Quote from: cranebump;880620I'm wondering how suicidal it would be to enforce 3d6. The assumption is characters have no negatives (or, at most 1 minor negative). Makes you wonder why we bother with negative numbers anyway (monster design, I guess).

With array or point buy you can end up with at least one, possibly 3 negatives. I think they went that route based on the r4h3 bell curve.

As noted, Me and Jan have characters both with low stats and are doing perfectly fine. 5e can certainly handle a 3d6 stat gen. Just be aware that like in all editions, too many really low stats can make things harsh indeed. And someone will love that challenge and others hate it.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;880649I used 3d6 in-order once for 5E after some of the players convinced me to do it.

They weren't nearly so enthusiastic when they rolled low numbers.

How low and how many low per character? One or two 3s in 5e you can survive with. And as noted. If you survive long enough you can buy that off over time. Or at least dull the pain. aheh.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;880736If that was true, it would indicate that the +1-to-everything-human isn't that good a deal to start with; its not specifically a problem with my particular array.
As it happens, though, I've been playing 5E with bloated stats from the get-go (via various other method) and it still seems to work. I mean, I've definitely found cases where I wished my Str ranger also had Dex (for better missile attacks) or my Dex fighter had more Str (e.g. after finding a +1 longsword) and so on.

To many munchkins it wasn't a good deal. Many still complain about it as they see the feat+skill just a better deal. I think it's a solid deal for two major things: 1) takes better advantage of 3 or greater odd stats, 2) better well-roundedness as it avoids penalty mods and lack of mods.

The issue isn't just getting it to work. Just about anything can work for 5e with enough system mastery, case in point my chargen of the low statline in this topic. The point is why bother with normal humans when you take away their obvious chargen advantages leaving the rest just better.

The issue is about a bump to essentially the lowest stat and whether that justifies normal humans having setting dominance. Which unless your STR ranger or DEX fighter had their lowest stat in their opposite is not really much of a comparison. (Given your generous stat preference, I'm not seeing a 12+ in STR or DEX as much of a penalty or lack, let alone taking so low a DEX when there's extra +2s and +3s around.) The comparison would be more apt taking their lowest stat, like INT or CHA, from a +1 to a +2, while everything major is singing with +3. The bump is there for skills (though marginal for saves) yet is easily replaced by getting Proficiency Bonus — and there's race, background, and feats (even spells) to do all that.

From my setting perspective it does not work. Playable, but then anything's playable. However to me it is not justifiable.

Quote from: Opaopajr;880890To many munchkins it wasn't a good deal. Many still complain about it as they see the feat+skill just a better deal. I think it's a solid deal for two major things: 1) takes better advantage of 3 or greater odd stats, 2) better well-roundedness as it avoids penalty mods and lack of mods.

The issue isn't just getting it to work. Just about anything can work for 5e with enough system mastery, case in point my chargen of the low statline in this topic. The point is why bother with normal humans when you take away their obvious chargen advantages leaving the rest just better.

The issue is about a bump to essentially the lowest stat and whether that justifies normal humans having setting dominance. Which unless your STR ranger or DEX fighter had their lowest stat in their opposite is not really much of a comparison. (Given your generous stat preference, I'm not seeing a 12+ in STR or DEX as much of a penalty or lack, let alone taking so low a DEX when there's extra +2s and +3s around.) The comparison would be more apt taking their lowest stat, like INT or CHA, from a +1 to a +2, while everything major is singing with +3. The bump is there for skills (though marginal for saves) yet is easily replaced by getting Proficiency Bonus — and there's race, background, and feats (even spells) to do all that.

From my setting perspective it does not work. Playable, but then anything's playable. However to me it is not justifiable.

The flip side I think you're missing is that if you already have high stat bonuses, extra proficiency bonuses and other miscellaneous plusses for race are likewise less significant. Something like darkvision perhaps has a fixed benefit, but free armour proficiency is less useful if you have a good Dex, bonus HPs is less useful given a high Con, a free skill is less useful where attribute is already high and so on and so forth.
Seriously, six +1s is six +1s, whatever the base array is. I mean, feel free to hate my depraved lifestyle, but I like what I like, and I don't agree the game is really in any danger of breaking.
I'm also not seeing any setting implications. For one thing, the same array doesn't necessarily apply to NPCs who aren't heroes. For another, human setting dominance is usually predicated on demographic factors like population size / number of offspring that have little if anything to do with a given races' game mechanics.

