Best way to generate stats

[Morithias]

For a long time people have always debated about how to generate stats in games, whether via rolling or point buy, both have their weaknesses, and both have their advantages.

The advantage to point buy is that it's IN THEORY balancing in terms of the stats everyone gets. Sadly this usually ends up not the case, with SAD characters completely dominating point buy and min-maxing heavily encouraged.

The advantage to rolling is that it's "honest" but is "honest" worth being "unfair" when someone in a d20 game rolls 14,10,10,10,10,10, while the other player via sheer dumb luck gets 18,18,14,16,12,15, which means the second player will completely overshadow the first, in likely every way.

Generally to "fix" or at least attempt to fix this problem, I use a "steal stats" mechanic, in which everyone rolls 1 set of stats (unless they qualify for reroll), and people can "steal" other player's rolls. It making rolling high stats less something that overshadows and more something that raises the power level as a whole. As now player 1 there, with his highest 14, can take player 2's stats and use them instead. True games tend to be higher in power level, but having higher stats overall makes MAD classes more legit in term of being played, and no one feels resentment over the other player getting a better character cause the random number god hates them.

So what do you think of that system? Could I improve it? Is there another better way of generating stats that I'm unaware of?

Please note that my experience is mostly with d20, however I'm sure M&M players have similar stories with powers that are completely overpowered and everyone takes. How do you deal with that when there is clearly a "best" option in point buy, and everyone needs to take it to not become dead weight?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

This is a fairly interesting suggestion. I can honestly say that I love it in theory, although I'd term it "using" or "mimicking" or "mirroring" stats, so it's clear that no player is denied his or her stats by someone else choosing them. "Steal" implies that they literally take away that set if stats.

Still, it looks great in theory. I may have to try it. You still have an option for one type of character to not have a useful set of rolls though, but the odds are indeed significantly lower, and it would produce relatively organic characters where every player has a high chance to have a set available that they are happy to use.

For groups of three or less, however, the DM might consider throwing in a role or two himself. Maybe even throw in a role with a group of four. And, of course, I would make sure all sets of rolls meet the recommended "total bonus of at least +1."

[prufock]

JaronK offered an adjusted point buy system based on tier. To quote:

Option #1: Point Buy modifications. This is a quick and dirty fix that helps a bit. It's not perfect, but it's certainly something. Tier 1s get 24 point buy. Tier 2s get 28 point buy. Tier 3s get 32 point buy. Tier 4s get 36 point buy. Tier 5s get 40 point buy. Tier 6s get 44 point buy. Result? At low levels, their Tiers are nearly reversed, with CW Samurai having awesome stats while Wizards really are weak bookish types. By the high levels, the Tiers are back in order, but the difference is less pronounced through the mid levels. Obviously, you can adjust what the differences are, but this works pretty well, and most importantly it's extremely easy. The big downside is that you really can't allow much multiclassing or else it all goes out of whack. Other similar methods include rolling but letting lower Tiers get extra rerolls or bonuses after the roll, and giving free LA points to low tier classes (so, everyone Tier 3 and below gets 1 free LA, and everyone Tier 5 and below gets 2 free LA).

Personally I think 44 might be a bit much. I might go something like 25 (tiers 1 and 2), 28 (tiers 3 and 4), 32 (tiers 5 and 6).

My games use standard PB at 25, 26, or 32 points, depending on the type of game and the number of players.

[Yora]

I think regardless of the game, there should never be any randomness in character generation. Players should be allowed to make the character they want, not having to figure out what could possibly be made of a random number generation.
Though that is assuming longterm campaigns in which the players are supposed to get invested in their characters. If it's a competitive game in which characters are disposable and one of the goals shared by the group is to find ways to make the best thing with a bad hand, there might indeed be some fun that can be had with random numbers. Like shuffling the cards in a card game. Making the best of your hand is the purpose that you play the game.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I think regardless of the game, there should never be any randomness in character generation. Players should be allowed to make the character they want, not having to figure out what could possibly be made of a random number generation.
Though that is assuming longterm campaigns in which the players are supposed to get invested in their characters. If it's a competitive game in which characters are disposable and one of the goals shared by the group is to find ways to make the best thing with a bad hand, there might indeed be some fun that can be had with random numbers. Like shuffling the cards in a card game. Making the best of your hand is the purpose that you play the game.

