Everything you wanted to know about Dungeons and Dragons Part II - Rolling up Character Attributes

The Dungeons and Dragons mechanic is the same as any d20 system available. What is a d20 system I hear you ask. Basically, a d20 system uses a twenty sided die (called a d20), to determine the outcome of a character's decision based ont he character's stats.

Basically:

Roll 1d20
Apply Modifiers
Compare to a target number

In Dungeon Master terms, the target number is known as a "Difficulty Class", usually shortened to DC. To fully explain the modifier system, one must be familiar with the modifiers.

Character Generation

In D&D, there are six attributes: Constitution, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence Wisdom and Charisma. They are usually shortened as: CON, STR, DEX, INT, WIS and CHA. When creating a character, six rolled values are assigned to these attributes. In the fictional world of D&D, average statistics are between 10 and 11. An attribute that has values above 10 are granted modifiers based on how much above 10 they are:

Attribute Score      Modifier
10-11                         0

12-13                        +1

14-15                        +2

16-17                        +3

18-19                        +4

Values lower than 10 are similarly granted modifiers that are elss than 0, depending on how much below 0 they are:

Attribute Score      Modifier

2-3                            -4

4-5                            -3

6-7                            -2

8-9                            -1

In the 3.5E version of D&D, in order to generate the values for a character (coloquially known as "rolling up a character"), one would take four six-sided dice (4d6) and roll them, then add up the three highest scores, disregarding the lowest roll. This would be redone five times, leaving the player with six scores for his/her attributes. Depending on the type of character the player wanted, they would assign the scores to suit the player.

With the advent of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, rolling up a character could be done three separate ways. The original method of rolling the character was still available to those players who had grown used to it in the 3.5E. In addition to this Wizards of the Coast gave the player the option of "buying" points. Basically the character starts with an array of scores, namely 8-10-10-10-10-10 and 22 points to put into "building" their character they way they desired. This was borne from the PC Gaming world, where stat-buying was usually how a PC gamer generated his/her character. The third method of rolling up the character comes from Wizards of the Coast themselves. They created a table of randomly generated scores, a Random Standard Array as they call it, and allow the players to choose one of them for their characters.

After the  character has its stats determined, the next order of business for a D&D player would be to Determine Skills. We'll deal with that next time. Until then, Axes high!