Ability Score Tables - From the Retro-Golem

My father goes in for surgery on October 26th, his birthday. He's decided to be amused by that. Between helping him through this time and the upcoming holidays, I'm once again looking at a delay in regular gaming, pushing things back to January at the earliest. All these delays have served to kick my Gamer ADD into hyper drive. Right now, I'm pretty much spending my me time in keeping myself occupied. I might still just go ahead and run AD&D (AD&D always beckons) or maybe LL, but I also have a few versions of the Retro-Golem done.

One of the main reasons for that little exercise is for my own edification. Delving into all the D&D lore at my disposal and studying how everything comes together has been quite an illuminating exercise. I've pretty much changed everything I had written up the last time I posted something from the document. I'll no doubt keep messing around with it in my spare time and hopefully, once I actually get the chance to play, I'll know what I want to do.

I like the idea of Ability Score bonuses starting at lower numbers and not being quite so inflated. For the direction I'm going, I also like the B/X bonuses of 13 - 15 = +1, 16 - 17 = +2 and 18 = +3. The following is kind of an experiment in dialing things back a notch and going in a slightly different direction.

The following is Open Game Content.

Ability Score Tables

Strength

Strength represents physical power and determines bonuses or penalties to your To Hit and Damage in melee, chance to open stuck doors and adjustments to your encumbrance, as shown in the table below.

Table 1: Strength

Score	To Hit Modifier	Damage Bonus	Open Dungeon Doors	Encumbrance Adjustment
3 - 4	-3	-3	-4	-45 lbs
5 – 6	-2	-2	-2	-25 lbs
7 - 8	-1	-1	-1	-10 lbs
9 - 12	0	0	0	0
13 - 14	+1	+1	+1	+25 lbs
15 – 16	+1	+2	+2	+50 lbs
17	+2	+2	+3	+75 lbs
18	+2	+3	+4	+100 lbs

(I'm not sure about the Encumbrance Thing. I need to do some more research, there.)

Dexterity

Dexterity represents agility and coordination. It modifies attacks made with missile weapons, Initiative and your Armor Class.

Table 2: Dexterity

Score	AC Adj.	Missile Att. Adj.	Reaction Adj.
3 - 4	-2	-3	+3
5 - 6	-1	-2	+2
7 - 8	0	0	+1
9 - 12	0	0	0
13 – 14	+0*	0	-1
15 – 16	+1*	+1	-2
17 - 18	+2*	+2	-3

*Signifies that a Character who does not wear metal armor, may add an additional +1 bonus to his AC.

Constitution

Constitution represents overall health and modifies a Characters Hit Points.

Table 3: Constitution

Score	Hit Point Modifier (Per Hit Die)*
3 – 4	-2
5 – 6	-1
7 – 8	0
9 - 12	0
13 – 14	+1
15 - 16	+1*
17 - 18	+2*

*Signifies that a Fighting-man (and only a Fighting-man) may add an additional +1 bonus per Hit Die. Constitution Modifiers to Hit Points no longer apply to any Class, after a Character has reached Name Level and stops rolling for Hit Points.

(Fighter sub-classes don't get the additional bonus, as I'm putting in a few things to give the plain old Fighter some advantages unique to that class.)

Intelligence

Intelligence represents IQ, reasoning abilities and education. It determines the number of extra languages you can learn, the chance for a Magic-user to be able to learn a given spell and the highest level spell a Magic-user can cast. Magic-users with an Intelligence of 16 or higher can memorize an additional First Level Spell.

Table 4: Intelligence

Score	Max. Add Lang.	% To Know Spell	Highest Level Magic-user Spell Useable
3–7	0	-	None
8	1	-	None
9	1	40%	5^th
10	2	50%	5^th
11	2	50%	6^th
12	3	50%	6^th
13	3	70%	7^th
14	4	70%	7^th
15	4	75%	8^th
16	5	75%	8^th
17	5	85%	9^th
18	6	90%	9^th

Wisdom

Wisdom represents common sense, intuition and willpower. It can modify Saving Throws against mental attacks. Clerics and Druids with a high Wisdom are granted bonus spells. A Cleric or Druid with a low Wisdom has a chance of spell failure. A Wisdom of 12 will cause a 5% chance of the spell failing, with an additional 5% chance for each point the Cleric’s Wisdom score is below 12. A Cleric or Druid must have a minimum Wisdom of 9 to cast spells.

Table 5: Wisdom

Score	Mental Attack Saving Throw Adjustment	Bonus Spells
3 – 4	-2
5 - 6	-1
7 – 8	0
9 – 12	0
13 – 14	+1	1 First Level Spell
15 - 16	+1	2 First Lvl and 1 Second Lvl Spell
17 - 18	+2	2 First Lvl, 1 Second and 1 Third

Charisma

Charisma represents personal magnetism, physical beauty and leadership ability. It will modify the Reaction when a character interacts with NPC’s (non-player characters) and Monsters. Characters with a high Charisma score can have more Henchmen.

Table 6: Charisma