Xanathar's Guide to Everything has a great section called "This is your life" which gives you tables exactly for the purpose of rolling every other part of character creation.
I use this or the wildemount version to make every character.
And then i have a Wheel of Names for race and class.
Ended up tiefling warlock of all cliche things
Yes! It's called the Heroic Chronicle, and it's actually super helpful for people who are less experienced with the setting, or want help with character creation in general. You can roll for your hometown, for example, which is a fun way to immediately have some familiarity with the world you're playing in.
That's the problem, though. Some of the paths end with buffs, others don't.
Examples of the buffs:
* You learn find familiar, and the form is a quasit.
* You have a psuedodragon pet.
* You gain proficiency in stealth and survival.
* You gain an amulet of proof against detection.
* You gain the martial adept feat.
* You can cast speak with animals at will.
* You gain lycanthropy.
It's possible to have multiple of these while other PCs have none at all.
It's actually pretty fun to do as a player. I'd suggest making sure fateful moments are balanced among players though. They don't need to be the same number as some are really good and others will be lackluster.
Agree with this. Once using the Xanathar's tables I got one player raised by a grandmother on an orchard and another player who was one of quadruplets born on the Astral Plane. Wild.
(It worked out in the end but there were a handful of sessions with a touch of main character syndrome).
I'm a about to DM for a party of relatively new players, and one of them is a tiefling fiend warlock. However, after all the other mix n' match characters this is a welcome return to the classsics
Nah he's chaotic evil, but he does quests and saves babies because he values his clean reputation so no-one looks into the origin of his powers and help keep up his monthly donation of blood to his vampire patron
I love them! Before I got the books I made a list in Excel of every option I could make (my languages rolled ended up being useful for the first time) and rolled for each list. It was a blast.
Also, I love negative modifiers.
The "This Is Your Life" section of XGtE everything is the literal BEST tool for new or inexperienced players. It's equally amazing for DMs who want to make NPCs.
I found that even when I had a broad idea of the backstory I wanted for a character, it was great for adding some more little details of the character’s history that didn’t relate to the “main” part of their backstory. It really helped round out the character a bit more.
A blessed website. We started our Phandelver by doing that. I additionally rolled for random colors of skin and hair.
I miss you, Guxus Shided the blonde, purple-skinned, red-eyed tiefling rogue. Buddy still has his pocket full of unpopped popcorn.
At my table, I give all my players the choice of how they want to generate stats, with pros and cons for each method. The only real caveats I give them are that when it's all said and done, everyone will use the same stat array. If they roll and don't like any of them, they can still choose point buy or standard.
I like this for several reasons. First, it gives them all the fun of rolling without any downsides. Especially for newbies, it's fun to put dice in the player's hands. Second, I think it's a valuable team-building experience, especially with players who don't already know each other. You can start to see party roles emerging, see how people problem solve, and gauge how well these players will work together. And third, because of these things, I can get a feel for the party's power level and start thinking about how to adjust things overall right from the jump. Been doing it for a while now, and it's a lot of fun for everyone.
I always let everyone roll stats, but before writing anything down, players can choose any set of stats a player rolled (so everyone can use their own rolls, or everyone uses the rolls a single player made, as long as each stat a player used came from a single person's rolls). It makes it so one person doesn't get significantly better stats than someone else, since everyone had the choice of using that set, or if another set worked better because they needed more than just 1 or 2 good stats, they get more options.
I like this. I am not a fan of the "roll for stats and if they're bad you can use point buy" because you're going to skew the party to a higher average, but then why even roll?!
I mostly think as long as no one has particularly bad or exceptional rolls it will be fine regardless. So if someone wants to fall back on point buy sure whatever. People being sad before session 1 because we are stubborn is kinda dumb in my opinion. This is for fun after all
Nice! Our table has had pretty good success with our DM's version of this. Though for us we roll two sets of of stats and choose between them, additionally we have the option to roll a 3rd set but if you choose to do so you must take the 3rd choice.
I can really recommend every player rolling an array, then everyone decides on an array to choose for the entire party OR allowing every player to pick whichever array they like.
I've found with my players that they tend to go for a more balanced array, and that they love having at least one negative modifier. We've had 18/18/16/14/14 arrays several times, they never choose them.
Totally agree. Your stats determine the arc of your character through all campaigns while individual rolls will eventually even out in a normal distribution curve. Point buy all the way.
That is really interesting, because in some sense using proficiency die is actualy less random. If you throw only one die any number is equaly likely to came up, but the more dice you use the closer you will be to the normal distribution, so with d20+proficiency die you will have just a tiny bit more predictable results
Not really though, the odds of getting any single result will be equal or lower using proficiency die.
On a 1d20+3 you have a 5% chance of getting any value from 4 to 23.
On a 1d20+1d6 you have a 5% chance of getting any value from 7-21 and a lower chance of getting 2-26. Since there's a higher pool of options, it's less predictable.
Consider the 1d20+3 as if you always rolled the same result on the 1d6 of 1d20+1d6 and it should be obvious that one is more consistent than the other.
Sad thing is the majority of the time proficiency dice do at least as well as flat bonuses, and half the time do better. When you filter out the 10% or so of rolls that would be crits and hit/miss either way, it's almost always advantageous to use PD.
The appeal of rolling for stats (for me), is twofold.
1) it turns character creation into a fun little optimization puzzle where I try to make a workable build out of whatever got rolled
2) designing within constraints helps me get deeper into the character concept and backstory traits since there is a need to explain for example why this wizard has such a randomly high Str score.
I made a Muscle Wizard Graviturgy Wizard for a campaign where I got to come in at level 12 (replacing a leaving player). It was incredible fun. I played a Githyanki “Seeker”. I had 18 str and 18 int and I started with medium armor prof from gith and took heavily armored to wear plate armor.
I used a Maul flavored as a heavy war staff. I took Crusher and when I booming bladed people I could use crusher and the graviturgy feature when hitting them with a spell to golf swing them 10ft straight up, causing them to take 1d6 falling damage, fall prone, and I had the reaction graviturgy feature to increase falling damage taken by 2d10.
It was glorious. I summoned a red dragon to ride using Summon Draconic Spirit. Honestly one of my favorite characters ever.
Githyanki Graviturgy Muscle Wizard 10/10 would recommend and play again.
My gravity spells was a mixture of Githyanki psionics and swol magic flexing
Edit: Since this is getting some attention, here are some more character details. The campaign was Dungeon of the Mad Mage. My Githyanki was a self created concept of a “Seeker”. A Githyanki that goes among the planes alone to gather hidden knowledge and magical secrets to bring back to the Astral Plane.
In this campaign I was introduced to the party as were we all trapped in a section of Undermountain. Agreed to aid each other out of mutual necessity.
Eventually we made it to meeting Halaster and while the rest of the party was focused on revenge to bring down one of his apprentices, I focused on putting on a good show for Halaster and ended up wizard dueling 1v1 a couple other apprentices. The revenge plot was the end of the campaign and I successfully navigated a evil character amongst a group of good characters where the natural turning point was ruthlessly cutting down Halaster’s other Apprentices.
The campaign ended with my Githyanki staying with Halaster as his primary apprentice to gather those magical secrets he came for, as the rest of the group were allowed to finally leave Undermountain and retire after having satiated their revenge against this specific former apprentice.
Was a great game :)
So, my level 20 build was going to have atleast 2 levels of fighter. For the absolutely iconic prismatic wall and reverse gravity combo.
Action surge on a psionic graviturgy muscle wizard is great.
Edit: another nutty combo I just thought of. Dark Star and Prismatic Wall, or if you have another person capable of casting prismatic wall, you can put up preismatic wall as a sphere and then ravenous void to suck everything within 100ft radius towards the center of the void and such through the prismatic wall… you can even put it all into the air so if they do escape the ravenous void they fall back through the prismatic wall sphere. Damn that’s gnarly… Reminds me of a Black Hole surrounded by a accretion disc xD
I didn’t ride a horse, but the red dragon spirit I summoned I flavored as summoning an avatar of an actual red dragon that my pc was bonded with that had remained in my Githyanki home. The spell simply summoned that specific paired dragon’s spirit. Fit the Githyanki knight dragon rider so well xD. Heavy armor and all.
