How do NPCs get their stats?

[MukkTB]

I always assumed that in the game world that when a child was born (IE the character was created) they got to roll 3d6 in order for their stats. They then navigated the world in a way that made sense for their attributes. A high int might lead them to learn to be a wizard or a scholar or a rogue. High strength may see them into manual labor or a martial career.

Another possibility is that on birth a god decides whether they will be elite or mundane. They then get a randomly placed array that is either elite or mundane. Of course in a world like this no born cripples would exist. There is no 3 in the array.

Another possibility is that they somehow are given point buy 10 or so and get to choose how they buy stats based on how they spend their childhood.

Of course PCs are guided one way or another to be exceptional humans by narrative force. But I still wonder about how NPCs get their stats. It changes the rest of the world building. A world where NPCs can't start with stats above 11 would view someone with 18 strength as godlike, and would be dazzled by the depths of someone with an 18 int. On the other hand a 3d6 world would view these people as lucky and gifted but wouldn't worry much more about the matter. Furthermore a world where NPCs start with 11s would only have an exceptionally statted villain if the narrative demanded it. So a PC who encountered someone with say a 16 would know that they existed as a vital part of the DM's plot. This meta gaming isn't possible with 3d6.

I think my personal bias shows for the NPCs get 3d6 in order at birth method. I'll use arrays and generic characters straight out of a book to conserve time, but I always considered this a hand wave for convenience.

[Urpriest]

DMG II allows for Prodigy NPCs with an extra +2 to an ability score. With that in mind, I'd say that the distribution of NPC ability scores does not follow 3d6 in order (being as that is mostly a legacy from previous editions anyway), but rather has some other, largely unknown distribution. As additional evidence, remember that Vecna was once a human lich, and 40HD later has Str 24, Dex 24, Int 43, Wis 35, Cha 29. Assuming that he's got +5 inherent bonuses to all ability scores and put all his ability increases into Int this means his base scores were Str 19, Dex 19, Int 26, Wis 28, Cha 22, with enough Con to survive to accomplish all that he did. So clearly ability scores can vary beyond those available to players.

[Anxe]

Very simple! Add the stats of the parents together and divide by 3 for each attribute. Then you roll 6 individual d6s. During the child's upbringing, it will show a natural tendency towards one stat or another. Put the highest roll from those d6 into the attribute that the child is most into and continue down the line of 6 until all the rolls have been distributed. Tadah! New character!

[Gamer Girl]

I always assumed that in the game world that when a child was born (IE the character was created) they got to roll 3d6 in order for their stats. They then navigated the world in a way that made sense for their attributes. A high int might lead them to learn to be a wizard or a scholar or a rogue. High strength may see them into manual labor or a martial career.



My view:

Everyone is born with all stats at one. By the time the person is a teen (13) they will have stats of randomly 3-5. and by the time they were and adult(18) they would have 7-11 in stats.

It's just weird to say that a kid somehow knows she has a high intelligence and becomes a wizard. Life just does not work like that.

First off, people might like something no matter there ability. A boy might always dream of being a warrior, but that does not automatically grant him an 18 in strength(or even a 15, or even a 13). Some people have no choice in life: the girl that looses her whole family in a fire wished to be a cleric, but had to be a thief to just survive despite her high wisdom and low dexterity. And determination plays a big part too. Should a boy really want to be a guard, he could work out every day and get in great shape.

The world of Normal NPCs would be full of all the above types of characters. Or to put it another way, every NPC is not a super optimized god.

[Eldan]

Those numbers don't really seem to work... strength 3, as an example, would be ridiculously low for a teenager, they could lift barely anything. Barely move, really.

And 7-11 for adults, are you sure? Because that makes most of the population below average, which is just weird.

And yes, someone who wants to be a guard would work out. You know, if a boy wants to be a guard, he'll probably spend a few years running laps and training with weapons. He will probably have above average strength, which equates to a 12-13. I'm not talking 18s here, I'm talking above average to a degree that is barely noticeable. The thief girl would have spent years picking pockets and evading policemen. She'd have decent dexterity, or she would have been caught long ago. People train for their professions. Not to say that some people can't be incompetent at their profession .Some certainly are. But most aren't.

The books seem to assume stats that come out about average. Monster stats for humanoid warriors seem to generally be made with the 13-8 array, and I prefer that one. I don't think many people in real life are perfectly average in all their qualities. Most people are a bit above average in some qualities (i.e. have a +1 in one of their six stats) and a bit below average in others (have a -1 in another stat).

[Hiro Protagonest]

My view:

Everyone is born with all stats at one. By the time the person is a teen (13) they will have stats of randomly 3-5. and by the time they were and adult(18) they would have 7-11 in stats.

So my intelligence is 8? My dexterity 6? My strength 5-6? My constitution 5-6? Yeah, no.

[nedz]

The DM assigns them, pure fiat.

To re-iterate (almost) what I recently posted on another thread

Elite Array
15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8

Nonelite Array
13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8

Standard Array
11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10

Source: MM p290

[Mnemnosyne]

I definitely go with rolling stats in order. If it's not a high power campaign, 3d6 in order (and I switch them around if I've already decided this character's professions). If I'm just rolling stats for a bunch of random NPC's, they get 3d6 in order and their professions are determined by where their stats wound up.

[Gamer Girl]

Those numbers don't really seem to work... strength 3, as an example, would be ridiculously low for a teenager, they could lift barely anything. Barely move, really.

Have you met many teens? 3 is quite high for a teen :) And you don't think a strength of 3 or 4 would be right for a teen girl?



