I started playing back in 1e, when regular stat boosts weren’t a thing. We generally wanted “heroic” PCs so we started rolling 4d6 drop the lowest. Then we modified that, sort of - you kept rolling till you got 6 rolls of 10+ with 3 rolls of 13+ and assigned them where you wanted. With 3+ 13s we could do pretty much any character concept we wanted. Now in 5e the same rules let you actually take feats rather than spend all your ASIs on stat boosts. With 2024 you get some of both.
side question - with regular stat boosts what is the point of gauntlets of ogre power when practically every strength based martial has a strength of 19/20 by the end of tier 2?
side question - with regular stat boosts what is the point of gauntlets of ogre power when practically every strength based martial has a strength of 19/20 by the end of tier 2?
Mostly, they're useful to characters who aren't strength primary but want some strength, such as clerics who want to wear plate without being slowed and paladins who want to focus on charisma.
The issue with a dice pool is that it's significantly better to focus on one stat and have the others lower than to spread between multiple stats, so someone with one stat very high should compensate by having a lower average.
The other problem is... what is the purpose of rolling for stats? In general I see it as being a chance to get an unexpected character, and if you can pick where all the dice go, that doesn't give you that.
Well it gives you more freedom, instead of just having to get a bunch of average stats. The other is as you mentioned- a chance to get unexpected rolls. If you assign the dice in the order you rolled them, it means you get an unexpected character. If you pick where they go, it gets fun to roleplay as you could be terrible at something or amazing at another. Usually as a DM, I wouldn’t say what players should or shouldn’t use to choose stats unless they’re suggesting something overpowered though.
I've had a couple DMs with house rules to do one of the following:
- After getting 6 numbers, re-roll the 2nd lowest - After getting 6 numbers, replace the lowest with a 16 - Re-roll the whole lot if you don't get at least one number 16 or higher
Rolling 4d6 drop lowest already on average creates higher stats than standard array, and on average gives out stats worth more points than point-buy would allow (this is assuming that stats below 8 are at negative points, -1 per step below 8, and stats above 15 cost 9 plus 2 per level above 15)
These options seem to make things even more powerful
Of course, rolling does always come with a risk of getting lower than average stats, but I feel like that's the risk you take to on average get better stats
My method is 4d6 drop the lowest, 7 times drop the lowest.
For my current campaign, I added another step; that all these numbers are put in a pool for the players to discuss amongst themselves and choose who takes which numbers. I wanted to see how they collaborated with one another during, arguably, the most important aspect of character creation. It seemed to go over pretty well, but I can imagine that this might be less-than ideal for some groups.
That's an interesting way, definitely allows for the party to be more balanced relative to eachother (and if they choose not to, that's on the players), whilst also encouraging collaboration (which I feel should be present in a game like D&D anyway, at least in most typical games).
How do you deal with character death? I can imagine if a new character can just use standard array, point buy, or their own new rolls, it can be tempting for a group to just create a sacrificial lamb to have killed off quickly and then get a character with better stats in their place, whilst doing so allowed them to use their best collaborative rolls on the others. The only way I can think of to avoid this is the new character having to use the same array as the player's previous character.
Also, something that might work to do something similar if a group can't settle on who gets which scores would be to have the party group the stats in sets of 3 collaboratively, then they all roll a D20 to determine an order, and they each pick a set of 3 in that order, then they pick a second stat of 3 in reverse order. Creating the sets together before they know when they get to pick ensures that they're creating multiple interesting sets. And doing it in sets of three picked in order then reverse order ensures that nobody can end up having a fully awful bad set unless they choose to, as they either get very early and very late pick (thus likely getting some of the best and worst) or 2 middle-ish picks (thus likely having overall fairly balanced stats).
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I started playing back in 1e, when regular stat boosts weren’t a thing. We generally wanted “heroic” PCs so we started rolling 4d6 drop the lowest. Then we modified that, sort of - you kept rolling till you got 6 rolls of 10+ with 3 rolls of 13+ and assigned them where you wanted. With 3+ 13s we could do pretty much any character concept we wanted. Now in 5e the same rules let you actually take feats rather than spend all your ASIs on stat boosts. With 2024 you get some of both.
side question - with regular stat boosts what is the point of gauntlets of ogre power when practically every strength based martial has a strength of 19/20 by the end of tier 2?
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Mostly, they're useful to characters who aren't strength primary but want some strength, such as clerics who want to wear plate without being slowed and paladins who want to focus on charisma.
I've always rolled 6d6 and removed the 2 lowest numbers, and that's the stat. Capping it out at 18 if you roll higher.
Well it gives you more freedom, instead of just having to get a bunch of average stats. The other is as you mentioned- a chance to get unexpected rolls. If you assign the dice in the order you rolled them, it means you get an unexpected character. If you pick where they go, it gets fun to roleplay as you could be terrible at something or amazing at another. Usually as a DM, I wouldn’t say what players should or shouldn’t use to choose stats unless they’re suggesting something overpowered though.
Rolling 4d6 drop lowest already on average creates higher stats than standard array, and on average gives out stats worth more points than point-buy would allow (this is assuming that stats below 8 are at negative points, -1 per step below 8, and stats above 15 cost 9 plus 2 per level above 15)
These options seem to make things even more powerful
Of course, rolling does always come with a risk of getting lower than average stats, but I feel like that's the risk you take to on average get better stats
That's an interesting way, definitely allows for the party to be more balanced relative to eachother (and if they choose not to, that's on the players), whilst also encouraging collaboration (which I feel should be present in a game like D&D anyway, at least in most typical games).
How do you deal with character death? I can imagine if a new character can just use standard array, point buy, or their own new rolls, it can be tempting for a group to just create a sacrificial lamb to have killed off quickly and then get a character with better stats in their place, whilst doing so allowed them to use their best collaborative rolls on the others. The only way I can think of to avoid this is the new character having to use the same array as the player's previous character.
Also, something that might work to do something similar if a group can't settle on who gets which scores would be to have the party group the stats in sets of 3 collaboratively, then they all roll a D20 to determine an order, and they each pick a set of 3 in that order, then they pick a second stat of 3 in reverse order. Creating the sets together before they know when they get to pick ensures that they're creating multiple interesting sets. And doing it in sets of three picked in order then reverse order ensures that nobody can end up having a fully awful bad set unless they choose to, as they either get very early and very late pick (thus likely getting some of the best and worst) or 2 middle-ish picks (thus likely having overall fairly balanced stats).