How do most people determine attributes?

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

This is something I've been curious about for a while.

I prefer to make a few high (17-20), a few low (never under 6), with the rest average. For a high stat I'll do 16+1d4, and a low I'll do 5+1d4. Average can be 10+1d4.

Leaving attribute generation purely up to 3d6 rolls will generally result in a lot more low-to-middling rolls than high ones, in my experience. In other words, a character who's good at absolutely nothing. If we define 'good at something' as getting any kind of bonus.

PB would normally be a good dump stat, but I prefer MA; since the latter requires more roleplaying than the former. PE is also a good dump stat if you enjoy the rush of being near death at any given moment. I often like to have a very poor PS (5-6) which is then brought up to barely tolerable levels with physical skills; typically for support characters.

[Rifter11]

This is something I've been curious about for a while.

I prefer to make a few high (17-20), a few low (never under 6), with the rest average. For a high stat I'll do 16+1d4, and a low I'll do 5+1d4. Average can be 10+1d4.

Leaving attribute generation purely up to 3d6 rolls will generally result in a lot more low-to-middling rolls than high ones, in my experience. In other words, a character who's good at absolutely nothing. If we define 'good at something' as getting any kind of bonus.

PB would normally be a good dump stat, but I prefer MA; since the latter requires more roleplaying than the former. PE is also a good dump stat if you enjoy the rush of being near death at any given moment. I often like to have a very poor PS (5-6) which is then brought up to barely tolerable levels with physical skills; typically for support characters.

In my games, for humans, we roll 4d6, reroll the lowest die and then drop the lowest. As usual, if you get a 16 or higher you get a bonus die and if you roll a 6 you get one more bonus die. For non-humans, you roll an extra die for each stat of whatever type the stat starts with (so d4s if it's d4s) and just like humans you reroll the lowest and drop the lowest. If you roll the equivelant of whatever the second highest numbers on the dice are for all the dice (so a 20 for 4d6), you get a bonus die. If you get the highest result possible for the bonus die you get one more bonus die. Humans get to to rearange stats to their liking while non-humans have stick with what they roll or (same for humans and non-humans) reroll up to two more times.

This method almost guarantees 3-4 high stats while low ones are still possible. I'm okay with the high stats since I like my players to feel like they are playing exceptional characters and challenging npcs get the same treatment.

[desrocfc]

<snip>

Step 1: Roll 3D6 in order (e.g. first roll for I.Q., second for M.E.), re-rolling 1s. Standard extra rolls for 16-18 and extra D6 on a 6.

Step 2: Roll 4D6 and re-roll 1-3s until the roll is 17+; do this twice and replace two attributes of choice.

That's it.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I can count on one hand the number of times I've rolled an 18 followed by a 6 during creation. When I do roll a 16-18, 99% of the time I swear, no joke, the second roll is a 1.

I figure if the fates conspire against dice so regularly, might as well make the attribute cap 20 instead of 30 (for non-superpowered, i.e, average humans, anyway).

Sure, we're rarely/never playing 'average people', but I tend to think of that more regarding our OCCs than our inherent talents. A Mind Melter is already pretty statistically rare, for instance, but a Mind Melter who also has Olympic-level athletic ability? Eh.

[ShadowLogan]

This is something I've been curious about for a while.

I prefer to make a few high (17-20), a few low (never under 6), with the rest average. For a high stat I'll do 16+1d4, and a low I'll do 5+1d4. Average can be 10+1d4.

Leaving attribute generation purely up to 3d6 rolls will generally result in a lot more low-to-middling rolls than high ones, in my experience. In other words, a character who's good at absolutely nothing. If we define 'good at something' as getting any kind of bonus.

PB would normally be a good dump stat, but I prefer MA; since the latter requires more roleplaying than the former. PE is also a good dump stat if you enjoy the rush of being near death at any given moment. I often like to have a very poor PS (5-6) which is then brought up to barely tolerable levels with physical skills; typically for support characters.

In my games, for humans, we roll 4d6, reroll the lowest die and then drop the lowest. As usual, if you get a 16 or higher you get a bonus die and if you roll a 6 you get one more bonus die. For non-humans, you roll an extra die for each stat of whatever type the stat starts with (so d4s if it's d4s) and just like humans you reroll the lowest and drop the lowest. If you roll the equivelant of whatever the second highest numbers on the dice are for all the dice (so a 20 for 4d6), you get a bonus die. If you get the highest result possible for the bonus die you get one more bonus die. Humans get to to rearange stats to their liking while non-humans have stick with what they roll or (same for humans and non-humans) reroll up to two more times.

This method almost guarantees 3-4 high stats while low ones are still possible. I'm okay with the high stats since I like my players to feel like they are playing exceptional characters and challenging npcs get the same treatment.

This is the basic approach we use.

We did experiment once with replacing 3d6+possible bonus die with just 3d8 but no bonus die since it gave the same min-max range (distribution on the other hand IIRC resulted in more higher scores).

[Fenris2020]

I determine them the way the book says, except that all races get to roll for exceptional attributes; there's a reason why a 9' wolfen would likely be stronger than a 6' human.

[Killer Cyborg]

Depends on how powerful the GM wants the party to be.

[guardiandashi]

we mostly went with the roll 4D6 reroll 1's and 2's take the best 3 (and keep rerolling 1's and 2's) and if within D of max roll a bonus die

the reason we went with the reroll 1's and 2's is we literally had a person in our group who routinely got 3-6 on multiple stats on most characters I mean like he literally could end up with 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 as his stat array (not necessarily in that order) on dozens of characters over several years, whereas another person would get multiple 18-20+ stats on a character they were rolling up (and without using "character builder" dice

if the race has a stat of X+2d6 or similar I personally have no issue with them getting a bonus die if they get an 11-12 on their 2d6.

[Incriptus]

Traditionally it is 3d6 re-rolling 1's and 2's
if you don't like the results, start over and continue to roll until you get a decent* array of attributes.
Generally speaking decent means that you have 2 extraordinary attributes

Alternatively, for humans, you can use the Incriptus Default Array
Default Array: 18,16,15,14,13,11,14,14
plus 10 points to place as you see fit; however no single attribute can be over 24

[Warshield73]

This is a topic that often comes up with discussions of Palladium games and especially Rifts and it is kind of surprising how many different ways people have come up with to do what is probably the most straight forward thing in a Palladium game.

