Rilen studied the book in front of him intensely; his mind was hungry for new knowledge. Outside he could hear the other children play, hobbling on his crutch he carefully made his way to the sunlight. Blinking his eyes owlishly he coughed as he watched his sister, Tamara, playing with her friends. They ran down the village square laughing and fighting with their wooden practice swords when they caught each other. Sighing softly to himself Rilen wished that he was strong enough to run and play. Knowledge was nice but to be allowed to run outside on a sunny day would be nicer.
So you are ready to create your new character; however, you have been looking through the player's handbook and are not quite sure what these ability scores are, or how they affect your character. Sure the Player's Handbook mentions Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma but how these abilities actually affect your character is an important thing to know. How do you determine what score to give each ability?
There are many methods of obtaining ability scores. One of the most common tabletop methods is to roll four 6-sided dice and drop the lowest roll, you then add up the scores of the three highest rolls to get your ability score. After you have done this six times you then distribute those scores amongst your abilities to come up with your characters statistics. Another popular method of determining scores is to use the Point Buy System, it can be found on page 19 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Using this method you start with all of your abilities set to 8, you then have an additional amount of points, which can be spent however you want to add to your scores. There is one small catch though. Every point that you raise your scores over 14 will cost more than one point. The point cost for each ability score, up to a score of 18, is detailed in Table 1. One important note about the Point Buy Method - although you can lower your scores below 8, you do not gain any extra points by doing so. Since most of the time you will be given between 25 and 32 points to spend, the Point Buy method tends to generate scores in the 14-15 ranges rather than the 17-18 ranges.
Table 1: Point Buy Costs
Score
Points Spent
Score
Points Spent
9
1
14
6
10
2
15
8
11
3
16
10
12
4
17
13
13
5
18
16
Since you are preparing for Neverwinter Nights, which will incorporate the Point Buy Method for Vault stored characters, you will find it used in all examples in this article. 28 points will be the base that you can spend. To help explain the effect of ability scores both Rilen and Tamara, from the short excerpt above, will assist us as our sample PCs.
The first thing you need to know before you look at the ability scores themselves is the way that they work. Ability scores give modifiers to various game mechanics. In order to do this, each ability score has a positive or negative modifier associated with it. An ability score of 10 or 11 has a base modifier of 0. The modifier associated with each ability score can be seen in Table 2.
Your first ability that you need to look at is Strength. Strength is a fairly important ability for a variety of classes. Fighters, Rangers, Barbarians, and Paladins normally rely on melee combat to fight their enemies, so a strong arm is very beneficial to these classes. Bards, Rogues, Druids, Clerics and Monks also benefit from Strength. Sorcerers and Wizards are not as concerned about their Strength and can easily neglect this ability for others that are more beneficial to their class. Strength is an important ability because it increases your melee attack and damage bonus. So if you had a Strength score of 14 and a Light Flail and were a level 1 Fighter your attack without any feats would be +3 and your damage would be one 8-sided die plus 2. Looking at our two characters in the example we will first examine Rilen. From the little we can determine, Rilen does not seem like a very strong character, he spends much of his time inside studying and has a crutch. He is also not allowed to run and practice swordplay with his sister. Thinking this over we decide to leave Rilen's Strength at 8, for a -1 modifier. Looking at Tamara we see that she is running and playing and working with a practice sword, which means that she is strong enough to train in sword craft and possibly even be pretty good at it. Thinking it over we decide that Tamara has a 16 Strength which gives her a nice bonus in her melee combat.
