Point Buy Vs. Rolling: Ability Scores in 5e Dungeons & Dragons - Web DM 

Web DM your stats could be worse i play 3rd edition orc rolled all ones and ended up with 2 intelligence but a 24 strength

What about standard array? Every game I have played was standard array.

i run a table at the local game store so we do point buy/standard array to keep everything fair

You could actually just change them to max :)

Rob Mongar​ only in some games, like the "Gold Box" ones. Others let you shuffle points around, but not change the total, and some only let you roll. I think Eye of Beholder didn't.

Baldur´s Gate saga... oh memories.

Eye of the beholder lets you max

Trying to get that high percentage on your 18 Strength in 2nd edition, good times

The Standard Array is literally a middle-of-the-road Point-Buy option. A couple good skills, a few average/above-average skills, and one low skill. I personally prefer point-buy for selective customization, such as ensuring that my two Bards have no literal "dump stat" or allowing my Goliath Sorcerer to be effective at casting spells and bashing things over the head with "boom-stick". But even then I build my characters with the Standard Array as a starting-point. "What stats do I want to focus on, and what stats do I not care about for this character?" Then (with a little bit of math and knowledge of the racial bonuses of the race/class combination I want) I drop some stats to increase other stats to create the character that fits the concept I have.

standard array is point-buy legal, meaning that it is essentially a specific sub-type of point buy, rather than a true option 3.

I used this stat array for my first ever character, played a ghostwise halfling druid of the moon. Had heaps of fun but was definitely getting outdone in certain areas due to some party members rolling for stats. All in all, I feel like any way of getting stats is fine as long as the whole party uses the same guidelines

@@stijndevries6175 well ya no shit if you have some guys doing this roll and drop or keep rerolling bullshit it's not fair and your DM probably shouldn't have allowed both to be mixed in cuz this exact thing is what happens.

I like to roll my stats but if they’re all AWFUL then I take the standard

Dylan Maguire I definitely agree. A low ability score can be amazingly fun to role play.

I recently rolled 3 wisdom for my divination wizard

@@saxyjesus501 3 wisdom can be difficult to rp well. It is easier at 2am. Sleep dep ftw.

I like to give my players a choice, I'll sometimes give them a single 18 stat to put wherever they want. But then I get to assign a 7 to another stat

@@KappaKiller108 I used to use Caramon Majere's stats as a guideline...that was in 2nd ed though. Now stats play a far greater role and the 18,17,15,12,10,8 would be a bit much

Agreed. I will only ever do point buy because I feel it's the only way to be fair to the characters. Even someone who just got the average, what you might expect, rolled character will pale in comparison to the one guy at your table that rolled 18, 16, 16, 15, 14, 12 and starts with a 20 in their primary stat at level 1. Think about it, it's like the GM telling one character "okay, have 3 free ASI at level 1. No, not all of you, just Jim".

I was thinking a similar thing. Require all the players to use point but add 4 extra point to point buy and allow for the highest stat to be a 16 instead of a 15. So for example, half elf could start off with an 18 charisma because with point buy he could reach 16 plus his racial modifier of +2. Even without that adjustment, point buy is OK if you know how to prioritize the stats.

15/14/13/12/10/8 is actually the suggested standard array by the players handbook and a perfectly good way of having good, but balanced individuals with some strength in their field and actual weaknesses in some others - which improves party play of course - they just fool themselves in their "roll system", because they do cheat and make themselves so much stronger than the game intends them to be

AncientSeraph stat imbalances should be RP'd around. If you've legitimately rolled 18s in everything, you as a player shouldn't do everything and take all the glory because you can. You choose to let the other players shine, because otherwise you don't get to play again because no one likes playing with you. Also, you should always roll with the DM present, no one likes a bullshitter and if they lie about stats they're probably going to suck to play with because they have the mind of a child. Option 3: if you or the players don't have time to roll with the DM (you) present or over skype with them watching, and someone turns up with suspiciously ridiculous stats, just give everyone those stats or close. You're the DM. You are more powerful than god in this universe.