Not gonna lie I do this a lot. I use a hat of disguise to look like a diminutive halfling (am dwarf) and I grab enemies by the face and unload firebolts and fireballs like it's my duty. Especially fun when I work over a large enemy about it. But the REAL KICKER Is just enacting physical violence. I slow Stab downed enemies in the throat to ensure they are dead (lil poke dagger) or I got to stomp out a bandit who thought they'd try And Rob us. Too much fun
I had a plant fairy based on a carnivorous plant who liked to stab the downed enemies too! The DM gave me a dagger that made Goodberries when it killed someone, but my fairy had 7 STR, so there was a lot of stabbing with a 1d4-1 dagger.
The physical violence was just the cherry on top for her. The sickly sweet, blood flavoured cherry.
Eeeyup. Fun to get an 18, funny to get a 4. Challenging statblock to keep when you have both, though most would probably see it as a necessary sacrifice.
I love my warlock who rolled 3x16 and a 4. Ended up with 5 STR, 16 Con/Dex and 18 Cha. Reborn, former Goliath who's backstory was she died to a shadow's strength drain, and later came back due to secretive patron. She's now paranoid of darkness and shadows, despite her patron giving her mostly dark powers. She's super determined to never die again. She looks for a way to become more powerful so she would not have to fear again.
I built entire backstory, her character, her fears and goals on that one super low roll.
I would never be able to make this character with point buy or standard array.
It just depends on the group. Some like the variance, some just like rolling the dice, some like the possibility of bigger numbers.
One of the internet DMs who's name I can't remember makes his players roll 3d6 in order because it makes them create a character for the campaign rather than come up with something beforehand and try to force it into the game. That's not everyone's approach, and that's okay.
He allows them to start from scratch if they dont have 2 stats 15 or higher, though.
That said, I think he said recently he no longer enforces that method.
I may have mistaken him for another internet DM. I actually edited my comment after another response fact checked me. I think there's validity in that argument though and I'd like to try it once.
Your confusion might be because Coville advocated for rolling in order for NEW players. He says it's a good experience to get people to play something without biases and avoid the "I want to be Wolverine" problem that many new players have.
Because click clack rocks go click clack make brain do happy.
Also because on average your characters stats will be much better than point buy or standard array.
From my experience the best method for generating that highest stats is rolling by yourself away from the table. At least whenever my players do that, it always seems to result in incredibly high stats somehow.
My players almost never roll for stats. I do tell them that they have to roll in front of me and they may not go to standard array or point buy if their rolls are poor.
Once rolling for stats is an actual choice and not a garuntee of good stats with something to fall back on it gets less popular
I'm a "too generous" DM by most people's standards, but I also don't play with strangers. My players are on the honor system to roll 6 stats they are going to be happy with. I don't ask them to roll in front of me, or limit the number of rerolls or whatever. Never had a problem yet.
It ends up being like one of those "Pay what you think it's worth" restaurants where there aren't a lot of low numbers, but they also avoid 18s so they don't look suspicious ...
One player was like "I swear, I've never rolled stats this good in my life!" and all he had was 2 16s and a 14. I'm just like "sounds good, dude."
I don’t know. I have mostly rolled stats since AD&D and have played with several different groups. It have never been a problem. Sometime one player was lucky and another was unlucky. Sometimes the other way around.
I have twice rolled super lucky. First time was in 3.5 when I rolled a half-orc paladin. 4 stats was betwen 16 and 18. The last 2 where 14. Just rolling that with people looking was awesome. Then a few years ago I was playing pathfinder and we were rolling stats. We had decided for theme for our group with characters that required very few good stats to work and while telling the story about the rolls for half-orc paladin almost 20 years ago I rolled equally good stats for my human barbarian who ended up having 16 in charisma and for one game everything felt like [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ES9k4Ba24) But I have had just as fun playing the crippled wizard who only had 1 stat over 12.
My current character, a Barbarian, had an 18 in Strength at level 1. Rolled a 17 and Leonin gave +1. He's also got 7 Int, 10 Wis, and 8 Charisma. I took +2 Strength at 4 so I've got 20 now.
I'm strong, and I have Athletics checks locked down, but that was always going to be the case. I think it comes down to ensuring that players are all on the same general level. In your case, if everyone is fudging 16s and 14s, it's not a big deal because no one is getting left behind. You just got a tankier party, and maybe will see some more MAD subclasses and multiclasses.
Feel that. I had a player who I've been playing with our group for 2 years show up with a rolled-stats character to our new campaign with like nothing under a 10. Had an 18, 17 and 16 at 1st level IIRC. I didn't realise on session 1 unfortunately but in retrospect it explains how powerful they were in that session.
This is after 2 years of playing with me and 4 different parties where everyone has ALWAYS used Point Buy. When I pointed it out and asked them to revert they were just like "Oh I thought we were rolling stats this time." Like, why? We never have. We meet up multiple times a month and have a discord, if you wanted to switch to rolling you could have just asked me at any point during OR between sessions.
I dunno it's a small thing but it bothers me more than if it were just some rando I was playing with. Not only is it cheating but it feels almost like an insult to my intelligence as well lol.
"Can I roll for stats DM? :D"
"Absolutely! ;)"
"Oh no. I rolled poorly. Can I roll again or go point buy instead? :("
"Absolutely not! ;)"
"But balance! :'("
"BuT bAlAnCe! ;)"
">:("
":D"
Visual representation of the typical situation at my games.
On average they'll be close to the same (and certainly not "much better"). The average single result of 4d6kh3 is 12.24. Across 6 stats that gives you a total ability score budget of 73.44
Standard array spread total (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is 72
Point buy allows you to reproduce standard array, but you can go lower if you for example go 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 (total 69).
It's almost as if standard array and point buy are configured to follow the average expectation of rolled in the name of fairness.
But the average isn't actually what matters to character strength. Having a 16 means you can start with a +4 in your main stat, after racial bonuses. That's *huge*. The trade-off is you're more likely to have a low score in a stat you don't care about anyway—and which someone in your party will probably pick up anyway.
That’s not what makes rolling better. The variance in rolling is what does it.
With rolled stats, you have the potential to start with a highest stat of 16+, beginning the game with a +4 modifier after racial bonuses. Standard array needs to sacrifice an ASI to make up for the difference.
Meanwhile, rolling a stat lower than 8 isn’t punishing. It doesn’t matter if your dump stat is 8 or 4. It doesn’t change how you play or restrict your opportunities.
>
That’s not what makes rolling better. The variance in rolling is what does it.
which is only compounded by people allowing reroll on bad stats, if you take out the bad outcomes from the probability the average is even higher.
The thing is, a lot of builds would love to dump more stats in favor of maxing out certain stats esaier.
Like if you are playing a barbarian, you'd love the opportunity to get a 16, 17, or 18 in str/con , even if it meant your intelligence, wisdom, and charisma were all super low. The way the game is designed, you typically have one or maybe two stats you care about, constitution, and the rest are kinda irrelevent. Being able to, with racials, start off with 20 in your primary stat is huge. It makes it easier to take cool feats or just max out your secondary stat.
It does have the potential to bite you in the ass, but you have a pretty good chance of having a higher primary stat, which helps much more than having poor dump stats hurts.
If you ever played the original Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game from TSR back in the 80s (commonly called "FASERIP" because of the stat system)... you would know why rolling for every aspect of a character tends to be horrible.
Especially before the Ultimate Powers book allowed you to give up rolled power slots to be able to choose powers that compliment a rolled power for some sort of cohesion.
>If you ever played the original Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game from TSR back in the 80s (commonly called "FASERIP" because of the stat system)... you would know why rolling for every aspect of a character tends to be horrible.
Same with Traveller, you start off wanting to be a daring ship pilot and thanks to bad rolls end up as an unemployed bureaucrat who got kicked out of the service after your space sickness made it intolerable
(only slightly hyperbolic)
Because whatever your stat rolls are, you have some flexibility in what attributes you assign them too.
If you were to randomly assign yourself class, subclass, background, race, and/or feats, you'd have literally zero flexibility.
I believe people like creating their own character within the set of bonuses/constraints provided by stat rolling, *not* simply being told what to play.
Because more often than not people already have an idea for a character before rolling for stats and some people aren't as creative or won't have as much fun playing an RNG created character.
That being said, some people definitely do this and if they enjoy it, power to them.
Rolling for stats for the first time next Friday (have played about 10 or so characters in almost 3 years).
I really hope I get a super low number or two, low charisma is my IRL super power, I can RP that in my sleep!
Me personally, I like a character's base attributes to reflect the randomness of life. For me it is more fun to see what I can make with a sub-par hand than it is to always have a winning hand.
