Hey so this question is around rolling for stats and point buy. We just started a new campaign and our DM let us choose point buy or rolling for stats, one guy apparently (no one was watching him but he seems legit so I doubt he's lying) rolled an 18, 17, 15, 14, 12, 10 for his stats, another person rolled 13,12,12,9,7,7 and the rest of us went point buy.
We're starting at lvl 1, meaning the guy who rolled well is going to start with a 20 and 18 in his two best stats at lvl 1. Meanwhile, the person who rolled crappy is going to start with a 15 and 13 in their best stats. The rest of us will likely be at 17,16 or 17,15 for our two best stats. Now we're going to have an unbalanced campaign starting at lvl 1 onward. The point buy people won't get a 20 in our stats until lvl 8, the poor person who rolled crappy will get it lvl 12? and the one guy gets capped at 20 at lvl 1. When I heard him say his roll I just shook my head, and said "ya this is why I don't roll, I personally don't want to feel overpowered compared to others" but apparently he had no problem feeling that way, and DM just wants to be nice to everyone.
Would you let this go or maybe talk to your DM and maybe encourage them to give out better magical items to everyone else but the high roller, especially to the lower roller to help balance the group and not make people feel inferior to the lvl 1 with a 20 in their stat block. Or just leave it and hope next campaign turns out more even?
I'd be worried about back-seat DMing without even seeing what the DM does with this first.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I'd be worried about back-seat DMing without even seeing what the DM does with this first.
Ya thats true, I guess its not my place and he'll be able to tell early on if it feels to unbalanced. DM is a very accommodating guy so likely he won't depower the high roller at all but I guess at the end of the day it'll help the group to have an overpowered guy at low lvls
This is why I personally ask my players to use point buy or a modified set of rules for rolling stats - rolling stats is fun, but I have seen situations where it can cause resentment down the road due to too high/too low stats.
And it seems that there will be some resentment in this campaign - the fact that you took the time to post on the forums indicates the seeds of disappointment over one’s higher stats have already been sown, and that is the kind of thing that can grow rapidly over the course of a campaign. I do not mean that as a slight against you, and you might not even realise it yet - but that is the most likely situation given the length of your post.
Now, as with most every D&D problem, you should talk to your DM about it. Explain your concerns, state your solutions about items (however, you should also mention that disproportionately not giving one player items based on early high rolls can also cause resentment problems), and see how your DM responds. Their job as DM is to take information from players and process it into a playable game - which puts some degree of responsibility on the players to make sure the DM is aware of any issues and provide them the information the DM needs for their decisions.
It also really depends on your group dynamic. (the players, not the characters lol)
I played in a rolled campaign recently where we had a warlock who had nothing lower than a 15 to start. He had 2 18's and a 16 in there as well. Conversely, we had a paladin who had a 13 for STR and 14 CHA and everything else was significantly lower (he had a 5 dex!)
At first I was worried about the discrepancy but it actually became a bit of an RP thing. The Warlock became our "Heavy artillery" that we would be like "Don't make us send HIM in!" (though more often it was like "Warlock! HAAALP ME!!!) and the paladin played it off IN CHARACTER as a "I may be behind, but with hard work I'll be strong! You'll See!" kinda mentality.
Its really hard to make a "badass" type character in your head and then roll really crappy stats and still try to play the badass. likewise its hard to invision the quite farmboy called to action when you have 3 18's lol.
When you roll for stats, its better to roll first and FIND your character in the numbers. Point buy is better for realizing envisioned ideas
Voice your concern about the disparity to the DM privately, and trust that they will find a way to balance it out. I strongly prefer rollies (what we call manual rolled stats at my table), and those stats do sound like something that drops at my table, but we roll 4d6, reroll 1s to get those kinds of numbers. Regardless, we roll on Discord using Dice Maiden so that everyone can see that the rolls are honest.