Spread the word and keep tuning in!

I agree, but also the standard point buy or stat array system limits how flawed a character could be.

I prefer 30 point buy gives a single better stat, or 2 better stats.

High dex equals higher initiative bonus, defense, range attack rolls. " Ok your character is Far Sighted, and can't make use of the feat: point blank shot but you still have to get PBS before you can gain Far Shot. " what do you mean, you dropped it ! you can't see a dusty copper piece next to your foot and you Drop the Lock Pick ? ! "

Wouldn't read into that. In the MM, bandits suddenly have better attributes than commoner,s but the flavour reads: "Oppression, drought, disease, or famine can often drive otherwise honest folk to a life of banditry." So they're commoners who've fallen on hard times, and therefore... get better attributes? Right. It's all very abstracted.

They have better stats because they've been bandits for however long. They basically have "leveled up" through their current lifestyle. Makes total sense.

not necessarily, because in actual game rules, a 13 gives you a 5% across-the-board advantage over an 'average' commoner. Even if you're a downright GOD with 20s across the board, you're only 25% more likely to succeed at an ability check than said commoners. This is why I generally don't like the stat cap of 20 or the overall idea of bounded accuracy in 5e all that much; it tends to rob a lot of the sense of progression from the actual character and puts it instead into equipment and class features. Even though you get way more chances to increase your ability scores as you level, it is impossible without magic items to be more than 25% more likely to succeed at a feat of strength than any joe schmoe off the streets. When a 20th level wizard still has a 20% chance to fail an average-difficulty INT check to figure out how some mechanism works unless he's wearing his special magic crown that makes him super-mega-ultra-smart, it begins to feel less like the base character is actually improving, and more like they're just getting cool fancy toys tacked on top of them.

This isn't really accurate as you are basing it on two relative stats on people. Not the task at hand as DnD does. A commoner may be 10 but it's a d20 with modifiers and you are considering modifiers. 0 and a plus 5 for 25%. it's actually just the task. So having a 75% chance of success is amazing at stat 20. And with a skill or two when you double proficiencies or adds. even high to never failing. That's game breaking without elevating everything else as DnD puts forth and therefore is now modifying it just to cater to your incredible over success to bother rolling. A commoner having a 50/50 is fair enough. But your 75% is quite a safe bet. Basing this all on the d20 system in which 15 is hard and a 20 is suppose to be near impossible.

well, I recognize the idea behind it, and it's one of those benefit/drawback situations; if you have a level 20 wizard with a proficiency in arcana, that gives him +11 to his arcana checks. This means he still has a 15% chance to fail a DC 15 check, while a commoner with 10 INT and no proficiency has a 75% chance of failure. For certain things, this makes sense, and for others, it ends up weirdly silly: let's say, for example, you're in the middle of a battle and you're trying to frantically figure out how the enchantment on this new magic item you picked up works. The DMG says it's a DC 15 arcana check to use it correctly if you don't know what it is. The commoner has a 25% chance of getting it right, which I suppose you can attribute to pure luck, while the wizard has a 15% chance to fail at figuring that out. This situation works for me; it's frantic, everything's happening really fast, I can understand a normal-ass commoner lucking their way through a last-ditch effort occasionally, while the wizard might occasionally fail to get the same result. Now another example; you're not in the middle of a fight, you're trying to figure out some arcane puzzle, and if you screw it up, something bad happens (just for the sake of eliminating the option to take 10 on it), and the DM decides it's another DC 15 check. I find it a lot less believable that the commoner with zero magical training still gets that same 25% chance of lucking their way through it, while the wizard, who has spent their entire life training in and learning magic, even HAS a chance of not understanding it. Basically, in my eyes, If the task is so difficult that a wizard who has devoted their entire life to studying the arcane and has spent years of their life honing these skills and has basically achieved the power of a demigod (as most 20th level characters have) STILL has a chance to fail, then the commoner should have absolutely ZERO chance to succeed. On the flipside, if the commoner even has the ability to luck into figuring something out because it's that simple, then the wizard should have absolutely zero difficulty figuring it out. The mental stats are a lot easier for me to understand, but the physical stats are way more difficult to justify in my mind; A fighter with 20 strength should NEVER have the chance to fail at say, lifting a large rock or breaking down a door if a commoner with 10 strength is even remotely capable of achieving the same result, and anything that fighter would actually find difficult and would have a chance to fail at should be utterly inconceivable to a 10 strength commoner. I completely understand it from a game balance perspective, and it generally makes sense in that regard, but no one solution works for every scenario. Overall, I generally am not a huge fan of 5e's particular solution because it feels almost like a hamstringing of the player's sense of progression by comparison to older editions. The older editions come with their own drawbacks of absolutely absurd numbers that become just plain silly at high levels, and some people don't like that, but I kinda enjoy that absurdity being a reward, as it were, for having put in the work to get a character up to that level.

