Breaking Down D&D - Player Character Abilities in 5e/5.5e, OSE/OSR, Pathfinder, and other TTRPGs

What are Abilities, How to use Ability Scores, and Other Abilities not Covered in Core Rules

by Chris@Dragon Sol

The core abilities, otherwise known as ‘stats’, are a hallmark of many tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG). Whether it is a variant of 5e, an Old School Renaissance (OSR) game, Pathfinder/Starfinder, or some other game system; player characters are often defined by some version of these base stats.

Core Abilities

A player character, or PC, is defined and rated by their core abilities. Those abilities are:

These abilities cover most everything you need to play a good Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TTRPG) like D&D (5e/5.5e) or Pathfinder 2e (PF2e). However, they don’t cover everything, but more on that later.

A PC’s abilities can be split into the physical abilities (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution) and the intellectual abilities (Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma). Those two types are mostly accurate and can give the player a good idea of what the abilities do.

5e (and many other TTRPGs) use a score range for these abilities. When rolling up a new character, you can roll a number of six-sided dice, using the best three out of the group, to determine your score. While there are other options, like the point-buy system, or the character build option in PF2e, the 3d6 method is why most PCs have an ability score in the 3-18 range.

In 5e PCs have an ability score cap of 20, while creatures are capped at 30. This is the scale at which the game world works. PF2e has a similar range. The average person has a score of 10. Anything below is a deficiency in the skill. Anything in the 10-18 range is good with an 18-20 representing peak performance. A score above 20 is superhuman.

For more details on each ability and a breakdown of what the scores actually mean see the collection of Breaking Down D&D: Ability Score articles linked in the list above.

Optional Abilities

There are two optional abilities covered in the 5e DMG, that of Honor and Sanity. These two scores function similar to the standard six ability scores, they just cover something different.

Honor

Honor is used to represent personal and familiar honor and is often precipitated by cultural aspects. If you are playing a campaign or in a game world where a society has a strict and rigid code of conduct, then the Honor ability can represent the PC’s standing.

Cultures that have Honor tend to believe that honor is the most important aspect of a person and that how one conducts themselves reflects not only on themselves but their family and companions. Honor was paramount in many societies throughout history with strict codes of conduct that were to be followed.

Examples of this include a Samurai’s Bushido code in ancient Japan and Royal European Honor, especially English high society (and to an extent American high society) of the 17th and 18th centuries. Honor can be lost with ease, gained with difficulty, and restored usually only through sacrifice. Affairs of honor, where one party feels insulted, would often result in duel or in some action that allowed the offended party to reclaim their honor or “save face”. In many cases it was seen as more honorable to commit ritual suicide than to be dishonored.

Honor can be used to determine how others treat the PC with NPCs that have a higher Honor looking down on the PC and the PC looking down on those with lower Honor. Certain situations can become difficult just by the fact that the PC cannot interact with others that have a significantly different Honor score. Additionally character actions would be dictated not on right or wrong, greed or altruism, or personal whims, but on whether the action would enhance or hurt one’s Honor.

Sanity

Sanity is used to represent how firm a grasp a PC has on their own mind. If you are playing in a game with eldritch horrors (like Cthulhu), psionics and astral planes, or just use wicked mind games all the time, then Sanity can be a good way to track the mental health of characters.

Sanity is primarily used to determine how level headed a character is as to make saves against psychotic snaps and other mind-breaking events.

Fluctuating Scores

Neither of these ability scores are designed to be improved through the normal Ability Score Improvement (ASI) when leveling up. Instead the score would only be improved as a reward by the GM for accomplishing certain goals. Likewise the score can be reduced by failing to act appropriately (in the case of Honor) or by exposure to alien or unbearable situations (in the case of Sanity).

Other Abilities

5e and PF2e are collections of mechanics, and not all encompassing rule sets. They easily allow modifications to tailor the game for your table. There’s no reason to limit the Ability Scores to just the base six if your game can benefit from others. I caution you to not add more unless you need them. These six scores have proved simple and sufficient for decades so you probably won’t need any others. But if you do, try to make sure the burden of tracking and using it adds fun to the game and not just a hassle. If you want some additional Abilities, here are some to consider.

Willpower

Willpower represents a PC’s strength of spirit and toughness and stick-to-itness and the ability to not give up. While it is a somewhat nebulous idea, WIllpower checks and saving throws actually come up quite often in most games. They are usually covered by Wisdom. But there are some aspects of Willpower that are more aligned with Constitution, and in some cases even Charisma.

Wisdom covers the strength of thought, or Mental Fortitude, aspect of WIllpower, or how easy a PC can throw off mental effects. Shaking off psychic attacks and befuddlement effects are efforts of Willpower.

Constitution covers the toughness, or Physical Fortitude, and the ability to not quit and keep going. Fighting through exhaustion is an effort of Willpower in many cases and not just physical resilience.

Charisma covers strength of spirit and the ability to resist being dominated by others. Resisting be charmed and beguiled is another effort of Willpower.

While the aspects of Willpower are covered by the existing six ability scores, none of them really capture the idea of Willpower completely. If your game will be heavy on these aspects, you find yourself trying to splice saving throws into one of these categories often, or you just have a little OCD and want a better representative, then a Willpower ability score may be called for.

