Ability Score

Now if you look at your character sheet you’ll see 6 boxes either at the top or the side of your character sheet. For those of you that use dnd beyond, it’s at the top. Your character is based around these 6 abilities and determines how good or bad they are in certain aspects. Higher ability scores give you a higher modifier, which shows how better you are in it. Now let’s break down each ability.

## Strength

Strength determines your strength, who'd've thunk. This is reflected in your athletics skill and brute force. Say you want to move a boulder, well hope you didn’t skip leg day. Want to throw someone off a cliff? Well you can certainly try. Most melee weapons use strength to attack so you want to be pretty strong if you want a better chance at hitting your enemies and doing some damage, especially if you’re a barbarian who relies more on brute force.

## Dexterity

Dexterity determines just how light you are on your feet. The more dextrous you are the better chance you have at balancing on a tightrope over a pool of crocodiles or dodging an enemies attack or trap. Dexterity affects acrobatics, sleight of hand, and stealth based skills as well as ranged weapons and finesse based weaponry like daggers or rapiers. If you play a rogue, you probably want to be more dexterous.

## Constitution

Constitution measures your overall health and stamina. A bigger constitution modifier also determines how much more hit points you gain per level. Examples of constitution checks would be how long you can hold your breath, resisting fatigue on long treks, or surviving in extreme weather conditions. It is also very important when resisting poison or the corruption from certain spells.

## Intelligence

Intelligence is typically associated with book smarts. Intelligent characters are able to recall information better, and are more logical in their decision making. Arcana, history, investigation, nature & religion are all intelligence related skills. Wizards use intelligence as the basis of their spellcasting.

## Wisdom

Wisdom shows how in touch you are to the world around you. It could be how perceptive you are, picking up on if a merchant is lying to you about an item's true abilities. It can help you determine approximately how long ago a campfire went out in a hidden campsite. Animal handling, perception, insight, medicine, and survival are all wisdom based skills. Clerics and druids use wisdom as the basis for their spellcasting abilities, given they’re more in touch with the world around them and the divine. Oftentimes there’s a bit of confusion about the difference between intelligence and wisdom so something to keep in mind is intelligence is about knowing, while wisdom is about feeling. I can say “I know there’s enemies in this hideout” because I had already gotten the clues necessary to find the place. I can also say “I know there’s enemies in this hideout” because I saw someone sneaking around back.

## Charisma

Now charisma, a favorite of bards and socially awkward players who want to say and do things they typically couldn't stomach doing in real life. Whether you want your character to be charming, commanding, or just plain confident, charisma is the way to go. Afterall, the social encounters in dnd can be just as brutal as the combat encounters, with similar end results should you happen to make the wrong move. There’s a lot of times where a successful persuasion or intimidation could prevent a combat encounter occuring before it even begins.

## Roll for your abilities!

When determining your ability scores people do it several ways. There’s the standard build, determining which numbers go where from some predetermined rolls. There’s also the manual way. You could roll twice for each ability, choosing the best of the two. Or you could roll 4 d6 die. Get rid of the smallest number and add the rest together. Do that 5 more times and you’ll get the scores needed for your character that you can then plug into any score you wish. Just remember the class and playstyle you’re going for of course. Do note that the natural maximum score you can have is 20.

## Adding it together

Now that you have your scores it’s time for your modifiers. A score of ten is the most average you can be, straight down the middle. You get a 0 modifier, which means you don't add anything for your rolls. Every even number after that increases your modifier by 1. A score of 12 gives +1, a 14 gives +2, etc. The same can be said with negative modifiers. Any odd number below 10 gives an additional negative modifier. A 9 gives -1, a 7 gives - 2, and so on. But hey don’t worry too much about having such low ability scores, they can help really define the type of character  you’re playing. For example: a typical barbarian build is to have max strength and have intelligence as the dump stat. So say a 20 in strength and a 6 in intelligence. These strengths and weaknesses often make memorable story moments.

## DC Checks

DC, or difficulty checks, help determine if something you want to do or achieve is possible based on how difficult the situation is. Say you want to jump across a rooftop with a small gap between it. That would typically be a DC of 10. Pretty average and doable almost all of the time and is usually the baseline for all regular DC checks for pretty average everyday stuff. But lets say you wanna make a leap of faith off a tower and polymorph yourself into a goldfish to land into a small puddle of water right before you hit the ground. You’d probably get a higher DC of 30 which is near impossible. Your success or failure of DC checks is determined based off the roll of the die and your modifiers.