Generating ability scores.

[MrWaeseL]

Rolling: Advantages: Random (keep hoping for those 6 18's), dice are involved.
Disdavantage: This here is Bob the fighter, and that guy over there is Bob the fighter. They have the same level, equipment, hit point rolls, etc, yet Bob is noticeably better than Bob because hehad a higher roll for strength. I.E. rolling causes unacceptable discrepancies in character power.

Point buy: Advantage: Every player potentially has the same ability scores, so no player is better than another simply because of his abilities.
Disadvantage: Diminshing returns make me angry, increase in mass, and green.

Point-for-point exchange: Advantage: Same as point buy.
Disadvantage: Every wizard will have an 18 int (before racial etc. bonusses), every fighter will have 18 strength, and so on.

These are pretty much all methods of generating ability scores that I know of (There are different methods of rolling for stats, but they all have more or less the same (dis)advantages). However, I don't like the drawback of any of them. Is there are 'better' way of doing this? One with little or no drawback?

[Murtak]

Well, I don't have anything "better", but here are two other methods:

predetermined arrays
everyone gets the same stat array (18/16/15/13/10/8 or whatever) and assigns them to a stat.

weighted rolls
you have a certain number of points and with those points you buy die rolls for your stats.
0 points might get you a d12+2
1 point 3d6
2 points 2d6+6
4 points d6+12

[The_Hanged_Man]

yeah, point buy is the worst method for generating ability scores. Except for all the others.

The pre-determined array is IMX the fairest way to do things, in that min-maxing isn't so dominant but you still get some control over total scores. The only problems is that I hate it as a player, and my players hate it when I DM. For some reason, it just feels like I don't have control and all the characters are "cookie-cutter."

Why I feel that way, I don't know. I know it's not rational, but there ya go.

[RandomCasualty]

I hate predetermined array as well.

Though I think point buy is one of the fairest ways of generating characters, because traditionally the one ability score characters are the most powerful and characters wtih MAD are the weakest. Point buy tends to balance things out that way by making single abiliy character pay more, which I actually tend to like.

[User3]

Dice are pretty abusive. The last Sorcerer character that I made had consistantly more HPs than the fighter, and more skill points than the Rogue.

Point buy, for good or ill, is a pretty balanced system. Cut out the diminishing returns, and no one can cry at all.

[Zherog]

I've used the fixed array - actually I use it in my Saturday game. The one where players think Fighter 5 is a perfectly acceptable character...

Er, anyway - back on topic... PCs and "major" NPCs get an array of 18, 16, 14, 12, 12, 10. All other NPCs get 16, 14, 12, 10, 10, 8.

[Murtak]

Though I think point buy is one of the fairest ways of generating characters, because traditionally the one ability score characters are the most powerful and characters wtih MAD are the weakest. Point buy tends to balance things out that way by making single abiliy character pay more, which I actually tend to like.

Well, it does help a little bit, but it is far from balancing monks.

Myself I can deal with anything that does not involve rolling. One my earliest campaigns left me mentally scarred for life in that regard. 5 players, the best of which had something like 17/12/11/10/8/7. I ran around with 11/9/6/6/4/3. And I only had the second-worst stats.

[PhoneLobster]

I still say a selection from several arrays predetermined to be "equal" would do the job best.

But I still don't use that.

We just roll, using the "Roll it again its too low" method, and in emergency cases the "I didn't even see that, look, I'm looking the other way, I didn't even hear the dice" method.

Followed up in double super emergencies with methods like "Ow, thats bad, just add two points to everything" or "Use the stats she rolled" or "Just call one of those 3s an 18 and we're good to go".

[Oberoni]

1111435989[/unixtime]]I hate predetermined array as well.

Though I think point buy is one of the fairest ways of generating characters, because traditionally the one ability score characters are the most powerful and characters wtih MAD are the weakest. Point buy tends to balance things out that way by making single abiliy character pay more, which I actually tend to like.

I completely disagree on your conclusion.

On point buy, I am more than willing to pay the exorbitant cost to, say, give my Wizard an 18 intelligence. Drop a little extra into Con and maybe Dex, and I'm good to go.

Meanwhile, the poor Monk is running around with mediocre stats across the table. This is, of course, on top of being a Monk, which many would say is in and of itself mediocre.

I have grown to like the method that Zherog, Medesha, Arturick, myself and others use, with the array Zherog mentioned earlier: 18, 16, 14, 12, 12, 10.

Alternately, PhoneLobster's method is pretty effective as well.

[rapanui]

Quoting MrWaeseL:
"Every wizard will have an 18 int (before racial etc. bonusses), every fighter will have 18 strength, and so on."

This isn't really a disadcantage of point buy so much as it is a disadvantage of the way D&D rewards ability scores. If an INT of 18 or a CHA of 18 were as useful to a fighter as a STR of 18, then not only would creativity be rewarded but Point Buy wouldn't have ANY drawbacks.

Of course, that would mean perfectly balancing 6 ability scores for 11 different classes, without counting PrCs, which is impossible.

[RandomCasualty]

1111447828[/unixtime]]
Meanwhile, the poor Monk is running around with mediocre stats across the table. This is, of course, on top of being a Monk, which many would say is in and of itself mediocre.

I have grown to like the method that Zherog, Medesha, Arturick, myself and others use, with the array Zherog mentioned earlier: 18, 16, 14, 12, 12, 10.

Well point buy is superior to non-diminishing returns point allocation, because point buy actually helps out monks a bit by having diminishing returns. Monks actualyl tend not to care too much about diminishing returns because they need so many stats.

I'm not sure about the predefined array. I guess that could work, but it does seem a bit too cookie cutter to me.

[Username17]

The last Sorcerer character that I made had consistantly more HPs than the fighter, and more skill points than the Rogue.

That's not quite true. You had more hit points than either Fighter (in part because one was lower level than you, and in part because the other had a Con of 10).

But despite the fact that we were using an alternate Sorcerer who got A lot of skill points as a class feature, the Rogue still had more than you in absolute terms.

-Username17

[Oberoni]

1111456767[/unixtime]]
Well point buy is superior to non-diminishing returns point allocation, because point buy actually helps out monks a bit by having diminishing returns. Monks actualyl tend not to care too much about diminishing returns because they need so many stats.

Wow, that's the most circular defense I've seen in a while.

[User3]

But despite the fact that we were using an alternate Sorcerer who got A lot of skill points as a class feature, the Rogue still had more than you in absolute terms.

Eh, I'd forgotten about the variant with the Aristocrat levels and the Sorc with 4 skill points.

That's what non-core will do for you.