DARP D&D Character Sheet/Abilities

Ability Scores
Much of what your character does in the game depends on his or her six abilities:


 * Strength; measuring physical power
 * Dexterity; measuring agility and your spellcasting ability
 * Constitution; measuring endurance and your hitpoints
 * Intelligence; measuring reasoning and memory
 * Wisdom; measuring reasoning and memory
 * Charisma; measuring force of personality

Each of a creature’s abilities has a score, a number that defines the magnitude of that ability. An ability score is not just a measure of innate capabilities, but also encompasses a creature’s training and competence in activities related to that ability.

A score of 10 or 11 is the normal human average, but adventurers and many monsters are a cut above average in most abilities. A score of 18 is the highest that a person usually reaches. Adventurers can have scores as high as 20, and monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30.

Determining Ability Scores
There are two main ways you can determine a character's ability scores, outlined below:

Randomly Assigning
You generate your character’s six ability scores randomly. Roll four 6-sided dice and record the total of the highest three dice on a piece of paper. Do this five more times, so that you have six numbers. Now take your six numbers and write each number beside one of your character’s six abilities to assign scores to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

Pre-Set Scores
This is the recommended for new players.

If you want to save time or don’t like the idea of randomly determining ability scores, you can use the following scores instead: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.Now take your six numbers and write each number beside one of your character’s six abilities to assign scores to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

An example:

Character: Søren Vynter
 * Strength: 8
 * Dexterity: 12
 * Constitution: 10
 * Intelligence: 13
 * Wisdom: 15
 * Charisma: 14

Note: Your abilities will improve as you level up. When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.

Hit Points
Once you've sorted your points out, you can assign your hit points using this calculator. Assuming Søren's above point assignment, at level one, he would be have 6 hit points.

Modifiers
Each ability also has a modifier, derived from the score and ranging from .5 (for an ability score of 1) to +10 (for a score of 30).

To determine an ability modifier, subtract 10 from the ability score and then divide the total by 2 (round down).

So for example, using Søren's stats above, if I wanted to see what modifier he'd have for dexterity, I'd do the following
 * Subtract 10: 12-10= 2
 * Divide by 2: 2/2 = 1
 * So his dexterity modifier becomes +1 (meaning he gets to add 1 to his rolls for dexterity)

However, the modifiers aren't always positive - let's see what would happen if he had to apply a modifier for his strength score:
 * Subtract 10: 8-10= -2
 * Divide by 2: -2/2= -1
 * So his strength modifier becomes -1 (meaning he has to subtract 1 to his rolls for strength)

Because ability modifiers affect almost every attack roll, ability check, and saving throw, ability modifiers come up in play more often than their associated scores.

Race Modifiers: Because you are human, all your abilities increase by 1 - so, Søren's stats would be 9, 13, 11, 14 and 16.

Skills
With abilities come skills. These are as follows:


 * Strength
 * Athletics
 * Dexterity
 * Acrobatics
 * Sleight of Hand
 * Stealth
 * Intelligence
 * Arcana
 * History
 * Investigation
 * Nature
 * Religion
 * Wisdom
 * Animal Handling
 * Insight
 * Medicine
 * Perception
 * Survival
 * Charisma
 * Deception
 * Intimidation
 * Performance
 * Persuasion

Each of your skills has a 'bonus'. To work out your skill bonus, you first need to apply your ability modifier to each skill. So for example, Søren's dexterity skills (acrobatics, sleight of hand, stealth) will all have a +1 bonus. However, his Athletics will have a -1 bonus due to his strength skill.

Now, for some skills, your character will have proficiencies - any regular wizard can choose three from here (proficiencies heading). Exotics get an extra one. For every proficiency, you can add +5 to your skill bonus on your character sheet.

When your character reaches level 2, they choose an arcane tradition. Each tradition gives a +1 skill bonus depending on the chosen school of magic. These can be found here (special abilities heading).

Also, you will gain additional proficiencies based on your background (background heading). For example, Søren is a haunted one. This means he can have two further proficiencies in either Arcana, Investigation, Religion or Survival, and therefore adding a further +5 to the bonus points for that skill.