dtgreene: I know that feeling.

dtgreene: Of course, there's also games like Wizardry, where you get a random number of bonus points to distribute as you wish (the only thing you reroll is that random number).

dtgreene: And then you play the game with your carefully chosen stats, only to run into a couple issues:
* Enemy attacks Charisma, and the game kills you when a stat reaches 0.
* When an enemy attacks you, the enemy uses *your* Strengh bonus, making higher Strength characters more vulnerable. (Yes, I have encountered this sort of bug before; SaGa 1 is probably the one game I've played with the highest concentration of such bugs.)

dtgreene: In some CRPGs, you start by creating a party, or sometimes just a single character. In some of those, there is some randomness involved in character creation; in particular, it's not unusual for stats to be determined randomly. The question, of course, is "when do you stop re-rolling"?

For a specific example, let's consider a game that handles stats similar to classic Wizardry:
* On character creation, each character has fixed base stats determined by race (which has already been chosen).
* The character gets a random number of bonus points, which can be distributed to stats as the player chooses. Of course, more bonus points are better.
* There is no way to save the roll and still keep re-rolling; the player must either accept the current roll or discard it and hope for a better roll.
* The maximum bonus point roll is not known to the player.

Now, the question is:
* When should I stop rolling for stats?

One possible strategy is to roll n times, keep track of the highest number of bonus points, then re-roll until that result or better comes up again. For this strategy, what should the value of n be?

Or, can you think of a better approach?

Ranayna: To be honest, if a game is too obnoxious about attacking stats directly, i simply stop playing. I do not like those mechanics. For that reason i hate how poison is handled in D&D 3.x, but there, luckily, poisons that target dump stats are rare.

Similar situation with any kind of really permanent drain that cannot be cured by any means in-game. I do not like games that employ those tactics.

dtgreene: You're not the only person who dislikes permanent incurable drains. In particular, it seems like the Wizardry 8 developers didn't like it either, as the only truly permanent drain comes if you leave a character diseased for too long. (Some enemies drain max HP, but that can be cured with an expensive potion, or with limited use fountains, or by letting the character die and reviving them (which has no long-term side effects, unlike earlier Wizardry games).)

Ranayna: Yeah, i know about Wizardry 8. It is among my most favorite games of all time. Disease is easy enough to cure. At a point where you start encountering it, you should have access to cure disease potions.