Rolling attributes

Marceror · September 13, 2014

I began playing Baldur´s Gate Enhanced Edition last night.

As nice it is to roll a 96 overall score the frustration of skiping over a 90 roll because youre clicking so fast due to sheer tedium of rolling for a long time is cringy to say the least. And thats every new character.

Yeah, its not a feature Im gonna miss anytime soon.

Worst was the original Icewind Dale (IWD2 didn't have this problem because it had a pseudo-point buy). Imagine doing that dice roll dance *six* times before you could start playing the game. Literally most of the time I ever feel like playing IWD again, I give up after trying to roll the 3rd or 4th character. IWD would've had a lot more replayability if I were just given a flat, say, 85 points to distribute.

I couldn't remember if IWD 1 had rolling, as it's been a while since I last played it. But okay, so that means 3/5 of the IE legacy had it.

The worst part of the game was rolling characters? Wow. I have always enjoyed this part of the process. Even if my first several hours ends up being character creation, I enjoy that as part of the process. For a game like IWD2 and ToEE I will usually add to that process by writing a biography for each of my characters and an overall background for the party.

That for me can be just as fun as the game itself.

A 6 person party? I literally might spend days mulling over how I want to create my party, changing, iterating, until I'm totally happy. The rolling of attributes just adds to the experience for me. Hell, it might take me an entire week from the point that I start until I'm actually ready to begin my adventure.

Is none of this ringing true with any other of the supposed IE fans around here?

Edited September 13, 2014 by Marceror

thelee · September 13, 2014

I began playing Baldur´s Gate Enhanced Edition last night.

As nice it is to roll a 96 overall score the frustration of skiping over a 90 roll because youre clicking so fast due to sheer tedium of rolling for a long time is cringy to say the least. And thats every new character.

Yeah, its not a feature Im gonna miss anytime soon.

Worst was the original Icewind Dale (IWD2 didn't have this problem because it had a pseudo-point buy). Imagine doing that dice roll dance *six* times before you could start playing the game. Literally most of the time I ever feel like playing IWD again, I give up after trying to roll the 3rd or 4th character. IWD would've had a lot more replayability if I were just given a flat, say, 85 points to distribute.

I couldn't remember if IWD 1 had rolling, as it's been a while since I last played it. But okay, so that means 3/5 of the IE legacy had it.

The worst part of the game was rolling characters? Wow. I have always enjoyed this part of the process. Even if my first several hours ends up being character creation, I enjoy that as part of the process. For a game like IWD2 and ToEE I will usually add to that process by writing a biography for each of my characters and an overall background for the party.

That for me can be just as fun as the game itself.

A 6 person party? I literally might spend days mulling over how I want to create my party, changing, iterating, until I'm totally happy. The rolling of attributes just adds to the experience for me. Hell, it might take me an entire week from the point that I start until I'm actually ready to begin my adventure.

Is none of this ringing true with any other of the supposed IE fans around here?

I enjoy planning my characters. I do *not* enjoy waiting 30+ minutes per character to get essential stats so I can fulfill my planned-for characters. And the more combat-heavy IWD and IWD2 games *really* punished you if you didn't have sensible stat distribution (whereas BG was fairly forgiving and BG2 basically inundated you with stat-setting items so you could eventually get away with crummy stats; oh yeah and in Planescape: Torment as long as you put everything into wisdom you were set).

Caladian · September 13, 2014

I don't care as long as it isn't mandatory. I don't like making my eyes bleed, so I'll skip on that.

Ganrich · September 13, 2014

As a DM I go with dice rolls if possible, but if the players are new I tend to favor stat allocation to keep player A from being mega-awesome and player B from being Mr. Mediocre. With new players this can cause issues in my experience so I avoid it if I can.

In a cRPG I prefer stat allocation for the reasons others have stated. It is easier to balance for and it doesn't enforce players into hitting reroll 500 times to get an optimum result.

Marceror · September 14, 2014

Good point. I'd say my love for rolling attributes really started back in my pre-IE P&P days. I don't think I ever played in a single campaign where we didn't roll, as that was just how me and my friends... well, rolled.

We developed a fairly generous way to do so... roll 4d6 and drop the lowest of each roll, and assign stats to whichever attribute you wish. Do that 3 times and take the best roll out of the 3. But still sometimes you'd end up with a marginal character, and we'd just deal with that. It was actually funner that way in many respects.

leninghola · September 14, 2014

Flashbacks of rolling a perfect party in Wizardry 7...

I like point buy in video games. Rolls/ToEE style in tabletop. That said, I wouldn't be off-put if there were rolls in the game. I just prefer a point buy system if the GM is the game.

Rumsteak · September 14, 2014

It would be nice to have an optional "Roll" button that just randomly distributes attribute points. The number of points would always stay the same:

Trivial to implement
No need to roll physical dice
Adds a bit of fun if you challenge yourself to play with the roll result

I could see myself using that after finishing my first game.

InsaneCommander · September 14, 2014

I understand the nostalgia and I actually liked to roll for hours just to have a perfect party in IWD. But it either ends in frustation (it can be funny when I hear of someone clicking and losing a 97 roll, but only because I see I'm not the only one who did that) or in the creation of totally irrealistic characters. What does it mean to have 4 18 attributes? Not even the avengers or the justice league have guys like that. Well, maybe they do, but does it make sense in a crpg? Ok, maybe in BG it did... but you get what I mean.

It's better to avoid it.

EDIT: if it's always the same number, like Rumsteak said above, I then it's ok.

Edited September 14, 2014 by InsaneCommander

Rumsteak · September 14, 2014

Yeah, my proposition differs from the ones in the poll in that you always have the same total.

Matt516 · September 14, 2014

I'd use one like Rumsteak's just for fun - but it's still point buy at the core (which I prefer).