I always rather liked the Forte and Foible method from a third party Pathfinder adventure path: Pick one stat to be an 18, the other to be an 8, and then roll 1d10+7 in order for the rest.

I will take the 17 and 9 because as a human they become 18 and 10. Guarrentees a high level stat and no penalty from the first two stats!

If your goal is to produce an array of mostly middling stats, you're better off using d4s instead of d6s as it produces a steeper and more narrow bell curve. 3d6 is an avg of 10.5 and a range of 3-18 4d4 is an average of 10 and a range of 4-16, but clusters a lot more around 10. (Note: you could also do 5d4 drop lowest if you wanted a higher average) With either dice though, you could also do ability=roll-mod. Roll a 4? It's now a 7 Roll a 7? Now an 9 Roll a 12? Now a 11 Roll a 16? Now a 13 This gives you a range of 7-14 or 7-13 for d6 and d4 respectively. Little probability tricks can change the odds pretty easily if you're willing to think outside the box.

Troy Cook that's pretty good.

Why WOULDN'T you take a -1 in a dump stat for a guaranteed +4 on your best one?

Along with a +1 to any two stats, that's the standard array with human variant option.

+Michael Velez Ah, I had no idea. We don't get the additional +1's though

hardly heroic stats.

What about ROLE-PLAYING I rolled a 5e character today in order Str 9, Dex 11, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 12 and am playing a Human Wizard whose just going to have to work at it to be any good but can opt to stack lower level spells when I gain 4th level spells can just jam those into lower level prepared spells. But has good hit points and is comely enough. I can use Feats and do some customization and my advanced abilities will work regardless how lack of Int my Wizard is. But he just learned from a Hedge Mage so managed to just be okay in magic whose mentor was a 7th level Enchanter powerful for being in a modest village!

stats =/= hero, character building, player ability, resourcefulness, etc = hero

Rolling can deliver higher stats point buy just averages it....

​@@garmr2512 that's exactly what they just said.

can't be below 8 or above 15 as per PHB

Thanks!! Welcome to the hobby! Glad we can help

D12s just doesn't have the bell curve of 4d6 tho.

Jacob Jankowski it's fine, we're basically gods!

I mean, I did some math, and any barbarian of 7th level of above can fall from orbit and literally has no risk of death if they fall from orbit -max fall damage is 120 (20d6) -rage at last second halves the bludgeoning damage to 60 -an average of 7hp per level, and assuming they took at least 14 in con. 9hp/level, X7 is 63 And that’s not counting potentially higher health or con or the tough feat.

exactly, heroic acts come from normal individuals acting against terrible odds - not super heroes against kobolds

Preach Brother

This all the way. My 1st D&D character had a -4 in Dex and a -2 in Cha, playing him is one of my favorite things, a foul mouthed drugged out dwarf wizard with the shakes. I actually like PC's with negative stats, makes them more interesting.