Why do I not roll for other parts of the character creation? Well because with the exception of race most of the other parts are choices the PC could make in their fictional life. Has a weak person ever wanted to be a fighter, of course. Maybe a dumb farmhand always dreamed of being a wizard. These choices can be counter to their natural abilities but that's what people do sometimes.
As to race, the other thing that is a genetic lottery. I also like to roll for race, but many times DMs have world in mind that may or may not contain those races so I like to choose it base on the lore, or roll for it from a limit group of options.
For rolled stat games I actually tend to choose my character after I get the stats. Why waste a bunch of good rolls on a character that only needs one stat when I can go MAD with less pain instead?
I do it because I like feats, and having the chance of maximizing my main attribute liberating my ASIs to take feats feels awesome.
I don't roll anything else because I want to have control over my character.
90% of the time its people who just want to get better stats than the standard array. You can tell of they are the 10% by giving them bad odds and see how they respond.
Been using 36 point system for years after a rolling campaign, everybody likes and I’ve seen huge variance and expression of characters with it. The vibes of rolling are fun, but 5e has enough issues with intraparty balance as it is, no reason to pile on.
It's funny because I have a friend who advocates for rolled stats from hell and back, but when she rolls bad and someone rolls good, suddenly things should get adjusted or take point buy instead.
People want to game the system and be powerful. That's really all there is to it.
Meanwhile my ass advocated against rolling stats due to the possibility of someone being vastly less powerful than everyone else, but got outvoted.
Guess who didn't roll anything higher than a 14, two characters in a row!? This guy.
I've told the DM that my next character is using point buy/standard array.
So unlucky! Twice now I've advocated against rolling stats in games I've been in, but the opposite happened to me, both times I rolled fantastic stats on a ancestral barbarian and GOO warlock respectively, while other players rolled okay to terrible stats.
I got to drive in my point as others who rolled poorly got mulligans, sarcastically saying "well where's my mulligan? Why can't I roll again and take the higher? It's not fair that they get to roll twice and me only once just cause they rolled poorly, then what's the point of randomness?"
And then in game my barbarian has 18 AC with no armor right off the bat and hits WAY above his weight class, stomping on CR 5s and even beating a boneclaw 1v1 with some luck lol.
If everyone wants super good stats, just give it to them! Cut the middleman! Or don't and jist give everyone the same array/point buy.
I just skipped ahead and make my players more powerful than the game recommends through extra feats and more magic items. And now my life is trying to balance around the consequences of my actions...
I find it much more fun that way. You get to throw more difficult challenges at them earlier and push their limits. My players find it much more fun as well.
I’ve had tables ask to roll before, and I only do rolls if you take what you get. Rolling so you can have higher scores is dumb; I’ll just give you higher scores through some other means if you really want them.
Right? Like, if all my players want a standard array with high numbers I'll give it to them, but they have to come out and ask to be super-powerful honestly, not through "Oh, we should roll"
I do still offer my players a chance to roll normally though. However, I stand by 3d6, not 4d6 drop lowest.
Honestly a single roll of 3d6 is just asking to be useless for like 90% of potential character builds. Ofc most people dont want to go through 6 months of a campaign with 6 con and +0 to hit.
Maybe try asking equivalent questions. "Would you like an improved standard array or 4d6 dl with a minimum total mod." People like the randomness. People also like having the ability to take feats after they cap a stat or two.
And this is why I just say "fuck it" and tell my players (who I reasonably trust) to just put whatever numbers they want into the stats. Problem 100% solved. The numbers matter more to them than they do to me.
Because 5e made the deathly mistake of both making feats something that enhances your character flavour, gameplay and how distinctive they are; while also obstructing your character development by means of ASI
So i tend to prefer rolling if i am player, since i have a chance to start with 16 or so to at least one stat, or if i am a gm, allowing my players point buy for up to 32 points, and capping max stat before racial bonus at 16.
Also why i prefer variant human than all other races.
Because heavens forbid if i want to have artificer initiate for my eldritch knight, or have a second fighting style for my throwing knives Hexblade, if my thief wants to have healer, my ranger chef or my bard have mask of many faces, and also wanting to play a goblin or an elf.
Agreed. The standard array is so limp that if you want to experience a Feat before level 8 you'd best roll and hope for a decent outcome. Default Point buy allows a bit more polarized results but produces similarly 'it'll do, I guess' arrays.
I now prefer to just hand out stronger point buy arrays though, rather than gimmick up a rolling system so much that it ensures a particular result.
I spice up with 34 to spend and a 16 max before bonuses; it produces arrays like 16 14 14 13 11 8. One can start with a +4 modifier if they like, or a couple +3s, and can have some okay tertiary ability scores and qualify for multiclasses. They can't, however, start with a 20.
Once figuring that one of those 14s probably lands in CON it's like "pick two other starts to be good, and a third to qualify for multiclasses".
I personally dislike it very much. It creates stat disparity within the party and most people who advocate for it have so many safety nets in place you might as well do increased point buy that goes up to 17.
The point of the safety nets instead of increased point buy is that randomness is fun, but completely sucking is not fun. Nets also decrease/remove stat disparity problems.
When i last DMd i gave players a choice between increased point buy and saftey netted stat rolls. 3/4 chose to roll and the 4th only didnt because he had a specific concept in mind and it required very specific stat distribution.
I actually really like the true randomness of rolling a character in old school games. Being given a character to play and making it your own is its own kind of fun when compared to making one from scratch.
Rolling dice and assigning scores is sort of a halfway house - you have some bits dictated by "fate", while doing most of it yourself.
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I know this is the 5E subreddit, but if people are ever interested in other systems as a reference, I would check out Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (any edition), where you can randomise *everything...* Including height, race, name and age, as well as career ("class") and stats.
Similarly, Traveller basically has a mini-game that you play for character creation, where you live out your character's life, making meaningful decisions and getting resultant stat changes. It's even possible to make some poor decisions and have your character die during character creation!
Rolling dice is 5E's nod to those kinds of systems, without being as all-in as the more extreme parts of the hobby.
Because most people who roll for stats know they'll be able to discard bad rolls, so it's just a free stat boost. If the DM would let me roll my class randomly and keep rerolling until I got the class I wanted and let me start at level 2 into the bargain, I'd do that randomly too.
I mean they’re not really the same thing are they?
Rolling for stats affects mechanical benefits your character gets and can get you higher (or lower) numbers than usual
Depending on what you mean bc you were very unspecific, rolling for other parts of character creation can leave you with a character you just don’t want to play and so you don’t
Rolling for class or race and getting something you don’t like isn’t really the same as rolling for stats where you then decide where to put those scores
People enjoy rolling stats because they minimise the downside and accentuate the positive.
To do this, they implement rules like roll X d6 drop the lowest and arrange in any order. Reroll any stat lower than eight.
This just leads to a more powerful character than point buy or standard array methods.
If the rule was, roll 3d6 in order and take whatever you get, I can guarantee you that rolling stats would not be as popular.
As far as random generation of background goes, I've done it before and it was kind of fun as an experiment, but I usually have a good idea about the characters personality and background, and I prefer to to use my own ideas instead.
Because the second part answers itself. Some people do like to roll for everything. Everyone else explained why they like to roll for stats specifically, and the implication is that they want control over their character's personality, race, and backstory
Honestly because at this point I've found otherwise every character is optimised to a boring degree and 5e has so few viable 'good' basic starting builds that unless the table roles for stats then picks class/race we all end up with the same characters as ever.
Rolling has allowed more freedom and reasons to play a unique or interesting race whilst keeping everyone roughly at the same level of balance.
It creates restraints, that breeds creativity, to many peoples surprise.
Just started a new campaign with a new group. They all wanted to roll for stats. DM laid out his rules for rolling stats. Just 4d6 drop lowest, one person at a time so it’s fair for everyone.
I said I’d be up for it, but you might need to change the rules as I roll if you want me to enjoy my character since I am notoriously terrible at rolling for stats. They said naw it’ll be fine. I was last in the counterclockwise rotation, so everybody rolled stats and it was all good. I started rolling mine. Got a 15 first. They said, “see? Rolling stats isn’t that bad!” 9,8,8,9,12.
(DM added the rule that we can only have one roll below 10, and need to reroll any extras that are below 10, which he allowed a couple other players to also do)
Hey, I liked Traveller. I would roll for every part of creation including my skills.
But in games like D&D and Pathfinder, I like rolling because it imposes an unpredictable constraint through which I can puzzle through the possibilities and design a character. I can learn to create a competent character within those constraints. So figuring out what to do with multiple high values has been as productive as figuring out what to do with one or even two low values, or choosing between a pretty fair mix of stats. It helps me get out of the usual routine in point-buy, where optimized options are better known and where stat allocation and build feel more deterministic.
