What I was wondering was what people think stats mean?
Do they represent something in and of themselves or are they just the vehicle used to figure what your bonus or penalty is for skills and such?
Yes they represent the various characteristics of your character.
A 10 in each stat represents your average human.
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To me they are pretty much the bonus/penalty.
Can vary when it becomes fluff for roleplay, but this is something check at the table player/GM.
To me it's basically every single number on the character sheet. Ability scores, skill bonuses, attack bonuses, AC, CMB, CMD, Save bonuses, speed, etc, etc. There are a few non-numerical ones, too, like type and subtype.
Essentially, if it goes in a short stat block, it's a stat.
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To me they are pretty much the bonus/penalty.
Can vary when it becomes fluff for roleplay, but this is something check at the table player/GM.
So what your saying is that physical and mental stats have no other meaning in the game except for thier - one to five or + one to whatever, at least in your opinion?
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What I think Jacob is asking is more specific to not all stats, but specifically the 6 Ability Scores (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Chr). This is possibly based off the frequent/recent discussions of scores and the RP results of the numbers in them.
When I first started playing, they were pretty much the numbers that defined your character. No skills (except whatever the Thief ones were called, maybe skills, I don't remember). No weapon or nonweapon proficiencies. Your character was developed based off Ability Scores, Class and Race. If you had a low or high score in any of the Ability Scores it meant that you were either lacking or advanced in everything associated with that score. To this day, that is the way I play. I play that anything that is an exception to what the base score is, is just that, an exception and not the norm or standard.
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To me those six scores are your attributes. They can be augmented and compensated for with skill ranks or some other means but they represent the baseline of your aptitude in the areas they represent.
I have seen the other perspective, that they are just a source of modifiers for basing other calculations on and should not be heeded in and of themselves. At first blush that argument struck me as a an excuse used by those who dump mental stats and rely on OOC ability to do so at no penalty to their character, by meta-gaming.
However, I have since been convinced that this is not always the case.
To me the ability scores form the foundation of your character's capabilities but do not define them. By using ability scores you can set the baselines that determine what your character is or is not initially good at and how much effort it takes for them to overcome their weaknesses.
Notice that I said weakness and not disability. Characters with low ability scores are not disabled. A character with Str, Dex, and Con of 1 (such as through aging penalties) still moves 30 ft. / round and can swim a marathon so calling him or her crippled would be dishonest. In the same regard, the normal range of human mental statistics range from 3-18 (with a floating +2).
To actually have a disability (such as brain damage, crippling body issue, and so forth) you would in most cases actually want a condition that represents that beyond ability scores (similar to how lame oracles suffer a 10 ft. speed reduction, or some mental illness inflict specialized penalties).
A character is defined by what they are capable of doing. What they are capable of doing is decided by the statistics on their sheet, and the ability scores are the raw starting point.
My 2 coppers.
Ah, I misunderstood the question.
Okay, taking the six ability scores as the focus of this discussion, the scores themselves certainly matter. They are an objective measure of the level of a character's ability. While there is mechanically no difference between a Wisdom of 10 or 11 (or 18 and 19, or whatever), the character with an 11 is "wiser" than the one with 10. Strength is the easiest one to look at, because every single point of Str affects your carrying capacity, even though the difference between an even and the next higher odd stat number makes no difference anywhere else in the game.
If they were not an objective measure, changes to them would only need to affect the modifier, and could say "affects all rolls based on the ability", so the stat-boosting items would only need to provide a +1/2/3 bonus. You could have a character with a Str of 10, wearing a Belt of Giant Strength +3, and for almost all aspects of the game, he would act like he had a Str of 16. But his carrying capacity would still be that of Str 10.
You remind me of M&M where they actually did decide that odd numbered scores are redundant. :P
Slightly off topic:
Did calling ability scores "stats" originate from an early edition or has it simply become ingrained into the gaming culture? I began playing D&D in 1987 and remember always calling using stat or stats, but can't remember how or why I started.
I won't be going back and forth on this.
Notice that I said weakness and not disability. Characters with low ability scores are not disabled. A character with Str, Dex, and Con of 1 (such as through aging penalties) still moves 30 ft. / round and can swim a marathon so calling him or her crippled would be dishonest. In the same regard, the normal range of human mental statistics range from 3-18 (with a floating +2).
He can move 30 ft in extreme situations if he's wearing little to no clothes and carrying nothing. The elderly live in nudist colonies?
