Player Character Rolled Attributes ..

[Lenwen]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

And what is the limit you have for your Player Characters Attributes ?

[J. Lionheart]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

Depends on their base rolls. We will assume you speak of a human character (3D6 on all attributes), and the first thing to know is that it's pretty dang limited.

There are a total of 6^3, or 216 possible 3D6 rolls, of which only the following 7 (1 in 30.86, or 3.24%) will earn the bonus die necessary to reach 21+:

666 665 656 566 655 556 565

The following 19 combinations to reach 21 are possible when the bonus die is added:

666+6 665+6 656+6 566+6 655+6 556+6 565+6
666+5 665+5 656+5 566+5 655+5 556+5 565+5
666+4 665+4 656+4 566+4
666+3

A bonus die roll of the following numbers, therefore, has the following chance of making the total reach 21+ based on the seven possible situations resulting in its use:

1=0%
2=0%
3=14%
4=57%
5=100%
6=100%

Weighting each value by its one sixth possibility of coming up, there is a 45.17% chance that a bonus roll will yield a 21+ attribute.

With a 3.24% chance of earning a bonus roll at all, that means that there's about a 1.46% chance that any given attribute will come up 21+. With 8 attribute rolls, that's only a 25.92% chance of a bonus attribute of any kind and just an 11.68% chance that a character will have an unmodified attribute of 21+, or 1 character out of every 8.5 made.


(Forgive me if I did any of this math wrong - I'm pretty sure on it, but I was doing it on the fly while eating dinner, so might have slipped up)

[Dustin Fireblade]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

And what is the limit you have for your Player Characters Attributes ?

Assuming a Human and using by the book 3d6 rolls - well I don't think we've ever done that in Rifts Normally we roll 4d6 and keep the 3 highest, adding the 4th die if you rolled a 16-18 with the other three. One of the guys made up a point buy, where we rolled a percentile to see how many points we could get to use, and we used that a few times.

For the second part, I would cap it at 30, but nobody has come close to rolling that. Actually I think RUE made that a rule now anyway.

[Cybermancer]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

And what is the limit you have for your Player Characters Attributes ?

Considering that I've switched to using the character roll method found in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles as well as Dead Reign, pretty much every character generated has at least one attribute in that range.

But even before that I had a tendency to allow a mulligan or reroll until the player had a character that was exceptional in at least one area. Not so much in Heroes Unlimited where you can easily get high scores in several attributes depending on power selection.

[Shawn Merrow]

Had a player roll five 20+ on her last character. It doesn't happened much but it does happened.

[Cybermancer]

Had a player roll five 20+ on her last character. It doesn't happened much but it does happened.

Indeed. I've seen two or three similarily rolled characters over 20+ years. Never got to roll one myself. though.

[sasha]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

And what is the limit you have for your Player Characters Attributes ?

It's uncommon to rare. There is no limit either way, but if they roll something dismally low and the player doesn't want it, something can be worked out at creation and certainly during play.

[Cinos]

Wow seems my group is the freaks of Palladium then, I don't recall a game that didn't have 1-2 rolls past 20 on every character (Rolled NPC's Included).

I do impose a stat cap, which is you cannot roll more bonus then starting dice (Thus with humans, no more then 6D6 Total, but an Elf PB could skyrocket to 10D6 total dice). Static modifiers (bonuses, skills, etc) can boost it all day long though.

[sasha]

I thought that only humans get the extra D6 on attributes.

[Ziggurat the Eternal]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

Depends on their base rolls. We will assume you speak of a human character (3D6 on all attributes), and the first thing to know is that it's pretty dang limited.

