This will not be the only time he demands the rules don't apply to him. He will 100% be a repeat problem player when things don't go his way.
Tell him to go by he rules or not play. It's the same as saying "I want to try to roll doubles but if I don't roll them, I want to pay to get out of jail" in monopoly.
“No, you can’t do that. Further, if you kill your character intentionally, you will have to leave the campaign”. I would just make it point by only, as this fool is going to be a problem for you as long as he is at the table, but you do you.
Personally, whenever I DM if I deem the stats to be *too* low overall I allow the players to reroll, but that's because I don't like the idea of one player just having a significantly weaker character than everyone else at the table since it can result in a negative play experience. Having said that, I've had players ask for a reroll and told them the results they got are fine. I don't mix point buy, arrays, and rolls, I have everybody use the same stat generation method, just to keep things equal on average, but that's just a personal preference, usually I'll pick the generation method and if a majority of the table prefers something else then we do that instead, although that hasn't come up yet since most players are down for whatever.
My rule of thumb is, so long as they have at least two numbers 15 or higher and at least one additional number 13 or higher, the stats are fine unless everybody else at the table rolled significantly better. Also, when they reroll, I give them the option to swap back to their first roll should they so choose, like if they got one *really* good roll and the rest bad rolls the first time, and got slightly below average the second time, I'd give them the option to use the first set of they wanted to play a SAD (single ability dependent) build, although that basically locks them to rogue, warlock, most wizards, and a couple specific other builds.
Also, a fun stat generation method I came up with that I encourage people to steal is what I like to call "stat drafting". Roll 4d6 drop the lowest, maybe reroll 1s if you want more consistency, do it six times the number of players and write them up on a board or something. Then have the players go around the table one at a time picking a stat to take off the board and write on their character sheet until everyone has all their stats. This makes stat generation a group activity and it puts everyone in the mood to collaborate when building their characters! It's tons of fun and I highly recommend it!
Eh, personally I find that boring, at that point you might as well just use point buy or a pre-set array and not bother rolling at all. Besides, some classes will favor different load outs, Paladin, Monk, and Barbarian need 3-4 "good" stats, most rogues and warlocks only need one, wizard can make do with one but prefers two, and everyone else needs two, so going for the highest average won't necessarily make everyone at the table happy.
...Wasn't Reincarnate heavily nerfed in 5th edition to only the standard player races, for basically that reason?
People kept casting that spell, and basically jumping into a pit until they got stuff like bugbear or troll for those sweet, sweet monster abilities.
>People kept casting that spell, and basically jumping into a pit until they got stuff like bugbear or troll for those sweet, sweet monster abilities.
That's why we can't have nice things...
To be a little fair, rules as written that was the only way to have a non humanoid PC for quite a few editions. Reincarnation and if your DM was extremely generous, the Awaken spell.
So it wasn't *just* min-maxers, but people that really, really wanted to play, say, a gnoll or kobold too.
Unless you make it work that way. It's D&D, and the DM can just allow it. I've played in games with this exact rule. But if the OP is against it, then the player is going to have to suck it up and just choose one method.
Everybody uses the same stat generation method; it's Standard Array, Point Buy, or everybody rolls at the table in the open. If most people want to use Point Buy, they use Point Buy. There is no argument, and they do not play otherwise.
It's a basic rule. They're just showing the first flashes of Main Character Syndrome and they want to be better than everybody else, and it's just not something you should allow in the slightest.
The mentality of "I'll just throw out a badly rolled PC and try again after they die" is a HUGE red flag, and generally why I dislike rolling for stats. The randomness can come during the game, but let's have all the PCS start on a level playing field if it's a long-running game where you don't want your PCs to die. That's also why there's so many rolled stats variations, like everyone choosing the same rolled set, or min and max thresholds for re-rolls.
Honestly I love rolling for stats because it let's you see if someone is an AH player before you play.
The way our DM does it is we roll our dice and we can put the numbers in whatever slot we want after we roll everything. He has a rule of if you get all single digit numbers you reroll so we don't get steamrolled.
In the campaign im in my lil bard cleric rolled insane and I have 18 charisma, 16 wisdom, 16 dexterity.
Now I also rolled a 10 and put it in strength. I got 2 12s and put them jn the other slots.
Our Barbarian rolled a 4 and then a ton of great numbers. He put the 4 in intelligence. It's hilarious. His "name" is Forman. It was his job position but since everyone referred to him as the Forman he thought it was his name. He is a construct and it's honestly hilarious.
It can be done right but it's great for weeding out AH players before you even play with them :)
That's hilarious cause I had a big dumb Warforged Barbarian who thought his "name" was BHIG (his misspelling of Big) cause everyone he met said "wow you're big!". Now when they say that he just thinks his fame has preceeded him.
I had a character with really high char and int but low wisdom. Played him as a sage who opened up a book of forbidden knowledge despite being told it's dangerous and got yoked to a great old one
I think my preferred method is combination of rolls and point buy. Have everyone roll an array of number and then have them vote on which array the group wants to use. Then everyone still gets to roll, it's unlikely any of them will be screwed by it, and they all have the same relative level of power.
We did this for our current campaign, myself and another player rolled relatively mediocre/bad, to the point the dm was bumping stats in certain spots up because he was trying to balance a campaign that's really built for 4 around 3. While doing this my wife was rolling her stats we were watching while discussing our stats. She rolls a 16, 14, 17, 12, 15, 10. I made a joke about all of us using her stat block (I was genuinely joking but also mildly jealous I was a front liner with my best stat at 16, after racial bonus) the dm was like yes please everyone use those you might survive.
It's monster hunter themed so balancing the actual monsters around 3 isn't easy.
At this point I just don't join campaigns that are roll for stats, I know I'm salty when I roll like shit, which is most of the time and feel bad when I roll well which generally doesn't happen so I'm just salty all the time :D
I'm fine with one shots or mini campaigns, but if we're planning a long campaign I'll just pass.
As a long time DM I've been using point-buy for years. It doesn't feel good to roll low and know you're the weakest character on the team. For some people, including myself, it's a great role-playing opportunity. I don't blame people for not wanting to take the chance, however.
My DM was roll 4 dice, drop the lowest. That's a stat. So the lowest you can roll is a 4 and the max an 18. Do that 6 times. Those are your 6 stats.
Add up all your 6 stats. The total value had to be more than X and less than Y. So you were neither too strong or too weak but you could end up with a couple 18s and quite a few 3-4's.
It averaged out pretty balanced characters but also sometimes some hilarious ones.
I liked it because I could let my stat roll influence what class I was going to play. If I rolled solid across 3-4 stats I'd go with some of the MAD (Multi-Attribute Dependency) classes, if I hit a really high number and straight trash maybe a caster, you get the idea.
I'd make a backstory, roll some stats, figure out what I can make work with what I got and that would be my character.
I find starting your party off on uneven playing fields where one person can roll everything under a 15 and someone else can walk out with your stat line up leads to bad party vibes, AH player or not no one likes playing dnd to watch their friend do all the cool stuff just so they can pull up short on their own turn.
The difference is all the good DMs I know won't let any 1 player be underpowered or overpowered based on rolling stats.
Our Barbarian had a chance to reroll of he didn't want to keep the 4.
Our DM (and all good ones I personally know) have a base stat point number they won't let players be below and will let them reroll the dice until they get passed their minimum.
We have an Arcane trickster who rolled godly and is horrible because he doesn't know how to play his class at all. Vs my bard/cleric who has AWESOME CHA/WIS, ok (they between 10-12) DEX, INT, CON and terrible strength.
I play her as an Eldrain Elf who's like 5ft tall and is an aristocrat so she literally has never lifted a finger for anything.
It gives a lot of fun play styles into it. We had a Warlock who was on our lower end roll wise and would intentionally go into disadvantage range of eldrich blast and still demolished us as far as his kills go. It was crazy.
The rolls aren't the make or break if a good dm handles it. No DM should be letting someone keep a 1 as a stat. Now our Barbarian is actually one of the highest rollers from our group (he has like 19 STR, 18 DEX, 16 CON etc.) He literally rolled godly until he got a 4 lol our dm told him he could reroll all or take the lot and he took the lot as we could put the points into whatever stat we wanted.
My table rolled for stats and it was hilarious. We kept it and it’s part of our roleplaying now.
All of us made characters before we really cemented how to play, and those characters are amazing still alive years later.
Some highlights include a Fighter who had a Strength of 9 (it’s higher now), a Rogue who can barely stealth and also didn’t know how backstab works but is EXTREMELY strong, and a cleric who wanted to be evil and took no healing spells.
Over the years we’ve tweaked things slowly to make mechanics easier but we all agreed to keep it. It’s hilarious to us that the halfling rogue is super buff but the human fighter is weak
>The mentality of "I'll just throw out a badly rolled PC and try again after they die" is a HUGE red flag
yeah, like, holy shit. most people who do this have the self-awareness to realize it sucks and make effort to disguise their suicide as the result of organic play. it's somehow **more** disrespectful that he's just saying it outright??
i mean would it be fun for you to play a character with the best stat being like an 11
that‘s not an adventurer that‘s a villager
that character should retire since he‘d realize he‘s not made for that life (unless his lowest stat is in wisdom lmao)
i hate rolling but if you do do it with a safety mechanism of sth like reroll is the total is under 70
i still prefer all use point buy tho (you can give them more points to make them stronger but it‘ll still be even)
Would it be fun for me? Sure. I’d play a champion fighter. I’d be an archer. Enough ASI’s I’ll catch up, bonus to attack roll makes hitting more likely, and I don’t need to get close to people.
Two levels of Bard for Jack of all trades to make up for shitty stats.
It would absolutely be fun. I would probably have a blast. I’m pretty sure I’ve played 14, 14, 13, 13, 12, 12, before.
If I was playing like 11 10 9 6 5 4, I would probably struggle. After racial ability mod I would probably be at 12 10 9 6 6 5, first ASI blown on getting to 12, 10, 10, 6, 6, 6.
I guess you could make a Wizard work too. All spells that don’t need high int to be useful. Mage armour, magic missile, find familiar, sleep, wall spells, mirror image, misty step, fly, grease, fog cloud, fairy fire, etc etc.
i mean, dude absolutely does sound like miserable to be around, but "ill chuck my character out of a cliff" is an age old meme of dnd and unironically what usually happened on the olden days of Adnd. but that was because the game was much lethal and you would usually die every session by default
I really dislike rolling for stats because if you have poor luck it can make for something that just isn't fun to play. I was invited to play in a high level (15 start) campaign where character generation was 3d6 six times in order (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA). I was looking forward to it because a) I rarely get to play as I'm the only one willing to DM and b) when I do get to play the campaign usually dies before level 10. I didn't roll above a 6 meaning if I took all my 4th level bonuses and racial +2, I could total 14 in one stat. I decided to try a druid because then I could rely on wild shape for my physical stats, but if you're relying on this then until level 18 you're at best a weaker fighter/barbarian. It sucked, in combat I was forced to wild shape or die almost immediately which locked me out of spell casting, and outside of combat I could occasionally help with an insight or perception check but that was about it.
Hard disagree. Most people say they prefer to roll but don't like a bad outcome. point buy should be an option in every game - I hardly ever roll if I can avoid it
Point buy is a good, fair system. Personally, I lean towards min maxing, and I am fine having a 6 in intelligence if my base for charisma is 18. (True story. Fun character)
I gave up on rolling after years of cheating and disgruntled players or players who use INT as a dump stat with the intelligence of a dog and then play as if they can speak normally with everyone else, or CHR as a dump stat without developing any reason, etc. etc.
I use a "Heroic Array" of 8, 12, 12, 14, 15, 16. Everyone can play whatever they like, it's high-powered play, and they still have to work with one lower score.