Flawed characters are good characters. Superman is boring for a reason.

TLDR: Not redundant cause Hobbits>everyone else ring resistance. And playing with high stats is easy mode/reduces the scope of the game to just the dice rolls and math. Longer version below. That's what players bring to the table. The other characters wouldn't have been redundant for two reasons: A) Even well statted PC's only roll well some of the time and B) They were perfect targets for the ring. They were both heroic powerful chracters who were men of purpose and action and who had great tasks they knew only they could complete. Which meant the ring could manipulate them into folly by making them think they could complete those objectives through its use. This was in some ways the point of Tolkien's story. Good folk with simple ambitions could be heroic, not because they rose above their origins and became great but because of their simple nature. Or to put it more cynically the ring didn't have much to work with because it doesn't take much to make Hobbits happy. When your largest ambition is to eat six meals a day and not have to work as hard it's tough to commit great folly. In gaming terms this means that due to being hobbits Frodo, Bilbo and Sam had higher saves vs the rings influence. This is shown by the fact that all three of them wore the ring and were able to withstand and resist outright its influence far longer than anyone else who had possessed it. Beyond this they only brought what cleverness and steadfastness they had to the table. They had courage but not a lot else. Which the story actually bears out, the most impressive feats they exhibit are ones of luck and daring not strength or might, or even intellect. They are the poorly statted players who mostly lose so tend to avoid conflict and got lucky in a couple of combat encounters. Beyond this it's a lot to expect two PC's and more importantly their players to think of every solution to a problem. More people, even crappy people means more brain power when things get tough. Interestingly the idea behind this "campaign" would have been that the more powerful the players become the harder it is to complete their quest, which I think is a really compelling idea, that creates lots of neat avenues for creative play. It's really hard to go through a table top campaign and not become stronger, instead of figuring out how to get through the next challenge, the challenge would be how to avoid heroics completely. So yes players with poorly statted PC's will "underperform" mathematically some of the time. But these games aren't all in the rolls. Players with poor stats have to be more creative, they can't just roll their way out of trouble. This is in many ways more realistic, most of us have maybe one or two good stats and even then they kind of suck. But if a PC with poor stats is "dead weight" than it's probably because they are trying to play like a player who has good ones. If you suck at stuff that just means you have to play differently. That said, this style of play isn't for everybody. Some people want the power fantasy, others just don't want to have to think that hard about how to move a cart when the horse is dead and they have a -3 in STR. That's fine, but in my opinion they're missing out. These games are so much bigger than the math, you have so much freedom and if you're clever with how you do things you hardly ever have to roll. And when you manage to lead a group of bandits into an old barn and trap them inside it and light the whole thing on fire and you never had to roll once and your fighter with a +1 in STR and like 0's in everything else wins the fight it feels amazing. If it was all about the numbers it would be a Crpg. (edited for clarity and because apparently I can't shut up)

Point buy is different to stat array. You get 27 with point buy to increase you ability scores up to a certain level & static array is you have a set scores that you have to use.

In 5e, Point-Buy is 27 points, beginning at a minimum ability score value of 8 in everything at a cost of "0" points. The two extremes are "Three stats at values of 15, and three at 8" and "Three stats at values of 12, and three at 13". However, the Point-Buy system in 5e also permits purchasing the Standard Array with those 27 points. ---- In Pathfinder, you begin with the number of points available as determined by the Campaign Difficulty. Pathfinder Society (the organized play) is "High-Fantasy" and thus permits using 20 points. All stats begin at 10, but you can dump a stat down to 7 to get a "-4-point cost" or (because of double-negative) a 4-point credit...turning your 20 points into 24 points. This is crucial, especially in lower-fantasy campaigns, to getting a series of higher ability scores, since the purchasing caps at a score of 18...which has a 17-point cost to it. Literally a "Standard Fantasy" or "Average" character (where you begin with 15 points) would be unable to buy themselves a starting 18 in an ability score without dumping at least one stat.

