We've got a group of 4 so far, and i'd really like to hit 5-6 for that properly madcap energy that a Mega-dungeon clearly needs.
I also cannot wait to throw crazy magic items and weird enemies at the party - Drifting Blades, Coin-Operated Spellbooks, Tactical Skeletons, it's gonna be great.
That dungeon sounds fun as punch, however seeing as how it's run live I don't really have the spare time to, err, spare, at the moment. However, if you felt like occasionally posting highlights from the game here... *eyebrowwaggle*
Running a hades riff for game tonight. Short rest classes only (fighter, monk, rogue, warlock). So that they catch a short rest between each room so I can lay the waves on thick. Need to figure out what their infernal arms are going to be (magic weapons with a +1, and some kind of action use AoE or spread damage attack of some kind). Other than that gonna be using the epic boons as room rewards along with cash, weapon improvements (the weapon stuff will likely be a bit improv), a store to buy stuff at, and a boss fight of sorts. If I'm lucky we'll clear 3 to 5 rooms.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
Hey folks! Running a one shot for Halloween next week due to a player being out for the regular campaign. What are your thoughts on this setup?
The three players are rolling up new level 3 characters, and the setup is that they've been hired by an alchemist in a far away village in the foothills. An evil stalks the land and has kidnapped her 12 year old daughter. The Alchemist has offered better than fair pay for this job, but it has to be resolved before The harvest festival concludes at midnight on X date. Between getting the notification about the job and a few days carriage ride, they only have a couple days left to sort things out. (The evening they arrive, then that first night and the next day). Then the 2nd night is the culmination of the festival.
The actual goings on will be in spoilers below in case my players lurk here. I just posted this backstory in our discord so if it sounds familiar, don't read on.
When the Alchemist's (haven't thought up names yet) child was a baby, the family was involved in a terrible accident that killed the husband and daughter. The alchemist, knowing some arcane secrets, called out to a power to help her, and a power answered. It couldn't bring back the husband, as the soul was unwilling, knowing that dealing with this powerful being was no good, but the child would be able to be brought back. The price though, would be that on the child's 13th birthday the power would offer it's power as a warlock's patron, and the child would fall under it's sway. The Alchemist took the deal and her child was brought back.
Over the last few years the power has been secretly talking with the child, showing it little bits of power here and there, and appearing as a small friendly animate pumpkin. On the lead up to the child's 13th birthday though, and coincidentally eve of the harvest festival, the power has convinced her to come run away and hide from her Mother, so it can make the deal without any interruptions, and now is causing havoc in town to draw away interest from the missing child. The rest of the town presumes the child is just dead somewhere, but the alchemist knows better.
So yea, the big bad will be a giant pumpkin being and hopefully I can arrange the fight to be in a pumpkin patch with lots of neat lair actions. I have about 3-4 hours of game time to run this, and now I gotta figure out fun things for the party to do.
I also know it's not terribly original, but the hope is it will be fun.
My group is going over to Strahd's house for dinner on our Halloween session, so...
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
So more spoilers!
One of the folks who I game with (I'm not the normal DM) I think cheats sometimes when rolling stats when he can. We use a webpage and he seems to always have real powerful characters. In this case though, I might use it to my advantage. He is going to play a Fey Pact warlock and the big bad for my session is a Fey offering a pact to a child.
I think I'm going to see if my player is willing to betray the party. I'll have his Fey and my Fey be the same Fey, and he is actually on this mission to make sure the other two can't succeed. In the final battle I'll have his patron whisper the "word" and have him turn sides.
This player I think would be really down for this, and since it is a one off, it won't be a huge deal longterm.
I remember one game in college where we said you could roll for stats, but you had to come to the table with all your rolls cataloged so we knew you weren't cheating. One guys came to the table with really high stats and a notebook with almost 400 rolls recorded.
At that point, I convinced the DM to just call it what it was and give everyone a starting array of 18, 17, 16, 13, 12, 10.
There's a 4th level barbarian in my Curse if strahd party whose unarmored defense ac is 21 (with shield). Rolled stats and STR is still his highest
My barbarian character I had made for an upcoming Frostmaiden campaign on the docket using point buy has an AC of 15 (no shield).
I will mandate point buy for whenever I DM from now on.
