What weird stat buys have you seen?

[Gwachitallemall]

Now I know everyone has their own special stat buys, like 32 point buy (Common) and 4d6 drop lowest, but I'm looking for the strange and unusual ones. Like I have a few groups that do 12 point mod, 3 even 3 odd, nothing lower than a 10. Which can end up with stats like 18, 18, 18, 11, 11, 11, or 15, 15, 15, 14, 14, 14. Anyone got some interesting stat buys that you've seen?

[Tvtyrant]

I run 18, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10 for an E6 campaign. They get to add a +2 to one stat at level 3 to off set the evenness of the distribution.

[Winds of Nagual]

Back in 2e we played 6d6 drop three - and if there was a three-of-a-kind, it is an 18. Some powerful PCs

[Amphetryon]

We've "rolled for point buy" a couple of times now, with decent results. The group collectively rolls 4d6x6, we figure the point buy of the array just rolled, and everyone gets that many points with which to build their Character. When the Dice Gawds were particularly harsh, I've added a phantom 7th roll of 13 that could be substituted for one of the low rolls.

[Malak'ai]

I had a DM who came up with the idea of rolling different dice for EACH stat depending on what class you went! None of us players liked the idea, but it was his turn to run the game.

I went with a Barbarian and if I remember correctly I had to roll:
STR = D12+D6
DEX = D10 + 2D4
CON = D10 + 8
INT = 3D6
WIS = 3D4 + 8
CHA = 2D6 + D8

It was weird... Worst thing is, I never rolled anything over half on the dice, so I just did 36 point buy and never told him, but the other players knew and didn't care because my stats came out just a little lower than theirs.

[qwertyu63]

Roll 4d6b3 four times. Add in an 8 and a 16 as the last two numbers. Assign to taste. This is what I as DM use in some games.

[Callin]

All stats start at 15 and you can add and subtract from each one to a max of 18 then add in racials.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Roll 4d6b3 four times. Add in an 8 and a 16 as the last two numbers. Assign to taste. This is what I as DM use in some games.
I kind of like that one, actually.

[Emperor Tippy]

I run straight 18's across the board fairly regularly, it makes MAD classes more viable without unduly powering up the higher tier SAD classes.

[molten_dragon]

Recently I've been creating a 6x6 grid of scores using 2d6+6 and letting players pick any row, column, or diagonal as their 6 ability scores in order. My most recent one was:

10 9 13 16 13 11
13 14 8 15 18 8
15 17 13 13 15 14
9 13 18 17 15 10
13 9 11 10 9 15
11 18 16 8 10 10

I usually have to roll a few to get one that works, but the goal is to give everyone a chance to have a 17 or 18 in their primary ability score, without having total control over their other ability scores.

[Tengu_temp]

I had a DM who came up with the idea of rolling different dice for EACH stat depending on what class you went! None of us players liked the idea, but it was his turn to run the game.

I went with a Barbarian and if I remember correctly I had to roll:
STR = D12+D6
DEX = D10 + 2D4
CON = D10 + 8
INT = 3D6
WIS = 3D4 + 8
CHA = 2D6 + D8

It was weird... Worst thing is, I never rolled anything over half on the dice, so I just did 36 point buy and never told him, but the other players knew and didn't care because my stats came out just a little lower than theirs.

This averages out to:
10 STR
10.5 DEX
13.5 CON
10.5 INT
15.5 WIS
11.5 CHA

Not only are those pitifully poor stats, barely above rolling 3d6 for every ability score in order, but it's also really weird for a barbarian. A cleric would fare better with those stats! I think your DM didn't know anything about probability.

[Lucid]

For high-powered games we've used all 14's across the board, distribute as you wish on a 1-for-1 point basis.

When we roll we go for 3 arrays, 4d6 drop lowest, reroll any 1's.

[yougi]

At the start of my last game, players rolled 2d4+10 twice, then 4d6 (drop lowest) twice, and then 2d8+1 twice. It was interesting and different.

[JusticeZero]

Choose three numbers between 7-18. Subtract them from 25 to get the other three. PF gives +2 to any stat for humans to patch any hole left by a single high number.

