Attributes

Attribute Scores

All characters have a set of six Attributes. The value given to an Attribute is called its Attribute Score.

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.

An Attribute can range from 0 to 25; during the initial Attribute Generation, it is limited to being between 3 and 18. It can be modified beyond this by Racial modifiers and Age however.

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.

A characters base Attribute Scores are modified by their Race bonuses; typically a +1 and a -1 to a specific Attribute.

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.

If a character has a modifier to an Attribute that has 18, they must roll for the Exceptional Attribute if available. If they have a bonus to the Attribute, they gain a +50 on the roll. If they have a penalty to the Attribute, they suffer a -50 on the roll. If this modifier would take their Exceptional Attribute above 18/00, lower the total bonus to the Attribute by 1 point and increase it to 19. If a character rolls 100 on the 1d100 and has a positive modifier, they do not decrease the total modifier - they are automatically increased to 19. If this modifier would take their Exceptional Attribute below 18/01, consider the Attribute 18 and lower the total penalties by 1. If a character rolls 01 on the 1d100 and has a negative modifier, they do not decrease the total modifier - they are automatically decreased to 18.

Attributes at 0

A character with an Attribute at 0 cannot use that Attribute score for anything, unless they have special Traits. Attributes at 0 have special effects in addition to what is listed on their table.

Despite not being alive, many beings have Constitution scores as this still represents their physical hardiness. A zombie may be immune to poison but it still has flesh, a ghost may be intangible on the Material Plane but has a physical form on the Ethereal Plane.

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 Wisdom if they wanted a sluggish character.

Natural – Player decides what attribute score they are rolling before they roll the dice - traditionally, this means in the order that they are rolled. If a player rolls 8 as their first roll, they must assign an attribute to it in advance or else use it for Strength.

Strong – Player rolls 4d6 and drops the worst number, leading to a bias of stronger characters. If a player rolls 4, 1, 3 and 6, their character's attribute score is 13.

Weak – Player rolls 4d6 and drops the best number, leading to a bias of weaker characters. If a player rolls 4, 1, 3 and 6, their character's attribute score is 8.

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. Thus, if a character has a Strength of 16, a Constitution of 14 and an Intelligence of 8 and wants to play a dumb brute, they could move 2 points from Intelligence to Strength and 1 point from Intelligence to Constitution.

Focused – Player gains three bonus points of attribute that can be spent on any attributes. In the case of Flexible, the character now has Constitution 15 - using these three bonus points, they could bring this up to 18.

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.