Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#61 Post by Alethan »

"...the death rate in DAVE'S GAMES is so high that it probably won't be long before you're rolling up a new character soon anyway."

There. Fixed that for ya.
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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#62 Post by dmw71 »

Alethan wrote:"...the death rate in DAVE'S GAMES is so high that it probably won't be long before you're rolling up a new character soon anyway."

There. Fixed that for ya.
That I'm running Basic games now won't help, but I am trying to become more player-friendly.


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#63 Post by Alethan »

dmw71 wrote:
Alethan wrote:"...the death rate in DAVE'S GAMES is so high that it probably won't be long before you're rolling up a new character soon anyway."

There. Fixed that for ya.
That I'm running Basic games now won't help, but I am trying to become more player-friendly.
Ah, just giving you trouble, Dave. In most cases, I think I can easily trace character death (mine, anyway) to one or more bad character decisions. ;)
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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#64 Post by Zhym »

Alethan wrote:Ah, just giving you trouble, Dave. In most cases, I think I can easily trace character death (mine, anyway) to one or more bad character decisions. ;)
Sometimes that bad decision is leaving the town/entering the dungeon/getting off the ship/deciding to become an adventurer. :D

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#65 Post by Alethan »

Zhym wrote:
Alethan wrote:Ah, just giving you trouble, Dave. In most cases, I think I can easily trace character death (mine, anyway) to one or more bad character decisions. ;)
Sometimes that bad decision is leaving the town/entering the dungeon/getting off the ship/deciding to become an adventurer. :D
Ah, ADVENTURE is never a bad decision!

Trying to fight Trogs in their own lair? That's a bad decision...
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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#66 Post by dmw71 »

Alethan wrote:Trying to fight Trogs in their own lair? That's a bad decision...
I am never going to live that down, am I?


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#67 Post by Zhym »

Let's see. We also had venturing below ground as the fatal decision, getting off a boat...what were our other pre-TPK decisions?

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#68 Post by dmw71 »

Zhym wrote:Let's see. We also had venturing below ground as the fatal decision, getting off a boat...what were our other pre-TPK decisions?
Hardy har har.

This thread is moving off topic, so let's try to regain focus. (Though, you're welcome to criticize my DM'ing in the OOC threads of that particular game, if you'd like.)


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#69 Post by dmw71 »

Zhym wrote:
dmw71 wrote:I want to say that it was in 1e where they equated each point of an Intelligence score to 10 IQ points. If so, 30, or 40, or even 50 IQ is pretty darn useless.
That's a pretty bad estimation, especially at the extremes. Here's a better comparison:
Okay, I recently started reading the 1e PHB and came across this:
PHB,34 wrote:"Even the rather slow (80 I.Q.) can
learn one additional language."
Looking at the Intelligence charts (PHB, 10), the first additional language is granted at an 8.

If an 80 I.Q. translates into an 8 Intelligence (even if the math, if using 4d6c1, doesn't work), that brings us back to the 10:1 ratio I feared.


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#70 Post by Zhym »

Gary Gygax didn't always know what he was talking about.

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#71 Post by dmw71 »

Okay, I've been thinking about this (for AD&D, not d20) and had an idea that might work.

It's a point buy, and you get 74 points to spend... but those points are split into two equal pools. So, essentially have 37 points to spend on three ability scores. Twice.


  • The most egregious min/maxing possible with this method is a 18, 16, 3. Done twice and you have:

    18
    18
    16
    16
    3
    3

    You'll have four very good stats, but those two 3's will hurt!
A more balanced approach:
  • You could go with 15, 15, 7 twice.

    15
    15
    15
    15
    7
    7

    I'm going off memory here (which is a big mistake), but I want to say there were stats you could put a 7 into and avoid a penalty.

