Exceptional Strength

[dhusarra]

hello.i want to ask something.say that someone have 17 str and from a buff he receives +2 str. he will go 19 str or he will go 18 and then roll for exceptional str any character that have even wizard, thief etc. my question is that 18 strength counts as "steps"?
the same goes and for the other stats?for example con.if someone have 18 and from one spell or psionic can enhance it for 3 points will go 21 or the max is 18?and only from items or specifically transformation goes above 18?

[LibraryOgre]

Up to your DM. I tend to have Strength bonuses climb up the categories of exceptional strength (i.e. 17->18->18/50), but that's not the canon method, and different bonuses specify different things.

[veti]

Early editions left a lot more to the DM's discretion than the more modern ones...

The only 'canon' I can remember, and I may be misremembering this, is from a 1e effect description that said each +1 past 18 was equivalent to adding +10 to the /nn bonus. So a character who starts with 17 STR and gets a +4 bonus, has a temporary effective STR of 18/30.

I think Mark's answer, above, makes better sense than this.

[Rhynn]

Up to your DM. I tend to have Strength bonuses climb up the categories of exceptional strength (i.e. 17->18->18/50), but that's not the canon method, and different bonuses specify different things.

I, too, agree with and endorse this method (and would be using it if I was running AD&D).

For other abilities, unless a limit is specifically stated (e.g. racial limits apply, whatever), then the limit is 25, I figure.

[The Grue]

I've never understood why the rules for high strength scores were different than for every other attribute.

[Rhynn]

I've never understood why the rules for high strength scores were different than for every other attribute.

Short answer: Strength is different because percentile Strength was added to the rules later on, and because of a desire to differentiate between Fighters and non-Fighters in Strength.

Long answer: AD&D rules were created by accretion from actual campaigns, rather than by game designers working on a system. Gary Gygax basically compiled the rules he was using to produce AD&D.

In Original D&D, ability scores played a much more limited role, mechanically; they might inform how you'd play a character and how the DM might rule things, but the main mechanical effect was that Strength, Intelligence, and Wisdom determined the experience bonus/penalty for Fighting-Men, Magic Users, and Clerics, respectively.

Other than that, the effects of ability scores in OD&D were as follows:

Intelligence 11+ meant you could learn extra languages.
Constitution 15+ gave you +1 hp per HD, and average or low Constitution gave you an undefined "chance of survival."
Dexterity over 12 or under 9 gave you +1 or -1 to firing missiles.
Charisma determined your maximum number of hireling and hireling loyalty.


Note that, very prominently, high Strength had no effect on attack rolls or damage.

Then Supplement I: Greyhawk (Gygax's campaign supplement) introduced tables for Strength, Constitution, and Intelligence (but not Dexterity or Wisdom) quite similar to those used in AD&D, as well as percentile strength for Fighters.

The idea, obviously, was to limit non-fighters to Strength 18 (+2 to hit, +3 to damage), but allow fighters to go up to +4 to hit, +4 to damage if they were really lucky with their rolls.

Note that ability scores over 18 were not described in the AD&D 1E PHB (except for Exceptional Strength). The DMG has Strength up to 24 in the description of the girdle of giant strength. Unearthed Arcana acknowledged higher ability scores in the tables for demihuman maximum levels, but I, at least, can't find a table to tell me, for instance, what Dexterity 19+ or Intelligence 19+ does for you otherwise.

Oriental Adventures lists Strength 19 on the general Strength table, for korobokuru. (Also, Comeliness.)

So, AD&D 2E introducing tables that go up to 25 for all ability scores was a new thing, but they didn't change how Strength worked (well, the numbers may have been jiggled a little); 19-24 were kept for giants, 25 was given to titans, and Exceptional Strength was kept.

[veti]

Note that ability scores over 18 were not described in the AD&D 1E PHB (except for Exceptional Strength). The DMG has Strength up to 24 in the description of the girdle of giant strength. Unearthed Arcana acknowledged higher ability scores in the tables for demihuman maximum levels, but I, at least, can't find a table to tell me, for instance, what Dexterity 19+ or Intelligence 19+ does for you otherwise.

You'll find those bonuses in Deities & Demigods. Superhuman CON gives you (slow) regeneration, INT and WIS give you bonus spells (and maybe some immunities, don't recall), DEX continues to improve AC and missile attack. CHA was a bit disappointing - superhuman CHA has an associated Awe effect, but as I recall, that was restricted to gods only for some reason.

