What are Modifiers?

In my previous post, I mentioned a little bit about “Modifiers”, which I will expound on today.

“Modifiers” usually appear as numbers with a plus (+) sign on your Character Sheet. That’s actually shorthand for “d20+”, but they only kept the “+” part to save space. You add these numbers to your d20 rolls whenever your DM asks you to make a certain “check”.

Below are the types of Modifiers you’ll find on your Character Sheet.

Ability & Skill Modifiers

Your Abilities & Ability Scores should be on the left-hand side of your Character Sheet. Your Abilities & the Skills associated with them are:

• Strength (STR) — Strength Saving Throw, Athletics
• Dexterity (DEX) — Dexterity Saving Throw, Acrobatics
• Constitution (CON) — Constitution Saving Throw
• Intelligence (INT) — Intelligence Saving Throw, Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Religion
• Wisdom (WIS) — Wisdom Saving Throw, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Survival, Perception
• Charisma (CHA) — Charisma Saving Throw, Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion

I’ll define these more in a future blog, but for now, listen for when your DM asks you to make any Ability or Skill checks. Your Ability Modifiers and Skill Modifiers should all be in one area, in neat, single-digit numbers. See the image below for an example:

Your Abilities, Ability Scores, Ability Modifiers, and Skill Modifiers.

And below is an example of how Abilities & Skills work. The character in this example has different Modifiers from the screenshot above:

You are trying to escape an army of soldiers who are trying to murder you. But you are very good at Acrobatics and Stealth, so you decide you will run away Assassin’s Creed style.

You try to hop gracefully from one building to another. Your DM will ask you to roll Acrobatics, and sets the DC to 12. You roll your d20, come up with 4, and add your Acrobatics Modifier to it, which happens to be a +7, which brings you to 11.

You fail your Acrobatics check, so as you’re hopping from one building to another, you slip on a loose tile and take a tumble down onto the street, where a crowd of people gasp and wonder if you’re OK.

Dusting yourself off and ignoring the onlookers, you realize the soldiers have lost sight of you. So in spite of the embarrassing tumble, you decide it’s a good time to hide. You tell the DM that you try and find a very busy tavern to slink into, and pull your hood down, so you don’t look suspicious.

The DM tells you to make a Stealth check, and your Stealth Modifier also happens to be a +7. So you roll your d20 with a result of 11, which goes up to 18.

The DM tells you the soldiers don’t even bother looking into the tavern, and rush right past the doorway. You decide that now is a good time to chill and have a nice drink.

Proficiency Modifiers

Proficiency is anything your character is good at. This Modifier is added on top of your Ability Modifiers, if you have Proficiency in a certain thing. More on that later on, but for now remember at 1st Level, your Proficiency Bonus (a.k.a. Proficiency Modifier) is always +2. It can be found on the bottom-left of your Character Sheet. See the image below for an example:

Your Proficiencies, and your Proficiency Modifier.

And as an example of how Proficiency works:

Your party is trying to break into the bad guy’s hideout, but the backdoor is locked. Your character happens to be really good at picking locks, so you tell the DM that you’re going to try picking that lock.

The DM secretly sets a Difficulty Class in their mind first; let’s say it’s 15. This is the number you have to beat. Then they tell you to make a Dexterity check, and add your Proficiency Bonus/Modifier to it. How do you do this?

First, you roll your d20, and let’s say you get a result of 10. Not that great. But you look at your Character Sheet, and you have a Dexterity Modifier of +3. That brings your roll up to 13. Your DM also told you to add your Proficiency Bonus to it, so you look at your Character Sheet and see that your Proficiency Bonus is a +2. That brings your total to 15, beating the DC.

Your DM tells you that it takes you about a minute picking the lock before you hear a soft click. You try the knob again, and the door swings easily open.

Initiative

When you’re about to begin battle, your DM will say “Roll Initiative”. (Yes, now you understand all the memes!) “Initiative” dictates the turn order in battle, so the higher your roll, the higher the likelihood you will go first. Your Initiative should be found on your Character Sheet here:

Your Initiative, on the top-right of your Speed.

Just so you know what to expect, Initiative rolling usually looks like this:

DM: OK, everyone roll initiative!
Players: Nooooooo—

The players roll their Initiative anyway: d20+Initiative Modifier. Just as a note: this DM likes to call the players by their character’s name.

DM: Ok, Orphina, what’s your initiative?
Orphina: 6. :(
DM: Haha, ok. *writes it down* James?
James: 15.
DM: Mmhm, good roll. *writes it down* John?
John: 15 too yay
DM: You really are twins. *writes it down* Tessie?
Tessie: The name is Tassarion. And it’s 21.
DM: Haha, *writes it down* Wow.
DM: *rolls*
DM: Ok, I rolled a 10 for the dragon. So, Tessie, you’re up first.
Tessie: >:(

You get the idea. ;)

So the turn order would be:

• 21 — Tessie
• 15—James & John
• 10—(DM) Red Dragon
• 6—Orphina

Attack

When you find yourself in battle, about to attack an enemy with a weapon, your DM will ask you to make an “Attack Roll”. Your “Attack Modifiers” for your weapons are usually found right in the middle of your Character Sheet, like this:

Your Weapons, Attack Modifiers, and Damage.

You decide to attack a goblin with a Greatsword. Good choice. Your DM will ask you to make an Attack Roll, or will say something like, “Roll to hit”. How do you do this?

The +5 you see in the box to the right of the word “Greatsword” is your Attack Modifier; it’s what you will add to your d20 roll. You roll your d20, and let’s say you come up with 10. Add your +5 to it, and you get 15 for your Attack Roll. Your DM knows that a goblin’s AC is 15, and announces that you hit the goblin!

We’re not done with that goblin, so keep him in mind.

Damage

“Damage” applies when you hit whatever your target is, and whatever is the result of your “Damage Roll” is subtracted from the target’s Hit Points. In this example case, your target is the goblin we were talking about earlier.

After the DM announces that you hit the goblin, they ask you to “Deal damage”. Ok, how do we do that? First, we look at the box to the right of your Attack Modifier for your Greatsword:

Your Weapon Name, your Attack Modifier, and your Damage.

So we know it’s 2d6+3 S. Let’s break that down.

So you get your 6-sided die, and roll it twice. Let’s say you get a result of 9. Good roll. Add +3 to it, for a total of 12. What’s the S? It’s shorthand for “Slashing Damage”, which is a “Damage Type”. There are some monsters who are Resistant (takes half damage) or Immune (takes no damage) to Slashing Damage. Fortunately, our goblin is not one of those monsters.

Your DM narrates that you easily cleave the goblin in half. And that’s the end of him.

📌 Notice that the “Damage Modifier” for the Damage dice is never mentioned; that’s because Damage is usually just taken as a whole, instead of a part. So the notation you see: “2d6+3 S”; that’s just called “Damage”.

In summary:

• Modifiers are numbers prepended with pluses (+) that you add to your d20 rolls.
• It’s your DM’s job to ask you to roll for any sort of check with your d20.
• There are 6 types of Modifiers: Ability, Skill, Proficiency, Attack, Damage. All of these Modifiers are added to d20 rolls, except “Damage Modifiers”, which is usually grouped with the weapon’s Damage dice and type.

Next up: What are Difficulty Classes?