Beginner's Note: Characteristic DMs

This is a note for beginners to Traveller. Welcome, by the way. Please visit Castrobancla some time. :)

The characteristic DM table is one of the first tables you'll encounter in the core rulebook. It is also, by the way, one of the first tables that you will want to commit to memory.

It might not seem very important to you at first - it's just one tiny table tucked into page 8 of the 2e core rulebook - but when you begin making skill checks in play, and even before play when you are still rolling up your character, these characteristic DMs will pop up all the time.

They pop up during Qualification, Survival, Advancement and Commission rolls. They turn up during skill checks in play, and sometimes when you have to make a basic characteristic roll the DM will turn up then.

And in each case, that little DM might make all the difference between success and failure.

Now look at them closely. There are three ranges: one where the characteristic is lower than average, and the DM is negative; one where the DM is zero, and the characteristic is average; and one range where the characteristic is above average.

Where the DM is positive, and even where it is negative, the Traveller is exceptional in some way - exceptionally gifted, or exceptionally inept.

These DMs are in ranges - 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14 and 15+. I'll say "plus" here because augmentations could take the stats above 15 during play.

What this means is that, during chargen, if you rolled a 6 and an 8 and you were worrying about where to put the lower of the two - for instance, you are deciding between putting the 8 in End or in Int - the decision is simple. Put the 8 in End, and leave the 6 in Int.

Why?

Because few attacks are going to hit Int first. You may well need those two extra End points in battle, and - best of all - your DMs for both Int and End are going to be exactly the same: +0, Average.

The same goes for a situation where you have exceptional rolls, with the same +DM, and you are choosing between putting your 12 in Str or your 14, and again leaving the other in End. It won't affect the Str DM+2 or the End DM+2 at all, so you might as well make Str 12 and End 14, because you are going to need those extra 2 End points in a battle.

The last point I would like to make is that as long as your characteristics are non-zero, whether you are physically fit or injured, you are never likely to suffer a characteristic DM-3 on a roll. The worst you can suffer is a DM-2, and that is only if you suffer a natural 2 when rolling your characteristics at some point. An uninjured Traveller should never have a characteristic below 2, and the only time you suffer a characteristic DM-3 is when your characteristic is down to zero, and believe me you will have other things to worry about at that point.

My houserule as a ref is to state, when I see a player roll a natural 2 during the characteristic rolling phase, "I am sorry, but it looks like those dice just clean ... fell off the table somehow. That roll is invalid. Better reroll, just to be sure." And if the roll is still a natural 2, I tell the player to ditch those malicious dice and rule that the result should have been a 7 by referee fiat.
 
alex_greene said:
What this means is that, during chargen, if you rolled a 6 and an 8 and you were worrying about where to put the lower of the two - for instance, you are deciding between putting the 8 in End or in Int - the decision is simple. Put the 8 in End, and leave the 6 in Int.

Why?

Because few attacks are going to hit Int first. You may well need those two extra End points in battle, and - best of all - your DMs for both Int and End are going to be exactly the same: +0, Average.

Another thing to consider is some careers give +1 to characteristics on the personal development table and as mustering out benefits. If you have a 7 and 8, the DM might be the same for now, but if you put that 8 on one that might get bumped by your career, then all of a sudden that 0 DM becomes a +1...

Of course this relies on a lot of lucky dice rolls... :)
 
alex_greene said:
My houserule as a ref is to state, when I see a player roll a natural 2 during the characteristic rolling phase, "I am sorry, but it looks like those dice just clean ... fell off the table somehow. That roll is invalid. Better reroll, just to be sure." And if the roll is still a natural 2, I tell the player to ditch those malicious dice and rule that the result should have been a 7 by referee fiat.

LOL! I love it. I usually have people roll 7 sets of stats and drop the lowest. Then I will check to see what their stats add up to, and if it is lower than 35-36 (since the "average" is 7 and 7*6 is 42) I might give them the option, if they want, to re-roll their lowest result, it all depends on what the group needs and how good a role-player the person is. The better role-players can manage to create a viable and fun character even with low stats.

A perfect example is one player who created a character using the Merchant Prince book that was a "Royal Trader" for a high ranking Noble. His physical stats were all very low (5 or less) but his mental ones where above average (9+). At some point he rolled the event where he was injured while working (12 on the d66 event table). He explained it as an assassination attempt on the Noble and he "took the bullet" for him. H rolled bad on the injruy table and had his STR and DEX reduced to something like 2 and 1. He overcame that by "converting" a Servant benefit into a powered-exoskeleton that gave him mobility and brought his STR back to a 6 and DEX to a 4. I thought that was brilliant!
 
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