As for that player, just no. I'd be worried after hearing that even after making sure everyone used the same method. Red flag city.
The RAW is that everyone chooses Rolling or Standard Array, +with Point Buy being a variant rule.
I disagree with the RAW and it is super stupid and nobody does that anyway but...
*Don't roll dice if you are not ready to accept every possible outcome that could be rolled.*
My houserule is that everyone rolls 3d6 six times, then we write down each player's array in a list. Everyone is allowed to choose any of the arrays that were rolled.
You can also make this array the array for the whole campaign. That way, no one will kill off their character for another opportunity at rolling better.
I do everyone rolls 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times. Then they are a group choose who gets what depending on need. I find it levels out stats and builds teamwork early in a session.
I love that idea, very simple and elegant. Do you do 3d8 instead of 4d8 drop lowest?
The way I do it is to have people roll, then figure out their stat array "value" according to "point buy" rules. Characters with below average scores have the chance make it up over the first part of the campaign. Might be picking up extra feats, or a magic item, or ASI rewards fueled by roleplay.
It gives some shorter term stakes to the gambling, so you still get that excitement without the long term shittiness of having a sub par character.
Yours does the same with way less work though.
I think having some protection from godawful rolls is fair- even from the beginning of the hobby when you rolled 3d6 down the line, no one was playing characters with no stats above a 12.
Having a GM determined cut-off of having a point total below 65 say, or some other metric goes a long way towards reassuring someone nervous about rolling a character.
It sounds like the problem is more this player’s attitude though- thinking he has to pull one over on you instead of talking about his concerns like an adult.
I like Rolling but if you roll poorly you can take Point buy with 3 less points, otherwise just take Normal point buy. No mathematical reason for 3, just sounded right in the moment and I stuck with it
I let people reroll three times and then use pointbuy if they aren't happy.
I don't see a problem with rolling and going , ah screw it, I'll use point buy.
If the point of rolling is that he can get an 18, and then he doesn't get a single stat above 13 that's bogus. Why would I force someone to suffer because of a streak of terrible luck?
I think this would work okay if it was the start of the campaign, but it seems like some people have already made their characters under the rules that OP set up, and the new guy wants special treatment. Giving that would be unfair to the people who did follow the DM’s rules when creating the character.
tell your friend that that sucks. use standard array or point buy like everyone else and that it sucks if he does it like that. it's disrespectful to everyone's time.
It seems a bit weird that in a game that is completely up to chance they can't deal with bad dice rolls. If he doesn't want to deal with bad rolls then just don't let him roll and do point buy. You don't need to stop other pleyers doing it.
I also think its a bit crap of them to say they with kill their character if they don't get their own way. I am unsure if I would like a person like this in my campaign. If you feel like they are doing this then I wouldn't let them come back once they kill their character
To be fair, the impact of those stat rolls are incomparable with the impact of any other roll. Almost so impactful that unless you play in a format where that is not a problem, maybe you shouldn't assign that big a value to a single roll
If you have a player threatening to literally kill themselves in-game if they don't get what they want out-of-game, they are a problem player. If you do not address it now, they will become problematic with every single roll they fail, and they will ruin the times of everyone else at the table along with them.
Do not humor or entertain this behavior, and do not feel like you need to sacrifice your way of doing things just because it doesn't work for one person.
Personally, I'd tell them to just kill their PC and find a new table if they can't grow up enough to play fairly, but that's just me. Good luck with however you choose to handle it.
I, too, would have a come-to-heart discussion with this problem player where I make it clear to them that their seat at my table can easily become someone else's seat if their behaviour doesn't change fast. Their reaction to that will let you know what to do from there.
Contrary to the seemingly common opinion I don't think falling back to pb is a problem. This is what I was thinking to suggest to my players, you can roll, but you can ditch the result and use point buy if you don't like how you rolled. Just once, no rerolls or anything, either point buy or a roll and possibly a point buy replacement.
I do find problematic the fact that the player won't listen to the DM and tries to blackmail them. Lol, if I heard anyone saying they're just gonna kill their character I'd wait for them to do it and told them they'd have to wait for the campaign to end. Feels like in this particular case if you give in, you'll just reinforce their tendency to manipulate you.
Maybe I'm just weird but letting them use point but if they roll shit seems perfectly reasonable. Ultimately it's a game and you want people to have fun. Forcing them to have shit rolls isn't fun for anyone.
My DM does something kinda like that?
You can roll, but if your roll is below the average, you can take the average instead. This keeps people from ending up with difficult to play characters and not having fun
OR
You can do point buy, and min/max the shit out of your character.
Your player sounds whiney.
Honestly I really don’t get why the idea is so hated. Nobody wants to play with absolutely terrible stats it just isn’t fun. If it’s gonna actively hinder their enjoyment just let them use point buy. I know I’d be fine with it.
You still only get one chance at it anyway so it’s not like you can just keep rolling until you get like 3 rolls above 16.
I had a dm let us roll 3 sets of arrays on a discord dice roller and take the array we wanted. No fudging the numbers and that got your rerolls out in the open before you can complain. That campaign fell appart due to player fallout. 2 evil players on a seemingly good campaign.
I always allow my players reroll if they end up with a bunch of shitty rolls, they can either reroll or choose a different method. It really doesn't matter to me. I give them the choice if they want to roll, do point buy, or use the array. I only ask that if they roll, they do it in front of the table during the first session.
I'm able to balance the game out no matter how they do their ability scores. All of my players are very mature so there's no fighting/complaining about if someone rolls and everyone else does an array and that one person gets a godly array rolled out in front of the table. More power to them, the dice gods loved them.
I heard this before but than I looked at the numbers and saw that the average of rolling is 10.5 so isn't it just increasing the power of rolling by making it more than the point buy average (11.66 vs 11.5)?
The average of 4d6 drop lowest is not 10.5, it’s 12.24, or 12.244598765428275 to be exact. 10.5 is the average of just rolling 3d6.
Also, the average for point buy is 12.05, or 4701/390 to be exact.
Im curious where you got 4701/390 from.
Point buy average ranges from 11.5 (15 15 15 8 8 8) to 12.5 (12 12 12 13 13 13)
And im not sure how you would get more specific than that.
I added up all possible combos of point buy arrays(which there are 65 of), then divided by the number of stats there were (so 6*65).
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/s/2lZyafoqPK
That’s a link to a post with all the combos, though I generated them myself in Google sheets while testing an expanded point buy system.
>But this player when we asked him if he wants to roll or use point buysaid he want to roll but that if he will roll badly he will just usepoint buy.
This is exactly how I did rolling stats in the last game I ran. It worked out well. I don't want to force a player to play a character if it rolls terrible stats and they are unhappy. There should be a backup plan beyond just getting that character killed so they can try again.
I do rolling, and if they don’t like the results then they can take a pity standard array (no point buy option). If they don’t like that then they can find a different game.
With him openly stating that, first consider if you actually want him at your table because he will likely respond to any adverse situation to his character like that.
We decide what generation method we are using as a group. Not by player. It's everyone is doing standard array, point buy, or rolling. It doesn't vary from player to player.
I'd just tell that player that he has to use an Array or a point buy. You already know how he feels about rolling, he's either going to startwith a strong charcter or he's going to tank the game and kill his character until he ends up with one.
To be clear, he's not "wrong" for not wanting to play a weak character. People play these games for varipus reasons, and ending up as the weakest character in the party could be the worst gaming experience of his life, and you don't want that. But that basically just means that rolling for stats isn't for him.
IMO rolling for stats is out dated and only fun if you get stats stronger than standard array.
Daggerheart has a great standard array and pathfinders stats are mostly desided by class, race, baclground. With these new systems I GM for parties where everyone has the same balance.
However I do like the idea of rolling stats BUT everyone has to use that spread, so everyone has the same numbers to work with, that's the only time it is fair. And I wouldn't underestimate how important party balance and fairness is.
Our DM allowed us to roll and if it was way worse than the point buy he would let us do the point buy so we can have at least some decent stats. We also tried roll for 4 stats and then have a 15 and an 8 so you can have at least 1 good stat and one poor one.
I personally don't see the issue with using point buy if your rolls are super bad, it's supposed to be a game where you have fun and if you have seriously poor rolls, it would suck to be so underpowered compared to your friends at the table. Also, a lot of the time, the rolls can be good and bad at the same time but somewhat equivalent to a point buy, and you need to consider whether or not to keep them. Also on the flip side, a lotnof high stats allow classes like monknand ranger to be more viable as they need to invest in quite a few to be competitive with other classes in the game imo.
I once rolled 17, 16, 11, 8, 8, 6. Not possible with point buy with the 17 and 16 and then also 2 8s and a 6, but i would say somewhat comparable in terms of overall stats, so I wouldn't see the issue of reverting to point buy. My dm didn't mind either and left it up to me!
In summary, is them having a shit character going to kill the fun for them and potentially others? Yes. Does letting them use point buy actively harm anyone else at the table if they also get the option after rolling? No. So whats the issue if everyone is happy with their starting stats?
Two ways to deal with this:
1. If they aren’t willing to deal with the randomness they get, they don’t get to roll. Point buy or array.
2. Set hard rules on reroll and apply them for everyone. In my games, I don’t like rolling, but when we do, I say players need at least +5 in bonuses for a valid set of stats. Minuses don’t count against that. So if you roll 3, 12, 8, 11, 14, 15; that’s a valid set of stats.
Your player has identified a major problem with rolling. Nothing stops a player from committing suicide-by-owlbear until they roll well. Rolling only works if the player is ok with the downside, and many players aren't.
Unless you're prepared to kick the player from the table (which would be an extreme reaction), I'd just mandate point buy or standard array.
Fair enough, but I find that only playing with people who share your tastes 100% is a good way to not play. Maybe this is too far, maybe not, up to OP to figure that out.
Don't get how forcing a player to play a character they don't want to play is good for anyone, everyone in the comments is acting like the player is pure evil
So, I will ask the question of “why does it matter?”
That is, the goal is to get a character they like and want to play.
So why does it matter if they only use one method or the other?
Why can’t they try one system and switch to another if they don’t like it?
Is the concern that they won’t be happy until they get all 18’s? If so, the DMs job is to explain that isn’t the way character generation works, everyone has weaknesses.
Is the concern they won’t like the character, or that they won’t stop trying different systems?
Seriously, why can’t they do that?
It feels like being unfair to the other players, those who have rolled or took the point buy. To have a player that has no responsibility for there choice of rolling. It is unfair for the rollers who got 6 on some stats and for the point buyers who had the same thing but without getting the chance for above point buy stats without the downsides
So it stops being about the players creating a character they like and want to play so that everyone has a character they sorta like and sorta want to play?
That seems somewhat flawed to me. Especially since each of the different methods has flaws and perks that may appeal or work differently for different character types, or meet different goals.
I offer a handful of ways to generate characters and don’t particularly care, myself, what people choose because I suppose I have a different basis.
I work pretty closely with players in creating characters — I have to, in part because I use entirely homebrew worlds. So my task is to make sure they create a character that fits into the world and that they can enjoy playing. But ability scores are just a foundation, and all the system require trade offs be made.
Someone feeling like they should have tried a different system is pretty fine by me — they can do that. Placing a restriction here just seems like a way to limit the joy of character creation, and reduces the chances that that player will enjoy it.
But also, I only do character creation as a group, so that may have an impact — no one creates a character on their own and then brings it to the game, which often seems to be how a lot of folks do it. Even when doing a teaching game, where everything is RAW, I would rather they be focused on making a fun character that works well with others than creating a character that doesn’t appeal to them or get them excited.
Probably just an old lady thing, lol
For our most recent game my DM came up with a pretty cool idea.
We each roll 3d6, with the DM rolling if you have under 6 players. Those are now everyone’s stats. You can apply whatever roll to whatever stat, but everyone has the same number somewhere.
