Odd stat rolling methods

[Hecuba]

The 3d6 and 1d20 in order threads got me thinking about less common generation methods.

Here's some I've occasionally used for 5e in the past year or so.


Inverted curve:Roll 6d6. Flip a coin1. On heads, take the best 3. On tails, take the worst three. Repeat 6 times. Reroll if the net modifier is negative.
This creates a curve with the same min and max as 3d6, but weighted to 3s and 18s instead of 10s and 11s. You'll generally get a playable character with some high scores, but also with some stats that have meaningful weaknesses. The roll can be further biased against the middle range by increasing the number of dice rolled while still only taking the 3 best or worst.
The union of moderately exceptional adventurers: Roll 6d3 9 times, take the best 6. This will produce a set of stats that is significantly higher in aggregate than 3d6 without making the 18 and 17 too common.
It also gives me an excuse to get out my d3s, which I consider a major plus.
Random without the trashcan: 6d3, 6 times in order.
In order character generation rolls without the threat of 3s.


Anyone else have some to share?

1You can substitute the d2 method of your choice for the coin flip - in practice, I use 1 color dice for 5 of the d6s and a different color for the 6th. The even on the different color die is heads, odd is tails.

[Seekergeek]

I mentioned in a previous thread that I'm on the permissive end of the spectrum so I tend to use the honour system with rolling ahead of session zero. We're all adults and I honestly couldn't care less if they choose to cheat at a collaborative game. I guess that's fine with me.

Anywho. For the most part, seen or unseen, I've been doing 4d6 drop the lowest and repeat six times. However, about a year or so ago, I did do 1d12+6, repeat 6 times to great acclaim from my players.

[Angelalex242]

Here's one: roll 9d2.

Unlikely to get maximums or minimums. Expected outcomes between 12 and 16, mostly.

[bid]

Anyone else have some to share?
- remove racial stat bonuses
- roll 4d6, reading {1=Str, ... 6=Cha}
- apply a +1 to the 4 matching stats
- use point buy.

[Davrix]

I mentioned in a previous thread that I'm on the permissive end of the spectrum so I tend to use the honour system with rolling ahead of session zero. We're all adults and I honestly couldn't care less if they choose to cheat at a collaborative game. I guess that's fine with me.

Anywho. For the most part, seen or unseen, I've been doing 4d6 drop the lowest and repeat six times. However, about a year or so ago, I did do 1d12+6, repeat 6 times to great acclaim from my players.

To be honest I'm right their with you. For the most part you can always spot the player who rolls maybe a little to well on their stats. Usually the other players will call them out on the BS before it becomes an issue. When and if you decide you just gotta fudge for some reason, frankly no one is going to care if you bumped that 13 to a 14 when no one was looking when you rolled.


The method I've been using lately and have kind of fallen in love with.

Pick your Race
Roll 4D6 in order, dropping the low
Switch two
Re-roll the lowest
Choose your class

It just feels more like your seeing the early life of your character take shape this way.

[Breashios]

Roll something that will give low results like 4d3 IN ORDER, then give points to buy up stats. The 4d3 creates your random genetic make-up, the point buy represents the character's interest and effort in developing whichever attributes they wanted through childhood, adolescents and early training. The more points spent on a low stat the less they will have for a well rounded character, but they will always be able to play the type of class they want, just not without some flaws, unless they get lucky.

[CTurbo]

I've done 4d6 in order, 2d6+6, and 3d4+5 in addition to the normal rolling methods.

But lately I like using an array that starts with 16 in order to urge characters to play race/class combos that would otherwise not be optimal

[opaopajr]

Randomized Point Buy

1d8-1 straight down, spend points to add that much stat value to 8, must spend all 27 points. Thus roll three 1s and you get 8s for STR DEX CON and 15s for the rest.

[Kane0]

You have a pool of 2d20, 2d12, 2d10, 2d8, 2d6 and 2d4.
Select any two dice of your choice and roll them, assigning the results how you like. Reroll any results above 20.
Repeat until your pool is empty.

[Ganymede]

Roll six d6 six times, and keep the second, third, and fourth highest results.

[nickl_2000]

You have a pool of 2d20, 2d12, 2d10, 2d8, 2d6 and 2d4.
Select any two dice of your choice and roll them, assigning the results how you like. Reroll any results above 20.
Repeat until your pool is empty.

I feel like my 38 (+14) Dex Rogue from this method may be a tiny bit off the curve. Sure his Charisma may only be a 4, but look at the way he moves! :)

[KorvinStarmast]

Anyone else have some to share? Back when all of us typically had loads of d6 in our bags in AD&D 1e days, a chargen method that one of our DM's used made everyone happy, and avoided the silly "I want to roll a paladin, here's the dice stack up" from unearthed arcana method. :smallyuk:

Roll 21d6. Remove the lowest three. (Usually, ones)

Arrange the remaining dice into 3d6 packages as suits your fancy.

He had previously had his groups roll 18d6 and arrange pips as desired, but as more tables went 4d6 drop lowest he decided to get on board with the inflationary trend. We found that it worked very well.

[DnDegenerates]

Nothing crazy, but we had a DM who would have us reroll 1s. Which was nice.

[Spacehamster]

Roll 3d6 6 times, reroll 1’s we usually do when rolling.

Also thought about doing 3d6 with advantage, roll twice 3d6 and keep highest roll

[strangebloke]

2d6+6 for the first three stats. 25-(previous rolls) for the next three stats.

Everyone has 75 total stats, distributed randomly. Nice bit of entropy, but no vastly unbalanced characters.