We hates it, hates it with the fire of a thousand suns! :mad:


No, I see those stat bonus effect on things. But feats and other racial bennies are very strong. Your commentary is pointing out some of the weak ones (armor proficiency as a feat? mastery, yes. proficiency, that's what class and race is for). Resistances, free cantrips, visions, exrta hiding, extra crit dice, etc. And that's before we really get into Great Weapon Mastery, Sharpshooter, etc. And opening extra skills for PB becomes important for other things, namely Expertise, adventure-specific restrictions to only skilled attempts, etc.

As for setting, you seem to be playing with the mythical heroes trope, which OK... not my style at all. Still makes non-variant human heroes rather lackluster, in my view, especially since they die younger than all but half-orcs. That they breed like goblins and their heroes can't see in the dark, or get things like extra dice on their crits, seems shrugworthy in comparison to other races.

I'd just make variant humans the human hero standard and ignore trying to create a separate stat array. It's the only quick and meaningful solution I see left.
:idunno:

I make my players take shots of whiskey. For every 2-shots they take, they get one point.

They have to take them consecutively, with no more than 6-seconds between shots. If they puke - they lose 10 points.

Whatever points they have left, they can purchase their stats. This is the only fair way.

Since the actual ability scores seem to mean fuck-all in 5e (or 4e, 3e, Pathfinder, 13th Age etc...) but the ability modifiers do... I'm sorely tempted to ditch them completely and simply find a way to randomize or allocate a list of bonuses or penalties for each stat (+2, +1, 0, -1).

Would simplify things and be a bit less confusing to new players unfamiliar with D&D's legacy features.

As for ability score increases, the maximum is +3 (except for rare circumstances like magic items) and an increase from levelling up grants +1 to a stat. Not sure what I'd do about those Feats that grant a +1 to a single attribute score, though.

Quote from: Necrozius;881102Since the actual ability scores seem to mean fuck-all in 5e

One thing the stats do though is limit how fast you can progress with your level up stat points. And a stat could become a target number for a check if you wanted instead of the current.

They show up in odd places, for example STR, like distance jumped and encumberance calculation.

Otherwise yeah, it does seem like a legacy afterthought at this point.

Its a good legacy to keep because its a more granular gauge than the bonuses and can be mapped to a d20 roll on the fly for at least adventurers. 5e caters a little too much to the "I need my bonuses!" crowd who at times seem incapable of accepting not having a bonus in everything. Or must have maxumum bonus.

Either make the game about rolling under your ability scores (like some OSR games like WhiteHack do) or make it about bonuses. There's gotta be a way to streamline this.

I mean, they eventually got rid of THAC0 and made everything universally roll high. I'm wondering if they'll ever take it a step further...

Quote from: Necrozius;881299Either make the game about rolling under your ability scores (like some OSR games like WhiteHack do) or make it about bonuses. There's gotta be a way to streamline this.

I mean, they eventually got rid of THAC0 and made everything universally roll high. I'm wondering if they'll ever take it a step further...

Not as long as people like Gronan exist.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;881349Not as long as people like Gronan exist.

Gronan keeps forgetting to mention that OD&Ds stat gen method is not 3d6 in order.

It is 3d6 in order and then shuffle points on a 3 for 1 basis with simmilar restrictions as B and BX. (Which used a 2 for 1 shuffle.)

My point was, and I just realized it was a little snarkier than intended, was that those who seeing the results of their dice rolls will want to see what the bonus is attached to.

Personally, as I play Mutants and Masterminds 3e, it doesn't affect me.

The whole concept is wrongly framed: "point buy, stat array, or rolls" is meaningless because it should always be ROLLS.

The real question is "3d6-in-order, 3d6-&-allocate, 4d6-remove-lowest, or some form of heresy beyond that"?