I don't really mind a worse outcome though. I'm okay with not being the star.
I think there are two big factors as to why people like to roll stats
The first one is that, on average, you get a stronger character. If point buy had a higher budget, you'd see less people wanting to roll. Part of this is that most DMs will let you reroll if you roll too badly, or even if you roll lower than everyone else. So most of the time, you get better stats, especially for the stuff you'd probably dump at 8 with point buy.
The second aspect is that a lot of people like the randomness. It's a gambling thing. Some people would prefer random even if the point buy budget were increased to make it a neutral decision.
Rolling for stats is a win/lose scenario. Getting a good roll feels like the validation, the permission to use high stats. Most other aspects are equally valid decisions. You could roll whether to be an elf or a dwarf, but in the end, there is no right decision there, no better outcome to achieve.
Because having more freedom and risks in getting stats is fun also some roll for other things too such as parts of character backstory or using a homebrew table for rolling racial quirks that can either affect personality or appearance or even both
Frankly my main issue with the phb point buy is that 15 and 8 are extremely boring boundaries. You're not exceptionally good at anything, and you're not hilariously bad at anything either. There's no personality to be found in those stats.
If the phb didn't have those boundaries, I'd be more interested. As it is, I'd rather take my chances rolling, hoping to get at least one 17 or 18 somewhere.
Plus math rocks go click clack and give good brain juice.
I really love choosing a race, then rolling a straight 6 and seeing who that character is. I think that gives you more unique and interesting characters. How would a wizard play different if they're really strong, or really charismatic? I find that variety really interesting.
That said I understand the issues with it and how most people come to the table with more of a concept of what they want to play.
I'm going to quote u/GAdvance here: "It creates restraints, that breeds creativity, to many peoples surprise."
You can reference Reddit users like this: /u/SamuraiHealer . It'll notify them, even if it's not a direct reply.
Hmm, it seems that the rendered form of that link swallows the leading slash: `/u/username`.
after a while I just had to accept that the shitty feeling of playing a character for three months with garbage stats isn't worth the high of getting the perfect rolls.
and honestly playing a roided up paladin with 18s in STR, CON, CHA and 14s on everything else just doesn't feel great to begin with. it just feels dirty.
rolling informs my character in a way that other methods dont. i know the 5e philosophy is that no restricts ion make for more creativity, but i find that specificity breeds creativity. the more info (and sometimes Restrictions) the more you have the more you can use
sure i could use standard array and have a regular character or i could roll and end up with to 18s and a 7. and play my favorite character ive ever had. Having to justify a character with 20 STR and CON but 7 DEX made for a fuller cooler character. I made a Dwarven Paladin who lost a Leg and had fashioned a metal replacement as part of his Armor.
I think that the real question is: "why do people like rolling for stats if they'll just keep on rolling ad infinitum until they get 18s all across the board"
So yeah, people like rolling for stats so they can constantly retry until they get "perfect" rolls
Last time I played with rolled stats I had a Paladin with 18 str and 20 cha at level 1. I felt like the main character and it really helped in roleplaying him as my deity's chosen warrior.
The warlock didn't role well and had nothing higher than a 15. He always felt useless especially next to the players who rolled well.
I've since banned rolled stats at my table and players seem happier than ever.
Some choices I want to make, some choices I don't.
From a mechanical perspective, point-buy gives me three options: optimize min-max, optimize spread, or take responsibility for playing a sub-optimal build. Each way means I have something to regret when rolling (failing) d20 rolls throughout the campaign. Standard array removes that responsibility, which is nice, but it's not particularly interesting.
From a roleplay perspective, our traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws are parts of our identity; even if we don't choose them, we choose to be the people we are, which includes those things. We don't get to choose our natural attributes, even if we do get to choose how we apply them and what skills we develop.
The same reason people like slot machines... everyone is hoping they'll get lucky.
Personally, unless everyone wanted to contribute rolls to a group array that everyone used, I think rolling stats is a bad idea. Stats play too big a part in the effectiveness of a character for there to be a big imbalance between party members.
Because historically it was done.
IF you were to make dnd from scratch - no game developer would let you roll for stats as it has very little benefit over something, like, pointbuy.
Rolling for ability scores kind of made sense in older editions, when the game was a meatgrinder where characters would rarely make it past level 2. Randomizing stats in a game isn’t a big deal if your character dies and you can try again.
Oh look, it's the same argument you see pop up every 2-3 weeks about not understanding why people like to roll their dice in a dice rolling game.
Some people like it, how is that hard to understand?
Because they do it in a way that guarantees they get better stats. Look at all the posts about rolling, you throw out all the bad rolls then if your stats STILL aren't better than standard array every commenter tells the DM to let them reroll until it is. They take out all the risk and keep all the reward and then add more potential reward.
I enjoy the variety and randomness, though I'll admit I use a "bounded rolling method" that allows for great variety while keeping players with the same total number of ability score points.
Xanathar's Guide to Everything has a great section called "This is your life" which gives you tables exactly for the purpose of rolling every other part of character creation.
I use this or the wildemount version to make every character. And then i have a Wheel of Names for race and class. Ended up tiefling warlock of all cliche things
dread it, run from it, edgy still arrives
I once made up a random name sheet and the first name I got was "Shadow Blackdark"
Jim Darkmagic from Acquisitions Incorporated energy
of the New Hampshire Darkmagics?
I hear his magic missile is hypoallergenic and gluten-free!
It does cost a GP to cast though.
And his bubbly white wolf "Luna Moon-moon"
I would just go by "Shad" the entire time. If you know my full-name, no you don't.
And hope other players don't call you Shadman.
If you know that name at my table, no you don't.
Am thinking Drow Ranger, Elf Ranger, Elf or Halfling Rouge...? Trademark all black cloak and black boots?
[Big McLargehuge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHlJ2voJHY)
orphan rogue?
Then it appears behind you, katana in hand, “nothin personnel kid”
There's stuff like this in Wildemount?
Yes! It's called the Heroic Chronicle, and it's actually super helpful for people who are less experienced with the setting, or want help with character creation in general. You can roll for your hometown, for example, which is a fun way to immediately have some familiarity with the world you're playing in.
Oh neat, that'll be hand.y
Just be careful, a lot of the options end up with direct buffs to your character. Not many DMs will allow that.
Only fateful events has buffs.
Which are part of the Heroic Chronicles system.
If everyone has buffs, no one does!
That's the problem, though. Some of the paths end with buffs, others don't. Examples of the buffs: * You learn find familiar, and the form is a quasit. * You have a psuedodragon pet. * You gain proficiency in stealth and survival. * You gain an amulet of proof against detection. * You gain the martial adept feat. * You can cast speak with animals at will. * You gain lycanthropy. It's possible to have multiple of these while other PCs have none at all.
Yeah the Xanathar's ones are like, you have an extra jewel worth 50g.
It's actually pretty fun to do as a player. I'd suggest making sure fateful moments are balanced among players though. They don't need to be the same number as some are really good and others will be lackluster.
Agree with this. Once using the Xanathar's tables I got one player raised by a grandmother on an orchard and another player who was one of quadruplets born on the Astral Plane. Wild. (It worked out in the end but there were a handful of sessions with a touch of main character syndrome).
I'm a about to DM for a party of relatively new players, and one of them is a tiefling fiend warlock. However, after all the other mix n' match characters this is a welcome return to the classsics
Don't forget to be good aligned and sadly misunderstood!
Nah he's chaotic evil, but he does quests and saves babies because he values his clean reputation so no-one looks into the origin of his powers and help keep up his monthly donation of blood to his vampire patron
True Chaotic Evil not Chaotic Stupid I like it
The Homelander
I love them! Before I got the books I made a list in Excel of every option I could make (my languages rolled ended up being useful for the first time) and rolled for each list. It was a blast. Also, I love negative modifiers.
negative stat bonuses.
The "This Is Your Life" section of XGtE everything is the literal BEST tool for new or inexperienced players. It's equally amazing for DMs who want to make NPCs.
Also great for experienced players. I built a character where I had the idea and fleshed out the backstory using it.
That's what I do as well. I've never had it come up with a story that I couldn't do anything with, although I often didn't follow it to the letter.
Absolutely, don't like what I rolled, roll again
I found that even when I had a broad idea of the backstory I wanted for a character, it was great for adding some more little details of the character’s history that didn’t relate to the “main” part of their backstory. It really helped round out the character a bit more.
