The Abilities
From D20advanced
Here are descriptions of the six abilities and how they affect your character.
Contents |
Strength
| STRENGTH | STR, Physical |
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Strength measures sheer muscle power and the ability to apply it. Your Strength modifier applies to Athletics and Might checks. It also applies to damage dealt by your melee or thrown weapon attacks.
Dexterity
| DEXTERITY | DEX, Physical |
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Dexterity is a measure of coordination, agility, speed, manual dexterity, and balance. It's particularly useful for characters relying more on speed and agility than sheer strength and toughness. Your Dexterity modifier applies to Acrobatics, Infiltration, Reflex, and Vehicles checks.
Constitution
| CONSTITUTION | CON, Physical |
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Constitution is endurance, health, and overall physical resilience. Constitution is important because it affects a character’s ability to resist most forms of damage. Your Constitution modifier applies to Endurance, Fortitude, and Recovery.
Intelligence
| INTELLIGENCE | INT, Mental |
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Intelligence covers reasoning ability and learning. It adds to your Knowledge for all skills. Intelligence is important for characters with a lot of skills like Academics, Science, and Technology.
Wisdom
| WISDOM | WIS, Mental |
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While Intelligence covers reasoning, Wisdom describes awareness, common sense, intuition, and perception. A character with a high Intelligence and a low Wisdom may be an “absent-minded professor” type, smart but not always aware of what’s going on. On the other hand, a not so bright (low Intelligence) character may have great common sense (high Wisdom). Your Wisdom modifier applies to Expertise, Perception, and Survival checks.
Charisma
| CHARISMA | CHA, Mental |
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Charisma is force of personality, persuasiveness, leadership ability and (to a lesser degree) physical attractiveness. Charisma is useful for heroes who intend to be leaders as well as those who strike fear into the hearts of enemies with their presence. Your Charisma modifier applies to Art, Persuasion, and Will.
Ability Benchmarks
The Ability Benchmarks table (Table 2.3) provides guidelines on where a given ability score falls relative to the general population.
| TABLE 2.3: ABILITY SCORE BENCHMARKS | |
| Ability Score | Description |
| -5 | Completely inept or disabled |
| -4 | Weak; infant |
| -3 | Younger child |
| -2 | Child, elderly, impaired |
| -1 | Below average; young teenager |
| +0 | Average adult |
| +1 | Above average |
| +2 | Well above average |
| +3 | Gifted |
| +4 | Highly gifted, best in the city |
| +5 | Best in a nation |
| +6 | Best in the world |
| +7 | Best ever; peak of human achievement |
| +8 | Low superhuman |
| +9 | Moderate superhuman |
| +10 | High superhuman |
| +15 | Very high superhuman |
| +20 | Cosmic/Divine |
| TABLE 2.4: FORTITUDE/WILL RESISTANCE BENCHMARKS | |
| Resistance Bonus | Description |
| 0-2 | Average pedestrian |
| 3-4 | Above average pedestrian |
| 5-6 | Low superhuman |
| 7-9 | Moderate superhuman |
| 10-12 | High superhuman |
| 13-15 | Very high superhuman |
| 16+ | Cosmic/Divine |
| TABLE 2.5: TOUGHNESS RESISTANCE BENCHMARKS | |
| Resistance Bonus | Description |
| 0 | Average unarmored pedestrian |
| 1-4 | Above average, light armor or tougher than normal |
| 5-7 | Low superhuman, moderate armor (Kevlar) |
| 8-10 | Moderate superhuman, high-end armor (Ceramic) |
| 11-13 | High superhuman, extreme hi-tech armor |
| 14-16 | Very high superhuman, sci-fi power armor |
| 17-19 | Ultra high superhuman, extreme sci-fi power armor |
| 20+ | Cosmic/Divine |
Enhanced Abilities
Some ability scores may be acquired as Enhanced Abilities, as described in Chapter V: FX. Enhanced Abilities are FX rather than entirely natural. The key differences between Enhanced Abilities and normal ability scores are Enhanced Abilities can be nullified (normal abilities cannot, see Nullify) and Enhanced Abilities can have FX feats and be used for FX stunts with extra effort (normal abilities cannot).
Enhanced Abilities and normal abilities have the same cost (2 character points per ability score point). The player decides if a character’s ability score is normal or enhanced and, if it is enhanced, how much of it is enhanced. Enhanced Abilities are noted with the normal ability score in parentheses after them, such as 20 (3), indicating if the character’s Enhanced Ability is nullified, the character still has a score of 3 in that ability.
Enhanced physical abilities often represent capabilities that aren’t quite obvious at first appearance. A person with a small school girl’s build and musculature, but is able to lift a city bus probably has Enhanced Strength rather than a high Strength score. Similarly, a seemingly frail, lanky man who is actually tougher than steel and at the peak of human health would probably be benefiting from Enhanced Constitution.
 Option: Ability Checks
By default, d20 Advanced assumes that all checks are covered between skill or FX checks. However, if you choose, you can also make use of the raw ability scores themselves for checks. An ability check is like a skill check, but measures raw ability, without any skill, like strength, endurance, or intellect. It is a roll of d20 + your ability modifier against a Difficulty Class. Ability checks tend to be all or nothing (you can either accomplish the task or you can’t) although there are sometimes gradations like skill checks. Attempting a skill without training (in other words, without ranks in the skill) is an ability check. In general, ability check DCs should be about 5 or 10 ranks lower than an equivalent skill check (since ability scores won't have the ranks from skills to add to the check.
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