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joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
My main group for three years was two guys. Need them beefy without throwing tons of helper characters at them to shuffle through.
4d6, drop the lowest, reroll 1s and 2s, always feels like heroic level. Plus a magic items at creation.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I like my preferred method of “roll for stats unless it sucks and unless you do t want to role play it” because sometimes the character with one or two severely low stats can be fun but only if you really want to. And I just like rolling stats so go on and keep rolling sets until it’s fun. But more than one 18 is probably going to make me as a DM make encounters too difficult to make up for it so beware!
I like my preferred method of “roll for stats unless it sucks and unless you do t want to role play it” because sometimes the character with one or two severely low stats can be fun but only if you really want to. And I just like rolling stats so go on and keep rolling sets until it’s fun. But more than one 18 is probably going to make me as a DM make encounters too difficult to make up for it so beware!
For a month off I'll be running, I have 4 players and I'm going to have them use all the same rolled stats. What I'm going to do is have each of them roll one of the six rolls needed, then I'll roll the other two. I'll give them the first number ahead of time. Then I won't give them the last roll until the night of the game. Mwahahaha. They'll have to make a decision on which stat to leave blank, not knowing if the roll will be poor, neutral or good.
It will be whatever the dice come up with! It will be for a character in a 4 session long adventure, so regardless, it won't be a huge deal. This is all going on because we're about ready to wrap up Descent into Avernus on Roll20 and don't want to start on Ryme of the FrostMaiden until we can play in person again. Our DM got the Beadle and Grim add on set for it from his wife and us so we really want to use that stuff. We're all going to do month long short adventures online until it's safe again. On the upside it'll let us try out a lot of different character concepts.
As someone who has some severely low stats irl, I'd rather my escapism be escapist :P
Its not that I'm trying to avoid superheroes in my game...its that I'm trying to avoid one superhero, three average Joe's and one unlucky bastard at the same table.
It's funny though that people often come to a table with great stats and say, "These are legit rolls! WOOOOO!" But they never come with garbage stats and say, "Boooo. These are my legit rolls".
As someone who has some severely low stats irl, I'd rather my escapism be escapist :P
Its not that I'm trying to avoid superheroes in my game...its that I'm trying to avoid one superhero, three average Joe's and one unlucky bastard at the same table.
Then don't roll! That's, like, the whole reason you don't roll! Is so that your party's ability scores are more even across the board.
Go in order, each player picks one stat, you cross that one out, they put it on their sheet where they want, and you continue onward like that. The advantage to this is you usually end up with characters who have serious deficiencies, which are fun, but who are stellar at what they're supposed to be stellar at
(if the pool is large enough this basically ends up as rolling for stats but with a 17 or 18 in a main stat and a 5 in the lowest, so, you can just go back to point buy or standard array and get a similar result)
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Go in order, each player picks one stat, you cross that one out, they put it on their sheet where they want, and you continue onward like that. The advantage to this is you usually end up with characters who have serious deficiencies, which are fun, but who are stellar at what they're supposed to be stellar at
(if the pool is large enough this basically ends up as rolling for stats but with a 17 or 18 in a main stat and a 5 in the lowest, so, you can just go back to point buy or standard array and get a similar result)
It's funny though that people often come to a table with great stats and say, "These are legit rolls! WOOOOO!" But they never come with garbage stats and say, "Boooo. These are my legit rolls".
Because we all know, deep down in our little dragon hearts, what the odds are of rolling an 18. We know what the odds are of rolling multiple 18's. We know what the odds are of rolling a character with multiple high-teen rolls. We know that in our D&D careers, we should've seen a somewhat normal distribution of high and low character stats. But we don't.
And we know that when someone comes to the table with a character with amazingly high rolls, there's a high likelihood that it's not an honest roll and no one wants to start playing a game with a player whose integrity is in doubt.
Rolling for stats is an inferior way go begin a D&D group, unless everyone is complicit in the thoughts that it's ok to fudge your results within certain bounds.
As I said above, at that point, why not just give people a high powered point buy or default array so there's at least some consistency in the power level of everyone in your party?
My pet peeve (ie, entirely me just being bitchy) with rolled stats is that, on average, they're better than array stats. And then an added bonus of "oh, and ignore the shitties one, too".
