Allright Noobs. It's time for Basic Training (1)

OK. You noobs interested in playing D&D listen up. This is the first of your lessons. I'm telling it to you know so you'll have some idea what your doing when the game starts.

Ability Scores
These represent your charecter's base abilities. Every Fourth Level up you gain 1 point to add to any ability Score of your choosing.

-Strength-Affects likelyhood to hit and damage dealt with melee weapons. Also Affects Damage with certain ranged weapons
-Dexterity-Adds to your Armor Class, affects Reflex Saves, and likelyhood to hit and damage with ranged Weapons. Also you can take the Weapon Finesse feat to allow you to use your Dexterity to affect hit chance and damage with light melee weapons (and the rapier amd spiked chain)
-Constitution-Affects your Hit Points and your Fortitude save.
-Intelligence-Affects how many skill points you get per level and the number of languages you speak, also is the most important Score for Wizards, as it affects every aspect of their spellcasting.
-Wisdom-Affects your Will Saves, also is the most important score for Clerics and Druids because it affects every aspect of their spellcasting (also usefull for Paladins and Rangers, but they benefit more from high Physical Scores)
-Charisma-Affects how NPCs veiw you, also most important score for Sorcerers and Bards because it affects every aspect of their Spellcasting

The most important part of your Scores is, of course, the ABILITY MODIFIERS! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the number that actually affects stuff! To get your Ability Mod, simply subtract 10 from your score and Divide by 2. For Example, Krusk, the Half-orc Barbarian has 19 Strength (an impressive score, assuming Krusk is a first level charecter) HIs Strength modifyer is +4 (because you have to round down). Unfortunatly Krusk only has an Intelligence score of 6 (-2), so he has what is called an Ability Penalty. This is bad. Since Krusk is an Imbecile (with an IQ probably around 63) he is really bad at all Intelligence-realated checks (such as picking locks, identifying spells, concoting Alchemical Stuff, Searching for stuff, etc, etc...)

That's All for Lesson 1. More tomorrow or the day after.