out of cleaver names)
Pretty much all of these are higher overall stats then you would get with point buy or standard Array. All of these are legit rolled states that I watched them roll, either with my dice,(which I know are not loaded) or on the character builder on DND beyond. I personally don’t think it has any actual, meaningful, bearing on the game at all. In my experiences the odds of seriously missing a DC, way over shooting the DC, missing the DC by 1 or getting the DC by 1 are all about the same and average out over the course of a long-term campaign regardless of player stats, there is for sure a bonus to the PC for having 18+2 in their main stat at level 1, but it doesn’t break the game it might come into play 25% of the time when they are using that stat for a roll.