I did play a one shot game under a DM that had a different approach though. THEY rolled my stats for me, which was hilarious when my rolls ended up being 18,16,17,14,16,16 for a paladin, while the other PC in this small game was 14,13,14,12,16,12 for their rogue. In this case, I asked the DM to boost the rogue’s dex to 18 so their primary stat was at least maxed out. Thanks to my request and the DM’s handling of the one shot, we did not even notice the gap in our stats during play. This may not have happened if I did not voice my concern and then extend trust to my DM that they would balance it for us.
I usually let people mulligan their stats when rolling if they don't have at least one good one there's a lot of places you can cut off to determine what is "good" enough.
There are character builds that don't really need stats. Support spells for the most part. Might not be ideal depending on the player, but it sounds like this person chose to roll and didn't regret it, so they're probably fine.
There are a couple of ways to handle this as pointed out. Either speak with the DM privately or wait and see what happens and trust the DM to adjust accordingly. If you wait and are unhappy with how the DM deals with the situation, you still have the option to speak with him one-on-one.
I prefer the rolled method myself. So, in games that I run I ask for rolled stats. I also know that random rolls can sometimes result in some really bad numbers. In the event of those awkward moments, I allow the players to use the standard array if they are unhappy with the dice results.
As a long-time player and DM, I have been on both sides of the screen when dealing with attribute scores. A lot of it comes down to the person playing. Some like the overpowered feel, some don't. Some people enjoy the challenges of dealing with low stats, for others it is disheartening. One thing that I do know is the goal of DnD (or any TTRPG) is to have fun. In a game where there is some disappointment or resentment as Caerwyn_Glyndwr pointed out, that usually festers and grows over the course of the game. Even if the person doesn't realize it. That can lead to a non-enjoyable experience not only for that player but for others as well.
Personally, if rolling, I think point buy should be the minimum - the player rolls and can choose the roll or point buy after seeing the roll. This balances things a bit on the low end and gives the player the option to role play a character with worse stats if they wish or take a roll with one particularly high stat.
As for the high end, the DM can balance around it but you can't really expect him to tailor all the magic items to the folks without the stats, that wouldn't be fair, especially since everyone agreed to this method of determining stats before the game started. The player who rolled high didn't do anything wrong. They followed the rules laid down by everyone else and thinking that they should feel bad for everyone else and change their stats because they are better than everyone else's invalidates the entire agreement allowing for rolling for stats. The table agreed, either tacitly or through discussion with the DM, to allow rolled or point buy characters. After that, if a person rolls fairly, you just have to live with whatever they rolled even if it happened to be 6x 18s.
However, working out how character stats should be determined is a great topic for a session 0. If you and others felt like rolling for stats could result in unbalanced characters and that would be an issue for your enjoyment of the game, then having a chat with the players and DM, before everyone made characters, might have been a good idea.
Finally, stats should really be rolled where everyone can see - if rolls are involved that should be part of the character creation process, the fact that you mention that you have no reason to mistrust the numbers they rolled, seems to me to mean that it has crossed your mind. Perhaps the numbers were fine, or maybe they rolled 3 sets and picked the best one, or some other variation. If it isn't rolled with folks there, it is impossible to say what happened and just asking about the numbers often feels like an accusation of cheating. So it is often best to short circuit any possible feelings like that by the DM asking to witness character die rolls whether in person or via any number of online methods (Discord supports rolling a set of stats, as does roll20).
This is why I personally ask my players to use point buy or a modified set of rules for rolling stats - rolling stats is fun, but I have seen situations where it can cause resentment down the road due to too high/too low stats.
And it seems that there will be some resentment in this campaign - the fact that you took the time to post on the forums indicates the seeds of disappointment over one’s higher stats have already been sown, and that is the kind of thing that can grow rapidly over the course of a campaign. I do not mean that as a slight against you, and you might not even realise it yet - but that is the most likely situation given the length of your post.