[Malimar]

One that I've thought about but not actually used (because the complicatedness-to-fun ratio is higher than I prefer in a house rule):


Pick a point buy.
Roll however you want for 5 scores -- 3d6, 4d6b3, 1d8+10, 1d20, whatever weird dice strikes your fancy.
Fill in the last score with whatever it takes to make the total hit the target point buy. (If this isn't possible, reroll the fifth die until it is. If rerolling the fifth die can't make it possible, reroll the fourth and fifth dice. Tweak until it works. If you use a super-weird roll, like 1d20, you may need to extend the point buy tables to have values for scores lower than 8 and/or higher than 18.)
Assign the resulting scores to abilities in whatever order you like.


Hypothetically, it's got the fun of randomness and the intra-party balance of point buy. (Bonus: a player can elect to do this on their own in any point-buy game, if it strikes their fancy.)

[Darth_Versity]

Recently I've been creating a 6x6 grid of scores using 2d6+6 and letting players pick any row, column, or diagonal as their 6 ability scores in order. My most recent one was:

10 9 13 16 13 11
13 14 8 15 18 8
15 17 13 13 15 14
9 13 18 17 15 10
13 9 11 10 9 15
11 18 16 8 10 10

I usually have to roll a few to get one that works, but the goal is to give everyone a chance to have a 17 or 18 in their primary ability score, without having total control over their other ability scores.

I often make my players roll 4d6 best 3 and then any one can use anyone else's rolls, but I actually prefer your method and may use it myself for future games.

[Chronos]

One I'd like to try some time: Roll up, say, 20 characters of 3d6 in order. The player can pick one of them, and the other 19 represent those unremarkable schlubs who just stayed home on the farm their whole life. This makes the players above average, for the same reason that the game assumes they would be above average: All the merely average folks didn't become adventurers.

You could also extend this to races: Include a certain number of humans, a certain number of elves, etc., so the racial makeup of the PCs will be roughly the same as that of the world as a whole.

[Ortesk]

Typically im a nice dm and just say everyone can have these stats : 18 18 16 16 14 14. If you play tier 4 or lower change the 14's to 18's. If you play a monk, go ahead and have pure 18's. I dont like people having a cool concept, then saying well this class fits but my scores are so weak i should use this class (Biggest is instead of monk, be unarmed swordsage and RP as a monk)

[Averis Vol]

yea, PB penalises mundanes to much, so I feel an array of 18 16 14 14 12 10 works best. It allows for two hard primaries and a couple secondaries that wont cripple you, along with a dump stat.

[Morithias]

I usually do "Everyone rolls 6m4d6b3 and picks which stat block they want from everyone's sets."

Of course one campaign we ended up with 18,18,17,16,16,14.

[Cicciograna]

I use a system found here on these boards, even if I can't remember who posted it.

Roll 4d6b3 three times; subtract the three values obtained from 27, 25 and 23, as seen fit; add a +2 wherever you wish (stat cap at a maximum of 18 pre-racial and a minimum of 3 post-racial adjustments).

Gave pretty nice values, with many high values balanced by convenient dump stats.

[TuggyNE]

Does it count if I deliberately made one that's unusual? Because I homebrewed a system a while back that's kind of similar to Malimar's, at least in inspiration.

It may, however, suffer the fatal flaw of being too simple and easy to use for this thread. :smalltongue:


One that I've thought about but not actually used (because the complicatedness-to-fun ratio is higher than I prefer in a house rule):


Pick a point buy.
Roll however you want for 5 scores -- 3d6, 4d6b3, 1d8+10, 1d20, whatever weird dice strikes your fancy.
Fill in the last score with whatever it takes to make the total hit the target point buy. (If this isn't possible, reroll the fifth die until it is. If rerolling the fifth die can't make it possible, reroll the fourth and fifth dice. Tweak until it works. If you use a super-weird roll, like 1d20, you may need to extend the point buy tables to have values for scores lower than 8 and/or higher than 18.)
Assign the resulting scores to abilities in whatever order you like.


Hypothetically, it's got the fun of randomness and the intra-party balance of point buy. (Bonus: a player can elect to do this on their own in any point-buy game, if it strikes their fancy.)

[Marlowe]

I had a DM who came up with the idea of rolling different dice for EACH stat depending on what class you went! None of us players liked the idea, but it was his turn to run the game.