And 7-11 for adults, are you sure? Because that makes most of the population below average, which is just weird.

They are not below average, 10/11 is average. And yes, non-optimized real characters would have ability scores in the singles. Roll 3d6 six times(I rolled 10, 12, 8, 11, 8, 10 for example). Would some people be better, of course(second roll:14, 10, 9, 18, 8, 9).



And yes, someone who wants to be a guard would work out. You know, if a boy wants to be a guard, he'll probably spend a few years running laps and training with weapons. He will probably have above average strength, which equates to a 12-13. I'm not talking 18s here, I'm talking above average to a degree that is barely noticeable. The thief girl would have spent years picking pockets and evading policemen. She'd have decent dexterity, or she would have been caught long ago. People train for their professions. Not to say that some people can't be incompetent at their profession .Some certainly are. But most aren't.

Most are(trust me). This is where the additional points would come in and give them high scores.



The books seem to assume stats that come out about average. Monster stats for humanoid warriors seem to generally be made with the 13-8 array, and I prefer that one. I don't think many people in real life are perfectly average in all their qualities. Most people are a bit above average in some qualities (i.e. have a +1 in one of their six stats) and a bit below average in others (have a -1 in another stat).

I'm not saying everyone would be average, just most people. Some people will be more (again just roll 3d6 six times and see what you get).

[Coidzor]

OP: Magical Genetic Lottery + Nurture? Basically the same way that humans are intelligent or have innate dexterity in this existence but with magic as blanket term thrown into the mix.


Have you met many teens? 3 is quite high for a teen :) And you don't think a strength of 3 or 4 would be right for a teen girl?


Gamer Girl


GirlUm... Wat. :smallconfused:

[Eldan]

Actually, the perfectly average stat spread of 11,11,11,10,10,10 would be pretty unlikely. There are many, many more characters with plusses and minusses than average ones.

And I'm mainly complaining that you said 7 to 11 for adults. That makes an average of 9, so the average adult is below average? 7-14, I could understand, that would be a spread that averages to 10.5.

Also, no. Just no. 3 for teens? Too low. That gives them a maximum carriage capacity of 30 pounds. If they wear a backpack weighting 15 pounds, they are unable to walk or even crawl on all fours.

[Gamer Girl]

So my intelligence is 8? My dexterity 6? My strength 5-6? My constitution 5-6? Yeah, no.


Yes? If your a normal person.

[Talya]

If I'm not using an array (which I tend to use for convenience), I'd be very tempted to make generic NPC stats to be 3+3d4 rather than 3d6. The average is the same, but the result a bit less ... erratic. An ability score of 6 is pathetic (a 6 intelligence represents someone who has some kind of disability, though may be functional anyway), whereas a 15 is spectacular. (The average doctorate in astrophysics is going to be around 15 INT), so it should suffice for all but the most spectacularly good or bad of human specimens. And those outliers, you're probably making manually, for a reason.

[danzibr]

I never liked that most of the baddies in the MM all have 10's and 11's for their base stats.

[Eldan]

Monster manuals show average members of their species. Nothing is stopping you from changing those stats around.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yes? If your a normal person.

Then I must be exceptional. Because I'm 15, have about average reflexes, strength, and health, and am above average, but not exceptional, in intelligence.

Edit: Okay, my strength is probably 8, not 10, but that's really the one stat that does start out low and increase, although at a faster rate than you think.

[lsfreak]

Yes? If your a normal person.

That's not normal. That's severely below normal. A normal person has 10's across the board, as evidenced in the MM. Standard members of a race are 10's and 11's.

Also, people do match their profession to their strengths. If someone is not intelligent, they will not make it in astrophysics. Nor will someone with weak joints make it in football or marathon running. They're hurt themselves long before it gets to that point. They'll match their strengths, or they'll pick low-risk profession where skill doesn't matter - such as farming or manual labor, in a D&D world - or they'll end up hurt. In high-risk professions, the ones that are bad at it are simply killed. A weak soldier, a bad thief, whatever. They don't exist because those are dangerous professions that will end in a 3-foot drop and a broken neck if you suck at them.

[Talya]

Yes? If your a normal person.

That's not true.

In fact, people often score higher on standardized IQ tests as children than they later do as adults.

Of course, an undeveloped body (12-13 years old) is going to be less strong than a 24 year old body, on average. Other scores tend to increase with experience (wisdom).

Also remember, 10-11 is the average. That means half of people should be HIGHER than that. 11 is not some upper range. A person with 8 intelligence is an idiot. A person with 13 is rather witty.

[Coidzor]

Yes? If your a normal person.

Are... are you averaging together people as a mob template creature and people as individuals? :smallconfused:

[Knaight]

Have you met many teens? 3 is quite high for a teen :) And you don't think a strength of 3 or 4 would be right for a teen girl?

That gives a maximum heavy load of 30 or 40 pounds, respectively. I don't think I've ever met someone younger than 9 who couldn't carry 40 pounds around for a while. It's only 60 or 80 pounds for what can be barely lifted up off the ground and carried around. Given that carrying around someone close to your own weight isn't all that difficult, and most teenage girls do not weigh 60 to 80 pounds, that doesn't hold up. Then there is the medium load figure - at 11 or 14 pounds, one is significantly slowed down. I'm pretty sure your typical, standard issue backpack is often that weight or heavier, and generally wearing a backpack doesn't drastically slow one down.

[SaintRidley]

It's just weird to say that a kid somehow knows she has a high intelligence and becomes a wizard. Life just does not work like that.

First off, people might like something no matter there ability. A boy might always dream of being a warrior, but that does not automatically grant him an 18 in strength(or even a 15, or even a 13).