Depends on how powerful the GM wants the party to be.

I think KC has a good point here but I would go one step further and say it depends on how powerful the group wants the PCs to be. If the players are hoping to be major heroes and the GM says roll once, no re-rolls then it could kill the game before it starts. Letting each player roll attributes as many times as they want could take an already lengthy character creation process and stretch it out forever.

In recent years I have made this a part of my session zero. I throw out a bunch of options and the group picks one, or sometimes two that the player can choose from.

This is something I've been curious about for a while.

I prefer to make a few high (17-20), a few low (never under 6), with the rest average. For a high stat I'll do 16+1d4, and a low I'll do 5+1d4. Average can be 10+1d4. <Snip>

This seems similar to the "Optional Quick Roll" for attributes in Robotech 2e. I use a similar system for creating my characters for convention games. While I have offered it to players for actual recuring groups no one has chosen to use it.

The main method I have used going all the way back to Robotech 1e and the RMB is:
- Roll attribute with one additional dice (so for a huma 4D6)
- Re-roll ones
- Drop the lowest die
- Roll exceptional dice as needed
- Once all attributes are rolled the player can keep those stats or start over
- Players get a maximum of three chances to roll attributes, so if they dump the first two they must take the third

A Phase world group I ran in college used a dice pool:
- Add up all the dice for all 8 attributes (so for a human it would be 18D6)
- Roll them all together, re-roll 1's and 2's
- Assign the dice to the attributes you want
- Once all dice are assigned players roll exceptional for any attribute that require it
This was fun because it allowed players to choose which attributes were high and which weren't and it was easy for races other than humans. It is only a problem if a species uses die other than D6 for attributes.

Step 1: Roll 3D6 in order (e.g. first roll for I.Q., second for M.E.), re-rolling 1s. Standard extra rolls for 16-18 and extra D6 on a 6.

Step 2: Roll 4D6 and re-roll 1-3s until the roll is 17+; do this twice and replace two attributes of choice.

That's it.

I like this one. It keeps it simple but gives players a chance to align their character's attributes to the OCC they want to play. Might add this to my options for next time.

[Curbludgeon]

I've done it all sorts of ways. A point buy setup isn't terrible, but is best done with weighing attributes differently. Most every group went with initial rolls being movable, in lieu of going straight down the line, although that does lead to tendencies such as characters being PP focused.

One thing I really like to incorporate, which admittedly works best when all characters are of the same species, is to have each player produce one or two sets of rolls, from which each player may select the one they want, with repeat selections being fine. This helps equalize lucky rolls at start of play.

[Jefffar]

As a GM, I tend to just pull what feels right for the character.

As a Player, I struggle to resist that same urge. This results in me playing a lot of robots and borgs and similar characters that allow you to buy your attributes.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

the reason we went with the reroll 1's and 2's is we literally had a person in our group who routinely got 3-6 on multiple stats on most characters I mean like he literally could end up with 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 as his stat array (not necessarily in that order) on dozens of characters over several years, whereas another person would get multiple 18-20+ stats on a character they were rolling up (and without using "character builder" dice

Ha ha, it never ceases to amaze me how personal luck varies. This is why I also kind of hate autorolling with computers; it makes everything bland.

I'm a lot closer to the low guy than the high one, if left to regular rolls.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Alternatively, for humans, you can use the Incriptus Default Array
Default Array: 18,16,15,14,13,11,14,14
plus 10 points to place as you see fit; however no single attribute can be over 24

Not bad, but I like having at least one weak stat. A figurative (or literal if you make PE your dump stat) Achilles' heel.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

This seems similar to the "Optional Quick Roll" for attributes in Robotech 2e. I use a similar system for creating my characters for convention games. While I have offered it to players for actual recuring groups no one has chosen to use it.

Yeah, my system is undoubtedly more boring with its limited max range, but I find rerolling tedious. Especially since I feel the OCC you want to play should determine your stats, not vice versa. If you want to play a Rogue Scientist, why even bother rolling 3d6 for IQ until you get a number high enough? Just do 16+1d4. In other words, your character is always going to be smart if you're playing that OCC, so it's just a matter of how smart.

When rolling a magic practitioner, I don't automatically make PE the high stat; even though it's tied to base PPE. Rather, I make ME high for a mage, because their years of mental training (and indeed, the basic capacity for learning magic to begin with) would naturally require and result in a higher than average ME.

A mage should usually (not always) be the classic pencil-necked geek, which means average PE and below average PS. PP can be high, depending on the definition of 'prowess' (manual dex. versus ballet dancing, say). I also typically give my mages low MA, since spending large portions of your life buried in books does tend to erode social graces and charisma.

Since RUE already gives us the framework for optionally buffing a stat (or two) if we have some really low attributes, I just took that idea and modified it a little to fit with a given OCC's flavor.

[Killer Cyborg]

This is a topic that often comes up with discussions of Palladium games and especially Rifts and it is kind of surprising how many different ways people have come up with to do what is probably the most straight forward thing in a Palladium game.

Depends on how powerful the GM wants the party to be.

I think KC has a good point here but I would go one step further and say it depends on how powerful the group wants the PCs to be. If the players are hoping to be major heroes and the GM says roll once, no re-rolls then it could kill the game before it starts. Letting each player roll attributes as many times as they want could take an already lengthy character creation process and stretch it out forever.

In recent years I have made this a part of my session zero. I throw out a bunch of options and the group picks one, or sometimes two that the player can choose from.

I consider part of the GM's job to be informing the players what kind of power level they want to run, and players discussing what kind of power levels they'd like to play.
If the PCs want to be Cosmo Knights, and the GM wants to run a Vagabond Uprising adventure, there's going to need to be some kind of compromise.


