User:Spazalicious Chaos/Avatarization (3.5e Guide)

What Is This Madness?
Spaz's Law of Immersion, one of the first things you can do to rate how realisitic a game could be is to create yourself as a character. And this guide will show how I did it. Repeat these step and you too can have a fictional you slaying fictional dragons and getting swamped by fictional grateful wenches (in addition to the one you already have, of course.)]]

Step 1- Abilities
Fortunately the really hard part comes first, and that is figuring out what your basic stats are. Lets start top to bottom:

Strength
This one is easy, because there is a handy little chart in the book that details carrying capacity and lifting. Really all that matters is how badly you are willing to break yourself to figure out where you stand.

Method one just needs some running space, a back pack, and some heavy stuff to stuff it with. First, time yourself on a run. After a few trials you have a good idea of what your base speed is. Then, start the whole process again with heavier and heavier loads. Once you feel yourself starting to slow to a crawl, when you hate your pack and every step feels like trying to run for two people, you have found your medium load. Take a few bricks out until it suddenly feels light again and you have your light load cap between the two loads. Then just look on the chart.

But maybe running around with backpacks just doesn't impress the girls on your block. The other thing is to try and lift things over your head. From the ground to a full stand lift the heaviest things you can. Hell, there are people who might even pay you for it. Once you find something you can just barely lift up over your head only for a few seconds, find its weight and compare it to the maximum load section.

Dexterity
This one is a lot harder, as there are almost no non-skilled applications to this stat. However, the one unifying thing about the Dexterity based rolls are their reliance on kinesthetic intelligence- ie muscle memory and learning to move your body.

One method is to go about your normal morning routine blindfolded. The easier it is, the more developed your muscle memory. I suggest starting at 25 and taking a point off for every mistake or bump you take in your routine. My dex is around 16.

Another is to take an awkward, non-aerodynamic, bladed object you have never thrown before, then get a target and throw the object until it sticks, blade first, at ten paces. I used a cleaver, and it took me three tries. My sister, who is closer to 11 in dex, needed closer to 8 tries.

Constitution
The easiest stat ever- hold your breath. A round is 6 seconds, and a human can hold their breath for one round per point of constitution. Time yourself about three or five times and take the average.

Intelligence
This one is a bit more involved as you need to take an IQ test. Once you have your result, find a copy of the IQ bell curve chart and find where you sit. Now the scary/fun part- the probability bell curve of 3d6 and the IQ bell curve line up perfectly. If you find where your IQ is, then your Intelligence score is in the same spot.

Wisdom
This one is a bit difficult to messure, because like Dex, Wis has few unskilled uses. The best way to messure it to compare your ability to read your environment versus that of others. Answer this simple questionare:
 * Without looking, describe the room you are in as if you were trying to guide a stranger through the area.
 * If you live with others or with animals that are currently in the area, where are they now?
 * What are you actually going to do after reading this article?

Find out how accurate your answers are. Seriously, stop reading right now and find out. Come back in a while.

And we're back. As a general idea of average, the first question usually results in a description of where the main door is and a general layout of furniture and large object on the furniture, but windows and detailed descriptions of small objects are left out. On the second question confined animals and stationary individuals are usually accurate in placement, but most people just shrug in regards to active people and animals unless they are present and visible. The third question is general, but almost never purely accurate for the simple reason most people do small things absentmindedly and only think on the grand plan. The moire detailed and accurate, the higher your Wisdom. The more vague, or detailed but WRONG, the lower your Wisdom. Consider at legnth descriptions that result in being 90% wrong a sign of 3 Wis, while heavily detailed descriptions that are 90% right a sign of 18 Wis.

Charisma
Like Wis and Dex, Charisma is obnoxious in being one of the abilities with no unskilled uses. It is also obnoxious on another level: you have to intaeract with people to test it. Well, not really interact... but it helps to have an observant friend to test it. Simply go out into groups and figure out how many people notice you. Charisma is interpersonal drawing power after all. If no one really pays attention to you unless you initiate interaction, then you are average. If you are almost invisible, to the point where people bump into you and don't even see you go down, to the point where the waitress accidentally seats other people at your table because she didn't see you there, you have a Charisma of 3. If all the girls are checking you out, everoe pauses when you speak or everyone seems to go out of their way to interact with you, be it positive or negative, you have Charisma 18. But chances are you are somewhere between the extremes.

