06-16-2023, 09:50 AM
Here's how I interpret it these days:
The basic player characteristics are:
1. Strength
2. Dexterity
3. Intelligence
4. Charisma
5. Health
With the optional characteristic being:
6. Stamina
Though, I don't know how optional a stat is if it's required to calculate hit points...
I used to think Knowledge was an optional stat that just wasn't detailed, but after rereading the education section, I think it's just a catch-all term for a character's skills.
The only reference to Constitution in the books is in the first book where it is only described as another name for STA.
My hypothesis is that CON was in the list originally (per D&D), but then later separated into separate STA and HLT characteristics. That's why STA (an optional characteristic) is required for hit point calculation: CON was naively replaced with STA there, but really the hit points should be using HLT.
However, Thieves' World throws a wrench into all of that if we consider it correct. Weirdly it has a separate CON stat and this stat appears totally unrelated to the other two (it's a separate rolled stat, not an average or sum of STA and HLT). Running the HP calculation with the values listed for different characters shows that STA appears to still be the one they use, not HLT or CON.
As noted, the Hell Hounds are the only ones without a STA score. So what are the hit points if we run it with both CON and HLT.
Well... they mostly have CONs and HLTs that are too close together to register a difference, but two differ:
(Name: HP with CON, HP with HLT, listed HP)
Bourne: 18, 19, 18 (CON matches HP)
Quag: 20, 20, 19 (neither matches HP)
The basic player characteristics are:
1. Strength
2. Dexterity
3. Intelligence
4. Charisma
5. Health
With the optional characteristic being:
6. Stamina
Though, I don't know how optional a stat is if it's required to calculate hit points...
I used to think Knowledge was an optional stat that just wasn't detailed, but after rereading the education section, I think it's just a catch-all term for a character's skills.
The only reference to Constitution in the books is in the first book where it is only described as another name for STA.
My hypothesis is that CON was in the list originally (per D&D), but then later separated into separate STA and HLT characteristics. That's why STA (an optional characteristic) is required for hit point calculation: CON was naively replaced with STA there, but really the hit points should be using HLT.
However, Thieves' World throws a wrench into all of that if we consider it correct. Weirdly it has a separate CON stat and this stat appears totally unrelated to the other two (it's a separate rolled stat, not an average or sum of STA and HLT). Running the HP calculation with the values listed for different characters shows that STA appears to still be the one they use, not HLT or CON.
As noted, the Hell Hounds are the only ones without a STA score. So what are the hit points if we run it with both CON and HLT.
Well... they mostly have CONs and HLTs that are too close together to register a difference, but two differ:
(Name: HP with CON, HP with HLT, listed HP)
Bourne: 18, 19, 18 (CON matches HP)
Quag: 20, 20, 19 (neither matches HP)
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