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pensezbien
July 22nd, 2015, 09:16
Hi,

I'm about to try my first FG campaign as DM, and I just bought the POTA to use. Excited! My players are using the demo license since I have the Ultimate license, so they only have access to the purchased WotC content when connected to my machine. It looks like this complicates the flow if they want to roll ability scores.

Specifically, the Log / Roll / Points tabs of the chat window are only showing up in the Manage Characters screen, which doesn't seem to let them connect to my machine at the same time as they need to for PHB access. So, if they want to use your "roll dice and drop the lowest" feature, they have to Manage Characters, roll their stats while not connected, go back to the launcher, join my game, import their character, and then finish character creation.

Is there a better way, ideally while they're connected so that they can drag-and-drop PHB and EE content? I might just encourage them to roll dice manually in the chat window or at home, since the dice roller defaults to "roll 3d6 and drop 0" (wrongly for 5E) and the points tab lacks any point cost defaults, both for demo licensees and for people like me who bought the PHB module.

Thanks!

Zacchaeus
July 22nd, 2015, 09:56
Yes, I don't have much advice on the manage characters thing since I've never used it and my players all have full licences. However I do know that in order to use the point buy you need to manually enter which system you are using. Click on the little icon at the bottom of the 'points' tab and enter the ranges and costs. This doesn't really help you though since your players aren't going to have access to the PHB which they would need to own, I believe, if they are to be able to use it to create characters from the PHB.

However, you'll want to roll up your characters together I would have thought so provided your players are connected to you and you have the PHB open there's no problem. If they really, really want to roll ability scores (and they shouldn't - honestly picking from the standard array or point buy is better) then just let them. Roll 4d6 into the chat window and just drop the lowest. It means doing some arithmetic but it's not exactly rocket science so it should be easy enough.

There is no other way to do it, that I know of.

Xorn
July 22nd, 2015, 12:31
Yup. Zacchaeus is right, just have them all connect and roll characters up together. Consider it Session 0. I also agree on array/point buy abilities as a DM. Random scores might not impact your game, but it probably won't offer anything, either. In most cases, one or two players will have above average scores (compared to standard array) and one or two will have below average. But there's the off-chance that one player will have phenomenal, unbalancing scores, or one will have pitiful, unusable scores, making a standard balanced encounter suddenly a cakewalk for one character, or a deathtrap.

In my opinion it offers very little to the game, while making more work for the DM to balance encounters properly. I feel the same way about random hit points too--it doesn't really add anything to the game in my opinion, it just makes balancing encounters more cumbersome for the DM, which outweighs any benefits I perceive. I feel they are both artifacts/sacred cows from the 80s, when attributes were much less important.

To be clear--I'm not saying you are a good or bad DM for using random attributes and/or hit points--I'm just advising a new DM of the pitfalls they bring, in my opinion.

EDIT - And if you look at some of the great novels like the Dragonlance Chronicles? Multiple members of those groups had 18/## for Strength. I played 1E D&D from the 6th grade all the way into college. I never saw anyone get an 18/## strength score, ever.

Nickademus
July 22nd, 2015, 23:23
I played 1E D&D from the 6th grade all the way into college. I never saw anyone get an 18/## strength score, ever.

I rolled this twice in my 2nd career. One was an 18 (73), don't remember the other but I think the subnumber was in the twenties.

feral1
July 23rd, 2015, 00:36
I'm kind of in the other camp. I've been playing since highschool (1980) and my view is that I want players to have epic characters that they are happy with -- we're average enough in real life. I let them roll until they get something that they want to play. They never let it really get out of hand, but it is just as easy to kill off an uber-character as an average one. The main idea is to have the character fit the player's vision and that aids in better story-telling. You can use the "Drop Lowest" extension to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest.

feral1
July 23rd, 2015, 00:42
Oh, here's a link to Firmy's Drop Lowest extension ... https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22637-DMFirmy-s-Drop-Lowest-Extension

kylania
July 23rd, 2015, 01:42
Oh, here's a link to Firmy's Drop Lowest extension ... https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22637-DMFirmy-s-Drop-Lowest-Extension

Works well. :)

https://i.imgur.com/aqkU4NN.jpg

Zacchaeus
July 23rd, 2015, 13:33
I'm kind of in the other camp. I've been playing since highschool (1980) and my view is that I want players to have epic characters that they are happy with -- we're average enough in real life. I let them roll until they get something that they want to play. They never let it really get out of hand, but it is just as easy to kill off an uber-character as an average one. The main idea is to have the character fit the player's vision and that aids in better story-telling. You can use the "Drop Lowest" extension to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest.

Why bother rolling at all then, just pick 6 18's :)

damned
July 23rd, 2015, 14:52
Why bother rolling at all then, just pick 6 18's :)

Alternate character creation methods have been available almost since day 1. My OD&D (white box) doesnt list alternate methods but from the 1E DMG and onwards they do. the 1E DMG lists:

Method I
All scores are recorded and arranged in the order the player desires. 4d6 are rolled and the lowest die is discarded.

