When it comes to making a character who they are is largely affected by these four parts: Class, Race, Ability Scores and Skills. Class is the role you play or what "job" function you fill. Race is pretty simple, are you Human or some other creature (Elf, Wookie, to name a few). Ability Scores cover your physical and mental equities. And Skills define what tasks you excel in, and which need further training. While not all game systems have each of these parts, the main ones that I partake in do. So in order to discuss these parts further, this post will explore each of these parts, as we go through the actual creation of a character. And in so doing, we'll discover what drives a player to make certain choices, as I continue my series on: What Makes a Character.
I already have a concept in mind: it is the most basic build that is highly suggested for the beginning player, and that is the Human Fighter. This is the easiest build and requires little, to no, adjustments. For the character's name I have chosen Vigo. The name was pulled from "Ghostbusters II", in which the villain's name was Vigo ("Vigo the Butch", "Vigo the Carpathian", etc.; I'm sure you've seen the movie). While this character won't be a villain, he does have a reputation for violence on the battlefield. His background covers very little of his past, but it does show that he is, when not fighting a war, or saving the village, an amateur craftsman and general farmhand. [Click on the links for more information on Character Name or Background.]
ABILITY SCORES
You have in front of you a character sheet and a book, in this case I'll be using D&D v. 3.5. The very first chapter is Ability Scores. There are a bunch of charts that define what these Ability Scores mean, and if your score is high enough you can incur additional bonuses. For D&D your Abilities are grouped into six major categories:- Strength: This is your brute force ability; which influences melee attack rolls, damage rolls, and certain skill rolls. If you want a character like He-Man or the Hulk, this is the ability you want a high score in.
- Dexterity: This is the agility ability (hey, I can rhyme!); which influences ranged attack rolls, your Armor Class, and certain skills. If you want someone like Jackie Chan, this would need to be a primary stat.
- Constitution: This determines how sturdy you are; basically, can you take a hit and keep going. Hit Points, your health, and the Concentration skill (your grace under pressure) are based on Constitution.
- Intelligence: This determines your book knowledge, as in, how many languages you know and how well versed in your skills you are. Einstein and Tony Stark would have high Intelligence scores.
- Wisdom: This ability covers your senses, which covers skills like, Listen, Spot, and Sense Motive.
- Charisma: Personality and sexual magnetism are covered in this ability, affecting skills like Diplomacy and Intimidation. Some U.S. Presidents would have a high Charisma score.
When character creation begins these base scores can be changed in one of three ways. The easiest method is to use the "Standard Array", which is 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10. This method provides positive modifiers to at least four abilities. And allows us to move forward with character creation the quickest. And since I know I want to create a Fighter, a melee combatant specifically, I know I will want a high score in at least Strength and Constitution.
Looking at the Ability Scores chart in the D&D Player's Handbook, we can see that each of these six scores provide a positive modifier. The 16 gets a +3; 14, +2; 13 and 12, +1; while 11 and 10 get a no bonus. These modifiers will later help us determine the placement of these scores in our abilities.
RACE
In many games there will be a variety of races to choose from. In Star Wars we see Humans, Wookiees, Droids, etc.. And in D&D we have Humans, Elves, Dwarves and so forth. Each race is unique and carries with it the possibility of an ability adjustment and additional racial traits. For this purpose we're specifically going to look at the Human race, as they are the dominate, and probably most favored race in gaming.
In D&D Humans have no ability adjustment. This means that the scores above will remain the same at character creation. However, should we have chosen to make a Dwarf Fighter, we would have had to adjust our scores in two abilities: Constitution and Charisma. While we haven't placed these scores yet, a Dwarf would have received a +2 bonus on his Constitution Score and a -2 penalty to his Charisma Score. Dwarves are sturdy creatures, but not always the friendliest. But we're not playing a Dwarf, so our scores will remain the same: 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10.
Human's have racial traits, which provide bonuses during character creation. They receive the following: An extra Feat (discussed in a future post) at first level; and four extra skill points at first level, plus one additional skill point at every level thereafter. The additional skill points will help us out, as more skill points could mean higher skill rolls or more skills. Humans have additional racial traits in D&D but they will be ignored in this instance.
