Mediocre rolls

[MaxWilson]

So I rolled the following array on 4d6 drop lowest:

10, 9, 9, 7, 5, 12

Any suggestions what I should make this guy? I'm kind of thinking "Rogue", since thieves are about the least attribute-dependent character I can think of. (Everything they do comes from Expertise and Sneak Attack dice.) I could put the 12 in DX and the 10 in Int and make him an Arcane Trickster.

Any other ideas?

[Shadow]

My suggestion is to make that guy a bookmark. Take the sheet, fold it in half, and use it to mark your favorite halfling picture in the PHB.
Ask your DM for a reroll or ask him if you can use the standard array.

[Fwiffo86]

I'm with Shadow, he of the ever changing avatar.

[Ramshack]

My suggestion is to make that guy a bookmark. Take the sheet, fold it in half, and use it to mark your favorite halfling picture in the PHB.
Ask your DM for a reroll or ask him if you can use the standard array.

best answer you're going to get, statistically you're worse than a commoner.

[MaxWilson]

My suggestion is to make that guy a bookmark. Take the sheet, fold it in half, and use it to mark your favorite halfling picture in the PHB.
Ask your DM for a reroll or ask him if you can use the standard array.

I am the DM in this case, but that's no reason not to play by the rules. I'm making a mock party to test my encounter setup.

I guess the Rogue idea is probably as good as it's going to get. I'll report back to this thread if it works out.

[Finieous]

Those numbers are an insult to mediocrity. I'd make him a fanatical cleric utterly convinced that he cannot be killed. And I would would seek to prove him wrong ASAP. :smallbiggrin:

[WickerNipple]

Any other ideas?

I would suggest that groups offer the standard array/point buy for players that rolled poorly.

That isn't a mediocre roll. That's abysmal.

[Knaight]

I am the DM in this case, but that's no reason not to play by the rules. I'm making a mock party to test my encounter setup.


I'd generally recommend rolling with it, but those rolls are enough of a negative outlier that it will probably actually screw up the testing.

[Shadow]

I am the DM in this case, but that's no reason not to play by the rules. I'm making a mock party to test my encounter setup.

I guess the Rogue idea is probably as good as it's going to get. I'll report back to this thread if it works out.

If you're just making a mock party for testing purposes, why not just give everyone the standard array?

[WickerNipple]

And finally, to answer the original question: You make a moon druid.

[MaxWilson]

Those numbers are an insult to mediocrity. I'd make him a fanatical cleric utterly convinced that he cannot be killed. And I would would seek to prove him wrong ASAP. :smallbiggrin:

Aha. I like this idea, a lot. Clerics have a lot of nice friendly buffs. I think I will try this suggestion--both halves of it.


If you're just making a mock party for testing purposes, why not just give everyone the standard array?

Because none of the groups I play with use exclusively the standard array, and besides, rolling up stats is fun. I wanted to see if anything could be done with this guy besides just killing him off before the encounter started.

[Juntao112]

So I rolled the following array on 4d6 drop lowest:

10, 9, 9, 7, 5, 12

Any suggestions what I should make this guy? I'm kind of thinking "Rogue", since thieves are about the least attribute-dependent character I can think of. (Everything they do comes from Expertise and Sneak Attack dice.) I could put the 12 in DX and the 10 in Int and make him an Arcane Trickster.

Any other ideas?

Aren't you supposed to reroll under those conditions?

[MaxWilson]

Aren't you supposed to reroll under those conditions?

I'm not aware of any rule that says you should reroll those stats, but I am still learning 5E. Do you have a page number?

(And yes, in a real game I would indeed re-roll/have the player reroll.)

[WickerNipple]

Aha. I like this idea, a lot. Clerics have a lot of nice friendly buffs. I think I will try this suggestion--both halves of it.


Put the 5 in Constitution.

[Longcat]

Use PointBuy. You just saw, first hand, the detrimental outcome of rolling for stats.

[MaxWilson]

Use PointBuy. You just saw, first hand, the detrimental outcome of rolling for stats.