Step 2- Class
Now that you got your talents down, it is time to check out class abilities. Ignore the saves, skills and spells for now, just focus on what each class actually does. Here is how I find it breaks down:
 * Barbarian- If your are the kind of person that gos ape shit and does it successfully, you have levels in this class. This is especially true if you are prone to violent fits and do not seem to get hit as easily or as hard when berserking.
 * Bard- If you can get everyone to shut up and have their sole focus be you just by performing, you are a bard. Not just a regular singer or actor, either, as I am talking very specifically about the ability to leave others entranced and moved by your performance. If anyone has ever told you that you changed their life with your performance, you have levels in bard.
 * Cleric- "Magic isn't real" arguements aside, you probably have levels in this class if one of the domain abilities rings true with your capabilities. You might also have levels in cleric if your are able to use your faith as a source of inner strength. If you can offer prayer in the name of your faith and use that faith to bounce back in the face of adversity, you have some cleric in you.
 * Druid- Chances are, if you could be described as a druid you do not play D&D. Druids are people that are very at home in nature, to the point where they are more comfortable in the wilds than they are at home. Druids can walk out into the wild and know it like their bedroom, able to see if something is wrong and knowing just where to find what she needs.
 * Fighter- Formal combative training equals fighter levels. Really only use these if there is either A no other skill set that descibes you, or B you need some extra combat feats to describe how you can break people.
 * Monk- As opposed to the fighter, the monk is a dedicated martial artist skill set, offering a good mix of athletic skill and potential damage, if not the proper experiences to use it properly, as represented by the lower BAB.
 * Paladin- Do you stand up for your ideals? Do you believe in your cause unquestionably? Are you willing to beat the living shit out of anyone who tells you your path is wrong? And are they obviously retarded beyond contempt for not being like you? If you answered yes to all the above you have paladin abilities.
 * Ranger- Take this class if you would call yourself a hunter. If you are constantly boning up on new techniques to catch your prey, be it animal or criminal, or always keeping an eye out for your targets, and your are willing to camp out for weeks or months just to get a shot, you have levels in this class.
 * Rogue- This class has only two things that stand out- ambush and counter ambush. You have levels in this class if you know how to do a proper room entery, know just where to hit people so they can go down quickly and quietly, and are always checking the floors and ceilings when going somewhere new.
 * Sorceror- If you seriously have levels in this class, then the existance of magic in reality is not a question but a reality. You make a habit out of doing things that should not be possible. It was nothing you learned, you were just born that way.
 * Wizard- If you have levels in this class, you are like the sorceror above, but you had to learn it. You studied with wiccans and druids, probably took some parapsychology courses at college and successfully tested yourself for ESP.

Step 3- Skills
Now you have your class(es) and the number of levels. If you were in any way honest you probably ended up somewhere between level 1 and 8, possibly 10 for our combat vets (and thank you for your service.) You are human (theoretically), so do not neglect the extra skill points. Now you spend your skill points as per normal with the normal caps. However, keep in mind the implied competancy of the assigned points- 4 points is competance achieved, that you can perform all the basic tasks of the skill reliably. If you just have a basic understanding of the skill, you have fewer than 4 ranks. If you have more advanced understanding of the skill, you have more than 4 ranks.

Step 4- Feats
This is the final step before going into just totaling stuff up. You are human, so do not forget that extra feat. Most feats are very explicit in what they do mechanically, but try to thinks of them as phsyical or mental capabilities. Were the skill caps to low for something you excel at? Then take the various skill improvement feats as needed. Were you impossible to get out in dodge ball as a kid? Try dodge or combat expertise. Do you understand how to move your body to get more power out of it? Power attack. And so on, until either all your feat slots are gone or else you have your capabilities figured out.