Agreed. For long-term, high RP campaigns I let my players pick stats that fit their concepts, and only place limits if someone is going overboard with that power. For a more casual dungeon crawl though, the proposed system does indeed seem excellent.

[prufock]

I think regardless of the game, there should never be any randomness in character generation. Players should be allowed to make the character they want, not having to figure out what could possibly be made of a random number generation.

Unless, of course, the players want a measure of randomness.

[Krazzman]

Ah! I just love this topic... at least somewhat.

As you said: Did you feel great compared with "mr-all-stats-are-higher-than-16" when you began playing? In my first DnD experience we had a rather nice group. I rolled quite ok, the dwarf druid rolled better and the human archery built fighter rolled between us two. Later in that game 2 friends joined. One was a Paladin/Purple-dragon knight spirited charger with a 17 in intelligence as his lowest stat. Of course he overpowered the whole campaign... to the point where we even joked about that campaign as a farmhouse surrounded by high cr-monsters (Dragon in the Attic, Lich in the basement, Orc-army in the garden etc.).
Other things were when I played a Duskblade and still could fare ok despite having rolled an array that was under elite. And I was partying together with a barbarian with a 14 in charisma... as his dumpstat. And yes, this was considered fair in my old group because! the DM (or in my presented cases a player) argued that this is all about diversity. Every person is different and this is displayed better through that and yadda yadda.

I for my part used to think that PB is the only way... until I saw the downsides of it in some "builds" when one guy adviced that the [melee-class] (can't remember it anymore) should use PB 32 and take these stats: 18 16 16 8 8 8.
For my Pathfinder campaign I used the following: Generate 3 legal arrays. Array 1 is PB 25. Arrays 2 and 3 are roll 4d6b3 6times per array. After having done that you can change in array 2 and 3 exactly one die roll. (if you rolled a 6 6 1 1 you can reroll a 1 and take the higher result).
This generated quite good arrays and build a sort of security-lowish arrays.

Another method I foung rather cool was keeping sames. If you rolled 4 of a kind you added them all together. 4 2's being and 8 and so on. Although this has even more things that can go wrong between sad and mad classes.

Yet another cooler form I found was the group of six had to decide the following 6 people roll 4d6b3. forming a grid. Be it rolled arrays sorted from top to down or next to each other. giving a grind with 14 possible arrays.
After the grid is done every player can chose from this grid. Be it an array read from left to right, up to down or diagonally.

To "tackle" the problem of MAD/SAD a bit more there is also the depending PB. Wizards and sorcerers get less points than monks for example. Yet a Monk/Sorcerer wouldn't get that much more points. I beleive this was rather build in an agreement witht he dm. You said I want to play an Unarmed striker without resorting to ToB and casting and such and as such are going to build [this way] and got PB points according to MAD/SADness and how "strong" this build would be. But I'm not so sure where I read that and this speaking about builds beforehand might just be my imagination.

[Yora]

Unless, of course, the players want a measure of randomness.

Possible. But in that case the player can assign all the character creation points to a number of scores on pieces of paper and draw them randomly and assign them to certain things in order. He would still have the same number of creation points as everyone else and the other players can make the characters they want.

[Morithias]

There is one other way to do stats that my group used to use (mostly cause it was FAST)

Descending.

18,17,16,15,14,13, assign as you wish.

It makes for brutally high powered games, but when you want that kind of cinematic, superhero action stuff going on it makes for a decent show.