@ this is the best method for D&D. Adjust point allocation for desired flavor, but make it cost increasing amounts to go higher. When it takes you 6 points just to take an ability from 16-18, it not only makes it more align with the bell curve of dice, but really makes interesting choices for your character both mechanically and in characterization if you're going to focus that much on one score. In the 30 point buy of NWN that means the difference between having 20 points to spread between the 5 remaining abilities or 14. That will affect a character quite a bit for that extra +1 mod and would even more if you used lower than 30 points.

@@wehtawnikrap reading is your friend

@@quonomonna8126 & being a dickhead is your friend.

You can have some epic characters with point by after a couple of ability increases.

Its what I tell all my players when I tell them about point buy, to always remember that after a few levels you get stat increases and there are potential magic items that give stat increases.

Now. Most times Dice-Chaos tends to screw me over. Chaos in most other incarnations (my desk, my scribblings, most parts of my mind) I embrace with passion :D

I much prefer the zero to hero paradigm, so starting out with 10s and 11s works for that.

id say the same. i love point buy in like, shadowrun for instance, because there's no actual classes. you just pick from a huge list of resources, skills, powers, etc. even though its point buy every character has a chance to be interesting and different. in 5e the book literally states what you should pick for each archetype to be the most effective, so there's not a lot of room for variance. but yeah random stats make more interesting characters usually i agree

I love the zero to hero paradigm as well. However, I don't see it working in D&D because stats hardly ever change. I tried to wrap my head around some house rules to remedy that but never was satisfied with the results.

Alex Bermann i really enjoy the pathfinder system, every 4 lvls they can place a point in whatever attribute they'd like. however long term training homebrew rules for adnd and 3rd ed seemed to work pretty well.

That's not nearly enough for me. If your campaign goes from level 1 to 12, those are just 3 points. Even if you go through all 20 levels, its just 5 points. Also, players who rolled well get those points as well, so you never can catch up a bad start.

Agreed, and you can make the character more the way you are envisioning. I start with a concept, and want stats to fit it. I don;t want to look at stats then think, "Crap. Now what kind of a character can I force into this?"

Really good idea! I think you could do both at the same time, let the players decide. Now, one year later, do you have a preferred method?

Simple solution to this, get the dm to make their character get beat around a bunch. It works in game as well, because the enemies would eventually realize that there is one person in the group is far better than everyone and should be target number 1.

Connor Cooke If I roll up one of those, I usually drop a stat or two down to 8ish or in the case of a monk bound to an all powerful mind crushing monster I made, I started rolling his intelligence everyday at disadvantage since his strength is 18 dex 19 con 12 wisdom 13 and charisma 15. So basically you could ask them to do something like that or just ask them to lower the stat.

I'm the same way when DMing.

IMO if I create a boss I have had it where bosses have multiple 20's. This is one of my most powerful boss's stats in order of the sheet S 24 D 26 Co 22 I 30 W 26 ch 24 and I think it is a reasonable boss as either a final boss or a super boss.

I do a similar thing, my players may roll, but should their total score (when you add all abilitiy scores) be lower than 5 (the total score of standard rotation) they may switch to standard rotation instead

It always burns...rolling a 6 or 7.

On my table players get to roll out stats once. If they dont like it they can use the standard array. thats it.

I did that for my half orc paladin, and ended up with +6 str +5 con and -4 int

Why? That just sounds like an easy way to have a character with -4 modifier in everything.

Had a dm roll party stats this way we ended up with three 20s two 18s and a 17

yea! can't wait to play my 1 str wizard! what do you mean he's encumbered by his robes an spell book!? hey don't worry though! the 1 con 20 str 20 dex barbarian is here to help! right up until he dies automatically on his 2nd or 1st level I would ask our 1 int 2 wis rogue what to do but he's to busy slipping into a coma an dying.