Now, as with most every D&D problem, you should talk to your DM about it. Explain your concerns, state your solutions about items (however, you should also mention that disproportionately not giving one player items based on early high rolls can also cause resentment problems), and see how your DM responds. Their job as DM is to take information from players and process it into a playable game - which puts some degree of responsibility on the players to make sure the DM is aware of any issues and provide them the information the DM needs for their decisions.
Ya I definitely agree. And I have no issues with the guy who rolled well, or the DM for letting us choose, after all as I mentioned he's just being accommodating and wants everyone to enjoy themselves and the rules do say rolling is an option. So ya it just happened to turn out a bit unbalanced but I hope it doesn't breed resentment, i'm happy with my character and his stats so I guess I might be also kind of projecting on behalf of others who might not even feel as I do lol
There are a couple of ways to handle this as pointed out. Either speak with the DM privately or wait and see what happens and trust the DM to adjust accordingly. If you wait and are unhappy with how the DM deals with the situation, you still have the option to speak with him one-on-one.
I prefer the rolled method myself. So, in games that I run I ask for rolled stats. I also know that random rolls can sometimes result in some really bad numbers. In the event of those awkward moments, I allow the players to use the standard array if they are unhappy with the dice results.
As a long-time player and DM, I have been on both sides of the screen when dealing with attribute scores. A lot of it comes down to the person playing. Some like the overpowered feel, some don't. Some people enjoy the challenges of dealing with low stats, for others it is disheartening. One thing that I do know is the goal of DnD (or any TTRPG) is to have fun. In a game where there is some disappointment or resentment as Caerwyn_Glyndwr pointed out, that usually festers and grows over the course of the game. Even if the person doesn't realize it. That can lead to a non-enjoyable experience not only for that player but for others as well.
Ya I definitely agree. I suppose it depends how it plays out, and for all I know the DM is aware of this and may compensate for it with magic items and we as a group could decide to give the best items to players that are not quite doing as much dmg or contributing as much as the others.
Not sure if i'm thinking too much into it and should just concentrate on playing my own character really, I was just curious if others felt this way when these situations arise in their campaigns. Certainly not trying to take anything away from the guy who rolled well, good for him, just want everyone to feel like they're contributing I suppose.
I don’t see what the issue with rolled stats is. As long as the dm creates a campaign on dndbeyond for all of the sheets then the dm can see what was rolled anyway even if they weren’t there when the rolls were made. So there are no issues of cheating. There is so little difference having a bonus 1 higher anyway. Even if that player had rolled all 18’s the character could still die in the first session. It just doesn’t matter
Personally, if rolling, I think point buy should be the minimum - the player rolls and can choose the roll or point buy after seeing the roll. This balances things a bit on the low end and gives the player the option to role play a character with worse stats if they wish or take a roll with one particularly high stat.
As for the high end, the DM can balance around it but you can't really expect him to tailor all the magic items to the folks without the stats, that wouldn't be fair, especially since everyone agreed to this method of determining stats before the game started. The player who rolled high didn't do anything wrong. They followed the rules laid down by everyone else and thinking that they should feel bad for everyone else and change their stats because they are better than everyone else's invalidates the entire agreement allowing for rolling for stats. The table agreed, either tacitly or through discussion with the DM, to allow rolled or point buy characters. After that, if a person rolls fairly, you just have to live with whatever they rolled even if it happened to be 6x 18s.
However, working out how character stats should be determined is a great topic for a session 0. If you and others felt like rolling for stats could result in unbalanced characters and that would be an issue for your enjoyment of the game, then having a chat with the players and DM, before everyone made characters, might have been a good idea.
