Having trouble with character rolls

Cvijeta

I have bg2ee and I try to roll 95 with my blade. I takes foreever to roll 90 roll, and Im yet to see 95 roll. Is my game bugged... I keep getting to see 75 roll.

Papa_Lou

No worries, it's not bugged. Getting a roll in the 90s is extremely rare. You're better off aiming for the high 80s, as the chances of landing a 95 are very slim.

Granted, some classes can see 90 rolls more often than others, because of the high minimum requirements for certain stats. Paladins are a good example of this, but even then, you'd be hard pressed to hit a 95.

Rolls in the 75-80 range are what you're likely to see mostly, with anything above that being pretty solid.

If you're determined to hit a 95, well, I hope you've got a lot of patience.

Skatan

Getting around 90 seldom takes more than a few minutes of rolling, but pressing for a 95 could take many, many hours. There's no bug other than chance.

Artona

It's just statistics. I rolled two days to get 96 on my barbarian.

jsaving

A roll of 95 is so far outside the norm that you'd expect to take hours if not days to achieve it. Then when it does come, there's a reasonable chance you will have hit "reroll" before you process just how high the roll is, requiring you to do it all over again.

A further complication is that blades require you to put a lot of points in two stats you don't need, INT and (especially) CHA. Having to put 28 points in those, plus 3 in wisdom, means you need at least 85 to have 18s in the three physical stats. Subtract two points from CON since blades don't receive bonus hit points for a score of 17 or 18 and you're looking at needing a roll of 83 for a blade character.

Unless you have an unorthodox build in mind that would require a higher roll?

Borek

if you have the console enabled you can CTRL + 8 to get 18'00 Str and 18 in all stats, you can then adjust based on race. Since pretty much all classes have at least 2 stats that are for the most part irrelevant then it makes little difference compared to having a 95, 108 just lets you have 18 (or racial max) in what would be dump stats as a 95 roll. The main difference is rolling up a new character takes 10s rather than 10 hrs

Grond0

Why do you want 95 anyway?
- 18 strength and dexterity help fighting.
- 18 constitution allows you to wear Claw of Kazgaroth with virtually no penalty and makes it easier to get natural regeneration.
- 18 intelligence helps learn spells.
- 15 charisma is the minimum and is enough for any purpose (friends spell can boost to 21 to get best shop prices).
- wisdom gives you virtually no benefits at all. You don't need the lore bonus and you're not going to be casting wish so a wisdom of 3 is fine unless you particularly want a higher figure for RP reasons.
That totals 90 which is pretty easy to roll - unlike 95 .

75 is a common roll to see - you don't see any rolls below that as the game automatically discards those before displaying them.

Durenas

Character rolls is by far the worst feature of BG, BG2, and IWD. I vastly prefer point-buy systems. At least those are balanced.

fateless

point buy systems aren't actually any more balanced than the rolls offered by the BG games. Considering the 75 minimum is not that different than the typical amount offered by most point by systems. This is enough to give you 12's and 13's in every stat. Which most point buy systems consider above average in everything.

When the average amount received on a character is actually more like 80. (rolls seem to fluctuate between 75 and 85 mostly). That gives you enough for 13 in every stat with actually going up to 14.

90 is a point where you can have 15's in all stats. I can't say I've played video games like this that allow pointbuys that high to be able to get that much. So pointbuy systems are largely an illusion to being higher or somehow more balanced when compared to a rolling system like presented in BG, BG2, and IWD. The story can be a little different in table top games or games that go with more of a True 3d6 roll system without a minimum number of stat points distributed.

UnderstandMouseMagic

Durenas said:

Character rolls is by far the worst feature of BG, BG2, and IWD. I vastly prefer point-buy systems. At least those are balanced.

But what if you don't want "balance"?

What if you want to play through making something easy for yourself because you've played the game a lot and want to spend your time concentrating on something else?

The roll system allows you to play with "balance" and yet allows others to play completely ridiculous characters should they want to surely?

A 95 roll is really high, but if that's what the OP wants, why on earth not?
Sod balance.

Durenas

UnderstandMouseMagic said:

Durenas said:

Character rolls is by far the worst feature of BG, BG2, and IWD. I vastly prefer point-buy systems. At least those are balanced.

But what if you don't want "balance"?

What if you want to play through making something easy for yourself because you've played the game a lot and want to spend your time concentrating on something else?

The roll system allows you to play with "balance" and yet allows others to play completely ridiculous characters should they want to surely?

