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Message: <blockquote data-quote="finarvyn" data-source="post: 3703621" data-attributes="member: 53603">This is actually a somewhat complex issue, dependant upon which edition of the rules you read. In the 1974 edition it went something like this:3 = lowest value found in a human being9-12 = average values for a typical human18 = greatest value found in a human beingSo, a person with Strength of 8 would be weaker than average but not so much so. This person would function normally in society but would be more of a paper-pusher than a construction worker.The "Greyhawk" supplement confused the issue somewhat (as did an article in Dragon) when it brought in 18(xx) percentile values for strength (and the Dragon article did the same for dexterity).The Basic/Expert version of D&D (put out around 1980-ish) had a nice scale:3 = minimum = bonus of -34-5 = bonus of -26-8 = bonus of -19-12 = average = bonus of 013-15 = bonus of +116-17 = bonus of +218 = maximum = bonus of +3This general perception of abilites is nice because we have a large grouping near the center and a decent advantage/disadvantage near the extremes. If you play with probabilites you can see that there is about 0.5% (one in 200) chance of rolling a natural 3 or 18 on 3d6. IN other words, if you got together a group of 200 random people and ranked them, the one person who was best at something would be the 18, whether it be the strongest, smartest, fastest, most charismatic, whatever. The worst one would be the 3.3E changed all of this. It established 10-11 as "average" and really put no upper limit on stats. In this scale it's harder to interpret. An old 18 intelligence could be Einstein, or the elite genius types of the world. In the new scale with no real upper limit, I'm not sure where to place the best because another could later be better. This non-ending scale is nice for the purposes of character advancement, because the player always has somewhere to improve. It's also great for superhero games like Mutants & Masterminds where superhumans have stats much higher than mundanes. In a "real world" model it's harder to set in stone because I can't really fit a probability curve if there is no upper limit. I can't say if the person is the best out of 200, the best out of 1,000 or more.So ... in my mind I default to the older model even if I play the newer game. I think about the scale going from 3-18 with 9-12 being "average" and 13-18 being "above average" and I guess anything above 18 being "truly exceptional and noteworthy".Does that help at all?</blockquote>

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