NiGHTMARE, on Jul 31 2004, 09:06 PM, said:
kirkjobsluder: I already said I was talking about all humans in the D&D universe, not just NPCs. The vast, vast, majority of humans do not have "dice roll stats", because they never appear in any campaign, or if they do they're such minor characters there's no point in rolling dice for them.
So while the mean, the median and the mod would be the same or extremely similar for NPCs, they would not be the same for the entire human race.
I'm not seing the distinction here. As defined by the creators of
D&D, humans have ability scores with a range from 3-18, a mean of 10.5, a theoretical median of 10.5, and a mode that would not be kosher. (Theoretically, 10 and 11 should appear with equal frequency.)
Or to be more precise: Ability scores in 1st and 2nd edition
D&D are normed around the range of human characteristics, from sickly invalids to power-lifters. From the profoundly learning disabled to the mensa members. From the people barely able to walk to olympic gymnasts. With the choice to use 3d6 as a way to generate ability scores,
D&D make a pretty explicit claim that ability scores approximate a normal distribution.
With PCs and NPCs we use a number of "cheats" to select scores that are above average. Because PCs and NPCs are selected from the top 50% or 25% of
D&D humanity, one would expect their characteristics to be strongly skewed. But humanity as a whole in
D&D is defined as having a symmetric distribution of STR, INT, WIS, DEX CON, & CHR.
Which leads to an interesting flaw in
BG2. How are goblins who are generally not portrayed as being very strong as a whole using composite shortbows that can only be used by 0.5% of the human population?