You all have such good ideas. I look forward to reverse engineering them to try and create my new standard.

[nedz]

Well there is the round robin method where the players generate their stats and then pass them to the person on their left.

Personally I prefer something like Elite Array because is doesn't favour lucky rollers or SAD builds — which tend to be casters.
Maybe add in pathfinder style racial mods — which is going to give you a 17.

[Jay R]

There is no one "best way". It depends on the game and the players.

If you are playing with people who are concerned with their own ability to have a character do exactly as much as the next character, in a game like 4E that's focused on character abilities, you'd better balance all the PC's abilities.

In a game like AD&D 2E, with players who seek a challenge, and consider the other PCs to be allies, there is no need to do so.

In a game like Champions, balancing doesn't work because, even though all players have the same number of points, designing a character is a skill like any other, and the people who are better at it have more effective characters.

In a game like OD&D, in which player cleverness and problem-solving is more important than stats, it is not necessary to balance the character stats.

"Balancing" the characters does nothing particularly for me. I cheer just as much when the other PC does something great as when mine does. I've played games in which I had the weakest character, the strongest character, and an average character. They are different kinds of games, but all fun. I admit that I don't understand people saying that any of these would not be fun - unless the other players are rivals, not friends.

But don't base your decision on anything I say. Base it on what your players want.

[Yora]

There is no one "best way". It depends on the game and the players.

Perhaps, but those methods are for inferior games and simple-minded players.

[Greylond]

For D&D type games(AD&D, HM4, etc).
3d6 straight down. Play what you roll.

The problem with rolling anything else is that over the years Characters with higher and higher stats slowly over the years became Standard and now there's many people that refuse to play a character with Stats under 14. The Powercreep/Stat creep has gotten to bad, actually, I think it got too bad 10 years ago. To me, the most interesting characters are those with a weak stat or two.

[navar100]

In dice rolling you don't have to be enslaved to the first roll. If Bob rolls 14, 12, 11, 10, 10, 9 while Frank rolled 18, 15, 14, 14, 12, 8, just let Bob reroll. You're not being unfair to Frank who still has his good array, and Bob will get something better. If Mark meanwhile rolled 15, 15, 13, 12, 10, 10, DM Fiat a 15 or 13 to an 18 (depending on class) to be on par with Frank and be done with it. More likely a 15 anyway considering Frank has an 8 while Mark doesn't.

Point Buy will work if you ignore the recommended value and go with a higher one. In 3E 32 points can get you a (subjective) decent paladin barely. 36 points definitely, and you might even get a decent monk as well. In Pathfinder 25 points gets you a paladin - 16 ST, 16 CH, 14 CO, 10 for the rest before racial modifiers.

There's always 27-25-23 which I've mentioned many times - a combination of dice rolling and point buy. Roll 4d6, drop lowest three times. Those are three of your scores. Take any score and subtract it from 27 for your 4th score. Another score is subtracted from 25 for your 5th score. The last score is subtracted from 23 for your 6th score. Finally add 2 to any one score. Your personal preference might hard force max 18 in a score. For example, someone could roll a 7 in his first three scores and want to do 27 - 7 = 20 for an ability score. Instead, he'll have to do 25 - 7 = 18 or 23 - 7 = 16.

Example 1:
Rolled 16, 14, 10
27 - 10 = 17
25 - 16 = 9
23 - 14 = 11

Array is 17, 16, 14, 11, 10, 9 - now decide where to put the +2. Lots of good choices depending on class then added racial modifiers.

Example 2:
Rolled 13, 10, 8
27 - 10 = 17
25 - 13 = 12
23 - 8 = 15

Array is 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8 - now decide where to put the +2. Not as flexible as Example 1, but final array will be close enough after racial modifiers.

[obryn]

For D&D type games(AD&D, HM4, etc).
3d6 straight down. Play what you roll.

