The Six Stats
The six typical stats of a character. Originating from Dungeons & Dragons (which later became the D20 System), they have been passed on into other gaming systems, and even farther into non-RPG media. Characters' stats are often argued about on various forums, in relation to where they would fit according to the typical 1-20 lv1 stat range in most RPGs.
Strength - The stat that represents a person's physical power. Used to determine how strong they are and how hard they hit.
Dexterity - Dexterity represents a person's physical nimbleness. Used to determine fine motor skills, reaction time, and aiming. Also called The God Stat.
Constitution - The stat representing a character's physical toughness. Used to determine how much damage someone can take and how well they resist poisons, illnesses, etc.
Intelligence - The stat representing... well... intelligence. Used to show how skilled a person is, how quickly they learn, how many languages they can speak, etc.
Wisdom - The stat representing a person's wisdom and street-smarts. Used to determine a character's perception, willpower, and decision-making skills.
Charisma - The stat representing a person's force of personality. Used to determine how well someone can influence others by speeches, diplomacy, fear, lying, etc. To a player whose preferred solution is Hack and Slash, this is a Dump Stat; to a player who likes to roleplay, or wants to run a Manipulative / Magnificent Bastard, it's the stat of choice. So Your Mileage May Vary on how useless/useful it is.
Stats are usually measured in single-to-double digit numbers, ranging from 1 to 23 as the "human" levels of stats, 1 being the bare minimum and 23 being the utmost attainable after a lifetime of effort and overspecialization; 18 is the peak of "average human" potential. Anything from 24 and up is considered greater-than-mortal.
The original order was Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, and Charisma – and in first edition D&D, you had to roll them in order, using three six-sided dice. No "four dice and discard the lowest", no "assign the rolls in the order you want" (and thus no Dump Stat), no other mitigations against rolling up a sub-optimal (or, worse, unplayable) character. And Stat Grinding was unknown to the point of being practically impossible. (Also, 18 was the utmost attainable after a lifetime of effort and overspecialization even in games where Stat Grinding was possible; 19 and up was greater-than-mortal.)
In order to list examples on the wiki, the stats have been broken down into varying tiers as follows
- 12-15 - Above Average. Characters whose stats fall into this stat-tier are better than most "normals", meaning they're better than over 50% of everyone else out there.[1]
- 16-19 - Genius-level. Characters whose stats fall into this stat-tier are considered geniuses, savants, "gifted," what have you. These are your Olympic-level athletes, chess masters, etc.
- 20-23 - Superhuman. Characters who stats fall into this stat-tier are pushing the boundaries of "realistic" to the extreme. Expect movie physics to be evoked for physical feats, while characters on the more intellectual end fall into Magnificent Bastard, and Manipulative Bastard territories.
- 24+ - These characters are just too uber to be real. These are characters who are the paragons of their stats, and who first come to mind when mentioning a stat.
Note that 11 on down aren't even listed, as "normal" is just too broad a range to cover. For characters whose weakest stat ranges from about 1-5, check Dump Stat.
- ↑ On the bell curve that plots all possible results of rolling three six-sided dice, the median line falls exactly between 10 and 11. A stat of 11 is by definition better than exactly 50% of everyone else.