Question

This is not homework. I’m designing an RPG, and for ability scores I am rolling 4d6, removing the lowest roll, and then adding the remaining total. What I have is below, and I was just curious if anyone had any other better suggestions. For brevity I’ve removed the roll actions, and I just plugged in four integers.

int[] rolls = { 6, 3, 2, 5 };
int abilityScore = rolls[0] + rolls[1] + rolls[2] + rolls[3];
int low = rolls[0];

for (int i = 1; i < rolls.length; i++)
{
    if (rolls[i] < low)
    {
        low = rolls[i];
    }
}

return abilityScore -= low;

Answer 1

I’d do it like this – no array needed and calculating sum inside the loop:

int get_total_without_lowest_roll(int roll_count) {
  int abilityScore = 0;
  int low = MAX_INTEGER;
  int roll;
  for (int i = 0; i < roll_count; i++)
  {
    roll = roll_dice(); // Roll your dice here
    if (roll < low)
    {
        low = roll;     
    } // By the way, good alternative would be low = min(low,roll);
    abilityScore += roll;
  }

  return (abilityScore - low);
}