Finally, stats should really be rolled where everyone can see - if rolls are involved that should be part of the character creation process, the fact that you mention that you have no reason to mistrust the numbers they rolled, seems to me to mean that it has crossed your mind. Perhaps the numbers were fine, or maybe they rolled 3 sets and picked the best one, or some other variation. If it isn't rolled with folks there, it is impossible to say what happened and just asking about the numbers often feels like an accusation of cheating. So it is often best to short circuit any possible feelings like that by the DM asking to witness character die rolls whether in person or via any number of online methods (Discord supports rolling a set of stats, as does roll20).
Ya that is a good point, no one said they had an issue with either way. Some of the table always rolled, some always used point buy. It was kind of funny because the "always rollers" looked at me odd when I said I always point buy and the other campaigns I was in always did the same, and then they rolled super high and super low and I said, yep thats why lol. But I do agree not the high roller's fault at all, and as someone else mentioned maybe we play into that as a roleplay and refer to them as the "big guns" so to speak and yell for them to do the heavy combat lifting lol.
I don’t see what the issue with rolled stats is. As long as the dm creates a campaign on dndbeyond for all of the sheets then the dm can see what was rolled anyway even if they weren’t there when the rolls were made.so there are no issues of cheating. There is so little difference having a bonus 1 higher anyway. Even it that player had rolled all 18’s the character could still die in the first session. It just doesn’t matter
We did this in person. We were all building our characters kind of while the DM was talking and everyone was pretty far away from eachother so no real way to see what was rolled for those who did the rolling, and they didn't attempt to show anyone. That being said I really don't think they lied or cheated at all, just luck of the roll i'm guessing.
I don’t see what the issue with rolled stats is. As long as the dm creates a campaign on dndbeyond for all of the sheets then the dm can see what was rolled anyway even if they weren’t there when the rolls were made.so there are no issues of cheating. There is so little difference having a bonus 1 higher anyway. Even it that player had rolled all 18’s the character could still die in the first session. It just doesn’t matter
So flip this - if stats don't really matter, then why introduce such discrepancies that can very easily breed resentment? We're talking psychological impact, not mechanical. If the bonuses matter so little, then everyone should be fine with a point buy spread, right?
It's not just situations like the Paladin has +1 more to hit than the bard. You can have situations where the bard's whole concept is built around being persuasive and insightful and the Paladin just happens to be even better at persuasion and insight - without even really trying or having any particular character focus on it - because he hit the jackpot.
Rolling for stats is a quick, cheap high like any other type of gambling. Is that brief high worth the possible long-term resentment of a character that never feels like it has a chance to shine because another PC is better at literally everything?
For me, it's just not. If you need a dice fix, let's play a game of Yahtzee first and then roll up our characters with point buy. Yahtzee winner can start with 10 extra gold or a pet cat or something. I just don't think the pros of rolling outweigh the cons unless it's a one-shot or something.
There’s only resentment if the players are immature. I have always played with rolled stats, don’t allow anything else in the games I run. It’s all part of the fun though I do allow reroll of 7 or less.
“It's not just situations like the Paladin has +1 more to hit than the bard. You can have situations where the bard's whole concept is built around being persuasive and insightful and the Paladin just happens to be even better at persuasion and insight - without even really trying or having any particular character focus on it - because he hit the jackpot.”
This comes down to role play and being an experienced dm. Often if a player comes up with an epic speech or persuasion attempt I will give a bonus or advantage or where possible won’t even ask for a roll because it is clever and advances the story. But if all the player does is say “I want to talk the guard into setting us free can I roll persuasion?” Then it doesn’t matter what ability score they have. It’s boring and the answer is yeah roll, sorry he resisted. Role playing makes the magic not arbitrary numbers. It’s why I love Amber so much.
I have played with people who complain/feel resentment when things are not the same even though the same is really not the same. For example if a player decides to put high a stat that reflects what skills they want to be good at but it does not have any impact on their class skills or they put high stat in CH for social skills and then say they are not good in combat so how can they get CH to be their combat stat.