Like, are you going for randomness because the randomness is exciting, or are you just minmaxing your stats and figure you've a better-than-equal chance that you'll get more bang for your buck than with an array? Because the latter feels very much against what I've repeatedly been told rolled stats were for. If you just want higher stats then give everyone a better array and be done with it.
My pet peeve (ie, entirely me just being bitchy) with rolled stats is that, on average, they're better than array stats. And then an added bonus of "oh, and ignore the shitties one, too".
Like, are you going for randomness because the randomness is exciting, or are you just minmaxing your stats and figure you've a better-than-equal chance that you'll get more bang for your buck than with an array? Because the latter feels very much against what I've repeatedly been told rolled stats were for. If you just want higher stats then give everyone a better array and be done with it.
but they aren't?
average of 4d6 drop 1 is ~12, standard array totalled is 72 which is 6x12.
My pet peeve (ie, entirely me just being bitchy) with rolled stats is that, on average, they're better than array stats. And then an added bonus of "oh, and ignore the shitties one, too".
Like, are you going for randomness because the randomness is exciting, or are you just minmaxing your stats and figure you've a better-than-equal chance that you'll get more bang for your buck than with an array? Because the latter feels very much against what I've repeatedly been told rolled stats were for. If you just want higher stats then give everyone a better array and be done with it.
but they aren't?
average of 4d6 drop 1 is ~12, standard array totalled is 72 which is 6x12.
They average slightly more and in terms of point buy points they’re usually higher. (Though on my phone so not going to calc average point buy value). Buuut I will go search and do some figures. Assuming what I found was correct then... the expected roll* has a point buy of about 29.39 compared to the 27 points from point buy
And on top of this it skews high. You have about the same probability of getting a 16 or higher is about 13% for any given stat. The probability of getting an 8 or lower is 10.5. And almost all of that is getting the 8 or 7.
*which isn’t the same as the expected point buy. Expected PB is higher
4d6 drop lowest hits 50% split at 74 points. Which admittedly isn't hugely different from stat array/point buy's 72, except for the fact that the latter two have minimum and maximum numbers, with only a single negative ability modifier allowed, and nothing below -1. Being able to have multiple stats with negative ability modifiers, or a single dump stat that's really bad, while the average pushes your main stats higher and higher, that's not the same power level at all, even if the averages were the same.
4d6 drop lowest hits 50% split at 74 points. Which admittedly isn't hugely different from stat array/point buy's 72, except for the fact that the latter two have minimum and maximum numbers, with only a single negative ability modifier allowed, and nothing below -1. Being able to have multiple stats with negative ability modifiers, or a single dump stat that's really bad, while the average pushes your main stats higher and higher, that's not the same power level at all, even if the averages were the same.
Its not the 74 points that is the issue. 27 point buy is 12,12,12,13,13,13 = 75.
Its that going from 13 to 14 is 2 points. And going from 14 to 15 is 2 points. So every time you want a "good" stat you cost yourselves those effective +. You do not do so with rolling. Rolling has a 29+ point buy value and you're more likely to get the very high stats in stats you care about producing more dumps. Having a 6 isn't a big deal if you don't depend on charisma. The extra +2 isn't going to save you for a lategame charisma save anyway. But every +1 you get on your primary stat can buy you another feat lategame.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
4d6 drop lowest hits 50% split at 74 points. Which admittedly isn't hugely different from stat array/point buy's 72, except for the fact that the latter two have minimum and maximum numbers, with only a single negative ability modifier allowed, and nothing below -1. Being able to have multiple stats with negative ability modifiers, or a single dump stat that's really bad, while the average pushes your main stats higher and higher, that's not the same power level at all, even if the averages were the same.
Its not the 74 points that is the issue. 27 point buy is 12,12,12,13,13,13 = 75.
Its that going from 13 to 14 is 2 points. And going from 14 to 15 is 2 points. So every time you want a "good" stat you cost yourselves those effective +. You do not do so with rolling. Rolling has a 29+ point buy value and you're more likely to get the very high stats in stats you care about producing more dumps. Having a 6 isn't a big deal if you don't depend on charisma. The extra +2 isn't going to save you for a lategame charisma save anyway. But every +1 you get on your primary stat can buy you another feat lategame.
