Drafting Stats

1. Rolling Stats

Whatever your preferred method of rolling — 3d6 strict, 4d6k3, or some other method — rolling for stats has always been at the heart of Dungeons & Dragons. It is, without question, among the most exciting series of rolls you will make in your campaign. On top of this, involving dice in character creation just feels right.

Rolling stats generally creates a wider spread of ability scores, which leads to more interesting characters — the very lifeblood of D&D. Unfortauntely, it frequently causes imbalance between the players in a group, and most methods to "fix" less-than-ideal outcomes (such as rerolling low results) end up defeating the purpose of rolling altogether, and turn it into a "win or win bigger" mentality.

2. Standard Array or Point Buy

This alternative method to rolling stats (and it is the alternative method, check your PHB!) is neatly positioned to address the primary failing of rolling stats — fairness, or lack thereof. Put plainly, it isnt fun being the person who rolls low, and within the bounded accuracy framework of 5th Edition, a significant gap between the strongest and weakest characters will never be bridged outside of the DM taking pity — which doesn't exactly feel great, either.

Unfortunately, this uniformity is at the expense of rolling dice, and a single fixed array generally results in characters of a particular class looking incredibly similar across adventures, and across tables.

Finally, and this is a very valid point for new players: using the Standard Array is simple. Its very hard to go wrong when using it.

The method presented here is not simple, and thus not suitable for new players. It is intended for tables that desire the randomness of rolling; the fairness of the Standard Array; and the discovery of rolling straight in fun and collaborative way.

What is a Snake Draft?

The snake draft is divided into rounds — one round for each ability score. Each player has one pick every round, and makes their first-round pick based on a predetermined order by rolling a d20, with the higher number going earlier. When the first round is over, the player that picked last in the first round picks first in the second round — in other words, the draft snakes back on itself. The player that had the first pick in the first round now has the last pick in the second round and the first pick in the third round as follows:

Snake drafting is used in fantasy football leagues, because it allows for a fair and balanced draft — it wouldn't be very fair if the player with the first overall pick was allowed to choose first in every round! While other forms of drafting are employed in other circumstances, such as the NFL and Magic: the Gathering, the fantasy football draft best mirrors our situation: all players beginning from a blank slate, with complete visibility over available options.

How Do We Use This?

Each player rolls stats in order, and adds them to a pool of available stats. For example, if you have a group of four players you will have a pool containing four numbers for each ability score. The players then each roll a d20 to determine the draft order, and start drafting!

CHARACTER CREATION | DRAFTING STATS

Drafting Stats as a Group by heavyarms