Ability Scores

The six ability scores are the measure of a person — of your character, and of any creature the referee needs to invent on the spot. They range from 3 (about as low as a living, functioning hero gets) up to 18 or beyond for the truly exceptional. A score of 10 or 11 is exactly average: the unremarkable townsfolk around you.

The six scores

• Strength (STR) — raw physical power. It decides how hard you hit in melee, how much you can carry, and whether you can force a stuck door or bend iron bars. Warriors can push strength past 18 into exceptional strength (written 18/01 to 18/00), a warrior-only reward for the mightiest.
• Dexterity (DEX) — agility, coordination, and reflexes. It subtracts from your Armour Class (the higher the dexterity, the harder you are to hit), adds to your missile attacks, and sharpens your reactions. Thieves and bards live on it — it is their prime requisite and the measure of every nimble skill.
• Constitution (CON) — health and vitality. It adds hit points every level (warriors gain even more), and it governs your chance to shrug off petrification, transformation, poison, and even death itself through the system shock and resurrection survival rolls.
• Intelligence (INT) — reason, memory, and learning. It sets how many languages you speak, and for wizards it fixes the highest level of spells you can learn, how likely you are to master a new spell, and how many you can hold in memory.
• Wisdom (WIS) — will, insight, and communion with the divine. It shields your mind against enchantment and charm, and for priests it decides the level of spells your god entrusts to you — and how many bonus spells you are granted.
• Charisma (CHA) — presence, force of personality, and beauty of spirit. It adjusts how strangers react to you, and it determines how many loyal companions you can gather and how faithful they remain to you.

Ability checks

When you try something uncertain and no rule covers it, the referee calls for an ability check: roll a d20, and succeed if you roll equal to or under the relevant score. A natural 1 always succeeds; a natural 20 always fails, whatever your score. The referee may add a penalty or bonus for how easy or hard the task is — a hero with Strength 18 can still fail to rip a door off its hinges if the door is iron and braced, and a hero with Strength 9 can still luck a cracked one open.

The modifiers in your hand

Most scores produce a small number you write on your sheet and apply everywhere it matters. Rather than memorize every table, remember the shape of them:

• Strength adds to melee damage and, at high scores, to your chance to hit; it also feeds your carrying ability.
• Dexterity subtracts from your Armour Class (lower is better), adds to missile attacks, and tweaks your initiative reaction.
• Constitution adds hit points per level and feeds system shock and resurrection survival.
• Intelligence decides bonus languages and, for wizards, spell capacity.
• Wisdom adds to your saving throws against enchantments and, for priests, grants bonus prayers.
• Charisma adjusts NPC reactions, your number of henchmen, and their loyalty.

The full tables live in the ability-score rules, but the pattern is gentle: scores of 8 and 9 are neutral, 13 and up begin to grant real edges, and 16 and above are where a hero starts to feel legendary at a thing.

Scores change

Your scores are not carved in stone. Age can raise some and lower others. Spells and magic can bestow or drain them. A bite from a ghost may drag Strength down to a shadow of itself until it is restored. When a score changes, recompute whatever depends on it — your hit points from Constitution, your Armour Class from Dexterity, your spell limits from Intelligence or Wisdom. Keep your sheet honest and the game stays honest.

Play the person, not the number

An 18 does not roleplay itself. A hero can be mighty and cowardly, brilliant and foolish, beautiful and cruel. The scores tell you what your character is capable of; everything else — who they are, what they want, how they treat a beggar or a rival — is yours to decide, and no die roll can touch it.