There are a total of 6^3, or 216 possible 3D6 rolls, of which only the following 7 (1 in 30.86, or 3.24%) will earn the bonus die necessary to reach 21+:

666 665 656 566 655 556 565

The following 19 combinations to reach 21 are possible when the bonus die is added:

666+6 665+6 656+6 566+6 655+6 556+6 565+6
666+5 665+5 656+5 566+5 655+5 556+5 565+5
666+4 665+4 656+4 566+4
666+3

A bonus die roll of the following numbers, therefore, has the following chance of making the total reach 21+ based on the seven possible situations resulting in its use:

1=0%
2=0%
3=14%
4=57%
5=100%
6=100%

Weighting each value by its one sixth possibility of coming up, there is a 45.17% chance that a bonus roll will yield a 21+ attribute.

With a 3.24% chance of earning a bonus roll at all, that means that there's about a 1.46% chance that any given attribute will come up 21+. With 8 attribute rolls, that's only a 25.92% chance of a bonus attribute of any kind and just an 11.68% chance that a character will have an unmodified attribute of 21+, or 1 character out of every 8.5 made.


(Forgive me if I did any of this math wrong - I'm pretty sure on it, but I was doing it on the fly while eating dinner, so might have slipped up)

Oh sweet jesus I'm not alone! Other people do unnecessary math too! I think you got it right, but I only glanced. Pretty awesome if you think about it, and compare it to how often me and my friends roll them. Just about every other character, if not every single one. And we all see the rolls too. Crazy lucky dice, all of us.

[J. Lionheart]

Oh sweet jesus I'm not alone! Other people do unnecessary math too! I think you got it right, but I only glanced. Pretty awesome if you think about it, and compare it to how often me and my friends roll them. Just about every other character, if not every single one. And we all see the rolls too. Crazy lucky dice, all of us.

Unnecessary math? No such thing! (except geometric proofs - those pretty much can suck it)

Basically, I was using that math as a response to the question. How often do my characters roll a 21+? As often as the dice statistically do so, because I don't allow mulligans at my table!

[J. Lionheart]

Lythis: Are those rolled stats, or adjusted stats? It's easy enough to get stats over 21 when you adjust them by adding physical skills, class abilities, training bonuses, and all that jazz. It's only rolling them that is hard.

Since you're saying only 4 of the 6 players had high stats like that, that's 22 out of 32 rolls - 68.75% of rolls hitting a 1.46% each probability. That is close enough to a statistical impossibility that I'll simply say they cheated. Pull those dice for testing! If they aren't cheating, they should be buying lottery tickets. The chance of legitimately getting any given set of 22 or more 21+ attributes out of 32 tries is 3.62e-41. There are myriad permutations where 22 or more of 32 are 21+, I can't figure out the math for it, but even if there were a million ways to do it, you'd still be looking at 3.62e-35 The chance of winning the Mega Millions jackpot prize is an easy 5.69e-9 in comparison. In simple terms, that means you're somewhere over 150 septillion times more likely to win the big jackpot than to roll 21+ attributes 22 or more times out of 32.

Sorry for the lack of specificity with the permutations thing, but I'm nowhere near good enough with math to figure that one out at the moment. Regardless, I don't believe makes a difference significant enough to change the point I'm making.

[Ziggurat the Eternal]

Lythis: Are those rolled stats, or adjusted stats? It's easy enough to get stats over 21 when you adjust them by adding physical skills, class abilities, training bonuses, and all that jazz. It's only rolling them that is hard.

Since you're saying only 4 of the 6 players had high stats like that, that's 22 out of 32 rolls - 68.75% of rolls hitting a 1.46% each probability. That is close enough to a statistical impossibility that I'll simply say they cheated. Pull those dice for testing! If they aren't cheating, they should be buying lottery tickets. The chance of legitimately getting any given set of 22 or more 21+ attributes out of 32 tries is 3.62e-41. There are myriad permutations where 22 or more of 32 are 21+, I can't figure out the math for it, but even if there were a million ways to do it, you'd still be looking at 3.62e-35 The chance of winning the Mega Millions jackpot prize is an easy 5.69e-9 in comparison. In simple terms, that means you're somewhere over 150 septillion times more likely to win the big jackpot than to roll 21+ attributes 22 or more times out of 32.

