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Stats from a roleplaying perspective.

VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
Hello once again GD! I'm currently playing through IWD:EE using the wonderful tome and blood mod and when I was making my characters it got me thinking. What do the stats actually mean? My knowledge of D&D in general comes from 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5th edition and there it makes sense. Such as 10 is average, 12 is slightly above average, 14 is good, 16 is great, and 18 is you're a god among men in that stat.

At least that's how I think it is. I may be wrong. Can the same logic be applied to 2nd edition games? I'll use one of my favorite characters, my gnome sylvan sorcereress (It's a fae themed sorcerer introduced in tome and blood) as an example.

I heavily dislike rolling for stats as I usually have a set way I want my character to RP out.

She'd have 10 in strength because while she's not typically weak she's not strong either (average).

She'd have a 14 in dex as she is generally quick on her feet.

10 in Constitution because again she can take a hit but isn't particularly resilient.

16 in intelligence as she had proper schooling and is quite intelligent when it comes to book smarts.

8 wisdom, she might be intelligent but is incredibly oblivious to the world around her. Sort of "In her own little world" situation going on.

18 charisma. Using her adorable personality and charm she can be very convincing and persuasive.

So out of this she only has reduced store prices and and increased lore from her int but then decreased by her low wisdom.

Is this sort of character set up without any particular bonuses or minuses viable and do they make sense from a roleplaying standpoint? When I see characters with more than one 18 I cringe as I feel like they are too perfect.

Also, maybe sorcerer is a bad choice because their spells don't really scale off a certain stat like other casters do but I think you guys get the gist of what I mean.

So I guess to rap things up

TL;DR
Is having 3+ stats in the 16-18 range normal for a character and does the game expect you to be like this or is it more to be a mix of average and slightly high numbers with maybe one or two high stats? Also, can we say that 10 is average, 12 is above average, 14 is good, 16 is great, and 18 is perfect or does 2nd edition scale differently?
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Comments

  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    "TL;DR
    Is having 3+ stats in the 16-18 range normal for a character and does the game expect you to be like this or is it more to be a mix of average and slightly high numbers with maybe one or two high stats? Also, can we say that 10 is average, 12 is above average, 14 is good, 16 is great, and 18 is perfect or does 2nd edition scale differently?"

    In roleplaying terms no, it isn't normal. I don't think the game expects it either. The game is easily beatable without ability bonuses and even with minimum rolls. Basically your idea of what the numbers mean is quite right.
  • TidusTidus Member Posts: 86
    both @semiticgod‌ and @Nukeface‌ got a point in term of stat analysis, but imho one should also factor in-game avarages...
    BIFF THE UNDERSTUDY/RANDOM ADVENTURER
    Str 9/15
    Dex 9/15
    Con 9/15
    Int 9/10
    Wis 9/10
    Cha 9/15
    In BG2 everybody's got a stellar dexterity score (only Keldorn - arguably because of old age - and Anomen got a modifier under +1) , even strength is way above 'avarage' (Jaheira is not known to be a she-hulk but gets away with a 15 there), and the only two characters with below 10 constitution are Aerie (a cripple, to her own race view) and Viconia, who basically walks around in an environment that poisons her when she breathes... Neera wasn't exactly the most brilliant student of her class but gets a 17 intelligence nonetheless, while Cernd dazzles with his 18 wisdom (and related link to nature) but couldn't tell his wife was pregnant and *spoiler* will actually end up killing his own son in a very King Arthur-like way...
    The score that really bugs me is Anomen's charisma though - as per 2e description, everybody in Athkatla seems NOT to like the guy and sure as hell he has the ability to lead of a badger... :smiley:
  • MusignyMusigny Member Posts: 1,027
    The sum of all stats is always greater than or equal to 75. That should give you a clue about what the original designers expected. Your sum is 76 so very close to the minimum.
    This being said your stats make sense and a sorceress needs no extraordinary values to be a top performer.

    There is nothing wrong with 3 high stats. Even with 3 x 18 for instance you still have to distribute 21 points to reach the min sum allowed by the system.
    I bet that PCs with 3 high and 3 medium stats are quite common in those games.
  • TidusTidus Member Posts: 86
    “Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that round out of the definition” Frank Herbert
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    I really am enjoying the comments guys!
    I always love seeing different perspectives on things and this also really helping me with my re-rollitis issues. Most of the time when I suffer from it it's because I'm not happy with the stat set up as opposed to the class choice.

    also
    semiticgod said:

    I believe the developers expected people to have multiple stats above 15. The BG2 NPCs have extraordinary stats across the board, and not just Imoen. Most of them have Dexterity of 16 or higher. And the bonuses are either nonexistent or negligible for stats between 8 and 14, so you need very high stats in order to get meaningful bonuses.

