From: scythe@stein.u.washington.edu (The Grim Reaper)
Subject: Re: PC vs. Player INT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 19:25:03 GMT

In article <885@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>In article <BzE1qJ.At2@unix.amherst.edu> sjdaskal@unix.amherst.edu (Steve) writes:
>>In article <846@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>>>for creating NPCs and PCs, it seemed pretty obvious that they were on
>>>the same scale, and thus on the same frequency chart. That's how I do it.
>>>Thus in my cosmos, an 18 is equivalent to 1 out of 216 people. 
>
>>Forgive me if this seems silly, but if you count 18 intelligence as one out
>>of every 216 people, do you have any way of describing people who are genius-
>>level?  For instance, Newton, Galileo, Einstein, Copernicus, etc., etc.
>
>	Yep. 19,20,25,30,100 (godlike here...
>
>	All stats I made open ended, since (for example) the carry and lift
>capacities of the Strength charts were inadequate to properly describe
>even some of the monsters (for example, Giants are supposed to act like scaled
>up humans, yet the lift capacity given for Storm Giants would make them
>proportionately so weak that they could barely walk.). Thus I opened the scale
>to allow description of anything from 0 to infinity. Strongest PC I ever
>had (aside from one poor schmuck who got drawn into a major destiny, and then
>had to go out and do things for his new master) possessed a 30 strength. Nasty.
Hmm.  Doesn't that mean if you get hit by a giant, you're basically dead?
Since a 24 strength has quite a large damage bonus, and giants have more than
that.....


>
>>But then are you saying that it is impossible for PCs to be genius level?
>>This is a concept which I dont necessarily disagree with, but it seems 
>>somehow against the nature of the game, especially if you understand the 
>>PCs to be above the level of ordinary people, i.e. heroes, as you seem
>>to from your posts in .advocacy not long ago (i think it was you, at least).
>>
>>Have you found a way to resolve this problem?  Or do ou not even think
>>of it as a problem?
>
>	Very easily. First, ordinary people are on the strict 3-18 scale
>(modified for situations of course); PCs are on the following scale:
>
>	roll 4d6, reroll all 1s, take top three UNLESS
>	All 4 dice are the same (including all 1s) in which case add all
>four dice.
>
>	In addition, characters will get arduin special abilities rolls,
>and get bonus points (ranging from a d4 to a d20) to spread around as
>they desire. I sometimes change this in order to make a campaign of a 
>particular power level, or if a character has either gotten really screwed
>on the rolls or really lucky.
>
>	This yields a potential range of stats from 4 up to, theoretically,
>48 (rolled 4 6's, thus getting 24; got a +20 bonus which was all added
>to the 24; rolled an arduin special which gave a +3 on the stat).
>
>	Most characters tend to have their prime stats ranging from 18 to 
>21, with their other stats going down from there.
>
>
>					Sea Wasp

Hmm.  Well, that certainly changes things.  So what is an 18 int, for example,
equivalent to?  It's 1 in 216 people minium.  It can't be 1/10 IQ, because
a large city should have about 100 18 int people.  So what does an 18 int
equal?