A 95 roll is really high, but if that's what the OP wants, why on earth not?
Sod balance.

That's fair. BG1 and BG2 have cheat codes that allow you to max out your stats. We can even alter them with EEKeeper. There are always ways to build 'ridiculous' characters if you really want to. That's not what I'm saying.

The reroll system promotes sitting there for minutes or hours mind-numbingly clicking the reroll button until you get the score you want. This should be unnecessary, but it is what it is.

fateless

That's not the reroll system promoting that. That is our desire to have a set number of really high stats on our characters.

Arctodus

fateless said:

That's not the reroll system promoting that. That is our desire to have a set number of really high stats on our characters.

I agree with this. For instance, I recently started to roll my characters without redistributing stats. I roll as much as I want, but keep the numbers I get "as is". I found that I'm having lots of fun with imperfect character, where I must find ways to cope with their shortcomings while also use their strength optimally. A bard with decent int, high strength and average dex ? Alright, he's gonna throw axes ! A thief with high strength and dex, but mediocre stats otherwise ? Maybe I'll dual him into a fighter later ! And so on...

A point-buy could kinda replicate that, but just not the same way, because there would be no randomness to character creation. When you're not redistributing stats, there's something to the randomness of rerolling to see what you'll get next. As a non min-maxer, I really like the reroll option, because it enhances the replayability of the game.

Papa_Lou

Arctodus said:

agree with this. For instance, I recently started to roll my characters without redistributing stats. I roll as much as I want, but keep the numbers I get "as is". I found that I'm having lots of fun with imperfect character, where I must find ways to cope with their shortcomings while also use their strength optimally. A bard with decent int, high strength and average dex ? Alright, he's gonna throw axes ! A thief with high strength and dex, but mediocre stats otherwise ? Maybe I'll dual him into a fighter later ! And so on...

I've always reassigned skill points to fit the character I had in my head, but this sounds oddly appealing. I might give this a shot next time I play the game.

bdtgazo

Arctodus said:

fateless said:

That's not the reroll system promoting that. That is our desire to have a set number of really high stats on our characters.

I agree with this. For instance, I recently started to roll my characters without redistributing stats. I roll as much as I want, but keep the numbers I get "as is". I found that I'm having lots of fun with imperfect character, where I must find ways to cope with their shortcomings while also use their strength optimally. A bard with decent int, high strength and average dex ? Alright, he's gonna throw axes ! A thief with high strength and dex, but mediocre stats otherwise ? Maybe I'll dual him into a fighter later ! And so on...

A point-buy could kinda replicate that, but just not the same way, because there would be no randomness to character creation. When you're not redistributing stats, there's something to the randomness of rerolling to see what you'll get next. As a non min-maxer, I really like the reroll option, because it enhances the replayability of the game.

bdtgazo

The next step, then, beyond refusing to redistribute, is to 'must take 1st roll or 1st reroll (no storing, no roll beyond 2nd allowed).'

edit: I agree that there is great fun in rolling, and it is more satisfying. That said, I also will cntrl max and then subtract to a suitable possible, then add in the books from bg1 that I can't be bothered with getting.

So, maybe I want to play an undead hunter from the north... and normally I would reroll to 101 with 18/90+ str... something I used to do. Now I just cheat the 108 (sometimes), subtract to 101, then add in +1 str, dex, chr, and 2 wis.

The main issue is, I just can't stand running a dumb char regardless of class. I need a 17 int min., always. I mean, if you're an idiot, who the heck would follow you? (wonders the kid from the US, right?).

And furthermore, there are alignment concern confusions. A moron char is going to commit all kinds of 'evil' acts that an int heavy char wouldn't - maybe even if evil. But... get this... if my char is good and dumb, and I knowingly let him commit evil acts because they are in-character... does that make *me* evil?

It keeps me up at night.

Dang you to heck char generation! Give us stock chars please!

Mush_Mush

I actually dislike having a high roll I'm probably in the minority but I prefer stats that seem more realistic/appropriate for the character...I generally aim for around 87 (same as Imoen) anything in the 80s is good enough for me.

Adds more of a dynamic to have weaknesses imo.

bdtgazo

And makes buying that belt of hill giant str so sweet.

Grond0

bdtgazo said:

So, maybe I want to play an undead hunter from the north... and normally I would reroll to 101 with 18/90+ str... something I used to do. Now I just cheat the 108 (sometimes), subtract to 101, then add in +1 str, dex, chr, and 2 wis.

@bdtgazo if you're going to add in those stats, why not add +1 for int and con and a further +1 for wis to reflect the other tomes available?

luskan

I edited the race stat roll file in BG2 to allow the higher roll values that the BG1 stat tomes would allow. So for example a human stat can roll as high as 19 with the exception of wisdom which can roll 21. A dwarf can roll 18 dex, 20 con and 17 cha, etc.

It saves me from using an editor to add them later plus the average roll is slightly higher so I'm not rolling forever to get into the 90s.

abacus

My preferred method these days is to take 87 points (usually using ctrl-8) and assign them from 17-12 as I see the character.

So a fighter might be: S17,D15,C16,I12,W13,Ch14

I'll then apply racial bonuses & penalties on top of that. So if the above fighter we're a dwarf, it would become:
S17,D14,C17,I12,W13,Ch12

Paladins, Rangers & dual-classes inevitably have to make some compromises.

bdtgazo

Grond0 said:

bdtgazo said:

So, maybe I want to play an undead hunter from the north... and normally I would reroll to 101 with 18/90+ str... something I used to do. Now I just cheat the 108 (sometimes), subtract to 101, then add in +1 str, dex, chr, and 2 wis.

@bdtgazo if you're going to add in those stats, why not add +1 for int and con and a further +1 for wis to reflect the other tomes available?

Cause I couldn't remember all of the tomes. Now I will.

fateless

Some people also don't realize that if you do things right you can actually get all 3 wisdom books in the game as well. Which could be another reason for only doing +2 wisdom.

xzar_monty

Ha, I almost thought about calculating the odds for getting a 95. Then I realized that this is different from one class to another, decided I wouldn't want to calculate them all and dropped the idea.

But the odds of getting a 95 are very small. I suppose a paladin is clearly the most likely to get it; is that correct?

Grond0

The minimum stats for a paladin are 12 3 9 3 13 17. As a comparison an elf ranger would have minima of 13 13 14 8 14 8. It would take more work for me than I fancy to calculate the odds, but I suspect a paladin would have a slightly greater chance of getting 95+ (although the average die roll for the ranger would clearly be higher).

Cvijeta

Elf cant be a paladin.

Grond0

Didn't say he could - I was just making a comparison of a paladin against another character class with high minimum stats.

bob_veng

abacus said:

My preferred method these days is to take 87 points (usually using ctrl-8) and assign them from 17-12 as I see the character.

So a fighter might be: S17,D15,C16,I12,W13,Ch14

I'll then apply racial bonuses & penalties on top of that. So if the above fighter we're a dwarf, it would become:
S17,D14,C17,I12,W13,Ch12

Paladins, Rangers & dual-classes inevitably have to make some compromises.

me too. 87 seems to be the magic number

-I- SINGLE-CLASS NPCs
khalid 79
dyna 84
alora 70
garrick 81
safana 84
branwen 82
xan 83
faldorn 79
skie 80
xzar 83
kagain 82
edwin 72
shar-t 76.5
viconia 82
eldoth 82
rasaad 85
neera 80
imoen 87 - outlier (bhaalspawn)
baeloth 89 - outlier (abnormally talented)
-------------------
average~80

-II- MULTI-CLASS/"PRESTIGE" NPCs
ajantis 88
kivan 81
coran 85
yeslick 77
jaheira 85
monty 82
tiax 73
dorn 90
minsc 72 - outlier (mentally challenged)
quayle 68 - outlier (illegally low and just terrible)
-------------------
average~83 (so add +3 for multi-class, paladin, ranger...)

-II- NOTABLE BHAALSPAWN
imoen 87
imoen 87 (imoen weighed double because of similar upbringing)
sarevok 92 (bg1 version)
balth. 97 (after bringing illegal stats down to 18)
illas. 80
sendai 82
gromnir 88
abazig. // (dragon)
yaga-s. // (giant)
-------------------
average~88

so i'd probably make an average of I and III, (to account for the fact that you have a plain, normal, background, while being a bhaalspawn) which is 84 and add 3 if you choose a multi-class, paladin, ranger, and maybe if you plan to dual class. that would mean 87, which is the same as imoen who is your sister, and who also can and does dual-class.

edit: so if you feel your character should be a bit less talented than imoen (who is very talented), you should probably pick 84, and if you think he should be significantly more talented you could go for 90