I went with a Barbarian and if I remember correctly I had to roll:
STR = D12+D6
DEX = D10 + 2D4
CON = D10 + 8
INT = 3D6
WIS = 3D4 + 8
CHA = 2D6 + D8

It was weird... Worst thing is, I never rolled anything over half on the dice, so I just did 36 point buy and never told him, but the other players knew and didn't care because my stats came out just a little lower than theirs.

Dear Lord. Please tell me this isn't who I think it is.:smalleek:

[Malak'ai]

Dear Lord. Please tell me this isn't who I think it is.:smalleek:

Yes. Yes it is. It happened just after you went to China... Lasted 4 sessions before G tossed his teddies and S just stopped turning up.

[icks]

The most powerfull character I created was made out by points.
I rolled 5d10 points and got a very good result (40+).

My DM doesn't allow it anymore, 6x 4d6 keep 3d, 3 times keep the best sextet.

[Manly Man]

There's always how the Wizardry series has done it, each race has base scores, and you roll 6d10 to add how you want, point for point, and no score can go higher (when assigning points) than ten past the base score.

[Curmudgeon]

3d6, rolled 36 times and the results placed (in the order rolled) in a 6x6 grid. Then you get to pick any single row, column, or diagonal for your character stats.

[Marlowe]

Yes. Yes it is. It happened just after you went to China... Lasted 4 sessions before G tossed his teddies and S just stopped turning up.

And yet we wonder why S stops turning up. Well, I should be home for a couple of weeks around christmas/new years. We're going to have to explain how things work to some people.

...I'm going to have to DM for a little while aren't I? I don't have the system mastery to do it well, but I'm not insane.

Has G gone completely off the rails?

[Feytalist]

One of my DMs had his own system. I'm still not sure how it actually worked, but it went something like:

Roll 5d6, reroll everything below 3, drop lowest two after that.

He'd literally just point at the dice and say "reroll that" or "drop that". I honestly think he just made it up on the fly.

Got some nice results, though.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I had a DM who did 42 Point Buy in honor of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

[molten_dragon]

yea, PB penalises mundanes to much, so I feel an array of 18 16 14 14 12 10 works best. It allows for two hard primaries and a couple secondaries that wont cripple you, along with a dump stat.

It kind of amuses me that there has been so much power creep in this game that a 10 is considered a dump stat.

[limejuicepowder]

I didn't make this one up (I think I saw it in the pathfinder handbook), but I liked it: start with a dice pool of 24d6 (or more, or less). Assign a number of dice to each stat. Then roll that amount, taking the 3 best rolls. Each ability can't have less than 3d6 assigned to it.

For example, if I was playing a barb I might do:
str: 6d6
dex: 4d6
con: 5d6
int: 3d6
wis: 3d6
cha: 3d6

Roll them all, take the 3 best to form the stat. Thus, I have a best chance of getting a good str roll, but I might still end up with high scores in something like int.

[danzibr]

I run straight 18's across the board fairly regularly, it makes MAD classes more viable without unduly powering up the higher tier SAD classes.
I think I'm going to, ahem, borrow this next time I DM (I'm actually DMing now, but when we start anew).

[Malak'ai]

And yet we wonder why S stops turning up. Well, I should be home for a couple of weeks around christmas/new years. We're going to have to explain how things work to some people.

...I'm going to have to DM for a little while aren't I? I don't have the system mastery to do it well, but I'm not insane.

Has G gone completely off the rails?

Only if you want to... Haven't had a game going since that one.

G's working at Talley's... Driving a forklift... Yeah... Someone is allowing him to drive heavy, dangerous (possibly deadly) machinery...

Back to topic... I've heard about group using D100/5 for stats... Seemed kinda pointless to me as the range was way to big.

[Marlowe]

Only if you want to... Haven't had a game going since that one.

G's working at Talley's... Driving a forklift... Yeah... Someone is allowing him to drive heavy, dangerous (possibly deadly) machinery...

Back to topic... I've heard about group using D100/5 for stats... Seemed kinda pointless to me as the range was way to big.

They're aren't any qualification requirements for forklifts, so you get worryingly dangerous people driving them.

I had a moment in Dunedin when working on the wharves. Someone drove his forklift out of a container by just smashing the door aside and straight into me. Resulted in me finding myself face-first in a lot of frozen barracuda. I picked myself up and kept stacking. No big.

