From the House Rule Register: All 1s are 2s

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One simple houserule I use during character creation is to simply treat any 1 rolled as a 2.

"The House Rule Register" might become an ongoing feature on this blog,
so I made a tag for it.
It means that:

  • The minimum ability score is 6, which I think should be the baseline anyway.
    But the chances of getting extraordinary (15+) scores are not increased, and there is only a +2.77% added chance of rolling a 13 and a +1.39% increased chance of rolling 14.
  • No one starts with 1 hp unless they have also have CON 6-8 and rolled a 1 or 2 for HP.
  • Minimum starting gold is 60 gp.

I initially went with re-rolling all 1s as that seemed a bit more fun, but the implications of that are a bit wider reaching. For clarity, here's the chart for proabilities for "at least" outcomes in anydice, respectively for "3d6", "3d6 treating1s as 2s", "3d6 re-rolling all 1s" and "4d6, drop lowest".

There is a whopping +16,47% of rolling a 13 when you re-roll 1s and the odds trickle all the way up to 18 (0.8% instead of .46%). It just skews the picture too much for someone like me who really prefers 3d6 in order without shenanigans. 

On the other hand, if you are looking for PCs to stat boost a little more, but not so much as "4d6, drop lowest", then re-rolling all 1s is a nice middle ground. 

Treating all 1s as 2s doesn't alter probability too much in terms of creating more likelihood of high stats, but simply eliminates the outcomes I don't want: Junk characters with <6 ability scores and/or 1 HP. The minimum starting GP of 60 is more trivial I think, but for simplicity I simply make the rule to treat all 1s rolled during character creation as 2s, regardless of which aspect of character creation it is.

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