He can swim in calm waters until he makes a 10 on his swim check. Hopefully in the nude to avoid encumbrance penalties to his checks. Then he sinks. After which he can hold his breath for 2 rounds. If he somehow makes it to an hour of swimming he's going to automatically take 1d6 nonlethal damage from fatigue. He can't make the DC20 swim check no matter how hard he tries.
On that note, if he becomes fatigued he becomes completely helpless.
NO ONE is disabled by old age unless they become completely helpless. There's no in between. What sense does that make?
To actually have a disability (such as brain damage, crippling body issue, and so forth) you would in most cases actually want a condition that represents that beyond ability scores (similar to how lame oracles suffer a 10 ft. speed reduction, or some mental illness inflict specialized penalties).
Mental illness can be brought on by damage/penalty to your mental scores. Being brought to 0 in any of your abilities is pretty generally disabling. How do you consider poisons and diseases?
Would saying "severely hampered" be better for you?
A character is defined by what they are capable of doing. What they are capable of doing is decided by the statistics on their sheet, and the ability scores are the raw starting point.
My 2 coppers.
Then why do you refuse to notice the difference in capability between scores of tremendous ability and those of limited potential?
Pathfinder and games like it use numbers as a framework for how the world works. It's not a perfect simulation. Trying to make it so would become cumbersome really quickly. However, if NPCs and PCs cannot tell the difference between raw ability and training, there's something wrong with the system. If differences in ability carry no meaning, then none of it does.
I don't refuse to notice the difference in capability. I'm just saying the difference is what you make it. I'd rather those differences encourage roleplaying and character development rather than spitting in its eye.
If you want your 8 Strength to represent a physical disability that prevents you from leveraging your potential that's fine. If you want it to represent that you lack muscle and are a scrawny dude in a robe, that's fine too. If you want your 7 Con to represent that you've got a glass jaw and drop like a rock in combat, that's okay. If you want it to represent that you have some sort of disability that's messing with your health, that's okay too.
At the end of the day it means -X to Y checks. How you fluff it is up to the owner of that character.
Now you may come up with some sort of bizarre corner case like a character with a 16 strength being described as a frail little flower that's 98 pounds with virtually no apparent muscle or whatever, but most people aren't going to care to do that as anything more than a joke, but that's no more a corner case than the fact a GM can drop druid levels on an animal if he wants to.
Weirder stuff happens just with the random statistics generation (IE - height, weight, age, etc).
Slightly off topic:
Did calling ability scores "stats" originate from an early edition or has it simply become ingrained into the gaming culture? I began playing D&D in 1987 and remember always calling using stat or stats, but can't remember how or why I started.
Probably because stats is short for statistics. Also, you began gaming the year I was born. We share "birthyears" as Gamers. :P
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A 10 in each stat represents your average human.
Looks like you're working with some out-of-date information. In Pathfinder, the basic array for the masses is 13/12/11/10/9/8. That means that stats ranging anywhere from 13 down to 8 represent the norm for all the people you meet and interact with every day. Meeting someone with nothing below a 10 is as weird/unusual as meeting someone with a couple of 7s.
Probably because stats is short for statistics. Also, you began gaming the year I was born. We share "birthyears" as Gamers. :PSlightly off topic:
Did calling ability scores "stats" originate from an early edition or has it simply become ingrained into the gaming culture? I began playing D&D in 1987 and remember always calling using stat or stats, but can't remember how or why I started.
Cheers!
I get the abbreviation, but I'm wondering how it started. Do you remember the term being used in gaming books? Has use of the word been passed on by the game players, instead of game writers?
For 3rd edition and Pathfinder, your attributes are there just to determine your bonus/penalty. The actual number is irrelevant (since you do not interact with it).
That's why I'm thinking of just skipping the whole stat rolling thing and just tell my players to role 2D6 and that determines how many pluses they start with. They can distribute the pluses as needed and if they want more they can take negatives.
I don't see the point in generating a number whose sole purpose is to generate a second number. Why not directly generate the second number? If we are going to have players roll attributes why not interact with them directly?
What if we just said that your bonus/penalty is equal to your attribute minues 10? How drastically would things need to change?
So what your saying is that physical and mental stats have no other meaning in the game except for thier - one to five or + one to whatever, at least in your opinion?To me they are pretty much the bonus/penalty.
Can vary when it becomes fluff for roleplay, but this is something check at the table player/GM.
Pretty much , even if you do get a 7 , that can affect your character in so many ways that one cant simple say this is what will happen if you get 7 in this stat.
All that they are is + - , the reason for the + - one can talk to the GM and change completely.
When I started playing (BX and AD&D) I think we called them attributes.
I remember marveling at how well just 6 numbers could model an entire character.
