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Entry tags:
Sunday Stats | Ability Scores
Happy Superbowl Sunday KOLers \o\ Tonight, I am going to kick off my first in a series of posts that will go up every Sunday (or every other Sunday), helping those of you with zero knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons game mechanics to learn about different ways to enhance your playing experience, make a simple character sheet, and know what the heck we're talking about.
These are going to go very slowly, and just like I've been doing this week, I'll start by incorporating suggested 'rolling elements' into things just once in awhile to give you guys a taste of how it works.
I encourage you to make a post in your character's journal to keep track of their stats and scores. :) But of course, this is all optional.
So without further ado, let's get this started!
Every character's abilities are broken down into six categories:
Strength (Str)
Dexterity (Dex)
Constitution (Con)
Intelligence (Int)
Wisdom (Wis)
and Charisma (Cha)
10 is considered to be the average statistic. In other words, a regular, boring old Joe who is entirely normal in every possible way would have a list of stats that looked like this:
Joe Smith
Str 10
Dex 10
Con 10
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 10
A character who had Slayer strength, however, would have an unusually high strength score. Having a strength score of 12 or more will give them the ability to add something to their rolls when they try to do anything strength based: like kick down a door dramatically or swim against a strong current. The lowest ability score someone can have is 1, while there is no limit to how high they could go. However, anything over 20 is considered pretty amazing/epic for a normal person.
So how do you determine what your character's ability scores are?
There are two ways. The 'true tabletop way' is to randomly generate a set of 6 scores, and then hand pick which number you want to assign to which of their stats. To do this, you simply roll 4 six sided dice (aka 4d6). Disregard whatever the lowest number you rolled, and add the other 3 numbers together. (For example, if you rolled a 3-4-4-6, you would ignore the 3, and write down '14'). Do this six times.
My personal rule is that if you get a really shitty set of numbers, you are allowed to utterly scrap the set and reroll it, but you are only allowed to do this once, and then you must take the second set, no matter what it is.
The other way, of course, is to simply pick what number you think works best based on your knowledge of the character. I would ask people playing original characters not to do this, but if those of you playing canon characters feel it is the better to way to go, then that's okay too. Obviously, I can't guarantee that anyone is following the rules for creation, but I WILL TRUST Y'ALL.
So what do each of these ability scores cover?
Strength measures your character's muscle and physical power. It affects their ability to wield any melee weapon, fight unarmed, climb, jump, swim, try to break down doors, etc.
Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. It affects one's ability to be a good shot with guns or bows and arrows, and their ability to drive or pilot. It also affects their ability to avoid getting hit in combat, or to roll out of the damage zone of a grenade, etc. It covers their ability to move silently, hide, wiggle out of bindings, ride a horse, pickpocket someone, do cartwheels, and not run into things.
Constitution represents your character's health and stamina. A character with higher Con can take more hits (they have more hit points 8| ), are harder to poison, can last a long time inbed areas where it's generally difficult to survive, by going longer without food or water, and have a better ability to continue focusing on what they're doing even in high pressure circumstances. A high Con is also necessary for characters to be resurrected from the dead.
Intelligence is how brainy your character is. It's generally thought of as book smarts, but also applies to knowledge and operation of technology, creating gadgets, writing things, deciphering ancient scripts, crafting explosives, disarming explosives 8|, forging someone's signature, reading a map, fixing something broken, doing research, or searching a room for clues.
Wisdom is often depicted as 'street smarts' or common sense, in comparison to intelligence. It covers a character's willpower, intuition, perception, and senses. It has more to do with being in tune with one's surroundings than analyzing information. It might help a character hear or see something no one else does, assists in gambling, treating injuries, or sensing when someone is trying to lie to you.
Charisma is the force of a character's personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. It assists characters in lying, convincing others to do something or not do something, pulling off a convincing disguise, getting information out of somebody, handling animals and babies, intimidating others, inspiring people, performing in front of crowds, or seducing someone.
If you need a better idea of what kind of level of power a certain number corresponds to per ability, here are some comparisons using average creatures:
These are going to go very slowly, and just like I've been doing this week, I'll start by incorporating suggested 'rolling elements' into things just once in awhile to give you guys a taste of how it works.
I encourage you to make a post in your character's journal to keep track of their stats and scores. :) But of course, this is all optional.
So without further ado, let's get this started!
SUNDAY STATS || ABILITY SCORES
In the rules, I described a really simple way of using a d20 to determine how your character does when they attempt to do anything that might require some degree of skill to execute. However, having a character who is naturally very stupid and a character who is naturally very astute both have the same percent chance of success at something is hardly very realistic. While I asked you in the rules to imagine that rolling a 10 was meant to be average for your character, there are ways to quantify this to remove the burden of making judgment calls on this from the player. These are called ability scores.Every character's abilities are broken down into six categories:
Strength (Str)
Dexterity (Dex)
Constitution (Con)
Intelligence (Int)
Wisdom (Wis)
and Charisma (Cha)
10 is considered to be the average statistic. In other words, a regular, boring old Joe who is entirely normal in every possible way would have a list of stats that looked like this:
Joe Smith
Str 10
Dex 10
Con 10
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 10
A character who had Slayer strength, however, would have an unusually high strength score. Having a strength score of 12 or more will give them the ability to add something to their rolls when they try to do anything strength based: like kick down a door dramatically or swim against a strong current. The lowest ability score someone can have is 1, while there is no limit to how high they could go. However, anything over 20 is considered pretty amazing/epic for a normal person.