Yeah, that's an idea nobody's floated. You don't go "I want to be a wizard" and then suddenly 18 Int. You go "Hey, I'm pretty smart (15+ Int), I like studying, and magic looks cool. I'm going to try and be a wizard!"

And whatever circumstances prevent or facilitate that after that initial moment don't have anything to do with that.

Your orphan cleric doesn't go "I want to be a cleric!" Boom, 18 Wis. Then fire and "Crap, can't be a cleric. Guess I'm going Rogue. Stupid Wisdom, why couldn't you be Dexterity?"

Your orphan cleric goes "I feel a connection with [insert god here] (15+ Wis). I'd like to go into the clergy." Then fire, a couple levels of Rogue, and then either "Hey, don't need to be part of the church to spread the word. I've got people skills!" or "Still want to join the church. I feel a bit guilty over what I've had to do to get by, but I also learned some things that could help me be a good priest."

Basically, your understanding of things seems backwards.

[Coidzor]

That gives a maximum heavy load of 30 or 40 pounds, respectively. I don't think I've ever met someone younger than 9 who couldn't carry 40 pounds around for a while. It's only 60 or 80 pounds for what can be barely lifted up off the ground and carried around. Given that carrying around someone close to your own weight isn't all that difficult, and most teenage girls do not weigh 60 to 80 pounds, that doesn't hold up. Then there is the medium load figure - at 11 or 14 pounds, one is significantly slowed down. I'm pretty sure your typical, standard issue backpack is often that weight or heavier, and generally wearing a backpack doesn't drastically slow one down.

The 50-60 pounds of books plus the 10 or so pound backpack does seem to do so for schoolchildren though I couldn' say how much of that slowdown was from necessity and how much was from less physical reasons.

[Gnome Alone]

So my intelligence is 8? My dexterity 6? My strength 5-6? My constitution 5-6? Yeah, no.

"My Intelligence is FOUR?! Outrageous!! Give me that pen!"

[Ashtagon]

Then I must be exceptional. Because I'm 15, have about average reflexes, strength, and health, and am above average, but not exceptional, in intelligence.

Edit: Okay, my strength is probably 8, not 10, but that's really the one stat that does start out low and increase, although at a faster rate than you think.

If you think so.

It's been statistically shown that the young and the elderly are the first to drop in any plague. Which pretty much means both groups have below-average Constitution.

Intelligence? Maybe you are an outlier. I know I used to think I was a genius at 15. Then later on I started working as a teacher, and the number of 15 year olds who thought they wee also geniuses was truly astonishing. In Western society and the education system especially, children are generally not placed in situations where their lack of intelligence would put them at risk of disappointment.

You could be an outlier. Congratulations. But the base stats for children generally are certainly lower than for adults.

[Knaight]

It's been statistically shown that the young and the elderly are the first to drop in any plague. Which pretty much means both groups have below-average Constitution.

If you look at the young, there's a rapid decrease in mortality rates with increased age. If you're 15, you're as safe as an adult. If you're ten, you're almost as safe as an adult. If you're two or under, you are in extreme danger with any serious illness.


The 50-60 pounds of books plus the 10 or so pound backpack does seem to do so for schoolchildren though I couldn' say how much of that slowdown was from necessity and how much was from less physical reasons.
Not to the level being discussed here. We're talking about a reduction in speed to 1/6 the standard rate if you carry 70 pounds. That said, 50-60 pounds of books and a 10 pound backpack is absurd - the backpack is maybe 2 pounds, and the books in aggregate are likely in the 20-40 range, assuming high school students.

[Eugenides]

If you think so.

It's been statistically shown that the young and the elderly are the first to drop in any plague. Which pretty much means both groups have below-average Constitution.



Just saying, there are other factors at work here. There was a study that found that young people(teens) were more at risk to... it was some form of flue that went around a couple years back. I think it may even have been H1N1.

Anyway, they realized that older people seemed not to be as vulnerable, and then concluded that it must be a relation to an older influenza virus. Older people had been exposed to the previous version, their immune system recognized it and responded. Younger people did not have this response.

Basically, I'm pointing out that if you want to bring statistics and science into it, things get a LOT more complicated than just a constitution score.

[supermonkeyjoe]

If they have levels in an NPC class exclusively then standard array, one or more level in PC classes Nonelite array, if they are important or othewise exceptional in one or more areas, the elite array.

For pre-teens I'd say give them the Young Template (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1) otherwise, treat them as an adult, The idea that you aren't an adult until you are 18+ if a fairly modern notion.

[hoverfrog]

Don't forget that half of all people are below average. :smallsmile:

[zlefin]

NPC stats don't work in a regular way.
They're more like a quantum waveform system.
NPCs don't have any stats until they're observed by players (or DMs).
Observation causes their stats to gain fixed values; before that, they don't have values, just probability distributions.

[Eldan]

Not necessarily, no. We have a bell curve-like distribution, through, but one with discrete categories. If we define below average as 9 or less, giving a -1 modifier, then only about 38% of people are below average in any given stat.

[Anxe]

I agree with zlefin. Definitely a probability distribution that only collapses when observed. Then of course, the NPC has an indefinite speed because it's stats were observed, right?

[Eldan]

Well, yeah. That's how the commoner quantum railgun works.

[The Redwolf]

I agree with zlefin. Definitely a probability distribution that only collapses when observed. Then of course, the NPC has an indefinite speed because it's stats were observed, right?

And that speed would be the speed of plot, because if the players have taken notice they now must be plot relevant whether the DM wanted them to be or not. Let's face it, if they weren't plot relevant they wouldn't have been mentioned, right? And, since they're clearly important and now have defined stats, it's likely going to be one of the two higher arrays.

