Tips for making a roll in order character?

[Rfkannen]

Hi, do you have any tips for making a character useing 4d6 drop lowest in order?

I mostly mean picking what to play from the rolls, some things are obvious, if you have high str dex and constitution the barbarian is the class who benefits the most from all 3, str and charisma is paladin. But what about high int and wisdom? Constitution and charisma? What if you only roll 9s? What if you get high str or dex and very low con?

Any suggestions?

[DivisibleByZero]

This is the conundrum we were all having twenty/thirty years ago when 3d6 in line was standard practice. Not 4d6b3, but 3d6 straight.
The answer is that there is no answer. It depends on the rolls you get.

[BestPlayer]

Don't sweat it. If you get really stinky rolls most DMs will let you retool the set. There's no point making someone play a character they can't stand.

[MustacheManny]

My advice is don't.
Just kidding (I don't know how to blue text yet) I would imagine that if you're willing to roll for stats in order then you're not too worried about optimizing and that role play is more your interest. And who says a person who wants to be a wizard is necessarily a good one? Maybe the young brash fighter really just wants to study and is only a fighter because of their families insistence. To make a character like this fun (in my opinion at least) you need to lean into the character and make a fun reason for the bard to uncharismatic.

[JellyPooga]

5ed is actually quite supportive of low-stat characters. Even with only 14 in your Primary ability score, you can perform about as well as someone with a 16 (especially for spellslingers focused on buffs).

Other than that, the only advice is pretty obvious; Int for Wizards, Wis for Clerics and so forth. Everyone likes Con and Dex, but if one or both are particularly low, don't play on the front-line. Str is only an issue for heavy armour and big (non-finesse) weapon users.

[MaxWilson]

Hi, do you have any tips for making a character useing 4d6 drop lowest in order?

I mostly mean picking what to play from the rolls, some things are obvious, if you have high str dex and constitution the barbarian is the class who benefits the most from all 3, str and charisma is paladin. But what about high int and wisdom? Constitution and charisma? What if you only roll 9s? What if you get high str or dex and very low con?

Any suggestions?

Edit: I realized after writing this post that you asked specificallly about 4d6d1 in order, not just 4d6d1. The general advice still holds but my specific examples at the end... well, the first one still works because the 15 is in the Dex slot, but that's a happy accident; the second one doesn't work because you can't shift the 15 to Int. To do well with stats rolled in order you have to be very flexible about following whatever suggestions the dice give you. Definitely have a look at that Enworld thread.

"Practice" is the best advice I can give you, but I don't want to leave you with just that so here are some other thoughts:

The main advantage to high rolls is that they let you play more MAD classes like Barbarian 2/Bladelock X. If you roll low, you can still have an effective character, but you need to stick to more SAD classes. (SAD = depends mainly on one attribute, like a Sharpshooter Fighter who relies mostly on Dexterity. Even if he starts off with "only" Dex 14, he can easily raise it to 20 by 8th level. A Warbarian relies on Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma--that means he's MAD, because he'll never have enough ASIs to raise all of those attributes very high--he's mostly stuck with what he rolled initially, so they need to be reasonably high.)

Humans are excellent at smoothing out awkward arrays with their floating +1s and free feat.

Rogues can do just fine with low stats (12-13ish).

If you can't do anything else with a stat array, consider making it a Moon Druid, a cleric, or a wizard, especially a Necromancer.

You may have a plan in mind to mitigate low stats through clever multiclassing, but make sure you meet those stat requirements! Fighter 1/Wizard X is normally a pretty good tank, but if you happen to roll an array like 10, 15, 8, 9, 8, 8, you won't be able to multiclass that way because you can't meet the stat requirements of Int 13 and Str 13 unless and until you spend ASIs boosting your stats. So instead you might decide to go for Fighter/Rogue, put one of your human +1s into Dexterity to wind up with a Dex 16 Sharpshooter, and aim for Battlemaster 5/Swashbuckler 5, which is also a pretty good tank.

Remember that some feats boost stats too. If I roll 11, 15, 8, 9, 8, 8 instead of the above (i.e. 11 instead of 10 there), I can be a human (+1 to Str, +1 to Int) Heavy Armor Master Fighter at level 1, which gives me Str 13, Dex 8, Con 9, Int 16, Wis 8, Cha 8, which is enough to multiclass after all. I can wear chain mail armor and a shield for AC 19, which together with my damage reduction from Heavy Armor Mastery ought to keep me pretty healthy for a wizard despite my low Con, though I may want to take the Tough feat at some point too, or Lucky.

Check out other people's characters (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?475244-3d6-in-Order) to get other ideas.

And practice.