Constitution

A character’s Constitution (Con) score encompasses his physique, fitness,
health, and physical resistance to hardship, injury, and disease. Since this
ability affects the character’s hit points and chances of surviving such tremendous
shocks as being physically reshaped by magic or resurrected from death, it is
vitally important to all classes. Some classes have minimum allowable
Constitution scores.

A character’s initial Constitution score is the absolute limit to the number
of times the character can be raised or resurrected from death. Each such
revival reduces the character’s Constitution score by one. Magic can restore a
reduced Constitution score to its original value or even higher, but this has no effect on the number of times a character can be revived from
death! Once the character has exhausted his original Constitution, nothing short of
divine intervention can bring him back, and divine intervention is reserved for
only the bravest and most faithful heroes!

For example, Rath’s Constitution score at the start of his adventuring career
is 12. He can be revived from death 12 times. If he dies a 13th time, he cannot
be resurrected or raised.

Hit Point Adjustment is added to or subtracted from each Hit Die rolled for the character. However,
no Hit Die ever yields less than 1 hit point, regardless of modifications. If
an adjustment would lower the number rolled to 0 or less, consider the final
result to be 1. Always use the character’s current Constitution to determine hit
point bonuses and penalties.

Only warriors are entitled to a Constitution bonus of +3 or +4. Non-warrior
characters who have Constitution scores of 17 or 18 receive only +2 per die.

The Constitution bonus ends when a character reaches 10th level (9th for
warriors and priests)–neither the Constitution bonus nor Hit Dice are added to a
character’s hit points after he has passed this level (see the character class
descriptions in Chapter 3).

If a character’s Constitution changes during the course of adventuring, his
hit points may be adjusted up or down to reflect the change. The difference
between the character’s current hit point bonus (if any) and the new bonus is
multiplied by the character’s level (up to 10) and added to or subtracted from the
character’s total. If Delsenora’s Constitution increased from 16 to 17, she would
gain 1 hit point for every level she had, up to 10th level.

System Shock states the percentage chance a character has to survive magical effects that
reshape or age his body: petrification (and reversing petrification), polymorph,
magical aging, etc. It can also be used to see if the character retains
consciousness in particularly difficult situations. For example, an evil wizard
polymorphs his dim-witted hireling into a crow. The hireling, whose Constitution
score is 13, has an 85% chance to survive the change. Assuming he survives, he
must successfully roll for system shock again when he is changed back to his
original form or else he will die.

Resurrection Survival lists a character’s percentage chance to be successfully resurrected or raised
from death by magic. The player must roll the listed number or less on
percentile dice for the character to be revived. If the dice roll fails, the character
is dead, regardless of how many times he has previously been revived. Only
divine intervention can bring such a character back again.

Poison Save modifies the saving throw vs. poison for humans, elves, gnomes, and
half-elves. Dwarves and halflings do not use this adjustment, since they have special
resistances to poison attacks. The DM has specific information on saving throws.

Regeneration enables those with specially endowed Constitutions (perhaps by a wish or magical item) to heal at an advanced rate, regenerating damage taken. The
character heals 1 point of damage after the passage of the listed number of
turns. However, fire and acid damage (which are more extensive than normal wounds)
cannot be regenerated in this manner. These injuries must heal normally or be
dealt with by magical means.

Table of Contents