For a man, I’m pretty weak. For a human being, I’m slightly above average. I could beat most - but certainly not all - women at arm wrestling.
Dexterity: 10
I’m fairly average when it comes to flexibility. Maybe a little above average for a man.
Constititution: 14
I rarely get the flus and colds that are “going around”. About once per year I get a stomach flu that causes me to vomit and have diarrhea. But I am pretty healthy, overall.
Intelligence: 16
I am pretty good at reasoning, but I’m not one of those people who others say “whoah, he’s really smart” about.
Wisdom: 12
I would say that I’m wiser than most people, but I still have significant immaturities.
Charisma: 8
I’m not that likable, generally speaking. I’m pretty curt, distant, and argumentative. I can crack funny jokes, but that’s not enough to make people want to be around me all that much.
I’d say I ranked myself pretty fairly by those numbers. Although for me it’s all relative - in grad school, I felt like my Int score was a 10 at best, compared to the people around me.
I don’t recall the rules either, but being as 3 is the lowest possible score, and only 1 in 216 people would get a 3, someone with a Charisma of 3 would have to be someone with a severe social or mental affliction that prevented almost any productive interaction. We wouldn’t be talking about a wallflower, we’d be talking about Rain Man. A 3 in any category suggests fairly significant disability.
Strength – 7 . I’m pretty wimpy. Like seriously wimpy.
Dexterity – 11. About average.
Constitution – 13. I almost never get sick, but I don’t have a lot of endurance.
Intelligence – 16. I am smarter than the average bear. Maybe not the average Doper bear, but overall, yeah.
Wisdom – 15. My judgment and willpower are both quite good, and I almost never make rash or stupid decisions (bad ones, sure, but I have a pretty good knowledge of what’s right and wrong for me).
Charisma – 9/14. The first number is in person (I’m a major introvert and by no means the most socially adept person). The second is in writing/online.
Going by the first, I have a VERY high wisdom.
Going by the second, I have a VERY low wisdom.
My intelligence would be a 17 or 18 (going by IQ tests and dividing by 10.)
My con would be low (I’m out of shape) but my high resistance to alcohol, toxins and diseases would be reflected by having bonuses to saving throw
Dexterity- 7 or so. I am very clumsy with poor manual dexterity.
Strength-9
Charisma- I have no clue.
Strength 10 - pretty average there
Dexterity 17 - good manual dexterity is needed to get inside small cramped computer cases
Constitution 9 - don’t often get sick, but am out of shape
Intelligence 17 - not the smartest person alive (that’s Cecil), but not stupid either
Wisdom 16 - cynicism and realism (called “pessimism” by some) have made me quite skeptical
Charisma - can this be a negative number?, I’m antisocial and cynical, and generally don’t like people, plus, I’m not particularly attractive
Wish I could find my old Player’s Handbook from the early 80’s. I never figured out 3d ed or higher rules, but for good ol’-fashioned 3d6, I vaguely recall the book saying the following:
STR was equal to the amount of weight you could lift over your head in a military press, divided by 10. I’m not sure how they handled 18/d100 scores.
Similarly, INT was IQ divided by 10, round down. Those were the only stats with mathematical formulas to give a rough idea.
For CON, I remember it saying that Rasputin was an 18, and go from there. A 3 CON meant you were bedridden and pretty much next to death the whole time.
I always thought that an 18 DEX meant that you could teach prestidigitation to Lance Burton, while shooting perfect 501s while standing on your head. Or whatever tricks Legolas pulled out his butt in the three LOTR movies. Hitler was cited as having an 18 CHR, and WIS was this crazy amalgam of street-smarts and stick-to-itiveness; the book explained the difference between high INT and WIS as someone knowing that smoking was bad for them, but lacking the willpower and common sense to do it.
All that said, I agree with the posters who think there’s some crazy grade inflation going on with the self-assessments.
That’s crazy, that means that to be an 18, you don’t have to be 1/216, you have to be well over 1/45,000,000.
I’m all for representing most people accurately in the IQ department, but IQ/10 seems like an odd way to represent it.
Anyway, if we’re doing that, I’ll change my 16 to a 14 or 15.
D&D isn’t supposed to exact, just approximate. The point is to have very few 16, 17, and 18 represented in your players. The formula (Int = IQ/10) breaks down once it gets into the 90th percentile (14 and above). But it makes sense that most people should huddle around 10 Int or 100 IQ. It’s just a way to get an approximate bell curve.
