Low Stats as Disadvantages: Constitution and Charisma

All right, let's finish this series off. I may not use these rules in the game I'm running right now, but it would come in handy if I run another campaign with more bells and whistles attached. Any interest in a pdf of all of these?

Low Stats as Disadvantages: Dexterity

These disadvantages are both more straightforward than the others, and more harsh. Dexterity is a pretty important thing not to fall short on, if you're an adventurer. With a 3 or 4 disadvantage here - or even a leg injury - there's pretty much no running away and you should invest in some potions that let you flee or hide. Regeneration or healing will be pretty much on the "must do" agenda.

I took minuses to AC from low DEX out of the 52 Pages, because those lead to difficult concepts - like *losing* your penalty when attacked by surprise (what, does your low DEX force you into the path of flying arrows?)

Really, for advantages, Dexterity should also be a bigger thing than it is in D&D, helping you dodge, move, hit in melee and missile, and just about everything else coordinated. I'm committed to the six stat framework but for simulation purposes I think nothing beats TFT/GURPS and its STR/DEX/IQ, seasoned with special advantages to simulate things like Charisma.

Low Stats as Disadvantages: Wisdom

Continuing the series.

If low Intelligence means a visual or cognitive impairment, low Wisdom means an auditory one, or ... well, I've remarked before on how wacky a stat Wisdom is. Sanity? Willpower? Sensitivity? Percaption? The disadvantage approach can handle that though. It likes a multifarious attribute, for sure.

I'm liking more and more, too, the idea that +1 Wisdom is the most bonus you can get at 13 up, but that 15, 16, 17 and 18 Wisdom give benefits. Seems this would be the perfect stat to hand out psionic abilities on. I think an Advantages series at this point is almost inevitable. Not for core 52 Pages, but maybe a supplement, or for the other, painfully inelegant and baroque d20 variant game I have in me.

Oh yeah. Courtney is tearing it up on Hack & Slash with two don't miss series: incredibly various and devious rumors about monster ecologies (so much better than "Science tells us that the roper lays a clucth of 2d6 eggs...") and OSR New Wave creator interviews. Check it out!

Low Stats As Disadvantages: Intelligence

Continuing the series.

One nice side benefit of treating low stats as specific disadvantages is that for the mental stats, you avoid the tired old controversy of "oh, I must now play my INT 4 character as a moron." Really low Intelligence here gets you a reroll and a visual disability. (Hint: Blind characters make good clerics. Get a guide dog or trusted henchman. Seek out medusas.)

Kind of low Intelligence gets you a minor cognitive disability. Either way, you can be as clever and puzzle-y as you want to be.

Come to think of it ... there may be something to really high scores not giving you super big bonuses, but just a +1 and a special advantage like photographic memory, magic resistance, etc. I have been thinking about stacking and high levels, and I'm not sure that allowing 10th level characters to get +15 to hit from levels, magic, and stats is really where my rules should go.

Low Stats As Disadvantages: Strength

Clovis Cithog, in a comment on an earlier post here, brought an idea up I thought deserved further development:

I PREFER to use low ability scores as a role playing opportunity … Low strength score does not have to imply that one is a weakling, but could reflect a prior shoulder or back injury.

with several more examples.

This struck a chord with me. After all, who is more likely to be an adventurer, this guy who rolled 3 strength:

Or this guy:

With this in mind, we can have really low scores, that normally would imply gross incompetence, instead mean some kind of disability that has a special effect. In Original D&D and derivatives, a reasonable range for the penalty scores is 3-6, to offset the exceptional 15+; in AD&D and derivatives it's much the same, except 4d6 keep 3 leaves little chance for these scores to emerge; in Basic and derivatives it's 3-8.

We can use the same table for all these systems if we split up the rolls of 5 and 6 in "6 or less" systems by what numbers make them up.

So when your starting character strolls into the Necessary Contrivance Inn and all the other characters say, "Wow, check out that missing left thumb, did you use some point-buy system and get some sick advantage like Ocelot Reflexes?" you can say "No, man. I rolled it up. Old School style."

More of these to come.