Hello Ben! Welcome to IW Forums!
When you create a character, you have to roll his or her stats. You get a number of points which you can distribute on the 6 attributes. Each of these attributes have different mins and maxs depending on race and profession: a paladin has charisma min 17, for example. 18 Strength is divided into 18/01 - 18/00, 18/01 being worst and 18/00 best, i believe (I'm not so sure about this). If you want to create a good character, you spend a LOT of time rolling and re-rolling stats until you get good ones. Any more questions?
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I am the great
Kazara