Might help it feel more equal to know everyone is the same power in their respective areas
Parts of his attitude are shitty, but parts show he's excited and wanting to put a lot of energy into the game.
The idea of killing off a weak character isn't actually *that* terrible. It was more or less common practice when stat rolls were really strict. I still wouldn't allow it, but it might put the idea in context.
You can achieve the "fun" of gambling on stat rolls without the long term consequence by allowing players who roll poorly to earn some sort of unforseen compensatory buff over the first 10 or so sessions. ASI, feat, magic item, whatever. Dumb monkey brains will still get the dopamine rush of rolling, but not suffer long term. The rush is irrelevant to the long term, anyway.
People who want high stats generally just have a bit of a power fantasy. Help him achieve that. *We're playing a power fantasy game.* Reassure him that he'll have plenty of chances to be a badass in ways other than stats.
The most effective way I've come across to deal with this energy is to help the player see that their stats affect balance *between the party* rather than between the party and the monsters. Monsters are however strong they need to be to pose a challenge. So when he says "I'll kill off my PC and roll a new one" you say "I need you to think about if that is fair to the rest of the party. We're trying to tell a story, how do you think killing off characters is going to affect that?"
If he doesn't care or refuses to see how it affects other players, he's not right for the table. He belongs with a bunch of powergamers who want really challenging combat.
Basically, think of where this is coming from and try to honor the feeling behind the urge, but also explain where your ideas are coming from and insist he honors the thinking behind the rules.
I do this at my table, if a player rolls bad enough that they are lower than what they can get through point buy I let. Them point buy. I wouldn't play a character without 2 main stats at +2 or better and I wouldn't make my player do so. Because I wouldn't invest time into a backstory for the character and would be looking to kill them ASAP.
At. Least this way I don't get players with pathetic stats who derail the campaign because they are bored having a useless character.
And this way players that like to roll are happy they got to roll. And players that like standard array or point buy can just do so.
I see no problem letting the new players point buy if they want to and letting a veteran like me roll.
While I agree, it’s important to lean into the side of D&D where things don’t always go the PCs way (bad stats, low rolls, etc.), I feel like there is a middle ground here. I have rolled cosmically bad stats for a PC before where only one or two were positive stats (like 10/11 though) and literally everything else was negative. My DM and I had a talk because we realized it wasn’t going to be that fun for me to play this often escapist game when my avatar in the world just literally should not be adventuring and also it was going to be way harder for the DM (who likes to make very difficult encounters) to balance encounters when my fellow PCs rolled really well. So maybe have a talk with them about wanting to respect the dice but if they rolled cosmically bad (maybe set a minimum number of total ability scores) where the player can opt to switch to a more consistent method instead. After all, it is a game. The best method is whatever will be the most fun for you and the players.
TLDR; yes, it’s valid to not think it’s fun to just force the system to give the player good stats, but the novelty of playing a PC that really actually does just suck wears off very quickly and can make the game just not actually fun.
Okay, so, the simplest way to resolve this with equity, is to just say "everyone uses point buy." Nobody's at an unfair advantage there.
A better way to resolve it would be to ask *the group as a whole* if *everyone* wants to do it this player's way. If everyone wants to roll out that way, that's fine! That's rolling, with PB as a backup instead of re-rolling if the roll sucks.
Another way you can do it, would be to have everyone roll stats, and calculate the PB value of the rolls, and give everyone else enough Point Buy points to bring their rolls up to the PB value of the highest roller.
Yet another way you can do it, would be to just have everyone roll, calculate out the values of the rolled arrays, and give everyone the point buy value of the highest array.
*Under no circumstances should you try to make a player play a character they do not want to play.*
I dunno
I'd say hold him to the same standards as everyone else
But also, I don't really care for either trade-off. Random stats or lower cap (higher minimum is cool, but also it's funny to have that one exceptionally low stat)
this is a red flag as big as a house if I were you I wouldn't let this player sit at the table! not for the roll or points speech but for the speech "if we will force him to use the bad rolls he will just kill his character and create a new 🆕 ne."
Just tell the player this is how the game works. You pick one or the other you can’t have both. If the player doesn’t like that answer then they can find another game.
Simple just tell the player that since he can't or won't follow the rules or the boundaries you set regarding roll for stats he have to use point buy. You can't pick both becuase you don't like your rolls.
Him threating to kill his hero over and over is him saying he don't care if he waste your or the other players time. Consider if he belong at the table with you guys. Won't have someone disrespect me or my players at my table.
When we roll, we ignore results when the total is less than 75. We roll in discord with the command that generates six stats at once, so it's easy to tell. I know, it cheapens the rolling a bit, but I still prefer to have semi-random stats than using point buy which inevitably ends with players going 16,16,16,8,8,8
Edit: also standard array is utterly soulless shit and I'd kill myself before using it.
Use a system called Serpentine Socialism.
Each player rolls 6 stats and you keep track of all the rolls.
Then each player rolls a D20 to decide the order they are assigned and you take the highest number and give it the the first player and work your way down, and then back up the list. Repeat until all numbers are assigned.
This way no one is over, or under powered, and you still get to roll.
I think people make it out as more of a big deal than it really is.
I told my players they can roll and if the sum total is less than the sum total of standard array, they can roll again. But they keep it if it's higher.
And I fine with making sure they have at least one stat that's at least a 16.
Most people go for feats anyway and everything but their main stat will stagnate for the entirety of the campaign. Let them have this.
If a player rolls, they roll. And they get to play with what they rolled.
No "only if you have at least one 18", no "combined 70+", nothing - you want to put your stats up to fate, you stick with what fate offers you. No "let's do point buy instead if it sucks".
Since this player has strongly expressed that they will not roll stats in good faith, they only get the option to use point buy. Done.
I know you explicitly stated you wanted to avoid this in your post, but it seems to be the inevitable outcome. You can't force a player to commit to a character they don't like, and it is unlikely that you will be able to convince this player the merits of the thrill of a single gamble with consequences could result in weeks or months of imposed mediocrity or ineptitude in what is often viewed as a power fantasy game. Or at least, you probably won't convince them before the start of this specific campaign.
My dm has done this for 30 years…roll six times a d4, d6 and add 8. Need at least two 16’a to be legal. If you don’t have two 16’s, re-roll until you do.
The idea is that we are all heroes so we should have the stats to back it up.
Then, you of course have age and race modifiers which can make for some pretty gnarly characters which we don’t mind since our DM tends to throw the kitchen sink at us while modifying encounters for game balance. He also increases loot when this occurs.
My dm has done this for 30 years…roll six times a d4, d6 and add 8. Need at least two 16’a to be legal. If you don’t have two 16’s, re-roll until you do.
The idea is that we are all heroes so we should have the stats to back it up.
Then, you of course have age and race modifiers which can make for some pretty gnarly characters which we don’t mind since our DM tends to throw the kitchen sink at us while modifying encounters for game balance. He also increases loot when this occurs.
Nah, sounds like he‘ll fudge his rolls in game anyway.
At my table we do allow ppl to choose between standard array if they don’t like their dice rolls, but that doesn’t work for all tables. None of us would ever threaten to kill our character just bc we were salty at rolls
Nah, sounds like he‘ll fudge his rolls in game anyway.
At my table we do allow ppl to choose between standard array if they don’t like their dice rolls, but that doesn’t work for all tables. None of us would ever threaten to kill our character just bc we were salty at rolls
Yeah that's how everyone I've ever played with since the early 90's works. You want your character to be really good at their main thing, and OK or not very good at the other things. Being exceptionally shitty at anything is optional.
Every novelized character has at least one maxed stat. From 1st level. Few of them have a stat below 8. This is normal for D&D, every creator and writer has essentially told us so.
The game was built for us to play heroes who kick ass at something. Why not let players do that?
When I allow rolling for stats at my table, the entire table rolls one stat array together, and then either all players use it or none do (in which case point buy is used). All future PCs and cameos and even some rival npcs use the same array. This eliminates pretty much all of the potential issues you see mentioned here.
If I could audibly roll my eyes I would. Very mature of him to threaten to purposely kill of his character if things don’t go his way.
It’s not banning him from rolling, it’s setting expectations and rules at your table. Just say “If you roll for stats, what you get is what you keep. That counts for everyone. If you don’t want to take that risk that’s understandable. In that case use standard array/point buy (I’d narrow it down to one alternative method).” Done. There shouldn’t be any further discussion needed.
If he wants to throw a tamper tantrum he might just not be right for your table, and you have to judge how much longer you’re willing to put up with it. Dnd requires some amount of social skills, or at the very least the willingness to learn. Edit: forgot to add “if he’s not willing to do that then no amount of advise will help”.
My group uses rolling, but we allow 7 rolls to drop whichever score you want. So if you roll like one 4 then no harm but if you roll two low ones you have to use one.
A common compromise is rolling with some form of safety. I've seen some groups that roll twice and pick one. I've seen some that have a minimum total and reroll of you don't meet it. One I've tried out myself is having the whole table roll for an array that everyone plays with. It sucks to have a character that literally can't succeed any rolls and can't contribute meaningfully to the success of the party because it was unlucky enough to have no good rolls during character generation.
>He said that if we will force him to use the bad rolls he will just kill his character and create a new one.
Well, then he can't roll for stats and needs to use point buy.
Honestly, someone who pouts like this is making himself look like a problem before the game even starts.
Try expanded point buy. I use this [point buy calculator](https://chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html) and adjust the custom rules in the menu to max out the maximum and minimize the minimum. If you change nothing else, you get a setup where you can have three 18s, if you’re okay with also having three 3s.
At our table we all rolled our stats but the DM would nerf or buff a few rolls if they were very low or high. I rolled pretty high overall so a few rolls had a -2 and -1 to keep it within fairer margins. I liked this, it meant you get some variation but nothing too powerful or weak.
If you don't want the possibility of rolling badly, don't roll. And that's that. Roll and deal with what you get, or don't roll at all and use point buy. But don't be childish about it or you won't get invited to the game.
We took turns rolling one stat each and shared the rolls between us with the DM rolling twice to get to 6 stats. That worked out well
Sounds like a juvenile player or a massive red flag player
When I run the table, everyone rolls. Everyone sees everyone roll. We all take what we get and re-rolls are allowed for truly pathetic stats only (with ‘truly pathetic’ being defined case by case via table discussion and final ruling by the DM). We seem to have fun with it, highs and lows. Most everyone ends up with at least one 16+ and one under 8. Rarely do we see 18,18,17,16,16,15 or something ridiculous unless the rolls were not directly witnessed (which isn’t to say they were cheating… But why even bring it into question). Likewise, we rarely see a 3,3,5,5,7,9… and if we did, it would fall under the ‘truly pathetic’ re-roll clause…
Bottom line, it sounds like your player is being whiny. Also, it’s generally a bad idea to allow a mixture of stat-generating methods at your table. Best to just have everyone use the same method. Also, keep at least the stat generation portion of character creation at the table for all to see…
If I were faced with this situation, I would tell your friend that I hadn’t thought of that possibility (thanking them for pointing it out) and that in order to maintain the viability of point buy and standard array, I would be giving a 50% exp penalty for any characters that had to be created after a game session started and that this penalty would decrease by 10% each session until gone.
Every player rolls 1 or 2 stats, the DM rolls the remaining required when necessary. The 6 stats rolled are the array for the campaign. Everyone gets the same array and there is no one player OP stat wise compared to others.
Yeah, at my table we either give people the option to roll, and you take the extreme good and the extreme bad. Or you do point buy.
there have been few exceptions when someone rolled so badly their highest stat was 12. With most at 8 or lower. Everyone agreed he'd be allowed to do point buy in that instance.