As an entirely tangental side note, I'd like to point out that one of the (many) recurring issues I've seen with Palladium gamers over the decades here in the forums is a cycle where:
a) Virtually nobody seems to roll flat 3d6 for their attributes very often
b) Which changes the power levels of their games from the canon power level, in some significant ways.
c) Which then makes people complain about various parts of the game being "underpowered," because they're comparing those aspects of the game to their HOUSE-RULED (*cough* cheat *cough*) characters, who are more powerful than the actual rules intend to be standard.

There's nothing wrong with house-ruling how characters are rolled up, of course; house-rules RULE!
The issue is that people then seem to lose an idea of what the actual baseline power level is supposed to be, where attributes are concerned.
(And similar stuff happens with other parts of the game as well, of course.)


To elaborate on my previous post, I recall at least one GM in our group that allowed us to roll 5d6 for each attribute, taking the top three dice, but also rerolling 1s and 2s, so the average PC attribute under him was 9-18, with an average of... what, 13.5?
And a pretty high chance of getting that bonus die for extraordinary attributes.
And we got to place the die rolls under whichever attribute we wanted.
I thought it was a bit much.
And we had some players complaining that NPCs in the adventure books were too weak, because the NPCs didn't all have +7 or more to strike/parry/dodge due to incredible PP scores.

[Mack]

To elaborate on my previous post, I recall at least one GM in our group that allowed us to roll 5d6 for each attribute, taking the top three dice, but also rerolling 1s and 2s, so the average PC attribute under him was 9-18, with an average of... what, 13.5?

Warning! Pointless tangent ahead.

That average hit me as low since you get to pick the top 3 out of 5, so I ran that scenario through an Excel sheet 10,000 times. The average was 15.329.

After re-rolling 1s & 2s, and then picking the Top 3:
Chance of a die being a 3 = 4.2%
Chance of a die being a 4 = 20.9%
Chance of a die being a 5 = 34.5%
Chance of a die being a 6 = 40.4%

----------------------

As to the subject, I don't mind if folks are a little laissez faire with attributes. You get to pick everything else about the character, might as well pick those too (within limits). You could sit there rolling over and over again to get what you want for the character, or you can just make an adjustment and move on.

Whatever works for the table.

[Hotrod]

I’ve done it several ways.

I made a spreadsheet dice roller that determined all stats and passion ice in a single keystroke. Rinsing and repeating this until I get an interesting result can be fun.

I’ve also done stats by straight rolls but allowed the player to raise attributes to meet the minimums for a chosen O.C.C. This can result in players taking classes specifically to bump up sub par rolls, or alternatively, to assign low rolls to high-requirement attributes for their chosen class.

I’ve also done the “treat 1’s as sixes” and “refill ones” approaches.

As a player, if I’m rolling up a set of human stats and can assign rolls however I like, I use Speed as my dump stat, since the running and athletics skills can easily raise this attribute to a respectable level. As for the stat I put highest, that depends on the character and setting. IQ is a good all-around choice for skill monkeys. PE is good for magic users and those who fight them. MA is great for games that involve a lot of role play and social interaction. ME is awesome for psychics and for fighting psychics. PS is mostly useful only for characters with VERY high supernatural levels of strength, but on that scale, it can be amazing. PP is the general go-to combat stat for squishy SDC warriors.

It’s also worth noting that most NPC’s in the game are way above average on their stats. I wonder sometimes if this influences players and GMs to follow suit.

[Warshield73]

This is a topic that often comes up with discussions of Palladium games and especially Rifts and it is kind of surprising how many different ways people have come up with to do what is probably the most straight forward thing in a Palladium game.

Depends on how powerful the GM wants the party to be.

I think KC has a good point here but I would go one step further and say it depends on how powerful the group wants the PCs to be. If the players are hoping to be major heroes and the GM says roll once, no re-rolls then it could kill the game before it starts. Letting each player roll attributes as many times as they want could take an already lengthy character creation process and stretch it out forever.

In recent years I have made this a part of my session zero. I throw out a bunch of options and the group picks one, or sometimes two that the player can choose from.

I consider part of the GM's job to be informing the players what kind of power level they want to run, and players discussing what kind of power levels they'd like to play.
If the PCs want to be Cosmo Knights, and the GM wants to run a Vagabond Uprising adventure, there's going to need to be some kind of compromise.

Agteed, I just felt we needed to be explicit about it. I actually declined to run a group about 12 or 13 years ago because the way the bulk of the players wanted to roll attributes would have guaranteed at least 3 or 4 exceptional attributes.

As an entirely tangental side note, I'd like to point out that one of the (many) recurring issues I've seen with Palladium gamers over the decades here in the forums is a cycle where:
a) Virtually nobody seems to roll flat 3d6 for their attributes very often
b) Which changes the power levels of their games from the canon power level, in some significant ways.
c) Which then makes people complain about various parts of the game being "underpowered," because they're comparing those aspects of the game to their HOUSE-RULED (*cough* cheat *cough*) characters, who are more powerful than the actual rules intend to be standard.

There's nothing wrong with house-ruling how characters are rolled up, of course; house-rules RULE!
The issue is that people then seem to lose an idea of what the actual baseline power level is supposed to be, where attributes are concerned.
(And similar stuff happens with other parts of the game as well, of course.)

I agree, this is why I prefer things like dice pools or the Robotech 2e quick roll method. You get a few exceptional attributes and then the rest are either average or low. The dice pools especially led to people with certain attributes in the single digits. It also created a uniformity to the players that made game balance easier. A group I ran a few years ago...OK it was mor like 6 years ago...we did the roll 4 dice, re-roll 1s, you have 3 tries method and one player got 3 exceptional and 1 exceptional plus (he rolled a 6 and got the second dice, I believe he had a IQ of 26 or 27) on his first try. The other players were lucky to get one on the second or third try.

When one player is basically a perfect physical and mental specimen and the others are average or below it makes group unity a little harder to achieve.

On the other hand, your PCs are supposed to be at least a little above average as they are they ones going out and adventuring and not hiding in a fortified city so some method of guaranteeing a few high level attributes is good.