I built a simple Excel calculator (see attached) and have been playing around with it, and I don't think it's terrible... but wanted to open it up for further scrutiny or thoughts.
Calc.jpg
Calc.jpg (15.08 KiB) Viewed 4068 times
What do you guys think?
C'mon, Zyhm, I know you're going to have thoughts on this!


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#72 Post by Zhym »

Oh, what the hell. I'll bite. :)

First off, I've decided that I'm just not that much of a fan of point allocation systems, for reasons I think I've talked about earlier. I like the randomness that comes with rolling. With point allocation systems, there's always going to be a small set of optimal allocations for each class. And I think that low stats are more fun when they came up as the result of a roll instead of just being "dump stats."

For your method in particular, I'd be reticent to allow players to choose attributes as low as 3. I'm not sure where I'd set the lower bound—probably somewhere between 6 and 8—but low stats never seem to hurt as much as high stats help. It's probably a combination of strategic dump-statting and DM kindness in not making PCs really play their 3 charisma (a true 3 CHA PC would not be fun to be with, for example, and a 3 INT PC would need help putting his own armor on).

I'm not sure that the optimal min/max build is 18, 18, 16, 16, 3, 3. Few classes can really benefit from having four stats over 16. Mostly, it's the classes that have non-primary attribute requirements (druids and paladins with their charisma requirements, for example). Everyone can use good CON and DEX scores, and then it's pick your prime attribute. So you could do (18, 10, 9) (15, 15, 7). One sorta-bad score, two blah, and a couple that will get you +1 to CON and DEX, with no real penalty to the other scores.

In fact, let's look at the ways to allocate 37 points among 3 scores. Here are all the possibilities (I think):

(18, 16, 3), (18, 15, 4), (18, 14, 5), (18, 13, 6), (18, 12, 7), (18, 11, 8), (18, 10, 9),
(17, 17, 3), (17, 16, 4), (17, 15, 5), (17, 14, 6), (17, 13, 7), (17, 12, 8), (17, 11, 9), (17, 10, 10),
(16, 16, 5), (16, 15, 6), (16, 14, 7), (16, 13, 8), (16, 12, 9), (16, 11, 10),
(15, 15, 7), (15, 14, 8), (15, 13, 9), (15, 12, 10), (15, 11, 11)
(14, 14, 9), (14, 13, 10), (14, 12, 11)
(13, 13, 11), (13, 12, 12)

When looking at these sets, it's worth keeping in mind that some scores are just as good as others or have only minor differences, depending on the attribute:
  • STR: 8-13 (ignoring 100 lbs worth of carrying capacity and a small BB/LG difference)
    INT: **
    WIS: 8-14
    DEX: 7-14
    CON: 7-14 (ignoring SS/RS)
    CHA: 9-12
This ignores AD&D1e things like minimum attributes for certain races and classes. INT is weird in that there is no "middle range" where all scores are the same, at least if you care about the languages known. OTOH, if you aren't a mage and don't care about number of languages known, an INT of 3 isn't mechanically much worse than an INT of 18.

So if you're going to have a wisdom of 14 or less, for example, you might as well have a wisdom of 8 and use those other 6 points where they'd make a difference (assuming you're not a cleric, which is a safe assumption if you're considering a wisdom of 14). If you're thinking of having a dexterity of 14, you might as well make it a 7—you won't be any worse off (this all assumes that a DM doesn't like to use attribute check rolls).