CLASS
Since we have chosen to make a Fighter in D&D we can skip all the other available classes in the book. There are however many more classes available, like Cleric, Wizard or Barbarian. In other settings the names of these classes may change, but their role is likely similar. A fighter may be a soldier in a modern day game, while a cleric may be called a priest instead. Each class has a set of abilities that define their station in life. In our case, the Fighter is known to be centered on melee attacks, so a high Strength score would be good to have. Constitution would also need to be a high score as the Fighter needs to be able to take lots of damage. Their third score could be in Dexterity, to show their prowess with a ranged weapon, and to give them a higher defensive score.But Vigo is not a dexterous person, though he is strong and stout. So we will assign the 16 to his Strength and the 14 to his Constitution. This leaves us with the 13, 12, 11 and 10 to distribute amongst Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Looking at what these abilities do we have a choice of what we want this character to become. Since Vigo is a fighter we probably should have at least a +1 modifier in his Dexterity, to help with ranged attacks and any skills the fighter may have. So we'll put the 12 there. Vigo isn't the brightest or the smartest person in the village, that's why he's a fighter, so we will put the 10 and 11 into his Intelligence and Wisdom abilities. Which leaves the 13 to be placed in Charisma, which will be great for a man who sees himself as a leader of his village.
This is what we have so far:
Strength 16 (+3 modifier)
Dexterity 12 (+1 modifier)
Constitution 14 (+2 modifier)
Intelligence 10 (no modifier)
Wisdom 11 (no modifier)
Charisma 13 (+1 modifier)
These scores now effect everything else that sets the Fighter apart from any other class.This includes Hit Points, their Attack Bonus, Saving Throws, Feat choices, and Skills/Skill Points. Skills and Skill Points will be discussed below, while the other aspects will be brought in at the end of this series to wrap things up.
SKILLS
Since we chose to put a score of 10 into Intelligence our Fighter will start with very few skill points to distribute amongst his limited skill set. So what are skill points? Skill points are a number we add our ability modifier, which is then added to the d20 roll when we make a skill check. The number of skill points we get are determined by our class. In this case, our fighter starts off with (2 + Intelligence modifier) x 4. So if we do our math correctly this is what we'll get: (2 + 0) x 4 = 8. Our Intelligence modifier is 0 as stated above, which means we add nothing to the 2. That 2 is then multiplied by 4 to get a total of 8. The amount of skill points we receive at character creation could have been different if we had chosen to make a more intelligent fighter. Had we decided to have the 16 in Intelligence then we could have had 20 skill points at character creation. However, let us not forget that we are Human after all, and that means we get 4 additional character points at first level.
Instead, we have 12 points, rather than 8, to distribute amongst the following skills. In parenthesis we're putting what ability the skill is linked to. Abilities are abbreviated by using the first three letters of that ability, so Strength is STR. Here is the Fighter's skill list:
Climb (Str); Craft (Int)*; Handle Animal (Cha); Intimidate (Cha); Jump (Str); Ride (Dex); and Swim (Str).
* = Choose Specialty
As you can see, we actually chose pretty well in the placement of our ability scores, as many of our skills will be receiving an ability score bonus, in addition to any skill points we place in them. Before we put any skills points into our skills, let's see what they would look like with just our Ability modifiers in place:
Climb (+3); Craft (+0); Handle Animal (+1); Intimidate (+1); Jump (+3); Ride (+1) and Swim (+3)
There is a limit to how many points you can put into each skill, this is called a Skill Cap, and for first level characters that number is 4. Which means that if we so choose, we could put maximize three skills and move forward. But we have four skills that we want to make better: Craft, Handle Animal, Intimidate and Ride. This means that with 12 skill points we could put three points into each skill, which sounds like a great idea! So here is what our skills would look like after the point distribution:
Climb (+3); Craft (+3); Handle Animal (+4); Intimidate (+4); Jump (+3); Ride (+4) and Swim (+3)
Things can get more complicated with skills, as you are permitted to buy skill ranks in skills that do not belong to your class. These are called Cross-Class Skills. But in order to buy a rank in those skills you must spend twice as many points; and are only permitted to have half as many ranks in those skills. So we could have put a point in Spot and a point in Search, as they are skills needed by a farmhand, but it would have cost us 4 of our 12 skill points to do so. Too expensive for someone of low Intelligence.
REVIEW
So let's review our character so far.
Vigo the Human Fighter
Strength 16 (+3); Dexterity 12 (+1); Constitution 14 (+2)
Intelligence 10 (+0); Wisdom 11 (+0); Charisma 13 (+1)
Skills: Climb (+3); Craft (+3); Handle Animal (+4); Intimidate (+4); Jump (+3); Ride (+4) and Swim (+3)
He chose the Human race and the Fighter class to keep things simple, and built his skills around what natural skills he already possessed.
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Next time on Dice Harder: What Makes a Character Pt 4 - Feats, Gear and Finalizing the character
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