To elaborate on my previous post, I recall at least one GM in our group that allowed us to roll 5d6 for each attribute, taking the top three dice, but also rerolling 1s and 2s, so the average PC attribute under him was 9-18, with an average of... what, 13.5?
And a pretty high chance of getting that bonus die for extraordinary attributes.
And we got to place the die rolls under whichever attribute we wanted.
I thought it was a bit much.
And we had some players complaining that NPCs in the adventure books were too weak, because the NPCs didn't all have +7 or more to strike/parry/dodge due to incredible PP scores.

This can be a problem, but so is the reverse.

My original HS player group, 5 to 7 people depending on the game, started with Robotech 1e when we were about 15. The GMs, 2 guys who were fans of the show and had access to the books, didn't understand the part about exceptional rolls so we didn't do them. When we started playing TMNT we did the exceptional rolls and people thought it was over powered, as a result when Rifts came out and I was running it we didn't use exceptional rolls and as a result our players were a little underpowered compared to the NPCs that started coming out.

The simple fact is that PBs system for attributes can lead to a lot of problems as written and can even make it impossible for players to run the OCC they want so it is going to lead to a lot of house ruling.

[Hotrod]

I’m rather fond of purposely building unbalanced characters. Like a character who is fantastically gifted in all other respects but has an MA of 2: I play him as a functional mute, forcing me to stay quiet and use gestures or notes to communicate in character, which is a good exercise for me since I talk too dang much.

Or a character purposely built to be useless at fighting, but who has loads of tricks and tactics to avoid, escape, circumvent, or co-opt others for combat.

Or a character who is absolutely dominant in one type of combat, but mediocre to useless at others. I submitted a cyber-knight variant to the Rifter that’s awesome in melee but limited to a pistol or a bow for ranged fighting. The flip side is the Glitter Boy, that dominates as direct fire artillery but is far weaker in melee or out of the suit.

What makes playing characters interesting to me is less about eliminating weaknesses than working with and around them in creative ways. Having wide variances in attributes tends to make this happen more, so I rarely do the “reroll ones” anymore and instead bump other already-high attributes to exceptional levels.

[hup7]

Over time we have played many different methods for producing "playable" abilities. The balance is you want something the player is going to feel like they enjoy playing. Often it can be balance between different characters.

I don't really have a standard rule for attributes, but one thing we have always done since TMNT - group character stats. IF the players decide to build related characters (same race, some sort of background interaction, etc. - again I am pretty loose with the actual rule), then IF one rolls exceptional for an ability - the rest of the party get the same base attribute and roll their own bonus die (and again on 6).

Team Characters is page 11 of TMNT.

[Devjannz]

For almost any D20 based game I run (and most that I play in), I roll 4d6, re-roll 1's and 2's, drop the lowest. For Palladium, if it is a race with a specific stat roll (ie- 3d6+4, 2D6+12, etc) I still let them roll one extra die and re-roll 1's or 2's and any bonus die that may come from getting 16 or better before applying the bonus for the race.

My only exception is Spd. I do not have them roll that. I have them average PS, PP and PE and use that as the base then add any Race bonus or Physical Skill bonus to it.

[Nekira Sudacne]

4d6, place where you want.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

we did the roll 4 dice, re-roll 1s, you have 3 tries method and one player got 3 exceptional and 1 exceptional plus (he rolled a 6 and got the second dice, I believe he had a IQ of 26 or 27) on his first try. The other players were lucky to get one on the second or third try.

When one player is basically a perfect physical and mental specimen and the others are average or below it makes group unity a little harder to achieve.

I save old character sheets (not necessarily ones that got played, but sometimes I fill out a sheet for conceptual reasons), and I find I often had ridiculously high stats back when I first started.

I gradually decided that, even if given free rein from a GM, I simply won't go above 20 on most stats (at least, if the OCC/RCC isn't a superpowered one). It feels silly to me, now. The bonuses from 17-20 are helpful but not imbalancing.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

I’m rather fond of purposely building unbalanced characters. Like a character who is fantastically gifted in all other respects but has an MA of 2: I play him as a functional mute, forcing me to stay quiet and use gestures or notes to communicate in character, which is a good exercise for me since I talk too dang much.

Or a character purposely built to be useless at fighting, but who has loads of tricks and tactics to avoid, escape, circumvent, or co-opt others for combat.

Or a character who is absolutely dominant in one type of combat, but mediocre to useless at others. I submitted a cyber-knight variant to the Rifter that’s awesome in melee but limited to a pistol or a bow for ranged fighting. The flip side is the Glitter Boy, that dominates as direct fire artillery but is far weaker in melee or out of the suit.

This is more or less my design philosophy as well.

I find that playing characters who're average/good at everything, quickly becomes a video-gamey experience. The way most video game RPGs are designed, you're never going to fail that often--even in Fallout type settings where you have a fair number of skill checks. It's pretty easy to design a character that's almost good at everything (important, anyway) at early levels, while being clearly overpowered by mid-to-high level.

Gimped attributes in a tabletop RPG, by contrast, are much more set in stone. A weakness is something you're going to live with for the character's entire run, regardless of level. That weakness, in turn, becomes integral to the character, and defines it as much as a strong stat.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

To elaborate on my previous post, I recall at least one GM in our group that allowed us to roll 5d6 for each attribute, taking the top three dice, but also rerolling 1s and 2s, so the average PC attribute under him was 9-18, with an average of... what, 13.5?

Warning! Pointless tangent ahead.

That average hit me as low since you get to pick the top 3 out of 5, so I ran that scenario through an Excel sheet 10,000 times. The average was 15.329.

After re-rolling 1s & 2s, and then picking the Top 3:
Chance of a die being a 3 = 4.2%
Chance of a die being a 4 = 20.9%
Chance of a die being a 5 = 34.5%
Chance of a die being a 6 = 40.4%

I got bored and decided to roll, the old fashioned way, 10 characters using straight 3d6. Not as good as 10,000 computer rolls, but good enough to indicate my generally mediocre stats.