This may have been a house-rule, as we were kids playing a game, but we used ability checks to resolve EVERYTHING. The core mechanic of the whole game was for the DM to choose the relevant attribute for the action being attempted, assign situational modifiers, and call for a check.
Instead of a target DC, the object was to roll UNDER the relevant stat. It was surprisingly elegant and in many ways I miss it.
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Instead of a target DC, the object was to roll UNDER the relevant stat. It was surprisingly elegant and in many ways I miss it.
We did it the same. Originally we played it that a 1 was an outstanding success, but that seemed wrong. Later I made it like blackjack: you want to roll high without going over.
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That was definitely in the rules. Ability checks all over. Want to break down a door? Str check, roll a d20 and get under your Str score. Persuade an NPC of something? Cha check, same mechanic. Dodge the falling boulders? Well, it's definitely not a save vs Rod, Staff or Wand, nor Spells, nor Breath Weapon, nor Poison, nor Paralysis, nor Death... Better make a Dex check. It's actually one of the mechanics I kind of miss, since the interaction of a bell-curve statistic against a flat roll is quite interesting, since that 0.5% chance of getting an 18 in an ability score gave you a 90% chance of succeeding at ability checks. Fun times.
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I guess I'm just old school, but I dont think the Developers of 3.x and after meant for the whole atrribute to be ignored and only the bonuses or penalties to have meaning.
I could be wrong but dont believe so.
To me a 3 Int is 30 IQ. A 30 IQ probably isnt going to doing more then simple tasks no matter their Wis score.
I dont believe a 3 Str 10 Wis person should be able to put points in Profession Porter and make a living as a porter.
Yes the low numbers are extreme, there ment to be.
I guess I'm just old school, but I dont think the Developers of 3.x and after meant for the whole atrribute to be ignored and only the bonuses or penalties to have meaning.
I could be wrong but dont believe so.
To me a 3 Int is 30 IQ. A 30 IQ probably isnt going to doing more then simple tasks no matter their Wis score.
I dont believe a 3 Str 10 Wis person should be able to put points in Profession Porter and make a living as a porter.
Yes the low numbers are extreme, there ment to be.
Well , i simple dislike double standards, and i understand people may not get anything under 7 , but they will want 18+ on their stats eventually.
The problem is simple , 3 in a stat is -4 , you are right , that is a major hit to something , but if you get +4 , that means you are equality strange , but to the other direction.
If i ask a player to roleplay INT 3 (nobody goes that low , but lets say) , and say it is totally extreme , i must say to the guy with INT 18 , he cant be normal either , even if it is a +4 , he must be "different".
Honestly , by the time he gets to INT 18 i would say he lost CHAR because his mind is so much further , he begins to lose when it comes to talking to normal people.
I dont like double standards , so i keep it low on both ends and decide upon each char during the char creation.
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To me a 3 Int is 30 IQ.Where do people get the idea that IQ=INTx10?
An old, outdated, archaic, nonsensical response in an old Dragon Magazine back in the 1e days, where whoever was answering the page suggested that as a 'rule of thumb'.
It's not official. It's not a rule. It doesn't even make sense; he just said it because 100 is an average IQ, and 10 is an average INT, so he went 'look, linear correlation!'
The short of the matter is, outside of Strength, all of the stats are subjective amalgamations of multiple abstractions. They cannot be measured, they can't even really be benchmarked. Add that to the fact that mechanics and roleplay are separate, and they mean whatever you want them to mean.
I guess I'm just old school, but I dont think the Developers of 3.x and after meant for the whole atrribute to be ignored and only the bonuses or penalties to have meaning.
I could be wrong but dont believe so.
To me a 3 Int is 30 IQ. A 30 IQ probably isnt going to doing more then simple tasks no matter their Wis score.
I dont believe a 3 Str 10 Wis person should be able to put points in Profession Porter and make a living as a porter.
Yes the low numbers are extreme, there ment to be.
Well , i simple dislike double standards, and i understand people may not get anything under 7 , but they will want 18+ on their stats eventually.
The problem is simple , 3 in a stat is -4 , you are right , that is a major hit to something , but if you get +4 , that means you are equality strange , but to the other direction.
If i ask a player to roleplay INT 3 (nobody goes that low , but lets say) , and say it is totally extreme , i must say to the guy with INT 18 , he cant be normal either , even if it is a +4 , he must be "different".
Honestly , by the time he gets to INT 18 i would say he lost CHAR because his mind is so much further , he begins to lose when it comes to talking to normal people.
