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Author Topic: Character Generation: Do you prefer 3d6, 4d6, Straight Down, Arrange to Taste?  (Read 18028 times)

Pat
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The Con boost was pretty well hidden. To get it, you have to read the manual and then rest for 30 days straight. That's completely abnormal behavior, and nothing in the game tells you that's how it works. So unless you remembered that particular detail from the DMG, you'll never figure out how to use it. And it didn't work across the entire gold box series. The manual is in the Pool of Radiance, but attempting to import a 20 Con dwarf to Curse of the Azure Bonds results in Con dropping down to 19.

But yes, it's remarkable how faithful the gold box series was.

Your CON dropped back to 19, but for whatever reason the regen persisted into Azure Bonds. Not sure if it persisted into Silver Blades and on.

I hit on it by a combination of accident and being a DM. It was like, huh, will this really work on this dwarf with 19 CON? wow? It did. Though took me a while to actually realize it was working.

Another thing the SSI games showed aplenty was just how ruthlessly good Fighters could be over Magic Users due to spell interruption and MU's being a bit fragile usually. That and how easy it was to mis-guess where that darn Fireball or Cloudkill was going to land. ow... lots of ow. On the other hand Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill became vital for defending the frontline fighters by making a deadly barricade.

Interestingly the SSI  games were r4h3. But in order. You did not get to assign those rolls.
The regeneration didn't persist in my copy of Azure Bonds. I really wanted it for Silver Blades, because that's the game with endless dungeons, and it would have enabled the dwarf to get back up to full strength between encounters. But Azure Bonds introduced dual-classing, so there was a new toy to abuse.

I immediately thought of a Con 20 dwarf when I found the manual, but for a long time I though it was broken. Because I'd read the manual, and nothing would happen. I couldn't get it to work. It wasn't until I broke out my DMG, read the part about doing nothing for a month, and then tried resting for 30 days, that Con finally ticked up.

I'm not sure what algorithm the gold box games used for generating ability scores, because it wasn't strict 4d6 best 3 for classes like the ranger. And it didn't just set lower rolls to the minimum, because higher scores were too common.


hedgehobbit

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I agree.  Most people prefer rolling the dice, even if it turns out badly.  It's more exciting than arrays.

Players prefer to roll for stats because they know that they will ALWAYS have above average stats. Even those advocating 3d6 in order. If your stats are below average, you simply have to get that character killed (a trivial task) and you get a free re-roll. Keep re-rolling until you've got the stats you like.

Which is why, as a DM, I prefer point buy. That way the players can get the stats they want without all the wasted game time.

mightybrain

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As a DM I would feel it my duty to construct a special level of hell for players who kill their own characters because they didn't like their rolls.

dkabq

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3d6 down the line; as Crom intended.

I play DCC. I use the Purple Sorcerer's web-app to create PCs four-to-a-page, have my players randomly draw a page, and then run them through a 0-level funnel.

dkabq

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As a DM I would feel it my duty to construct a special level of hell for players who kill their own characters because they didn't like their rolls.

Purposefully killing their PC would earn that player a red card, which means I'm no longer obligated to give them the time of day, 'cause they's a tit and they's out.

Jam The MF

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3d6 down the line; as Crom intended.

I play DCC. I use the Purple Sorcerer's web-app to create PCs four-to-a-page, have my players randomly draw a page, and then run them through a 0-level funnel.


DCC has a great set of rules.  I bet those guys have awesome games.
Let the Dice, Decide the Outcome.  Accept the Results.

Arnwolf666

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Sometimes we play 4d6 drop the lowest. Sometime 3d6 twice in order pick the best.  Just depends on the type of game. Never played just straight 3d6 with no rerolls

dkabq

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3d6 down the line; as Crom intended.

I play DCC. I use the Purple Sorcerer's web-app to create PCs four-to-a-page, have my players randomly draw a page, and then run them through a 0-level funnel.


DCC has a great set of rules.  I bet those guys have awesome games.

I don't know how awesome my games are, but I can say that we have a lot of fun. Or at least enough fun to have played consistently (a 4-hour session every 2 to 3 weeks) for 3+ years.

I try to put enough role-play material into the games such that a PC can be successful even if they have low stats. For example, the worst Warrior PC, in terms of stats, is the most successful Warrior, in that he is a Sergeant in the local mercenaries guild and can form his own mercenary company. As part of the roleplaying, the other PCs look to him as their martial leader, despite his crap stats and the player's propensity to roll like crap (last session he rolled a fumble that resulted in him dropping his magical sword down into a grotto; it remains to be seen if in our next session him and the other PCs can get his sword back).


