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AESTHETICS OF H U M A N ANATOM T

MALESUIJECT A P P R O * . A O E JO

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• J ^ P usi about cvcrv Jir roll vou make is going 1 0 b e modified I based on your characters abilities A lough character his I a b elter chince of surviving a wvvem's poison sting. A a f l i B H p eifeptive character is more likely to notice bugbears HasvV^F k i n g up from behind. A stupid character is not as ^ • S J S S s ^ likely to find a secret door that leads to a hidden treasure c hamber. Your ability scores tell you what your modifiers are for rolls such as these. Your character has six abilities: Strength (abbreviated Str), Dexterity (Dex). Constitution (Con), Intelligence fltti). Wisdom (Wis), and Chsrisma (Cha). Each of your character's abovc-tver age abilities gives you a benefit on certain die rolls, and each below-average ability gives you a disadvantage on other die rolls. W hen creating your character, you roll your scores randomly, assign them to the abilities as you like, and raise and lower them a ccording to the character's race. Later, you can increase them as vou r charjcter advance* in experience.
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o rder to know h o w best to distribute the ability scores. C hoosing a race other than human or half-elf causes some of these ability scores to change 1 s ee Table 2-1: Racial Ability Ad) ust men t s, page. 1 2 í.

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ABILITY M O D I F I E R S
La. h ability, after changes made because of race, has a modifier ranging from -S to •>. Table 1-1: Ability Modifiers a nd Bonus SpeQs (on the next page • shows the modifier f or each score. It also shows bonus spells, which you'll n eed to know about if your character is a spelicaster. T he modifier is the number you apply to the die roll w hen your character tries to do something related to t hat ability. For instance, you apply your character's S trength modifier to your roll when he or she t ries 1 0 h it someone with a sword. You also use the modifier W i t h s ome numbers that aren't die rolls— -tor example, y ou apply your eJjaBSjcter's Dexterity modifier tp his or
her Armor Classy AC). A positive m odifier, Is c alled a

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A BI1ITY SCORES

b onus, and a n egative m odifier is eallfcri penalty

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To create an ability i core for your characier, roll four sncsided d ice (4tl* i Disregard the lowest die roll and total the three highest ones. The result i s a n umber between 3 (horrible; and 18 ( tremendous • I he average abihrv score fix a typical commoner is l Oor 11, b ut vour character is not rypicaLThe most common ability scores for plaver characters I P Cs. are u and H .That's right, t he average plaver character is a bove average.. M ake this roll six times, recording each result on a piece of paper Once you have six s cores, assign each score'ft> one ot thi* s i x a bilities At thi« step, you need to know what kind di person your c haracter is going to be, including his or her race and class, in

A BILITIES A N D S P E L L C A S T t R S
T he ability that governs bonus spells (see Chapter 3 C lasses) depends on what type of spellcaster vour c haracter is: Intelligence for wizards; Wisdom for c lerics, drujds. paladins, and rangers; ot Charisma for sorcerers and bards. In addition to having a high a bility score.a spellcaster must be of high enough class l evel t o b e a ble to cast spells of a given spell leveL (See the class descriptions in Chapter ) for details.) i J --r instance.-lhe wizard Mialce has an Intelligence I

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