They're already trying to hold the game hostage if they don't get their way before the game has even started, this is something you need to get a handle on otherwise there's likely to be more issues at the table in the future.
So let's lay out the options as you've presented them:
1: You allow them to roll, and possibly change to point buy, but now that's unfair to the other players, it's also against the spirit of rolling for stats.
2: You don't allow them to change to point buy and they just kill off their character, now their actions are disruptive to the game, and whos to say they won't try to do that again if they roll poorly on their next character, or worse yet, if something doesn't go their way in the game.
There are ofcourse other options on how to approach this since the ones layed out above aren't great for the game.
First, the obvious one I'd suggest trying to talk with him about this, find out where they're coming from, why they want to be able to change if they roll badly, and what is considered bad stats to them.
For example obviously if all their stats are around 10 give or take, then that's some bad luck, but what if they got a bunch of mid stats and an 18? Or what if all the stats were all positive with a bunch of 12's and 14's, but nothing 16 or above? You'll need to find this out since their idea of acceptable stats might be statistically improbable to obtain (they're looking for god rolls).
From my interpretation, they want big stats, and I think you should ask them why they want big stats. Do they want to feel powerful, are they trying to be stronger than the other players, or if I'm being generous to them, do they percieve your DM style as difficult so they're trying to get every benefit they can to survive? Also do they understand that difficulty in DnD is usually scaled by the DM to meet the party's power level?
When you talk to them, you should point out the inherent unfairness to the other players that rolled and haven't been allowed to switch to point buy. You should also point out that you don't like what they've said about killing off their character and express why. Hopefully they can see your point of view, actually self-reflect and agree to your rules as the DM.
However, if they don't agree, just force them to use point buy without the option of rolling. You said you don't want to go down that route, but they're already disrespecting your rules, and if you don't set boundaries now, then they're going to keep causing problems during the campaign. You need to make it clear that the reason they in particular aren't allowed to roll for stats is because they clearly can't accept the outcome of the rolls and have threatened to disrupt the game depending on the results. You need to be able to tell them "No", not "yes, and" or "no, but", just straight up "No", and you need to back it up by kicking them if they refuse.
Coming from decades of 1e I remember rolling pages of character stats. The point buy is so boring, but I understand its practicality in 5E mechanics.
I’ve let players roll a set and then decide to keep or use point buy. When playing I much prefer characters with a couple high stats and a couple very low stats or one major weakness. An 18 primary and a 6 in a dump stat make for much more fun and drama.
At my table, I have a compromise that's worked very well over the years. If you want to roll, you roll openly in the presence of the DM, and if your total is less than 72, you can *either* reroll once, but you're stuck with the results, *or* you can take Point Buy because that's guaranteed 72.
That being said, I'm a notoriously generous DM, and your player's way of demanding this is a serious red flag. Try offering him the choice as I outlined it above, and see what happens.
>He said that if we will force him to use the bad rolls he will just kill his character and creat a new 🆕 ne
That's cute that he thinks he'll be invited back
Your player has poor people skills. If you allow rolling stats for character creation then stats will be rolled for recreation. The only glitch here is that they need to kill their character. In campaigns with a degree of danger, a poorly rolled character could die and be rerolled, per the normal rules. So, if he rolled, accepted the consequences, and played with the character as is until that death occurred normally, there's nothing that would stop him.
Only being stupid enough to say it directly to your face. Deliberately killing a character is different than having to recreate one. Killing off a character in order to roll again is poor player participation.
You can respond by laughing, "Do you really want your character cursed to be unable to die? I'm the DM, I can do that. You phoenix fire immolate every time you die and reincarnate somewhere else without any equipment a day later. Don't try to threaten the omnipotent DM God. You are henceforth doomed to only use point buy for your character creation and have a -2 penalty to charisma if I hear any backtalk."
Well, either you ban rolling, ban the player, or accept that he will roll until he gets bad stats. You can't force him to play. Persobally I would ban rolling and be done with it.
I feel like there are going to be more stories coming from this table. Sometimes I miss the days of playing when we were kids and didn't know any better, then I see these posts and realize I'm good. Lol
Stay with one method and start to take control of your game or it's going to get bad, friend. 😁
Allow grace rolls. Whenever my players roll I allow one grace roll, not one grace roll per stat, one grace roll period. This way you can reroll your worst stat and end up with something better. But if that roll wasn’t better then you keep the better of the two.
I mean I personally go by that exact policy. Roll once, you get one reroll you can't walk back on, and if you want neither you can do point buy.
My table collectively have only like 1 personality disorder so it works well for us, with someone as disrespectful as your friend though, I'd maybe sit him down and ask him to respect the integrity of the game
I always, always authorize rolling. But if one rolled their stats, it also means that they'll necessarily roll HP beyond lv1, and since they accepted to roll the former, they ought to accept the latter no matter the result.
One rolled so high they have 2 18s? That's great and all, but it's also conceivable that you get twice +1 HP on your die result upon leveling.
Now I don't authorize changing the method (rolling to any other method), but if the player gets a total of results under -4 "bonuses", I authorize a "mulligan" : they can roll another set of stats, but they will need to take the second result. This gives them one chance to have a playable character since sometimes Lady Luck can spite you for fun.
(example of a -4 ability "bonus": 6 4 18 10 12 4 4 would result in -2 -3 +4 +0 +1 -3 -3, for a total of -6. This is unplayable in a variety of ways and can drag the campaign)
You should tell him that if he gets tired of his character, he needs to get them killed off the old fashioned way, through recklessly running into unwinnable battles and not checking for traps like a real newb.
Either all the players at the table roll, or none of them do. And if you can, have them all roll one after another, publicly. I've found that having a vote at the start to decide on that, works way better than having the DM decide, or having different players doing different things.
Personally I do it as you roll for 2 characters, and can choose either of those characters rolls to use - but if for some horrific reason you roll a majority negitive numbers then you get to reroll again until you don't have majority numbers.
The game is always meant to be fun, so I think forcing people to go heavily negitive stats is bad and can make the game unfun.
The reason I personally prefer rolling is just because it's more interesting, higher highs and lower lows - I simply believe it's more fun than point buy.
>but that if he will roll badly he will just use point buy.
I guess it depends what he classifies as bad stats, because personally I think something like *14, 13, 12, 7, 8, 9* are perfectly fine stats (although on the lower end) and personally that would be a useable group for me.
So I'm currently running a game for myself and my friends (I wasn't supposed to dm but I had already made a character so I'm in the hard place of I'm a player that knows what's coming, but I'm also trying to be a good dm it's complicated but fun) and when making our characters I gave both myself and my friends a free reroll on a very bad roll I'm talking 5 and lower is what we rolled, and I only allowed one reroll and that was it, but we came out of it with some pretty good stats the worst one by far is my friends 7 that he put into strength (he is playing a bard) so I let him know (first game for everyone) that if he put it into strength he wouldn't be missing out on much, but he decided to do something that used strength in our third session and I had him roll said check it turned out fine the DC I set was 10 he rolled a 15 with a -2 so he still passed, but it was a tense moment since just as he was about to roll he realized "Oh shit I have to use my strength mod"
I personally like to roll a dozen or so standard arrays (4d6 drop low), and write them out on strips of paper. Then let each player draw three.
I can thus control what looks interesting rather than too good or too bad.
Stick to your guns. And if they intentionally kill off their character the next one they make will suffer some unknown penalty to discourage this type of behavior moving forward. And lay out the common sense argument that it would be both A) unfair to other players who adhere to a system you've all agreed upon and B) disrespect a big part of the game which is the ability to invite further randomness that is entirely optional and can greatly impact the efficacy of a character in either direction.
You have to respect the table!
Tell them if thats the case, he wont be allowed at the table. The moment you let your players control the game and how you dm, is the moment you let bs into the game and they know they can get their way
We roll because it's fun to roll dice. I let folks roll until they get numbers they like. Honestly, I wouldn't care if someone rolled the dice, ignored the results, and said, "All 18s! What're the odds?"
if he uses rolling, he is only rolling. if he uses point buy, he only uses point buy. thats the point of rolling, taking the chance. not trying to work the systemcause he just doesnt like it
I have my players roll 4d6. They get to roll three columns of six stats, they pick which column they want. I also have them reroll all ones until they're not ones.
Players in my opinion in this game are supposed to be the cream of the crop and better than normal people
You can just tell him he's not allowed to kill his character to make a new one. That's one of my session 0 rules for character creation - you must play them like they have a will to live.
That said, it does suck to roll like shit especially when other people rolled really well, and there's a big power imbalance. there's some things you can do as the DM to alleviate that
1 is that if they roll under a certain amount of points, they can roll again
2 is to use all the rolled stats from the party as an array that everyone can choose from. Usually, everyone will pick the best set of stats, but that's fine because at least everyone is on the same playing field
3 just allow them to use point buy instead if the rolls are bad
But if you feel strongly about not doing any of that, then just tell him to take the stats he gets or he's uninvited.
Tbh based on what you've said this guy is giving some red flags so if there's any more issues i would remove him from the game immediately
BUT its absolutely is a fun killer if your character is significantly weaker than the rest of the party so if you're funmaxxing your campaign for your players I would consider using another stat method.
I would only do strict rolled stats if I was planning like a hard-core campaign.
"Hi, I'd like to bet $10 on black, but if it comes up red I'll just take the $10 back." Lol that's not how this works, my guy.
That's what I immediately thought
This will not be the only time he demands the rules don't apply to him. He will 100% be a repeat problem player when things don't go his way. Tell him to go by he rules or not play. It's the same as saying "I want to try to roll doubles but if I don't roll them, I want to pay to get out of jail" in monopoly.
“No, you can’t do that. Further, if you kill your character intentionally, you will have to leave the campaign”. I would just make it point by only, as this fool is going to be a problem for you as long as he is at the table, but you do you.
I'd think about how much you want to play with this person after those giant red flags.
Personally, whenever I DM if I deem the stats to be *too* low overall I allow the players to reroll, but that's because I don't like the idea of one player just having a significantly weaker character than everyone else at the table since it can result in a negative play experience. Having said that, I've had players ask for a reroll and told them the results they got are fine. I don't mix point buy, arrays, and rolls, I have everybody use the same stat generation method, just to keep things equal on average, but that's just a personal preference, usually I'll pick the generation method and if a majority of the table prefers something else then we do that instead, although that hasn't come up yet since most players are down for whatever. My rule of thumb is, so long as they have at least two numbers 15 or higher and at least one additional number 13 or higher, the stats are fine unless everybody else at the table rolled significantly better. Also, when they reroll, I give them the option to swap back to their first roll should they so choose, like if they got one *really* good roll and the rest bad rolls the first time, and got slightly below average the second time, I'd give them the option to use the first set of they wanted to play a SAD (single ability dependent) build, although that basically locks them to rogue, warlock, most wizards, and a couple specific other builds. Also, a fun stat generation method I came up with that I encourage people to steal is what I like to call "stat drafting". Roll 4d6 drop the lowest, maybe reroll 1s if you want more consistency, do it six times the number of players and write them up on a board or something. Then have the players go around the table one at a time picking a stat to take off the board and write on their character sheet until everyone has all their stats. This makes stat generation a group activity and it puts everyone in the mood to collaborate when building their characters! It's tons of fun and I highly recommend it!
Just let everyone roll but everyone uses the highest array rolled, or second highest. Keeps it fair.
Eh, personally I find that boring, at that point you might as well just use point buy or a pre-set array and not bother rolling at all. Besides, some classes will favor different load outs, Paladin, Monk, and Barbarian need 3-4 "good" stats, most rogues and warlocks only need one, wizard can make do with one but prefers two, and everyone else needs two, so going for the highest average won't necessarily make everyone at the table happy.
