Generating the Six Ability Scores
This is a method that combines gambling (rolling dice) with point buy (specific design). It takes some time but is generally agreed to be pretty enjoyable.
This method of generating ability scores begins with determining what your character stats were when she or he was adolescent (14 years of age for humans, or your species’ equivalent). For this initial stage, roll 3d6 and assign the results in order. This does not affect your choice of class or race yet, but you must train up to the minimum required in the next phase.
Part two is to take 4 years [in-game!] of training time per the rules below. You have to use this time to work your character up to her or his minimums according to their chosen class. After those minimums are hit, the training time can be used for whatever you wish. If your class minimums include an ability requisite other than your most important ability, you must switch to the 1st trained column per normal. Note that this training time does not cost the character any starting gold (or anything at all).
This is also an excellent opportunity to develop quirks, gather allies, and work out a solid basic backstory for your PC.
[#_ABILITIES_TRAIN]
Training Ability Scores
Instead of raising ability scores through leveling, PC’s gain ability bumps via training. The pro is that a PC can increase her or his abilities faster and earlier than every four levels. The con is that it costs money and time.
PC’s do not gain ability bumps every four levels per normal rules, nor any ability bumps listed as perks from other abilities. Instead, a character can train his or her abilities and raise their scores at any time they wish while they are on downtime. A score may only be trained up to the character's species’ maximum. Any ability can be trained, but the process has a bell curve of diminishing returns over time (excepting proficiencies/skills). The higher you go, the longer you have to train the particular ability to reach your maximum, and the more abilities you want to train after the first, the longer it takes to increase them. Humans (only) train in half the time it normally takes until they are 25 years old.
For purposes of training, the most important ability to your class is described in the PHB (wisdom for clerics, strength for fighters, charisma for sorcerers, etc).
Training Ability Scores─Ability Increase Schedule
The table below gives an ability range coupled with a time span. To explain this table, the time spans given are how long it takes to gain the indicated number of points of that ability while your ability is within the stated range. Hence, to train the ability most important to your class from 9 to 13 would take 10 weeks. The jump to 15 would require an additional 10 weeks of training beyond this. Then, it would take 20 Weeks to jump to 17.
The “ability score is” column on the left indicates that the character’s ability currently in training is her or his “nth” ability in the overall sequence of all abilities trained. If a character would choose not to train her or his most important ability first, s/he would move down one row on the table and begin with the 1st trained row. If s/he chose to train his most important ability afterwards, it would fall under the character's next slot down, not under the first row. It is for this reason that if you want to train your most important ability, you should do it first. In those cases where the player decides not to train their character's prime requisite first, they can never train a 6th ability score.
When using this table as part two of character creation, the PC’s adolescent training incurs no cost. Once the adventuring career has begun, the character must hire a trainer at the costs shown above, maintaining a healthy diet throughout the training process. You must maintain a “comfortable” or better lifestyle per D&D 5e “Lifestyle Expenses” rules. This costs a minimum of 14 gp per week for healthy food as well as comfortable room and board. He or she must spend at least 8 hours a day training his or her ability, and the trainee must take at least a 1 hour rest period in the middle. Also, the character must be getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep a day. Attempting to find shortcuts around these will result in the training being a waste.
As you can see, it is not possible to train more than one ability at a time. Should the character stop her or his training prematurely, or be interrupted for a period of one week or more, for any reason, any benefits from training since the ability last went up would be lost. Training time and cost is never regained, even if s/he continues training the same ability later. Also, a character cannot train one score, switch to another, and then switch back to the original without continuing down the table.
What a character can do, however, is train one ability score one or more whole points, and postpone any continued training for as long as he or she sees fit, for whatever reason, and continue training that same ability later with no penalties.
If all above conditions are met, the character’s ability score increases by the indicated number of points. In the improbable event that the character is training her or his most important ability from 17 to 19, but their max is 18, they gain a +1 upon completion of the training, and another +1 as soon as an ability bump, feat, or other such source increases the maximum to 19 or above.
Training Ability Scores─Ability Maximums
Abilities trained generally have the same cap as your race or level would normally allow, unless otherwise noted. You cannot train an ability with a magical enhancement bonus that you cannot choose to remove, i.e. you can never train your strength after using a manual of strength +1, but you could train it if you remove your girdle of giant strength (assuming of course the natural ability was below your normal maximum). The girdle could not be donned at any point during training.
Epic level feats that include ASI's also increase the maximum. In these cases, the natural ability maximum can go past 20.
Creating Characters Level 4 or Higher
If your character starts at a level higher than an ASI/Feat level, the ASI or Feat functions per RAW to simulate the idea that the character has probably trained for a while in their adventuring career. Note that the ASI or Ability Increase coming from a Feat also increases the character’s ability score maximum(s).
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