The problem with rolling anything else is that over the years Characters with higher and higher stats slowly over the years became Standard and now there's many people that refuse to play a character with Stats under 14. The Powercreep/Stat creep has gotten to bad, actually, I think it got too bad 10 years ago. To me, the most interesting characters are those with a weak stat or two.

3d6 straight hasn't been the default since before AD&D. Even in AD&D 1e, 4d6s3, arrange to taste was considered the default "Method I".

3d6 straight works fine in 0D&D because your stat modifiers are generally just XP bonuses. And it works well in BX/BECMI/RC because of (1) the ability score table is pretty generous, and (2) you can trade stats 2-for-1.

But in AD&D, your perks/penalties don't start applying, usually, until you're at 6- or 15+. These are pretty far down the bell curve.

All in all, though, I don't think a character who's average in every score is interesting at all. And a character who has all penalties may be interesting, but not in an "I'd love to play this character for a few years" sort of way.

-O

[valadil]

Generally to "fix" or at least attempt to fix this problem, I use a "steal stats" mechanic, in which everyone rolls 1 set of stats (unless they qualify for reroll), and people can "steal" other player's rolls.

Steal or copy? Does stealing deprive another player of those rolls? If it's a copy, you're basically just rolling N sets of stats and letting the players each choose the ones they like best.

What ruined stat rolling for me was bad players who killed their characters when they wanted a reroll. I don't game with players like that as a general rule, but it still killed some of the fun for me.

[Fecar]

For games just above the normal power curve, I have my players roll 2d6 +6 for each ability score. It makes the average a 15 with a minimum of 8 in any stat.

[Philistine]

For D&D type games(AD&D, HM4, etc).
3d6 straight down. Play what you roll.

The problem with rolling anything else is that over the years Characters with higher and higher stats slowly over the years became Standard and now there's many people that refuse to play a character with Stats under 14. The Powercreep/Stat creep has gotten to bad, actually, I think it got too bad 10 years ago. To me, the most interesting characters are those with a weak stat or two.

Leaving aside the blatant Stormwind Fallacy there, Point Buy does a better job of producing characters with "a weak stat or two" than rolling dice. While players can choose not to have any weak stats, doing so (at typical PB values) means also not having any strong stats. Point Buy also entirely avoids generating characters with "a weak stat or five or six."

Point Buy gives greater control to the players, useful for builing to a concept (or to fill a hole in an existing group). It also gives greater control to the GM, who can choose a low PB for a "grittier" campaign (not that D&D really does "gritty" well at the best of times) or a higher total for a more "heroic" game. No system of rolling dice, no matter how convoluted, can equal that.

And that's the part that really gobsmacks me. I've seen some awfully complicated dice-rolling schemes here and elsewhere (including some real corkers in PbP game ads - I think the champ was "roll 8x5d6b3, rerolling 1s, and choose the best 6; then do it twice more, and choose the best array from the 3 you've generated"), and I just don't see the point of it once it goes that far. (Or well before it gets that far, in fact.) It's so much faster, easier, and fairer to just give a high Point Buy if you want a high-stats kind of game.

[Morithias]

Steal or copy? Does stealing deprive another player of those rolls? If it's a copy, you're basically just rolling N sets of stats and letting the players each choose the ones they like best.

What ruined stat rolling for me was bad players who killed their characters when they wanted a reroll. I don't game with players like that as a general rule, but it still killed some of the fun for me.

Copy. Sorry it's kinda a misnomer. I've started calling it "mimicing" from now on.

[Morph Bark]

Wait, would this be actually taking someone else's stats in their place, or would this be "copying" their rolls? EDIT: Got answered while posting.

In the latter case, wouldn't this mean that the larger the group of players is, the bigger the chance they all have high stats?

[SowZ]

JaronK offered an adjusted point buy system based on tier. To quote:



Personally I think 44 might be a bit much. I might go something like 25 (tiers 1 and 2), 28 (tiers 3 and 4), 32 (tiers 5 and 6).

