Character Generation #1 - Stats

We've been playing Explore for two years or so now, and this blog has been running for about half that time. Recently I've been busy playing the game and revising the rules, but not much on the blog front. I've decided to concentrate my efforts in presenting the revised rules in full. Hopefully this may be of some use, make my blog posts make more sense, and help me concentrate on completing any remaining gaps.

It makes sense to start with rolling up a character...

Stats

Characters have six stats – Strength, Constitution, Agility, Reflexes, Intuition, and Memory. Each stat has a value from -3 to 3 and they add up to 0. They come in pairs, and the two stats in a pair never differ by more than two.

STRENGTH (STR) – bonus on damage, lifting, sprinting.

CONSTITUTION (CON) – bonus on damage save, poison save, walking.

AGILITY (AG) – bonus on melee attack, acrobatics, high jump.

REFLEXES (REF) – bonus on parry.

INTUITION (IN) – bonus on spell attack, bow attack, scout, thief, ranger skills.

MEMORY (ME) – bonus on spell save, healing.

There are no stats for a character’s personality (Charisma), or problem solving ability (Logic); these are instead realised through play. Players should attempt to persuade NPCs through Role Playing, and solve problems themselves. Intuition can be used as a fallback if necessary. 

Rolling Stats

Roll d% twice to give you a 4 digit number in the range 0000-9999.

Look this up on the table below.

This gives you three pairs to allocate to the three pairs of stats - STR/CON, AG/REF, IN/MEM. You can choose the order in each pair.

For example if you roll 32 and 73 you get 3273 which is the row 3144: 2,0  0,0  -1,-1. Thus you might have STR 2 CON 0, AG -1, REF -1, IN 0, ME 0. Or you might take STR -1, CON -1, AG 0, REF 2, IN 0, ME 0 etc. etc. You must assign them in pairs, for example you cannot have STR 2 and CON -1. 

You can also take the d% the other way round.

In our example that would be 7332 which is 2,2  0,0  -2,-2. 

You may choose to have the inverse of your stats (swap all + and – signs). This is given as an extra column in the table (it is omitted if it is the same).

In our example that gives just one more possibility: 1,1  0,0  0,-2 or 2,2  0,0  -2,-2. .

9996	3	3	1	-1	-3	-3
9988	3	3	0	0	-3	-3
9890	3	3	0	-1	-2	-3		3	2	1	0	-3	-3
9875	3	3	0	-2	-1	-3		3	1	2	0	-3	-3
9843	3	3	-1	-1	-1	-3		3	1	1	1	-3	-3
9812	3	3	0	-2	-2	-2		2	2	2	0	-3	-3
9749	3	3	-1	-1	-2	-2		2	2	1	1	-3	-3
9676	3	3	-1	-2	-1	-2		2	1	2	1	-3	-3
9615	3	2	1	-1	-2	-3
9494	3	2	0	0	-2	-3
9312	3	2	0	-1	-1	-3		3	1	1	0	-2	-3
8948	3	2	0	-1	-2	-2		2	2	1	0	-2	-3
8722	3	2	0	-2	-1	-2		2	1	2	0	-2	-3
8271	3	2	-1	-1	-1	-2		2	1	1	1	-2	-3
8255	3	1	1	-1	-1	-3
8224	3	1	0	0	-1	-3
8161	3	1	1	-1	-2	-2		2	2	1	-1	-1	-3
8037	3	1	0	0	-2	-2		2	2	0	0	-1	-3
7679	3	1	0	-1	-1	-2		2	1	1	0	-1	-3
7655	3	1	0	-2	0	-2		2	0	2	0	-1	-3
7560	3	1	-1	-1	0	-2		2	0	1	1	-1	-3
7464	3	1	-1	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	1	-1	-3
7401	2	2	1	-1	-2	-2
7277	2	2	0	0	-2	-2
6561	2	2	0	-1	-1	-2		2	1	1	0	-2	-2
6513	2	2	0	-2	0	-2		2	0	2	0	2	2
6322	2	2	-1	-1	0	-2		2	0	1	1	-2	-2
6131	2	2	-1	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	1	-2	-2
5893	2	1	1	-1	-1	-2
5426	2	1	0	0	-1	-2
4844	2	1	0	-1	0	-2		2	0	1	0	-1	-2
3680	2	1	0	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	0	-1	-2
3638	2	0	1	-1	0	-2
3471	2	0	1	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	-1	0	-2
3144	2	0	0	0	-1	-1		1	1	0	0	0	-2
2763	2	0	0	-1	0	-1		1	0	1	0	0	2
2681	2	0	0	0	0	-2
1918	1	1	0	-1	0	-1		1	0	1	0	-1	-1
1751	1	1	1	-1	-1	-1
1424	1	1	0	0	-1	-1
1013	1	0	1	-1	0	-1
0209	1	0	0	0	0	-1
0201	1	-1	1	-1	1	-1
0154	1	-1	1	-1	0	0
0061	1	-1	0	0	0	0
0000	0	0	0	0	0	0

What's The Distribution?

The stats have a bell curve distribution:

But although stats are balanced - they always add up to zero - not all sets of stats are equal. Usually the higher the roll the more desirable the set of stats.

Where a row has an alternate result, the main result has a couple of big bonuses and four small penalties; the alternate one has four small bonuses and two large penalties.