[Driderman]

All NPCs have a standard array of attributes until otherwise needed. Then their stats are decided by DM fiat.
NPCs whose stats are relevant for the game will be statted out beforehand, by DM fiat.

[Salanmander]

Have you met many teens? 3 is quite high for a teen :) And you don't think a strength of 3 or 4 would be right for a teen girl?



I have met many teens. I am a high school teacher. Last year I met somewhere between 150 and 160, and had most of those in my class for about 180 hours over the course of the year. They ranged in age from 13-15.

I don't have a good sense of their ability scores for a lot of things, but I can take a guess at strength and intelligence.

Strength: Almost all of my male students, and most of my female students, would be capable of picking me up. I weigh about 135 pounds. This puts their strength at at least 7. At least one of my students was strong enough to completely trounce me arm wrestling with no effort. I'm not particularly strong, but I'm not weak either, and I rock climb on a regular basis. I'd put my strength at 8-10, which probably puts his at 12-14.

Intelligence: I'm not super-awed with the intelligence of most of my students, but they're reasonably intelligent folk. The vast majority of them were able to use equations and other abstractions to describe the physical world. Many were bi-lingual, and those that weren't were learning a second language. The ones that were struggling in my class were struggling because of things like "having trouble dividing fractions". That does NOT indicate an int of 3. 3 is the MINIMUM HUMAN-LIKE INTELLIGENCE. At an int of 3 you have trouble speaking one language, let alone 2. Completely forget math beyond "I have 3 apples. If I get three more I'll have...[makes 3 marks on ground, makes 3 more marks on ground]...one two three four five....six apples!"

Now, teens don't generally have as much /knowledge/ as adults, but even judging them as if the knowledge were an inherent part of intelligence, and normalizing based on typical adult knowledge in the modern era, they'd probably all be in the 6-10 range. Possibly 6-12, I sometimes overestimate the knowledge of an average adult american.



tl;dr version: Saying people 13 years old have all their stats on the order of 3-4 is just insulting. In terms of physical and cognitive development, teens are very nearly fully developed.

[Doug Lampert]

tl;dr version: Saying people 13 years old have all their stats on the order of 3-4 is just insulting. In terms of physical and cognitive development, teens are very nearly fully developed.

MOST traditional coming of age rituals are set at 12-13 years old. Similarly for taking an apprenticeship premodern times and a bunch of other things. This goes across a huge range of cultures and times. A 13 year old is a young adult, not a child.

My niece wasn't much older than that when she started making good money tutoring college students in violin. She was less than 13 when she got her first debit card, and she was able to budget her purchases with that card.

Treating a teenager as a child is an insult (as you say above), and most teenagers correctly percieve it as such and react with entirely reasonable resentment and rebellion when unjustifiably treated as children. A fair number of teenagers will even admit that there ARE times when not treating them as full adults is still justified.

Even in our society someone who's 14 or so can run heavy farm equipment, fly an airplane (I don't think they can solo yet at that age), pilot a boat, and ride a motorcycle. They just can't drive a car on the public roads. (But they can drive a far larger and more dangerous combine harvester on the public roads arround here as long as they're going from one field to another.)

[RFLS]

My view:
Everyone is born with all stats at one. By the time the person is a teen (13) they will have stats of randomly 3-5. and by the time they were and adult(18) they would have 7-11 in stats.

...I don't think this demonstrates a grasp on how children work. For instance, I know many, many children who are smarter than their parents.


Have you met many teens? 3 is quite high for a teen :)

This is downright offensive, and causes me to question your grasp of the mechanics at hand. Saying that 3 is quite high is telling me that you think all 13 year old children are constantly sick, incapable of lifting anything, fumble anything they touch, are incapable of coming to a single common sense solution, are all special needs children, and are completely unlovable. That says to me that you either don't understand the mechanics of the ability score system, or you think children are terrible, terrible creatures.

EDIT:

Yes? If your a normal person.
Ah, here it is. Yeah, your grasp of the system is....frankly lacking. 5-6 is massively below average.

Which is funny, because I seem to remember you insisting in another thread that 10-11 was average. Now I'm confused as to what you actually think "normal" is.

[Gnome Alone]

MOST traditional coming of age rituals are set at 12-13 years old. Similarly for taking an apprenticeship premodern times and a bunch of other things. This goes across a huge range of cultures and times. A 13 year old is a young adult, not a child.

~more eloquent stuff~

Wow, I wanted to post basically what you just said, that first and quoted part anyway, but didn't know if I could do it justice and/or not violate that whole The Giant Doth Forbid the Discussing of the Real World and the Politics and Also the Religion thing. (Always a little confusing for me when to cut off such topics before they cross the line, what with the interconnectedness of all things, and such.) Anyway, bravo.

[Devmaar]

Intelligence: I'm not super-awed with the intelligence of most of my students, but they're reasonably intelligent folk. The vast majority of them were able to use equations and other abstractions to describe the physical world. Many were bi-lingual, and those that weren't were learning a second language. The ones that were struggling in my class were struggling because of things like "having trouble dividing fractions". That does NOT indicate an int of 3. 3 is the MINIMUM HUMAN-LIKE INTELLIGENCE. At an int of 3 you have trouble speaking one language, let alone 2. Completely forget math beyond "I have 3 apples. If I get three more I'll have...[makes 3 marks on ground, makes 3 more marks on ground]...one two three four five....six apples!"

By the rules of the game, any 16 year old Human Commoner who is bilingual has at least 12 INT.