[Rhynn]

You'll find those bonuses in Deities & Demigods. Superhuman CON gives you (slow) regeneration, INT and WIS give you bonus spells (and maybe some immunities, don't recall), DEX continues to improve AC and missile attack. CHA was a bit disappointing - superhuman CHA has an associated Awe effect, but as I recall, that was restricted to gods only for some reason.

Ah, the one book I didn't check!

Okay, so 2E just smashed them into the PHB, basically.

[Jay R]

I've never understood why the rules for high strength scores were different than for every other attribute.

To make fighters more bad-ass. Percentile strength pre-dated any scores above 18.

[Jigawatts]

It also contributed to Fighters being one of the most popular classes in AD&D. If someone managed to roll an 18, putting it into strength and choosing to play a fighter (or another warrior type, if you had the stats for it) was just so damn tempting. I don't know if this was a by-product or the intended result, but I do know that an exceptional strength roll was a big deal in our group, everyone would gather around to witness it, cheering the success of a high roll or offering condolences for a low one (I have a buddy who actually rolled a 01 one time).

[veti]

What bugged me most about it, I think, was: why couldn't fighters have a strength of 18?

You could have a perfectly good fighter with a strength of 16 or 17, no bother. But at 18, apparently it became "unstable" and had to be increased. Weird.

[Ravens_cry]

You'll find those bonuses in Deities & Demigods. Superhuman CON gives you (slow) regeneration, INT and WIS give you bonus spells (and maybe some immunities, don't recall), DEX continues to improve AC and missile attack. CHA was a bit disappointing - superhuman CHA has an associated Awe effect, but as I recall, that was restricted to gods only for some reason.
Having really good intelligence gave you immunity to increasing levels of illusion and phantasm spells (basically making a whole subclass worse than Truenamer useless) and high Wisdom gave you a growing laundry list of spells that you were immune to.

[Rhynn]

Having really good intelligence gave you immunity to increasing levels of illusion and phantasm spells (basically making a whole subclass worse than Truenamer useless) and high Wisdom gave you a growing laundry list of spells that you were immune to.

Well, those were for gods... seems pretty mild for gods only to be immune to some spells.

How exactly are Illusionists useless if gods and their avatars are immune to low-level (or, in some cases, even higher-level) illusions?

[Ravens_cry]

Well, those were for gods... seems pretty mild for gods only to be immune to some spells.

How exactly are Illusionists useless if gods and their avatars are immune to low-level (or, in some cases, even higher-level) illusions?
It says nothing that I can see that indicates these only apply to such, it merely says 'beings of very high wisdom' and 'beings of very high intelligence'. Yes, this is in the Deities and Demigods book, but the same glossary also explains frequency, armour class, hit dice, and other mundane matters.

[Rhynn]

It says nothing that I can see that indicates these only apply to such, it merely says 'beings of very high wisdom' and 'beings of very high intelligence'. Yes, this is in the Deities and Demigods book, but the same glossary also explains frequency, armour class, hit dice, and other mundane matters.

So how does a non-deity get such high scores, especially so regularly that Illusionists become a worthless class? (And even if PCs can, how do so many NPCs and monsters get them?)

The PHB tells us ability score maximums after racial adjustments, and the highest of those is 19 (Constitution for dwarves, halflings, and half-orcs).

[Ravens_cry]

So how does a non-deity get such high scores, especially so regularly that Illusionists become a worthless class? (And even if PCs can, how do so many NPCs and monsters get them?)

The PHB tells us ability score maximums after racial adjustments, and the highest of those is 19 (Constitution for dwarves, halflings, and half-orcs).
Well, when I said useless I didn't mean all the time in general, I meant 'in those particular fights', which still stings quite a bit. Also, not every race has mental score maximums and magic items can increase mental stats.

[hamlet]

Well, when I said useless I didn't mean all the time in general, I meant 'in those particular fights', which still stings quite a bit. Also, not every race has mental score maximums and magic items can increase mental stats.

The point remains though. How often, if ever, do you face such beings in combat? Better than ninety-nine percent of all beings you face ever during a decade long plus campaign will be wholly susceptible to such spells.

It doesn't make Illusionists useless any more than magic resistance makes magic users useless.