This brings up a good point, in that the better stats you have starting, the more fun you can have with feats (Barring being a fighter). I think having to make a decision between stat bonus or feats is kinda rough. If I were going to do it, I'd probably have a lot of lower power flavor feats that you can get at 2,6,10,14 and 18, and then can pick either the +2 stats or a +1 feat on the normal progression schedule, with the fighter keeping it's feat schedule and being able to pick whatever they want when they get the option.
I will always let players roll their stats. If they roll in front of me, after making their character, in order
To be honest i really like this method, especially for one shots. It forces you to play more interesting characters and to find ways to make things work. 5e is even built for it pretty well(harder for martial characters than spellcasters because there are a lot of spells that don't require saves but there are still two different stats anyone can use to attack)
Another reason i like it is that i did this for a one shot and got a paladin with all three primary stats 16 or higher :P
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I will always let players roll their stats. If they roll in front of me, after making their character, in order
To be honest i really like this method, especially for one shots. It forces you to play more interesting characters and to find ways to make things work. 5e is even built for it pretty well(harder for martial characters than spellcasters because there are a lot of spells that don't require saves but there are still two different stats anyone can use to attack)
Another reason i like it is that i did this for a one shot and got a paladin with all three primary stats 16 or higher :P
This is what we did for the one shot I'm running for Halloween. Rolling in order is a hoot when you're not potentially stuck with them for months, and might get people to play classes and archetypes they might not otherwise look at.
valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
I recently purchased some clear Flat Plastic Miniatures from Arcknight. They came in yesterday and I've finally gotten a chance to look at them.
They are remarkably less substantial than they looked online, but on thinking about it, they aren't meant to permanently replace painted minis, just give me options while I build my collection as a DM. I will include pics in spoilers.
They aren't too expensive. I spent about $65 or so dollars on three sets: Skeleton Horde, Wildlands Horde, Ancient Evils Horde and extra clear bases. Each pack comes with some bases, but as I saw upon opening them, the larger giant figures do not come with large bases in the normal pack. You pretty much have to buy the extra bases to get different base sizes.
They are definitely flat. I thought from what I could see online, that the plastic might be thicker, but these are printed on flat plastic sheeting. It holds up, but definitely not what I expected. And that migjt be me just notnpaying attention.
Also, the packs do not come with anything detailing what each figure is, make sure to screenshot the image from their website so you know what each figure represents. But they have a variety. Each set I bought came with 31 minis. Each has front and back art so you know which way the mini is facing.
And they shipped pretty quickly, too. These arrived in less than a week.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
As long as they weren't too expensive they seem like they are pretty nice! Definitely clearly printed.
It's funny though that people often come to a table with great stats and say, "These are legit rolls! WOOOOO!" But they never come with garbage stats and say, "Boooo. These are my legit rolls".
Because we all know, deep down in our little dragon hearts, what the odds are of rolling an 18. We know what the odds are of rolling multiple 18's. We know what the odds are of rolling a character with multiple high-teen rolls. We know that in our D&D careers, we should've seen a somewhat normal distribution of high and low character stats. But we don't.
And we know that when someone comes to the table with a character with amazingly high rolls, there's a high likelihood that it's not an honest roll and no one wants to start playing a game with a player whose integrity is in doubt.
Rolling for stats is an inferior way go begin a D&D group, unless everyone is complicit in the thoughts that it's ok to fudge your results within certain bounds.
As I said above, at that point, why not just give people a high powered point buy or default array so there's at least some consistency in the power level of everyone in your party?
One time like a decade back my DM sat and watched me roll an array of 18,18,18,16,16,16. That character unfortunately never made it to table (game collapsed for other reasons)
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
Hey Ya'll, I want to run my halloween oneshot by the thread to see what you think. We have roughly 3-4 hours to get through this. Spoilers if you are a party of a bard, warlock and tabaxi rogue!
Backstory: In a remote village an alchemist's daughter is abducted by they Fey right before her 13th birthday, which happens to be the harvest festival. She was abducted because the Mother made a "deal" a decade before after her and her family had suffered a terrible accident, killing the father and child. The Fey is coming back to collect. This was all spelled out at the time, so everything is on the up and up as far as the deal. They are collecting because they want the child to become a warlock in the Fey's realm. They've been showing the child little bits of power here and there so she will be willing, and the child is willing.