The absolute madman

Conshey11 what I've seen is that most powergamers and min/maxers use point buy because it does not have any risk of impacting their character is a way they would not want

ultimately there is no risk in rolling for stats because you can just discard the rolls if you don't like them, no DM is going to force you to play a character with bad stats, point buy atleast guarantees that all the players are on the same footing to each other.

Why would no DM make you play with bad stats? My players always get to decide if they want to roll or to point buy. If they pick rolls, they make their bed and sleep in it, whatever they get.

+Alan Brockhaus Rolling is slightly better statistically than doing a point buy. Next to that, a lot of DM's allow rules that will make sure players won't have completely terrible stats making it a TON better than doing a point buy, so in reality I see most power gamers going for rolling. Point buy is good for the people who want complete control for how their character will play out, and there's tons of reasons to want that, could either be power gaming or simply wanting to play something specific. I recently rolled a character because I didn't know how I wanted the stats to be, and I did enjoy the result, for a later character I decided to do a point buy because I wanted a certain stat to be low and I can't guarantee that when rolling.

stats dont really matter much at all tho. No mater which system you use you will end up with at least 15-16 in your main stats. The two main stats make up about 90% of rolls that happen at the table. Additionally: statistically speaking less than 20% of rolls during a normal game get decided by a +1 or +2 difference. The range of the D20 compared to one or two modifier points is just too huge. If you are looking for imbalance the number one reason is class abilities.

Consider point buy without 15,15,15,8,8,8 still allows for some strategy and role playing of the players in how they assign them.

Just do something stupid game 1, die, and roll up a new character. Rolling for characters in long term campaigns is dumb.

GameNub Quin 2e Dark Sun did 5d4. You also started at the 3rd level. That setting was harder than the other settings though.

you needed those stats because as gullpped said the setting was harder, like average characters died, Dark Sun was the epitome of survival of the fittest when it came to D&D characters.

5 to 20 as a results with 12.5 as average? Sounds pretty good. 3d6 gives 3 to 18 with 10.5 as average.

Fuck you, Kyle. Mary sue drow rogue...

ZerkMonsterHunter 4 why not just 4d6 drop lowest

Shadowgear Because you can roll a 3 with that.

Milokiss82 I mean I guess but we houserule no stats less than 7 anyways so

Shadowgear Yeah, But that's against the rule you were just defending

Sounds good to me!

That's what our DM let us use way back in 2nd edition, and the dice loved me. Our parties were pretty stacked stat wise. DM figured that to become truly epic heroes, required above average people to begin with so that is the method he preferred. There was none of the adding points upon leveling up that seems to exist in the newer versions, so you were stuck with what you rolled. Unless of course you took your chances with The Deck of Many Things or some other possibly risky magic.

why though? Its kinda useless to have random dice rolls to then try and regulate the randomness. If you dont like randomness go standard array of point buy. At this point players only roll because they want to powergame and random rolls have a chance of giving better stats overall than standard array or point buy. Im sure this is fine for some DMs, but for me ill do my bets to immediately block this kind of behaviour.

I agree, the shorter the game, the happier I am to allow players to roll.

Thac0 vs AC...

+Roberto Padron I miss Thac0.

+JPruInc Me too! I just have no excuse for it other than good clean nostalgia! When I think back, THAC0 was such a pain for me, because I suck with numbers, but somehow it must still have been a plus on my gaming experience. I've never been able to explain my affinity for THAC0, but it's so there.

+Pru-Pruh Yeah, it's a mystery. I'm pretty good with the maths, so I was the guy at the table letting everyone know when they rolled whether or not they hit. I felt so much more important! =\

+JPruInc Cool! In our games, Lars played that role, ha ha...I remember I was like twelve and it ended up with most of us rolling our attacks and then just blankly looking at Lars, who would then get to feel important - which was good, because we lived in the countryside, where usually, being good at math or being bookish at all would get you bullied, so rpgs were such a safe haven for our group. I am guessing a lot of roleplayers around the world have similar experiences) Now is better for me, but still: THAC0 nostalgia!