I myself tend to not mind if I have a low stat in a specific stat but I have trouble playing a PC with low int in most games (simply because doing not intelligent things eventually gets you killed). I also enjoy playing some flaw in a PC as long as it is not too unbalancing or the GM constantly takes advantage of my flaw, ie something like, dark blindness: -1 in low light and bigger penalties in full darkness due to bad eyes. And 9 out of 10 encounters qualify for my flaw. Yes flaws should matter but I feel they are not there for the GM to enjoy themselves with inflicting upon the player.
I feel the same way with stats, if I roll low then I have to play different and I might expect to die vs if I roll high stats I would try and protect those who rolled low (or at least stand in front of the enemies even if I was a non traditional "tank/fighter". I also in general think it is important to have a way for a PC to be important to the group but this does not mean if a player creates a PC that is way out of wack for the setting that I the GM need to find ways to make their choice's valid or "hero" material in that campaign.
At the same time I do feel that too low rolled stats can be an issue for a group and lead to group death, if the GM does not modify things accordingly. So I generally set limits on what I think are acceptable for stats and other game things and if a PC is going to have trouble in my game I will talk to the player, I also, now, explain this to the group where as in the past I would seem to allow player to redo things (and had to deal with already powerful PC's and players saying "I want to raise my low stat of 16 to 18 since you let Player A who high stat was a 12 and average stat was a 8 redo their PC.)
In general everything being not the same or as some say equal is not a bad thing but can become an issue if they are too unequal and the GM does not design their encounters accordingly.
You really shouldn't have a clear idea of your character's strengths and weaknesses before you roll for stats, if you're gonna roll for stats. That's doing it backwards.
1: Everyone uses the same stat generation method. No exceptions.
2: If you use point buy, or similar system, this is not a power game, so don't worry about optimization, if anything being mid maxed is going to hurt your game play. And I will set traps to kill power player characters in these games.
3: If you use a rolling method. Then you need at least one +3 and two +2's. The way ensure this, is reroll all 1's. And never accept any roll under 8. I have a firm no under 8 rule. This game will be harder, and loot will be easily obtained. Live your power fantasy, because you will face a CR 30 before the end. I will try and kill your character often, and expect you to win.
Hey so this question is around rolling for stats and point buy. We just started a new campaign and our DM let us choose point buy or rolling for stats, one guy apparently (no one was watching him but he seems legit so I doubt he's lying) rolled an 18, 17, 15, 14, 12, 10 for his stats, another person rolled 13,12,12,9,7,7 and the rest of us went point buy.
We're starting at lvl 1, meaning the guy who rolled well is going to start with a 20 and 18 in his two best stats at lvl 1. Meanwhile, the person who rolled crappy is going to start with a 15 and 13 in their best stats. The rest of us will likely be at 17,16 or 17,15 for our two best stats. Now we're going to have an unbalanced campaign starting at lvl 1 onward. The point buy people won't get a 20 in our stats until lvl 8, the poor person who rolled crappy will get it lvl 12? and the one guy gets capped at 20 at lvl 1. When I heard him say his roll I just shook my head, and said "ya this is why I don't roll, I personally don't want to feel overpowered compared to others" but apparently he had no problem feeling that way, and DM just wants to be nice to everyone.
Would you let this go or maybe talk to your DM and maybe encourage them to give out better magical items to everyone else but the high roller, especially to the lower roller to help balance the group and not make people feel inferior to the lvl 1 with a 20 in their stat block. Or just leave it and hope next campaign turns out more even?
Cheers
I'd be worried about back-seat DMing without even seeing what the DM does with this first.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Ya thats true, I guess its not my place and he'll be able to tell early on if it feels to unbalanced. DM is a very accommodating guy so likely he won't depower the high roller at all but I guess at the end of the day it'll help the group to have an overpowered guy at low lvls
This is why I personally ask my players to use point buy or a modified set of rules for rolling stats - rolling stats is fun, but I have seen situations where it can cause resentment down the road due to too high/too low stats.