Current time: The Alchemist has hired the party to come to her town to rescue her daughter, and put down the evil that has been stalking the land. They Fey have been causing minor havok, menacing people, killing some farm animals, to distract from the abducted daughter, and it's worked. The town just thinks the child is dead. The party arrives in town with an evening, night, next day and then before midnight the next night of the harvest festival, to solve the issue (so a day and a half roughly). The Alchemist will try to hide the fact that she made a deal, and that all that has happened is happenstance.
I have a few encounters planned out. I plan on having some enchanted scarecrows attempt to attack the party in their inn just to fuck with them. Then the next day a shrine in the woods with a Fey deer and fey squirrels (Have ya'll seen that recent picture of the trail cam messed up photo of the deer? Its excellent). They'll gain a key to the "evil's lair" which is actually a portal to the Feywild. I'll have them fight a pumpkin monster and some pumpkin creatures. The lair will actually be a portal to the Fey wild. There they will find the daughter and the final encounter with the Fey who is offering the deals.
Now here is where it gets interesting and I'm trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do. I have three players, a Tabaxi Rogue, a Teifling bard and a dragon born warlock (Fey pact). Now the bard and the rogue are pretty standard builds, but the Warlock rolled super hot. I've talked to him and asked if he was down for some fuckery from his warlock, and he totally was, and loves this kind of shit if he gets involved in it.
I'm pretty much making my Fey and his Fey the same, and that his patron is going to have the daughter become his apprentice once she takes the deal. I'm thinking for the last battle having the warlock get orders to incapacitate the other two players (not kill) as the final test. I think it would be a hoot, and I think the other two players would be fine since its a one shot.
So mostly what are ya'll's thoughts? Also I'm scrounging for inspiration on how to run the time between encounters.
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We've got a group of 4 so far, and i'd really like to hit 5-6 for that properly madcap energy that a Mega-dungeon clearly needs.
I also cannot wait to throw crazy magic items and weird enemies at the party - Drifting Blades, Coin-Operated Spellbooks, Tactical Skeletons, it's gonna be great.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
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The three players are rolling up new level 3 characters, and the setup is that they've been hired by an alchemist in a far away village in the foothills. An evil stalks the land and has kidnapped her 12 year old daughter. The Alchemist has offered better than fair pay for this job, but it has to be resolved before The harvest festival concludes at midnight on X date. Between getting the notification about the job and a few days carriage ride, they only have a couple days left to sort things out. (The evening they arrive, then that first night and the next day). Then the 2nd night is the culmination of the festival.
The actual goings on will be in spoilers below in case my players lurk here. I just posted this backstory in our discord so if it sounds familiar, don't read on.
Over the last few years the power has been secretly talking with the child, showing it little bits of power here and there, and appearing as a small friendly animate pumpkin. On the lead up to the child's 13th birthday though, and coincidentally eve of the harvest festival, the power has convinced her to come run away and hide from her Mother, so it can make the deal without any interruptions, and now is causing havoc in town to draw away interest from the missing child. The rest of the town presumes the child is just dead somewhere, but the alchemist knows better.
So yea, the big bad will be a giant pumpkin being and hopefully I can arrange the fight to be in a pumpkin patch with lots of neat lair actions. I have about 3-4 hours of game time to run this, and now I gotta figure out fun things for the party to do.
I also know it's not terribly original, but the hope is it will be fun.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I think I'm going to see if my player is willing to betray the party. I'll have his Fey and my Fey be the same Fey, and he is actually on this mission to make sure the other two can't succeed. In the final battle I'll have his patron whisper the "word" and have him turn sides.
This player I think would be really down for this, and since it is a one off, it won't be a huge deal longterm.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
1st level human fighter
STR 18 DEX 18 CON 18 INT 18 WIS 18 CHA 9
You know these are legit cause I got a nine!
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111122333
*gasps*
I forgot to ritually melt one of the d6s to remind the rest that they live in terror of my judgement.
At that point, I convinced the DM to just call it what it was and give everyone a starting array of 18, 17, 16, 13, 12, 10.
There's a 4th level barbarian in my Curse if strahd party whose unarmored defense ac is 21 (with shield). Rolled stats and STR is still his highest
My barbarian character I had made for an upcoming Frostmaiden campaign on the docket using point buy has an AC of 15 (no shield).