[nedz]

By the rules of the game, any 16 year old Human Commoner who is bilingual has at least 12 INT.

So to turn that around: No Human Commoner, built with the standard array [11, ..., 10] can be bilingual. Good job everyone speaks common then :smalltongue:

[Eldan]

By the rules of the game, any 16 year old Human Commoner who is bilingual has at least 12 INT.

Unless they spent their skill points on Speak Language.

Which, you know, might be reasonable. Instead of spending skills on Profession (Farmer), modern kids spend them on Literacy, Speak Language and Knowledge skills.

Modern kid:
10 intelligence gives you 12 skill points at level 1.
2: Literacy
2: Speak Language
1 each in: Knowledge (local, history, geography, religion, nature, mathematics)
2 for whatever else they want to learn. Perform, probably, or a craft.

Medieval commoner boy:
Puts an 8 in intelligence, to get a 12 in a physical stat or wisdom. He'll probably need it.
4 points in Profession (farmer)
2 points in Handle Animal
1 point in Survival
1 point in Craft (whatever).

[Salanmander]

Unless they spent their skill points on Speak Language.

Which, you know, might be reasonable. Instead of spending skills on Profession (Farmer), modern kids spend them on Literacy, Speak Language and Knowledge skills.

Modern kid:
10 intelligence gives you 12 skill points at level 1.
2: Literacy
2: Speak Language
1 each in: Knowledge (local, history, geography, religion, nature, mathematics)
2 for whatever else they want to learn. Perform, probably, or a craft.

Medieval commoner boy:
Puts an 8 in intelligence, to get a 12 in a physical stat or wisdom. He'll probably need it.
4 points in Profession (farmer)
2 points in Handle Animal
1 point in Survival
1 point in Craft (whatever).

This is getting pretty off topic, but I honestly feel like the best class to model typical people going through the education system in the modern developed world is expert, not commoner. I mean, that's what experts /are/ in D&D settings: educated commoners.

[nedz]

4 points in Profession (farmer) is a bit useless in a world with self resetting Create Food traps.:smalltongue:

[MukkTB]

I almost get the feeling that NPCs can't have nice things. Not only do the NPC classes suck but people on the board don't seem to like seeing NPCs with stats that don't totally blow. And this is supported by the poorer stat arrays in the books.

When I run a game I assume there is a smooth continuum of competence that runs from crippled Hobos to peasant farmers to skilled professionals to heroes like the PCs to heroes that have accomplished more than the PCs. (At least when the PCs are lower level. When the PCs are level 3 I assume that somewhere out there in the world chances are a lvl 5 adventuring party exists. There might be a lvl 8 hero wandering around out there.)

Some people on the board seems to hold that there are 4 kinds of people; The player character heroes, buffed NPCs the DM has introduced as plot points, Villains, and weak useless NPCs that must be terrible. What I don't like about this attitude is the effect it has on the world building. Players in this world then assume:
#1 The PC party is the most important people in the world.
#2 Any NPC who knows how to find his ass with his hands was seeded by the DM for some reason.
#3 Only the villains and the PCs will do anything that matters.
These assumptions kill immersion for me when the game isn't about the PC Chosen Ones saving the world. The Low Fantasy stuff. I come from a simulationist background.

[Reluctance]

Irrelevant. You're not trying to plot out the life path of random characters from birth here. When you have a role that needs casting, the NPC who fills it is the one with the capabilities and drive to end up there. If they didn't have the stats, they wouldn't be there.

[Slipperychicken]

Well, when a mommy NPC and a daddy NPC love each other veeery much, they pray to the Dungeon Master to bless them with a child. If their prayers are good, and their hearts pure, the DM will swoop in during the night and delivers a newborn baby to their front door. Most NPCs are born without stats, and only the luckiest of NPCs get stats at all! While the DM is still making babies in his Baby-Factory, he may assign ability scores by rolling 3d6 or using the Standard Array, while some truly blessed souls will be blessed with Elite Array stats and a few levels in PC classes.

[Eldan]

I almost get the feeling that NPCs can't have nice things. Not only do the NPC classes suck but people on the board don't seem to like seeing NPCs with stats that don't totally blow. And this is supported by the poorer stat arrays in the books.

When I run a game I assume there is a smooth continuum of competence that runs from crippled Hobos to peasant farmers to skilled professionals to heroes like the PCs to heroes that have accomplished more than the PCs. (At least when the PCs are lower level. When the PCs are level 3 I assume that somewhere out there in the world chances are a lvl 5 adventuring party exists. There might be a lvl 8 hero wandering around out there.)

Some people on the board seems to hold that there are 4 kinds of people; The player character heroes, buffed NPCs the DM has introduced as plot points, Villains, and weak useless NPCs that must be terrible. What I don't like about this attitude is the effect it has on the world building.d.

Not necessarily. I'm just saying that people have, on average, a 10 or 11 in their stats with the occasional +1 or -1. Simply because the system explicitely spells this out as the base state, gives it the +0 modifier, uses it for all monster entries and it is the statistically most likely result.
Now, PCs will often be a bit better than the norm, because, well, most players want to play extraordinary people. That does not have to mean that they need 18s and 16s and no stat under 14, however, the way some people here seem to like it. I've seen perfectly playable PCs with 14s and 12s and the occasional 6.

It's not, I think, that people assume NPCs have to suck. They assume that PCs need to be superspecialawesomemegatastic. See also the weekly "I want to play a Level 30 tristalt character, please GM for me" threads in the PbP forum.

[Dr Bwaa]

About NPCs being below-average on average: well, they most likely are.