That is, in fact, exactly why I'm curious: I don't know how detrimental it will be. Cleric and Moon Druid are both great suggestions so far.

[rlc]

if you're going with one of those two classes, i'd go with hill dwarf. for arcane trickster, i'd say high elf.

[Yagyujubei]

yeah lol, mediocre rolls would be like 14 12 11 10 9 8.....those are GODAWFUL rolls and I would never play or expect one of my players to play with that stat array. would be incredibly un-fun

if you really want to put the kibosh on rerolls, then I would suggest letting the person in this situation bump the 7 to a 8 for free, and then rolling a half elf. that way they could end up with 12, 10, 10, 10, 10, 5 which is still total garbage, but at least you don't have negative mods for nearly every stat.

[Yorrin]

I'm actually going to second (third?) Cleric. Go with Knowledge Domain as it is the least attribute dependent, and focus on Bless + healing spells, with Sacred Flame as your offense if absolutely necessary. You can totally roll with Wis 12, Con 10, Int 9, Dex 9, Str 7, Cha 5. Start in Scale + Shield, work your way up to Half Plate, if magic items are distributed get ones focusing on defense (or stat bumps!). Hill Dwarf will raise your HP a good amount, which will be important to surviving long enough to get more Wis.

...

I now actually want the challenge of playing this character...

[Daishain]

I'm not aware of any rule that says you should reroll those stats, but I am still learning 5E. Do you have a page number?

(And yes, in a real game I would indeed re-roll/have the player reroll.)
The rule at least used to be that you automatically reroll if the sum of your ability modifiers add up to zero or less, or your highest score is less than or equal to 13. Popular houserules added onto this have been to roll 7 ability scores and use the best six, or to roll 2 ability arrays and pick one.

Thing is, I'm not seeing that rule in the 5E version of the PHB, but I can't imagine a good reason to remove that particular safety net.

Just so you're aware of where that character is sitting at, 10-11 in everything before racial mods represents a statistically average person. Meanwhile, the average roll for 4d6 drop lowest is a bit above 12, D&D adventurers are expected to be a cut above the rabble.

a guy with the ability scores you rolled is pretty close to being the town buffoon. The peasant who might be entrusted with one minor job, but won't get asked to do anything else because he'll almost certainly screw it up.

By all means, conclude your experiment, just please don't try to make one of your players live with such scores for a real game.

[Mandrake]

In my opinion, this won't affect gameplay too much. For example, if your main stat is 16 or 14 only means that you have 10% more chance to succeed at some tasks. Your stats are awful, yes, but I think you can play along.

I suggest you make a class that does not rely too much on it's main stat. I don't know what others would say, but I suggest you make a spellcaster and only take spells that don't rely on your primary ability score (so no attack spells or spells that allow a saving throw), for example Jump or Magic Missile or Shield. Have fun!

[MaxWilson]

Just so you're aware of where that character is sitting at, 10-11 in everything before racial mods represents a statistically average person. Meanwhile, the average roll for 4d6 drop lowest is a bit above 12, D&D adventurers are expected to be a cut above the rabble.

a guy with the ability scores you rolled is pretty close to being the town buffoon. The peasant who might be entrusted with one minor job, but won't get asked to do anything else because he'll almost certainly screw it up.

I'm not generally a Narrativist, but the way you describe this guy tugs at my (few, tiny) Narrativist impulses. That is exactly the kind of unlikely hero who makes an interesting story. Or perhaps an unlikely villain. Maybe I should make him a Warlock with a grudge against everybody who mocked him. He can spend all his ABIs on Charisma, then switch over to Sorcerer and go all homicidal with Quickened Eldritch Blasts and Fireballs all over everybody. Looking at the stats, this would actually work.

Thanks guys for the discussion. While this particular character won't ever become a permanent fixture of any campaign, you've certainly given me ideas for what to do if I roll poorly this next Saturday. I will also report back to this thread on how the mock combat turns out.