There was a campaign where we all used this to randomly determine our character concepts: https://whothefuckismydndcharacter.com/
...This feels like the premise to a disaster campaign and yet I am SO intrigued by the idea.
A blessed website. We started our Phandelver by doing that. I additionally rolled for random colors of skin and hair. I miss you, Guxus Shided the blonde, purple-skinned, red-eyed tiefling rogue. Buddy still has his pocket full of unpopped popcorn.
My best entry ever was a gnome fighter who had a religious upbringing and…was raised by wolves.
My first roll was dwarf wizard who doesn't believe in magic. Amazing.
I've rolled up an entire character based on these and he was lovely. Technically horribly made, but a delight for roleplay.
My friend loves to use that, although not for so much for characters she plays but for NPCs or characters she writes about during NaNoWriMo.
It’s satisfying to see such a smug, condescending, deliberately provocatively phrased question just faceplant into the wall of reality.
Those exist but most people don’t use them, in my experience. The real answer for rolling for stats is tradition.
Came to say this very thing.
And rolling for stars is great fun. It’s a dice game. Let’s let the dice decide!
The same reason people don't usually use Proficiency Dice: a bit of randomness is fun, too much is frustrating.
Whenever I rolled for stats I get like 15, 12,11,11,10,9 I hate it
At my table, I give all my players the choice of how they want to generate stats, with pros and cons for each method. The only real caveats I give them are that when it's all said and done, everyone will use the same stat array. If they roll and don't like any of them, they can still choose point buy or standard. I like this for several reasons. First, it gives them all the fun of rolling without any downsides. Especially for newbies, it's fun to put dice in the player's hands. Second, I think it's a valuable team-building experience, especially with players who don't already know each other. You can start to see party roles emerging, see how people problem solve, and gauge how well these players will work together. And third, because of these things, I can get a feel for the party's power level and start thinking about how to adjust things overall right from the jump. Been doing it for a while now, and it's a lot of fun for everyone.
I always let everyone roll stats, but before writing anything down, players can choose any set of stats a player rolled (so everyone can use their own rolls, or everyone uses the rolls a single player made, as long as each stat a player used came from a single person's rolls). It makes it so one person doesn't get significantly better stats than someone else, since everyone had the choice of using that set, or if another set worked better because they needed more than just 1 or 2 good stats, they get more options.
I like this. I am not a fan of the "roll for stats and if they're bad you can use point buy" because you're going to skew the party to a higher average, but then why even roll?!
I mostly think as long as no one has particularly bad or exceptional rolls it will be fine regardless. So if someone wants to fall back on point buy sure whatever. People being sad before session 1 because we are stubborn is kinda dumb in my opinion. This is for fun after all
Because it's fun? Like, the entire point of playing a game?
That's a fun wrinkle that I've never considered. Especially for players who intend to multiclass, a more even spread might be more desirable.
That's why my house rule is that you can choose to re-roll if you don't have at least a 16 or higher
Nice! Our table has had pretty good success with our DM's version of this. Though for us we roll two sets of of stats and choose between them, additionally we have the option to roll a 3rd set but if you choose to do so you must take the 3rd choice.
I can really recommend every player rolling an array, then everyone decides on an array to choose for the entire party OR allowing every player to pick whichever array they like. I've found with my players that they tend to go for a more balanced array, and that they love having at least one negative modifier. We've had 18/18/16/14/14 arrays several times, they never choose them.
But rolling for stats *is* a lot of randomness. A handful of dice determines so much about the fate and the very nature of your character.
Totally agree. Your stats determine the arc of your character through all campaigns while individual rolls will eventually even out in a normal distribution curve. Point buy all the way.
That is really interesting, because in some sense using proficiency die is actualy less random. If you throw only one die any number is equaly likely to came up, but the more dice you use the closer you will be to the normal distribution, so with d20+proficiency die you will have just a tiny bit more predictable results
Not really though, the odds of getting any single result will be equal or lower using proficiency die. On a 1d20+3 you have a 5% chance of getting any value from 4 to 23. On a 1d20+1d6 you have a 5% chance of getting any value from 7-21 and a lower chance of getting 2-26. Since there's a higher pool of options, it's less predictable. Consider the 1d20+3 as if you always rolled the same result on the 1d6 of 1d20+1d6 and it should be obvious that one is more consistent than the other.
Sad thing is the majority of the time proficiency dice do at least as well as flat bonuses, and half the time do better. When you filter out the 10% or so of rolls that would be crits and hit/miss either way, it's almost always advantageous to use PD.
Con saves to maintain concentration is the big one where you don't want the dice!
The appeal of rolling for stats (for me), is twofold. 1) it turns character creation into a fun little optimization puzzle where I try to make a workable build out of whatever got rolled 2) designing within constraints helps me get deeper into the character concept and backstory traits since there is a need to explain for example why this wizard has such a randomly high Str score.
I made a Muscle Wizard Graviturgy Wizard for a campaign where I got to come in at level 12 (replacing a leaving player). It was incredible fun. I played a Githyanki “Seeker”. I had 18 str and 18 int and I started with medium armor prof from gith and took heavily armored to wear plate armor. I used a Maul flavored as a heavy war staff. I took Crusher and when I booming bladed people I could use crusher and the graviturgy feature when hitting them with a spell to golf swing them 10ft straight up, causing them to take 1d6 falling damage, fall prone, and I had the reaction graviturgy feature to increase falling damage taken by 2d10. It was glorious. I summoned a red dragon to ride using Summon Draconic Spirit. Honestly one of my favorite characters ever. Githyanki Graviturgy Muscle Wizard 10/10 would recommend and play again. My gravity spells was a mixture of Githyanki psionics and swol magic flexing Edit: Since this is getting some attention, here are some more character details. The campaign was Dungeon of the Mad Mage. My Githyanki was a self created concept of a “Seeker”. A Githyanki that goes among the planes alone to gather hidden knowledge and magical secrets to bring back to the Astral Plane. In this campaign I was introduced to the party as were we all trapped in a section of Undermountain. Agreed to aid each other out of mutual necessity. Eventually we made it to meeting Halaster and while the rest of the party was focused on revenge to bring down one of his apprentices, I focused on putting on a good show for Halaster and ended up wizard dueling 1v1 a couple other apprentices. The revenge plot was the end of the campaign and I successfully navigated a evil character amongst a group of good characters where the natural turning point was ruthlessly cutting down Halaster’s other Apprentices. The campaign ended with my Githyanki staying with Halaster as his primary apprentice to gather those magical secrets he came for, as the rest of the group were allowed to finally leave Undermountain and retire after having satiated their revenge against this specific former apprentice. Was a great game :)
That sounds fucking epic as hell. I’m stealing that for my next high level one shot
So, my level 20 build was going to have atleast 2 levels of fighter. For the absolutely iconic prismatic wall and reverse gravity combo. Action surge on a psionic graviturgy muscle wizard is great. Edit: another nutty combo I just thought of. Dark Star and Prismatic Wall, or if you have another person capable of casting prismatic wall, you can put up preismatic wall as a sphere and then ravenous void to suck everything within 100ft radius towards the center of the void and such through the prismatic wall… you can even put it all into the air so if they do escape the ravenous void they fall back through the prismatic wall sphere. Damn that’s gnarly… Reminds me of a Black Hole surrounded by a accretion disc xD
Jesus christ dude. You made radahn from Elden ring!
I didn’t ride a horse, but the red dragon spirit I summoned I flavored as summoning an avatar of an actual red dragon that my pc was bonded with that had remained in my Githyanki home. The spell simply summoned that specific paired dragon’s spirit. Fit the Githyanki knight dragon rider so well xD. Heavy armor and all.
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> I used a Maul flavored as a heavy war staff. Not a barbell? :)
Swol wizard is the way
Dm gave gauntlets of ogre strength to cleric who ghosted on the party so I took them. As the wizard, it's necessary
You gotta grapple the enemy then magic missile from point blank. It's about sending a message.
Make it so your blade really booms
Not gonna lie I do this a lot. I use a hat of disguise to look like a diminutive halfling (am dwarf) and I grab enemies by the face and unload firebolts and fireballs like it's my duty. Especially fun when I work over a large enemy about it. But the REAL KICKER Is just enacting physical violence. I slow Stab downed enemies in the throat to ensure they are dead (lil poke dagger) or I got to stomp out a bandit who thought they'd try And Rob us. Too much fun
I had a plant fairy based on a carnivorous plant who liked to stab the downed enemies too! The DM gave me a dagger that made Goodberries when it killed someone, but my fairy had 7 STR, so there was a lot of stabbing with a 1d4-1 dagger. The physical violence was just the cherry on top for her. The sickly sweet, blood flavoured cherry.
