Difference between revisions of "Attributes"

Revision as of 00:51, 18 July 2016

Attribute Scores

All characters have a set of six Attributes. The value given to an Attribute is called its Attribute Score. An Attribute can range from 0 to 25; at character creation, this typically ranges from 2 to 19 as most standard races have a +1 and a -1 modifier to an Attribute.

The six Attributes are as follows:

Strength - The character's capacity for physical might.

Dexterity - The character's speed and coordination.

Constitution - The character's hardiness and health.

Intelligence - The character's deductive and reasoning powers.

Wisdom - The character's perception and insight.

Charisma - The character's social ability.

Attribute Score Modification

Attribute Scores are seldom permanently changed as they represent the capacity of the character on an average day. Disease, Curses and beneficial magic usually applies only a condition that modifies skill use - this is partly because it does not represent the character on the average day and partly because it would require potentially adjusting a lot of Skills.

Permanent adjustments to Attributes that cannot be treated by healing or magic are made to Attribute scores - this includes the consequences of Aging and possible permanent damage done by certain Diseases. In these cases anything that is directly tied to the Attribute Score must be adjusted - if a character's permanent Constitution Score drops from 16 to 15, the character loses 1 point of Health.

Exceptional Attributes

To distinguish the difference between the peek of human capability and fantastical beings, at 18, a character develops an Exceptional Attribute score. At this point, the character rolls 1d100 to determine the level of their Exceptional Attribute.

By default, only Strength is capable of becoming Exceptional Strength.

Attribute Generation

There are a few ways to determine the character's attribute scores. These are decided in advance by the DM - they may be a Random Set, Preset or a Point Buy Set.

Random Set

The normal method for generating Attribute scores is to roll 3d6 to generate an Attribute Score. This is done six times to generate a full set of Attribute scores, though this may be altered by the DM in a number of ways.

Standard – Player assigns each score to an attribute of their choice. If a player rolls 8 as their first roll, they could assign it to

Natural – Player decides what attribute score they are rolling before they roll the dice.

Strong – Player rolls 4d6 and drops the worst number, leading to a bias of stronger characters.

Weak – Player rolls 4d6 and drops the best number, leading to a bias of weaker characters.

Flexible – Player may move up to three points of attributes around before applying Racial Bonuses and Penalties. They cannot put attributes above 18 using these or below 3.

Focused – Player gains three bonus points of attribute that can be spent on any attributes.

Limited - Player is able to roll a defined number of sets, usually three, and then pick their favourite set to use. This is to prevent one player rolling until they have perfect scores and outshining players unwilling to spend a lot of time in doing so.

These can be mixed and matched – for instance, a DM might allow for Strong, Natural and Focused characters – the players roll 4d6, take the best and get to spend bonus points on each attribute but must take what is given.

Preset

Instead of rolling, they may use a standard stat array to generate attribute scores. The DM may allow for Flexible and Focused characters when using these.

These depend on the type of game used. The greater the game scope, the greater the extremes. A player may opt to use a lower game scope to determine their attributes. These are designed to allow a character to be significantly good at a few things but create space for vulnerabilities.

Traditional – 18, 15, 13, 12, 12, 8

Heroic – 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8

Epic – 18, 17, 16, 13, 8, 6

Point Buy Set

Another possibility is to use points to purchase Attribute Scores. This is known as Point Buy.

To build a character, the player has 60 points at their disposal to build their attribute scores.

Attributes begin at 3 and cannot be raised above 18 at this point.