I'm coming around on point by. The chance of an 18 has always been too much to pass up.

+JPruInc 4d6 makes for more interesting characters, for better or worse.

what do you mean with "more interesting" characters?

Fernando Rüth Interesting characters come from variety. Point Buy is balanced but it restricts variety and can be seen as monotonous. What if you wanted to play the jack of all trades Bard who is slightly good at everything (14-15s) in each stat. You can't do that with point buy. Or if you were playing a paladin with very high stats who had to adjudicate his/her faith's principals on a community wide scale. I do have a friend who loves role playing poor stated characters and that person would be denied doing so with point buy. Hope that clarifies.

JPruInc We all love a lvl 1 prodigy! But sadly not all of them survive.

tho realistically speaking it is very unlikely for people to get better as the adventure goes on. Most humans hit peak performance between age 18 and 24 and start deteriorating at age 26. (proficiency/experience is a different topic and is mirrored by the class/proficiency progression). It kinda doesnt make sense for heroes to start with low physical stats and significantly increase them later on. If someone is extremely dexterous chances are he has already been so from a young age.

tho gameplay-wise i get why you dislike it

@@TheVergile W/E is a game

@@TheVergile doesnt really matter since the dm is gonna give npcs higher scores so they arent useless so nothing changes in the end

Or you might roll it in a way where all your stats are horrendously average. I recently rolled a character for the first time (because I didn't really know how I wanted to do a point buy) and I pretty much rolled the standard array.

With a story-driven or roleplay-driven group, point-buy allows customization and choice in the creation of the character. With Point-Buy, I have a Goliath Sorcerer who dumped Intelligence in order to be equally well-off in Strength (for bashing people over the head), Dexterity (for defense), Charisma (for spellcasting), and Constitution (because that seemed thematically appropriate). With Point-Buy, I have never met another Half-Elf Bard structured as my Half-Elf Bard. Even among other Valor Bards, who may tend towards Strength or Dexterity for combat instead of focusing on their spellcasting to give them the edge in a fight. (i.e. Greater Invisibility for advantage on attacks, Polymorph as an offensive and defensive tactic, sectioning enemies off with Wall of Stone, removing troublesome enemies with enchantments). I have met people who played Wizards that dumped both Strength and Wisdom, and Wizards that didn't dump anything. I've met people who played muscle-headed Barbarians that dumped all their mental stats to pump their physical abilities, and people who played Barbarians that dropped only a single stat for both roleplaying and logistical reasons. ----- In fact, stat-dumping is much worse with rolling since you aren't guaranteed good stats alongside the bad stats. You can easily roll a character with rolling (even with 4d6, drop 1) that has no score above 11. Wait, did I say you? I meant the entire table I let roll stats. Except for the one guy who didn't have a score below 14, of course. "But then you should have them reroll if their stats are that bad!" Because if they want to reroll until they get good stats, then why not just have good stats to start with? ----- Hell, Point-Buy is nice because it allows everyone to have good stats, and if they want to improve a little in a specific stat or two then they have to pay the cost of being a little worse in a different stat or two. Their choices matter from the start, they aren't permanently penalized for bad luck, and they need fewer safety-nets or caveats to save them should something go unexpectedly wrong in the process.

agreed. my players get one stat roll attempt as stated in the book (6x 4d6 drop worst) - if they dont like it they have the choice of taking the standard array. thats it. If people start arguing about stat points i already know they dont fit into the group. Im sure some DMs enjoy playing with a group of min/maxing players, but having a "normal" group with one guy that is constantly on edge about stats because he cant stand the thought of not being the biggest badass at the table is a drag.

yeah they are definitely fooling themselves with their cheaty "roll system" - to many safety nets, they might as well just get incredible stats, and then just have no flaws whatsoever - but this video explains why they put feats so much above ability score improvement - with their stupid system of course they dont ever need to improve their stats, they can just stack power gain and kill dragons left and right, all the while actually robing themselves of any challenge

Rolling is stupid, if you roll a bad character, just scrap it makes no sense. Point buy and average hitpoints all the way. Game theory supports this improvement of the old unbalanced rolling system. Players roll for actions (attack, damage, influence, etc), no need to do double randomness...