[strangebloke]

I feel like my 38 (+14) Dex Rogue from this method may be a tiny bit off the curve. Sure his Charisma may only be a 4, but look at the way he moves! :)

You're supposed to reroll results above 20 in that example.

[nickl_2000]

You're supposed to reroll results above 20 in that example.

Awww, I completely missed that in the text. There goes my plan for a naked Rogue with 24 AC at level one.

[HolyAvenger7]

Given the option as a player - I'd take the 2D6+6 as you're guaranteed one max roll. I'm sure one of the statisticians has calculated the optimal / least optimal combinations.

[CTurbo]

Given the option as a player - I'd take the 2D6+6 as you're guaranteed one max roll. I'm sure one of the statisticians has calculated the optimal / least optimal combinations.


How are you guaranteed one max roll?

I just rolled 2d6+6 x6 three times and only got one 18

[KorvinStarmast]

Roll 3d6 6 times, reroll 1’s we usually do when rolling.

Also thought about doing 3d6 with advantage, roll twice 3d6 and keep highest roll
That is more or less the AD&D 1e DMG Method II:
All scores are recorded and arranged as in Method I. 3d6 are rolled 12 times and the highest 6 scores are retained.

[Hecuba]

That is more or less the AD&D 1e DMG Method II:

The two are actually very different.

(6d6b3) has, for example, a ~10% (97 in 972) chance of resulting in an 18. The chance for a roll on 3d6 is only about 0.5% (1 in 216).

That means that your chance of at least one 18 using (6d6b3)x6 is about 47% [(97/972)6], while you chance of an 18 for (3d6)x12B6 is about 5.5% [(1/216)12]


Edit: Nevermind- I misread the person you were quoting. Those are very similar curves.

[strangebloke]

How are you guaranteed one max roll?

I just rolled 2d6+6 x6 three times and only got one 18

I think he was looking at my 2d6+6 flip thing, which after racial modifiers pretty much guarantees you an 18 or better.

[Lombra]

Everyone rolls 4d6b3, you then calculate the average of the highest scores, then the second highest, until you reache the average of the lower scores rolled. The averages become the universal set that everyone has to use, and can decide which ability to assign to each score. Example:

Party of three, stats rolled with 4d6b3:



4d6b3
Player 1
Player 2
Player 3
Average


Highest roll
15
14
17
16


2nd Highest roll
15
13
14
14


3rd Highest roll
14
12
10
12


3rd Lowest roll
14
12
10
12


2ndLowest roll
11
9
10
10


Lowest roll
10
7
8
9



The average column is the stat array for the characters of the adventure.

I guess that you could use any generation system, it's just to make everyone start from the same point.

[FaerieGodfather]

Cannot recommend it, but it's worth sharing. This is the method I was taught, over a quarter of a century ago, in first edition AD&D.

Roll 5d6 for each stat, rerolling all 1s and 2s (unless yahtzee), and keeping the final best 3.
If you roll five-of-a-kind (yahtzee), your score is instead 18 + face value (so 19 to 24)
PCs must be rolled at the table with the DM watching. DMPCs are also rolled with the DM watching, and always have at least one 24.

One thing I have always wanted to do, though, is combining the optional methods from Alternity's Gamemaster Guide.

In addition to standard point buy, and standard rolling, there were two additional options:
Player picks PC class, rolls on the class chart, and picks whatever species they qualify for
Player picks PC species, rolls on the species chart, and picks whatever class they qualify for

Have always wanted to find a way to combine those two methods.

Current best thought:
Player picks class and species.
Player rolls each ability, in order: they roll the method with the higher average once, and roll the lower average twice and record the higher result
Each ability is then averaged
Minimums and maximums are waived. Nobody should fall too far outside them anyway.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

1d6*2+7. Guaranteed to produce an odd stat every time.

[Chaosvii7]

Weirdest I've done is 1d12 + 6 or 2d6 + 6 with my players in the past. I tend to prefer point buy just because it's easier to balance everyone at the start, but the oddest set of rolls I've done that hasn't seen play yet is 4d4. My friend and I used it to make characters because we would get bored when people didn't show up to our sessions, and eventually we started tinkering with the stat rolls for fun.

[Yagyujubei]

by playing darts. 8 throws drop lowest 2

edit:

Ive also been mulling over a beer pong version. something like each of the 6 cups being worth (X) points and your total after 6 throws is what you use for point buy...

I like making stat rolling into some kinda game of skill rather than random.

[mr-mercer]

I don't have any odd stat rolling methods that I use for serious character generation, but I like to play a little game with myself where I divide my dice into their sets (each set containing 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 1d20 and optionally 1d100), roll each set in its entirety, remove any rolls above 6 and keep the score of the remaining top 3 dice. Because I have five sets, I also like to finish off by taking all of the dice that went over 6, rerolling them and using the same system to get a score from them. I'll provide an example now.

Set 1: overloaded d10, highest three were 6, 4 and 4, for a total of 14.
Set 2: overloaded d20 and d100, highest three were 6, 5 and 3, for a total of 14.
Set 3: overloaded d12 and d20, highest three were all sixes for a total of 18.
Set 4: overloaded d20, highest three were 6, 3 and 3, for a total of 12
Set 5: none overloaded, highest were 6, 3 and 3, for a total of 12.
Leftover set: three overloaded d20s, highest were 4, 2 and 1, for a total of 7.

As I say, I would never suggest doing this to actually make a character: this is entirely for the fun of seeing what you get from it.