Keeping that in mind, there are some attribute sets in the list above that are clearly better than others:
  • if you're only going to have one stat in the three that gives a bonus, you're probably going to use (18, 11, 8) or (18, 10, 9) (or maybe (18,12,7)). Except in weird circumstances (e.g., where bumping STR or CHR to 14 is worth taking a penalty to another stat, which will almost never happen), these are all strictly better than (18, 13, 6), (18, 14, 5), (17, 14, 6), (17, 13, 7), (17, 12, 8), (17, 11, 9), (17, 10, 10), (16, 14, 7), (16, 13, 8), (16, 12, 9), (16, 10, 10), (15, 13, 9), (15, 12, 10), (15, 12, 11), (14, 14, 9), (14, 13, 10), (14, 12, 11), (13, 13, 11), and (13, 12, 12).
  • (15, 15, 7) gets you two stats with (mild) bonuses without taking penalties.
  • After that, you get the big trade-off score sets. You can get two scores with bonuses in exchange for one really low score. Here's where min-maxing and dump stats start to get to be a real issue: (18, 16, 3), (18, 15, 4), (17, 17, 3), (17, 16, 4), (17, 15, 5), (16, 16, 5), and (16, 15, 6). Here, it's all about tradeoffs between bonuses and penalties.
Note that if you don't allow choosing stats below 8, the allocation becomes simple: it's probably some combination of (18, 11, 8) and (18, 10, 9). If you allow stats as low as 7, you can add (15, 15, 7) into the mix.

My guess is you'd get a lot of PCs with two 18s and a bunch of safe middle stats, or 18, 15, 15, and some safe stats, and then some minmaxing of bonuses and penalties. (18, 17, 16, 10, 9, 4) would be one fairly powerful set, depending on the dump stat, as would (17, 16, 17, 16, 4, 4).

So...yeah. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I'm on board with this method. To make it workable, I think you'd need to make sure the penalties hurt, or put a limit on the number of scores < 8 that a person could choose.

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#73 Post by Zhym »

Surprisingly (to me), all of the AD&D1e classes except the bard can be generated using this method. But you may not see much variety in their builds.

Druid
Attributes required: C15, W12
Lots of ways to draw this up.

Paladin
Attributes required: Ch17, W13, S12, I9, Co9
The 17 might as well be an 18, so I'm guessing you'd see builds like (e.g., 18, 10, 9, 16, 12, 9), which is an example of a case where you'd actually use (16, 12, 9) instead of (18, 10, 9)—to get that score of 12 a paladin needs. You could also do (18, 10, 9, 15, 15, 7). Having dexterity as the only attribute without a minimum reduces the ability to have a dump stat.

Ranger
Attributes required: W14, Co14, S13, I13
The ranger needs four stats that are above average but don't get bonuses. If you don't want penalties, you're probably going to build it as (16, 16, 13, 13, 8, 8). Not exciting, but it meets the requirements. Dexterity isn't a good dump stat, but there's always charisma.

Illusionist
Attributes required: D16, I15
Also pretty easy to do, especially with wisdom and charisma available as dump stats.

Assassin
Attributes required: S12, D12, I11
Easy, especially with charisma and wisdom as available dump stats.

Monk
Attributes required: S15, W15, D15, Co11
Needing three 15s is pretty restrictive. You could do (18, 15, 15, 10, 9, 7) or (15, 15, 15, 15, 7, 7).

Bard
Attributes required: S15, W15, D15, Ch15, I12, and Co10
Not possible (requires 82 points, minimum).

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#74 Post by dmw71 »

Zhym wrote:So...yeah. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I'm on board with this method. To make it workable, I think you'd need to make sure the penalties hurt, or put a limit on the number of scores < 8 that a person could choose.
I appreciate the analysis.

On my drive home after initially posting the idea, I started to wonder if breaking 74 into two pools of 37 actually makes a difference; and it does, but minimally. It does limit the number of 18's a person could take. Maybe something else, too?

I do agree there should be a limit on minimum scores (you definitely don't want to give anything sharp to someone with a 3 intelligence). I have no idea it would cause some non-bard classes to not be possible, but --- hmmm....

Okay, I'm going to think on this a bit. Thanks again for humoring my idea.


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#75 Post by Zhym »

The two-pool thing does limit how much a player can lower dump stats to raise other stats. And it eliminates attribute sets like (18, 18, 18, 6, 6, 6), which would just be wrong. But I don't think it fixes one of the fundamental problems with fixed-cost point allocation systems, which is that bumping an attribute from 15 to 18 costs the same as lowering another one from 12 to 9. The latter adjustment usually has no mechanical effect on gameplay and the former can have a huge effect.

