What's my chance at Paladin? Gnome illusionist?: AD&D Character Gen Eligibility Statistics, Pt. 2

Following on the heels of the first post in this series of three, let's look at the elegibility statistics for three of the most common rolling methodologies that don't involve rearranging scores or assigning points. This tells us which methods generate the more and less powerful characters, and generally what you can expect from chacter stats. Again, these were all computed by a friend of mine.

Method: 3d6

Percent of stat lines that can be X class

Class	% change of eligibility
magic-user	61.38
cleric	61.31
thief	61.27
fighting man	58.30
assassin	6.39
druid	2.86
illusionist	0.36
ranger	0.15
paladin	0.09
monk	0.03

Other useful stats

• Average sum of attribute scores: 63.00
• Percent of stat lines with at least one 17, before racial adj: 8.03%
• Percent of stat lines with at least one 18, before racial adj: 2.73%
• Percent of stat lines that can be a non-core class: 9.34%

Method: 4d6, drop the lowest

Percent of stat lines that can be X class

Class	% change of eligibility
magic-user	85.51
cleric	85.48
thief	85.45
fighting man	84.12
assassin	27.18
druid	13.61
ranger	2.94
illusionist	2.93
paladin	1.41
monk	0.89

Other useful stats

• Average sum of attribute scores: 73.49
• Percent of stat lines with at least one 17, before racial adj: 22.53%
• Percent of stat lines with at least one 18, before racial adj: 9.36%
• Percent of stat lines that can be a non-core class: 38.89%

Method: 3d6 twelve times, drop the lowest 6, keep in order

Percent of stat lines that can be X class

Class	% change of eligibility
fighting man	99.72
thief	99.65
cleric	99.63
magic-user	99.61
assassin	52.24
druid	13.76
ranger	4.82
illusionist	1.88
paladin	1.65
monk	0.87

Other useful stats

• Average sum of attribute scores: 76.44
• Percent of stat lines with at least one 17, before racial adj: 15.43%
• Percent of stat lines with at least one 18, before racial adj: 5.42%
• Percent of stat lines that can be a non-core class: 57.52%

Obvious conclusions

• Straight 3d6 is brutal. 1 in 2500 stat lines can be a monk. 1 in 1000 can be a paladin. Fewer than 10% of stat lines can be a non-core.class: assassin, paladin, ranger, druid, monk, illusionist.
• 4d6 drop the lowest produces more 17s and 18s than 3d6x12.
• 3d6x12 produces a higher average sum of attribute scores than 4d6.

Please let me know if these spark any further insights, and in the next post my friend asks whether every character that meets the base stat requirements as these charts would have you believe are truly elegible by Gygax's own definition, and this leads to adjustmnets to the tables. Finally, he presents a new method of generating characters.