Your second ability is Dexterity. It is an extremely important ability, because it affects a number of factors in the game. Dexterity is an important ability for all classes, it is most important, however, for Monks, Rangers, Barbarians, Bards, Sorcerers, Wizards and Druids. This is because none of these classes can wear much armour and still be able to use all their class abilities. Dexterity is important as it is a modifier that affects a player's armor class (AC) bonus. So the higher your Dexterity is, the higher your unarmoured AC will be. Since heavier armour tends to restrict your Dexterity, it is not quite as important for those classes that wear heavy armour such as Clerics, Fighters and Paladins. The Second benefit of Dexterity is that it affects your ranged attack roll. If you have a Dexterity score of 16, and are a level 1 Ranger shooting your longbow, you would have a +4 to your ranged attack without any extra modifications from feats. Unlike Strength however, your Dexterity is not added to your ranged attack damage. The modifier for a high or low Dexterity score is also applied to your characters Reflex Save. This is very important especially for classes with a low Reflex save. If you want to avoid taking full damage from that Fireball, then you want to make sure that your Reflex save is as high as you can get it. Rilen does not seem to be overly dexterous; however, he is able to maneuver without tripping over his own feet, so we will set his Dexterity to 10. Tamara on the other hand is able to play fight while running with her friends. She is probably fairly fleet of foot and so we will set her Dexterity to 14.
Your character's third ability is Constitution. This is an important ability to all of the classes. Although fighter types traditionally tend to have a higher Constitution scores than mage types do. Constitution is important for a number of reasons but in the end these can be boiled down to two major points. The first point is that your Constitution bonus gives you additional hit-points every level. So if you have a 14 Constitution then you are guaranteed to receive at least 3 hit-points per level. This is very useful for both low hit die classes such as the Wizard and Sorcerer and high hit die classes such as the Barbarian and Paladin; extra hit-points help everyone live longer. The second point is that the modifier from your Constitution score is applied to your Fortitude Save. Since there are only three saves in 3rd edition D&D, it is important to make sure that you get all of them as high as possible so that you can avoid negative effects such as traps, and spells. Once again looking at our two example characters we notice that Rilen seems fairly weak, and in ill health, he was coughing in the small excerpt and he had to use a crutch, thinking it over we decide that his Constitution is no more than 8. Tamara on the other hand seemed to be fairly happy running down the street with her friends and didn't seem to have a problem when playing so we will give her a Constitution of 12.
Your character's fourth ability is Intelligence. Intelligence signifies book learning and the ability to quickly absorb new information and put it into practice. Intelligence is an extremely important ability for Wizards since they receive their spells based on their Intelligence score. It is also an important ability for Rogues, Bards and Rangers, since all three of these classes tends to need many skills points to make the best possible use of their abilities. It is slightly less important for Fighters, Sorcerers, Druids, Clerics, Barbarians, Paladins, and Monks. The most important ability that Intelligence grants your new character is skill points. Various classes receive different numbers of skills points, most classes receive 2 or 4 skill points per level, rogues, however receive 8 skill points per level. Therefore if you have an Intelligence of 16 then you will receive three extra skill points per level. This is very important if you are making a class that has a lot of skills to work with. On the other hand if you have an Intelligence of 8 then you lose one skill point each level. Since skills are important for all classes, it makes sense to try to make sure that your new character's Intelligence is at least 10 so you are not losing any skill points you could use. The second benefit to a high Intelligence is that for every modifier bonus you have, you gain an additional language. So if you wanted to have a diplomat type character, having an Intelligence of 14 would allow you to know two languages in addition to common and any racial languages you started with. The last benefit of Intelligence, which applies only to Wizards, is the ability to cast spells based on their Intelligence score. A Wizard can only cast spells up to their ability score - 10, so if your character had an Intelligence score of 14, you would only be able to cast up to level 4 spells. Since a Wizard can cast up to level nine spells when they get high enough in levels, it is fairly important to make sure that their Intelligence will allow them to reach that pinnacle of casting power. Looking at Rilen and Tamara again we will try to decide on their Intelligence. Rilen started the excerpt inside reading a book and ready to learn more, this leads us to the idea that he is fairly smart; we will therefore set his Intelligence to 18. Tamara unfortunately does not give us much insight into her capacities for learning since we only saw her practicing outside, we will make her Intelligence 10 since it seems to be a fairly safe place to put it.
