Ability Scores

Strength (Str)

Strength measures your character’s muscle and physical power. This ability is especially important for fighters, barbarians, paladins, and rangers because it helps them prevail in combat.

Dexterity (Dex)

Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. This ability is the most important one for rogues, but it’s also high on the list for characters who typically wear light or medium armor (rangers and barbarians) or no armor at all (monks and wizards), and for anyone who wants to be a skilled archer.

Constitution (Con)

Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina. A Constitution bonus increases a character’s hit points, so the ability is important for all classes.

Intelligence (Int)

Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. This ability is important for wizards and psions because it affects how many spells they can cast, how hard their spells are to resist, and how powerful their spells can be. It’s also important for any character who wants to have a wide assortment of skills.

The minimum Intelligence score needed to cast a wizard spell is 10 + the spell’s level.

An animal has an Intelligence score of 1 or 2. A creature of humanlike intelligence has a score of at least 3.

Wisdom (Wis)

Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings. Wisdom is the most important ability for clerics and druids, and it is also important for rangers. If you want your character to have acute senses, put a high score in Wisdom.

The minimum Wisdom score needed to cast a cleric, druid or ranger spell is 10 + the spell’s level.

Charisma (Cha)

Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting. Charisma is most important for paladins, bards and sorcerers.

The minimum Charisma score needed to cast a paladin, bard or sorcerer spell is 10 + the spell’s level.