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stats

Discworld concepts help

stats

Description

When it comes to applying your knowledge, in the form of your levels in the various skills, it is very often the case that your bonus in a skill is used, rather than your level. The bonus provides a much more relevant measure of how good you are at something, since it takes into account your natural ability in the form of your stats. There are five stats, which you may view at any time with "score stats", and they are constitution, dexterity, intelligence, strength and wisdom. Your array of stats forms what wizards term your anima, as opposed to your skills which form your animus.

Constitution

Your constitution is a measure of how healthy you are, and is frequently used to determine whether you succumb to disease or poison. Amongst other skills, it is important for your bonus in "adventuring.health" and hence the number of hit points you have.

Dexterity

Your dexterity determines how agile and graceful you are. It will be used to determine how you land from a fall and is used in the determination of the bonus for many skills, for example "fighting.defence.dodging", "magic.methods.physical" and, of course, many of the "covert" skills - a good dexterity is a must for any decent thief or assassin.

Intelligence

Your intelligence reflects how bright you are and determines how able you are at figuring things out for yourself. It is the most important stat for bonuses in "magic", so it is very important for wizards and witches, but it also plays a part in such skills as "covert.casing", "faith.items" and a number of the more mental skills, including "people.valuing" and "adventuring.evaluating".

Strength

Your strength is a measure of your physical power and build. Its most obvious role is in determining how much you are able to carry. A fighter will need a good strength as it is the main stat used for calculating "fighting" bonuses, with dexterity not far behind, and is also used for "crafts.smithing.black" and the more physical "adventuring" skills.

Wisdom

Your wisdom is a reflection of the power of your intuition and common sense. It is by far the most important stat for priests, in that it determines bonuses in "faith", and is also used for "magic.methods.spiritual" and a number of the more mental skills, including "adventuring.perception".

Setting Stats

All of your stats start out at 13. Once you have chosen a guild to join, you will probably want to make use of "rearrange" to set your stats appropriately for that guild. The command lets you set each stat to any value between 8 and 23, so long as the total is still 65 or less, and once used, you lose the command, so make sure you do it right as you only get one chance.

You do not need to rearrange your stats very early on in the game, spend some time playing with your character getting the feel of how things work and talking to other members of your guild before you make a decision about how you wish to set your stats with the rearrange command.

Again, you may only rearrange once.

Changing Stats

There are various ways to modify your stats. The most common way is to change them temporarily, for instance, a ritual or potion might give you more points in one or more stats for a short time. Another way is through magic items which change your stats indefinitely, although there will always be a price to pay for the change and as soon as you can no longer pay the price, your stats will revert. Just as there are ways to improve your stats, there will be things that reduce them; contracting a disease might reduce your strength, while wearing awkward clothing or heavy armour might lower your dexterity.

There may be particular places available in-game, where a service to change your stats is offered, usually for a fee of some kind. This may allow you to tweak your one or more stats very slightly.

Should you ever be unfortunate enough to meet Death, all of your stats will be temporarily lowered, although there are ways to be restored more quickly than by simply waiting.

See also

bonus, skills, score, rearrange, taskmaster