Here's the cross section:

...#1..#2..#3..#4..#5..#6..#7..#8..#9..#10
IQ: 08, 14, 13, 13, 10, 13, 17, 15, 11, 06
ME: 13, 11, 05, 10, 14, 09, 14, 13, 11, 03
MA: 08, 11, 09, 07, 08, 13, 13, 08, 13, 14
PS: 14, 12, 13, 09, 08, 11, 15, 10, 12, 12
PP: 12, 10, 07, 14, 06, 07, 13, 09, 10, 10
PE: 06, 15, 12, 11, 10, 06, 10, 18, 12, 11
PB: 08, 17, 13, 22, 12, 12, 08, 12, 07, 22
SP: 13, 14, 08, 14, 14, 10, 10, 10, 14, 15

I put them in lazy columns as best I could. Each column from top to bottom is the order I rolled each stat; each column is a complete character.

Average roll is 11.33 with bonus dice added; 11.13 or so without bonus dice. That's actually higher than I expected. Almost true to my earlier statement, of the five times I rolled 16+, two of the bonus dice came up 1s. One bonus die was a 6. Once I rolled 18+4. The final bonus die was a 2.

Of all those characters, I'd only end up using columns 2, 4, 8, and maybe 6 and 7. For #6, I could use the low PE to buff PP, per the RUE rules.

The problem is, even the best character, #2, is still pretty bland. With a few physical skills, I could get that PE up to 17-18 pretty easily, but otherwise nothing else is getting into bonus territory.

In all these characters, I don't have a single one who'd make a strong melee fighter. #7 would be okay with a lot of physical skills, but that PE and SPD are nothing special.

[Hotrod]

It might be interesting to write up an algorithm for rolling up characters and use different statistical checks to find results like:

The Specialist: Attribute set with the highest individual attribute result
The Gifted: Attribute set with the highest sum of attribute results
The Bonus Maximizer: Attribute set with the highest number of exceptional results
The Savant: Attribute set with the widest difference between its highest and smallest attribute result
The All-Arounder: Attribute set with the highest number for its lowest result

Then you could just determine the number of attributes to roll up, let the algorithm go, and see what kinds of results you get out of 10, 100, 1,000, or 10,000 rolls. This would be cake to program in MATLAB, but alas, I don't have that program anymore. Maybe it's time I got smart on Python.

[Mack]

I got bored and decided to roll, the old fashioned way, 10 characters using straight 3d6. Not as good as 10,000 computer rolls, but good enough to indicate my generally mediocre stats.

Here's the cross section:

...#1..#2..#3..#4..#5..#6..#7..#8..#9..#10
IQ: 08, 14, 13, 13, 10, 13, 17, 15, 11, 06
ME: 13, 11, 05, 10, 14, 09, 14, 13, 11, 03
MA: 08, 11, 09, 07, 08, 13, 13, 08, 13, 14
PS: 14, 12, 13, 09, 08, 11, 15, 10, 12, 12
PP: 12, 10, 07, 14, 06, 07, 13, 09, 10, 10
PE: 06, 15, 12, 11, 10, 06, 10, 18, 12, 11
PB: 08, 17, 13, 22, 12, 12, 08, 12, 07, 22
SP: 13, 14, 08, 14, 14, 10, 10, 10, 14, 15

I put them in lazy columns as best I could. Each column from top to bottom is the order I rolled each stat; each column is a complete character.

Average roll is 11.33 with bonus dice added; 11.13 or so without bonus dice. That's actually higher than I expected. Almost true to my earlier statement, of the five times I rolled 16+, two of the bonus dice came up 1s. One bonus die was a 6. Once I rolled 18+4. The final bonus die was a 2.

Of all those characters, I'd only end up using columns 2, 4, 8, and maybe 6 and 7. For #6, I could use the low PE to buff PP, per the RUE rules.

The problem is, even the best character, #2, is still pretty bland. With a few physical skills, I could get that PE up to 17-18 pretty easily, but otherwise nothing else is getting into bonus territory.

In all these characters, I don't have a single one who'd make a strong melee fighter. #7 would be okay with a lot of physical skills, but that PE and SPD are nothing special.

Using the standard, by the book method:
-- The average attribute is 10.689. (Yes, including bonus dice.)
-- 81% of the results will range from 7 to 14.
-- The odds of a getting a result that's 16+ is 4.63%.
-- When an attribute is exceptional (16+), the average is 20.583.
-- When rolling all eight attributes, there's a 38.04% chance that one of them will be exceptional. Or, to put it another way, out of three characters there should only be a single exceptional attribute.

[lothian]

We've been using the Dark Reign: Quick Roll Creation Table. We just pick one of the pre-set attribute sets and roll whatever is needed there. They are usually exceptional in one aspect aka "brainy" == IQ 1d6+18, M.E. 1d6+12, M.A 1D4+10, P.S. 1d6+9, P.P. 1d4+9, P.E. 1d4+8, P.B. 1d6+9 and SPD 1d6+11 as an example. In fact sometimes we don't even roll at all we just take the base attribute without the extra roll so we end up with an 18, 12, 10, 9, 9, 8, 9, 11 respectively.

This is all assuming human or human-like attributes otherwise we just go by whatever the R.C.C says and ignore 1s and 2s.
But this all depends on the relative level of the campaign you're trying to go for either way.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Using the standard, by the book method:
-- The average attribute is 10.689. (Yes, including bonus dice.)
-- 81% of the results will range from 7 to 14.
-- The odds of a getting a result that's 16+ is 4.63%.
-- When an attribute is exceptional (16+), the average is 20.583.
-- When rolling all eight attributes, there's a 38.04% chance that one of them will be exceptional. Or, to put it another way, out of three characters there should only be a single exceptional attribute.

That's kind of depressing. I mean the 3 characters, 1 exceptional part.

It's probably somewhat realistic. As in, take 3 random people off the street, and maybe one of them can do one thing really well, or a group of things as they relate to some specific attribute.

But still kind of depressing, ha ha.

[Fenris2020]

This is something I've been curious about for a while.

I prefer to make a few high (17-20), a few low (never under 6), with the rest average. For a high stat I'll do 16+1d4, and a low I'll do 5+1d4. Average can be 10+1d4.

