6.7 KiB
Making a character
This document is here to explains all the details about character creation. Ability scores, skills, proficiencies, saving throws, etc. The hope is to give players and GMs a comprehensive guide on all of their characters stats, what they do, and when to use them.
Ability Checks and saving throws
While playing, your GM may ask you to make an ability check, a saving throw, or a contested roll. This section explains what each of these are, and how to make one
Core Abilities
Each character has 6 core abilities, strength (str), dexterity (dex), constitution (con), wisdom (wis), intelligence (int), and charisma (cha). These abilities are expressed as a bonus, usually between -3 and +5 where a +0 represents the average person at each ability. These bonuses are added to your checks and saving throws depending on the check or saving throw needed. For martial characters it is recommended to focus on improving your physical stats like str, dex, and con, while casters should focus on mental stats like wis, int, and cha.
The formula for skill checks and saving throws is the same, you roll a d20 add your skill or save bonus, and add any proficiencies you have. Contested rolls are slightly different, they follow the same formula but instead of just your rolling, it is you vs someone else, whether it be another PC, an NPC, or a monster, the other creature rolls just the same as you do and the higher roll wins. Ties are determined by the total bonus to the roll, then your core ability bonus, and finally a second roll if the first two methods still yield a tie.
Strength
Strength dictates... How strong you are!... who would've thought. A higher strength means your character can lift or push more, and put more force behind their blows and dictates your attack and damage bonuses for weapons that deal slashing or bludgeoning damage.
Dexterity
Dexterity dictates quickness, or how light on your feet you may be. Dexterity also measures precision, which is why it deterimines your attack and damage bonus with piercing weapons, along with being added to your armor class to determine how hard you are to hit.
Constitution
Constitution measures physical resilience, it gets multiplied by your level and added to your HP which means having this in the negetives is almost never a good idea.
Wisdom
Wisdom is your characters mental fortitude, how many resillient is your mind to the allures of gold and power, how many of a bards insults can you take? Divine and cursed magic both use wisdom extensively as the magic tends to be based on force of will, rather than science or logic.
Intelligence
Intelligence determines how smart your character is, a walking vegetable or the smartest man/woman to have ever lived. Magic that focuses on manipulating science or logic, such as abjuration and evocation use Intelligence.
Charisma
Charisma is your social skill, its used to persuade, decieve, and intimidate. Illusion and Transmutation spells usually use charisma when they need a modifier.
Proficiencies
Each cahracter has certain things they are good at, these are your proficiencies. You can be proficient at using a weapon or a tool, at a specific skill, or with a certain type of saving throw.
Proficiency Levels
There are 4 tiers of proficiency, unskilled, half-decent, above average, and master
unskilled
If you are unskilled in a skill, save, weapon, or armor, your proficiency bonus is 0 for that skill or item.
half-decent
If you are half decent your proficiency bonus is 1/4 of your level to your roll or stat, with a minimum of 1.
above average
if you are above average with something, you may add 1/2 of your level to your roll or stat, with a minimum of 1.
Mastered
If you have mastered a skill, save, weapon, or armor you can add your level to the roll or stat.
Proficiency Types
There are five main types of proficiency, skill proficiency, save proficiency, weapon proficiency, armor proficiency, and tool proficiency
skill proficiency
Being proficient in a specific skill means you can add a bonus to that skill based on your proficiency level
Save proficiency
Being proficient in a save lets you add your proficiency level to any saving throws made using that save.
weapon proficiency
Being proficient in a weapon allows you to add the bonus deterined by your proficiency level to any attack roll made with that weapon
armor proficiency
Being proficient with a certain type of armor means you can add your proficiency bonus for your proficiency level to your armor class.
Defenses
There are two main things that go into your characters defense, how hard you are to hit and how many hits you can take.
Armor Class
To determine how hard you are to hit we look at your armor class, or AC more commonly. When in combat we look at this value and compare the enemies attack roll to it, the higher your AC the better.
Armor types
There are five types of armor, unarmored, light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, and magical armor. Mechanically these types just separate out proficiencies to different types of armor. You can dtermine what armor type a piece of armor is by looking at its tags
How to find your AC
Your AC uses the following equation, which we will break down.
AC = 10 + Dex + AB + SB + AP
Dex: This one is just you dexterity bonus
AB: Your AB, or Armor bonus is determined by the armor you are wearing, and is included in the armor tag. If you aren;t wearing armor this is typically 0
SB: Your SB, or shield bonus is determined by the shield you are using and just liek armor bonus is included in the shield tag, if you don't have a shield equipped this value is 0
AP: Your AP or Armor proficiency is one of your characters proficiencies, if you do not have armor, or are not proficient with the armor you are wearing this number is 0
Health Points
To determine how many hits you can take we look at your health points, also called hit points, and referred to as HP. When an attack goes through your AC, subtract the damage dealt from your remaining HP. If your HP hits 0, you go unconcious, so be careful. The higher your max HP the better.
How to find your HP
to find your maximum health, we look at a few factors
each class and race has its own health bonus, noted as CHB for class health bonus, and RHB for race health bonus. Using these for factors we can determine your total maximum HP with the following equation
Max HP = RHB + (level * constitution) + (level * CHB)