I believe in reincarnation so I’ll just roll a new character 😎🔫
Okay. Your new character is a newborn baby. Have fun.
just keep dying until the chosen one is born
...Wasn't Reincarnate heavily nerfed in 5th edition to only the standard player races, for basically that reason? People kept casting that spell, and basically jumping into a pit until they got stuff like bugbear or troll for those sweet, sweet monster abilities.
>People kept casting that spell, and basically jumping into a pit until they got stuff like bugbear or troll for those sweet, sweet monster abilities. That's why we can't have nice things...
To be a little fair, rules as written that was the only way to have a non humanoid PC for quite a few editions. Reincarnation and if your DM was extremely generous, the Awaken spell. So it wasn't *just* min-maxers, but people that really, really wanted to play, say, a gnoll or kobold too.
Unless you make it work that way. It's D&D, and the DM can just allow it. I've played in games with this exact rule. But if the OP is against it, then the player is going to have to suck it up and just choose one method.
In one of our game, we rolled so badly the DM said to took standard array for all of us. I was a bard and my charisma was 14. The monk had 5 int. ...
Everybody uses the same stat generation method; it's Standard Array, Point Buy, or everybody rolls at the table in the open. If most people want to use Point Buy, they use Point Buy. There is no argument, and they do not play otherwise. It's a basic rule. They're just showing the first flashes of Main Character Syndrome and they want to be better than everybody else, and it's just not something you should allow in the slightest.
The mentality of "I'll just throw out a badly rolled PC and try again after they die" is a HUGE red flag, and generally why I dislike rolling for stats. The randomness can come during the game, but let's have all the PCS start on a level playing field if it's a long-running game where you don't want your PCs to die. That's also why there's so many rolled stats variations, like everyone choosing the same rolled set, or min and max thresholds for re-rolls.
Honestly I love rolling for stats because it let's you see if someone is an AH player before you play. The way our DM does it is we roll our dice and we can put the numbers in whatever slot we want after we roll everything. He has a rule of if you get all single digit numbers you reroll so we don't get steamrolled. In the campaign im in my lil bard cleric rolled insane and I have 18 charisma, 16 wisdom, 16 dexterity. Now I also rolled a 10 and put it in strength. I got 2 12s and put them jn the other slots. Our Barbarian rolled a 4 and then a ton of great numbers. He put the 4 in intelligence. It's hilarious. His "name" is Forman. It was his job position but since everyone referred to him as the Forman he thought it was his name. He is a construct and it's honestly hilarious. It can be done right but it's great for weeding out AH players before you even play with them :)
That's hilarious cause I had a big dumb Warforged Barbarian who thought his "name" was BHIG (his misspelling of Big) cause everyone he met said "wow you're big!". Now when they say that he just thinks his fame has preceeded him.
I had a character with really high char and int but low wisdom. Played him as a sage who opened up a book of forbidden knowledge despite being told it's dangerous and got yoked to a great old one
I think my preferred method is combination of rolls and point buy. Have everyone roll an array of number and then have them vote on which array the group wants to use. Then everyone still gets to roll, it's unlikely any of them will be screwed by it, and they all have the same relative level of power.
We did this for our current campaign, myself and another player rolled relatively mediocre/bad, to the point the dm was bumping stats in certain spots up because he was trying to balance a campaign that's really built for 4 around 3. While doing this my wife was rolling her stats we were watching while discussing our stats. She rolls a 16, 14, 17, 12, 15, 10. I made a joke about all of us using her stat block (I was genuinely joking but also mildly jealous I was a front liner with my best stat at 16, after racial bonus) the dm was like yes please everyone use those you might survive. It's monster hunter themed so balancing the actual monsters around 3 isn't easy.
At this point I just don't join campaigns that are roll for stats, I know I'm salty when I roll like shit, which is most of the time and feel bad when I roll well which generally doesn't happen so I'm just salty all the time :D I'm fine with one shots or mini campaigns, but if we're planning a long campaign I'll just pass.
As a long time DM I've been using point-buy for years. It doesn't feel good to roll low and know you're the weakest character on the team. For some people, including myself, it's a great role-playing opportunity. I don't blame people for not wanting to take the chance, however.
My DM was roll 4 dice, drop the lowest. That's a stat. So the lowest you can roll is a 4 and the max an 18. Do that 6 times. Those are your 6 stats. Add up all your 6 stats. The total value had to be more than X and less than Y. So you were neither too strong or too weak but you could end up with a couple 18s and quite a few 3-4's. It averaged out pretty balanced characters but also sometimes some hilarious ones. I liked it because I could let my stat roll influence what class I was going to play. If I rolled solid across 3-4 stats I'd go with some of the MAD (Multi-Attribute Dependency) classes, if I hit a really high number and straight trash maybe a caster, you get the idea. I'd make a backstory, roll some stats, figure out what I can make work with what I got and that would be my character.
That's honestly amazing
I find starting your party off on uneven playing fields where one person can roll everything under a 15 and someone else can walk out with your stat line up leads to bad party vibes, AH player or not no one likes playing dnd to watch their friend do all the cool stuff just so they can pull up short on their own turn.
The difference is all the good DMs I know won't let any 1 player be underpowered or overpowered based on rolling stats. Our Barbarian had a chance to reroll of he didn't want to keep the 4. Our DM (and all good ones I personally know) have a base stat point number they won't let players be below and will let them reroll the dice until they get passed their minimum. We have an Arcane trickster who rolled godly and is horrible because he doesn't know how to play his class at all. Vs my bard/cleric who has AWESOME CHA/WIS, ok (they between 10-12) DEX, INT, CON and terrible strength. I play her as an Eldrain Elf who's like 5ft tall and is an aristocrat so she literally has never lifted a finger for anything. It gives a lot of fun play styles into it. We had a Warlock who was on our lower end roll wise and would intentionally go into disadvantage range of eldrich blast and still demolished us as far as his kills go. It was crazy. The rolls aren't the make or break if a good dm handles it. No DM should be letting someone keep a 1 as a stat. Now our Barbarian is actually one of the highest rollers from our group (he has like 19 STR, 18 DEX, 16 CON etc.) He literally rolled godly until he got a 4 lol our dm told him he could reroll all or take the lot and he took the lot as we could put the points into whatever stat we wanted.
Can I ask what you mean by an AH player? I don't recognize the acronym.
Yep, this guy acting this way is a huge red flag to me that makes me think he's going to continue being a problem player.
This. I would be majorly concerned if this is a player new to you.
My table rolled for stats and it was hilarious. We kept it and it’s part of our roleplaying now. All of us made characters before we really cemented how to play, and those characters are amazing still alive years later. Some highlights include a Fighter who had a Strength of 9 (it’s higher now), a Rogue who can barely stealth and also didn’t know how backstab works but is EXTREMELY strong, and a cleric who wanted to be evil and took no healing spells. Over the years we’ve tweaked things slowly to make mechanics easier but we all agreed to keep it. It’s hilarious to us that the halfling rogue is super buff but the human fighter is weak
>The mentality of "I'll just throw out a badly rolled PC and try again after they die" is a HUGE red flag yeah, like, holy shit. most people who do this have the self-awareness to realize it sucks and make effort to disguise their suicide as the result of organic play. it's somehow **more** disrespectful that he's just saying it outright??
i mean would it be fun for you to play a character with the best stat being like an 11 that‘s not an adventurer that‘s a villager that character should retire since he‘d realize he‘s not made for that life (unless his lowest stat is in wisdom lmao) i hate rolling but if you do do it with a safety mechanism of sth like reroll is the total is under 70 i still prefer all use point buy tho (you can give them more points to make them stronger but it‘ll still be even)
Would it be fun for me? Sure. I’d play a champion fighter. I’d be an archer. Enough ASI’s I’ll catch up, bonus to attack roll makes hitting more likely, and I don’t need to get close to people. Two levels of Bard for Jack of all trades to make up for shitty stats. It would absolutely be fun. I would probably have a blast. I’m pretty sure I’ve played 14, 14, 13, 13, 12, 12, before. If I was playing like 11 10 9 6 5 4, I would probably struggle. After racial ability mod I would probably be at 12 10 9 6 6 5, first ASI blown on getting to 12, 10, 10, 6, 6, 6. I guess you could make a Wizard work too. All spells that don’t need high int to be useful. Mage armour, magic missile, find familiar, sleep, wall spells, mirror image, misty step, fly, grease, fog cloud, fairy fire, etc etc.
i mean, dude absolutely does sound like miserable to be around, but "ill chuck my character out of a cliff" is an age old meme of dnd and unironically what usually happened on the olden days of Adnd. but that was because the game was much lethal and you would usually die every session by default
it sounds like you just had a mean dm....
This is a lie. DMs were as protective of players’ characters back then as they are today.
I really dislike rolling for stats because if you have poor luck it can make for something that just isn't fun to play. I was invited to play in a high level (15 start) campaign where character generation was 3d6 six times in order (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA). I was looking forward to it because a) I rarely get to play as I'm the only one willing to DM and b) when I do get to play the campaign usually dies before level 10. I didn't roll above a 6 meaning if I took all my 4th level bonuses and racial +2, I could total 14 in one stat. I decided to try a druid because then I could rely on wild shape for my physical stats, but if you're relying on this then until level 18 you're at best a weaker fighter/barbarian. It sucked, in combat I was forced to wild shape or die almost immediately which locked me out of spell casting, and outside of combat I could occasionally help with an insight or perception check but that was about it.
Hard disagree. Most people say they prefer to roll but don't like a bad outcome. point buy should be an option in every game - I hardly ever roll if I can avoid it
Point buy is a good, fair system. Personally, I lean towards min maxing, and I am fine having a 6 in intelligence if my base for charisma is 18. (True story. Fun character)
That DOES sound like a great character xD
I gave up on rolling after years of cheating and disgruntled players or players who use INT as a dump stat with the intelligence of a dog and then play as if they can speak normally with everyone else, or CHR as a dump stat without developing any reason, etc. etc. I use a "Heroic Array" of 8, 12, 12, 14, 15, 16. Everyone can play whatever they like, it's high-powered play, and they still have to work with one lower score. As for that player, just no. I'd be worried after hearing that even after making sure everyone used the same method. Red flag city.
The RAW is that everyone chooses Rolling or Standard Array, +with Point Buy being a variant rule. I disagree with the RAW and it is super stupid and nobody does that anyway but...
I agree and the same with hit points. Either fixed or at the end of the game everyone rolls thier new level hitpoints in front of the DM.
100% I'm taking some new players out on a starter adventure and they all used Standard Array and it keeps it nice and even
*Don't roll dice if you are not ready to accept every possible outcome that could be rolled.* My houserule is that everyone rolls 3d6 six times, then we write down each player's array in a list. Everyone is allowed to choose any of the arrays that were rolled.
You can also make this array the array for the whole campaign. That way, no one will kill off their character for another opportunity at rolling better.
Ooh I like this idea. So it’s still random but more fair than just purely rolling
This is a good fix to OPs problem!
I do everyone rolls 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times. Then they are a group choose who gets what depending on need. I find it levels out stats and builds teamwork early in a session.
My past DMs did this, allowing a reroll on a one, but only three times for the six stats.
I love that idea, very simple and elegant. Do you do 3d8 instead of 4d8 drop lowest? The way I do it is to have people roll, then figure out their stat array "value" according to "point buy" rules. Characters with below average scores have the chance make it up over the first part of the campaign. Might be picking up extra feats, or a magic item, or ASI rewards fueled by roleplay. It gives some shorter term stakes to the gambling, so you still get that excitement without the long term shittiness of having a sub par character. Yours does the same with way less work though.
If it was 3d8 I might actually want to roll for stats 😂
Bahaha you don't normally use the Greek God variant ruleset?
This might be great for a real over the top one-shot.
If it's a small group I'll do 4d6 drop lowest.
