2024 Character Creation Challenge Day 3
You can read more about the challenge here and here.
Dedicated to Niko whom once lamented “man you have SW in the scene for like 10 or more years and you cannot get a supplement with pregens.”
Now that I have finished spreadsheet with attributes and respective modifiers, I must concatenate the results to get single block of text I can just copy/paste in post or on Discord. To do so I have used CONCAT in LibreOffice:
=CONCAT("**STR:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.B2;" (to-hit modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.H2;"; damage modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.I2;"; open doors: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.J2;"; carry modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.K2;" lbs )";CHAR(10);"**DEX:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.C2;" (missile to-hit modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.L2;"; AC modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.M2;")";CHAR(10);"**CON:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.D2;" (hp per hit die modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.N2;"; raise dead survival: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.O2;")";CHAR(10);"**INT:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.E2;" (max additional languages: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.P2;")";CHAR(10);"**WIS:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.F2;" (experience bonus: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.T2;")";CHAR(10);"**CHA:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.G2;" (max # of special hirelings: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.U2;"; retainer morale adjustment: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.V2; "; experience bonus: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.W2;")")
And here is the longer one for spellcasters (non-arcane casters just need max languages known):
=CONCAT("**STR:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.B2;" (to-hit modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.H2;"; damage modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.I2;"; open doors: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.J2;"; carry modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.K2;" lbs )";CHAR(10);"**DEX:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.C2;" (missile to-hit modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.L2;"; AC modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.M2;")";CHAR(10);"**CON:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.D2;" (hp per hit die modifier: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.N2;"; raise dead survival: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.O2;")";CHAR(10);"**INT:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.E2;" (max additional languages: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.P2;"; max spell level: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.Q2;"; chance to understand new spell: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.R2;"; min/max number of basic spells understandable per level: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.S2;")";CHAR(10);"**WIS:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.F2;" (experience bonus: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.T2;")";CHAR(10);"**CHA:** ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.G2;" (max # of special hirelings: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.U2;"; retainer morale adjustment: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.V2; "; experience bonus: ";$'ATTRIBUTE SCORES'.W2;")")
With that I get cells that have markdown-ready stat block:
STR: 14 (to-hit modifier: +1; damage modifier: 0; open doors: 1–2; carry modifier: +10 lbs ) DEX: 11 (missile to-hit modifier: 0; AC modifier: none) CON: 11 (hp per hit die modifier: 0; raise dead survival: 75%) INT: 7 (max additional languages: 0) WIS: 10 (experience bonus: none) CHA: 11 (max # of special hirelings: 4; retainer morale adjustment: 0; experience bonus: none)
And expanded version for magic-users:
STR: 14 (to-hit modifier: +1; damage modifier: 0; open doors: 1–2; carry modifier: +10 lbs ) DEX: 11 (missile to-hit modifier: 0; AC modifier: none) CON: 11 (hp per hit die modifier: 0; raise dead survival: 75%) INT: 7 (max additional languages: 0; max spell level: 4; chance to understand new spell: 30%; min/max number of basic spells understandable per level: 2/4) WIS: 10 (experience bonus: none) CHA: 11 (max # of special hirelings: 4; retainer morale adjustment: 0; experience bonus: none)
Now to take care of height and weight. I'm using a simplified procedure by spurious. It is based on AD&D charts with corrections from Stephen Innis but quicker to roll. I whittled the table down to “just” dwarf, elf, half-elf, halfling, and human (since that's what's presented in the Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised rulebook).
What took me the longest is figuring out how to get feet'inch” height notation from just inches (turned out it is just integer value of inches divided by 12 and then add remaining inches). I'm used to SI units, not imperial, so I also made sure to convert to metres and kilograms as well.
Like above, I used CONCAT function to generate nicely formatted plain text output. Here are four dwarves (STR 3, 9, 15, and 18):
4'3'' / 1.3 m, 145 lbs / 66 kg 4'4'' / 1.32 m, 150 lbs / 68 kg 4'5'' / 1.35 m, 155 lbs / 70 kg 4'7'' / 1.4 m, 165 lbs / 75 kg
Four elves, same STR scores:
4'8'' / 1.42 m, 90 lbs / 41 kg 4'10'' / 1.47 m, 100 lbs / 45 kg 4'11'' / 1.5 m, 105 lbs / 48 kg 5'0'' / 1.52 m, 110 lbs / 50 kg
Four humans, same STR scores:
4'9'' / 1.45 m, 95 lbs / 43 kg 5'3'' / 1.6 m, 155 lbs / 70 kg 5'8'' / 1.73 m, 205 lbs / 93 kg 5'11'' / 1.8 m, 235 lbs / 107 kg
Equipping new characters can be slow and painful, especially if there are long equipment lists with many cheap items. We roll 3d6, multiply the result with ten, and that's the amount of gold coins to spend.
What I'll do instead, is create “standard starting equipment pack” for each entry on 3d6 roll (i.e. 3–18, 16 entries in total) for each class—something similar to what Necropraxis did for OD&D Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, and Thief. I hope to make one table per class per day. The benefit of course is that such table(s) will be reusable for new characters as well. But damn, I'm not looking forward to it!
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