I dont like double standards , so i keep it low on both ends and decide upon each char during the char creation.
Problem with that is high attributes are suited for adventuring. Suited for doing anything really. It's not strange that an extremely gifted person is more capable at doing things. It is, however, strange that a person who was extremely unfortunate is just about as capable as the ultra gifted.
I mean, is there anyone who get a 20+ Str and says they should be able to lift more than the carrying capacity says they should? It certainly would be fair to point out that their freakish strength is not likely to put them under 5'2" and 70lbs unless it's from a magical source.
There's also a matter of comparison. There's no upper limit to ability scores that I'm aware of. However, if 8-13 is average, and 1 is the bottom limit, you can draw conclusions. Going above that there is no upper boundary to compare to. The best you can do is say that you are as strong as *blank*.
If you want an 18+ Int to lose Charisma, I think it would be understandable. I wouldn't do it, because I'm not entirely sure where your psyche would break due to being super intelligent. Even if you don't say it is due to madness, you could say all that study and mental practice impacted his social abilities and strength of character. Or his intelligence became alien. Hell, he may just piss of people who are dumber than him by acting all "superior".
This topic has a CON of about 6,000,000 that's for sure.
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they can't even really be benchmarked.
Well, that's not entirely true.
As I mentioned upthread, in Pathfinder at least, ordinary people have scores ranging from 8 to 13. That means that those scores are all "normal". That alone is a useful benchmark: you can probably think of a couple of people you know where one of them is maybe a little sharper or a little more charming or a little more whatever than the other, but both would clearly be normal people. They are examples of a 12-13 and an 8-9 in the relevant stat(s). Similarly, anything you think of as "not normal" (such as a physical or mental handicap of some sort, or a particular character from fiction known for a specific shortcoming) would have to be represented by a stat lower than 8.
For INT specifically, we have a second benchmark, in that the GMG's "Village Idiot" has an INT of 4. He's described thusly:
Village idiots can also be used as prisoners, galley slaves, or incarcerated lunatics in an asylum. A village idiot can also represent any simple commoner, by replacing his Climb skill with an appropriate Craft or Profession skill. A stableboy might have the Ride skill instead, while a dock rat may possess the Swim skill. An urchin runner might have the Fleet and Run feats instead.
Those examples can give us a rough benchmark for low INT scores; if you're higher than 4, then you're doing better than those examples.
Unfortunately, most folks aren't interested in how the game defines the ability scores; they have a way they want the game played (such as "min-max or go home" or "stat dumping is badwrongfun") and cling to a definition of ability scores that makes their way the "right" way (such as "beyond the modifiers they're just fluff" or "7 is a disorder", respectively).
Oh well.
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Just to add on to what Jiggy mentioned, average stats for none PC classes are 6-15 with racial penalties and bonuses. PC class NPC's are 6-17 and PC's are 5-20 with point buy.
If you still work in the die rolling for stats realm then you have the full range of 1 to 20, -5 to +5 in terms of bonus.
As mentioned, the only real measured stat is strength. There is a definitive measure you can work with. However, what your character looks like is still up to you.
Most people who can lift 400lbs over their head are pretty big, they aren't cut in the way fantasy characters are in art. If you turn up at the table with a 20 strength (max start for a PC) do you have to look like a bodybuilder? No.
I have a reasonable IQ, I'm also dyslexic which makes it hard for me to learn languages and study. If I were a PC would I have a high or low Int? Probably low as in the game Int measures skill points, knowledges and languages. I should be multilingual at least if its a measure of IQ, as should most English first language language speakers.
Using stats as real world comparisons is rarely helpful when its used as a definitive measure. Stats can be used as a guide to what your character looks like and what they can do. However, its a fantasy game. If you want your low int or low charisma character to be mentally lazy, or quiet then thats fine. Unless you are the GM and insist upon telling your players exactly how they should look, act and behave according to their stats, alignment and other numbers.
This discussion comes up again and again in a point buy system as those who don't want to dump stats seek to penalise those who do. Those who do want to dump stats seek to justify their characters penalty. Charisma, Intelligence and Strength are the most commonly dumped stats. Of those Charisma has the least in game consequences and so generates the most "heat".
What is 7 charisma? Do a search and you will find the gaming community split. Its either 4 extra points to spend on other stats and -2 on social skills or your mr stinky with rotting teeth that nobody notices, but might manage to worm your way into a conversation if you put points into diplomacy...
Humorously, the "village idiot" statistics are recommended for everything from commoners to prisoners to slaves to lunatics to street urchins and of course village idiots. That's a lot of different and very mundane things. :P