Character Creation II – By the Book

It’s been a long time since I looked at the character creation rules in the AD&D DMG. There are, therein, 4 methods given for rolling ability scores. UA gave us method V, for human characters only; once again, demi-humans get shafted. The UA method is designed to let you play any character you want, and will produce uber characters. I’m not offering what follows as any truly scientific investigation, it is, rather, meant to be merely suggestive.

Method 1 – 4d6, drop the lowest, arrange to order.

1) 13, 11, 13, 11, 12, 13.   2) 12, 15, 13, 14, 16, 12.   3) 13, 12, 14, 14, 17, 13.

4) 11, 17, 15, 12, 12, 15.   5) 10, 12, 8, 10, 12, 11.   6) 13, 15, 17, 10, 16, 12.

9 out of 36 rolls produced a bonus. No penalty generating scores.

Method II – Roll 3d6 12 times, take the best 6 and arrange as desired.

1) 8, 14, 13, 10, 11,13, 10, 9, 11, 9, 14, 6. Best: 14, 14, 13, 13, 11, 11.

2) 11, 11, 9, 11, 17, 14, 7, 9, 13, 8, 12, 6. Best: 17, 13, 14, 12, 11, 11.

3) 10, 9, 12, 9, 14, 13, 11, 6, 7, 10, 11, 8.  Best: 14, 13, 12, 11, 11, 10.

4) 10, 10, 15, 15, 13, 11, 9, 14, 12, 13, 14, 14. Best.: 15, 15, 14, 14, 14, 13.

Two of the four received some kind of Ability score bonus. Most abilities turned out to be high average, but, only 3 rolls out of 48 were high enough to qualify for a bonus (3 out of 24 of the “chosen” rolls.) None of the chosen rolls from Method II was deleterious.

Method III – Rolls are recorded in order, but, roll 3d6 6 times for each ability. Hmm.

1) S: 15 I: 15 W: 16 D: 16 C: 14 Ch: 15

2) S: 11 I: 14 W: 17 D: 13 C: 13 Ch: 17

3) S: 13 I: 14 W: 18 D: 16  C: 17 Ch: 15

4) S: 14 I: 13 W: 13 D: 14 C: 14 Ch:12

Looks like this method can produce some very nice stats indeed! 10 out of 24 stat rolls produced a bonus.  No penalties. Sweet!

Method IV – 3d6 in order for 12 characters. Take the best one.

1) 9, 7, 9, 13, 8, 15.     2) 9, 9, 14, 9, 16, 16.    3) 9, 11, 5, 12, 7, 6.

4) 14, 15, 13, 12, 18, 10.   5) 12, 15, 13, 8, 15, 15.   6) 7, 13, 13, 6, 14, 11.

7) 11, 13, 12, 6, 9, 15.   8)  13, 7, 11, 11, 12, 6.   9) 8, 15, 12, 10, 12, 12.

10) 13, 18, 16, 15, 14, 11.   11) 9, 12, 8, 4, 7, 6.  12) 11, 8, 9, 11, 10, 14.

Set Taken: S: 13  I: 18  W: 16  D: 15 C: 14  Ch: 11

Hmm. I was only going to do this method once, but, the results were interesting enough that I’m going to make one more set.

1) 10, 16, 10, 16, 10,  15.   2) 7, 9, 5, 11, 11, 16.  3) 14, 10, 11, 12, 8, 12.

4) 9, 14, 11, 9, 12, 9.   5) 10, 15, 14, 16, 10, 10.  6) 11, 14, 14, 8, 14, 10.

7) 12, 10, 13, 12, 13, 11.   8) 7, 12, 9, 11, 13, 9.  9) 10, 8, 8, 5, 6, 9.

10) 13, 15, 10, 10, 7, 10.   11) 14, 11, 8, 9, 13, 13.   12) 13, 13, 10, 10, 14, 9.

Set Taken: S: 10  I: 16, W: 10 D: 16  C: 10  Ch: 15

With this method, only 20 out of 144 individual rolls qualified for a bonus, but, 6 of the 12 scores chosen for use were high enough to give the character a bonus. Again, no penalties. A slightly higher potential for bonuses than Method III, but the non-bonus producing stats tended to be lower. All in all, this method produced better stats than I expected.

Just for the sake of completeness, I’ll roll 1 Fighter using Method V from the UA.

S: 16 I: 17 W: 13 D: 13 C: 15 Ch: 16

The Strength roll here was unlucky, 9d6 will usually generate a 17 or 18. 3d6 for Int., but again, we have another atypical result.

I think we can see why Method I is so popular. No uber characters, usually a bonus or two, not much chance for a penalty producing roll. (None of the “Final Stat” sets had a penalty, in any of these methods.) Also, you can arrange your rolls so as to be able to play any of the basic classes you want. Method III will probably allow you to do the same thing, simply because stats tend toward high average or better; you also stand a good chance of qualifying for one of the “special” classes.

Method IV would be good if you wanted to produce some very strong characters who still had about half their stats in the average range. The method explored in yesterday's post produced a set of stats that approached Method IV results, but weren’t as high. Both methods have the disadvantage that the player’s options are limited. If the player being able to choose what class he wants to play is a consideration at all, then Methods I or III would be the way to go.