My games use standard PB at 25, 26, or 32 points, depending on the type of game and the number of players.

Let's look at Monk. To have decent AC, he'll need at least 16 in both Dex and Wis. To do good damage, he will also need a 16 or so in Str. To have decent health, he will need at least a 16 in Con because of his D8 HD. To have any SP at all, he needs a 14 in int or so. With a ten in Cha, that is a 38 PB.

Or a Paladin. We'll want at least 16 Str. 14 Dex. 14 Int. Con 14. Wis 14. Cha 14. That's 40 PB.

[qwertyu63]

Chiming in with my answer to the question of generating stats.

-Roll 4d6, drop lowest. Do so 4 total times.
-You also get an 8, and a 16.
-Assign to taste.

It means you will have at least one good stat and at least one bad stat, but still leaves room for chance.

[Galdor Miriel]

We have a great system that is a combo that we use in 4E games where your main ability is so important. You get to use either 18,14 or 15,17 or 16,16 for any two stats rolled randomly with a d6. The other stats are rolled in order once using 3d6.

This means you always have a playable character, but you might get a weakness or a strength elsewhere. It has been a lot of fun to play in 4E where you have to have a good ability as that is the way the game is built. I like it because we get the randomness, that I honestly think helps make the characters more real, and we get the ability to contribute.

GM

[Morithias]

Wait, would this be actually taking someone else's stats in their place, or would this be "copying" their rolls?

In the latter case, wouldn't this mean that the larger the group of players is, the bigger the chance they all have high stats?

Player 1 rolls 14,10,10,10,10,10
Player 2 rolls 16,16,16,16,16,16
Player 3 rolls 18,14,16,12,10,14

Player 1 wishes to play a Paladin and hates his rolls. Due to the MAD system of the Paladin, he decides to copy Player 2's rolls and use all 16's.

Player 2 wishes to play a factorum, due to the nature of the factorum being SAD on intelligence he abandons his rolls in favor of copying player 3's rolls.

Player 3 Wishes to play a balanced down to earth jack of all trades Master. She decides to abandon her rolls and use Player 2's rolls.

Player 4 enters the game and rolls 18,17,16,16,15,17.

Everyone decides to redo their characters and use this new set.

That's generally how it plays out. One player rolls a great set, everyone uses it, with maybe one exception. Of course there's no rule preventing player 3 from using player 1's rolls for a comic relief character, or self-imposed challenge, or just refusing to copy and using their own rolls regardless of other rolls.

[Scowling Dragon]

I think regardless of the game, there should never be any randomness in character generation.

Well rolling stats can leed to great new RP directions that you would be usually too chicken to try.

[Sidmen]

Well rolling stats can leed to great new RP directions that you would be usually too chicken to try.

It can, but usually doesn't.

I'm one of those lazy, boring types who would just prefer to use an Array. Heroic, Elite, Standard, and Mook arrays - depending on what kind of game you're starting up.

Of course, this assumes that class designers don't have their heads in the sand and make MAD classes. When a WotC class designer sits down, they should look at two abilities and design their class to work with those.

[DrBurr]

My first campaign used Roll Stats and it went fine I think only one person had high stats and no one had terrible ones. Though my current campaign I used a point buy because I got sick of people constantly changing their minds on what they wanted to play.

Used the seven sets of 4d6 drop the lowest. And if you didn't get a single Stat of 16 or better I offered a complete reroll.

I rolled all the dice with my d6s so their wouldn't be a debate on whether or not peoples dice were better or that they just rolled badly.

I plan at some point to play some old school AD&D so I'll probably use rolls

[Dr.Epic]

96 (or 98) point buy.

[Morithias]

96 (or 98) point buy.

96 is straight 18s...but what is 98? It's not a multiple of 6...

[Dr.Epic]

but what is 98?

In case you have a -2 racial penalty.