Sunday, October 14, 2012

[Open Discussion] Rolling a 3 in Character Creation

I was working on an NPC for my play-by-post game. Most of my rolls were pretty good, but one of them came up a 3.

So here's my topic for discussion: You have rolled a 3 during character creation, but your other stats are pretty good. The game you are playing allows you to assign rolls to whatever attribute you wish. What stat are you willing to assign that 3 to?

If you normally play a game that uses point buy some other means than random rolls, what attribute are you willing to start at with the bare minimum of what the game allows to play?

3 comments:

  1. In my younger days, playing Basic Dungeons and Dragons, the dump stat was usually Charisma. Ugly and social inept! No problem.

    These days, I wouldn't mind seeing it in any stat. Would be fun to play a super smart weakling, or a clumsy holy man.

    Lately, I have grown fond of standard arrays because most of character creation happens off the table through email.

    I sort of wish there was a D&D alternate ability score system that had trade offs for low scores. Perhaps a low intelligence would grant you immunity to certain spells for instance.

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  2. I've both played and referee'd a PC who had a naturally rolled 3 CHA. I did get some enjoyment out of the roleplaying that emerged with the latter (it was decided he was essentially a fighter/magic-user version of Dr. House) in his interactions with both PCs and NPCs. I can't imagine any other stat that players would be so willing to run with. Maybe INT? Even the player of the Dr. House PC initially balked at the 3 CHA, but I talked him into how fun it could be, and anyway his other stats were splendid.

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  3. Yet another person speaking in with Charisma as the dump stat. Granted, nobody likes you, but the tradeoff against most of the other stats is pretty noteworthy.

    Low strength? Can't carry a thing. Low int? Can't talk, let alone read. Low Wisdom? Can be controlled by anything. Low Con? Barely any Hp. Low dex? Easy to be hit. Low Charisma? Well, nobody likes you. But as some people have been saying as of late, we're all playing murderhobos anyway.

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