Arrays

[Sylthia]

I'm not too fond of rolling for stats, since I like to keep a bit of balance between the PCs, at least theoretically. In my current campaign, I'm using 18-16-14-12-12-10 before any racial modifiers. I like to design tough encounters and this lets players make pretty strong characters or play a class that is MAD. It's a bit more generous than most point-buys, but it also keeps players from min-maxing too much

It also prevents any sort of "No, really I rolled 3 18s!"

What are other people's preferred way of ability score generation?

[ikosaeder]

I prefer rolling 4 d6 skip lowest in presence of the DM. This will give quite good stats most of the time, while low values help shaping the character. In my campaign role playing is more important than min/maxing, and the players agree on that.
With that I had a sorcerer with no value below 16 and a charisma value of 19 on the first level. This was the best character I ever played, not because it was powerful, but because there was a lot of interaction inside the group. My character was Lawful god and acted nearly paladin style in scope of the rules of the city he was from, while the rest of the group was nearly neutral.

[avr]

One other method is that each player rolls a set of stats (using 4d6 keep 3) & each player can pick any of the sets of stats rolled. Given 4+ players you're almost certain to get a set of stats which works for you, likely without being perfectly min-maxed. Also eliminates stat jealousy. On average this gives a bit more than 4d6 keep 3 for each player individually.

[KillianHawkeye]

It also prevents any sort of "No, really I rolled 3 18s!"

Know what else prevents that? "Ability score rolls must be witnessed by the DM. No exceptions."

[Keneth]

We use nothing but point these days. Usually on the low end, about 15-20 points in PF.

[prufock]

I use a standard point buy of 26 points, however my players like to have higher stats. In our current campaign they asked if they could have 32. I said something like "You know if you get better stats your enemies get them as well, right? Ideally the relative encounter difficulty won't change." They were OK with this trade-off.

For my NPCs I start with the elite array 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, and then bump them up where I feel it's necessary - usually Con so they have more HP, and thus slightly longer battles.

[Adindra]

in our games its usually 18,16,16,14,14,12 arranged how you want it however these are games that im usually given the green light to run uberchargers or build the ubermount so we run decently high op (well my dm lets me run non-casters high op...only mundane after the whole taking over a layer of hell incident:smalltongue:)

[BWR]

6x (4d6 drop lowest) arranged as you will.
I am tempted to do 3d6 in order, but given the nature of most of our games this would be a bit weak.
We are all, with one and a half exceptions, strong believers in dice rolls for stats. Sometimes you end up with crappy ones and that's never fun, sometimes you end up with pretty good ones, which is fun. Most importantly, if you play the character well, they often end up being fun, crappy stats or no.