    As far as real life goes, 18 isn't exactly godlike, but it is unusual. A 3d6 roll results in a bell curve, just like IQ, so if we match them up, an 18 Intelligence would be an IQ in the 140s, which is the top 1 or 2% of the population. Very uncommon.

    The vanilla NPCs all have incredibly high stats. The protagonist presumably would be the same.

    I think the 87 that Imoen has I can be satisfied for the Bhaalspawn but still being relatively normal and having weaknesses.

    Like,

    For BG I'll roll till my char has a stat of 87 or so while for IWD and such I'll go for more normal/low stats as that group is just a bunch of random adventurers.

    Again, I super appreciate the help guys n_n

  • jesterdesujesterdesu Member Posts: 373
    Neverwinter nights got the stats better
  • wubblewubble Member Posts: 3,156
    semiticgod said:

    @God: IQ is a rough guide to intelligence. Nobody's saying it's equivalent. I have yet to meet the person who has claimed that IQ is equivalent to intelligence. I HAVE heard many people point out, however, that it has limitations and there are things it doesn't measure that are still important.

    But my point was that it roughly lines up on a bell curve for Intelligence (with a capital "I", the D&D term), which helps answer the original question posted by @Vallmyr‌. I mentioned it because it provides a scale for understanding what ability score values in BG2 really mean, which is the whole point of this thread. And as far as I'm aware, IQ is the only major quantitative measure of intelligence, so I'm not sure how I could answer @Vallmyr‌ 's question without just guessing. And if you're talking about other aspects of intelligence, things that aren't measured by IQ, then maybe those things are components of Wisdom rather than Intelligence.

    As for analyzing spreadsheets... I actually have many, many spreadsheets open in Excel that I use for the specific purpose of analyzing BG2 and several other games, taking them apart and seeing how they work. I like dissecting systems. I like to think. I have an Excel document open right now, with 7 spreadsheets in total, dedicating to picking apart BG2's system. And that's not the only one I've got for BG2. And there are dozens of pages of notes in Microsoft Word, too. That's what I like doing. Is there something wrong with that?

    As it stands, I have other career plans besides working for a bank. I study international relations and am currently writing a thesis on modern Sino-American relations. I approach real life systems the same way, though international relations tend to involve non-quantitative data. I honestly am more interested in government policy than banking, since people and organizations, for me, are far more than money.

    You seem to be upset by my reference to IQ. Is there something wrong with employing numbers when discussing BG2 or D&D? I don't really see why else you would make career recommendations for me, unless you found something wrong with my approach.

    Seriously, you'd think you were God or something.

    An interesting intelligence test I've heard of is seeing how far someone gets into a physics book written by Stephen Hawking, the further through you are the more intelligent (or stubborn) you are.
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    I'd attribute 18 CON and 18 CHA to my grandpa. He has long been an excellent leader, joining a small-time mission in its youth and overseeing its growth into a worldwide organization. A great storyteller, too, with a grand social presence and a gift for storytelling and song.

    He's getting old now, but just a few years ago, he was still fit enough to beat my dad at tennis. Even though my grandpa almost lost his arm when he was young, and still can't feel much of it, he was still spry and athletic. It was a bus that him, and nearly tore off his arm. One of the earliest people to have had a limb reattached after being almost completely severed. And he survived polio when he was young, even though the doctors said he would never walk again. As a devout man, though, he attributes it to the grace of God.

    And if we DO draw a link between INT and IQ, then my dad has 18 INT. Same goes for a friend of mine from high school, also with an IQ in the 140s.

    But then, maybe I've just had an unusually large number of unusual people in my life.
  • YannirYannir Member Posts: 595
    DJKajuru said:

    I agree with @Vallmyr .From a roleplaying point of view, 17-18 is considered a "heroic" stat, and heroic qualities should be few and exceptional.

    In real life, people with exceptional and heroic skills are quite rare. How many geniuses, champion athletes and really wise or charismatic people do you know of? In fact, someone who's got all those qualities is close to a Messiah, I guess.