[Daishain]

snip
Oh dear gods no, what have I done!

Just kidding, enjoy yourself.

[Slipperychicken]

Obviously, he's a farmboy who goes out adventuring to escape farm-life and earn his fortune. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't seem to have any latent martial skill, supernatural power, or the hand of destiny to save him. All he has is his wits (which are admittedly less-than-impressive), a class level, and some basic equipment he picked up on his way out of town.


Put the 5 in Constitution.

You could also give him a red shirt and let him search for traps :smallbiggrin:

[mister__joshua]

As 4 of those numbers are odd, Standard Human would boost them a good amount. I generally like characters with lowish stats as unlikely heroes. Normally though they require at least 1 good ability.

With really low abilities the best thing to normally do is make an old dude. Frail old Wizards are fun, but in this case I agree with the suggestion of Moon Druid. The Wild Shape would make up mostly for his awful physical abilities.

So my character would be Human Druid. 80 odd years old. Physical abilities shot to bits, even his mind isn't as keen as it once was, but he still takes up his staff for a cause.

STR 6
DEX 8
CON 11
INT 10
WIS 13
CHA 10

First ability increase is WIS/CON then WIS all the way to 20 as his adventures teach him new knowledge. :)

[Devils_Advocate]

I can't imagine a good reason to remove that particular safety net.
Well, if you really want the outside possibility of a huge disparity between two random characters, then getting rid of the re-roll rule seems like the way to go. And if you really want things to be close to balanced, then the range of possible results still isn't nearly narrow enough under that method. Does, like, anyone favor 3E's specific midpoint between the two possible extremes here? How often was it even a sufficiently good compromise between two mutually incompatible preferences that no one argued for something different?

Dungeons & Dragons has always been heavily reliant on pulling rulings out of your ass to address things that the rules don't cover and to fix anything that seems too out of whack. In that context, the game is better off without a rule that gives worse results than would be expected from DM / player negotiation. Is it even possible to come up with a good rule for re-rolling under that standard?


I'd generally recommend rolling with it, but those rolls are enough of a negative outlier that it will probably actually screw up the testing.

If you're just making a mock party for testing purposes, why not just give everyone the standard array?
Depends on how many tests you're doing. If it's at least three, then it actually seems like a good idea to give the worst sets of stats all to one party and the best sets all to another, to see how things function at the extremes.

But if it's only one, then the standard array is probably better, not only because some groups do use it, but because it's close to the likely results of rolling and most point buys as well.


I'm actually going to second (third?) Cleric. Go with Knowledge Domain as it is the least attribute dependent, and focus on Bless + healing spells, with Sacred Flame as your offense if absolutely necessary. You can totally roll with Wis 12, Con 10, Int 9, Dex 9, Str 7, Cha 5. Start in Scale + Shield, work your way up to Half Plate, if magic items are distributed get ones focusing on defense (or stat bumps!). Hill Dwarf will raise your HP a good amount, which will be important to surviving long enough to get more Wis.
Without a good score to put in Dexterity, wouldn't it be better to choose the Life domain for heavy armor? At least for a dwarf, who doesn't need Strength not to be slowed by it.

[Sartharina]

As 4 of those numbers are odd, Standard Human would boost them a good amount. I generally like characters with lowish stats as unlikely heroes. Normally though they require at least 1 good ability.

With really low abilities the best thing to normally do is make an old dude. Frail old Wizards are fun, but in this case I agree with the suggestion of Moon Druid. The Wild Shape would make up mostly for his awful physical abilities.

So my character would be Human Druid. 80 odd years old. Physical abilities shot to bits, even his mind isn't as keen as it once was, but he still takes up his staff for a cause.

STR 6
DEX 8
CON 11
INT 10
WIS 13
CHA 10

First ability increase is WIS/CON then WIS all the way to 20 as his adventures teach him new knowledge. :)
... damn. Now I'm sad this is not a real character.

[Shining Wrath]

Oh for pity's sake, those are the worst rolls in the history of dice.