Method II says roll 3d6 12x and keep 6 scores
Method III says you roll each attribute in order but you roll 3d6 6x for each attribute and keep the best roll
Method IV says you roll 12 sets of 6 scores using 3d6 and keep the single set that most appeals

:)

Zacchaeus
July 23rd, 2015, 15:58
Alternate character creation methods have been available almost since day 1. My OD&D (white box) doesnt list alternate methods but from the 1E DMG and onwards they do. the 1E DMG lists:

Method I
All scores are recorded and arranged in the order the player desires. 4d6 are rolled and the lowest die is discarded.

Method II says roll 3d6 12x and keep 6 scores
Method III says you roll each attribute in order but you roll 3d6 6x for each attribute and keep the best roll
Method IV says you roll 12 sets of 6 scores using 3d6 and keep the single set that most appeals

:)

Indeed, but back then (when we were all young and bushy tailed - well at least I was) there was no such thing as bounded accuracy. D'you think using any of those methods in 5e would unbalance things?

epithet
July 23rd, 2015, 16:16
The only balance needed "by the numbers" is among the player characters, and even that imbalance is fine if you do it intentionally and the player of the weak character is willing and able to contribute to the party's success in other ways.

No matter how strong or weak your PCs are, it is the DMs job to scale encounters to provide a fun challenge. If you have a party of demigods, you can't just throw standard encounters at them and expect your players to feel engaged.

Griogre
July 23rd, 2015, 17:55
LOL, DM's want to have fun too. It's no fun trying to balance encounters with a demi-god and a extremely weak character. :p That's why I personally switched to point buy a few editions back (not to mention it allows players to build the character they want instead of the one they roll). If you do want to roll it should be old school - 3d6 down the line. :) ;)

Zacchaeus
July 23rd, 2015, 18:11
I agree, and my post about just picking 6 18s was made in jest. However I also think that in this iteration of D&D because of bounded accuracy there isn't a need for demi-gods. Back in the old days of 1 and 2nd edition most of the DMs I played with, on the rare occasions where I was a player, saw it as their job to kill the players and the mechanics certainly rewarded very strong players and punished weak ones (and some of the modules were absolutely brutal). I don't think 5e does this and the two methods of rolling up the character in the PHB, I think, suits the game just fine; without having to entertain any other methods.

Also, as a DM, I can do without the extra work of trying to figure out what an encounter should be if the players are in the demi god region. However, as I believe the expression is (I just found out what this acronym means) your mileage may vary. :)

feral1
July 23rd, 2015, 22:53
I think you missed the point, Zacchaeus. The person's image of what they want to play is more important than sticking to a random set of dice. Indeed, I have trusted my players pick scores and not one of them overloaded them with 18's. I'm a bit of a prick DM otherwise, trying to keep them on missions that push them to their limits, whatever they may be.

pensezbien
July 24th, 2015, 00:28
Thanks everyone. I didn't mean for this to turn into a thread on the merits of dice-rolling ability scores, but I do have a house rule that fixes the issues you raise. For groups such as this one where I don't know the players well and don't have a lot of time to rebalance the adventure as needed, I impose limits on what they can get out of dice rolling if they choose that. In particular, my method allows them to risk a chance of being slightly underpowered in exchange for a chance of being slightly overpowered, but won't let them reach an extreme either way (e.g. no level 1 scores at 18). For players who don't want that risk I also allow straightforward 27-point buy and the standard ability score array.

If they roll dice, first I have them re-roll any individual dice outside the range of 8-15. Then I have them total the point value of all 6 dice as per the 5e PHB method. If the result is in the range of 25-29, they're stuck with it, and can proceed to racial bonuses, (if we're not starting at level 1) level-ups, and (for the variant human) feat selection. Otherwise, they must reroll all 6 dice and repeat this method until their point value total is in the 25-29 range. Again, the non-dice methods are allowed with no house rules.

If I knew the players well enough to be sure they'd enjoy roleplaying underpowered characters if they rolled that way without minding other players with overpowered characters, and if I was making a custom freeform sandboxy campaign or had time to identify and prepare all needed module adjustments, then I'd drop the house rule for that campaign and allow dice-rolling exactly by the book.

So far some of the players have used the standard scores or offline point buy and others have indeed rolled 4d6 into the chat window and used their brains rather than software to drop the lowest. No big deal. We're not using the initial session to do this but we are doing it in advance of that. It would be nice to have a way to use the Roll and Points tabs in the connected-to-server mode, and it would be nice for ability-score-roller and point-buy defaults to match the chosen ruleset out-of-the-box or after buying certain licenses. None of that is a major blocker though.

Thanks for the answers!

