D&D 5E How do you determine your initial Attributes?

[Maxperson]

Just for reference, according to this site, the AD&D 1e MM states that "Intelligence indicates the basic equivalent of human 'IQ'" and that that the IQ = 10x INT thing originates from Dragon Mag #8. The former would have been a Gygax thing, the latter was Brian Blume.

And it was continued in 3e(3.5).

 

[Cadence]

Hunting is. Tactics are not. What the Chimps do goes well beyond tracking down prey and killing it.

I was thinking Gorillas and not Chimps...

 

[Maxperson]

I was thinking Gorillas and not Chimps...

Apes is the category.

Of course, that just makes me wonder why they said ape and not gorilla, chimp and orangutan. They specified black bear and brown bear.

 

[Amrûnril]

You can draw any kind of assumptions you want, but it's still a strawman. It's just coincidence that there's any correlation at all. In both cases they're just a simplified approximation. I know someone with a 18 intelligence is really, really smart. Just like someone who scored a 180 IQ. Just like people on average have around a 10-11 intelligence and average IQ is a little above 100.

The rules say nothing about the distribution of intelligence in the general population.

If anything, I'd argue that it's the proposed IQ-correspondence that's the coincidence. The 3d6 system was designed to generate all six abilities, but I've never seen any comparable relationship put forward for dexterity or wisdom. It's exactly the sort of system you'd design, though if your goal was to generate a bell curve that could be mapped onto other bell curves, whether or not those other curves are explicitly defined.

But whatever the original intent, I agree that the current rules say nothing about ability score distributions in the population. My primary reasoning in using the 3d6 bell curve interpretation is simply that I find it to be intuitive and to correspond well with the small mechanical effects of ability score differences.

 

[Cadence]

Apes is the category.

Of course, that just makes me wonder why they said ape and not gorilla, chimp and orangutan. They specified black bear and brown bear.

I would think some of them would differ a lot on stats going from the bonobo to the gorilla.

 

[Cadence]

I would think some of them would differ a lot on stats going from the bonobo to the gorilla.

(But I would have thought that about Halflings and Half-Ogres too...)

 

[Amrûnril]

I would think some of them would differ a lot on stats going from the bonobo to the gorilla.

True, but if you insist on that level of granularity everywhere, you end up with a monster manual of nothing but real-world creatures*. Presumably the black and brown bear are distinguished because the developers saw bears as more likely combat opponents than non-humanoid apes.

*which could actually be fun, but only if you came up with better ways of differentiating them than ability scores, hp and damage

 

[Cadence]

True, but if you insist on that level of granularity everywhere, you end up with a monster manual of nothing but real-world creatures*.

A book of real life animals around the world with quality pictures and stats would be something I'd buy. Even having a single entry for groups of animals, but having pictures and brief ecology notes for them around the world would be cool. Six kinds of eagles from different continents? Five songbirds each from NA, SA, Africa, Europe, South Asia, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands? Herd animals from around the world etc...

 

[Oofta]

Just for reference, according to this site, the AD&D 1e MM states that "Intelligence indicates the basic equivalent of human 'IQ'" and that that the IQ = 10x INT thing originates from Dragon Mag #8. The former would have been a Gygax thing, the latter was Brian Blume.

I have some of my old books, including the 1E AD&D book. The entry on intelligence simply states what intelligence corresponds to with 1 being animal intelligence and 19-20 being "supra-genius". If it's there I'm missing it.

In any case that still has nothing to do with the distribution of intelligence in the general population being determined by a 3d6 bell curve.

 

[Voadam]

True, but if you insist on that level of granularity everywhere, you end up with a monster manual of nothing but real-world creatures*. Presumably the black and brown bear are distinguished because the developers saw bears as more likely combat opponents than non-humanoid apes.

*which could actually be fun, but only if you came up with better ways of differentiating them than ability scores, hp and damage

A 4e style bestiary where there were unique combat mechanics for each animal would be a lot of fun.

In 3.5 there was The Bestiary: Predators for those who want 250 pages of CR 1/8 to 9 real world animal predators.

The balance issue of course would be 5e druids and wildshape which sort of keeps animals in a low CR low AC, few mechanical effect monster role and in part discourages lots of animal development for fear of druids running away with it.