how do you roll your stats?

This is a subject i got curious about when i was rolling stats for my newest party just today.

How do you people roll your stats when making a new party?

do you just roll them till you get something you like? first roll taken like in ironman? using point-buy system? using the point-buy system with the bug? or do you make some self-restrictions when making rolls or building stats?

i personally have a system myself for rolling which i feel makes it fair but doesn't let you roll endlessly either.

basically i make 5 characters. im allowed to roll stats for one character either 3 or 7 times.(depends on whether i play normal style or ironman style. ironman style gets more.) i can take any roll but if i don't get roll that im satisfied with before the last roll, im forced to take the last.

now once ive rolled stats for all the 5 characters i see if any of them suck.(suck as in if i end up with characters whose highest stat was 13-15 and rest below and also two stats atleast have to be below 10)
if one or more character sucks, im allowed to retry the rolls. however there are two limitations to retrying. first, im only allowed 2 or 3 retries(normal style and ironman style again, ironman gets more)
second, im forced to delete ALL my characters that were rolled at that point and reroll them all again. so for example if i had one or two characters with really good rolls and one or more with really bad, i have to think if i wanna lose the good rolls to get rid of the bad. also one more thing. out of the 5 characters, i have to choose one "leader". when rolling for stats, if a good roll comes, the leader has the right to take those stats even if i was rolling for another character. however this comes with a punishment, if leader does take those stats, im then forced to delete any other party members already made and reroll them again. i also have to take whatever rolls i get for the other 4. no more retries even if there were some left.

naturally as you might have thought, ironman gets more rolls and retries because if party dies i not only have to restart whole game but i also have to delete the characters and make new ones.

haha so anyway, anyone else have these kinds of systems or do you just stick with the ones that came with the game?

 

I personally go with fixed stats : 18,16,14,12,10,8 and distribute them according to what each class needs. I do this because i need decent chars in my party that can cope with some self imposed play rules : no druid,sorceror or wizard in party and no direct damage offensive spellcasting; also no loads unless needed to bypass a bug or party gets compleetly wiped out.

 

Me, I'm guilty of rolling umpteen million times until I get awesome pc's that can save the realm.

Also, I don't know why but I kind of like the whole rolling and char creating process.

 

Like this:
Click, click, click, Hey this looks good! Allocate!

Next character!

IMO, the "point buy" system feels really restrictive for the classes that need multiple stats (Like Paladins and Monks) so I generally prefer rolling for them.

 

I just give my PCs the stats i think fit the concept.

 

I do this also.

 

Is the 18, 16... 10, 8 achievable with the points buy option?
I try to go with what I roll, within reason. The problem I have is I usually have a reasonably good idea about 2 or 3 characters I want to be the core of my party (often around whether I want to be out and out noble/ sneaky and stealth/ bombastic fireball-hurling/ nature orientated). So I'll roll my party leader to get stats that reflect how they should be (NOT necessarily overpowered, but decent enough to rationalise them becoming the leader of the party- maybe a 16 in what used to be called the prime requisite, and a couple of other above average scores). It's tricky in 3.5 because the game kind of assumes that everyone ends up with magically-enhanced scores pretty soon, so you kind of feel everyone needs a 14 Con, and everyone apart from the Cleric needs a decent Dx bonus to AC, compared with earlier editions (did my DMing in 2nd ed, back in the day....).
Anyway, so I sort my primary character, then usually my divine caster to go with that flavour (cleric of Heironeous accompanying Paladin, Olidamara with stealthy party, druid with celtic-style bard etc), and then another of the core group- Sir Paladin's herald, or an illusionist/ enchanter. After that I'm running out of ideas for personalities (in PnP I only had to think of one at a time, dammit), so I'm loking to fill a couple of other slots with more generic characters depending on what I already have- often my 2nd fighter-type and whatever rogue or arcane castr I'm missing. Inevitably, having struggled to get Str 14 Dex 10 Con 13 Int 8 Wis 14, Cha 16 for my Paladin ( for eg), I then go and roll 18, 17, 17, 15, 12, 13 for his humble man-at-arms!

 

I roll until the sum is 90 or more, then see what class I can make with that. A hundred plus rolls is easy this way. I'll make a few characters this way when I'm bored. Making multi-stat (bard, pally, etc) toons this way can be frustrating if I'm in a hurry, as I've had to do often with all the updates.

Usually, I've reused the same toons for given classes and alignments for several campaigns.

What is the best way to transfer old characters from update to update?

 

Nightcannon your paladin and manservant sound like Wooster and Jeeves.

 

Pygmy- ha! Love it.
Maybe what I should do is roll a character every session or so then select the best ones when I'm putting together a new group. Worthwhile with the above advice re transferring between modpacks.

GuardianAngel: average score of 15 is a bit 'rich' for me, but each to their own.

 

Didn't know there was any other way to do it besides just hitting the roll button and if I don't like it reroll. I usually keep anything that by bonuses are +5 or above total.

 

There is a tab below the stats you rolled that will take you to the point buy screen.

 

I want at least two stats which show 15 or more AND the total sum of the bonuses should be 6 or more. If I do not get that result, I do not reroll, I just cancel the create process and make one anew. If I need to do that more than 5 times, I just give up- because I know that it's going to be one of those days when the dice are against me.

If it's for p&p I'm way more strict though. Then I use the *4 dice, reroll the 1's, ditch the lowest die* technique- twice, and I choose the one set of stats that I like most.

 

Pretty sure you can't unless you apply racial modifiers.