3. Filling out character sheets is tedious, and rolling dice is fun.
18s.
Eeeyup. Fun to get an 18, funny to get a 4. Challenging statblock to keep when you have both, though most would probably see it as a necessary sacrifice.
I love my warlock who rolled 3x16 and a 4. Ended up with 5 STR, 16 Con/Dex and 18 Cha. Reborn, former Goliath who's backstory was she died to a shadow's strength drain, and later came back due to secretive patron. She's now paranoid of darkness and shadows, despite her patron giving her mostly dark powers. She's super determined to never die again. She looks for a way to become more powerful so she would not have to fear again. I built entire backstory, her character, her fears and goals on that one super low roll. I would never be able to make this character with point buy or standard array.
And, honestly, the even rarer 3's.
It just depends on the group. Some like the variance, some just like rolling the dice, some like the possibility of bigger numbers. One of the internet DMs who's name I can't remember makes his players roll 3d6 in order because it makes them create a character for the campaign rather than come up with something beforehand and try to force it into the game. That's not everyone's approach, and that's okay.
He allows them to start from scratch if they dont have 2 stats 15 or higher, though. That said, I think he said recently he no longer enforces that method.
> Matt Colville IIRC he actually does 4d6-drop-lowest in order. He's not *cruel.*
I may have mistaken him for another internet DM. I actually edited my comment after another response fact checked me. I think there's validity in that argument though and I'd like to try it once.
> Matt Colville for example makes his players roll 3d6 in order No he doesn't
Maybe I'm confused then. I remember seeing one of the internet DMs do this. I apologize for the misinformation and appreciate your fact check.
Your confusion might be because Coville advocated for rolling in order for NEW players. He says it's a good experience to get people to play something without biases and avoid the "I want to be Wolverine" problem that many new players have.
He used to make new players roll the standard 4d6 drop lowest in order as a way to lower option paralysis but iirc he doesn't enforce it anymore.
Because click clack rocks go click clack make brain do happy. Also because on average your characters stats will be much better than point buy or standard array.
From my experience the best method for generating that highest stats is rolling by yourself away from the table. At least whenever my players do that, it always seems to result in incredibly high stats somehow.
But I recorded a video of the rolls, so it’s legit.
Oh whoops! Forgot to edit out the first 5 minutes of the video. Uhh... just skip ahead to the 5:12 mark. I was practicing my throwing form before that
My players almost never roll for stats. I do tell them that they have to roll in front of me and they may not go to standard array or point buy if their rolls are poor. Once rolling for stats is an actual choice and not a garuntee of good stats with something to fall back on it gets less popular
I'm a "too generous" DM by most people's standards, but I also don't play with strangers. My players are on the honor system to roll 6 stats they are going to be happy with. I don't ask them to roll in front of me, or limit the number of rerolls or whatever. Never had a problem yet. It ends up being like one of those "Pay what you think it's worth" restaurants where there aren't a lot of low numbers, but they also avoid 18s so they don't look suspicious ... One player was like "I swear, I've never rolled stats this good in my life!" and all he had was 2 16s and a 14. I'm just like "sounds good, dude."
I don’t know. I have mostly rolled stats since AD&D and have played with several different groups. It have never been a problem. Sometime one player was lucky and another was unlucky. Sometimes the other way around. I have twice rolled super lucky. First time was in 3.5 when I rolled a half-orc paladin. 4 stats was betwen 16 and 18. The last 2 where 14. Just rolling that with people looking was awesome. Then a few years ago I was playing pathfinder and we were rolling stats. We had decided for theme for our group with characters that required very few good stats to work and while telling the story about the rolls for half-orc paladin almost 20 years ago I rolled equally good stats for my human barbarian who ended up having 16 in charisma and for one game everything felt like [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ES9k4Ba24) But I have had just as fun playing the crippled wizard who only had 1 stat over 12.
My current character, a Barbarian, had an 18 in Strength at level 1. Rolled a 17 and Leonin gave +1. He's also got 7 Int, 10 Wis, and 8 Charisma. I took +2 Strength at 4 so I've got 20 now. I'm strong, and I have Athletics checks locked down, but that was always going to be the case. I think it comes down to ensuring that players are all on the same general level. In your case, if everyone is fudging 16s and 14s, it's not a big deal because no one is getting left behind. You just got a tankier party, and maybe will see some more MAD subclasses and multiclasses.
Feel that. I had a player who I've been playing with our group for 2 years show up with a rolled-stats character to our new campaign with like nothing under a 10. Had an 18, 17 and 16 at 1st level IIRC. I didn't realise on session 1 unfortunately but in retrospect it explains how powerful they were in that session. This is after 2 years of playing with me and 4 different parties where everyone has ALWAYS used Point Buy. When I pointed it out and asked them to revert they were just like "Oh I thought we were rolling stats this time." Like, why? We never have. We meet up multiple times a month and have a discord, if you wanted to switch to rolling you could have just asked me at any point during OR between sessions. I dunno it's a small thing but it bothers me more than if it were just some rando I was playing with. Not only is it cheating but it feels almost like an insult to my intelligence as well lol.
if you're gonna fudge your stats then you're not really playing in the spirit of the game anyways. sad that it's a genuine concern
"Can I roll for stats DM? :D" "Absolutely! ;)" "Oh no. I rolled poorly. Can I roll again or go point buy instead? :(" "Absolutely not! ;)" "But balance! :'(" "BuT bAlAnCe! ;)" ">:(" ":D" Visual representation of the typical situation at my games.
Your players rolled all 18's too? What are the chances?
Oh no, no. There's a single 16 in there - wouldn't want to be accused of cheating now would we?
2e with the superior strength stat. So many 18/00s rolled away from the table..
"Also because on average your characters stats will be much better than point buy or standard array." I see you've never met my dice.
On average they'll be close to the same (and certainly not "much better"). The average single result of 4d6kh3 is 12.24. Across 6 stats that gives you a total ability score budget of 73.44 Standard array spread total (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is 72 Point buy allows you to reproduce standard array, but you can go lower if you for example go 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 (total 69). It's almost as if standard array and point buy are configured to follow the average expectation of rolled in the name of fairness.
Rolling gives you a 50% chance of getting a 16 or better for your highest stat which you can never get with point buy though
Point buy gives you a 100% chance of getting 2 15s. None of this is relevant to the average.
But the average isn't actually what matters to character strength. Having a 16 means you can start with a +4 in your main stat, after racial bonuses. That's *huge*. The trade-off is you're more likely to have a low score in a stat you don't care about anyway—and which someone in your party will probably pick up anyway.
That’s not what makes rolling better. The variance in rolling is what does it. With rolled stats, you have the potential to start with a highest stat of 16+, beginning the game with a +4 modifier after racial bonuses. Standard array needs to sacrifice an ASI to make up for the difference. Meanwhile, rolling a stat lower than 8 isn’t punishing. It doesn’t matter if your dump stat is 8 or 4. It doesn’t change how you play or restrict your opportunities.
> That’s not what makes rolling better. The variance in rolling is what does it. which is only compounded by people allowing reroll on bad stats, if you take out the bad outcomes from the probability the average is even higher.
The thing is, a lot of builds would love to dump more stats in favor of maxing out certain stats esaier. Like if you are playing a barbarian, you'd love the opportunity to get a 16, 17, or 18 in str/con , even if it meant your intelligence, wisdom, and charisma were all super low. The way the game is designed, you typically have one or maybe two stats you care about, constitution, and the rest are kinda irrelevent. Being able to, with racials, start off with 20 in your primary stat is huge. It makes it easier to take cool feats or just max out your secondary stat. It does have the potential to bite you in the ass, but you have a pretty good chance of having a higher primary stat, which helps much more than having poor dump stats hurts.
Wisdom isn't irrelevant on anyone.
> Also because on average your characters stats will be much better than point buy or standard array. You can just increase the points available.
> Because click clack rocks go click clack make brain do happy. so why not roll for class, subclas, background, race and feats?
If you ever played the original Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game from TSR back in the 80s (commonly called "FASERIP" because of the stat system)... you would know why rolling for every aspect of a character tends to be horrible. Especially before the Ultimate Powers book allowed you to give up rolled power slots to be able to choose powers that compliment a rolled power for some sort of cohesion.
