What Is A Dump Stat?

A dump stat is going to be the thing that you are worst at. In terms of what that looks like on your character sheet, 10 is supposed to be average. If someone were to have a 10 in all their stats, they are the average person in the world.

So it’s not just your lowest stat, it is a stat that is below that average. If you are even one less, at 9, you get a negative one penalty on the roll and you are lower than average with what you can roll. But that is talking about it mechanically, it is also a weakness in how you role play out that below average trait.

Playing A Dump Stat in Dungeons and Dragons

The first question to ask if if your character knows they have a dump stat. If you are just below average wisdom or intelligence you know that you aren’t as smart. If they are a fair bit below, now they start to think that they are smarter. Some of the physical ones, strength or dexterity, you might always know that you aren’t as good at, but is that how you are going to play it.

Let’s go through each stat and come up with a way to play it.

Strength

For strength, I think that there are two common ways that you could play it. First, you could have the character constantly try and get people to help them. Even for a meaningless task, like opening a pickle jar with a loose lit, or pull a small dead branch off a tree, they also have someone else help them.

Or on the other side of things, they could refuse help. They might know they are weak, but they are going to do it themselves. So when the big fighter or barbarian tries to help them, they get upset and refuse the help. It is a matter of pride that they will be able to do it on their own.

Dexterity

Dexterity is going to follow along the lines of strength. They know that anything slightly dexterous is tricky for them, so they never do it. In fact, really easy things, they try and make someone else do it. Or they are going to try no matter what.

Constitution

For constitution you can make it about them getting sick all of the time. If the weather turns, they get a slight cold. They have the sniffles about 90% of the year. When the group goes into the bar, they are a light weight and after a drink they are up on the table and possibly looking to pick a fight or hitting on someone at the bar and getting into trouble that way.

Intelligence

Intelligence is pretty straightforward as well. You just assume knowledge about things. If someone talks on a subject, you assume that you know more than they do. And you don’t really feel a need to look into it further because, again, you know. On the other hand, you know about libraries but wouldn’t think about going to them to find out information.

Wisdom

Wisdom is going to be more about how the world works. You think you know how criminals work on the streets. You think you know how things will play out in a situation, especially social. But you really don’t know how any of that works. If you are down a little, you’re probably worried about messing any situation up. If you are very low on wisdom, you just assume that you know what is going on and are a bit of a bull in a china shop.

Charisma

Charisma is probably the most interesting to have as a low stat mainly because charisma as a high stat is pretty narrow. Or at least how a lot of people play it, it is. But as a low stat, you have a lot of ways to go. You can just assume that everyone likes you, even though you are annoying. Being very quiet is another way to play it. Or try and overcompensate by talking loudly or being too affectionate, or whatever thing your character believes is the normal things people do that is most certainly not normal.

Final Thoughts

Dump stats are fun, mainly because it gives your character a chance not to shine. There are a lot of opportunities to utilize strengths. And a good DM (Dungeon Master) should present opportunities like that to players. But a chance to create a fun or interesting moment with a weakness, that is going to be as memorable as that great thing that you did. A dump stat is also a great way to bring in comedy or intended conflict.

An example would be a low dexterity character trying to sneak around the edge of a group of goblins versus the rogue doing so. They fall into the midst of goblins, now you have a weird combat that is going to start happening. Or a low charisma character getting flustered by some light flirting and accidentally proposing to a princess in front of the king. You will be talking about when those moments happen way more than when the fighter takes out the goblins.

So lean into it and have fun. That is the fun of a role playing game. Dungeons and Dragons, or whatever system you are using, is about that fun at the table versus winning the game. In fact, very few D&D campaigns reach the end, stories get too big or schedules change, but there are always going to be moments that you remember in the game.

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I’m back with some more Drinking in D&D. Tonight I brought up two Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA, but I only drank one of them. It’s one of my favorite beers, a good IPA.