Sorry for the lack of specificity with the permutations thing, but I'm nowhere near good enough with math to figure that one out at the moment. Regardless, I don't believe makes a difference significant enough to change the point I'm making.

Yeah, we have stupid luck in character creation, and then we tend to get pwned later on in the game. On the math note, me and my players do win more than we spend 85% of the time. I have never won less than I spent. I have never straight up lost. I kinda set the bar in my group, cause some always win, some never win, and the fact that I never lose brings up our minimum by a lot, even if I don't contribute much to our maximum.
I have noticed a trend, wherein high dice rolls in the beginning, then lead to low rolls later on in the game. i have yet to stat out the statistical analysis of this, but there definitely is a trend in my group. The guy who gets low rolls for his stats is envied for the ease of the game later on, as he will get mostly high rolls.

[Malakai]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

Depends on their base rolls. We will assume you speak of a human character (3D6 on all attributes), and the first thing to know is that it's pretty dang limited.

There are a total of 6^3, or 216 possible 3D6 rolls, of which only the following 7 (1 in 30.86, or 3.24%) will earn the bonus die necessary to reach 21+:

666 665 656 566 655 556 565

The following 19 combinations to reach 21 are possible when the bonus die is added:

666+6 665+6 656+6 566+6 655+6 556+6 565+6
666+5 665+5 656+5 566+5 655+5 556+5 565+5
666+4 665+4 656+4 566+4
666+3

A bonus die roll of the following numbers, therefore, has the following chance of making the total reach 21+ based on the seven possible situations resulting in its use:

1=0%
2=0%
3=14%
4=57%
5=100%
6=100%

Weighting each value by its one sixth possibility of coming up, there is a 45.17% chance that a bonus roll will yield a 21+ attribute.

With a 3.24% chance of earning a bonus roll at all, that means that there's about a 1.46% chance that any given attribute will come up 21+. With 8 attribute rolls, that's only a 25.92% chance of a bonus attribute of any kind and just an 11.68% chance that a character will have an unmodified attribute of 21+, or 1 character out of every 8.5 made.


(Forgive me if I did any of this math wrong - I'm pretty sure on it, but I was doing it on the fly while eating dinner, so might have slipped up)

I would only like to point out that you forgot 3 possible outcomes of 3D6 that would give you a Bonus Die: 16 = {[6,6,4] [6,4,6] [4,6,6]}, all of which then have a 33% chance of getting 21+

[J. Lionheart]

I would only like to point out that you forgot 3 possible outcomes of 3D6 that would give you a Bonus Die: 16 = {[6,6,4] [6,4,6] [4,6,6]}, all of which then have a 33% chance of getting 21+

Now damn it all, how did I manage that?

Thanks for the catch. /sigh.

Here's the correction:

There are a total of 6^3, or 216 possible 3D6 rolls, of which only the following 10 (1 in 21.6, or 4.63%) will earn the bonus die necessary to reach 21+:

666 665 656 566 664 646 466 655 556 565

The following 25 combinations to reach 21 are possible when the bonus die is added

666+6 665+6 656+6 566+6 664+6 646+6 466+6 655+6 556+6 565+6
666+5 665+5 656+5 566+5 664+5 646+5 466+5 655+5 556+5 565+5
666+4 665+4 656+4 566+4
666+3

1=0%
2=0%
3=10%
4=40%
5=100%
6=100%

Weighting each value by its one sixth possibility of coming up, there is a 41.67% chance that a bonus roll will yield a 21+ attribute.

With a 4.63% chance of earning a bonus roll at all, that means that there's about a 1.93% chance that any given attribute will come up 21+. With 8 attribute rolls, that's only a 37.04% chance of a bonus attribute of any kind and just a 15.44% chance that a character will have an unmodified attribute of 21+, or 1 character out of every 6.5 made.

[Vrykolas2k]

I thought that only humans get the extra D6 on attributes.

Illogical.
I never used that (nor read it, honestly, except in the boards... maybe I overlook that rule?).