So how do you determine what your character's ability scores are?
There are two ways. The 'true tabletop way' is to randomly generate a set of 6 scores, and then hand pick which number you want to assign to which of their stats. To do this, you simply roll 4 six sided dice (aka 4d6). Disregard whatever the lowest number you rolled, and add the other 3 numbers together. (For example, if you rolled a 3-4-4-6, you would ignore the 3, and write down '14'). Do this six times.
My personal rule is that if you get a really shitty set of numbers, you are allowed to utterly scrap the set and reroll it, but you are only allowed to do this once, and then you must take the second set, no matter what it is.
The other way, of course, is to simply pick what number you think works best based on your knowledge of the character. I would ask people playing original characters not to do this, but if those of you playing canon characters feel it is the better to way to go, then that's okay too. Obviously, I can't guarantee that anyone is following the rules for creation, but I WILL TRUST Y'ALL.
So what do each of these ability scores cover?
Strength measures your character's muscle and physical power. It affects their ability to wield any melee weapon, fight unarmed, climb, jump, swim, try to break down doors, etc.
Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. It affects one's ability to be a good shot with guns or bows and arrows, and their ability to drive or pilot. It also affects their ability to avoid getting hit in combat, or to roll out of the damage zone of a grenade, etc. It covers their ability to move silently, hide, wiggle out of bindings, ride a horse, pickpocket someone, do cartwheels, and not run into things.
Constitution represents your character's health and stamina. A character with higher Con can take more hits (they have more hit points 8| ), are harder to poison, can last a long time in
Intelligence is how brainy your character is. It's generally thought of as book smarts, but also applies to knowledge and operation of technology, creating gadgets, writing things, deciphering ancient scripts, crafting explosives, disarming explosives 8|, forging someone's signature, reading a map, fixing something broken, doing research, or searching a room for clues.
Wisdom is often depicted as 'street smarts' or common sense, in comparison to intelligence. It covers a character's willpower, intuition, perception, and senses. It has more to do with being in tune with one's surroundings than analyzing information. It might help a character hear or see something no one else does, assists in gambling, treating injuries, or sensing when someone is trying to lie to you.
Charisma is the force of a character's personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. It assists characters in lying, convincing others to do something or not do something, pulling off a convincing disguise, getting information out of somebody, handling animals and babies, intimidating others, inspiring people, performing in front of crowds, or seducing someone.
If you need a better idea of what kind of level of power a certain number corresponds to per ability, here are some comparisons using average creatures:
STRENGTH
DEXTERITY
A FINAL NOTE ON DIFFERENT RACES
Some races are inherently stronger or better looking or faster than others. After you've got your ability scores set in stone, if your character is not human, make the following adjustments:
Half-elf, human, snake blooded human: None.
Dwarf: +2 Con, -2 Cha
Elf: +2 Dex, -2 Con
Gnome: -2 Str, +2 Con
Goblin: -2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Cha
Half-orc: +2 Str, -2 Int, -2 Cha
Halfling: -2 Str, +2 Dex
Orc: +4 Str, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha
Aasimar: +2 Wis, +2 Cha
Bugbear: +4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Cha
Dragonblooded human: +2 Str, +2 Con, +2 Cha
Drow (Dark Elf): +2 Dex, -2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Cha
Gnoll: +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha
Half Dragon: +8 Str, +2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Cha
Tiefling: +2 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Cha
If your character is of a race not listed here and you have a question about ability scores, drop it below!
Once you have our scores all figured out, you can now figure out how much to add or subtract from your rolls when asked to make a Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Int, or Cha check. The number (or modifier) you'll add or subtract to your d20 roll is:
Ability Score :: Mod
1 :: -5
2-3 :: -4
4-5 :: -3
6-7 :: -2
8-9 :: -1
10-11 :: 0
12-13 :: +1
14-15 :: +2
16-17 :: +3
18-19 :: +4
20-21 :: +5
22-23 :: +6
24-25 :: +7
26-27 :: +8
28-29 :: +9
30-31 :: +10
etc etc etc.
And there you have it! So all you have to do is create a character sheet entry in your character's journal, and list out their 6 stats, along with the modifier above, so you can find it for easy access in the future!