Pat
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As a DM I would feel it my duty to construct a special level of hell for players who kill their own characters because they didn't like their rolls.

Purposefully killing their PC would earn that player a red card, which means I'm no longer obligated to give them the time of day, 'cause they's a tit and they's out.
I didn't purposely kill my PC, I was roleplaying! My character is just very aggressive, and doesn't take shit from anything... including beholder/ancient red dragon hybrids.

DocJones

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I try to put enough role-play material into the games such that a PC can be successful even if they have low stats. For example, the worst Warrior PC, in terms of stats, is the most successful Warrior, in that he is a Sergeant in the local mercenaries guild and can form his own mercenary company. As part of the roleplaying, the other PCs look to him as their martial leader, despite his crap stats and the player's propensity to roll like crap (last session he rolled a fumble that resulted in him dropping his magical sword down into a grotto; it remains to be seen if in our next session him and the other PCs can get his sword back).
One of my players made a wizard out of a funnel survivor that had a luck score of 3.   Through mercurial magic, one their spells (color spray I think) caused someone they knew to die every time they cast it.  Other spells also had terrible side effects but not as bad.   The other player characters put this character out of their misery after two sessions.  ;-)


mightybrain

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'I was roleplaying my character,' has to be the most common excuse I've heard for bad behaviour from a player. But it always makes me laugh, because it reminds me of the time one of my other players responded by asking, "have you ever considered roleplaying someone who isn't a c***?"

Kyle Aaron

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If your stats are below average, you simply have to get that character killed (a trivial task) and you get a free re-roll. Keep re-rolling until you've got the stats you like.
This is one advantage of an open game table. Because players are constantly coming and going, players who do dumb shit soon figure out others are annoyed by them, and they move on. And the rest of us simply play as well as we can, and realise the stats aren't that important.
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jhkim

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While there is some limit, I think a player should just be able to put a character aside rather than have their character die before taking another character. In-game, it's weird that all the PCs to have an attitude of "I must continue to adventure with these other people until I die". Logically, if a character isn't a good fit, they wouldn't be invited to join the party.


One of my players made a wizard out of a funnel survivor that had a luck score of 3.   Through mercurial magic, one their spells (color spray I think) caused someone they knew to die every time they cast it.  Other spells also had terrible side effects but not as bad.   The other player characters put this character out of their misery after two sessions.  ;-)

So they killed the guy because he was unlucky?  As I said -- I would think that just not adventuring with the person should work.


'I was roleplaying my character,' has to be the most common excuse I've heard for bad behaviour from a player. But it always makes me laugh, because it reminds me of the time one of my other players responded by asking, "have you ever considered roleplaying someone who isn't a c***?"

Well, but that begs the question of what "bad behavior" is. I've had a ton of fun playing in games where the PCs were *not* nice people who all got along and had good family values. It's been fun to play as gangs of violent bastards who don't play nice. And sometimes some moralizing player comes in and calls us all assholes because our characters are assholes.

Pat
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One of my players made a wizard out of a funnel survivor that had a luck score of 3.   Through mercurial magic, one their spells (color spray I think) caused someone they knew to die every time they cast it.  Other spells also had terrible side effects but not as bad.   The other player characters put this character out of their misery after two sessions.  ;-)

So they killed the guy because he was unlucky?  As I said -- I would think that just not adventuring with the person should work.
Are you really acting appalled because a character in a game was treated unfairly?

This isn't a "person", it's a character. Treating a character with a few bad rolls under their belt as cursed, and murdering them for it, is just another type of roleplaying. It's only a problem if it causes a major disruption at the player level, and there's no universal standard for that. Each table has their own unique set of acceptable or unacceptable behaviors.

cavalier973

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Either 3d6 straight

Or 2d6+6 straight

The Rules Cyclopedia had some interesting methods for generating “higher level characters”: roll 5d6 and add 60, then distribute the total among the six attributes as desired. Or, just give the players a certain number of points between 60 and 90 to distribute. This would be very similar to how character stats are allocated in the infinity engine games—Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale.

The Mentzer Basic Set (Red Box) used an array for the sample characters (including the “poor but famous fighter” in the intro adventure): 17, 16, 14, 11, 9, 8
For Demihumans, it was 16, 14, 11, 9, 9, 7