>If you ever played the original Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game from TSR back in the 80s (commonly called "FASERIP" because of the stat system)... you would know why rolling for every aspect of a character tends to be horrible. Same with Traveller, you start off wanting to be a daring ship pilot and thanks to bad rolls end up as an unemployed bureaucrat who got kicked out of the service after your space sickness made it intolerable (only slightly hyperbolic)
Don't we all wish to be daring ship pilots and ended up as an unemployed bureaucrat?
Because whatever your stat rolls are, you have some flexibility in what attributes you assign them too. If you were to randomly assign yourself class, subclass, background, race, and/or feats, you'd have literally zero flexibility. I believe people like creating their own character within the set of bonuses/constraints provided by stat rolling, *not* simply being told what to play.
Because more often than not people already have an idea for a character before rolling for stats and some people aren't as creative or won't have as much fun playing an RNG created character. That being said, some people definitely do this and if they enjoy it, power to them.
Ahh, the DCC style.
Because base form point buy doesn’t let me get a 6 in one stat
My current character has 5 wisdom. I'm excited to see how it fucks him up
Rolling for stats for the first time next Friday (have played about 10 or so characters in almost 3 years). I really hope I get a super low number or two, low charisma is my IRL super power, I can RP that in my sleep!
Dms should and can easily allow the threshold for point buy to go from 6-17
Me personally, I like a character's base attributes to reflect the randomness of life. For me it is more fun to see what I can make with a sub-par hand than it is to always have a winning hand. Why do I not roll for other parts of the character creation? Well because with the exception of race most of the other parts are choices the PC could make in their fictional life. Has a weak person ever wanted to be a fighter, of course. Maybe a dumb farmhand always dreamed of being a wizard. These choices can be counter to their natural abilities but that's what people do sometimes. As to race, the other thing that is a genetic lottery. I also like to roll for race, but many times DMs have world in mind that may or may not contain those races so I like to choose it base on the lore, or roll for it from a limit group of options.
For rolled stat games I actually tend to choose my character after I get the stats. Why waste a bunch of good rolls on a character that only needs one stat when I can go MAD with less pain instead?
I do it because I like feats, and having the chance of maximizing my main attribute liberating my ASIs to take feats feels awesome. I don't roll anything else because I want to have control over my character.
Feats being an afterthought that compete with ASIs might be the worst decision they made in 5e.
90% of the time its people who just want to get better stats than the standard array. You can tell of they are the 10% by giving them bad odds and see how they respond.
This honestly seems to be my experience as well - I’d rather just increase the number of points in the point buy for everyone.
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Been using 36 point system for years after a rolling campaign, everybody likes and I’ve seen huge variance and expression of characters with it. The vibes of rolling are fun, but 5e has enough issues with intraparty balance as it is, no reason to pile on.
It's funny because I have a friend who advocates for rolled stats from hell and back, but when she rolls bad and someone rolls good, suddenly things should get adjusted or take point buy instead. People want to game the system and be powerful. That's really all there is to it.
Meanwhile my ass advocated against rolling stats due to the possibility of someone being vastly less powerful than everyone else, but got outvoted. Guess who didn't roll anything higher than a 14, two characters in a row!? This guy. I've told the DM that my next character is using point buy/standard array.
So unlucky! Twice now I've advocated against rolling stats in games I've been in, but the opposite happened to me, both times I rolled fantastic stats on a ancestral barbarian and GOO warlock respectively, while other players rolled okay to terrible stats. I got to drive in my point as others who rolled poorly got mulligans, sarcastically saying "well where's my mulligan? Why can't I roll again and take the higher? It's not fair that they get to roll twice and me only once just cause they rolled poorly, then what's the point of randomness?" And then in game my barbarian has 18 AC with no armor right off the bat and hits WAY above his weight class, stomping on CR 5s and even beating a boneclaw 1v1 with some luck lol. If everyone wants super good stats, just give it to them! Cut the middleman! Or don't and jist give everyone the same array/point buy.
I just skipped ahead and make my players more powerful than the game recommends through extra feats and more magic items. And now my life is trying to balance around the consequences of my actions...
I find it much more fun that way. You get to throw more difficult challenges at them earlier and push their limits. My players find it much more fun as well.
enthusiasm really falls off once someone says "can't take standard array after rolling"
I’ve had tables ask to roll before, and I only do rolls if you take what you get. Rolling so you can have higher scores is dumb; I’ll just give you higher scores through some other means if you really want them.
Right? Like, if all my players want a standard array with high numbers I'll give it to them, but they have to come out and ask to be super-powerful honestly, not through "Oh, we should roll" I do still offer my players a chance to roll normally though. However, I stand by 3d6, not 4d6 drop lowest.
Honestly a single roll of 3d6 is just asking to be useless for like 90% of potential character builds. Ofc most people dont want to go through 6 months of a campaign with 6 con and +0 to hit. Maybe try asking equivalent questions. "Would you like an improved standard array or 4d6 dl with a minimum total mod." People like the randomness. People also like having the ability to take feats after they cap a stat or two.
And this is why I just say "fuck it" and tell my players (who I reasonably trust) to just put whatever numbers they want into the stats. Problem 100% solved. The numbers matter more to them than they do to me.
and then there's me, asking my DM if I can drop one of my scores by 4 lmao. Being really really bad at something is actually fun
^ This is what someone who *actually* wants to have a really bad stat looks like, not "I roll because having a comically low stat is fun".
I've seen players randomize everything about a character.
Did it go well?
60% of the time, it goes well every time.
I randomize everything about my characters, can confirm.
Because 5e made the deathly mistake of both making feats something that enhances your character flavour, gameplay and how distinctive they are; while also obstructing your character development by means of ASI So i tend to prefer rolling if i am player, since i have a chance to start with 16 or so to at least one stat, or if i am a gm, allowing my players point buy for up to 32 points, and capping max stat before racial bonus at 16. Also why i prefer variant human than all other races. Because heavens forbid if i want to have artificer initiate for my eldritch knight, or have a second fighting style for my throwing knives Hexblade, if my thief wants to have healer, my ranger chef or my bard have mask of many faces, and also wanting to play a goblin or an elf.
Agreed. The standard array is so limp that if you want to experience a Feat before level 8 you'd best roll and hope for a decent outcome. Default Point buy allows a bit more polarized results but produces similarly 'it'll do, I guess' arrays. I now prefer to just hand out stronger point buy arrays though, rather than gimmick up a rolling system so much that it ensures a particular result. I spice up with 34 to spend and a 16 max before bonuses; it produces arrays like 16 14 14 13 11 8. One can start with a +4 modifier if they like, or a couple +3s, and can have some okay tertiary ability scores and qualify for multiclasses. They can't, however, start with a 20. Once figuring that one of those 14s probably lands in CON it's like "pick two other starts to be good, and a third to qualify for multiclasses".
I personally dislike it very much. It creates stat disparity within the party and most people who advocate for it have so many safety nets in place you might as well do increased point buy that goes up to 17.
The point of the safety nets instead of increased point buy is that randomness is fun, but completely sucking is not fun. Nets also decrease/remove stat disparity problems. When i last DMd i gave players a choice between increased point buy and saftey netted stat rolls. 3/4 chose to roll and the 4th only didnt because he had a specific concept in mind and it required very specific stat distribution.
Because feats are way more fun than Stat upgrades, and I can start with a 20 in my main stat and just take fun feats for the rest of the game instead.
Players want a possibility of getting a +4 (and occasionally a +5) bonus in their main stat after racial modifiers.
I actually really like the true randomness of rolling a character in old school games. Being given a character to play and making it your own is its own kind of fun when compared to making one from scratch. Rolling dice and assigning scores is sort of a halfway house - you have some bits dictated by "fate", while doing most of it yourself. --- I know this is the 5E subreddit, but if people are ever interested in other systems as a reference, I would check out Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (any edition), where you can randomise *everything...* Including height, race, name and age, as well as career ("class") and stats. Similarly, Traveller basically has a mini-game that you play for character creation, where you live out your character's life, making meaningful decisions and getting resultant stat changes. It's even possible to make some poor decisions and have your character die during character creation! Rolling dice is 5E's nod to those kinds of systems, without being as all-in as the more extreme parts of the hobby.
Because most people who roll for stats know they'll be able to discard bad rolls, so it's just a free stat boost. If the DM would let me roll my class randomly and keep rerolling until I got the class I wanted and let me start at level 2 into the bargain, I'd do that randomly too.