And don't worry - stats can get higher or lower over time. :)
Bat, toad 1
Rat 2
Monkey, Tiny monstrous spider 3
Small monstrous centipede 4–5
Hawk, cockatrice, pixie 6–7
Badger 8–9
Human, beholder, dire rat 10–11
Mind flayer, dog, pony, ghoul 12–13
Gnoll, dire badger, baboon, manta ray 14–15
Black pudding, choker, Large shark 16–17
Centaur, displacer beast, minotaur 18–19
Ape, ogre, flesh golem, gorgon 20–21
Fire giant, triceratops, elephant 30–31
Great wyrm gold dragon 46–47
DEXTERITY
Gelatinous cube (ooze) 1
Colossal animated object 4–5
Purple worm, ogre zombie 6–7
Ogre, basilisk, fire giant, tendriculos 8–9
Human, triton, boar, giant fire beetle 10–11
Bugbear, lammasu, hobgoblin 12–13
Displacer beast, hieracosphinx 14–15
Blink dog, wraith, lion, octopus 16–17
Astral deva (angel), ethereal filcher 18–19
Arrowhawk, bone devil 20–21
Elder air elemental 32–33
CONSTITUTION
INTELLIGENCE
WISDOM
CHARISMA
CONSTITUTION
Centipede swarm, locust swarm 8–9
Human, imp, dire weasel, grick 10–11
Rust monster, medusa, otyugh, nymph 12–13
Light horse, merfolk, troglodyte 14–15
Tiger, chimera, assassin vine 16–17
Polar bear, gargoyle, umber hulk 18–19
Elephant, aboleth, tyrannosaurus 20–21
The tarrasque 35
INTELLIGENCE
Zombie 0
Carrion crawler, purple worm, camel, Rick Perry 1
Tiger, hydra, dog, horse 2
Gray render, tendriculos, rast 3
Otyugh, griffon, displacer beast 4–5
Troll, hell hound, ogre, yrthak 6–7
Troglodyte, centaur, gnoll 8–9
Human, bugbear, wight, night hag 10–11
Dragon turtle, cloud giant, lamia 12–13
Invisible stalker, wraith, will-o’-wisp 14–15
Beholder, succubus, trumpet archon 16–17
Mind flayer, death slaad, nightwing 18–19
Kraken, titan, nightcrawler 20–21
Great wyrm gold dragon 32–33
WISDOM
Gelatinous cube (ooze), animated object 1
Shrieker (fungus) 2
Red slaad, githyanki 6–7
Purple worm, grimlock, troll 8–9
Human, lizardfolk, phantom fungus 10–11
Owlbear, hyena, shadow, remorhaz 12–13
Wraith, owl, giant praying mantis 14–15
Devourer, lillend, androsphinx 16–17
Couatl, erinyes devil, guardian naga 18–19
Unicorn, storm giant 20–21
Great wyrm gold dragon 32–33
CHARISMA
Zombie, golem, shrieker (fungus) 1
Spider, crocodile, lizard, rhinoceros 2
Tendriculos, octopus 3
Dire rat, weasel, chuul, donkey 4–5
Badger, troll, giant fire beetle, bear 6–7
Gnoll, dire boar, manticore, gorgon 8–9
Human, wolverine, dretch (demon) 10–11
Treant, roper, doppelganger, night hag 12–13
Storm giant, barghest, medusa 14–15
Ogre mage, pixie, harpy, achaierai 16–17
Greater barghest, nixie 18–19
Astral deva (angel), kraken 20–21
Great wyrm gold dragon 32–33
A FINAL NOTE ON DIFFERENT RACES
Some races are inherently stronger or better looking or faster than others. After you've got your ability scores set in stone, if your character is not human, make the following adjustments:
Half-elf, human, snake blooded human: None.
Dwarf: +2 Con, -2 Cha
Elf: +2 Dex, -2 Con
Gnome: -2 Str, +2 Con
Goblin: -2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Cha
Half-orc: +2 Str, -2 Int, -2 Cha
Halfling: -2 Str, +2 Dex
Orc: +4 Str, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha
Aasimar: +2 Wis, +2 Cha
Bugbear: +4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Cha
Dragonblooded human: +2 Str, +2 Con, +2 Cha
Drow (Dark Elf): +2 Dex, -2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Cha
Gnoll: +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha
Half Dragon: +8 Str, +2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Cha
Tiefling: +2 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Cha
If your character is of a race not listed here and you have a question about ability scores, drop it below!
Once you have our scores all figured out, you can now figure out how much to add or subtract from your rolls when asked to make a Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Int, or Cha check. The number (or modifier) you'll add or subtract to your d20 roll is:
Ability Score :: Mod
1 :: -5
2-3 :: -4
4-5 :: -3
6-7 :: -2
8-9 :: -1
10-11 :: 0
12-13 :: +1
14-15 :: +2
16-17 :: +3
18-19 :: +4
20-21 :: +5
22-23 :: +6
24-25 :: +7
26-27 :: +8
28-29 :: +9
30-31 :: +10
etc etc etc.
And there you have it! So all you have to do is create a character sheet entry in your character's journal, and list out their 6 stats, along with the modifier above, so you can find it for easy access in the future!
And don't worry - stats can get higher or lower over time. :)