Consider that the average of all (base) ability scores is 10.5. Now, we know that PCs (by the standard creation guidelines as I remember them; I'm afb) have at least a total modifier of +2. Most have much more than this, but it's at least +2 (for an ability score total of 64), which means the average PC ability score is no less than 10.667. Again, most are much higher (as a +2 net ability modifier is completely unfeasible in most games as a PC).

If the average PC's ability score is 10.667 (again, using the lowest (3.5) available possibility--even simply using the elite array gives us an average PC ability score of 12), then in order to make the global average ability score 10.5, the average NPC score must be at least fractionally lower than 10.5, depending on the ratio of PCs to NPCs in the world. 9 is probably too low for that average, though, unless the world is very sparse or if you don't count important-to-the-plot NPCs as NPCs, in which case you've got PCs (>10.5), ImportantNPCs (>10.5?) and NPCs (<10.5), with the NPC average falling off, again, as their ratio drops.

And even though this seems to be the consensus already: 3-4 is WAY too low for anyone over the age of, like five, even in STR. My kid sister is four and I have watched her lift and carry (for a couple steps anyway) a suitcase weighing over fifty pounds. Saying a 13-year-old can't lift a 30-pound backpack over her head is, as others have said, insulting.



...I'm really off-topic, aren't I? If the NPC is likely to interact with the PCs in a meaningful, rolls-required way, they get std or elite array. If they're actually important (BBEG, etc), they get rolls as though they were PCs. If they don't fit either of these categories, they don't get stats, and I'll treat them as having 10x5 and one 12 if it comes up.

[Gamer Girl]

Also, people do match their profession to their strengths. If someone is not intelligent, they will not make it in astrophysics. Nor will someone with weak joints make it in football or marathon running. They're hurt themselves long before it gets to that point. They'll match their strengths, or they'll pick low-risk profession where skill doesn't matter - such as farming or manual labor, in a D&D world - or they'll end up hurt. In high-risk professions, the ones that are bad at it are simply killed. A weak soldier, a bad thief, whatever. They don't exist because those are dangerous professions that will end in a 3-foot drop and a broken neck if you suck at them.

Yet the world is full of weak soldiers, bad thieves, bad actors and such. Not every single security guard is a six foot mass of muscle that can dead lift 500 pounds. And there are plenty of weak football players or ones with bad dexterity(though not in the NFL too much as they simply don't let them join). And there are tons and tons of 'just barley smart' scientists types.

And sure, people hurt themselves every day...that's life.


And most people will always think that they have like an '18' in any ability they think is cool. All most everyone thinks they are smarter then everyone else. Most guys that can pick up a car battery think they are the reincarnation of Hercules. Most women that own a little black dress think they are movie stars.

[Gamer Girl]

Some people on the board seems to hold that there are 4 kinds of people; The player character heroes, buffed NPCs the DM has introduced as plot points, Villains, and weak useless NPCs that must be terrible.


Well, I'm not one of them people. I'm an Old School gamer.

My world only has one type of people: the people. Some are great, some are average and some are not so great.

My world does not have 'heroes', but simply has 'people that are doing something'. In my game PC's don't have to have ultra high ability scores to have fun. For example Zinfag the wizard only has an intelligence of 12. and the thief Resta Blunderfoot has a dexterity of 7. My world is not made up of the ''I must optimize to have fun'' players.

[RFLS]

Yet the world is full of weak soldiers, bad thieves, bad actors and such. Not every single security guard is a six foot mass of muscle that can dead lift 500 pounds. And there are plenty of weak football players or ones with bad dexterity(though not in the NFL too much as they simply don't let them join). And there are tons and tons of 'just barley smart' scientists types.

And sure, people hurt themselves every day...that's life.


And most people will always think that they have like an '18' in any ability they think is cool. All most everyone thinks they are smarter then everyone else. Most guys that can pick up a car battery think they are the reincarnation of Hercules. Most women that own a little black dress think they are movie stars.

@Soldiers- Once again, that's just...wrong. Modern military forces put their soldiers (even the non-combat ones) through massive amounts of conditioning. Your average soldier is far more fit that your average person.

You seem to be confusing "things people do for fun, or as a part time job" with "things people are paid to do for a living." Something you do for fun or to get by is not necessarily your strong suit. As for your assertion that people always assume the best of themselves.... For a certain kind of person, that's true. On the other hand, there are people who have a decent grasp on reality in general, and don't deceive themselves.

You still haven't answered why you seem to think that children are slobbering, mentally handicapped, medical messes.

EDIT:

Well, I'm not one of them people. I'm an Old School gamer.

My world only has one type of people: the people. Some are great, some are average and some are not so great.

My world does not have 'heroes', but simply has 'people that are doing something'. In my game PC's don't have to have ultra high ability scores to have fun. For example Zinfag the wizard only has an intelligence of 12. and the thief Resta Blunderfoot has a dexterity of 7. My world is not made up of the ''I must optimize to have fun'' players.

....okay? You seem to have an almost paranoid fear of optimization. It's just how some people play, and it's not inherently better or worse that any other style of play. No one will (well, no one should) give you cr** about your playstyle, either.

[Urpriest]

Old School Gamers realize that the rules are subservient to simulationism and play experience. If you've got a Cleric 5 who's only got Wis 12 and thus can't cast 3rd level spells, then a real Old School Gamer would stat them out as an Adept 5 instead. You need to use the rules to represent what's going on in-game, not vice versa.

