Attributes

Every Fangfinder character has Attributes, which represent the basic potential of every person in the world. They usually range between 8 (poor) and 16 (good) with an average of 10. Some gifted individuals or the supernatural reach ability scores of 20 or 24. Only the eldest of vampires can reach even higher attributes.

Unlike the usual Pathfinder system, Fangfinder uses nine attributes instead of the usual six. These attributes are divided into physical, mental and social attributes. In each of the three categories, an attribute shows how strong the respective character is. The second one shows agility, the third one resistance. The attribute table looks like this for Fangfinder:

	Physical	Mental	Social
Power	Strength	Intelligence	Presence
Finesse	Dexterity	Wits	Manipulation
Resistance	Stamina	Resolve	Composure

Physical

The physical attributes describe the condition of a character's body. They show how strong, agile and resilient a character is. This would be the primary category for action based characters.

Strength

The strength score is the raw physical power of a character, the physical strength that determines how much a character can lift, or how much impact she has in melee combat. If a character wants to engage in melee combat, strength will be her key attribute.

Dexterity

The dexterity score determines how agile a character is, her general physical prowess. It influences the character's speed, quickness, and shows the character's ability to achieve difficile tasks. For characters who want to engage in ranged combat, dexterity will be the key attribute. It also influences the Armor Class of a character.

Stamina

The stamina-attribute defines how healthy and durable your character is. It defines how much punishment she can withstand and which hit die she uses. Stamina is an important attribute for every character, as it defines the size of the hit die, and the stamina saving throw.

Mental

While physical attributes define the body, mental attributes define the mind of a character. They show how intelligent, sharp-minded and strong in mind your character is.

Intelligence

Intelligence defines the raw knowledge of a character, her memory, and the ability to think through arduous tasks or master the secrets of Magic. Intelligence is the spellcasting attribute for every caster, like Tremere, Magi or Cappadocians. Intelligence also changes the skill points a character can assign.

Wits

Wits describes how quick a character can think through situations, pick up details and improvise solutions. Wits influences the perception of your character and provides a bonus to improvised tasks.

Resolve

Resolve is your character's determination, patience and sense of commitment. It allows her to concentrate even when her mind is attacked and to withstand such mental attacks more easily. This attribute influences your willpower and the resolve saving throw.

Social

Presence

Presence is the force of personality, the gravitas and raw appeal of a character. It allows her to influence the first impression she makes on others and is the spellcasting attribute for casters who rely on fate, like some Hunters do.

Manipulation

With manipulation a character can influence the actions of others, their tendency to do what the character wants. Many social skills, that serve to obtain something from others, are linked to manipulation.

Composure

Composure primarily describes how the character behaves in tricky situations, her ability to maintain her posture and remain calm even under pressure. Composure influences not only the willpower of a character, but also her Composure saving throw.

Determine Attributes

To determine the attributes of the character, Fangfinder uses a priority system. Each priority is assigned to a category of attributes, either physical, mental or social.

Each priority provides a certain number of attribute points that are freely distributed among the three attributes of the category. 8 points, the base score, are free and do not count against the attribute points of the priority.

Priority A: 20 Points

Priority B: 16 Points

Priority C: 12 Points

During character creation, no attribute score may rise above 18.

Example:

Janet wants to create a Ventrue for a Fangfinder chronicle. In order to determine the attribute scores for her character, she first distributes the priorities that have resulted from her concept.

Her character relies mainly on Dominate and Presence as disciplines and, beyond that, mainly on social interactions. She chooses priority A for the social attributes, priority B for the mental attributes and the remaining priority C for her physical attributes.

Next, she assigns each attribute a base score of 8, which is the starting point for the point distribution.

For the sake of simplicity, she then continues with the lowest priority, C. Janet wants her character to be at least average in all scores, so she sacrifices 6 points to increase each of the three attributes to 10. She sets the remaining 6 points as Ventrue in Stamina, which gives her an attribute value of 16. After a look at the table, she also notes a d8 as her hit die.

She also distributes 6 points for her Mental Attributes to get to an average of 10. This leaves her 10 points, which she puts mainly into Intelligence and Resolve, so that in she ends with a distribution of 14 - 12 - 14.

In her last category, the Social Attributes, she decides to distribute more evenly and give the final priority to Composure to emphasise the serenity of her character. In the end she distributes the attributes here over 14 - 14 - 16.

Attribute Modifiers

Each attribute has its own modifier, which is added to certain checks as a bonus. To determine the modifier, use the following formula:

(Attribute - 10)/2

So if your attribute has a score of 18, substract 10 and divide the remainder by 2.

Abbreviations

In some places, such as on the character sheet, certain abbreviations are used for the attributes. These abbreviations are:

• Strength - STR
• Dexterity - DEX
• Stamina - STA
• Intelligence - INT
• Wits - WIT
• Resolve - RES
• Presence - PRE
• Manipulation - MAN
• Composure - COM

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Hit Die

Your character's hit die is determined by her score in Stamina. The higher this score is, the larger the hit die is.

Stamina	Hit Die
8 - 13	1d6
14 - 17	1d8
18 - 20	1d10
> 20	1d12

This hit die will change further, if you have ranks in the Fortitude discipline.

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Willpower

To determine your character's willpower, just add the modifiers of Composure and Resolve. You can buy additional willpower during character creation and adjust this score during gameplay.

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Random Attributes

Of course, it is possible to determine the attributes of a character randomly. However, this method is more suitable for groups that are looking for a classic Pathfinder approach to their game.

To determine the character's attributes randomly, you roll 4d6 , as usual in Pathfinder, and discard the lowest die.

You must perform nine such dice rolls. Distribute your results to the nine attributes, without assigning the basic scores.