2025 Character Creation Challenge Day 4
You can read more about the challenge here and here.
After rolling Baldgurd Sworder yesterday, I decided to spend a day or two creating spreadsheets that would allow me to create new characters quicker.
Today I focused on ability score generation.
In original Dungeons & Dragons scores are listed as Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constituion, Dexterity, and Charisma. First three are prime requisites for Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics, respectivelly. Each ability score is ranked as low (3–8), average (9–12), and high (13–18).
With exception for Intelligence, neither Strenght nor Wisdom do anything beyond determining earned experience modifier. Intelligence, besides experience modifier for Magic-Users, also influences the maximum number of additional languages.
Constitution impacts hit dice modifier (-1, none, +1) and ability to whithstand adversity (turned to stone, system shocks, and similar). Regarding the latter, it doesn't really spell out what happens bellow 7 or above 14, so I kept them as-is.
Dexterity influences to-hit roll with missile fire (-1, zero, +1), and may be used to adjudicate actions reliant on speed. No mechanics were given for that. It's too early in the hobby for such details.
Finally, Charisma determines thet maximum number of unusual hirelings (e.g. classed characters) and their base loyalty. Loyalty is really interesting, since it acts as a secret ability score for hirelings. It is determined by the Judge rolling 3d6 and adding it to the player character's loyalty base.
Ability scores are determined by rolling three six sided dice and adding them together. One option I decided to ignore is modifying scores in order to increase the primary requisite of the class in order to gain more experience.
So, with all of the above in the spreadsheet, I am able to quickly generate ability scores for each class that look like:
STR: 11 (average score) INT: 5 (low score) WIS: 8 (low score) CON: 8 (low score; 50% chance of survival) DEX: 13 (high score; fire any missile at +1) CHA: 11 (average score; up to 4 unusual hirelings with loyalty base of 0)
and
STR: 8 (low score) INT: 13 (high score; add 5% to earned experience; speak up to 3 additional languages) WIS: 12 (average score) CON: 17 (high score; add 1 to each hit die; will withstand adversity) DEX: 12 (average score; none) CHA: 7 (low score; up to 3 unusual hirelings with loyalty base of 0)
and
STR: 8 (low score) INT: 12 (average score; speak up to 2 additional languages) WIS: 6 (low score; minus 20% from earned experience) CON: 9 (average score; 60% chance of survival) DEX: 16 (high score; fire any missile at +1) CHA: 8 (low score; up to 3 unusual hirelings with loyalty base of 0)
I'll work on equipment tomorrow, then hirelings, then magic items, and then finally back to character creation.
Subscribe to get the latest post in your inbox. No spam.