I had heard that formula before in GURPs so I went with a 13 Int. I was always in the high 90th percentile but I’m not comfortable claiming a 150 or higher IQ.
I’ve met one person who tested 150* or above on the tests he took. And he was weird. Something wasn’t wired right in his brain, he wasn’t a savant, and there was nothing that you could quite put your thumb on… but it’s like when the perspective on a painting just isn’t quite right, you can tell. So you’re not missing out on anything if he’s a representative of the group.
I just figured, apparently inaccurately, that you’d want a relatively even spread based on probable answers, having never played D&D before.
*One person who I have confirmation that tested that high, and who I probably would’ve believed even without it, of course multiple people have claimed to be that high.
Strength - 11 - I’m stronger than most women, but I have poor upper body strength for a guy. Nice legs and butt though, somehow.
Dexterity - 11 - I’m very skilled at videogames, but I’m also terrible at figuring out how mechanical things work and/or taking them apart.
Constitution - 12 - I almost never get sick and if I do it’s never serious. I’m built decent. Very minor allergies and no physical issues.
Intelligence - 13 - This could be a 12, but hell I thought I’d be generous. Verbally I definitely merit it.
Wisdom - 10 - I’d say I’m fair average for this one. Lots of people wiser, and lots stupider. For my age I feel fairly wise at least.
Charisma - 12 - I can get along with most anyone if need be. I’m getting less and less annoying as I get older.
Wow, using D_Odds realistic numbers sure makes me seem boring and average!
But the rules for rolling abilities in D&D aren’t for creating normal people, but for creating hero adventurers. The only chart I sort of remember was for INT; I don’t know which book it was in, but it went something like this:
So a 15 is already exceptional, not “well, I am smart, but not as much as the rest of you guys” intelligence.
Now, of course, some of the other stats were also linked to real-life abilities, like STR and how much weight you can carry. I have no idea if those would fall on a normal curve. Presumably the D&D designers didn’t do that much research.
You know, I’d disagree with them there. Any successful politician presumably has an above-average Charisma, but 18 is incredibly high, and I’m sure that Hitler’s flatulence at least had to bring him down a few points in overall Charisma.
STR: 8 - Just not strong
DEX: 9 - Not very dextrous, but see below
CON: 15 - I smoke, don’t have any stamina, but never get sick and I’m lucky enough that even if I do fall from a great height, I’ll never break my leg (since hit points are based on your Con, I include that with the Con calculation)
INT: 13 - I’m pretty smart (IQ 144).
WIS: 10 - Average. Don’t think I always make the best choice, but often enough that it’s not below 10 score
CHA: 14 - I’m not handsome, but I do have a presence. I do get noticed when I’m in the room, people are often genuinely interested in what I have to say, and I have tons of friends.
Apart from these abilities, I have the following skills:
Bluff +10 - I can lie trough my teeth
Climb +4 - I’m a pretty decent rock climber
Concentration -2: Too easily distracted
Diplomacy +2: I know what and when to say stuff
Gather Information +2: People tell me stuff without me asking them
Sense Motive +2: I’m not easily fooled
Speak Language +6: I speak multiple languages and pick new ones up with ease
Spellcraft +2: I actually know some stuff about the occult, even if I can’t cast a spell myself
I have the following feats:
Exotic Weapon Proficiency - I own a kukri and know how to use it
Great Fortitude
Leadership - People follow me willingly
Nope. An 18 is in the mid 99th percentile, as ably illustrated by some of our mathematicians. Galileo would either have to suck it up and be lumped in with the rest of us mere genius-level IQs, or ask the GM to let him use a different rolling method. Remember that D&D ability scores top out at 25 (for editions with a maximum), not 18 - you just can’t roll them for a starting character.
Yeah, but nobody on the SDMB is an orc, either (and if they are, I’m sure as hell not naming any names). I just think it’s a little silly to get het up about people posting high stats. For one thing, it’s not like the million IQ threads, where they’re claiming to have some valid real-life measure of anything; they’re basically just saying, “I am totally smart and super strong and very, very charming! Seriously! :D” People do that; we’re funny that way.