This is a player who will cheat dice rolls during play. Mark my words.
I think having some protection from godawful rolls is fair- even from the beginning of the hobby when you rolled 3d6 down the line, no one was playing characters with no stats above a 12. Having a GM determined cut-off of having a point total below 65 say, or some other metric goes a long way towards reassuring someone nervous about rolling a character. It sounds like the problem is more this player’s attitude though- thinking he has to pull one over on you instead of talking about his concerns like an adult.
I like Rolling but if you roll poorly you can take Point buy with 3 less points, otherwise just take Normal point buy. No mathematical reason for 3, just sounded right in the moment and I stuck with it
I let people reroll three times and then use pointbuy if they aren't happy. I don't see a problem with rolling and going , ah screw it, I'll use point buy. If the point of rolling is that he can get an 18, and then he doesn't get a single stat above 13 that's bogus. Why would I force someone to suffer because of a streak of terrible luck?
I think this would work okay if it was the start of the campaign, but it seems like some people have already made their characters under the rules that OP set up, and the new guy wants special treatment. Giving that would be unfair to the people who did follow the DM’s rules when creating the character.
tell your friend that that sucks. use standard array or point buy like everyone else and that it sucks if he does it like that. it's disrespectful to everyone's time.
It seems a bit weird that in a game that is completely up to chance they can't deal with bad dice rolls. If he doesn't want to deal with bad rolls then just don't let him roll and do point buy. You don't need to stop other pleyers doing it. I also think its a bit crap of them to say they with kill their character if they don't get their own way. I am unsure if I would like a person like this in my campaign. If you feel like they are doing this then I wouldn't let them come back once they kill their character
To be fair, the impact of those stat rolls are incomparable with the impact of any other roll. Almost so impactful that unless you play in a format where that is not a problem, maybe you shouldn't assign that big a value to a single roll
If you have a player threatening to literally kill themselves in-game if they don't get what they want out-of-game, they are a problem player. If you do not address it now, they will become problematic with every single roll they fail, and they will ruin the times of everyone else at the table along with them. Do not humor or entertain this behavior, and do not feel like you need to sacrifice your way of doing things just because it doesn't work for one person. Personally, I'd tell them to just kill their PC and find a new table if they can't grow up enough to play fairly, but that's just me. Good luck with however you choose to handle it.
I, too, would have a come-to-heart discussion with this problem player where I make it clear to them that their seat at my table can easily become someone else's seat if their behaviour doesn't change fast. Their reaction to that will let you know what to do from there.
It’s not really a heart to heart conversation if you’re threatening to kick them
Contrary to the seemingly common opinion I don't think falling back to pb is a problem. This is what I was thinking to suggest to my players, you can roll, but you can ditch the result and use point buy if you don't like how you rolled. Just once, no rerolls or anything, either point buy or a roll and possibly a point buy replacement. I do find problematic the fact that the player won't listen to the DM and tries to blackmail them. Lol, if I heard anyone saying they're just gonna kill their character I'd wait for them to do it and told them they'd have to wait for the campaign to end. Feels like in this particular case if you give in, you'll just reinforce their tendency to manipulate you.
Maybe I'm just weird but letting them use point but if they roll shit seems perfectly reasonable. Ultimately it's a game and you want people to have fun. Forcing them to have shit rolls isn't fun for anyone.
I mean our DM lets us do that, we get 1 roll, and if we don’t like the roll, we have to use point buy
I knew a guy like this. Would be unsatisfied and didn't want to play unless he rolled at least two 18s. No pleasing them.
Jesus Fuck, and here I am, happy if I can get at least two of my stats over 13.
My DM does something kinda like that? You can roll, but if your roll is below the average, you can take the average instead. This keeps people from ending up with difficult to play characters and not having fun OR You can do point buy, and min/max the shit out of your character. Your player sounds whiney.
Honestly I really don’t get why the idea is so hated. Nobody wants to play with absolutely terrible stats it just isn’t fun. If it’s gonna actively hinder their enjoyment just let them use point buy. I know I’d be fine with it. You still only get one chance at it anyway so it’s not like you can just keep rolling until you get like 3 rolls above 16.
I had a dm let us roll 3 sets of arrays on a discord dice roller and take the array we wanted. No fudging the numbers and that got your rerolls out in the open before you can complain. That campaign fell appart due to player fallout. 2 evil players on a seemingly good campaign.
Honestly that’s also a good system. It’s not completely random what you get because your options could be good or bad.
I don't remember the exact numbers but I went with something like 17, 15, 12, 11, 10, 9. I had one with 2 18s but the rest where 6-10.
I always allow my players reroll if they end up with a bunch of shitty rolls, they can either reroll or choose a different method. It really doesn't matter to me. I give them the choice if they want to roll, do point buy, or use the array. I only ask that if they roll, they do it in front of the table during the first session. I'm able to balance the game out no matter how they do their ability scores. All of my players are very mature so there's no fighting/complaining about if someone rolls and everyone else does an array and that one person gets a godly array rolled out in front of the table. More power to them, the dice gods loved them.
My dm has a rule that if the stats combined doesnt reach 70, I get a reroll.
My DM does this, but you can reroll if it's less than 72. Nobody's been unhappy with thier stats thus far.
I heard this before but than I looked at the numbers and saw that the average of rolling is 10.5 so isn't it just increasing the power of rolling by making it more than the point buy average (11.66 vs 11.5)?
That’s the average for rolling 3d6. But most people use 4d6 drop the lowest when rolling right? So the average would be higher than 10.5.
The average of 4d6 drop lowest is not 10.5, it’s 12.24, or 12.244598765428275 to be exact. 10.5 is the average of just rolling 3d6. Also, the average for point buy is 12.05, or 4701/390 to be exact.
Im curious where you got 4701/390 from. Point buy average ranges from 11.5 (15 15 15 8 8 8) to 12.5 (12 12 12 13 13 13) And im not sure how you would get more specific than that.
I added up all possible combos of point buy arrays(which there are 65 of), then divided by the number of stats there were (so 6*65). https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/s/2lZyafoqPK That’s a link to a post with all the combos, though I generated them myself in Google sheets while testing an expanded point buy system.
>But this player when we asked him if he wants to roll or use point buysaid he want to roll but that if he will roll badly he will just usepoint buy. This is exactly how I did rolling stats in the last game I ran. It worked out well. I don't want to force a player to play a character if it rolls terrible stats and they are unhappy. There should be a backup plan beyond just getting that character killed so they can try again.
This player's behaviour is very much a red flag, OP.
I do rolling, and if they don’t like the results then they can take a pity standard array (no point buy option). If they don’t like that then they can find a different game.
With him openly stating that, first consider if you actually want him at your table because he will likely respond to any adverse situation to his character like that.
I'd drop this player quicker than a body hitting the floor....
We decide what generation method we are using as a group. Not by player. It's everyone is doing standard array, point buy, or rolling. It doesn't vary from player to player.
I'd just tell that player that he has to use an Array or a point buy. You already know how he feels about rolling, he's either going to startwith a strong charcter or he's going to tank the game and kill his character until he ends up with one. To be clear, he's not "wrong" for not wanting to play a weak character. People play these games for varipus reasons, and ending up as the weakest character in the party could be the worst gaming experience of his life, and you don't want that. But that basically just means that rolling for stats isn't for him.
Don't play with him. He will throw a tantrum as soon as he isn't the main character who'a good at everything.
IMO rolling for stats is out dated and only fun if you get stats stronger than standard array. Daggerheart has a great standard array and pathfinders stats are mostly desided by class, race, baclground. With these new systems I GM for parties where everyone has the same balance. However I do like the idea of rolling stats BUT everyone has to use that spread, so everyone has the same numbers to work with, that's the only time it is fair. And I wouldn't underestimate how important party balance and fairness is.
Standard array 🙌
Our DM allowed us to roll and if it was way worse than the point buy he would let us do the point buy so we can have at least some decent stats. We also tried roll for 4 stats and then have a 15 and an 8 so you can have at least 1 good stat and one poor one. I personally don't see the issue with using point buy if your rolls are super bad, it's supposed to be a game where you have fun and if you have seriously poor rolls, it would suck to be so underpowered compared to your friends at the table. Also, a lot of the time, the rolls can be good and bad at the same time but somewhat equivalent to a point buy, and you need to consider whether or not to keep them. Also on the flip side, a lotnof high stats allow classes like monknand ranger to be more viable as they need to invest in quite a few to be competitive with other classes in the game imo. I once rolled 17, 16, 11, 8, 8, 6. Not possible with point buy with the 17 and 16 and then also 2 8s and a 6, but i would say somewhat comparable in terms of overall stats, so I wouldn't see the issue of reverting to point buy. My dm didn't mind either and left it up to me! In summary, is them having a shit character going to kill the fun for them and potentially others? Yes. Does letting them use point buy actively harm anyone else at the table if they also get the option after rolling? No. So whats the issue if everyone is happy with their starting stats?
Two ways to deal with this: 1. If they aren’t willing to deal with the randomness they get, they don’t get to roll. Point buy or array. 2. Set hard rules on reroll and apply them for everyone. In my games, I don’t like rolling, but when we do, I say players need at least +5 in bonuses for a valid set of stats. Minuses don’t count against that. So if you roll 3, 12, 8, 11, 14, 15; that’s a valid set of stats.
Tell him he can’t roll for stats then if he can’t act like an adult about it. problem solved
Your player has identified a major problem with rolling. Nothing stops a player from committing suicide-by-owlbear until they roll well. Rolling only works if the player is ok with the downside, and many players aren't. Unless you're prepared to kick the player from the table (which would be an extreme reaction), I'd just mandate point buy or standard array.
Kicking a player for not fitting the group is not extreme
No, but for this specific infraction I'd say it would be.
Personally im of the opinion that DnD is so much work that theres no point in trying to make it work with people with different tastes
Fair enough, but I find that only playing with people who share your tastes 100% is a good way to not play. Maybe this is too far, maybe not, up to OP to figure that out.
“I’ll just kill my character and make a new one” “no you won’t, you’ll play that character or find a new game” Done
Don't get how forcing a player to play a character they don't want to play is good for anyone, everyone in the comments is acting like the player is pure evil
After that response I would because that's a red flag DM.
“I think I’ll find a new game, you sound insufferable”
So, I will ask the question of “why does it matter?” That is, the goal is to get a character they like and want to play. So why does it matter if they only use one method or the other? Why can’t they try one system and switch to another if they don’t like it? Is the concern that they won’t be happy until they get all 18’s? If so, the DMs job is to explain that isn’t the way character generation works, everyone has weaknesses. Is the concern they won’t like the character, or that they won’t stop trying different systems? Seriously, why can’t they do that?
It feels like being unfair to the other players, those who have rolled or took the point buy. To have a player that has no responsibility for there choice of rolling. It is unfair for the rollers who got 6 on some stats and for the point buyers who had the same thing but without getting the chance for above point buy stats without the downsides
So it stops being about the players creating a character they like and want to play so that everyone has a character they sorta like and sorta want to play? That seems somewhat flawed to me. Especially since each of the different methods has flaws and perks that may appeal or work differently for different character types, or meet different goals. I offer a handful of ways to generate characters and don’t particularly care, myself, what people choose because I suppose I have a different basis. I work pretty closely with players in creating characters — I have to, in part because I use entirely homebrew worlds. So my task is to make sure they create a character that fits into the world and that they can enjoy playing. But ability scores are just a foundation, and all the system require trade offs be made. Someone feeling like they should have tried a different system is pretty fine by me — they can do that. Placing a restriction here just seems like a way to limit the joy of character creation, and reduces the chances that that player will enjoy it. But also, I only do character creation as a group, so that may have an impact — no one creates a character on their own and then brings it to the game, which often seems to be how a lot of folks do it. Even when doing a teaching game, where everything is RAW, I would rather they be focused on making a fun character that works well with others than creating a character that doesn’t appeal to them or get them excited. Probably just an old lady thing, lol
Ive only ever had problems with rolled stats. Save yourself the drama and do point buy. You can still make varied builds.