If you're going to use a non-random method of determining attributes, I kind of like point buy systems where higher stats cost increasingly more points. For example, everyone gets a base of 8 points for each attribute. Additional points are cheap up to, say, 14 or so, then a little more expensive, with the bump from 17 to 18 being really expensive. Then it's just a matter of how much the cost should escalate and how many points people get.

But really, I think I prefer randomness. Unless I roll badly, in which case randomness sucks.

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#76 Post by dmw71 »

dmw71 wrote:Okay, I'm going to think on this a bit.
If, instead of starting at the minimum score (3), every stat started with a lower floor... say, 6.


The 1e bard (which is ridiculous) would require 46 more points to reach the minimum 15, 15, 15, 15, 12, 10 requirement. So, two pools of 23.


---

Yeah, I'm starting to realize, with any pool allocation system, there is still going to be a lot of gamesmanship, or optimal builds.
Zhym wrote:But really, I think I prefer randomness. Unless I roll badly, in which case randomness sucks.
:lol:


Yeah, it's probably a lost cause. Actually, there are some pretty interesting methods in the 2e Skills and Powers book that I've never tried.
  • Method VI: All six abilities begin with a score of 8. The player has an additional 7d6 to divide among those scores. All the points from a d6 must be applied to one ability score. Scores of 18 are possible only if the total of one or more dice, added to the base of 8, add up to exactly 18.
  • Method VIII: The player assigns 24d6 among a character's six ability scores. Each ability score must have at least 3d6, but no more 6d6, devoted to it.
  • Method IX: A player rolls 2d6 to randomly determine the number of points that can be divided among his character’s six abilities and the maximum score of each ability. No ability score can be lower than 3. The 2d6 result is found on the chart below:

    Code: Select all

    2d6 roll   Points   Maximum
    2             68          18
    3             70          18
    4             72          17
    5             72          18
    6             74          17
    7             74          18
    8             76          17
    9             76          16
    10            78          16
    11            78          15
    12            80          15
    
This is just something that I occasionally think about. I have no idea why I think I'll be able to devise a system that hasn't already been thought of (but, splitting the pool into two, I think, wasn't a terrible idea).


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#77 Post by Zhym »

I think I'd hate Method IX. It combines all the bad parts about a point allocation system with random limit on the number of points—then adds on an arbitrary cap on any one score. For some reason, determining each attribute randomly is appealing to me, but determining a total number of points is very much not.

Here are two other ideas:

3d6, re-roll 1s
This ends up being the same as 3d5+3. It retians a symmetrical bell curve, but shifts it a bit. The probability of an 18 is still really low, just 0.8% (vs. 0.5% with 3d6), but the median & average result is 12 instead of 9.5.

3d6, treat 1s as 6s
This has the psychological advantage of turning bad rolls (1s) into good rolls (6s). It increases the chance of high rolls and lowers the chance of low rolls. It has kind of an odd probability curve, with 14 the most likely roll.

Here's a graph of those two methods compared to 3d6 and 4d6 drop lowest (using anydice.com, which is awesome at this sort of thing):
Screen Shot 2019-10-26 at 5.42.53 PM.png
Screen Shot 2019-10-26 at 5.42.53 PM.png (96.73 KiB) Viewed 4038 times
Treating 1s as 6s results in a curve that generates even higher stats than 4d6 drop lowest. So I guess not many DMs will go for that one.

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#78 Post by dmw71 »

I have to admit, those methods you proposed are intriguing. I like the 3d6 core, then deciding how to manage 1's.


Thanks for your thoughts.


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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#79 Post by Norjax »

That's a neat site. Thanks for sharing.

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Re: Character Generation and Ability Scores (Merged Topic)

#80 Post by dmw71 »

I haven't tried either of these methods, but they look interesting:


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