...

Something SAD. Go sorcerer. Second the idea of human to give you the most possible pluses.

...

Next time I DM I intend to use the following:
Roll 3D6. Pretend you have a 4th die that always rolls "4". Choose the best 3 of the 4. Repeat 6 times.
Replace any rolls less than "8" with "8".
Now choose between your rolls and the standard array.

It ought to produce playable but not OP characters.

[Sartharina]

Oh for pity's sake, those are the worst rolls in the history of dice.Nah. I've once rolled all 3's and 4's.

Those dice, though, went into the incinerator.

[Shining Wrath]

Nah. I've once rolled all 3's and 4's.

Those dice, though, went into the incinerator.

A while back we had a terrible series of rolls during combat. The next session I brought a 3 pound mini-sledge which was used to menace the dice. They improved. :smallbiggrin:

[MadBear]

A while back we had a terrible series of rolls during combat. The next session I brought a 3 pound mini-sledge which was used to menace the dice. They improved. :smallbiggrin:

This is why I love being a science teacher with a nice beaker full of 10 molar hydrochloric acid sitting next to my dice.

They never roll bad. Just gotta remember to not have my beaker coffee cup next to it. :smallwink:

[Slipperychicken]

This is why I love being a science teacher with a nice beaker full of 10 molar hydrochloric acid sitting next to my dice.

Don't you ever worry about it spilling onto the game-mat, electronics, or other valuables?

[Knaight]

Don't you ever worry about it spilling onto the game-mat, electronics, or other valuables?

I'd be more worried about accidentally spilling it on someone. 10 M strong acids are generally somewhat painful.

[MadBear]

I'd be more worried about accidentally spilling it on someone. 10 M strong acids are generally somewhat painful.

My comment was more tongue and cheek. I keep it in a locked cabinet that is only in the most abstract way "close to my dice". Because, yes, it is extraordinary strong.

[Icewraith]

I'm not aware of any rule that says you should reroll those stats, but I am still learning 5E. Do you have a page number?

(And yes, in a real game I would indeed re-roll/have the player reroll.)

I believe this is because using point buy is now the default and rolling is a variant rule? Or did they just do that in the online PHB basic pdf?

[MeeposFire]

So I rolled the following array on 4d6 drop lowest:

10, 9, 9, 7, 5, 12

Any suggestions what I should make this guy? I'm kind of thinking "Rogue", since thieves are about the least attribute-dependent character I can think of. (Everything they do comes from Expertise and Sneak Attack dice.) I could put the 12 in DX and the 10 in Int and make him an Arcane Trickster.

Any other ideas?

I am thinking nature cleric. They are very low on attribute dependency and if you make him a dwarf you can get some good RP from the low rolls.

Str-9
Dex-9
con-12
int-7
wis-13
cha-5

You are none too bright and not very charismatic so you had a lot of problems trying to get other dwarves to convert to the worship and respecting nature. So they threw you out. It did not help that in dwarf culture you seemed to be worthless as a warrior (so weak) and honestly you probably should never otherwise left the clan home because you really are not cut out for adventuring work. However you take some armor from home and grab your staff and go out for an adventure.

The hill dwarf gives you extra HP and the nature druid allows you to take shillelagh as a cantrip to make you less attribute dependent. Take sacred flame as another cantrip and you are wisdom only on melee and ranged attacks. Every time you level up take an attribute increase and boost wisdom and later con (perhaps gain training in dex saves to get at least a chance of saving against them eventually). Also notice that as a dwarf you also can move fine in heavy armor with your low str score so even less dependent on that str score.

Could be fun and effective I think. Well as effective as a character with these stats can be in this edition. It is also an unusual fluff combo for an unusual stat set.

[Composer99]

I am thinking nature cleric. They are very low on attribute dependency and if you make him a dwarf you can get some good RP from the low rolls.