[zor_prime1]

I've seen it happen fairly often. The only reason is that everyone brings their own dice. They know which ones are good to them and so they opt to use those dice. It doesn't always work, but it seems some dice just seem to be more generous than others.
As a GM I allow this just because. They also need to beware of NPC's having high stats. I use Excel though for the mass NPC reference.

[Aaryq]

Well...with one guy, he did a lot. I would try to accuse him of cheating but this SOB was just lucky.

One instance he rolled up a character, crazy attributes...I make him re-roll the attributes in front of me. 5 of the 7 attributes made it to at least 17 and a bonus die. I asked him to use my loaner dice for the night...too many natural twenties to count....

[KillWatch]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?
-Not often, but I have a different skill system which allows progressive bonuses

And what is the limit you have for your Player Characters Attributes ?
-Max attributes = 3x average Human average is 10 so 30. It works the same for aliens etc

[Spinachcat]

I thought that only humans get the extra D6 on attributes.

I do this. And humans get the +1D6 when they roll 15+ so it happens more often.

Its just a wee bump for the humans to make them special.

[Vrykolas2k]

I thought that only humans get the extra D6 on attributes.

I do this. And humans get the +1D6 when they roll 15+ so it happens more often.

Its just a wee bump for the humans to make them special.

Why should humans be superior to any other race?

[jedi078]

Considering that I've switched to using the character roll method found in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles as well as Dead Reign, pretty much every character generated has at least one attribute in that range.

My too in the case of Robotech, I don't have Dead Reign yet....

But before this I had players roll 3d8 for atts (which nets a stat roll of 3-24), and you don't need to roll more dice.

[Iczer]

I thought that only humans get the extra D6 on attributes.

I do this. And humans get the +1D6 when they roll 15+ so it happens more often.

Its just a wee bump for the humans to make them special.

Why should humans be superior to any other race?

They aren't. In fact palladium makes humans the least desirable species from a maths perspective.

Batts

[Vrykolas2k]

I thought that only humans get the extra D6 on attributes.

I do this. And humans get the +1D6 when they roll 15+ so it happens more often.

Its just a wee bump for the humans to make them special.

The correct rule is that any attribute that is a 3D6 with no bonuses receives a 16-18 gets an additional 1D6 roll. if that is a 6, you get another 1D6 roll and that's all.

For attributes that are 2D6, receiving a 12 allows for an additional 1D6 roll.

Because humans are all 3D6 with no bonuses, the rules applies more to them, but can actually apply to any race as long as there are no bonus (3D6+1 for Elf IQ for example)

So an elf can never have a 30 Intelligence.
Hmm...

[J. Lionheart]

So an elf can never have a 30 Intelligence.
Hmm...

Not by PC rolled attributes, nope

Too much pretension to fully develop their intellectual capacity

[Vrykolas2k]

So an elf can never have a 30 Intelligence.
Hmm...

Not by PC rolled attributes, nope

Too much pretension to fully develop their intellectual capacity

Ya, right...

[Grell]

How often is it that your PC's roll attributes above 21+ for thier characters ?

And what is the limit you have for your Player Characters Attributes ?

To the OP, it's fairly common, but I favor supervised character generation (we make an event of it) and traceable online rolls for PbP games (play by post).

The only limit I have on attributes is the options for how they can be rolled. Here's the breakdown:

-Roll for each attribute individually (low attribute compensation applies). If the desired OCC requirements cannot be reached, adjust attributes accordingly. Of course, in this case, low attribute compensation only applies AFTER the OCC is selected and any attribute changes take place.

-Roll 8-times and place results to taste (low attribute compensation applies). No special considerations, you want an OCC you make sure your character is qualified to do it.

-Template rolls (see Dead Reign or new Robotech). They can use the quick attribute templates found in these games (i.e. strong willed, fast as lightning, etc).

These limitations are only for human characters, since special RCC's are pretty much rolled one way out of the box. I do normally consider the low attribute compensation for rolls below 7 for other races, unless a particular RCC is uber powerful already.

Note: low attribute compensation is found in RUE in the attributes section.