[GenghisDon]

DMG II allows for Prodigy NPCs with an extra +2 to an ability score. With that in mind, I'd say that the distribution of NPC ability scores does not follow 3d6 in order (being as that is mostly a legacy from previous editions anyway), but rather has some other, largely unknown distribution. As additional evidence, remember that Vecna was once a human lich, and 40HD later has Str 24, Dex 24, Int 43, Wis 35, Cha 29. Assuming that he's got +5 inherent bonuses to all ability scores and put all his ability increases into Int this means his base scores were Str 19, Dex 19, Int 26, Wis 28, Cha 22, with enough Con to survive to accomplish all that he did. So clearly ability scores can vary beyond those available to players.

What Vecna clearly shows is stat inflation at it's worst, a late d20 specialty, sadly.

[nedz]

Old School Gamers realize that the rules are subservient to simulationism and play experience. If you've got a Cleric 5 who's only got Wis 12 and thus can't cast 3rd level spells, then a real Old School Gamer would stat them out as an Adept 5 instead. You need to use the rules to represent what's going on in-game, not vice versa.

Unless you are trying to simulate the Peter Principle, then Cleric 5 is perfect.

[DrakeRaids]

So my intelligence is 8? My dexterity 6? My strength 5-6? My constitution 5-6? Yeah, no.

You could cut the irony with a knife

[Mithril Leaf]

You could cut the irony with a knife

The mere fact that he could fabricate such a sentence and type it out on a keyboard certifies that his abilities aren't that low.



Well, I'm not one of them people. I'm an Old School gamer.

My world only has one type of people: the people. Some are great, some are average and some are not so great.

My world does not have 'heroes', but simply has 'people that are doing something'. In my game PC's don't have to have ultra high ability scores to have fun. For example Zinfag the wizard only has an intelligence of 12. and the thief Resta Blunderfoot has a dexterity of 7. My world is not made up of the ''I must optimize to have fun'' players.

I suppose it makes sense that literally everyone in your world is below average in intelligence if someone who is completely terrible at doing everything involved with theft goes into such a business. It is assumed in the rules that people are halfway proficient at their jobs. What you're doing isn't not optimizing, it's purposely crippling people. Which may be fun for you, but it's in no way closer to the way the game is by default then having everyone with a well aligned elite array would be.

[Zale]

Yet the world is full of weak soldiers, bad thieves, bad actors and such. Not every single security guard is a six foot mass of muscle that can dead lift 500 pounds. And there are plenty of weak football players or ones with bad dexterity(though not in the NFL too much as they simply don't let them join). And there are tons and tons of 'just barley smart' scientists types.

And sure, people hurt themselves every day...that's life.


Actually, I'm fairly certain that a very weak or unhealthy person would be turned away if they volunteered for the army. Even if accepted, they would probably have to train an awful lot.

Bad thieves tend to get arrested.. Bad Actors rarely get many parts..

People are expected to be decent at whatever they do. If they want to make a living, that is.

Can't expect me to make a living doing something if I'm terrible at it.

So, yes, I expect a wizard to be rather smart and a rogue to be quick on their feet. It comes with the job description.

[Mnemnosyne]

I think people have widely differing conceptions on what particular ability scores actually mean, which is what leading to a lot of this disagreement.

From what I can tell, by 3.5 standards, the average person will probably have ability scores between 8 and 12. That ranges from a -1 penalty to a +1 bonus. Anything beyond this range is exceptional; either exceptionally bad, or exceptionally good. To have a Strength of 7 or less you must not only be kind of weak, you must be unusually weak, for a human. Not crippling weakness yet, mind you - that's probably reserved to strength of 5 or below - but you've probably got something wrong with you beyond simply 'not working out'.

In 2nd Edition, the range of 'average' was much larger. If you look at most scores, you didn't start hitting negative modifiers until 5 or 6. Take Dexterity, for example. A thief with 7 dexterity (something that is not normally possible: the thief's prime requisite is dexterity, and requires a minimum of 9, so to have a 7 he must have lost at least 2 points of dexterity in some manner) is exactly as effective as a thief with 14 dexterity, except when they need to make a dexterity check. But it has no effect on their armor class, ranged attack, or initiative, and doesn't affect their thieving skills at all, or their ability to backstab. The entire range between those two scores has exactly the same value - no adjustment. You need to hit 6 dex for it to start making your AC worse, and 15 for it to start making AC better. We have a similar case in Constitution, where outside of system shock and resurrection survival (two rolls that average people probably never have to make), there is no difference in Constitution between 7 and 14. You need to hit 6 to start having your HP penalized, and 15 to start gaining bonus HP. Intelligence is, for anyone who isn't a wizard, identical between 2 and 8. At 9, you get a second language known. Most people were probably assumed to have between 2 and 8 intelligence, because they were probably not assumed to be bilingual! Strength varies only on carry weight between 8 and 15, Wisdom has no real influence on common people (because the only thing that varies which affects anyone who isn't a divine caster is a saving throw bonus/penalty vs. certain mind-affecting spells).

For a 2nd Edition common person, the most important stat is probably Strength, followed by Charisma; 8 and below causes their employees to be less loyal, and 7 and below causes everyone to react more negatively to them. A commoner in 2nd Edition can have a 1 in Wisdom and it won't have a real impact on them, as low as a 2 Intelligence and it won't have much of an impact, and their dexterity and constitution can be 7. So a guy with stats of 9 Str, 7 Dex, 7 Con, 5 Int, 5 Wis, and 9 Cha is a perfectly average dude. There's nothing crippling about those scores. Even for a player character fighter that's not horribad, because the PC fighter will wind up depending on Gauntlets of Ogre Power that fix his Strength to 18/00, or a Girdle of Giant Strength, that fixes his strength to 19 or higher. But you know what? The guy that started with 16 in Strength is in exactly the same boat, because he too depends on the gauntlets/girdle to get his strength up, and the only combat advantage he has over the guy with 9 strength is the fact that he has a +1 to damage. That's it.