It was kinda touching how the regular stevedores kept asking if I was alright for the rest of the shift, though.

[Malak'ai]

They're aren't any qualification requirements for forklifts, so you get worryingly dangerous people driving them.

I had a moment in Dunedin when working on the wharves. Someone drove his forklift out of a container by just smashing the door aside and straight into me. Resulted in me finding myself face-first in a lot of frozen barracuda. I picked myself up and kept stacking. No big.

It was kinda touching how the regular stevedores kept asking if I was alright for the rest of the shift, though.

Apart from the Occupational Health and Safety certification that's legally needed to be allowed to drive one (and the F endorsement on your drivers license if you want to drive it on a road) now.

[thompur]

79 point distribution. No score above 18 or below 7 before racial mods.

[MesiDoomstalker]

I have one, which really never made sense to me.

Roll 5d6, reroll 1s AND 6s, take the best 4. We got really weird stats from that... I got 2 18s, a 17, and the rest were 16s. Someone else didn't roll above 15. It was weird and I know most the group didn't like it.

[Chronos]

Actually, I think that any stat generation ability that lets you guarantee an 18 in the stat of your choosing unduly powers up the SAD tier 1 classes. Yes, including point-buy of any nonnegligible value. But then, pretty much everything unduly powers up the tier 1 classes: That's kind of what tier 1 means.

I think a good array might be something like 16,15,14,13,10,8. This supports three-stat MAD reasonably well, with a 13 left over to qualify for a feat like Expertise, while also forcing the SAD classes to be at least a little low on their One True Stat.

[Ansem]

I can honestly say I've never done other than 4d6 drop lowest.

[AzureKnight]

Our dm we had years back liked powerful pcs so he had us roll 24d6 reroll 1 and 2s drop lowest 6 die scores and assign scores from there. Ididnt like it as too many high level players made the cr or monsters too easy and to compensats gave us cr monsters that made us level every 5 to 6 encounters.

[lsfreak]

I had a group that was either astoundingly bad at explaining what they meant, or didn't do the normal 4d6b3 - the "best of three" was not only the best of the 4d6 you rolled, but that you roll three separate sets of stats and then you pick which of the three set of stats you want.

I'm boring, I just do point buys in the 40-52 range.

[Samalpetey]

Once I played a game which was something like roll 32d4 (Or some large amount of d4s) and then pick and choose which d4 rolls to apply where. Apparently it gave an even spread of abilities and discouraged minmaxing

[Averis Vol]

It kind of amuses me that there has been so much power creep in this game that a 10 is considered a dump stat.

power creep doesn't really come from stats though; a +1 or +2 bonus is very little in anything but the first few levels. Seeing as a spellcaster is going to carry hard anyways, what's really wrong with giving everyone a few more point's so they don't end up thinking that an 8 int and cha means they can't have meaningful social interactions.

EDIT: and when I said dump stat, I meant the stat they were least likely to use; so even when your hero has a weak point, they are still at least as good as the common man/woman.

[Illarion]

I once played with a group that did 4d6 drop the lowest x36 to make a 6x6 grid. you then picked a score you wanted and crossed out everything else in that row and column. so, as you are picking good scores you are also eliminating some other choices.

[Trasilor]

Lets see...Some of the more odd ability generation:

Array: 18,17,16,15,14,13
5d6 drop lowest 2 reroll 1's once, trade points between stats on a 2/1 basis
4d6 dop lowest lowest 7 times, drop lowest overall
3d6 twice for each stat, choose the best; assign in order

[Curmudgeon]

Here's my suggestion (using the standard points used to buy stats, as per DMG page 169) based on the Tier System for Classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0):

15 point buy (This is where the Wizard is.)
22 point buy
28 point buy
32 point buy
40 point buy (This is where the Monk is.)
You might try 50 here, but realistically: just forget it.
This assumes you're going to start in your primary class. If you change the primary class in later levels you'd retroactively lose points if necessary, but would never retroactively gain points.

[evisiron]

"Pick your stats instead of rolling them".

I've toyed with the idea myself, but he didn't count on my wife 'calling his bluff' and taking 20 across the board!