And it seems that there will be some resentment in this campaign - the fact that you took the time to post on the forums indicates the seeds of disappointment over one’s higher stats have already been sown, and that is the kind of thing that can grow rapidly over the course of a campaign. I do not mean that as a slight against you, and you might not even realise it yet - but that is the most likely situation given the length of your post.
Now, as with most every D&D problem, you should talk to your DM about it. Explain your concerns, state your solutions about items (however, you should also mention that disproportionately not giving one player items based on early high rolls can also cause resentment problems), and see how your DM responds. Their job as DM is to take information from players and process it into a playable game - which puts some degree of responsibility on the players to make sure the DM is aware of any issues and provide them the information the DM needs for their decisions.
It also really depends on your group dynamic. (the players, not the characters lol)
I played in a rolled campaign recently where we had a warlock who had nothing lower than a 15 to start. He had 2 18's and a 16 in there as well. Conversely, we had a paladin who had a 13 for STR and 14 CHA and everything else was significantly lower (he had a 5 dex!)
At first I was worried about the discrepancy but it actually became a bit of an RP thing. The Warlock became our "Heavy artillery" that we would be like "Don't make us send HIM in!" (though more often it was like "Warlock! HAAALP ME!!!) and the paladin played it off IN CHARACTER as a "I may be behind, but with hard work I'll be strong! You'll See!" kinda mentality.
Its really hard to make a "badass" type character in your head and then roll really crappy stats and still try to play the badass. likewise its hard to invision the quite farmboy called to action when you have 3 18's lol.
When you roll for stats, its better to roll first and FIND your character in the numbers. Point buy is better for realizing envisioned ideas
At least this is all what I have experienced lol
Voice your concern about the disparity to the DM privately, and trust that they will find a way to balance it out. I strongly prefer rollies (what we call manual rolled stats at my table), and those stats do sound like something that drops at my table, but we roll 4d6, reroll 1s to get those kinds of numbers. Regardless, we roll on Discord using Dice Maiden so that everyone can see that the rolls are honest.
I did play a one shot game under a DM that had a different approach though. THEY rolled my stats for me, which was hilarious when my rolls ended up being 18,16,17,14,16,16 for a paladin, while the other PC in this small game was 14,13,14,12,16,12 for their rogue. In this case, I asked the DM to boost the rogue’s dex to 18 so their primary stat was at least maxed out. Thanks to my request and the DM’s handling of the one shot, we did not even notice the gap in our stats during play. This may not have happened if I did not voice my concern and then extend trust to my DM that they would balance it for us.
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I usually let people mulligan their stats when rolling if they don't have at least one good one there's a lot of places you can cut off to determine what is "good" enough.
There are character builds that don't really need stats. Support spells for the most part. Might not be ideal depending on the player, but it sounds like this person chose to roll and didn't regret it, so they're probably fine.
There are a couple of ways to handle this as pointed out. Either speak with the DM privately or wait and see what happens and trust the DM to adjust accordingly. If you wait and are unhappy with how the DM deals with the situation, you still have the option to speak with him one-on-one.
I prefer the rolled method myself. So, in games that I run I ask for rolled stats. I also know that random rolls can sometimes result in some really bad numbers. In the event of those awkward moments, I allow the players to use the standard array if they are unhappy with the dice results.
As a long-time player and DM, I have been on both sides of the screen when dealing with attribute scores. A lot of it comes down to the person playing. Some like the overpowered feel, some don't. Some people enjoy the challenges of dealing with low stats, for others it is disheartening. One thing that I do know is the goal of DnD (or any TTRPG) is to have fun. In a game where there is some disappointment or resentment as Caerwyn_Glyndwr pointed out, that usually festers and grows over the course of the game. Even if the person doesn't realize it. That can lead to a non-enjoyable experience not only for that player but for others as well.