Xorn
July 24th, 2015, 02:09
That sounds like a lot of extra fiddling, Pensezbien. :P Were I going to do that, I think I would just say "Roll a d6" 1 = 25, 2 = 26, 3-4 = 27, 5 = 28, 6 = 29. That's how many points you have to spend. :P

pensezbien
July 24th, 2015, 02:29
Xorn - interesting, yeah. I realized it was too fiddly but hadn't figured out how to optimize it with similar effect. Your answer is pretty good there. Thanks!

epithet
July 24th, 2015, 05:43
My group rolls an array of stats for each character using the "4d6, drop lowest" method. Then each player can use whichever array of stats seem best for each character, without limitation. This could result in all the characters using the same set of stats, or one might choose an array with an 18 while another chooses an array that has a small bonus to everything.

This makes sure that all the characters are on roughly the same level, stat-wise, and it's a lot more fun than a point-buy.

damned
July 24th, 2015, 05:48
Indeed, but back then (when we were all young and bushy tailed - well at least I was) there was no such thing as bounded accuracy. D'you think using any of those methods in 5e would unbalance things?

Balance is the GMs job!

pensezbien
July 24th, 2015, 08:14
damned - I totally agree that if the DM has sufficient time and skill to balance the scenario to a party of widely varying abilities, and if the DM is sure the players don't mind such a wide variance, leaving balance to the DM's creative abilities is optimal. I look forward to having that situation but it's not where I am with this campaign right now.

epithet - Nice alternative! That would solve the "wide variance among players" concern, but not the "sufficient time and skill" concern when starting from a published adventure path as a reasonably new DM. At a future point in my DMing career I might well try that method.

damned
July 24th, 2015, 08:39
damned - I totally agree that if the DM has sufficient time and skill to balance the scenario to a party of widely varying abilities, and if the DM is sure the players don't mind such a wide variance, leaving balance to the DM's creative abilities is optimal. I look forward to having that situation but it's not where I am with this campaign right now.

:)
My response was to Zacheus response to my post that roll 4d6 and drop 1 has officially been around for at least 35 years - if everyone is doing it they are likely to have similarly powered characters to each other. My balance was more about balancing the opposition to your party if the party turns out to be extra beefy. Sometimes posts get a little off topic... :)

Zacchaeus
July 24th, 2015, 13:30
:)
My response was to Zacheus response to my post that roll 4d6 and drop 1 has officially been around for at least 35 years - if everyone is doing it they are likely to have similarly powered characters to each other. My balance was more about balancing the opposition to your party if the party turns out to be extra beefy. Sometimes posts get a little off topic... :)

Indeed. It's probably because we are on opposite sides of the world so things look different from those perspectives. :)

No, I don't have a problem with 4d6 and drop lowest; I just wondered if you had used any of those old methods in 5e and if so what effect they had on the game. My group have only ever used point buy or the standard array so I have no experience with using any of the other methods.

damned
July 24th, 2015, 13:50
Indeed. It's probably because we are on opposite sides of the world so things look different from those perspectives. :)

Sadly from here I have a very unique view on your kilt... or more accurately whats und- never mind....

Zacchaeus
July 24th, 2015, 14:05
Sadly from here I have a very unique view on your kilt... or more accurately whats und- never mind....

Ahahahahaha! :)

epithet
July 24th, 2015, 22:25
A useful exercise might be to use Kobold Fight Club's encounter builder to get a sense of the party's ability. The DMG describes how your party should be coming out of encounters of various difficulty, and KFC will give you an easy way to see what the difficulty of the encounter is. If your party is cakewalking normal encounters as if they were easy, or deadly as if they were hard, etc., then you can easily tweak the KFC settings to score the encounters as if the party had an extra character. Tweak in small increments and you'll find the sweet spot for your party where their fights start to match the descriptions of difficulty in the DMG... and then you can dial it up or down from there based on your mood.

Zacchaeus
July 24th, 2015, 22:33
A useful exercise might be to use Kobold Fight Club's encounter builder to get a sense of the party's ability. The DMG describes how your party should be coming out of encounters of various difficulty, and KFC will give you an easy way to see what the difficulty of the encounter is. If your party is cakewalking normal encounters as if they were easy, or deadly as if they were hard, etc., then you can easily tweak the KFC settings to score the encounters as if the party had an extra character. Tweak in small increments and you'll find the sweet spot for your party where their fights start to match the descriptions of difficulty in the DMG... and then you can dial it up or down from there based on your mood.

Gosh, that's a handy tool.

Wazoodust
July 30th, 2015, 14:22
Just checked out the Kobold Fight Club page, nicely set up tool

kylania
July 30th, 2015, 14:32
The second rule of Kobold Fight Club is share the link! :)

https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

rabbedrabit
August 3rd, 2015, 03:06
i use the roll system but i have added need 2 scores of 15+ or 1 score 16+ to be playable