Continuing with our Basic Fantasy pregenerated characters let's roll some stats.

ST: 13 IQ: 9 WS: 11 DX: 14 CN: 8 CH: 10

I think we having the makings of a thief here. I was considering asking my GM if I could use point swapping to get his DX up to 15 in order to get the higher experience bonus for a prime requisite of 15 or higher, but double checking the core rules, Basic Fantasy, has no increase in experience for high prime requisites.

Just another reminder that the various clones/neo-clones/simulacra of TSR D&D, especially early ones, have minor deviations due to designer taste and an effort not to get sued.

I still asked myself to swap points in order to max out the dexterity bonus for missile weapons. At the 2:1 rate suggested and the limit on lowering to 9 I got the following values.

ST: 9 IQ: 9 WS: 11 DX: 16 CN: 8 CH: 10

I want the pre-gens to have humans of each class and pairs of demi-humans, one fighter and other iconic class, except the elves who will both be fighter-magic-user combinations like in Holmes. Let's make this fine gentleman not a thief but a respectable halfling burglar. Halflings in Basic Fantasy must have a dexterity of 9 as must thieves. We're covered. Regardless of class they cannot roll hit dice larger than d6 but classic thieves are a d4 hit dice class. To that we take a -1 due to constitution of eight. I lucked out and got a 4 for 3 HP.

HP: 3

Just gold and equipment is left. I'm already sick of this after three days. The templates that are standard in Adventurer Conqueror King Imperial Imprint are looking better with each character. Of course, after saying that I get my best roll yet, 13 for 130gp.

Thieves cannot wear armor heavier than leather or shields. Halflings need two hands for medium weapons anyway making shields a poor choice.

Our thief will wear leather armor. He'll use some of the gold saved on metal armor and a shield to be well equipped weapon wise. A longsword, a silver dagger, and a shortbow with 20 arrows plus a couple of silver arrows sound like a strong load out. All of that plus a quiver for the arrows will set him back 89gp leaving him 41gp for other gear.

Thief's tools, excuse me, burglar's tools, set our character back 25gp leaving 16gp for other gear. Let's trust we won't face lycanthropes right out of the gate and give up the silver dagger for  three normal one (but we'll keep the arrows) which move our net gold up to 35gp.

Now we can get a backpack, a regular lantern, six flasks of oil, a week of rations, a waterskin, a map case, and a tinderbox for 29gp. That leaves him 5gp to find lodging while looking for adventure.

He can't afford paper, quill, and ink yet but our young halfling, raised on stories of his uncle's adventures years before his birth were full of treasure maps found so he's got a map case already. For those wondering about the lantern, in BFRGP halflings do not have any form of dark vision.

Now our young bounder needs a name. Among halflings Tobold means daring which seems appropriate.

And with that Tobold the Burglar arrives in our border fort and meets a rather brash woman named Maria looking for companions on an expedition to the ruins of a fort destroyed in the Were Wars.

For the heck of it I ran a description of him through NightCafe a few times. Typical AI graphics screwed up the idea of drawing the bow and I left in the metal gauntlet. I don't do this enough to be good at prompting,  but I think this gets the idea.

Maria, Priestess of Hera

The next few characters will be for Basic Fantasy. I am running a one shot on Saturday the tenth and need some pregens.

Reading the character creation rules reminded me of a thought I've had about Basic Fantasy. The basic it is looking back to is not B/X or BECMI. It is Holmes. It lacks race as class and in general feels much closer to restating Holmes via 3.0 than the later versions.

Like Holmes and the later basics it is 3d6 in order. Let's look at my initial roles.

ST: 13 IQ:11 WS: 14 DX: 13 CN: 6 CH:10

That's a pretty respectable character except for that constitution score. Under Game Master Information the game offers three options for GMs to allow players to rearrange scores plus a fourth for hopeless characters (those with a value below 9 in the first four abilities rendering them ineligible for all four of the core classes).

Consulting with the gamemaster he decided to allow me option 2, swap one pair. Now my abilities look like

ST: 13 IQ: 11 WS: 14 DX: 10 CN: 13 CH: 6

And I have a cleric who was clearly sent adventuring instead of tending a flock due to his inability to deal with parishioners.

One interesting note is this is our first game built on the classic D&D chassis to use a standard abilities bonus and penalty chart, using the one we know from B/X and BECMI. Our cleric's bonuses add up to +2 with only one negative and three positive. Not bad for 3d6.

We get 1d6 for hit points, giving us a lucky 6.

I'm a bit worried about gold, but I roll a 10 for 100gp, thirty more than Alfred got back on the first.

Starting with armor we'll start with chain and shield for 67 gp and 33 remaining. She'll carry a mace and a sling along with 10 sling bullets for 7gp, leaving 26. Sling stones are free but the bullets do 1d4 instead of 1d3 for 1sp. Our cleric figures a little extra oomph is worth a gold piece.

Next I'll grab a belt pouch (for the sling bullets) and a backpack for 5gp and 21 remaining.

