RPG Ability Scores, Part III: Fantasy Draft

For the last installment on ability scores, a fun way to create an entire party, borrowing from the fantasy draft feature in Baseball Mogul.

Step 1: Everyone Rolls Up One Character
Each player generates one set of stats, rolling 4d6 and keeping the best 3, and recording the stats in the order rolled. The GM does the same.

Here's an example with 4 players:

Table Cell

Alex

Beth

Clay

Daryl

GM

STR	10	18	12	14	17
INT	14	11	11	11	17
WIS	11	9	7	12	11
DEX	12	12	10	11	14
CON	15	16	13	9	7
CHA	15	18	11	11	13

We see that Clay rolled a pretty bad character. But that's OK because he's going to pool his rolls with everyone else before divvying them up.

Step 2: Re-Rolls
Each player picks one of the stats that they rolled and re-rolls it, keeping the highest score. We are trying to build the best party, not the best character. So, Alex chooses to re-roll her WIS score, in hopes of having at least one high Wisdom score to choose from. Here are the scores after the re-rolls (shown in [bold]):

Table Cell

Alex

Beth

Clay

Daryl

GM

STR	10	18	12	14	17
INT	14	11	11	11	17
WIS	[12]	[16]	7	12	11
DEX	12	8	[13]	[16]	14
CON	15	16	13	9	8
CHA	15	18	11	11	13

Step 3: Throw Out The Boring Scores
To keep things interesting, remove the *middle* score from each row. This preserves the interesting scores (the high rolls and low rolls), but also keeps the average score near 12.2 (the average result of rolling 4d6 and keeping the best 3).

The remaining scores are the ones that players will "draft" from (shown here, sorted from high to low):

STR	18	17	12	10
INT	17	14	11	11
WIS	16	12	11	7
DEX	16	14	12	8
CON	16	15	9	8
CHA	18	15	11	11

Step 4: "Draft" The Scores
Player #1 ("Alex") picks first. She can pick any score in the table, but she can't change what stat it applies to. If she picks the '18' in the STR row, she has to use it for Strength.

Alex wants to play a thief/rogue, so she picks the 16 DEX. Here are the characters after Round 1 of the draft:

Table Cell

Alex (Thief)

Beth (Cleric)

Clay (Fighter)

Daryl (Mage)

STR			[18]
INT				[17]
WIS		[16]
DEX	[16]
CON
CHA

For the 2nd round, we reverse the draft order, so that Player #1 doesn't get to pick first in every round:

Table Cell

Alex (Thief)

Beth (Cleric)

Clay (Fighter)

Daryl (Mage)

STR		[17]	18
INT				17
WIS		16
DEX	16
CON			[15]	[16]
CHA	[18]

And here's the completed set of characters (before racial adjustments):

Table Cell

Alex (Thief)

Beth (Cleric)

Clay (Fighter)

Daryl (Mage)

STR	12	17	18	10
INT	11	14	11	17
WIS	11	16	7	12
DEX	16	8	12	14
CON	8	9	15	16
CHA	18	11	15	11

Summary: Each character gets a very good score in their primary attribute. But unlike systems that let players arrange stats as they like, they can't dump their low rolls in their least favorite stats (usually some combination of INT, WIS and CHA -- depending on character class). So you end up with some high stats in places where you wouldn't expect them (like the Thief with an 18 Charisma) and some potential weaknesses (such as the Cleric with an 8 Dexterity)

RPG Ability Scores, Part II: Counting Dice

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about generating ability scores that are both random and balanced, here's a system that treats all six ability scores equally, and more easily adjusts to different power levels.

Step 1: Roll 14d6

Note: For a "low-powered" campaign, use 12d6. For a "high-powered" campaign, use 16d6 (or more).

If more than 8 dice show the same result, re-roll the extra dice.

Step 2: Count the Dice

Count up all the dice showing '1'. The number of 1's determines your Strength score using the following table:

Dice	Score	Dice	Score
0	8	5	16
1	10	6	17-
2	12	7	17+
3	14	8	18
4	15

Repeat this process for all the 2's (INT), 3's (WIS), 4's (DEX), 5's (CON) and 6's (CHA).

Step 3: Tweak The Totals

If you recorded "17-" or "17+" for any of your scores, do the following:

1. If you rolled a "17-" and "17+", ignore them (they cancel each other out).

2. If you rolled a "17-", subtract one point from any ability score (not reducing any score below 8).

3. If you rolled a "17+", add one point to any ability score (not raising any score above 14).

Step 4. Re-Arrange

I prefer to simply swap any two scores at this point. It ensures that you get a variety of characters. But you can use whatever system suits your campaign.

RPG Ability Scores, Part I: Random *and* Balanced

Putting on my nerd hat for a minute. Ever since the late 1970s, I've struggled with the problem of generating ability scores in tabletop role-playing games (this problem also carries over into CRPGs and MMOs).

In the original Dungeons & Dragons, ability scores (such as Strength and Dexterity) were rolled using 3d6. It was a lot of fun "rolling up" stats, seeing your character come to life before your eyes. But the randomness was really unsatisfying (and unfair). My cousin always had the knack of rolling about three 18s for each character, while the rest of us stumbled around with an 8 Dexterity and 3 Charisma (yes, my first D&D character actually had a 3 ar

In 1979, my best friend bought me a copy of the Champions role-playing game (now part of the Hero System). Characters were no longer random. You had a fixed number of points to divide among your various characteristics and abilities. It was great have every character built on an equal footing. But we lost the fun of "rolling up a character".

Also, point-buy systems lead to all characters being the same. For example, all fighters will "max out" their Strength and spend the fewest points on less useful characteristics (like Charisma).

To solve these problems, here is the system I use in my own RPG, but it also works in most iterations of Dungeons & Dragons.

You may notice that I'm determining ability scores in the same order in which they were presented in the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (now referred as "1st Edition"). As I said, I've been pondering this problem since the 1970s.

Step 1: Roll Your Ability Scores
Determine each of the first four ability (STR, INT, WIS, DEX) scores randomly, by rolling 4d6 and keeping the best three. Record the abilities in the order in which you roll them. Set any roll below 8 equal to 8.

Step 2: Add Up The Point Cost
Using the following table, add up the point cost of the ability scores that you already rolled.

Table 1: Ability Score Point Cost

Score	Cost	Score	Cost
8	0	14	6
9	1	15	8
10	2	16	10
11	3	17	13
12	4	18	16
13	5

If the total cost of your first four ability scores is below 4 or above 25, go back to Step 1 and re-roll those scores.

Step 3: Complete Your Ability Scores
To determine your final 2 ability scores, look up the total cost (from Step 2) on the following table:

Total Cost	CON	CHA	Total Cost	CON	CHA
4	18	13	15	10	15
5	12	18	16	14	11
6	14	17	17	10	14
7	17	13	18	10	13
8	17	12	19	13	9
9	11	17	20	12	9
10	13	16	21	8	12
11	16	12	22	9	10
12	16	11	23	10	8
13	10	16	24	9	8
14	15	11	25	8	8

After filling in your CON and CHA scores, you may swap any two scores.

I find that this is a great way to create random characters that are also balanced. And the final swap at the end gives you just enough control to create a playable character that still has some interesting quirks.