Welcome back to the world of Morgalad! In this post, we’re diving deeper into what makes your characters unique and capable: their ability scores. Understanding these scores is fundamental to navigating challenges and shaping your character’s journey in this exciting tabletop role-playing game.
In Morgalad 4D6, your character’s capabilities are defined by two main categories: Attributes and Base Abilities.
The Six Natural Attributes: Your Character’s Core
Every character in Morgalad possesses six natural attributes, representing their inherent physical, mental, and spiritual capacities. These attributes are assigned a numeric value ranging from -3 to +3 during character creation. You determine these scores by rolling 1d6 for each attribute, and then consulting a table to find the corresponding attribute score. Here’s a breakdown of each attribute:
- Power: This reflects your character’s brute force and strength. A high Power score will influence your carrying capacity and damage output.
- Finesse: This encompasses your character’s malleability, dexterity, and ability to adapt under pressure. Finesse contributes to your defense and attack bonuses, as well as your Reflex and Stealth scores.
- Essence: This measures your character’s internal fortitude and constitution. A strong Essence score bolsters your Fortitude.
- Knowledge: This represents your character’s intellect and inherent problem-solving skills. Knowledge influences your Search, Listen, and Spot scores.
- Consciousness: This reflects your character’s spiritual awareness and potential wisdom. Consciousness affects your Will bonus.
- Allure: This encompasses your character’s natural leadership abilities, charismatic representation, diplomatic potential, and physical beauty. Allure directly influences your Diplomacy bonus.
The Base 8 Abilities: Fundamental Skills
Alongside the six natural attributes, every character starts with eight standard abilities, known as the Base 8. These represent fundamental skills that most individuals possess to some degree:
- Will: Your character’s mental strength.
- Reflex: Your character’s reactionary instincts.
- Fortitude: Your character’s internal constitution.
- Diplomacy: Your character’s mannerisms and social skills.
- Search: Your character’s perspective reasoning skills when surveying a specific target.
- Spot: Your character’s perspective reasoning skills while at rest.
- Listen: Your character’s auditory skills.
- Stealth: Your character’s ability to move silently and unseen.
Ability Scores in Action: Facing Challenges
When your character attempts an action that has a chance of failure, you’ll likely face a challenge. Morgalad features two main types of challenges: attribute challenges and ability challenges.
For a challenge, you typically roll 4d6 and add any relevant bonuses. This total is then compared against a Difficulty Rating (DR). Difficulty Ratings can be a specific number or fall into categories like Easy (10), Standard (13), or Hard (15), and these difficulties increase as characters gain levels.
- Ability Challenges: If a learned ability (either a Base 8 ability or a professional ability gained through your chosen profession) is applicable to the action, you roll your 4d6 plus any relevant bonuses directly against the DR.
- Attribute Challenges: If no learned ability applies, you roll your 4d6 plus any relevant bonuses against the corresponding attribute, and a +5 penalty is added to the DR. The Attribute Ability Table outlines which abilities correspond to which attributes. For example, if you try to swim and don’t have the Swimming ability, you would roll against your Power attribute with a +5 penalty to the DR. Similarly, if you attempt to use diplomatic skills without the Diplomacy ability, you would roll against your Allure attribute with a +5 penalty.
Understanding your character’s attributes and base abilities is crucial for determining how you’ll approach different situations in Morgalad. Will your strong Power help you overcome a physical obstacle? Will your high Knowledge aid you in deciphering an ancient text? Will your Allure allow you to persuade a stubborn guard?
As your character adventures and gains experience, they can even improve their abilities and attributes using Character Points (CP). This allows for further customization and specialization, making each character’s ability scores a dynamic reflection of their experiences.
So, when you create your Morgalad character, pay close attention to those ability scores! They are the foundation of your character’s strengths and weaknesses, and they will shape the stories you tell together. Download the free Morgalad Fantasy RPG Starterbook and begin your adventure today! Don’t forget to join our Discord Server to connect with other players and learn even more.