I will mandate point buy for whenever I DM from now on.
4d6, drop the lowest, reroll 1s and 2s, always feels like heroic level. Plus a magic items at creation.
I do point buy slightly modified, I give them 4? extra points (its been a while)
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
For a month off I'll be running, I have 4 players and I'm going to have them use all the same rolled stats. What I'm going to do is have each of them roll one of the six rolls needed, then I'll roll the other two. I'll give them the first number ahead of time. Then I won't give them the last roll until the night of the game. Mwahahaha. They'll have to make a decision on which stat to leave blank, not knowing if the roll will be poor, neutral or good.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
It will be whatever the dice come up with! It will be for a character in a 4 session long adventure, so regardless, it won't be a huge deal. This is all going on because we're about ready to wrap up Descent into Avernus on Roll20 and don't want to start on Ryme of the FrostMaiden until we can play in person again. Our DM got the Beadle and Grim add on set for it from his wife and us so we really want to use that stuff. We're all going to do month long short adventures online until it's safe again. On the upside it'll let us try out a lot of different character concepts.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Its not that I'm trying to avoid superheroes in my game...its that I'm trying to avoid one superhero, three average Joe's and one unlucky bastard at the same table.
It's funny though that people often come to a table with great stats and say, "These are legit rolls! WOOOOO!" But they never come with garbage stats and say, "Boooo. These are my legit rolls".
Then don't roll! That's, like, the whole reason you don't roll! Is so that your party's ability scores are more even across the board.
Have every player roll 6 stats (4d6 drop lowest)
write ALL the numbers down from every player
Have the players all roll a d20 for initiative!
Go in order, each player picks one stat, you cross that one out, they put it on their sheet where they want, and you continue onward like that. The advantage to this is you usually end up with characters who have serious deficiencies, which are fun, but who are stellar at what they're supposed to be stellar at
(if the pool is large enough this basically ends up as rolling for stats but with a 17 or 18 in a main stat and a 5 in the lowest, so, you can just go back to point buy or standard array and get a similar result)
I might try this too!
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Because we all know, deep down in our little dragon hearts, what the odds are of rolling an 18. We know what the odds are of rolling multiple 18's. We know what the odds are of rolling a character with multiple high-teen rolls. We know that in our D&D careers, we should've seen a somewhat normal distribution of high and low character stats. But we don't.
And we know that when someone comes to the table with a character with amazingly high rolls, there's a high likelihood that it's not an honest roll and no one wants to start playing a game with a player whose integrity is in doubt.
Rolling for stats is an inferior way go begin a D&D group, unless everyone is complicit in the thoughts that it's ok to fudge your results within certain bounds.
As I said above, at that point, why not just give people a high powered point buy or default array so there's at least some consistency in the power level of everyone in your party?
Like, are you going for randomness because the randomness is exciting, or are you just minmaxing your stats and figure you've a better-than-equal chance that you'll get more bang for your buck than with an array? Because the latter feels very much against what I've repeatedly been told rolled stats were for. If you just want higher stats then give everyone a better array and be done with it.
but they aren't?
average of 4d6 drop 1 is ~12, standard array totalled is 72 which is 6x12.
They average slightly more and in terms of point buy points they’re usually higher. (Though on my phone so not going to calc average point buy value). Buuut I will go search and do some figures. Assuming what I found was correct then... the expected roll* has a point buy of about 29.39 compared to the 27 points from point buy
And on top of this it skews high. You have about the same probability of getting a 16 or higher is about 13% for any given stat. The probability of getting an 8 or lower is 10.5. And almost all of that is getting the 8 or 7.
*which isn’t the same as the expected point buy. Expected PB is higher
4d6 drop lowest hits 50% split at 74 points. Which admittedly isn't hugely different from stat array/point buy's 72, except for the fact that the latter two have minimum and maximum numbers, with only a single negative ability modifier allowed, and nothing below -1. Being able to have multiple stats with negative ability modifiers, or a single dump stat that's really bad, while the average pushes your main stats higher and higher, that's not the same power level at all, even if the averages were the same.
Its not the 74 points that is the issue. 27 point buy is 12,12,12,13,13,13 = 75.