Leaving attribute generation purely up to 3d6 rolls will generally result in a lot more low-to-middling rolls than high ones, in my experience. In other words, a character who's good at absolutely nothing. If we define 'good at something' as getting any kind of bonus.

PB would normally be a good dump stat, but I prefer MA; since the latter requires more roleplaying than the former. PE is also a good dump stat if you enjoy the rush of being near death at any given moment. I often like to have a very poor PS (5-6) which is then brought up to barely tolerable levels with physical skills; typically for support characters.

In my games, for humans, we roll 4d6, reroll the lowest die and then drop the lowest. As usual, if you get a 16 or higher you get a bonus die and if you roll a 6 you get one more bonus die. For non-humans, you roll an extra die for each stat of whatever type the stat starts with (so d4s if it's d4s) and just like humans you reroll the lowest and drop the lowest. If you roll the equivelant of whatever the second highest numbers on the dice are for all the dice (so a 20 for 4d6), you get a bonus die. If you get the highest result possible for the bonus die you get one more bonus die. Humans get to to rearange stats to their liking while non-humans have stick with what they roll or (same for humans and non-humans) reroll up to two more times.

This method almost guarantees 3-4 high stats while low ones are still possible. I'm okay with the high stats since I like my players to feel like they are playing exceptional characters and challenging npcs get the same treatment.

So... non-humans are kinda screwed, for some reason..

[Warshield73]

We've been using the Dark Reign: Quick Roll Creation Table. We just pick one of the pre-set attribute sets and roll whatever is needed there. They are usually exceptional in one aspect aka "brainy" == IQ 1d6+18, M.E. 1d6+12, M.A 1D4+10, P.S. 1d6+9, P.P. 1d4+9, P.E. 1d4+8, P.B. 1d6+9 and SPD 1d6+11 as an example. In fact sometimes we don't even roll at all we just take the base attribute without the extra roll so we end up with an 18, 12, 10, 9, 9, 8, 9, 11 respectively.

This is all assuming human or human-like attributes otherwise we just go by whatever the R.C.C says and ignore 1s and 2s.
But this all depends on the relative level of the campaign you're trying to go for either way.

I believe, it has been a while since I read through DR, that this is the same system used in Robotech 2e and it does help to balance the attributes among the players. But, if you just use the numbers without the dice rolls it does kind of nerf the characters and makes them all too cookie cutter.

In my games I do allow this same set up for non-humans as well. It took a little work but it lines up and makes them more competitive.

[lothian]

We've been using the Dark Reign: Quick Roll Creation Table. We just pick one of the pre-set attribute sets and roll whatever is needed there. They are usually exceptional in one aspect aka "brainy" == IQ 1d6+18, M.E. 1d6+12, M.A 1D4+10, P.S. 1d6+9, P.P. 1d4+9, P.E. 1d4+8, P.B. 1d6+9 and SPD 1d6+11 as an example. In fact sometimes we don't even roll at all we just take the base attribute without the extra roll so we end up with an 18, 12, 10, 9, 9, 8, 9, 11 respectively.

This is all assuming human or human-like attributes otherwise we just go by whatever the R.C.C says and ignore 1s and 2s.
But this all depends on the relative level of the campaign you're trying to go for either way.

I believe, it has been a while since I read through DR, that this is the same system used in Robotech 2e and it does help to balance the attributes among the players. But, if you just use the numbers without the dice rolls it does kind of nerf the characters and makes them all too cookie cutter.

In my games I do allow this same set up for non-humans as well. It took a little work but it lines up and makes them more competitive.

I didn't know that it was also used in Robotech 2e too. That's good news. It's a shame it wasn't made standard in RUE but it doesn't matter too much.

The only reason we use the no rolls is when we have new players from other systems that want to give RIFTs a try and they end up being very wary about rolling for attributes in general. So this gives us a simple but all cookie cutter design but hopefully it's enough to snag someone willing to go further down the rabbit hole.

[Warshield73]

We've been using the Dark Reign: Quick Roll Creation Table. We just pick one of the pre-set attribute sets and roll whatever is needed there. They are usually exceptional in one aspect aka "brainy" == IQ 1d6+18, M.E. 1d6+12, M.A 1D4+10, P.S. 1d6+9, P.P. 1d4+9, P.E. 1d4+8, P.B. 1d6+9 and SPD 1d6+11 as an example. In fact sometimes we don't even roll at all we just take the base attribute without the extra roll so we end up with an 18, 12, 10, 9, 9, 8, 9, 11 respectively.

This is all assuming human or human-like attributes otherwise we just go by whatever the R.C.C says and ignore 1s and 2s.
But this all depends on the relative level of the campaign you're trying to go for either way.

I believe, it has been a while since I read through DR, that this is the same system used in Robotech 2e and it does help to balance the attributes among the players. But, if you just use the numbers without the dice rolls it does kind of nerf the characters and makes them all too cookie cutter.

In my games I do allow this same set up for non-humans as well. It took a little work but it lines up and makes them more competitive.

I didn't know that it was also used in Robotech 2e too. That's good news. It's a shame it wasn't made standard in RUE but it doesn't matter too much.

The only reason we use the no rolls is when we have new players from other systems that want to give RIFTs a try and they end up being very wary about rolling for attributes in general. So this gives us a simple but all cookie cutter design but hopefully it's enough to snag someone willing to go further down the rabbit hole.

This method was used to speed up character creation in two games that PB was hoping to have great mass appeal than most of there games. A frequent criticism of Palladium Games, and while at times overstated is justified, is how long it takes to create a character. In both DR and Robotech 2e the quick roll is combined with the OCC design to shorten that process.

In Robotech 2e when you choose or randomly roll one of the Attribute quick rolls it tells you not only what OCC is best but often what MOS. These OCCs have far fewer choices in terms of skills than any OCC in Rifts. Now it is important to note that this does not apply to any of the non-human races. Those you have to roll as normal and they would likely take almost as long to create as a Rifts character. In Rifts a quick roll system just wouldn't save as much time as each species would have to have it's own chart. DR and R2e save time buy have far fewer options player races.

This system is great for these two games, better for DR than R2e as that has a few alien player races, and it would work just as well for BTS, splicers and maybe even HU. It really does not work for settings with lots of player races like PFRPG or Rifts.