Personally, if rolling, I think point buy should be the minimum - the player rolls and can choose the roll or point buy after seeing the roll. This balances things a bit on the low end and gives the player the option to role play a character with worse stats if they wish or take a roll with one particularly high stat.
As for the high end, the DM can balance around it but you can't really expect him to tailor all the magic items to the folks without the stats, that wouldn't be fair, especially since everyone agreed to this method of determining stats before the game started. The player who rolled high didn't do anything wrong. They followed the rules laid down by everyone else and thinking that they should feel bad for everyone else and change their stats because they are better than everyone else's invalidates the entire agreement allowing for rolling for stats. The table agreed, either tacitly or through discussion with the DM, to allow rolled or point buy characters. After that, if a person rolls fairly, you just have to live with whatever they rolled even if it happened to be 6x 18s.
However, working out how character stats should be determined is a great topic for a session 0. If you and others felt like rolling for stats could result in unbalanced characters and that would be an issue for your enjoyment of the game, then having a chat with the players and DM, before everyone made characters, might have been a good idea.
Finally, stats should really be rolled where everyone can see - if rolls are involved that should be part of the character creation process, the fact that you mention that you have no reason to mistrust the numbers they rolled, seems to me to mean that it has crossed your mind. Perhaps the numbers were fine, or maybe they rolled 3 sets and picked the best one, or some other variation. If it isn't rolled with folks there, it is impossible to say what happened and just asking about the numbers often feels like an accusation of cheating. So it is often best to short circuit any possible feelings like that by the DM asking to witness character die rolls whether in person or via any number of online methods (Discord supports rolling a set of stats, as does roll20).
Ya I definitely agree. And I have no issues with the guy who rolled well, or the DM for letting us choose, after all as I mentioned he's just being accommodating and wants everyone to enjoy themselves and the rules do say rolling is an option. So ya it just happened to turn out a bit unbalanced but I hope it doesn't breed resentment, i'm happy with my character and his stats so I guess I might be also kind of projecting on behalf of others who might not even feel as I do lol
Ya I definitely agree. I suppose it depends how it plays out, and for all I know the DM is aware of this and may compensate for it with magic items and we as a group could decide to give the best items to players that are not quite doing as much dmg or contributing as much as the others.
Not sure if i'm thinking too much into it and should just concentrate on playing my own character really, I was just curious if others felt this way when these situations arise in their campaigns. Certainly not trying to take anything away from the guy who rolled well, good for him, just want everyone to feel like they're contributing I suppose.
I don’t see what the issue with rolled stats is. As long as the dm creates a campaign on dndbeyond for all of the sheets then the dm can see what was rolled anyway even if they weren’t there when the rolls were made. So there are no issues of cheating. There is so little difference having a bonus 1 higher anyway. Even if that player had rolled all 18’s the character could still die in the first session. It just doesn’t matter
Ya that is a good point, no one said they had an issue with either way. Some of the table always rolled, some always used point buy. It was kind of funny because the "always rollers" looked at me odd when I said I always point buy and the other campaigns I was in always did the same, and then they rolled super high and super low and I said, yep thats why lol. But I do agree not the high roller's fault at all, and as someone else mentioned maybe we play into that as a roleplay and refer to them as the "big guns" so to speak and yell for them to do the heavy combat lifting lol.
We did this in person. We were all building our characters kind of while the DM was talking and everyone was pretty far away from eachother so no real way to see what was rolled for those who did the rolling, and they didn't attempt to show anyone. That being said I really don't think they lied or cheated at all, just luck of the roll i'm guessing.
So flip this - if stats don't really matter, then why introduce such discrepancies that can very easily breed resentment? We're talking psychological impact, not mechanical. If the bonuses matter so little, then everyone should be fine with a point buy spread, right?
It's not just situations like the Paladin has +1 more to hit than the bard. You can have situations where the bard's whole concept is built around being persuasive and insightful and the Paladin just happens to be even better at persuasion and insight - without even really trying or having any particular character focus on it - because he hit the jackpot.