Str-9
Dex-9
con-12
int-7
wis-13
cha-5

You are none too bright and not very charismatic so you had a lot of problems trying to get other dwarves to convert to the worship and respecting nature. So they threw you out. It did not help that in dwarf culture you seemed to be worthless as a warrior (so weak) and honestly you probably should never otherwise left the clan home because you really are not cut out for adventuring work. However you take some armor from home and grab your staff and go out for an adventure.

The hill dwarf gives you extra HP and the nature druid allows you to take shillelagh as a cantrip to make you less attribute dependent. Take sacred flame as another cantrip and you are wisdom only on melee and ranged attacks. Every time you level up take an attribute increase and boost wisdom and later con (perhaps gain training in dex saves to get at least a chance of saving against them eventually). Also notice that as a dwarf you also can move fine in heavy armor with your low str score so even less dependent on that str score.

Could be fun and effective I think. Well as effective as a character with these stats can be in this edition. It is also an unusual fluff combo for an unusual stat set.

Is it wrong that I'm actually thinking if I start off 5e as a player (rather than DMing) I actually want to run this character with these stats?

[Shining Wrath]

This is why I love being a science teacher with a nice beaker full of 10 molar hydrochloric acid sitting next to my dice.

They never roll bad. Just gotta remember to not have my beaker coffee cup next to it. :smallwink:

You'd confuse the coffee and the HcL exactly once, is my guess.

[MaxWilson]

Quick update:

I have built the party for the encounter, haven't yet run it, but here's what I came up with for my 12th level party about to invade a mind flayer citadel:

Forrest Gump (our guy) - Folk Hero, Human, Fey Warlock 2/Sorc 10 "Run Forrest Run!"
ST 9 DX 9 CN 12 IN 5 WS 7 CH 16 HP 65 Feats: Mobile (+3 CH, +1 CN)

Heinrich - Outlander, Human, Moon Druid 12 "It's your turn to cook."
ST 13 DEX 14 CN 16 IN 12 WS 20 CH 10 HP 99 Feats: Mobile, Alert, Lucky (+2 WS)

Gretel (party leader) - Soldier, Human, Eldritch Knight 7/Warlock 2/Necromancer 3 "It's not a trap!"
ST 13 DX 16 CN 16 IN 16 WS 12 CH 20 HP 104 Feats: Mobile, Lucky (+2 CH)

Fazeel - Noble, Human, Necromancer 12 "No! To the pain."
ST 8 DX 13 CN 14 IN 20 WS 10 CH 9 HP 74 Feats: Lucky, Inspirational Leadership (+4 IN)

There will be three encounters, one at roughly CR 8, one at CR 12, and one at CR 20. First fight has 6 goblins and a goblin boss; second has six goblins, a Mind Flayer, and two 5th level Elf fighters; third has twelve goblins, a Mind Flayer Arcanist, and one 5th level Elf fighter. The party's objective in all of these fights is to cause casualties among mind flayer leadership and draw attention away from an assault at the front gates by a separate group who are trying to rescue a bunch of slaves. The party is coming up through the waste disposal stream using Water Breathing (yuck). The plan is to show up under Pass Without Trace, kill some goblins and raise them as zombies, and probe inwards. Mind flayers are known to be impossible to sneak up on, so no scouting ahead alone. If things get too intense, declare "diversion: mission accomplished" and fall back to the waste disposal stream and return to the front entrance to help out the main army. Otherwise, press on until they reach the main cavern and the mind flayer leadership (such as it is). I'll keep track of kill counts and notable actions by our hero, Forrest.

Edit: typo fix in feat description

[Knaight]

My comment was more tongue and cheek. I keep it in a locked cabinet that is only in the most abstract way "close to my dice". Because, yes, it is extraordinary strong.

I figured as much. I have known some people with really, really lax safety standards (such as a prof who had stories about people shooting streams of LAH at each other back in grad school), but even those people take strong acids seriously.

[MeeposFire]

Is it wrong that I'm actually thinking if I start off 5e as a player (rather than DMing) I actually want to run this character with these stats?

Nah it just means we are doing something right! :smallwink: