Quirks of the random number generator

[Western Paladin]

As far as I can tell, the generation of your character's ability statistics at the beginning of the game seems to loosely follow a rule that you should always get around the same total every time. I came up with this theory when I noticed how often I, when I press "Reroll", get either all 12s and 13s or get two statistics around 17 to 18 and two or three around 6 to 9.

The other day I started up a new character and pressed "Reroll" lots of times, adding the statistics up each time. Sure enough, about 90% of the time (I didn't calculate exactly) the total was between 75 and 85. The highest totals I got were up around 89 or 90.

Do you know if the game actually simulates rolling six-sided die? If it does, it shouldn't be too hard to calculate the probability of any particular stat total. Also, I'm often hearing about people who roll characters with totals of 95 or 96. How the heck can they do this? I've never seen a total even close to that. The highest I've ever got is 91 on a Fighter / Mage - something like 18 / 18 / 11 / 18 / 15 / 11.

[ 07-15-2005, 03:21 AM: Message edited by: Western Paladin ]

[SixOfSpades]

For each of the 6 statistics, the game does indeed "roll" four 6-sided dice, then ignores the lowest one. This explains why you see 21 times as many natural 18s as you do natural 3s. I'm not quite sure what it does when the race and class of the character come into play....for example, Thieves are required to have at least 9 Dexterity. Perhaps, if the game rolls a DEX of 8 or lower, it simply rolls again until reaching a legal value. And then, I suppose, racial modifiers (for Dwarves, Elves and Halflings, in the case of Dexterity) are applied.

I believe my best natural roll was a 96, on a Cleric/Mage. It's easier to get high totals on Multiclassed characters, as well as classes such as the Paladin or Ranger. Try rolling a Ranger/Cleric and you'll see what I mean: It's almost impossible to roll a bad one.

[Western Paladin]

Thanks for the reply. [img]smile.gif[/img] I was actually under the impression that if the game ever rolled less than the minimum for a class it would raise it to the minimum. You weren't kidding about those Cleric / Rangers - they have a minimum of 13 Strength and 14 Wisdom and Constitution. I did my Reroll thing earlier and I got a ridiculous sequence of totals - 88, 89, 88, 91.

[ 07-15-2005, 07:31 AM: Message edited by: Western Paladin ]

[ister]

I don't think that's it, or you'd get tons of rangers that roll 14 wisdom.

[Western Paladin]

Don't they, though? I don't think I've ever rolled a Ranger with less than 14 Wisdom.

[TinyMage]

( For some reason I like rolling characters in BG1 more then in BG2, seems I get better stats )

The best I ever got was 18 18 18 18 16 5 for a fighter made in Baldurs Gate 1.

That took a while. Maybe an hour worth of rolling.

In all the time I've spent rolling I have never seen something like 9 5 8 3 13 6 ( just making that up ). So I assume there is some weight toward a certain number of points like you say.

How do people get rolls of 95 / 96? They spend as much time rolling as they do playing ( probably ), or maybe get hella lucky.

I also have noticed that the class also effects this, because of the minimum attributes. Getting what I rolled on the fighter is harder then on a paladin or ranger / cleric for example.

Of course, neither of these classes can steal much from charisma

[ 07-16-2005, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: TinyMage ]

[Neo the Warrior Cat]

I dunno how the math works out, but I think the game bumps up any stat that was rolled beneath class requisites.

[ister]

That would mean that you get a 14 wisdom for a ranger almost 75% of the time. Maybe I haven't rolled that many rangers, but it seems to me that it's more like 1/3 to 1/2 of the time. I could well be wrong but I think that the game re-rolls any stat that is below the class minimum.

Rangers are a bad test case. Specialist mages like Illusionists would be a better test. If the class minimum is 16 you should get 16 93.5% of the time if it bumps up the statistic, 56% of the time if it re-rolls.

[ 07-19-2005, 12:15 PM: Message edited by: ister ]

[posthuman]

Here's a quick newb question about these numbers...

I was making a berserker and saw that sometimes I'd get a strength of something like 18/93. What does that mean? Is it better than 19 (which is what I ended up giving him)?

[Sir Goulum]

I think it means 18.93 strength. And I think 19 is better.