Ability Scores

The baseline of a character is their ability scores. They outline the strengths and weaknesses of a character by governing various aspects of a character’s functionality. Each of these have various abilities they tie into and thus a character gains various benefits from these ability scores.

Ability Scores

Strength (Str)

Strength is a representation of a creature’s physical power manifesting in their athletic capabilities and ability to strike foes in melee combat.

• Determines carrying capacity
• Bonus to attack rolls for melee attacks.
• Damage rolls on melee, bow, or thrown weapons .
• Bonus to Physical Saves

Agility (Agi)

Agility represents a character reflexes and finesse, usually manifesting in their ability to avoid damage, perform precise skills, and their aim with ranged weapons.

• Bonus to attack rolls for ranged attacks.
• Bonus to Armor Class
• Bonus to Physical Saves

Endurance (End)

Endurance represents a character’s physical durability, usually manifesting in their ability to take damage, shrug off effects such as poisons, or even their ability to survive in harsh conditions.

• Hit points per level
• Bonus to Resilience Saves
• Number of rounds a character can hold their breath
• Concentration and Tenacity checks.

Intelligence (Int)

Intelligence is the accumulation knowledge a character has. This primarily affects a character’s knowledge of various topics as well as knowledge in languages.

• A creature with a 12 or 13 starting intelligence have literacy in the common language.
• A creature with a 14 or higher intelligence score starts with two additional languages and literacy in all their starting languages.
• Bonus to Mental Saves
• Appraise, Knowledge, and some Profession checks.

Focus (Foc)

Focus is representative of a character’s ability to, as the name suggests, stay focused, but also their mental alacrity. Usually this is a character’s ability to notice things both visually and socially, or even their ability to process and react in combat.

• Bonus to Mental Saves
• How many additional reactions you receive per round.
• Heal, Perception, Profession, and Sense Motive checks.

Psyche (Psy)

Psyche is a representation of a character’s mental fortitude as well as force of personality. Used in may interaction skills such as Bluff/Diplomacy/and Intimidate it also represents a character’s ability to force their will upon the world such as through their ability to use and manipulate magic objects.

• Activation and power of many magic items.
• Bonus to Resilience Saves

Calculating Ability Scores

Ability scores are assumed to start at 10 for a creature, with 10 being a “average” ability. Anything above this shows the character having greater prowess while anything below this represents detriment in this score.

First when generating ability scores the GM should choose a method of determining your six starting attributes, generally chosen between Point Buy, Rolled, or Stat Array. See the Character Creation page, for more information on these types. Once the base ability scores have been decided a creature’s race usually will give additional bonuses or penalties to their ability scores.

Primarily ability scores are done via point-buy doing a 20-point system. Spending points to raise an ability above 10, and gaining points for reducing a score below 10. With this system scores cannot go above 18 or below 7. Below is a table detailing the point-cost of an individual score.

Score	Total Points
7	-4
8	-2
9	-1
10	0
11	1
12	2
13	3
14	5
15	7
16	10
17	13
18	17

Ability Score Advancement

At each level (including 1st) a character may allocate points into their ability scores as an inherent  bonus to represent their continued growth as a character. A character gains a point each level to add to his ability scores, as well as an additional point every even level, as an inherent bonus to his stats. This means a character at 1st level will have 1 point, while a character will have 30 points to allocate at level 20; and 60 points at 40th. A single ability score cannot have an inherent bonus to a single ability score for more than half the character’s hit dice (rounded up) (maximum +10 inherent bonus to a single stat at 20th, and +20 at 40th)

With this a character’s ability scores slowly advance as they level. Usually only temporary magic effects can further enhance a creature’s ability scores.

Ability Score Modifiers

An ability score modifier is the value taken from an ability score. Rather than using the stat as-is a modifier is derived from this value to determine the bonus or penalty from that stat. Almost every stat or action involves an ability score modifier in some way, from attacks to skills.

The formula to determine an ability score’s modifier is (Ability Score - 10) / 2. Universally always rounding to a lower number will then give you the resulting ability score. The reason is 10 is considered the base starting point of a 0 modifier, making values below 10 granting a negative modifier, while values 12 and above granting a positive; with 11 also granting a 0

Below is a set of example ability scores and the expected modifiers you would have:

Ability Score	Modifier
0	-5
1	-5
2	-4
3	-4
4	-3
5	-3
6	-2
7	-2
8	-1
9	-1
10	0
11	0
12	1
13	1
14	2
15	2
16	3
17	3
18	4
19	4
20	5
21	5
22	6
24	7
26	8
28	9
30	10
32	11
34	12
36	13
38	14
40	15