Step 1: Determine Your Ability Scores

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The first step to generating a character is creating your ability scores. These represent your character’s base features, their most basic attributes. Most skills and abilities your character acquires will be influenced by your base ability score in some way, so it’s fair to say that the strengths and weaknesses in these abilities have a big impact on the strengths and weakness of your character in general.

Your Six Scores

Your character will have six basic abilities. No character should be perfect in all six of these attributes. Together they represent both your strengths and your weaknesses, helping you form a more complete picture of your unique character.

• Strength (STR) determines how strong your character is and how able they are to physically manipulate their environment.
• Dexterity (DEX) represents your agility.
• Constitution (CON) is our ability to endure physical pressures and withstand internal effects on the body.
• Intelligence (INT) is your ability learn, reason, and remember what happens around you.
• Wisdom (WIS) allows you to apply knowledge in practical way, to tap into the divine, and to withstand mental pressures through force of will.
• Charisma (CHA) represents not just your physical looks and social ability, but the force of your personality and how susceptible you are to social influence and enchantment.

Determining Ability Scores

There are a number of ways to roll ability scores. Here are a few options

• a) Standard: roll 4d6 and take the three highest rolls. Write this number down and repeat until you’ve done this six times. Then determine which abilities go with each dice roll.
• b) Dice Pool: Roll 18d6. Allocate points to each attribute.
• c) Classic: Roll 3d6 and repeat six times. Assign each roll to an ability.
• d) Hardcore: Roll 3d6. Assign this first roll to Strength. Repeat in order until you have all six ability scores.

Ability Modifiers

When you start, ability scores will generally be between 3 and 20, with 10 representing the average ability. These scores add bonuses (or penalties) to various other skills and abilities throughout the game. These are known as ability bonuses. A score of 10 or 11 has no ability bonus, or +0. For every two points above that your ability bonus is +1 higher. So, a 12 or 13 Strength has a strength bonus of +1; 14 or 15 is +2; and so on. Likewise, every two below adds a cumulative -1. Positive ability bonuses are sometimes also called ability bonuses.

Ability Scores and Modifiers
Score	Modifier
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	+10

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