New Ability Scores: Honor and Sanity

Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide p. 264

If you’re running a campaign shaped by a strict code of honor or the constant risk of insanity, consider adding one or both these new ability scores: Honor and Sanity.

These abilities function like the standard six abilities, with exceptions specified in each ability below.

Here’s how to incorporate these optional abilities at character creation:

• If your players use the standard array of ability scores, add one 11 to the array for each optional ability you add.
• If your players use the optional point-buy system, add 3 points to the number of points for each optional ability you add.
• If your players roll their ability scores, have them roll for the added ability scores.

If you ever need to make a check or saving throw for Honor or Sanity for a monster that lacks the score, you can use Charisma for Honor and Wisdom for Sanity.

Honor Score

If your campaign involves cultures where a rigid code of honor is part of daily life, consider using the Honor score as a means of measuring a character’s devotion to that code. This ability fits well in a setting inspired by Asian cultures, such as Kara-Tur in the Forgotten Realms. The Honor ability is also useful in any campaign that revolves around orders of knights.

Honor measures not only a character’s devotion to a code but also the character’s understanding of it. The Honor score can also reflect how others perceive a character’s honor. A character with a high Honor usually has a reputation that others know about, especially those who have high Honor scores themselves.

Unlike other abilities, Honor can’t be raised with normal ability score increases. Instead, you can award increases to Honor—or impose reductions—based on a character’s actions. At the end of an adventure, if you think a character’s actions in the adventure reflected well or poorly on his or her understanding of the code, you can increase or decrease the character’s Honor by 1. As with other ability scores, a character’s Honor can’t exceed 20 or fall below 1.

Honor Checks

Honor checks can be used in social situations, much as Charisma would, when a character’s understanding of a code of conduct is the most defining factor in the way a social interaction will play out. You might also call for an Honor check when a character is in one of the following situations:

• Being unsure how to act with honor
• Surrendering while trying to save face
• Trying to determine another character’s Honor score
• Trying to use the proper etiquette in a delicate social situation
• Using his or her honorable or dishonorable reputation to influence someone else

Honor Saving Throws

An Honor saving throw comes into play when you want to determine whether a character might inadvertently do something dishonorable. You might call for an Honor saving throw in the following situations:

• Avoiding an accidental breach of honor or etiquette
• Resisting the urge to respond to goading or insults from an enemy
• Recognizing when an enemy attempts to trick a character into a breach of honor

Sanity Score

Consider using the Sanity score if your campaign revolves around entities of an utterly alien and unspeakable nature, such as Great Cthulhu, whose powers and minions can shatter a character’s mind.

A character with a high Sanity is level-headed even in the face of insane circumstances, while a character with low Sanity is unsteady, breaking easily when confronted by eldritch horrors that are beyond normal reason.

Sanity Checks

You might ask characters to make a Sanity check in place of an Intelligence check to recall lore about the alien creatures of madness featured in your campaign, to decipher the writings of raving lunatics, or to learn spells from tomes of forbidden lore. You might also call for a Sanity check when a character tries one of the following activities:

• Deciphering a piece of text written in a language so alien that it threatens to break a character’s mind
• Overcoming the lingering effects of madness
• Comprehending a piece of alien magic foreign to all normal understanding of magic

Sanity Saving Throws

You might call for a Sanity saving throw when a character runs the risk of succumbing to madness, such as in the following situations:

• Seeing a creature from the Far Realm or other alien realms for the first time
• Making direct contact with the mind of an alien creature
• Being subjected to spells that affect mental stability, such as the insanity option of the symbol spell
• Passing through a demiplane built on alien physics
• Resisting an effect conferred by an attack or spell that deals psychic damage

A failed Sanity save might result in short-term, long-term, or indefinite madness, as described in chapter 8, “Running the Game.” Any time a character suffers from long-term or indefinite madness, the character’s Sanity is reduced by 1. A greater restoration spell can restore Sanity lost in this way, and a character can increase his or her Sanity through level advancement.