Zero'd Stats?
TheArtisan
Member Posts: 3,277
One thing I found somewhat funny is how instant death occurs if any stat at all reaches zero. With the case of the Rod of Terror which reduces CHA permanently it can result in permanent death.
I can understand how having 0 STR, DEX and CON result in death (inability to move, intolerance to pathogens, etc.) and I'd assume 0 INT means brain death, but how would 0 WIS and CHA result in death? What would having 0 WIS and CHA even be like? I'd like to hear some interpretations.
I can understand how having 0 STR, DEX and CON result in death (inability to move, intolerance to pathogens, etc.) and I'd assume 0 INT means brain death, but how would 0 WIS and CHA result in death? What would having 0 WIS and CHA even be like? I'd like to hear some interpretations.
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That waki is awful btw >_<
0 wisdom means that you see the guy with 0 charisma on the street and decide to join him, losing all your money in the process and dying of hunger
0 INT could indeed be considered braindead, but that's not the same as physical death (although in Baldur's Gate a completely understandable 'game over')
Strength 0: Can't move! I guess your muscles are screwed?
Intelligence 0: Can not function. Brain-dead?
Wisdom 0: Plagued by nightmares, likely some sort of deep-seated primal fears.
Dexterity 0: Can't move!
Constitution 0: Flatline. You'd better be inorganic or undead. Man, I wish those play-by-post WarCraft campaigns hadn't fallen through...Forsaken have no Constitution scores at all!
Charisma 0: No force of personality. Catatonia.
-Except the first Deities & Demigods, which was released way before 3rd Edition D&D was even thought of, had negative Charismas for the Great Old Ones.
Comeliness 0: Jackie Burkhart either makes you cry until you dehydrate, or you get into such a heated debate with her over the subjectivity of beauty that you forget to bathe and get covered in vermin and get eaten by vermin.
In some systems (meaning not D&D), you can have a statistic at 0, which means "no modifier, average" or "you suck at this/what kind of a superhero are you trying to emulate, the ones on Dexter's Laboratory?".
Stephen hawking would have Str and Dex 1 not 0. 0 means death.
About Wis 0 I would think it is similar to Int 0. Brain death
Wisdom 0: You find yourself incapable of reasoning anything at all. You cannot handle the shock of being unable to process even the basic information your senses are providing, and suffer an aneurysm that kills you instantly.
Any creature that can perceive its environment in any fashion has at least 1 point of Wisdom. Anything with no Wisdom score is an object, not a creature. Anything without a Wisdom score also has no Charisma score.
Strength 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He lies helpless on the ground.
Dexterity 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He stands motionless, rigid, and helpless.
Constitution 0 means that the character is dead.
Intelligence 0 means that the character cannot think and is unconscious in a coma-like stupor, helpless.
Wisdom 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a deep sleep filled with nightmares, helpless.
Charisma 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a catatonic, coma-like stupor, helpless.
Now, BG engine kills the character when a score reaches zero.
Strenght makes sense, at zero strength your muscles can not even support your breathing, your heart muscles can't pump blood, etc. Death is inevitable.
Dexterity is a stretch, but you can assume you are totally paralysed=so much that your breathing muscles are paralysed, too. Death by asphyxia.
Consitution is the vitality of a body, a zero is no vitality left, nothing. Dead.
Intelligence is awkward, a zero intelligence character would be in a coma, unable to think or dream, no brain function at all. BUT the body can live in a vegatative state. In BG, mind flayers drain intelligence per hit, in PnP they burrow their tentacles to the victim's skull and after a few hits they extract the brain, insta-killing the victim. BG uses intelligence drain to simulate this mechanism.
Wisdom is again a stretch, a zero wisdom character will be unable to perceive its environment and will not react at all:in a deep slumber in his own world. The difference between zero intelligence and this state is in this state the brain can function and the person can have vivid dreams, most likely he/she lives in an imaginary world inside its own psyche. Whereas zero intelligence is coma, no dream, nothing but blank darkness. Imagine a drug user or someone under heavy sedative/hypnotics so high that he is in his own little paradise in his mind, you can not reach him from the outside at all. Yet he is having the time of his life (or the worst of his nightmares) in his own mind.
Ofcourse, in a dangerous combat, such states equal death.