[Ravens_cry]

The point remains though. How often, if ever, do you face such beings in combat? Better than ninety-nine percent of all beings you face ever during a decade long plus campaign will be wholly susceptible to such spells.

It doesn't make Illusionists useless any more than magic resistance makes magic users useless.
Magic resistance still gives a chance, however slim (except at 100% of course), and they can still do things like buff up the party or potentially (depending on how your DM plays AD&D magic resistance) use environmental effects. But the illusionist is literally reduced to the cheering section in those fights.

[Rhynn]

But the illusionist is literally reduced to the cheering section in those fights.

Uh, right.

At Int 25, 8th and 9th level illusions still work. Going backwards from that, you get more and more levels of illusions that work. If your illusionist doesn't have high enough a level of spells, he probably shouldn't be involved in fighting gods, huh? And only a minority of the gods have Int 25 (or 24 for that matter).

So for a small subset of an exceedingly rare scenario, a subset of Illusionists can't use their spells against the god itself (but can use them against any divine minions etc.).

Sidenote: 100% MR isn't 100% in 1E; for every level the magic-user is above 11th, you reduce effective MR by 5%. (And, of course, for every level below 11th, you add 5%.)

Edit: Also, the notion that everyone must contribute in every single fight is nonsense, obviously. The Illusionist can do his part by getting the party to that ultra-rare god-fight with less trouble.

[veti]

Well, when I said useless I didn't mean all the time in general, I meant 'in those particular fights', which still stings quite a bit. Also, not every race has mental score maximums and magic items can increase mental stats.

There are very few items that increase mental stats, and if I recall correctly most of them specify that they won't increase you past 18 anyway. I think the only realistic way for a non-god to get there was by age bonuses, and even they would cap out.


At Int 25, 8th and 9th level illusions still work. Going backwards from that, you get more and more levels of illusions that work. If your illusionist doesn't have high enough a level of spells, he probably shouldn't be involved in fighting gods, huh? And only a minority of the gods have Int 25 (or 24 for that matter).

Unfortunately, illusionist spells only go up to level 7.

But yeah, you're not really supposed to be fighting those beings anyway. That's sort of the point, I think.

[Rhynn]

Unfortunately, illusionist spells only go up to level 7.

Oops, my bad. Definitely more of an issue, but I guess you just shouldn't try to fool Anu or Quatzalcoatl with illusions, then...


I think the only realistic way for a non-god to get there was by age bonuses, and even they would cap out.

In 1E, only Wisdom can exceed 18 from aging effects (DMG page 13). I had to look that up - I thought all ability scores were subject to that, but Wisdom is the exception. However, it's also stated (same page) that racial maximums limit the adjustments as well, and no race is allowed a Wisdom higher than 18. (Although humans have no stated maximums, so... I guess human Wisdom can go up to 21 from age?)

It does look like GG intended for wishes to be able to take you past 18, though (DMG page 11), but that's 10 wishes to raise a natural 18 to 19...

In 2E, no such limitation is stated in the PHB, so you could get to Int 20, Wis 21 (plus any racial modifiers, e.g. Int 21 for a grey elf). Of course, the issue doesn't exist in 2E, since Illusionists are just specialist wizards and can learn non-illusion spells.

[CE DM]

hello.i want to ask something.say that someone have 17 str and from a buff he receives +2 str. he will go 19 str or he will go 18 and then roll for exceptional str any character that have even wizard, thief etc. my question is that 18 strength counts as "steps"?
the same goes and for the other stats?for example con.if someone have 18 and from one spell or psionic can enhance it for 3 points will go 21 or the max is 18?and only from items or specifically transformation goes above 18?

It depends on the "buff". Usually a maximum applies, or a step/category over 18 or % over 18 is applied (strength spell uses 10% per point over 18 when cast on warriors, for example, or wood/sylvan elves gain +1 STR at character creation, but have a maximum of 18)

The same goes for other stats; often 18 (or the racial max) is a cap, but by no means always. It varies case by case. Low level/low power effects or items generally aren't going to break the 18/or racial cap, higher power ones very often can or do (such as a manual of bodily health or tome of clear thought)

Exceptional STR rolls only apply to warrior classes, although a non warrior may be able to acquire 18X% STR via magic sometimes (such as a cleric or thief wearing gauntlets of ogre power) or casting the L4 Improved Strength spell (see PO:S&M pg 145-146)