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Yunru
2019-02-22, 01:21 PM
I've seen many ways to roll for stats, even come up with a few, but what's yours?

Six sets of stats are rolled in order and recorded on a 6x6 grid. The player(s) then choose one row or column in either direction to use.
Before rolling, the player chooses up to three stats that their character focused on, and an equal number that they neglected. Favoured stats roll an extra die (still taking the highest result), while neglected stats roll one die less (or one die more, but taking the lowest results if a die can't be removed.
2d4+1d10 - Players roll 2d4 and add 1d10 to it per stat if they would roll 3d6, or 2d4 and add the highest of 2d10 if they would roll 4d6k3.
67+2d4 - Players have 67+2d4 points to split between their stats, with each stat having a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 18.

noob
2019-02-22, 01:38 PM
Point buy is a common thing.
Else there is the roll 4d6 drop lowest 6 times then attribute them to the stats you want and if it falls under point buy you can use point buy instead.

clash
2019-02-22, 02:04 PM
Roll 3 preferred stats at 10 + d6 and 3 weak stats at 7 + d6

whiplashomega
2019-02-22, 04:34 PM
In my most recent campaign I let players choose between 2 options:

Do a 30 pt point buy, max score of 16 (and 16 costs 3 points over 15)

OR

Roll 4d6 keep 3, standard

I got about a 50/50 split of players choosing each.

Sindeloke
2019-02-22, 09:32 PM
For a long time now I've been doing this:

Everyone starts with 15, 14, 13. Once those are distributed as the player chooses, roll 3d6 three times and distribute those as desired. Any result less than 7 is raised to 7.

noob
2019-02-22, 10:12 PM
Pretend to roll dice then write 18 in your main stat and a bunch of lower numbers for the other stats(such as 12 or 10 or even 8 in int)
A formalized way of doing that is the elite array(15 14 12 10 10 8 or something like that) and the ultra elite array(18 16 14 12 10 8)
Both are faster ways than either point buy or dice rolling.

SkipSandwich
2019-02-24, 07:48 PM
2d6+6, rolled 6 times, then arranged in the order of your choosing. The player with the lowest stat total then gets their choice of (Party size -1)x50 gp in additional gear, which can include Common magic items (such as 0th - 1st level spell scrolls, potions of climbing and basic healing potions). The next lowest gets (party size -2)x50gp, and so on until the character with the highest stats, who gets no bonus.

Any character can use a Scroll, if not a spellcaster or a spellcaster of the wrong type they just have to succeed on an Intelligence check against a DC of 10 + (Spell Level x 2)

Wizard/Sorcerer/Warlock spellscrolls are Int(Arcana) checks
Cleric/Paladin spellscrolls are Int(Religion) checks
Druid/Ranger spellscrolls are Int(Nature) checks

noob
2019-02-24, 08:53 PM
2d6+6, rolled 6 times, then arranged in the order of your choosing. The player with the lowest stat total then gets their choice of (Party size -1)x50 gp in additional gear, which can include Common magic items (such as 0th - 1st level spell scrolls, potions of climbing and basic healing potions). The next lowest gets (party size -2)x50gp, and so on until the character with the highest stats, who gets no bonus.

Any character can use a Scroll, if not a spellcaster or a spellcaster of the wrong type they just have to succeed on an Intelligence check against a DC of 10 + (Spell Level x 2)

Wizard/Sorcerer/Warlock spellscrolls are Int(Arcana) checks
Cleric/Paladin spellscrolls are Int(Religion) checks
Druid/Ranger spellscrolls are Int(Nature) checks

For totals do you use point buy measurement or do you just sum the stats?

Climowitz
2019-02-24, 10:13 PM
I roll make the players roll a total of 24d6 then they arrange then as they wish using 3 for each stat if using more stats add 3 more dices per stat

SkipSandwich
2019-02-25, 09:53 AM
For totals do you use point buy measurement or do you just sum the stats?

Point buy equvilant, since having one +4 can be more impactful than 4 +1's.

MoiMagnus
2019-02-25, 10:55 AM
While not directly "how to roll stats", the solution "everyone use the same stat roll, up to permutation" is a good way of making agree both players that like random stats, and players that hate unbalanced stats between PCs.

