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by Mike on 1 January 2024
Here's an easy house rule to help players more easily select ability scores when building characters in 5e games.
Instead of using a mixture of point-buy systems and either racial or background-based ability bonuses, suggest the two following standard arrays, applying them to the player's abilities of choice. These standard arrays already include any potential racial or background bonus:
16 (+3), 14 (+2), 14 (+2), 12 (+1), 12 (+1), 8 (-1)
or
16 (+3), 14 (+2), 14 (+2), 12 (+1), 10 (+0), 10 (+0)
These standard arrays work for whatever flavor of 5e you happen to be playing including the 2014 D&D Player's Handbook, Tales of the Valiant, or Level Up Advanced 5e. Each of these 5e variants has their own ways to handle ability scores and bonuses but they're all close enough to these standard arrays that any differences don't really matter.
Experienced players who want to get into the weeds can use the ability point-buy rules of your chosen 5e flavor and apply additional bonuses based on whatever ability bonus points the system provides.
New players, and players who just want to get on with their adventures, may find these all-in standard arrays much easier to understand and apply without needing to worry about any complex point-buy systems and ability bonuses from other parts of character creation.
Add these standard arrays to your session zero guide to help players more quickly build their characters.
Last week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Music for RPGs and Owlbear Rodeo for Lazy GMs.
Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:
Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers:
Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's tips:
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