Fortitude

Expanding on the idea of Willpower you could split the mental aspect and the physical aspect into Willpower and Fortitude. This is what PF2e does. A Willpower save is based on Wisdom and a Fortitude save is based on Constitution.

Using existing ability scores for either of these is perfectly acceptable. But so is adding one or two new ability scores specific to these traits is as well. It can add interesting character dynamics. Low Wisdom and high WIllpower is a stupidly stubborn character. High Wisdom and low Willpower is a very intuitive yet submissive character.

Low Constitution and High Fortitude may be best represented by skinny Steve Rogers before he took the super soldier serum to become Captain America. He was weak and sickly but had no quit. Of course then high Constitution and high Fortitude is Captain America after the serum.

Piety

Piety represents how reverent to a being of worship one is. Or, more simply put, how religious one is. In this way piety can be used exactly like honor, but for societies that are religious in nature. It can also be used as an ability score related to performing spells or being granted boons that are divine in nature.

Luck

Luck is an existing element in many a TTRPG. It is typically a trait associated with halflings or a trait that gives you a certain amount of luck points you can use in certain situations to change the outcome. It’s actually used as an ability score in Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC). The idea being that people can be either lucky, unlucky, or mundane.

As such, the Luck ability can be used in certain situations to change the outcome. It can also be used like it is in DCC to give you a modifier to a role that doesn’t otherwise have a good ability associated with it.

One of the issues with instituting Luck as an ability score is that players typically do not like negatives. Being lucky is great. But being unlucky can feel bad. So this is really dependent upon the players as a group. Some will relish playing an unlucky person. Others will want to rage quit after the third time a significant event went south because of their luck score. Make sure you get table buy-in on this one. It’s also possible that having a Luck score can be a player-by-player decision and not forced on an entire table.

Speed/Quickness

The three physical ability scores cover most things, but they don’t directly cover a couple of aspects. One of them being how quick the PC is. Dexterity covers agility and reaction speed in part (as a modifier to the initiative roll), and walking speed covers how far the PC can move, but nothing directly covers a PC’s quickness. This typically isn’t a problem because there aren’t any core 5e mechanics that require a quickness check. Pathfinder 2e uses this concept for Reflex saves, based on Dexterity.

True, initiative and surprise relate to quickness in terms of reaction speed, but there isn’t a core rule for quick drawing six-shooters in a duel. That being said, if you need mechanics for your game that often put the speed of the PC against another in direct competition and dexterity just doesn’t cover it for you, then you might want to consider adding a Quickness ability alongside those mechanics. Alternatively you could add in a quickness (or even quick draw) skill proficiency that could apply to certain situations.

Flexibility

The other physical aspect not directly covered is a character’s flexibility. While Dexterity covers agility and body control, Flexibility is another matter. Most situations in a game can be covered by Dexterity and Sleigh-of-Hand checks, but if you have a game that is heavy on performance, infiltration through complicated and tight spaces, or is a bit gonzo, then a Flexibility ability score may be beneficial. Again, as an alternative, since flexibility can be trained you could add this as a skill proficiency.

Comeliness

Comeliness, or how good-looking the PC is, is actually one of the original ability scores from AD&D (or D&D 1e). Given that people respond differently based on someone’s looks it can be assumed that NPCs would react differently based on a PC’s looks. And this Comeliness was used (albeit optionaly) to provide a random roll for how one looked.

Comeliness isn’t that useful for the GM unless they want to track everybody’s score and differentiate NPC responses based on them. In the modern game, Charisma serves as a substitute. But if the player wants to know if the character has movie star good looks you can always roll up a Comeliness score, even if it’s for your own, personal use at the table. But it might be something your GM lets you use from time to time if you bring it up as an option in certain situations.

Sex Appeal

And that brings us to the trope of the Bard, Sex Appeal. Charisma represents one’s Force of Personality, and can also be used for Charm and Guile. However, it is often used to seduce NPCs. The two do not have to be linked. It is possible to exude Charisma and not Sex Appeal, and vice versa. It is also a way to keep your Bard from trying to sleep with every NPC.

The Benefit of Other Ability Scores

Use of other ability scores can help define the game world at your table. It can also open up avenues to increase the flavor and detail of your characters. Not only can you improve additional abilities, but these abilities are now important in the game world so there are more chances for conflict, tension, drama, and badassery.

From a player’s perspective you can use any and all of these other ability scores to help define your role play. Your GM doesn’t have to be involved and never even needs to know. You may not be making Comeliness checks or Flexibility saves, but if you have a score for these things it defines how good your character is at them and that will help you determine your character’s actions. And if you like rolling dice and playing with randomness then make those Comeliness checks and Flexibility saves yourself and see what your character does. Rolling against or with these scores gives you plenty of new options.

Wrap Up

The six base ability scores are all you really need in most cases. In some games you can get by with less. And these Other Abilities can all be used either for personal information about your PC or as a skill proficiency for additional refinement or flavor of the game world. But just because those six are all you need, doesn’t mean that’s all you want. If there is an ability that is not fully or accurately covered by one of the six that is prevalent in your game feel free to address that and generate a new ability score.

Just make sure that, if you intend to use it for mechanical actions (like ability score checks and saving throws), then the whole table is on board. Of course you can always just use them personally to help inform your character actions.

But the bottom line is that TTRPGs are just games. If you are having fun, why stop.

Next → Understanding Strength: What it Is, Why it is Useful, and How to Use it Better