Crim the Cold
2019-02-25, 05:02 PM
My method is rolling 9 d2. Min of 9. Max of 18. Average of 13.5. Probability of max or min stat is very low. Hardly anyone ever winds up with a useless character.

Sariel Vailo
2019-02-27, 05:06 PM
2d6+6 I find it provides a decent set of scores.

Man_Over_Game
2019-02-27, 05:43 PM
High deviation (Very high or very low stats): 3d8, keep 2, +1 to the result
Standard deviation: 4d6, keep 3.
Low deviation (Many average stats): 6d4, keep 4.
Standard deviation, with few extremes (so you're likely to have 8-16): 4d4, keep 3, then add 1d6. (Basically, you want your stats to range between 8-16 evenly)



These all have basically the same average rolls, just varying degrees of deviations.

For more information, you can review these and make up your own on this link: https://anydice.com/program/13cbe

noob
2019-02-27, 05:59 PM
10 everywhere(as well as removing asi) is a fine method for saving yourself from a bunch of additions and having balanced stats for all the team.
In theory if you want to not have the player lagging behind the monsters you just have to raise that number called proficiency.

Psikerlord
2019-03-03, 09:03 PM
Roll 3 preferred stats at 10 + d6 and 3 weak stats at 7 + d6
iI like this a lot, but would modify it slightly:

3 x Strong: 1d6+12
3 x Weak to Average: 1d6+6

My current preferred method though is:


One stat auto 15.
Roll the others either 4d6 drop lowest or 3d6.
Anyone can choose anyone else's rolls but suffers a d3 penalty.
Allocate rolls as you see fit.

Ninjadeadbeard
2019-03-04, 12:08 AM
Roll 4d6, drop low. Then assign. You get two re-rolls, or one re-roll and a whole new set of 4d6 drop low.

By DM fiat if your total bonuses equal 8 or greater, you keep. No re-rolls.

Knaight
2019-03-04, 08:12 AM
I generally don't like rolling stats (or playing D&D). That said, the particular structure of attributes does create some interesting options. For instance, you could get a large dice pool of d6 and roll them. Each face then represents a different attribute, down the line. The really direct method would be to pick the average you want to see (e.g 12.5) and multiply that by 6 (e.g. 75 dice), a method that I've used in other games for one shots where the attribute totals are somewhat smaller, though even with 75 dice that's still surprisingly fast if you have them. A less direct method is to borrow the point buy values, pick the point buy you'd want characters to fit, and roll 1 die per point to determine where that point is spent.

There's also a lot of subtle things you could do. For instance, you could switch the attributes around after the fact to fit an ordinal rank system - and this could also be used to adjust class balance a bit. Maybe a Wizard gets 69 dice instead of 75, and a Ranger gets 81, using the first system. Point buy would obviously adjust that downward.

LibraryOgre
2019-03-04, 09:27 AM
I was going to be point buy, but someone showed up with a character she liked with good stats, so we went with 4d6k3.

Beastlands
2019-03-05, 12:15 AM
Interesting systems. I actually really like the table idea, can have neat options without having to do the system I always default to. The roll the dice 6 times using 4d6 dropping the lowest. I think I'll try the table method next time.

Ninjadeadbeard
2019-03-05, 01:14 AM
I generally don't like rolling stats (or playing D&D).

My players actively refuse to play point-buy systems, so whenever we look for new systems, we inevitably need to find rules for random stat generation.

levodicus
2019-03-05, 02:24 PM
My PCs love having strong characters, because in my games, your attributes dont make your survivability chance any higher, your brain does...

That being said, 4d6, reroll 1s, drop lowest. if they want to reroll, they have to take the reroll (still rerolling ones)

Knaight
2019-03-06, 03:59 AM
My players actively refuse to play point-buy systems, so whenever we look for new systems, we inevitably need to find rules for random stat generation.

Well if the stats all come to a particular total my first system generalizes, though certain numbers of attributes are a lot easier to do than others. (Especially 2, 3, 5, 6, and 10, given the dice people likely have a lot of, with odd numbers above 5 and even numbers above 12 other than 20 giving particular problems, though having 20+ attributes is a bad sign for a lot of reasons). If there's a point buy the second system generalizes, though it can be a bit weird for certain totals in terms of mandating moving some dice around to hit particular integers.