Rolling for stats is a quick, cheap high like any other type of gambling. Is that brief high worth the possible long-term resentment of a character that never feels like it has a chance to shine because another PC is better at literally everything?
For me, it's just not. If you need a dice fix, let's play a game of Yahtzee first and then roll up our characters with point buy. Yahtzee winner can start with 10 extra gold or a pet cat or something. I just don't think the pros of rolling outweigh the cons unless it's a one-shot or something.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
There’s only resentment if the players are immature. I have always played with rolled stats, don’t allow anything else in the games I run. It’s all part of the fun though I do allow reroll of 7 or less.
“It's not just situations like the Paladin has +1 more to hit than the bard. You can have situations where the bard's whole concept is built around being persuasive and insightful and the Paladin just happens to be even better at persuasion and insight - without even really trying or having any particular character focus on it - because he hit the jackpot.”
This comes down to role play and being an experienced dm. Often if a player comes up with an epic speech or persuasion attempt I will give a bonus or advantage or where possible won’t even ask for a roll because it is clever and advances the story. But if all the player does is say “I want to talk the guard into setting us free can I roll persuasion?” Then it doesn’t matter what ability score they have. It’s boring and the answer is yeah roll, sorry he resisted. Role playing makes the magic not arbitrary numbers. It’s why I love Amber so much.
I have played with people who complain/feel resentment when things are not the same even though the same is really not the same. For example if a player decides to put high a stat that reflects what skills they want to be good at but it does not have any impact on their class skills or they put high stat in CH for social skills and then say they are not good in combat so how can they get CH to be their combat stat.
I myself tend to not mind if I have a low stat in a specific stat but I have trouble playing a PC with low int in most games (simply because doing not intelligent things eventually gets you killed). I also enjoy playing some flaw in a PC as long as it is not too unbalancing or the GM constantly takes advantage of my flaw, ie something like, dark blindness: -1 in low light and bigger penalties in full darkness due to bad eyes. And 9 out of 10 encounters qualify for my flaw. Yes flaws should matter but I feel they are not there for the GM to enjoy themselves with inflicting upon the player.
I feel the same way with stats, if I roll low then I have to play different and I might expect to die vs if I roll high stats I would try and protect those who rolled low (or at least stand in front of the enemies even if I was a non traditional "tank/fighter". I also in general think it is important to have a way for a PC to be important to the group but this does not mean if a player creates a PC that is way out of wack for the setting that I the GM need to find ways to make their choice's valid or "hero" material in that campaign.
At the same time I do feel that too low rolled stats can be an issue for a group and lead to group death, if the GM does not modify things accordingly. So I generally set limits on what I think are acceptable for stats and other game things and if a PC is going to have trouble in my game I will talk to the player, I also, now, explain this to the group where as in the past I would seem to allow player to redo things (and had to deal with already powerful PC's and players saying "I want to raise my low stat of 16 to 18 since you let Player A who high stat was a 12 and average stat was a 8 redo their PC.)
In general everything being not the same or as some say equal is not a bad thing but can become an issue if they are too unequal and the GM does not design their encounters accordingly.
You really shouldn't have a clear idea of your character's strengths and weaknesses before you roll for stats, if you're gonna roll for stats. That's doing it backwards.
I have a few rules as DM.
1: Everyone uses the same stat generation method. No exceptions.
2: If you use point buy, or similar system, this is not a power game, so don't worry about optimization, if anything being mid maxed is going to hurt your game play. And I will set traps to kill power player characters in these games.
3: If you use a rolling method. Then you need at least one +3 and two +2's. The way ensure this, is reroll all 1's. And never accept any roll under 8. I have a firm no under 8 rule. This game will be harder, and loot will be easily obtained. Live your power fantasy, because you will face a CR 30 before the end. I will try and kill your character often, and expect you to win.