[Chronos]

Ooh, I forgot about one a friend and his group used back in the days of 2nd edition: It was just straight 3d6, as per the rules, except...
* If your first two rolls of the d6 weren't both 6s, you'd "accidentally" drop the die on the ground for the third roll, thereby invalidating all three. Re-roll until the first two are both 6s.
* If you get a 13 in any score, well, that's obviously unlucky. Increase it to 14 for luck.
So basically, 1d6+12, treat 1 as 2. But it let them pretend that they were following The Rules.

[bassic_camel]

79 point distribution. No score above 18 or below 7 before racial mods.

My group does this almost exactly, with the point totals changing based on the power of the game. This allows for overpowered characters, which I suppose is what we like to play and GM.

[ddude987]

I run straight 18's across the board fairly regularly, it makes MAD classes more viable without unduly powering up the higher tier SAD classes.

When I suggested this to my players a while back they got mad at me O.o

The current group I am in starts all scores at 8, standard 32 point by, but assigns any racial penalties before points and assigns racial bonuses after.

When I have a group that enjoys rolling I usually do start with an 18 then roll the other 5 stats, 4d6 drop the lowest, if your point by is lower than 28 you can roll again. This way there is no complaining someone didn't get an 18 in their primary stat. Scores 8 or less and non exsistant scores are 0 points for your point by.

[Curmudgeon]

When I have a group that enjoys rolling I usually do start with an 18 then roll the other 5 stats, 4d6 drop the lowest, if your point by is lower than 28 you can roll again. This way there is no complaining someone didn't get an 18 in their primary stat.
I would hope that you'd get a big increase in complaints because now you're penalizing classes which don't have a primary stat. You're rewarding Wizards (primary stat: INT), and penalizing Monks (no primary stat; they need STR for attacks, WIS for AC and Stunning Fist, DEX for AC and evasion, & c.) If you want to treat all class choices fairly, this is a step in exactly the wrong direction.

[jedipilot24]

I once had a DM who did 4d6, reroll 1s and 2s. Our scores were all above average, but not overpowering.

[TuggyNE]

I once had a DM who did 4d6, reroll 1s and 2s. Our scores were all above average, but not overpowering.

4d6, or 4d6b3? Because if it was the former I have no idea.

[Cambrian]

I once played with a group that did 4d6 drop the lowest x36 to make a 6x6 grid. you then picked a score you wanted and crossed out everything else in that row and column. so, as you are picking good scores you are also eliminating some other choices.
Tried this method and it produced some insanely powerful scores. Ran it 6 times and the scores ranged between 40 and 61 with an average of 50.5 (Pathfinder point buy). Best was 18, 18, 16, 15, 14, 14!

Compare that to the PF recommended average of 20 (PFS); though most games I've played were 25 (more comfortable for MAD classes).

Going to attempt this again with straight 3d6 instead just out of curiosity.

Edit: Okay tried the same with 3d6, stats were closer to the normal amount but still high (between 23 and 55, average of 37.83. this method is in many ways worse than 4d6 in the spread is greater making more power discrepancy between characters. Also of note the stats tended to be all be more moderate, rather than a spread between high and low stats).

[Marlowe]

Actually, I think that any stat generation ability that lets you guarantee an 18 in the stat of your choosing unduly powers up the SAD tier 1 classes. Yes, including point-buy of any nonnegligible value. But then, pretty much everything unduly powers up the tier 1 classes: That's kind of what tier 1 means.

I think a good array might be something like 16,15,14,13,10,8. This supports three-stat MAD reasonably well, with a 13 left over to qualify for a feat like Expertise, while also forcing the SAD classes to be at least a little low on their One True Stat.

We had a very acrimonious argument a long time ago over this point of view...long story short; getting one one good stat will help a tier one class a little; but it will help a lower-tier class relatively more. A Wizard can get by with a starting INT of 11. A Fighter with STR 11 is doomed.

Also that point buy is better for MAD classes because it avoids the randomness of rolled arrays, which frequently build in weakness from the start owing to that extra bad roll (most people can manage most builds with one bad stat. Two bad stats really shuts down your options) that cripples your build.

As pointed out back then; the most common array for 4d6b3 is 16,14,13,12,10,8. Your proposed array is very similar but with a boost to the middling stats.

