What is the best way to roll starting ability scores for a range 3 to 18 start and why is it 5d6 drop the lowest...

What is the best way to roll starting ability scores for a range 3 to 18 start and why is it 5d6 drop the lowest, highest and middle score, then add 1d6?

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[s]The best way to roll starting abilities is to do it at home and surprise the GM with your amazing luck where no value is below 14[/s]

The best way to roll for attributes is to not roll for attributes and use fucking point buy.

This.

In D&D in particular there is no reward for having low stats. There ARE games where you roll stats and get more stuff to play with if you roll low, but for D&D there's no reason to hamstring your characters with stat-rolling.

Pointbuy or bust.

Rolled stats only works in comedy games or brutal meatgrinders, where low stats are either just as funny as high ones or you're going to die anyway so it doesn't matter.

The only exceptions I've seen are systems which use randomisation that still ends up with everyone having the same amount of stats in total, but the allocation is unpredictable. Through the Breach's random stat generation is interesting in that respect, using cards to determine which array of stat values you get to distribute, but everyone having the same amount of stat points total.

>5d6 drop the lowest, highest and middle score, then add 1d6

Fuck off, just take 18 on every stat and stop whining

>There ARE games where you roll stats and get more stuff to play with if you roll low
Can you give us an example of that?

4d6 drop the lowest produces a score of 12, on average

many small dice lowers the possible dispersion, that if you ever got a really bad result, a single clean slate will normalize everything

Depends on the game and players really. Sometimes it is fun to gamble with your stats.

I agree with though. Should give them something for every threshold lower a stat is.

Average of 5d20

Personally i use a middle ground between point buy and roll:

- every player as 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage;
- if a player require more advantages it can be done by acquiring extra disavantages (1:1);
- it's possible to assign 2 avantages or disadvantages max per stat;
- once assigned roll stats by this way:

>Stats with no adv/disads
Roll 3d6 2 times, pick the best roll and then drop the lowest, drop the highest and add 6

>stats with 1 adv
Roll 3d6 2 times, pick the best roll, then keep the highest and add 9

>stats with 2 adv
Roll 3d6 2 times, pick the best roll, then keep the highest and add 12

>stats with 1 disads
Roll 3d6 2 times, pick the best roll, then keep the lowest and add 5

>stats with 2 disads
Roll 3d6 2 times, pick the best roll, keep the lowest and add 3

15,14,13,12,10,8

If you need anymore than the array, then you're bordering edgelord minmaxer gamebreak bullshit artist.

Giving the players between a choice of "Arrays" is honestly the best system I've played with, it prevents both extremes of terrible rolls or people purposely gimping their character and stops min/maxing dumping stats to absurd levels.

Alternatively, you're playing a version of the system where the assumptions the rules made expect you to have more than that. Your attempt at an absolute statement is fucking retarded.

Rolled 3, 11, 2, 15, 7, 15 = 53 (6d16)

6[d16+2] in order or you're a pussy.

This is objectively the best way. You come to the table with no preconceived notions of who you will play and then actually build the character as you go. Some of the most interesting characters I've seen in a game including:
>A lovable, partially infantile half-orc fighter
>A nudist cleric of chaotic gods
And
>A hick Druid with a pig for an animal companion

All were inspired by strange rolls made in order.

>rolling
just use the statlines

Shit, I misread your post, I guess what I meant to say is if you're aren't rolling 3d6 in order, then you're not playing the game right.

This would interest me, too.

Badwrongfun arguments are always stupid

The actual math on the subject:

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/48285/is-it-better-to-take-the-array-and-be-joe-average-or-to-roll-for-the-odds-of-ge

>1d8+7

Where's the fun in obsessing over builds and numbers like an autistic idiot-savant when you can let the dice decide a more interesting character than your attempts at combining roleplaying games with net-decking ever could?

Because people with different preferences and playstyles exist, plus false dichotomies are stupid.

In old D&D, stats were both a gate (no one chooses their stats IRL) to restrict your class & had a greater "void zone" (IIRC from 7 to 15 the bonus went from -1 to +1). So rolled stats is OK

In modern D&D the math is tighter so point buy or array, else the PC outshines the rest with good rolls.

(10d100/5)-1

Also, 6 + 2d6.

Well here's the problem: with points buy, you will be pushed towards trying to optimize your character. There will always be the question:
>Am I spending these points where I need to be.

RPGs aren't war games. If you like optimization, just play a wargame. It'll tickle your 'tism more than Thomas the Tank Engine.

Middle three dice of 7d6

>Well here's the problem: with points buy, you will be pushed towards trying to optimize your character.
No more than with literally any other method of stat generation. There is nothing special about point-buy in that regard.

Except that's explicitly false and depends a lot on the expectations of the system and the group.

In some games, expectation is expected or mandatory, and is something the people participating in tend to enjoy.

In others, where the rules properly support lower optimisation play and people would prefer more freedom in what options they chose, pointbuy instead simply allows the player more choice in how to properly represent the character they wish to play.

There's a spectrum of playstyles between and more besides, most of which are better served by pointbuy than randomgen. I'm not against people who enjoy random stats, that'd just make me a hypocrit, but that the industry has been moving away from random stats for decades is evidence, in my eyes, that they're an aspect of a single group of playstyles rather than a one true way to enjoy RPGs.

Well some don't hurt that badly.

5d20 average is as good as it gets

>watched a new player roll 18, 17, 16, 15, 13, 11
>died in the second session due to gross party incompetence

Yes, that's pretty much the issue. The other part of it is that stats didn't matter anywhere as much as in modern editions, in the sense that they didn't have as many uses. Saving throws were almost mostly based off a flat progression by level. Skills weren't a thing except for "thief skills", and those went up by level. There wasn't much difference between the guy with 18 str and the one with 8.

((6d6 -3) /2)+2

round down always

Not that poster, but Abandon All Hope is the only example that I can think off the top of my head. You roll for your attributes, and the lower the sum of your attributes is, the more perks you get.

>[s]

You tried.

I like the matrix method.
Fill 3x3 grid with 3d6 rolls.
Each space can be chosen once.
Each attribute can only pick a value in its row/column.

I like Gamma World 7e's method:
>Most important stat gets a 16, second most important gets a 14; or, the most important gets an 18.
>The rest are 3d6 down the line.
Of course, many editions would have have a few kinks there for one reason or another, so you might also reroll for any one-to-three stats that are below 8 (or just do 6+2d6 to start with).

Ooh, that one's interesting.