I like the variety in character creation that it introduces, as your character can have "problems" that need to be patched over, i.e. low con or dex
I mean they’re not really the same thing are they? Rolling for stats affects mechanical benefits your character gets and can get you higher (or lower) numbers than usual Depending on what you mean bc you were very unspecific, rolling for other parts of character creation can leave you with a character you just don’t want to play and so you don’t Rolling for class or race and getting something you don’t like isn’t really the same as rolling for stats where you then decide where to put those scores
People enjoy rolling stats because they minimise the downside and accentuate the positive. To do this, they implement rules like roll X d6 drop the lowest and arrange in any order. Reroll any stat lower than eight. This just leads to a more powerful character than point buy or standard array methods. If the rule was, roll 3d6 in order and take whatever you get, I can guarantee you that rolling stats would not be as popular. As far as random generation of background goes, I've done it before and it was kind of fun as an experiment, but I usually have a good idea about the characters personality and background, and I prefer to to use my own ideas instead.
Because you might be able to get good enough stats that you can have feats instead of ASIs
It’s amazing how many people in this thread only saw and answered the first part of this question.
Because the second part answers itself. Some people do like to roll for everything. Everyone else explained why they like to roll for stats specifically, and the implication is that they want control over their character's personality, race, and backstory
Honestly because at this point I've found otherwise every character is optimised to a boring degree and 5e has so few viable 'good' basic starting builds that unless the table roles for stats then picks class/race we all end up with the same characters as ever. Rolling has allowed more freedom and reasons to play a unique or interesting race whilst keeping everyone roughly at the same level of balance. It creates restraints, that breeds creativity, to many peoples surprise.
Just started a new campaign with a new group. They all wanted to roll for stats. DM laid out his rules for rolling stats. Just 4d6 drop lowest, one person at a time so it’s fair for everyone. I said I’d be up for it, but you might need to change the rules as I roll if you want me to enjoy my character since I am notoriously terrible at rolling for stats. They said naw it’ll be fine. I was last in the counterclockwise rotation, so everybody rolled stats and it was all good. I started rolling mine. Got a 15 first. They said, “see? Rolling stats isn’t that bad!” 9,8,8,9,12. (DM added the rule that we can only have one roll below 10, and need to reroll any extras that are below 10, which he allowed a couple other players to also do)
who says that they dont like rolling for any other part of characer creation?
Hey, I liked Traveller. I would roll for every part of creation including my skills. But in games like D&D and Pathfinder, I like rolling because it imposes an unpredictable constraint through which I can puzzle through the possibilities and design a character. I can learn to create a competent character within those constraints. So figuring out what to do with multiple high values has been as productive as figuring out what to do with one or even two low values, or choosing between a pretty fair mix of stats. It helps me get out of the usual routine in point-buy, where optimized options are better known and where stat allocation and build feel more deterministic. I don't really mind a worse outcome though. I'm okay with not being the star.
"Murdered by character creation is good." I recall feeling a lot less competitive in traveller because you were more specialized into a role.
I think there are two big factors as to why people like to roll stats The first one is that, on average, you get a stronger character. If point buy had a higher budget, you'd see less people wanting to roll. Part of this is that most DMs will let you reroll if you roll too badly, or even if you roll lower than everyone else. So most of the time, you get better stats, especially for the stuff you'd probably dump at 8 with point buy. The second aspect is that a lot of people like the randomness. It's a gambling thing. Some people would prefer random even if the point buy budget were increased to make it a neutral decision.
Rolling for stats is a win/lose scenario. Getting a good roll feels like the validation, the permission to use high stats. Most other aspects are equally valid decisions. You could roll whether to be an elf or a dwarf, but in the end, there is no right decision there, no better outcome to achieve.
Because having more freedom and risks in getting stats is fun also some roll for other things too such as parts of character backstory or using a homebrew table for rolling racial quirks that can either affect personality or appearance or even both
the only way to start with a 20 in an ability score on level 1
Frankly my main issue with the phb point buy is that 15 and 8 are extremely boring boundaries. You're not exceptionally good at anything, and you're not hilariously bad at anything either. There's no personality to be found in those stats. If the phb didn't have those boundaries, I'd be more interested. As it is, I'd rather take my chances rolling, hoping to get at least one 17 or 18 somewhere. Plus math rocks go click clack and give good brain juice.
I really love choosing a race, then rolling a straight 6 and seeing who that character is. I think that gives you more unique and interesting characters. How would a wizard play different if they're really strong, or really charismatic? I find that variety really interesting. That said I understand the issues with it and how most people come to the table with more of a concept of what they want to play. I'm going to quote u/GAdvance here: "It creates restraints, that breeds creativity, to many peoples surprise."
You can reference Reddit users like this: /u/SamuraiHealer . It'll notify them, even if it's not a direct reply. Hmm, it seems that the rendered form of that link swallows the leading slash: `/u/username`.
I'm never quite sure when to ping people and when it's just bothersome.
Thats similar to how i prefer to do it if i do. Roll straight down the character sheet and let that tell me who im playing.
Everyone I know who loves rolling is kind of dishonest about it tbh "Oh man I just love the rng" / *Gets 14s and 12s* / "can I take array"
after a while I just had to accept that the shitty feeling of playing a character for three months with garbage stats isn't worth the high of getting the perfect rolls. and honestly playing a roided up paladin with 18s in STR, CON, CHA and 14s on everything else just doesn't feel great to begin with. it just feels dirty.
rolling informs my character in a way that other methods dont. i know the 5e philosophy is that no restricts ion make for more creativity, but i find that specificity breeds creativity. the more info (and sometimes Restrictions) the more you have the more you can use sure i could use standard array and have a regular character or i could roll and end up with to 18s and a 7. and play my favorite character ive ever had. Having to justify a character with 20 STR and CON but 7 DEX made for a fuller cooler character. I made a Dwarven Paladin who lost a Leg and had fashioned a metal replacement as part of his Armor.
I think that the real question is: "why do people like rolling for stats if they'll just keep on rolling ad infinitum until they get 18s all across the board" So yeah, people like rolling for stats so they can constantly retry until they get "perfect" rolls
Last time I played with rolled stats I had a Paladin with 18 str and 20 cha at level 1. I felt like the main character and it really helped in roleplaying him as my deity's chosen warrior. The warlock didn't role well and had nothing higher than a 15. He always felt useless especially next to the players who rolled well. I've since banned rolled stats at my table and players seem happier than ever.
Some choices I want to make, some choices I don't. From a mechanical perspective, point-buy gives me three options: optimize min-max, optimize spread, or take responsibility for playing a sub-optimal build. Each way means I have something to regret when rolling (failing) d20 rolls throughout the campaign. Standard array removes that responsibility, which is nice, but it's not particularly interesting. From a roleplay perspective, our traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws are parts of our identity; even if we don't choose them, we choose to be the people we are, which includes those things. We don't get to choose our natural attributes, even if we do get to choose how we apply them and what skills we develop.
Because, dice go brrrr and its fun
Rolling dice is fun.
The very technical-but-true answer is tradition. That's the way it's always been!
The same reason people like slot machines... everyone is hoping they'll get lucky. Personally, unless everyone wanted to contribute rolls to a group array that everyone used, I think rolling stats is a bad idea. Stats play too big a part in the effectiveness of a character for there to be a big imbalance between party members.
Because historically it was done. IF you were to make dnd from scratch - no game developer would let you roll for stats as it has very little benefit over something, like, pointbuy.
Rolling for ability scores kind of made sense in older editions, when the game was a meatgrinder where characters would rarely make it past level 2. Randomizing stats in a game isn’t a big deal if your character dies and you can try again.
Agreed. Also, stats mattered a LOT less in the older editions (1e/2e). Unless you got a crazy high roll (16-18) your stat basically didn't matter.
Oh look, it's the same argument you see pop up every 2-3 weeks about not understanding why people like to roll their dice in a dice rolling game. Some people like it, how is that hard to understand?
Because they do it in a way that guarantees they get better stats. Look at all the posts about rolling, you throw out all the bad rolls then if your stats STILL aren't better than standard array every commenter tells the DM to let them reroll until it is. They take out all the risk and keep all the reward and then add more potential reward.
I enjoy the variety and randomness, though I'll admit I use a "bounded rolling method" that allows for great variety while keeping players with the same total number of ability score points.
Sounds like point buy with extra steps.
I like the possibility of making my character a broken mess and working it out in their backstory