Understanding a Character Sheet for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 [Abilities]

Ability Scores breakdown for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

Something I have noticed while playing D&D is that one of the hardest things to do is learn how to build and understand a character and what they can do.
New players are thrown into the deep end with a crash course on Classes, Ability's, and Skills(if they even get to them) because everyone is wanting to get to the game.
So I'm making a series of posts explaining the basics of D&D so that people can understand the game without having to go through the Book and read it cover to cover.
Today I will be starting with Ability Scores and how they affect the game

 

What are Ability Scores

Ability scores are the physical and mental stats that affect almost everything in the game from, your health to how many languages you know. They can be basically broken up into two Categories:
Physical; Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution Mental; Intelligence Wisdom, and Charisma.
When you make your character you generate your scores there are many different ways to do this it just depends on your Dungeon Master (the one running your game). My favorite way is to roll 4 six sided die and drop the lowest roll using this method you will have an average score of 10 which is the average score for any real life human. Each ability has a modifier and that modifier is the number you plug into most things your ability affects, how you get your modifier is you take the number minus 10 and divide by 2 round down. example 15's modifier is 2 (15-10=5)(5/2=2.5)

Strength 

Strength is one of the easiest to explain since we all should know what strength is. 

Simply put though strength is how hard you can hit things, but strength affects more then that, it affects how well you swing melee weapons, how much damage you do with them, how much you can carry and lift, how good you are at wrestling people, and it affects a small section of skills; climb, jump, and swim. An average human score in real life is 10 basically that means some one who can lift 100 lb. over their head a strength of 6 is someone who can only lift 60 lb. over  their head and a strength of 18 (theoretically the highest starting stat) can lift 300 lb. over their head. Strength is an ability you want to focus is you are a fighter or plan on doing a lot of damage in melee range, its also good to have a decent score if you want to be able to carry a lot of items.

Dexterity

Dexterity is how agile you are, how nimble your fingers are, basically your hand to eye coordination.
Dexterity is one of the most versatile ability's it goes in to lot of different little areas to help your character some of the main ones are; Armor Class (it affects how good you are at dodging attacks), how quickly you respond in combat, how accurate with ranged weapons you are, how good you are at dodging a bolder falling down on you, and a large section of skills; Balance, Escape artist, Hide, Move silently, Open lock, Ride, Slight of hand, Tumble, and Use rope. Dexterity is great ability of you want to be an archer, someone who sneaks around, a rogue, or anyone who doesn't want to get hit often.

Constitution

Constitution is how hard of a hit can you take, how long can you sprint without running out of breath, and how good your body is at resisting getting sick. Constitution affects very little stats in the game but that doesn't mean it isn't an amazing ability it affect; how much heath you have, your fortitude saves (resisting poisons and diseases), and lastly the skill concentration. Constitution is great for tanks (people who will try to take a hit over a friend) and fighters since your going to be in the middle of the fight, but even if you aren't looking to be in the middle of a fight you still want a decent constitution score because if its to low you will die very easily the world of Dungeons and Dragons is full of monsters and mayhem, and you don't want getting a splinter to be the thing that does you in.

Intelligence

Intelligence is how book smart you are, how good your critical thinking is, and how quickly you learn skills. Intelligence is the ability that is all about skills, it affects how many bonus skill points you get at the beginning of the game and how many you get every level up, it also affect how many languages you know at the beginning of the game, it is also the ability that affects spells for wizards (I'll explain spells, skill, and classes in another post), and it affects these skills; Appraise, Craft, Decipher script, Disable device, Jump, all of the Knowledge's, Search, and Spellcraft. Intelligence is the ability you want to focus if, you are a wizard, you want to have a lot of skills, or if you just want to know a lot of information. Intelligence should have a lot of influence on how you play your character too lets say you have a Barbarian who has an intelligence of 6 he probably doesn't know how a pulley system works and shouldn't be able to make one.

Wisdom

Wisdom is your street smarts, common sense, and overall instincts. Wisdom affects, the power of your will,(resisting temptation and mind control like things) druid and cleric spell casting, and the skills; Heal, Listen, Profession, Sense motive, Spot, Survival. Wisdom is an ability you will want to focus if you spend a lot of time traveling away from city's, if you want to make sure things don't sneak up on you also if your a Druid or a Cleric. Wisdom should also greatly affect how you play your character for example your playing a very smart wizard but he has a wisdom score of 6 he doesn't know that walking into bar with a bunch of outlaws and showing off his brand new solid gold staff, is a bad idea he just doesn't know any better.

Charisma

Charisma is how good of a leader you are, how good you are at talking, and how attractive you are. Charisma Affects spell casting for Sorcerers and Bards and skills like; Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguising, Gather information, Handle animal, Intimidate, Preform, Use magic device. But Charisma is the ability that affects the most how you should talk in the game how you should interact with NPC's and other Players, are you a jerk are you a sweet talker, do you keep quiet, one of the biggest thing that upsets me in games is how this Ability is not explained, someone with a Charisma of 7 should not be trying to lead the party they can but it should be the guy with the 17 in Charisma, just think of it this way the Paladin with the 6 in his Charisma wouldn't know that calling the pirate lord low life scum is a bad idea he just isn't good with people.


I could go on about each one of these Abilities for pages and pages but then it would be hard to read.
So let me just some them up like this

Strength is being able to crush a tomato.

Dexterity is being able to dodge a tomato.

Constitution is being able to eat a bad tomato.

Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.

Charisma is being able to sell a tomato based fruit salad

I hope you enjoyed reading this if you have any questions or suggestions leave a comment or message me on my reddit