Or hey, maybe just let people play how they wanna play.

Definitely sounded like two powergamers looking to do hack n slash over play an RPG... Sounds like they're better suited to videogames in my opinion. In 5e you only need your one stat to make your build useful. So we've been running rolls, then if everyone has their 18s and someone is stuck with 4 13s a 9 and a 14, I let everyone around the table roll for them once and they get to replace one of their middle stats with the highest roll... I guess I prefer a more story based game around the actual stats though.

Well, I let my group do 4d6, drop lowest, do 2 sets and pick one of those. Here's their stats at level 4 (so first score improvement is in), after racials: - 10, 15, 17, 18, 13, 11: Can get this with point buy, just the 13 and 11 at the end will be lower (which are total dump stats for this character) - 8, 20, 14, 11, 10, 14: Prodigy at one stat, the rest are bad or average. - 8, 14, 16, 12, 11, 18: Pretty average - 18, 11, 14, 7, 12, 16: pretty average : 18, 18, 18, 10, 10, 10: Best rolls I've ever seen! (Yes, all my players must roll straight in front of the entire group, rolling stats is always a fun group experience, it's exciting for everyone) I jokingly refer to this character's legendary abs during play. He's been down in the dirt with 0 hp most of all though, bad rolls during the game can really cramp your style! So yeah, none of this stuff is breaking the game, 4/5 of these really aren't any stronger than point buy, or just barely so. (Remember that they all have +2 ASI applied already, and this is with racial stats.) My players prefer to roll because they like the excitement, and they claim it leads to interesting characters sometimes when someone has several very low stats. *shrugs* I also throw quite crazy encounters their way, so even if they had a bit of stat benefit, it's more than made up for in DM severity. ^^

Point buy is the nice common ground between min/maxing and creative building. You are guaranteed to be balanced with the party which means no godly 18-20s compared to 14's. You can tailor it to your theme safely so no underachievers vs >10 all around with majorly boosted primaries. All this while keeping the min/maxers in check by having a maximum allowance of points, making it more of a "yeah I have a +1 over that" instead of "I have a 2-3 stat advantage because I'm super specialized". In my mind point buy is the go-to because having player power disparity before it even starts is a horrible idea. Let the power be determined by your actions and not your initial rolls at the start of the campaign.

I do get that and ultimately it's "Fair". My concern has always been with it empowering SAD classes and penalizing MAD ones. Which I guess more is a criticism of system design (looking at you 3.5) and less of an issue if there are appropriate trade-offs for each stat.

Thing is: you can, you don't have to. Reality is that quite often you see homebrew rules to compensate for the chance of getting a terrible character by rolling (like rolling 4d6 7 times and dropping the lowest) which makes it significantly better than doing a point buy.

+Case Aiken "has always been with it empowering SAD classes and penalizing MAD ones." Well you can't go higher than 15, which isn't that high. When it comes to rolling you can't predict how it'll turn out. There's also simply the case that MAD is ALWAYS more difficult. Point buy will make it more tempting to then just pick 15 15 15 8 8 8 or something and with rolling, it will just turn out in a way and you'll have to deal with that, and it will end up perfectly anyway. But that's actually not much different than just sticking to the standard array.

Because we are all individuals, with unique perspectives informed by our own personal life experiences. Here's how I see it. With Point By all players have the same opportunity and resources to create characters that are comparable in power and start on even footing. With rolling, someone could end up with all average stats and another playing could have a couple of 18's. It's not guaranteed, but it is possible to end with an immensely powerful character. I'm a power gamer and I prefer rolling. To each their own.