Its that going from 13 to 14 is 2 points. And going from 14 to 15 is 2 points. So every time you want a "good" stat you cost yourselves those effective +. You do not do so with rolling. Rolling has a 29+ point buy value and you're more likely to get the very high stats in stats you care about producing more dumps. Having a 6 isn't a big deal if you don't depend on charisma. The extra +2 isn't going to save you for a lategame charisma save anyway. But every +1 you get on your primary stat can buy you another feat lategame.
This brings up a good point, in that the better stats you have starting, the more fun you can have with feats (Barring being a fighter). I think having to make a decision between stat bonus or feats is kinda rough. If I were going to do it, I'd probably have a lot of lower power flavor feats that you can get at 2,6,10,14 and 18, and then can pick either the +2 stats or a +1 feat on the normal progression schedule, with the fighter keeping it's feat schedule and being able to pick whatever they want when they get the option.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
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To be honest i really like this method, especially for one shots. It forces you to play more interesting characters and to find ways to make things work. 5e is even built for it pretty well(harder for martial characters than spellcasters because there are a lot of spells that don't require saves but there are still two different stats anyone can use to attack)
Another reason i like it is that i did this for a one shot and got a paladin with all three primary stats 16 or higher :P
This is what we did for the one shot I'm running for Halloween. Rolling in order is a hoot when you're not potentially stuck with them for months, and might get people to play classes and archetypes they might not otherwise look at.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
They are remarkably less substantial than they looked online, but on thinking about it, they aren't meant to permanently replace painted minis, just give me options while I build my collection as a DM. I will include pics in spoilers.
They aren't too expensive. I spent about $65 or so dollars on three sets: Skeleton Horde, Wildlands Horde, Ancient Evils Horde and extra clear bases. Each pack comes with some bases, but as I saw upon opening them, the larger giant figures do not come with large bases in the normal pack. You pretty much have to buy the extra bases to get different base sizes.
They are definitely flat. I thought from what I could see online, that the plastic might be thicker, but these are printed on flat plastic sheeting. It holds up, but definitely not what I expected. And that migjt be me just notnpaying attention.
Also, the packs do not come with anything detailing what each figure is, make sure to screenshot the image from their website so you know what each figure represents. But they have a variety. Each set I bought came with 31 minis. Each has front and back art so you know which way the mini is facing.
And they shipped pretty quickly, too. These arrived in less than a week.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
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One time like a decade back my DM sat and watched me roll an array of 18,18,18,16,16,16. That character unfortunately never made it to table (game collapsed for other reasons)
Current time: The Alchemist has hired the party to come to her town to rescue her daughter, and put down the evil that has been stalking the land. They Fey have been causing minor havok, menacing people, killing some farm animals, to distract from the abducted daughter, and it's worked. The town just thinks the child is dead. The party arrives in town with an evening, night, next day and then before midnight the next night of the harvest festival, to solve the issue (so a day and a half roughly). The Alchemist will try to hide the fact that she made a deal, and that all that has happened is happenstance.
I have a few encounters planned out. I plan on having some enchanted scarecrows attempt to attack the party in their inn just to fuck with them. Then the next day a shrine in the woods with a Fey deer and fey squirrels (Have ya'll seen that recent picture of the trail cam messed up photo of the deer? Its excellent). They'll gain a key to the "evil's lair" which is actually a portal to the Feywild. I'll have them fight a pumpkin monster and some pumpkin creatures. The lair will actually be a portal to the Fey wild. There they will find the daughter and the final encounter with the Fey who is offering the deals.
Now here is where it gets interesting and I'm trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do. I have three players, a Tabaxi Rogue, a Teifling bard and a dragon born warlock (Fey pact). Now the bard and the rogue are pretty standard builds, but the Warlock rolled super hot. I've talked to him and asked if he was down for some fuckery from his warlock, and he totally was, and loves this kind of shit if he gets involved in it.
I'm pretty much making my Fey and his Fey the same, and that his patron is going to have the daughter become his apprentice once she takes the deal. I'm thinking for the last battle having the warlock get orders to incapacitate the other two players (not kill) as the final test. I think it would be a hoot, and I think the other two players would be fine since its a one shot.
So mostly what are ya'll's thoughts? Also I'm scrounging for inspiration on how to run the time between encounters.
Spoilers for Fey Deer
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
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