The topic for Drinking in D&D was looking at the Character Sheet and what sections on the character sheet are. There’s a lot to keep track of it and it’s the basis for how you roll your dice and what your character can do, particularly in combat.

There are a number different areas that I looked at on the board, hit points, speed, initiative, proficiency, armor class (AC), ability scores, and skills. I’m going to go back and do the second half of the main sheet and hopefully the other two sheets in my next stream, which might be happening on Friday, tbd.

Thanks for checking out the video. If you are enjoying the content, it does go out live on Twitch at http://twitch.com/maltsandmeeples. The videos are also uploaded to youtube, and a subscription or a like will help people find the videos there.

Bottoms up!

In the prerequisites, we’ve talked about how to make a character that fits the campaign and is fun for you and the group (101). We then went on and talked about how Dungeons and Dragons gives you tools, such as personality trait, ideals, bonds, and flaws to create some role playing experiences (201). Finally, in our last class we looked at how you can create an open backstory that the Dungeon Master will be able to tie into the game and that can tie into your role playing and character development (301).

This last bit is going to build off of creating that interesting backstory to give more options for the DM and for the player themselves with role playing. It could just be considered a continuation of the previous one, but I think that there are a few more intricacies with building a character with everything in here.

Leave Blanks in Your Backstory
This one is interesting because as a player you often want to know everything about your character. But it’s going to give you more opportunities to develop a character if you haven’t filled everything in. It also allows the DM a chance to create more character hooks for you. If your whole background is known, they only have the hooks that you were instructed to create in 301. However, if the DM has opportunity to work on your backstory and create hooks in those openings.

This is also tricky because it requires trust between players and the DM. There is at times a mindset that it’s DM vs the players. If you think it’s going to be like that, it’s hard to give a DM a chance to twist your characters backstory. But if you do allow for it, you can develop more interesting and deeper stories and stretch yourself with role playing.

Play to Your Weakness
Probably could have been mentioned earlier as I talked about flaws and looked at what D&D has baked into your character creation already. But there’s an idea of a dump stat, and no, this isn’t the stat you dump all your points into, it’s the stat that is lower than every other stat and is below the average, ten, that the commoners have. It’s easy to not want to have one of these or to not let it shine. However, the dump stat is going to provide you a lot of role playing opportunities. So give your character one, and then tie it into the backstory. Pick whatever stat that you want to dump, I wouldn’t recommend CON (constitution) though for any character, but really make it part of your story. There’s a desire to have it be the heroic things that you have done and your great moments to create your backstory, but instead consider your previous failures as to figure out why you are driven to be an adventurer. This also, again, creates more plot hooks for the DM to grab onto.

Don’t Be Afraid to Change
Finally, don’t be afraid to change your backstory. Don’t be afraid to change your character. You might think you have a concept that you love, but it might not end up being what you thought it was going to be. Figure that out early on, and if that is the case and it isn’t a character that you love, talk to your DM and change your character. Now, this can be done a couple of different ways. Maybe you don’t like the backstory that you created, so change that up. Even possibly changing out your background if need be to match your new backstory idea. Or it could be that you thought you’d love playing the Wizard, but you really want to hit things with a big pointy metal stick. Talk to your DM and change the character that you are playing. Depending on what the DM wants to do, your previous character could be magically transformed, or it could be that your previous character leaves the party and a new one comes in. My only caveat to this is that you should try and change early to find out what you want. In Dungeons and Flagons season one, Clint changed characters completely in the middle of the game, and it just happened to work that it made sense in the story, and I actually gave him the option as I knew he wanted to try new things. But that puts pressure on the DM, so if you are going to change, try and change early as the party and story are just starting.

I’m sure that there are many more things that I could talk about with character creation. However, I think for Dungeons and Dragons, that this is a very strong basis for getting character ready for a game and into a game. If you put everything together, you’re going to, most likely, have a fun time. There are certainly other things as well that can impact your game, but if you do this process, you can be fairly confident it won’t be your character.

Are there any tips that you’d like to add for character creation? If so, leave them in the comments below.

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