    To be fair, physical qualities can, in most cases, be increased with training. And top notch athletes are not that rare, I personally know a few.

    I think 18 in a stat doesnt amount to anything exceptional. To my mind 18 is top tier but something doable with good training. 200 pounds carried around isn't that much really if you pause to consider that the weight is distributed across your entire body. U don't need to bench press that amount.

    Most militaries in the world assume that anyone will be able to carry around about 120 pounds of gear. That's the average strenght of men. I'm speaking from personal experience since we have mandatory military service here in my country, and I lugged those 120 pounds around for miles on end.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @hispls While I get your point, you don't need to be in the top 1 millionth. You can easily finish the game with all 10s.
  • NukefaceNukeface Member Posts: 91
    @FinneousPJ I like the idea of showing up in the Pocket Plane and totally connecting to the guy conducting the first test about how much better all the other Bhaalspawn are at killing - you just came along to knit plushies and because Jaheira needed a new punching bag after Khalid died.
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    Yannir said:



    To be fair, physical qualities can, in most cases, be increased with training. And top notch athletes are not that rare, I personally know a few.

    I think 18 in a stat doesnt amount to anything exceptional. To my mind 18 is top tier but something doable with good training. 200 pounds carried around isn't that much really if you pause to consider that the weight is distributed across your entire body. U don't need to bench press that amount.

    Most militaries in the world assume that anyone will be able to carry around about 120 pounds of gear. That's the average strenght of men. I'm speaking from personal experience since we have mandatory military service here in my country, and I lugged those 120 pounds around for miles on end.

    Indeed, but for how long have these athletes or soldiers trained? At least five years in a row, probably a bit more. In fact, only a small percentage of people become athetes, soldiers, dancers ... and achieving exceptional strength , speed, endurance or balance takes both hard work and genetics.

  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    I would just like to say that, while I applaud the call for more reasonable/realistic statlines, early editions of D&D don't really encourage this, mechanically speaking. If the difference between a 9 dex and a 14 is nothing of consequence, the game becomes basically "be superman or go home". In my opinion, one of the better changes made in 3rd edition was the inclusion of bonuses for lower stats, making the more reasonable 8-14 heroic-but-not-absurd spread actually work in practice. In short, this means that I don't really go in for using that spread in 2E games. Just my opinion, though.
  • YannirYannir Member Posts: 595
    DJKajuru said:

    Yannir said:



    To be fair, physical qualities can, in most cases, be increased with training. And top notch athletes are not that rare, I personally know a few.

    I think 18 in a stat doesnt amount to anything exceptional. To my mind 18 is top tier but something doable with good training. 200 pounds carried around isn't that much really if you pause to consider that the weight is distributed across your entire body. U don't need to bench press that amount.

    Most militaries in the world assume that anyone will be able to carry around about 120 pounds of gear. That's the average strenght of men. I'm speaking from personal experience since we have mandatory military service here in my country, and I lugged those 120 pounds around for miles on end.

    Indeed, but for how long have these athletes or soldiers trained? At least five years in a row, probably a bit more. In fact, only a small percentage of people become athetes, soldiers, dancers ... and achieving exceptional strength , speed, endurance or balance takes both hard work and genetics.

    Warriors and fighters in these kind of fantasy settings start training as early 3 years old. Father teaches his son the tricks of the trade was how it usually worked. Sons of farmers become farmers, sons of merchants become merchants, sons of soldiers become soldiers, etc. So while it will take years and years, they have nothing but time to do it.
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    edited January 2015
    Yannir said:



    Warriors and fighters in these kind of fantasy settings start training as early 3 years old. Father teaches his son the tricks of the trade was how it usually worked. Sons of farmers become farmers, sons of merchants become merchants, sons of soldiers become soldiers, etc. So while it will take years and years, they have nothing but time to do it.

    But in DnD world they don't all become heroically strong (we do roll their attributes, after all). So , just like real life, our best skills may be result of hard work, but could also originate from luck (opportunity or quality of training) or genetics (different body types develop muscles in different ways , after all).


    Perhaps the soldier's son did not become hard as rock like his father, but he could have outgrown his old man in wisdom , or charisma.
  • NukefaceNukeface Member Posts: 91
    It's a well known fact that all you need is a Wheel of Crom and an Austrian accent to get a decent STR roll.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,760
    I'm sure that among other things the stats you give to your character depend on the game set-up you have: difficulty-enhancing mods, going solo, no-reload and so on.