Wisdom is the fifth ability that you have to consider when you create a new character. Wisdom is a reflection of a character's ability to remember information and apply it in the real world. Someone with high Wisdom might not have high Intelligence, but they know how to apply the knowledge that they are given and use it to improve and affect their life. Clerics, Druids, Rangers, Paladins and Monks all tend to have high Wisdom because their spells and special abilities rely on it. Most of the other classes tend to have average Wisdom, though Rogues and Bards can find a higher Wisdom useful for a number of their skills. Wisdom affects all characters because the modifier from a Wisdom score is applied to Will Saves. Having a high Will Save helps to stop your character from being charmed by various NPCs throughout the game, so if you would like to stay in control, it is a good ability to have. The second thing that Wisdom affects is the spell casting abilities of Rangers, Clerics, Druids and Paladins. In order to cast spells all of those classes must have a Wisdom score of 10 plus the spell level. So a Paladin or a Cleric with a Wisdom score of 8 or 9 cannot cast any spells. Monks need Wisdom for a different reason than other classes. They do not cast spells; however, since Monks do not wear any armour (finding it hinders their movement) they are allowed to add their Wisdom bonus in addition to their Dexterity modifier to their AC when they are not wearing armour. This makes Wisdom very important to monks since it allows them the ability to increase their AC to the level of many classes that do wear armour. Looking over Rilen and Tamara we need to decide on their Wisdom. Rilen, showed some Wisdom when he expressed regret that he was too weak to play, he knows that even though it might be fun it would not be good for him, we will set his Wisdom to 14. Tamara in once again did not show either Wisdom or lack of judgment in the small story so we will make her Wisdom 10, which is average.
The final ability that you need to examine when you are creating a new character is Charisma. Bards, Sorcerers, Clerics and Paladins are most affected by a high Charisma. The ability to command people and be respected is also tied to Charisma - for this reason it may be a favorite of Rogues. The first thing to remember about Charisma is that it does not just apply to a character's looks; it also applies to their force of personality. A strong silent Fighter may not command the same respect from the local villagers as does the Bard that sits in the tavern and singing songs of his bravery and talents with a sword. The main impact of Charisma is placed on Bards and Sorcerers since, if they do not have high enough Charisma, they will not be able to cast their spells. A Bard and Sorcerer both need at least a 10 Charisma to cast any spells, and in order to cast their highest level of spells a Bard needs a Charisma of 16, and a Sorcerer needs a Charisma of 19. Paladins and Clerics are also affected by Charisma. Their ability to turn undead is directly tied to the Charisma score. Charisma determines both how many times a day they can turn undead creatures and how successful they will be at turning them. Paladins have a couple of additional bonuses when they have a high Charisma; their savings throws all receive their Charisma's bonus added to them. They also have the ability as they gain levels to smite evil, and their Charisma bonus affects how much damage they do when they use that ability as well. So a Paladin can find it very useful to have a Charisma of 14 or 16. When we look over our two sample characters, we notice that the short paragraph about them did not contain much information at all about their Charisma. Looking at Rilen we decide that he has gained the ability to draw people to him to listen and ask him about things they don't know, so we give him a Charisma of 12. Tamara also tends to be able to lead her small gang of friends about so we also give her a Charisma of 12.
Now that we have worked through the ability scores for our two young characters, you should hopefully be able to make up many more characters that fit whatever concepts you have about your own new characters. Perhaps you envision your Wizard as exceptionally strong, or a Cleric that isn't very charismatic. Keep in mind that the while the preceding guide outlines the most important skills for each class, playing a character that has unusual statistic scores for their class can be fun as well.
The content on this page is based on the information in the Dungeons & Dragon's 3rd Edition Player's Handbook but limited to only that which apply to and can be found in BioWare's Neverwinter Nights. This content is not endorsed by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is used on the site under under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a. Any errors in the information should be referred to the Neverwinter Nights Stratics Staff for correction.
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