The thing is, in 3.5, even a 9 in a score gives you negatives. That huge range of 'no effect' there was in 2nd Edition is thinned down to 10 and 11. If we're looking at 'average people' in the 2nd Edition sense where their scores have no meaningful effect on them, we would have to adjust all those scores to 10 or 11.

[Knaight]

Yet the world is full of weak soldiers, bad thieves, bad actors and such. Not every single security guard is a six foot mass of muscle that can dead lift 500 pounds. And there are plenty of weak football players or ones with bad dexterity(though not in the NFL too much as they simply don't let them join). And there are tons and tons of 'just barley smart' scientists types.
Putting aside how the world is not, in fact, full of weak professional soldiers, we're talking about statistical distribution patterns. The existence of the occasional weak soldier, bad thief, or bad actor means little, and when you're looking at a world population of 7+ billion, you can have a fair few of these before they start having a meaningful effect on the averages. Case in point:
https://controls.engin.umich.edu/wiki/images/c/cf/Change-mean-of-data-set.gif
As you can see, there are two bell curves there, both of which are technically unbounded on the x axis. There are points encompassed within the red bell curve that are much lower than those within the blue bell curve, even if you cut the graph off at a little over one standard deviation. If you look at things like the strength of bouncers relative to the population at large, you will probably get something that looks like that curve. That much is simply realism. Now, why is it, exactly, that this somehow wouldn't be the case for clerics in a fictional world?

Granted, once D&D modeling gets in, it gets a bit weird. The data are discrete and bounded, which basically means that what you actually get is closer to two pairs of skewed curves with different averages that cover the same range.

[Gnome Alone]

I think people have widely differing conceptions on what particular ability scores actually mean, which is what leading to a lot of this disagreement.

I can't comment on the (pretty interesting) AD&D stuff you said, since I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with it, but this is a good point and brings to mind a question I have. Earlier in the thread, Talya said this:


An ability score of 6 is pathetic (a 6 intelligence represents someone who has some kind of disability, though may be functional anyway), whereas a 15 is spectacular. (The average doctorate in astrophysics is going to be around 15 INT), so it should suffice for all but the most spectacularly good or bad of human specimens.

and it got me wondering, okay, how does one figure that an astrophysicist has INT 15, for instance? Aside from the messiness inherent in trying to assign a numerical score in to intelligence in the first place, what astrophysics knowledge or practice or whatever can be simulated in the game assuming INT 15? Are we just assuming that the positive or negative stat modifiers represent one standard deviation apiece? I guess all the physical stats are pretty measurable in the real world (though dexterity is a little tricky) but I find it really hard to pinpoint the mental stats. I don't know what my own stats would be, and I mean, look at my avatar/name, I'm an open-book, cartoon character of a human being, it should be easy enough. I don't know that I'm expressing this very well. Anyone help me out?

[Gnome Alone]

I think people have widely differing conceptions on what particular ability scores actually mean, which is what leading to a lot of this disagreement.

I can't comment on the (pretty interesting) AD&D stuff you said, since I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with it, but this is a good point and brings to mind a question I have. Earlier in the thread, Talya said this:


An ability score of 6 is pathetic (a 6 intelligence represents someone who has some kind of disability, though may be functional anyway), whereas a 15 is spectacular. (The average doctorate in astrophysics is going to be around 15 INT), so it should suffice for all but the most spectacularly good or bad of human specimens.

and it got me wondering, okay, how does one figure that an astrophysicist has INT 15, for instance? Aside from the messiness inherent in trying to assign a numerical score in to intelligence in the first place, what astrophysics knowledge or practice or whatever can be simulated in the game assuming INT 15? Are we just assuming that the positive or negative stat modifiers represent one standard deviation apiece? I guess all the physical stats are pretty measurable in the real world (though dexterity is a little tricky) but I find it really hard to pinpoint the mental stats. I don't know what my own stats would be, and I mean, look at my avatar, I'm an open book, cartoon character of a human being, it should be easy enough. I don't know that I'm expressing this very well. Anyone help me out?

[Water_Bear]

Um, not sure about older editions, but in 3.5 it's like this;

Standard: 11 (+0), 11 (+0), 11 (+0), 10 (+0), 10 (+0), 10 (+0)

Non-Elite: 13 (+1), 12 (+1), 11 (+0), 10 (+0), 9 (-1), 8 (-1)

The Standard Array is the default; almost all monsters and most non-heroic NPCs will end up with the Standard array.

The Non-Elite Array is identical, in terms of point buy anyway, but offers more variation in the scores. The SRD advises that it be used to add color to otherwise boring NPCs and Monsters.

Elite: 15 (+2), 14 (+2), 13 (+1), 12 (+1), 10 (+0), 8 (-1)

Pretty much any NPC with PC class levels has the Elite Array, and the SRD suggests using it for unusually able opponents. The elite array is actually the equivalent to a 25pt buy, which is (according to WotC's notoriously bad math) supposed to be the average result of using 4d6b3 to generate ability scores.



Ability scores, like classes feats and skills, are abstractions. I don't think it really takes away from the verisimilitude to say that the majority of people (~90%) have the Standard or Non-Elite Arrays; they are slightly better and worse in some ways, but roughly the same. The exceptional people with the Elite Array are those people who distinguish themselves through natural ability or training and are noticeably more able than their fellows.