    Also, it depends greatly on the class of your character. For example, it would become not so easy to play a backstabbing assassin from the Candlekeep with STR 14. With a character like that you'll have to rely more on a ranged weapon. And this will bring you to actually another character idea than you had at the start - a ranged thief instead of a backstabber.

    But for a spellcaster the stats mean a lot less. I'm on a no-reload solo druid run with a character who took a 75 roll and his stats have never been a case of any trouble for me. The druid has his summons, he has his magic at his side so his stats mean a little.
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    Vallmyr said:

    Such as 10 is average, 12 is slightly above average, 14 is good, 16 is great, and 18 is you're a god among men in that stat.

    At least that's how I think it is. I may be wrong. Can the same logic be applied to 2nd edition games?

    TL;DR
    Is having 3+ stats in the 16-18 range normal for a character and does the game expect you to be like this or is it more to be a mix of average and slightly high numbers with maybe one or two high stats? Also, can we say that 10 is average, 12 is above average, 14 is good, 16 is great, and 18 is perfect or does 2nd edition scale differently?

    For 2E my opinion is that the logic about 10 being average and 18-19 super-human falls short since, as mentioned above, for ie STR you don't gain anything from being "good" (14), only after you reach "great"(16). For INT is seem more plausible, though since INT also adds memorization slots it may be argued it's not only IQ and a char's ability for reason, math, problem-solving etc, but also its ability to remember (something I would rather have attributed to WIS).
    For me it also seems extremely weird that you can have 18 WIS and 3 INT. Is it possible to be so wise, so perceptive and make all the right assumptions and choices while being so stupid?

    So, what I propose if you are trying to make the stats in 2E more human is to align certain stats. If you have 18 in STR you cannot have lower than 14 in CON, since health and fitness are linked. If you 18 in INT you cannot have lower than 14 in WIS, unless you are a savant and that shouldn't be possible to play as in the saga. A specific char in IWD could have that though, but not a proper CHARNAME.

    Also, having 18 in STR and DEX is not just for superhumans IMHO, anyone who trains excessively for a couple of years (which is plausible for any CHARNAME and IWD adventurer) can reach the heights of human/demihuman fitness levels. If you study in school, you can become smart (not meaning having a high IQ) enough to do what you set out to do, whether arcane or divine magic. Even charisma can be trained, since it's not only a measure of beauty, rather it's a measure of a char's ability to impress others with both looks but also words, song, hell even by sheer presence and it can be (again, this is IMHO) both a negative and a positive effect. So even a lich with rotting flesh covering its face like a poor hannibal lecter impersonator can have 18 CHA due to its ability to make anyone do its bidding, maybe out of fear.

    And about 3E, I think that was even more broken than 2E. Sure, a 12 and 14 gave more than in 2E, BUT it still was easy enough to reach absurd levels of STR or DEX since items gave "+5 STR" rather than "set STR to 25". As an example, I once built a rogue that on epic levels with all NVN add-ons had a much lower naked AC than any fighter due to the ridiculous amount of DEX.

    So how do I summarize the above ramblings?

    1: Having multiple 18's for a CHARNAME is IMHO valid for both BG and IWD. I could argue that having more than three 18's is more plausible in BG due to the whole bhaal spawn thing.
    2: No RPG has yet to create a stat/ability point system that actually make sense to me. You just have to play the cards you are given, and if you want to limit your char or if you want to powergame, both are ok.
    3: 3E is worse than 2E when it comes to stat/abilities IMHO, and with "worse" I mean they are further from being "realistic" than in 2E.

    Disclaimer: I love 2E, I love to roll chars and I even loved NVN. I have however, nerdy as I am, created my own RPG rule set which I think capture a more realistic approach. To do this, it had to be fairly complicated though, so I've realized that's why the rules are what they are - to keep it simple.
  • YannirYannir Member Posts: 595
    @Skatan One could argue that strength and fitness are not linked. We have all seen those bodybuilders that can't run 100 m without getting winded. Or maybe while they are strong, they are also seriously overweight?

    The comparison between Int and Wis I very much understand. Someone with 3 intelligence would basically be a drooling idiot that can't even spell his own name.

    In my mind, a Bhaalspawn protagonist CAN'T have less than 10 Int, Wis and Cha. It just doesn't fit.
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