Secondly, getting an 18 INT in D&D is simply nowhere near as unlikely as actually having an IQ in the top percentiles. There’s just under a 0.5% chance of getting an 18 INT in any one game. Pretty small, sure. But that means if you play 36 games, you have almost a 17% percent chance of getting an 18 INT at some point. And if your games have 6 players, it’s essentially guaranteed that *someone *will get an 18 INT in one of those games. (Of course, the same numbers apply to a 3 INT as well.) Still not incredibly likely, but hardly impossible.
And to say that “Nobody on the SDMB is an 18 in anything” is just wrong. There are 6 attributes, or 6 rolls per person. So, for every 36 Dopers, one of them is going to be an 18 in something (and one will be a 3 in something). To find a 17 and a 4, you only need 12 Dopers. Of course, it’s just as likely to be in DEX or CON, and I’ll grant that INT and WIS are probably getting more than their fair share of high stats. But again, people do that. And as long as they’re not claiming to have a PhD or a super-high IQ or something, what does it really matter?
D&D PCs are supposed to be a heroic ideal. That is why so many alternate rolling systems were used, so that PCs wouldn’t cluster in the 10-11 range just like every schmoe on the street. But most of us - we’re the schmoes on the street. Likely many of us might be more intelligent than the average schmoe, and we do have some here whom I would consider exceptionally intelligent. It is possible that we even have a genius. But for the most part, I would suspect that geeks and nerds who would respond to a D&D stats thread (and I self-identify with this group) are going to cluster in the 9-12 range for the majority. Being honest with myself, even when I was competitive at sports, I would only have been a 12 STR and DEX. No way I was in the top quintile of the population, which is where a 13 puts one. A 12 doesn’t even have me in the top quartile, which I believe is fair. When one starts getting into a 13-14 DEX, you are talking professional athlete level dexterity.
Now if dopers actually rolled for stats, the distribution would be different. And people, in general, don’t like to admit just how terribly average they are. But I’m with RickJay. The odds of actually having a true 17 or 18 here are preposterously slim.
If a 13 DEX is in the top quintile, how on earth is 13 or 14 “professional athlete level dexterity”? Pro athletes are more likely to be in the top 1%, not in the top 20%. The odds of becoming a pro athlete in one’s chosen sport are something like 1 in 20,000, or 1 in 100,000 for a popular sport like basketball or football.
Think of the top athlete in your school. Did they make the pros? Were they even close?
Again, the odds of rolling a natural 18 are one in 216. So with (give or take) 1,000 active Dopers, the chances of having a few 18’s are not so long. Now if the D&D attribute system was more granular–say, roll 10d10 --then, certainly, nobody here is 100, and nobody here might even be a 90. On a 10d10 rolling system, there would be a 1 in 10[sup]10[/sup] chance of rolling 100: one in 10 billion. Maybe Einstein makes the cut, but even that’s not a guarantee. But one in 216 and we’re talking 27.7 million natural 18s in the world. Some of them might even be here.
Let’s also remember that the SDMB is self-selecting. We are not looking at a random sample of people on this board. We are, as the advertising slogan says, smarter, hipper folks, right? By the same token, I doubt highly there are any STR 18s here, as those guys are rather more likely to be hanging out at the Muscle and Weightlifting.com forums or whatever.
And even if we are referring to “heroic stats”, remember that the average STR, DEX, etc. are the average “hero” stats for trolls, orcs, halflings, dwarves, humans, elves, etc. Humans are theoretically going to stand out in INT anyway against all but the elves.
At 14 DEX, you are in the top 10% of the population. Unless you are in a sport dedicated totally to dexterity (such as gymnastics), I feel comfortable with this being a soft lower bound. That said, most athletes would be exceptional (13+) in at least 2 and up to 4 stats. Michael Jordan would have been 13+ in STR, DEX, CON, probably WIS, maybe CHA. I’m not sure about INT, but he would have a skill specific to basketball at a high level. Wayne Gretzky would likely have DEX, CON, INT, and WIS and maybe STR, though he wasn’t known for STR. As good as these two were, I would put neither DEX on par with an Olympic level gymnast, but I think they would have a higher overall point total across all stats.
Personally, I would consider a skill in a specific discipline (such as a sport or video games or mathematics) equivalent to weapon specialization. People who have rated themselves dextrous based on their hand-eye coordination at video games, IMHO, have average DEX and skill levels at video games.
But that’s just my way of viewing things, and last I checked, I’m not the GM for the whole human race. Not yet, at least…
