On Fairness and Rolling for Ability Scores

Ah, the age old question that comes up when first starting a new campaign - "are we rolling for ability scores or using point buy?"  There are good arguments for both camps, with many gamers having a strong preference for one or the other.  Rolling for ability scores is more organic, and it can be quicker and less fiddly.  Unfortunately, it can also lead to some pretty significant power disparities.  It sucks to be the guy who rolled 15, 13, 13, 12, 10, 10 (huh, that looks an awful lot like my Bard's array in the Pathfinder game that I'm currently playing...) when everyone else in the party has at least one 17 or 18 (pre-racial), and much stronger secondary abilities than a mere 13.

Granted, this isn't a problem for everyone.  Indeed, a lot of players really like taking up the challenge of playing whatever array the Fates have granted them, which goes hand in hand with being ok with a weaker character.  The flaws can be what makes the character fun and memorable.  But a lot of players prefer as much balance between PCs as possible.  What gets really awkward is when you have both types of players mixed in the same group.

I usually lean more toward preferring a balanced starting point, as there are other ways of roleplaying flaws than having gimped ability scores.  But I noticed a funny thing while building several characters for 13th Age playtesting: I was building them using point buy, without even looking at the sample arrays in the back of the book, but they all ended up having the EXACT same array.  16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8.  How boring.  Flipping through the sample arrays in general there is a heavy preference for even numbers, which makes sense because it's optimal starting out, but when you hit 4th level that ability boost that's supposed to be so awesome and meaningful ends up doing exactly nothing.  I found myself yearning for more "organic" arrays with a mix of odd and even numbers, and even looking back at those ability-rolling days with fondness.  Until I joined that Pathfinder game.

What I've come up with is a hybrid of the two methods.  Below I've listed 20 arrays, many of which are from the sample arrays in the core book, but I did some tweaking to provide more odd values.  You might also notice that some arrays are repeated, and I left out certain types of arrays that I personally find extremely unappealing (anything that starts with 18 pre-racial, anything with three 8's, or even two 8's).  Anyways, the idea is that when you create your character you roll a d20 to determine which array you get.  It's random and organic, but it's still relatively balanced as every single array uses the standard 28 point buy found in the 13th Age core rulebook.  I think it could potentially be a very nice middle ground between the two camps.

1. 16, 16, 14, 10, 8, 8
2. 16, 15, 14, 10, 10, 8
3. 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8
4. 16, 14, 12, 12, 10, 10
5. 15, 15, 15, 10, 10, 8
6. 15, 14, 14, 12, 10, 10
7. 14, 14, 14, 14, 12, 8
8. 15, 14, 13, 13, 10, 10
9. 15, 14, 13, 13, 9, 11
10. 16, 15, 13, 12, 9, 8
11. 16, 14, 14, 11, 11, 8
12. 16, 13, 13, 13, 10, 9
13. 16, 13, 13, 12, 10, 10
14. 15, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8
15. 15, 15, 13, 13, 10, 8
16. 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8
17. 16, 15, 13, 11, 11, 8
18. 15, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8
19. 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10
20. 16, 14, 13, 13, 10, 8

Again, this list of arrays is specifically for 13th Age, though it would seem perfectly at home in D&D 4E or 3.x/PF.  For older editions where ability scores tended to be lower you'd obviously want to tweak the list.  And of course you could make tweaks based on personal aesthetic preferences as well, including running a "low-powered" or "high-powered" game.