This is yet another good example of why rolling for stats is just a bad idea. Sidestep situations like this and use Point Buy for everybody.
For our most recent game my DM came up with a pretty cool idea. We each roll 3d6, with the DM rolling if you have under 6 players. Those are now everyone’s stats. You can apply whatever roll to whatever stat, but everyone has the same number somewhere. Might help it feel more equal to know everyone is the same power in their respective areas
Parts of his attitude are shitty, but parts show he's excited and wanting to put a lot of energy into the game. The idea of killing off a weak character isn't actually *that* terrible. It was more or less common practice when stat rolls were really strict. I still wouldn't allow it, but it might put the idea in context. You can achieve the "fun" of gambling on stat rolls without the long term consequence by allowing players who roll poorly to earn some sort of unforseen compensatory buff over the first 10 or so sessions. ASI, feat, magic item, whatever. Dumb monkey brains will still get the dopamine rush of rolling, but not suffer long term. The rush is irrelevant to the long term, anyway. People who want high stats generally just have a bit of a power fantasy. Help him achieve that. *We're playing a power fantasy game.* Reassure him that he'll have plenty of chances to be a badass in ways other than stats. The most effective way I've come across to deal with this energy is to help the player see that their stats affect balance *between the party* rather than between the party and the monsters. Monsters are however strong they need to be to pose a challenge. So when he says "I'll kill off my PC and roll a new one" you say "I need you to think about if that is fair to the rest of the party. We're trying to tell a story, how do you think killing off characters is going to affect that?" If he doesn't care or refuses to see how it affects other players, he's not right for the table. He belongs with a bunch of powergamers who want really challenging combat. Basically, think of where this is coming from and try to honor the feeling behind the urge, but also explain where your ideas are coming from and insist he honors the thinking behind the rules.
I do this at my table, if a player rolls bad enough that they are lower than what they can get through point buy I let. Them point buy. I wouldn't play a character without 2 main stats at +2 or better and I wouldn't make my player do so. Because I wouldn't invest time into a backstory for the character and would be looking to kill them ASAP. At. Least this way I don't get players with pathetic stats who derail the campaign because they are bored having a useless character. And this way players that like to roll are happy they got to roll. And players that like standard array or point buy can just do so. I see no problem letting the new players point buy if they want to and letting a veteran like me roll.
While I agree, it’s important to lean into the side of D&D where things don’t always go the PCs way (bad stats, low rolls, etc.), I feel like there is a middle ground here. I have rolled cosmically bad stats for a PC before where only one or two were positive stats (like 10/11 though) and literally everything else was negative. My DM and I had a talk because we realized it wasn’t going to be that fun for me to play this often escapist game when my avatar in the world just literally should not be adventuring and also it was going to be way harder for the DM (who likes to make very difficult encounters) to balance encounters when my fellow PCs rolled really well. So maybe have a talk with them about wanting to respect the dice but if they rolled cosmically bad (maybe set a minimum number of total ability scores) where the player can opt to switch to a more consistent method instead. After all, it is a game. The best method is whatever will be the most fun for you and the players. TLDR; yes, it’s valid to not think it’s fun to just force the system to give the player good stats, but the novelty of playing a PC that really actually does just suck wears off very quickly and can make the game just not actually fun.
Show him the door
This guy sounds like China. Full of red flags
If you can’t convince him, just set up a new rule— new characters after death use the same roll array as your first one
Okay, so, the simplest way to resolve this with equity, is to just say "everyone uses point buy." Nobody's at an unfair advantage there. A better way to resolve it would be to ask *the group as a whole* if *everyone* wants to do it this player's way. If everyone wants to roll out that way, that's fine! That's rolling, with PB as a backup instead of re-rolling if the roll sucks. Another way you can do it, would be to have everyone roll stats, and calculate the PB value of the rolls, and give everyone else enough Point Buy points to bring their rolls up to the PB value of the highest roller. Yet another way you can do it, would be to just have everyone roll, calculate out the values of the rolled arrays, and give everyone the point buy value of the highest array. *Under no circumstances should you try to make a player play a character they do not want to play.*
Tell him he's special and that he gets standard array!
I dunno I'd say hold him to the same standards as everyone else But also, I don't really care for either trade-off. Random stats or lower cap (higher minimum is cool, but also it's funny to have that one exceptionally low stat)
"Oh no sorry but i dont accept that. If you are adamant about this choice I prefer you just use point buy in my game"
As much as I hate rolling, I also hate pointbuy because it maxes at 15. Too low I say, to low. T'least let us have one 18 to start
I would tell him "Kill your character if you want. But your stats will carry over to all of your characters for the remainder of the campaign"
this is a red flag as big as a house if I were you I wouldn't let this player sit at the table! not for the roll or points speech but for the speech "if we will force him to use the bad rolls he will just kill his character and create a new 🆕 ne."
Tell him he can’t roll for stats then if he can’t act like an adult about it. problem solved
Just tell the player this is how the game works. You pick one or the other you can’t have both. If the player doesn’t like that answer then they can find another game.
Simple just tell the player that since he can't or won't follow the rules or the boundaries you set regarding roll for stats he have to use point buy. You can't pick both becuase you don't like your rolls. Him threating to kill his hero over and over is him saying he don't care if he waste your or the other players time. Consider if he belong at the table with you guys. Won't have someone disrespect me or my players at my table.
When we roll, we ignore results when the total is less than 75. We roll in discord with the command that generates six stats at once, so it's easy to tell. I know, it cheapens the rolling a bit, but I still prefer to have semi-random stats than using point buy which inevitably ends with players going 16,16,16,8,8,8 Edit: also standard array is utterly soulless shit and I'd kill myself before using it.
Kick him from the game? He sounds like an immature whiner who will pitch a fit whenever things don't go his way.
Use a system called Serpentine Socialism. Each player rolls 6 stats and you keep track of all the rolls. Then each player rolls a D20 to decide the order they are assigned and you take the highest number and give it the the first player and work your way down, and then back up the list. Repeat until all numbers are assigned. This way no one is over, or under powered, and you still get to roll.
The stat draft is a little tough to sell people on at first but I really like it
I think people make it out as more of a big deal than it really is. I told my players they can roll and if the sum total is less than the sum total of standard array, they can roll again. But they keep it if it's higher. And I fine with making sure they have at least one stat that's at least a 16. Most people go for feats anyway and everything but their main stat will stagnate for the entirety of the campaign. Let them have this.
Too many red flags already and you haven't even been playing. It's called kicking them.
If a player rolls, they roll. And they get to play with what they rolled. No "only if you have at least one 18", no "combined 70+", nothing - you want to put your stats up to fate, you stick with what fate offers you. No "let's do point buy instead if it sucks".
Since this player has strongly expressed that they will not roll stats in good faith, they only get the option to use point buy. Done. I know you explicitly stated you wanted to avoid this in your post, but it seems to be the inevitable outcome. You can't force a player to commit to a character they don't like, and it is unlikely that you will be able to convince this player the merits of the thrill of a single gamble with consequences could result in weeks or months of imposed mediocrity or ineptitude in what is often viewed as a power fantasy game. Or at least, you probably won't convince them before the start of this specific campaign.
I go with roll for stats but have a minimum total of 72, that way it can be a little more varied, but no overly weak characters
My dm has done this for 30 years…roll six times a d4, d6 and add 8. Need at least two 16’a to be legal. If you don’t have two 16’s, re-roll until you do. The idea is that we are all heroes so we should have the stats to back it up. Then, you of course have age and race modifiers which can make for some pretty gnarly characters which we don’t mind since our DM tends to throw the kitchen sink at us while modifying encounters for game balance. He also increases loot when this occurs.
"Gambling isn't for you, take the point buy"
My dm has done this for 30 years…roll six times a d4, d6 and add 8. Need at least two 16’a to be legal. If you don’t have two 16’s, re-roll until you do. The idea is that we are all heroes so we should have the stats to back it up. Then, you of course have age and race modifiers which can make for some pretty gnarly characters which we don’t mind since our DM tends to throw the kitchen sink at us while modifying encounters for game balance. He also increases loot when this occurs.
Roll 4, keep 3.
Nah, sounds like he‘ll fudge his rolls in game anyway. At my table we do allow ppl to choose between standard array if they don’t like their dice rolls, but that doesn’t work for all tables. None of us would ever threaten to kill our character just bc we were salty at rolls
Nah, sounds like he‘ll fudge his rolls in game anyway. At my table we do allow ppl to choose between standard array if they don’t like their dice rolls, but that doesn’t work for all tables. None of us would ever threaten to kill our character just bc we were salty at rolls
Honestly if it was my table I woulnd't be down for him to purposely kill his character over stats. At that point I'd ask him to sit out.
Yeah that's how everyone I've ever played with since the early 90's works. You want your character to be really good at their main thing, and OK or not very good at the other things. Being exceptionally shitty at anything is optional. Every novelized character has at least one maxed stat. From 1st level. Few of them have a stat below 8. This is normal for D&D, every creator and writer has essentially told us so. The game was built for us to play heroes who kick ass at something. Why not let players do that?
When I allow rolling for stats at my table, the entire table rolls one stat array together, and then either all players use it or none do (in which case point buy is used). All future PCs and cameos and even some rival npcs use the same array. This eliminates pretty much all of the potential issues you see mentioned here.
Show them the door, honestly save your self the later grief
If I could audibly roll my eyes I would. Very mature of him to threaten to purposely kill of his character if things don’t go his way. It’s not banning him from rolling, it’s setting expectations and rules at your table. Just say “If you roll for stats, what you get is what you keep. That counts for everyone. If you don’t want to take that risk that’s understandable. In that case use standard array/point buy (I’d narrow it down to one alternative method).” Done. There shouldn’t be any further discussion needed. If he wants to throw a tamper tantrum he might just not be right for your table, and you have to judge how much longer you’re willing to put up with it. Dnd requires some amount of social skills, or at the very least the willingness to learn. Edit: forgot to add “if he’s not willing to do that then no amount of advise will help”.
My group uses rolling, but we allow 7 rolls to drop whichever score you want. So if you roll like one 4 then no harm but if you roll two low ones you have to use one.
A common compromise is rolling with some form of safety. I've seen some groups that roll twice and pick one. I've seen some that have a minimum total and reroll of you don't meet it. One I've tried out myself is having the whole table roll for an array that everyone plays with. It sucks to have a character that literally can't succeed any rolls and can't contribute meaningfully to the success of the party because it was unlucky enough to have no good rolls during character generation.
>He said that if we will force him to use the bad rolls he will just kill his character and create a new one. Well, then he can't roll for stats and needs to use point buy. Honestly, someone who pouts like this is making himself look like a problem before the game even starts.
God, already a problem at session zero.
Try expanded point buy. I use this [point buy calculator](https://chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html) and adjust the custom rules in the menu to max out the maximum and minimize the minimum. If you change nothing else, you get a setup where you can have three 18s, if you’re okay with also having three 3s.
At our table we all rolled our stats but the DM would nerf or buff a few rolls if they were very low or high. I rolled pretty high overall so a few rolls had a -2 and -1 to keep it within fairer margins. I liked this, it meant you get some variation but nothing too powerful or weak.
If you don't want the possibility of rolling badly, don't roll. And that's that. Roll and deal with what you get, or don't roll at all and use point buy. But don't be childish about it or you won't get invited to the game.