[Fenris2020]

To be fair to non-humans, if humans get 4d6 take away the lowest, all races get an extra d-whatever, take away the lowest.

[Warshield73]

To be fair to non-humans, if humans get 4d6 take away the lowest, all races get an extra d-whatever, take away the lowest.

Sort of. To be clear I was commenting on the quick roll rules that are in R2e and DR which only works for humans who roll 3D6 for all 8 attributes.

Now what you are saying does work, however just mathematically that one additional die has a bigger impact on smaller dice rolls vs larger. If an attribute is 1D6 and you roll an extra dice talking the higher number you have dramatically increased the probability of a good roll. If you have an attribute that is 6D6 and you just roll one extra dice the probability of a good roll for that attribute is much lower. Technically if you allow one extra dice for 3D6 you should allow two extra dice for a 5D6 or 6D6.

But to be clear when I use this system I do just the one extra dice for each attribute.

[Blackwater Sniper]

I recently played a fast and loose short-term game where we used the 75% rule: Base rolls were 75% of max (rounded down) and then you added/subtract any bonuses afterward.

Humans had a cross-the-board base of 13 (18*75%=13.5). None of those stats give any bonuses, but, with OCC skills, allows you to achieve higher stats with relative ease.

It did reduce the want to "cheat" die rolls because everyone knew what your starting numbers were.

[Shorty Lickens]

I do pure blind rolls each and every time.
And by golly you better make your character work with it!!

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Using the standard, by the book method:
-- The average attribute is 10.689. (Yes, including bonus dice.)
-- 81% of the results will range from 7 to 14.
-- The odds of a getting a result that's 16+ is 4.63%.
-- When an attribute is exceptional (16+), the average is 20.583.
-- When rolling all eight attributes, there's a 38.04% chance that one of them will be exceptional. Or, to put it another way, out of three characters there should only be a single exceptional attribute.

I'm quoting this again because I did another manual rolling test. 10 complete attribute rolls, so 80 individual rolls altogether. When I combined the results with my old test, I had 8 rolls out of 160 that were 16+, while 18 were under 8.

I found that last bit interesting, because it means we're around twice as likely to get a penalty attribute than a bonus one. This is no surprise, given that penalty attributes have a larger spread (3-7 or 8, if IQ), while bonuses are limited to 16-18 (excluding the extra die).

My combined average in 160 rolls was 11.39. So a fair bit higher than average.

My personal odds of getting a 16+ were 5%, pretty close to the 4.63%.

The only statistical extreme this time, was a 27 and a 28. I never, and I do mean never, roll that high. Weird to do it twice in quick succession. My other exceptional roll (only 3 in this test, 5 in the other) was a more normal 20.

Also had two 4s and a 3 to balance out the exceptional high rolls.

I'm starting to think it'd solve a lot of problems of rolling too many bland (everything between 8 and 15) characters, if they'd just expand the bonuses from starting at 16, to starting at 14. Keep the progression as it is now. So from 14 until whenever the first +2 starts, it'd just be a flat +1.

But at least you'd have better chances of rolling up that +1 bonus. If 14 was the new bonus threshold, I'd have a lot more rolls that got a bonus; it'd bring the total to 22, much closer to the 18 penalty attributes I rolled. I would still leave the system in place where you only got a bonus die on 16+.

Right now, the 13-15 zone feels pointless. It's significantly higher than average, but without any bonus, who cares? If it's a mental attribute, we've got no chance of increasing it with skills. Whereas the moment we fall below 8, we're penalized left and right. Pretty severely in some cases.

[darthauthor]

MyDumpStatIsMA,

Well Written. Enjoyed reading your writing.

Thinking about it.

I agree. 13 to 15 seems kind of pointless.

Even unfair if penalities start at a stat of 7.

Stat bonuses beginning at 13 or 14 feels more even handed.

[drewkitty ~..~]

When rolling for 10+ attribute scores then I take ALL my d6 (about 13 dice) and take out the 1's & 2's, & re-rolling those until all dice are showing 3 or greater. Then assign dice to the different attributes.

But then I mainly only make chars for fun these days.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

MyDumpStatIsMA,

Well Written. Enjoyed reading your writing.

Thinking about it.

I agree. 13 to 15 seems kind of pointless.

Even unfair if penalities start at a stat of 7.

Stat bonuses beginning at 13 or 14 feels more even handed.

Thanks, and yeah, IQ gets treated even worse. If it's 8, you lose half your OCC related skills. Which depending on the class, can be pretty devastating. Even a physically-oriented class is going to be hurt by that, as it limits the amount of stat-boosting physical skills you can take. Gymnastics and wrestling are worth far more than the limited physical selection available from secondary skills.

Meanwhile, a 16 IQ grants you a paltry 2% skill bonus. Which is absurd in that the IQ score roughly correlates to IQ numbers, so a 16 is an IQ of 160, which is genius-level. This means a genius is only 2% better at math and science skills than somebody with an IQ in the 70s or 80s.

I think the high bonus threshold combined with low bonus amounts, is what drives many people to essentially cheat on their attribute rolls.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

When rolling for 10+ attribute scores then I take ALL my d6 (about 13 dice) and take out the 1's & 2's, & re-rolling those until all dice are showing 3 or greater. Then assign dice to the different attributes.

I think it's telling how many people (including myself) come up with roundabout ways of generating attributes. All re-rolling does is prolong an already slow character creation process. And, it also feels like cheating.

I just wish there was a way to legitimately roll up stats without creating a weak (or bland) character 7 out of 10 times. Lowering the bonus threshold to 14 might (emphasize 'might') allow people to accept straight-rolling.

I, at least, am willing to accept a character with a couple of sub-8s, if a few physical 10s and 12s can be brought up to 14 to get at least a 1 point bonus.

Also, the bonus 1d4+3 to compensate for an attribute under 7--this needs to be bumped up to 8. Because many attributes are utterly devastated by having a 7. ME, PE, PP all have crippling penalties at 7.

I don't want to scrap the current system, as much as make a few minor adjustments to put the odds in favor of getting more tolerable straight rolls.