Monte Carlo · September 14, 2014

Ha ha ha ToEE nailed it - they displayed how many times you re-clicked on the character sheet. I've gotta be honest, as far as nudge philosophy goes it worked - I couldn't bear the ignominy of having double re-click attempts.

aeonsim · September 14, 2014

A little practical experiment:

Start a PoE game role your 13d6 dice, 2 per stat with 1 left over to spread around as you like, set the characters attributes to the values you rolled.

Now can you click next without spending the remaining spare points and if you can do so, do you feel no annoyance or irritation that you didn't spend those extra points?

If you can do that and happily play the resulting character with no regrets, congrats your a hard core RPG player. If your feelling any regret at all then it seems you like the idea more than the reality and your'd probably end up spending a long time clicking reroll...

Or do you find it annoying because you didn't get to spend more points, and you feel your character should be more powerful? In which case I think it's more of a case you think your character should be more powerful than most other peoples because your "special".

Edited September 14, 2014 by aeonsim

Monte Carlo · September 14, 2014

^ Nail hit squarely on head.

aeonsim · September 14, 2014

If you really want the option to roll your stats lets do it the true hardcore way:

The UI has one button you press it roles the dice for you and assigns them to each stat in order, you can keep it or reject it no changes then when you click next it encrypts it into your save file with a unique checksum stored on the cloud, each time you play it (GM) checks your save file and if your've changed the attribute it deletes your save .

Or maybe we'll be a little more lenient, when you role your stats your allowed to choose which 2 dice total goes to check attribute and can add the result from the last dice to one column after which it encrypts your attributes...

Matt516 · September 14, 2014

Even then, since chargen is at the start of the game people would just keep starting over. It doesn't fix the system, just makes it less convenient for those who want to "cheat" it. (cheat in quotes because it's a SP game)

aeonsim · September 14, 2014

Even then, since chargen is at the start of the game people would just keep starting over. It doesn't fix the system, just makes it less convenient for those who want to "cheat" it. (cheat in quotes because it's a SP game)

Exactly all it effectively does is drive the time cost of generating the "perfect super elite build"/99.999999th%ile character up insanely high. Which i suspect is the reason many people like rolling the dice to get those "characters" that are so much better than every one elses, showing how lucky or obsessed they were.

For the hardcore role players through such a system could be fun, creating a nearly completely random character that they have to play the game with and work out how to use...

Headbomb · September 14, 2014

ToEE Roll was the most P&P-like, except you had infinite rolling which negated pretty much the idea. But I liked it.

Point-buy with increased costs as you go further up the scale is, to me, the only system that makes any sort of sense from a balance perspective, and the only one that makes the racial/culture bonus mean something.

Base Cost

Stat 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Cost -15 -12 -9 -7 -5 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +5 +7 +9 +12 +15

You could also balance this with difficulty fairly easily if you want to throw something on top of the increase number of opponents in fights, and it'd be very easily mod-able as well. Under that scheme, stats could look like something like

Easy 30 points ( e.g. 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 9 )

Medium 25 points ( e.g. 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 8 )

Hard 20 points ( e.g. 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 7 )

Just my two cents.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Headbomb

Matt516 · September 14, 2014

Ultimately, with the current system, anyone who wants to generate a random character can do so with their own dice. Anyone who would rather pick their attributes doesn't have to feel like they need to spend a whole bunch of time rerolling. So that's why I like the current system - it works for both groups of people.

As for an increasing-cost point buy system, I have to confess I'm not a fan. PoE's attribute system already somewhat incentivizes raising related stats equally, like Might and Accuracy, due to the way they benefit from the current value of the other. A system like this would mean that in most cases, a more average build with points spread out very equally will be much stronger than a build that focuses on a few attributes. All it would really do is decrease the variety "good" builds out there, and where's the fun in that?

EDIT: The difficulty settings bit cam also be implemented in the current system though. That is a nice suggestion.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Matt516

PK htiw klaw eriF · September 14, 2014

I don't like the idea of getting less points because of the difficulty setting. IMO, it is too similar to HP and Damage bloat for monsters(but in reverse), which is something I loathe about some difficulty settings. I want to feel challenged because the enemies use good tactics and have a range of abilities, not spend my time whittling away at a dude with insane health.

Not to mention it doesn't take into account changing the difficulty setting.

Edited September 14, 2014 by KaineParker

Sensuki · September 14, 2014

Knights of the Chalice has the best rolling.

Headbomb · September 14, 2014

Keep in mind I just said it could vary with difficulty, not that it should.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Headbomb

PK htiw klaw eriF · September 14, 2014

Keep in mind I just said it could vary with difficulty, not that it should.

I get you bro, I just think we should state flaws we see with stuff. Leads to more refined ideas and all that.

InsaneCommander · September 14, 2014

That's an interesting idea, but besides what KaineParker said, if it is mod-able, some people will set it beyond 30 and it'll just make it easier to "cheat".

wanderon · September 14, 2014

Never understood why people get concerned about how other people play a single player game to the point where threads about the "cheaters" and non-cheaters go on for pages :no:

Undecaf · September 14, 2014

I think it would be a neat little quirk if the game allowed me to - if I felt like it - roll the attributes. Manual selection is all well and good and I use that, but sometimes it just feels good to roll a random character and see what comes of him/her (and the current "one for all and all for one" attribute system would appear to support such in that you can't well screw up with rolling).

I don't suppose it's particularly hard to implement either - a little complementary feature for number assigning like that.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Undecaf

Rolling attributes

Would you like an option to roll your abilities scores?
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Rolling attributes

Would you like an option to roll your abilities scores? 122 members have voted

1. Would you like an option to roll your abilities scores?

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Would you like an option to roll your abilities scores?
122 members have voted