[erok0809]

We generally do 4d6, reroll ones, drop the lowest, but we do it 7 times and drop the lowest from that too, assigning the six best however we want. It leads to some high powered characters, but not overwhelming most of the time. The thought process is that we're the PC's, we're supposed to be better than everyone else, even the exceptional ones.

[urbanwolf]

One time to challenge my players with a one time dungeon crawl 3.5

Pick Class

Pick race

Roll 3d6 six times those are your stats in order

Re-roll one stat of choice taking only if better

Swap one stat with one other if wanted

Done and done made for a fun evening

[Marlowe]

That's just the "organic" stat system from the DMG. Although having to pick your class and race before rolling is a new piece of sadism.

[urbanwolf]

That's just the "organic" stat system from the DMG. Although having to pick your class and race before rolling is a new piece of sadism.

It's the little touches that make me truly diabolical :smallfurious:

[Beardbarian]

I used often the 4d6b3 roll with the rule "two rolls below 3 is a total reroll" or 4d6b3, reroll the lower

The most balanced for me is all stat 8 roll 2d6 and arrange totals. 19 and 20 are considered 18.
Average roll 14
Min roll 10
Max roll 18

[Maginomicon]

Here's how I do it:


Ability scores are rolled using 4d6, dropping lowest die. If more than one die is the lowest roll, drop one lowest die and reroll the others until they’re a higher die roll.

If at least 3 of your 6 ability scores are lower than 13, you may choose to reroll ALL of your Ability Scores again. You may repeat this as many times as desired (within reason), but you must always use the newest set of rolls.

After applying the above and opting to not reroll everything, you may reroll the lowest ability score again (4d6 dropping lowest die as above) until it gets a higher number, but only if that ability score is lower than 13. If more than one ability score is the lowest (and lower than 13), you may reroll each of those ability scores until they get a higher number.

For example:

18,16,14,12,11,10 : May reroll all ability scores.
17,16,13,13,10,10 : May reroll lowest ability score(s) (the 10s).
17,16,13,13,12,10 : May reroll the 10 (it hasn’t improved).
17,16,13,13,12,11 : It sticks.

[CTrees]

Tried this method and it produced some insanely powerful scores. Ran it 6 times and the scores ranged between 40 and 61 with an average of 50.5 (Pathfinder point buy). Best was 18, 18, 16, 15, 14, 14!

Compare that to the PF recommended average of 20 (PFS); though most games I've played were 25 (more comfortable for MAD classes).

Going to attempt this again with straight 3d6 instead just out of curiosity.

Edit: Okay tried the same with 3d6, stats were closer to the normal amount but still high (between 23 and 55, average of 37.83. this method is in many ways worse than 4d6 in the spread is greater making more power discrepancy between characters. Also of note the stats tended to be all be more moderate, rather than a spread between high and low stats).

I just ran both versions ten times each. Using Pathfinder point buy values, 4d6b3 gave a 40min, 47.3avg, 66max, and 3d6 gave 24min, 30.7avg, 39max. Only in two cases on either set of ten runs did I end up with a stat less than ten. Looking at individual stats instead of their point values, the averages were 15.0 and 13.7, respectively, and the medians were 14 and 15, respectively. The worst averages I got across a set of six stats were 14.3 and 13.0, and the bests were 16.0 and 14.5. In seven out of ten 4d6b3 runs, I had five stats at 14+.

Those could be fun, but they look like they'll end up pretty powerful.

[CTrees]

I used often the 4d6b3 roll with the rule "two rolls below 3 is a total reroll" or 4d6b3, reroll the lower

The most balanced for me is all stat 8 roll 2d6 and arrange totals. 19 and 20 are considered 18.
Average roll 14
Min roll 10
Max roll 18

Sorry for the potential double post (I'm on my phone), but the average is actually ~14.9. (18,19,20) all being treated as an 18 means you have a 1/6 chance of getting an 18. This heavier weighting on the top end skews your average upwards - you have a 35% chance of ending up with a 14 or less, compared to a 65% chance of a 15-18.

[WebTiefling]

I tend to (because it's what my first DM does) go with 5d6b3 and you get to reroll it if the score is below 10 or below.

We tend to play moderately "heroic".

I like Tippy's idea of 18's across the board. I'll start using that in my games and see how it affects things. The Fighters might actually wind up with a useful number of skill points!