[Sambot]

If the number is below the minimum required, or just really low, we'd allow a reroll. If it's still too low then we'd assign the minimum required and then let them improve with skill choices if possible.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

If the number is below the minimum required, or just really low, we'd allow a reroll. If it's still too low then we'd assign the minimum required and then let them improve with skill choices if possible.

As I've said, re-rolling is what I'd like to either eliminate or reduce.

Take this crappy attribute group I just rolled up today:

IQ: 11
ME: 6
MA: 8
PS: 7
PP: 12
PE: 10
PB: 8
SPD: 7

Most people, I wager, would either scrap the whole thing and start over, or re-roll several attributes.

But, using my method of tweaking the bonus and extra-die thresholds, I was able to come up with the following recovery plan.

Let's say I want to play a Mystic. Well, I can't because the ME's way too low. How about Ley Line Walker? PE's just a little low. Normally, we'd only get 1d4+3 for the 6 stat. I could put that into PE, then use the OCC bonus 1d4 to a mental attribute of choice, to fix the ME. If I got a 1, it wouldn't get me out of the penalty range, of course.

Now, here's what happens when I lower the threshold of the low attribute bonus to 7 rather than 6, so I get the maximum bonus of 1d4+5 and a +3 (for having multiple low attributes).

I can put the +3 in PE to raise it above the Ley Line Walker's minimum, and then apply the 1d4+5 to another attribute. I chose PP. I then applied the OCC mental roll to ME. I then chose Boxing, Acrobatics, and Running to round out the character as best I could. This is the result:

IQ: 11
ME: 9
MA: 8
PS: 10
PP: 22
PE: 15
PB: 8
SPD: 17

I went from having pretty terrible attributes, to fairly decent ones. Some of this is dumb luck (rolling a 4 on the 1d4+5, etc), but the point is that none of it required re-rolling.

If I hadn't been able to eliminate the ME penalty, there's no chance I'd play this character using the current rules. The only thing to offset the low ME would be a 1d4+3 roll, which couldn't bring any of my other stats to 20. But now I've got two stats that have bonuses (under my revised rules). Much more palatable.

[The Dark Elf]

I roll 3D6 eight times then allocate the scores to which every attributes I want. I don't change the results, just which attribute that result is allocated to.

[ShadowLogan]

Normally out group used (for 3d6) Roll 4d6, re-roll 1s, drop the lowest unless a bonus die roll is needed.

We also experimented with a flat 3d8 instead of 3d6+1d6 for exceptional attribute roll. This results in the same min-max range, but puts the "average" result a bit higher than on 3d6.

An online dice probability calculator I found; it also allows you to look at multiple distributions at the same time
https://anydice.com/

As for the idea of having the attribute bonus's start sooner, well you could in theory extrapolate backward on some of the attributes for their bonuses to start sooner at 14-15 (IQ, MA, PB, and some of the PE bonuses), but some attributes won't allow you to extrapolate backward (ME, PS, PP, and some PE bonuses would become negatives). Alternatively, you could also have the RAW table start sooner (ie Attributes # on the table is reduced uniformly by X, so if you want to start at 13 so 16 becomes 13 on the table, and 17-30 are adjusted accordingly by subtracting 3 so 17 is now 14 and 30 is now 27), though you'll have to either extrapolate back to 30 (or also adjust the 30 rule). Prior to RUE, we just assumed the table continued on (following the same established pattern as the 16-30 range for each attribute, not that it was something that came up).

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

As for the idea of having the attribute bonus's start sooner, well you could in theory extrapolate backward on some of the attributes for their bonuses to start sooner at 14-15 (IQ, MA, PB, and some of the PE bonuses), but some attributes won't allow you to extrapolate backward (ME, PS, PP, and some PE bonuses would become negatives). Alternatively, you could also have the RAW table start sooner (ie Attributes # on the table is reduced uniformly by X, so if you want to start at 13 so 16 becomes 13 on the table, and 17-30 are adjusted accordingly by subtracting 3 so 17 is now 14 and 30 is now 27), though you'll have to either extrapolate back to 30 (or also adjust the 30 rule).

The only attribute bonus I would change is IQ. Because IQ's bonus of 2% at 16 is simply too low. I would make it so the bonus starts at 14, at 4%. Then every subsequent increase to IQ raises the percentage bonus by 1. At 15 IQ, it'd be 5%. At 17, it'd be 7%, at 20, it'd be 10%, etc.

For every other bonus, I would leave it as-is. I would simply give the +1 bonus sooner (or charm or PE's percentage to save vs coma, etc).

Using PP for an example, you'd get the +1 to parry, dodge, and strike, at level 14. It would stay at +1 until 18, at which point it goes to +2.

So this rule change would in no way increase the power levels of characters beyond what they already can do. It would just make it so scores of 14-15 aren't as empty as they are now.

I'm also not advocating going down to 13, as I want the bonus range to mirror the penalty range. Most attributes are penalized starting at 7. So every number from 3-7 is penalized. To exactly mirror this, every attribute score of 14-18 needs a bonus. This gives us even odds for getting a penalty or a bonus. Once physical skill bonuses are factored in, we should have a slightly higher than even chance of getting at least one bonus on a straight 3d6.

The current system is constructed such that we are more likely to roll scores that give us penalties, and then with skill bonuses, we can pull some of these scores up to average or above-average stats that still confer no attribute bonuses. It's just way too difficult to reach 16 without 'cheating' by re-rolling or rolling more than 3d6.

[Aermas]

Humans
4d6 drop the lowest, 16+ gets another exploding d6, Human maximum 30

D-Bee
Exactly what it says on the tin, no mulligan dice

Maybe it's unfair to D-Bees, maybe not, most of my players play humans or grackletooth

[Curbludgeon]

A point buy setup can be fun. It needs to take into consideration a few factors: an assessment of power level, that certain stats are worth more than others, and that PS and Spd can run quite high.

The term IQ has some history, and I've replaced it in the past with something like Education. In lieu of a minor percentage increase I wouldn't mind it just granted an extra slot every 2 points above 10, or the like.