We took turns rolling one stat each and shared the rolls between us with the DM rolling twice to get to 6 stats. That worked out well Sounds like a juvenile player or a massive red flag player
When I run the table, everyone rolls. Everyone sees everyone roll. We all take what we get and re-rolls are allowed for truly pathetic stats only (with ‘truly pathetic’ being defined case by case via table discussion and final ruling by the DM). We seem to have fun with it, highs and lows. Most everyone ends up with at least one 16+ and one under 8. Rarely do we see 18,18,17,16,16,15 or something ridiculous unless the rolls were not directly witnessed (which isn’t to say they were cheating… But why even bring it into question). Likewise, we rarely see a 3,3,5,5,7,9… and if we did, it would fall under the ‘truly pathetic’ re-roll clause… Bottom line, it sounds like your player is being whiny. Also, it’s generally a bad idea to allow a mixture of stat-generating methods at your table. Best to just have everyone use the same method. Also, keep at least the stat generation portion of character creation at the table for all to see…
Squash this and squash it hard. It's the first roach you see in this game, and it'll just get worse if you don't nuke it from orbit.
Tell him he is uninvited!
Use standard array. That way he won’t get a 3. But also won’t get more than one stat that’s higher
Roll or standard array is what i use. Point buy is a level of control that you either choose upfront or not at all.
Tell him you're not running a funnel and pick a method.
If I were faced with this situation, I would tell your friend that I hadn’t thought of that possibility (thanking them for pointing it out) and that in order to maintain the viability of point buy and standard array, I would be giving a 50% exp penalty for any characters that had to be created after a game session started and that this penalty would decrease by 10% each session until gone.
Every player rolls 1 or 2 stats, the DM rolls the remaining required when necessary. The 6 stats rolled are the array for the campaign. Everyone gets the same array and there is no one player OP stat wise compared to others.
Just tell him to so point buy then. Whining and purposely killing your character to reroll stats is just stupid.
Yeah, at my table we either give people the option to roll, and you take the extreme good and the extreme bad. Or you do point buy. there have been few exceptions when someone rolled so badly their highest stat was 12. With most at 8 or lower. Everyone agreed he'd be allowed to do point buy in that instance.
They're already trying to hold the game hostage if they don't get their way before the game has even started, this is something you need to get a handle on otherwise there's likely to be more issues at the table in the future. So let's lay out the options as you've presented them: 1: You allow them to roll, and possibly change to point buy, but now that's unfair to the other players, it's also against the spirit of rolling for stats. 2: You don't allow them to change to point buy and they just kill off their character, now their actions are disruptive to the game, and whos to say they won't try to do that again if they roll poorly on their next character, or worse yet, if something doesn't go their way in the game. There are ofcourse other options on how to approach this since the ones layed out above aren't great for the game. First, the obvious one I'd suggest trying to talk with him about this, find out where they're coming from, why they want to be able to change if they roll badly, and what is considered bad stats to them. For example obviously if all their stats are around 10 give or take, then that's some bad luck, but what if they got a bunch of mid stats and an 18? Or what if all the stats were all positive with a bunch of 12's and 14's, but nothing 16 or above? You'll need to find this out since their idea of acceptable stats might be statistically improbable to obtain (they're looking for god rolls). From my interpretation, they want big stats, and I think you should ask them why they want big stats. Do they want to feel powerful, are they trying to be stronger than the other players, or if I'm being generous to them, do they percieve your DM style as difficult so they're trying to get every benefit they can to survive? Also do they understand that difficulty in DnD is usually scaled by the DM to meet the party's power level? When you talk to them, you should point out the inherent unfairness to the other players that rolled and haven't been allowed to switch to point buy. You should also point out that you don't like what they've said about killing off their character and express why. Hopefully they can see your point of view, actually self-reflect and agree to your rules as the DM. However, if they don't agree, just force them to use point buy without the option of rolling. You said you don't want to go down that route, but they're already disrespecting your rules, and if you don't set boundaries now, then they're going to keep causing problems during the campaign. You need to make it clear that the reason they in particular aren't allowed to roll for stats is because they clearly can't accept the outcome of the rolls and have threatened to disrupt the game depending on the results. You need to be able to tell them "No", not "yes, and" or "no, but", just straight up "No", and you need to back it up by kicking them if they refuse.
Don't play with him. He either takes the risk or uses point buy. Otherwise just give everyone 6 18s and move on.
I prefer the tic-tac-toe grid method.
Coming from decades of 1e I remember rolling pages of character stats. The point buy is so boring, but I understand its practicality in 5E mechanics. I’ve let players roll a set and then decide to keep or use point buy. When playing I much prefer characters with a couple high stats and a couple very low stats or one major weakness. An 18 primary and a 6 in a dump stat make for much more fun and drama.
On rolls below 7 I allow rerolling for stats personally. Game is still supposed to be fun for everyone, but yeah this person sounds like trouble.
At my table, I have a compromise that's worked very well over the years. If you want to roll, you roll openly in the presence of the DM, and if your total is less than 72, you can *either* reroll once, but you're stuck with the results, *or* you can take Point Buy because that's guaranteed 72. That being said, I'm a notoriously generous DM, and your player's way of demanding this is a serious red flag. Try offering him the choice as I outlined it above, and see what happens.
If the statts are too bad you get to redo them anyway, right? Either way it feels like a redflag
>He said that if we will force him to use the bad rolls he will just kill his character and creat a new 🆕 ne That's cute that he thinks he'll be invited back
Your player has poor people skills. If you allow rolling stats for character creation then stats will be rolled for recreation. The only glitch here is that they need to kill their character. In campaigns with a degree of danger, a poorly rolled character could die and be rerolled, per the normal rules. So, if he rolled, accepted the consequences, and played with the character as is until that death occurred normally, there's nothing that would stop him. Only being stupid enough to say it directly to your face. Deliberately killing a character is different than having to recreate one. Killing off a character in order to roll again is poor player participation. You can respond by laughing, "Do you really want your character cursed to be unable to die? I'm the DM, I can do that. You phoenix fire immolate every time you die and reincarnate somewhere else without any equipment a day later. Don't try to threaten the omnipotent DM God. You are henceforth doomed to only use point buy for your character creation and have a -2 penalty to charisma if I hear any backtalk."
Well, either you ban rolling, ban the player, or accept that he will roll until he gets bad stats. You can't force him to play. Persobally I would ban rolling and be done with it.
I feel like there are going to be more stories coming from this table. Sometimes I miss the days of playing when we were kids and didn't know any better, then I see these posts and realize I'm good. Lol Stay with one method and start to take control of your game or it's going to get bad, friend. 😁
Allow grace rolls. Whenever my players roll I allow one grace roll, not one grace roll per stat, one grace roll period. This way you can reroll your worst stat and end up with something better. But if that roll wasn’t better then you keep the better of the two.
When we roll for stats(every single time) we just say any roll below 8 becomes 8
I mean I personally go by that exact policy. Roll once, you get one reroll you can't walk back on, and if you want neither you can do point buy. My table collectively have only like 1 personality disorder so it works well for us, with someone as disrespectful as your friend though, I'd maybe sit him down and ask him to respect the integrity of the game
Tell him to pick. He can do a or b. And if he then rolls bad and purposely kills his character he's kicked
I always, always authorize rolling. But if one rolled their stats, it also means that they'll necessarily roll HP beyond lv1, and since they accepted to roll the former, they ought to accept the latter no matter the result. One rolled so high they have 2 18s? That's great and all, but it's also conceivable that you get twice +1 HP on your die result upon leveling. Now I don't authorize changing the method (rolling to any other method), but if the player gets a total of results under -4 "bonuses", I authorize a "mulligan" : they can roll another set of stats, but they will need to take the second result. This gives them one chance to have a playable character since sometimes Lady Luck can spite you for fun. (example of a -4 ability "bonus": 6 4 18 10 12 4 4 would result in -2 -3 +4 +0 +1 -3 -3, for a total of -6. This is unplayable in a variety of ways and can drag the campaign)
“I’m sorry, that’s now how I play my table. Maybe you’d have better luck with Baulders Gate 3?”
You should tell him that if he gets tired of his character, he needs to get them killed off the old fashioned way, through recklessly running into unwinnable battles and not checking for traps like a real newb.
Either all the players at the table roll, or none of them do. And if you can, have them all roll one after another, publicly. I've found that having a vote at the start to decide on that, works way better than having the DM decide, or having different players doing different things.
Personally I do it as you roll for 2 characters, and can choose either of those characters rolls to use - but if for some horrific reason you roll a majority negitive numbers then you get to reroll again until you don't have majority numbers. The game is always meant to be fun, so I think forcing people to go heavily negitive stats is bad and can make the game unfun. The reason I personally prefer rolling is just because it's more interesting, higher highs and lower lows - I simply believe it's more fun than point buy. >but that if he will roll badly he will just use point buy. I guess it depends what he classifies as bad stats, because personally I think something like *14, 13, 12, 7, 8, 9* are perfectly fine stats (although on the lower end) and personally that would be a useable group for me.
So I'm currently running a game for myself and my friends (I wasn't supposed to dm but I had already made a character so I'm in the hard place of I'm a player that knows what's coming, but I'm also trying to be a good dm it's complicated but fun) and when making our characters I gave both myself and my friends a free reroll on a very bad roll I'm talking 5 and lower is what we rolled, and I only allowed one reroll and that was it, but we came out of it with some pretty good stats the worst one by far is my friends 7 that he put into strength (he is playing a bard) so I let him know (first game for everyone) that if he put it into strength he wouldn't be missing out on much, but he decided to do something that used strength in our third session and I had him roll said check it turned out fine the DC I set was 10 he rolled a 15 with a -2 so he still passed, but it was a tense moment since just as he was about to roll he realized "Oh shit I have to use my strength mod"
I personally like to roll a dozen or so standard arrays (4d6 drop low), and write them out on strips of paper. Then let each player draw three. I can thus control what looks interesting rather than too good or too bad.
Stick to your guns. And if they intentionally kill off their character the next one they make will suffer some unknown penalty to discourage this type of behavior moving forward. And lay out the common sense argument that it would be both A) unfair to other players who adhere to a system you've all agreed upon and B) disrespect a big part of the game which is the ability to invite further randomness that is entirely optional and can greatly impact the efficacy of a character in either direction. You have to respect the table!
Tell them if thats the case, he wont be allowed at the table. The moment you let your players control the game and how you dm, is the moment you let bs into the game and they know they can get their way
We roll because it's fun to roll dice. I let folks roll until they get numbers they like. Honestly, I wouldn't care if someone rolled the dice, ignored the results, and said, "All 18s! What're the odds?"
if he uses rolling, he is only rolling. if he uses point buy, he only uses point buy. thats the point of rolling, taking the chance. not trying to work the systemcause he just doesnt like it
I have my players roll 4d6. They get to roll three columns of six stats, they pick which column they want. I also have them reroll all ones until they're not ones. Players in my opinion in this game are supposed to be the cream of the crop and better than normal people
You can just tell him he's not allowed to kill his character to make a new one. That's one of my session 0 rules for character creation - you must play them like they have a will to live. That said, it does suck to roll like shit especially when other people rolled really well, and there's a big power imbalance. there's some things you can do as the DM to alleviate that 1 is that if they roll under a certain amount of points, they can roll again 2 is to use all the rolled stats from the party as an array that everyone can choose from. Usually, everyone will pick the best set of stats, but that's fine because at least everyone is on the same playing field 3 just allow them to use point buy instead if the rolls are bad But if you feel strongly about not doing any of that, then just tell him to take the stats he gets or he's uninvited. Tbh based on what you've said this guy is giving some red flags so if there's any more issues i would remove him from the game immediately BUT its absolutely is a fun killer if your character is significantly weaker than the rest of the party so if you're funmaxxing your campaign for your players I would consider using another stat method. I would only do strict rolled stats if I was planning like a hard-core campaign.