And then I realize a holy symbol is 25gp. We'll drop to leather armor, gaining 40 gp and dropping our AC to 14. After grabbing that expensive holy symbol we're still left with 36 gold.

A lantern, five flasks of oil, and a tinderbox eat up 16gp. A week's dry rations and a waterskin round out the equipment she carries into our border fort costing 11gp leaving her with 9gp.

We just need a deity and a name. I think a rather stern and humorous priestess must belong to Hera. Looking at Greek women's names I see Maria means "Sea of Bitterness" which sounds perfect.

I need to print out character sheets and scan them in. I'll add a link to her sheet when I do.

I Didn't Start with Just Holmes

In yesterday's post I noted I started with Dr. Eric Holmes blue book of D&D. That is true but it's not the entire truth.

I got my copy of the good physician's work with Christmas money in 1977 while I was in the fifth grade. It was the first Christmas with basic D&D and the boxed set sold out before Christmas so I had to settle for just the rulebook. To give you an idea of how early this was the boxed set didn't include B1 like it later would but the first set of Dungeon Geomorphs and the level 1-3 Monster and Treasure Assortment.

So, I started by getting just the blue book and a set of dice, right?

Nope, because dice sets sold out that Christmas as well. Remember, this is early enough that for many stores, the Toys by Roy in Beaumont, TX included, had only TSR as a dice source. The next run of the boxed set had a coupon for dice as they weren't available yet.

What was in stock complete with a set of polyhedrals was the first edition of Gamma World which I blew the rest of my Christmas money on, just to get the dice.

So, since we started a character a day with my first RPG let's follow up with my other first RPG and create a character for first edition Gamma World.

Like pretty much any TSR product from the era we start off with creating character attributes. Despite coming out the same year as Holmes it is not a 3d6 in order game. Gamma World was 4d6 take the three highest from the very first edition. My understanding is while Holmes references AD&D but wasn't modified from OD&D to be inline with the changes Gamma World was always published with compatibility with AD&D in mind and this is one of the touches that indicate the truth of that.

What is different from either version of D&D then in print or in the works were the attributes. In order Gamma World has Mental Strength (MS), Intelligence (IQ), Dexterity (DX), Charisma (CH), Constitution (CN), and Physical Strength (PS). Let's see what fortune gives my new character.

MS 15, IQ 15, DX 12, CH 8, CN 15, PS 12

There are some interesting contrasts with Alfred from yesterday. Alfred, rolled on 3d6, has a maximum attribute of 16, a minimum of 6, and an average of 11.2. Today we have a maximum of 15, a minimum of 8, and an average of 12.8. The big cause of the higher average on the tighter spread is three 15s compared to one 15 and one 16.

A big deal is one of the 15s is in constitution. In Gamma World there are no levels per se and no classes. Instead, there is a list of experience point levels where you get to roll a d10 for an advancement. The advancements are +1 to one of the six attributes, to hit in physical combat, or to damage in physical combat. The first has each attribute assigned to one number while the later two are assigned to 7-8 and 9-10 respectively.

Notice what isn't on the list for leveling up (while level numbers are never cited the chart basically sets levels). That's right, hit point increases. It is on there is a roundabout way at 2, the +1 to constitution. In Gamma World first edition you roll 1d6 for each point of constitution for your hit points.

So our new character starts with 15d6 hit points. I roll 66 HP. This would be above average for a name level AD&D fighter a constitution of 15 or less and just 1.5 HP before that same fighter with a constitution of 16.

That's good because there are energy weapons out there.

Gamma World doesn't have classes but it does have races: Pure Strain Human, Humanoid, and Mutated Animal. Pure strain humans have no mutations, good or bad, but much of the equipment of the Ancients will only work for them. Humanoids are mutated humans who lack the ability to work gene coded tech but have mutations. I think mutated animals are self-explanatory.

I'm going to take the humanoid option. You roll d4 for physical and mental mutations. I got a 3 and a 1. Then two methods of determining mutations are give, random percentile rolls or pick from the tables. The downside of selecting is if you roll a 3 or 4 for a type the referee gets to assign an additional negative mutation of that type.

I'll trust to fortune. She did alright by me on constitution.

For physical mutations I get 60, 16, and 30. The first is photosynthetic skin allowing me to make my own food and heal four times if I have sun exposure but I suffer extra damage from heat and cold and have a halved move in darkness. Second I got gas generation - musk. This gives me a 10m range gas attack  whose exact type is open ended. I'm going with irritating gas. Finally, I get heightened strength. This means in physical combat I do +3d6 damage.

That latter kind of puts those 15d6 hit points in perspective.

My one mental mutation role is 69 for multiple damage, which is a defect. This causes me to suffer double damage not because I am more vulnerable but because my mind tricks me into thinking all attacks are twice as bad as they are.

Gamma World has no starting equipment generation. Looking at example provided, scenarios in Dragon, and the later published ones, your referee assigns it.

So, all we need is a name for this many generations later descendent of Alfred. How about we apply some known historical pronunciation shifts. Applying the High German consonant shift turns Alfred to Alfret. The Great Vowel Shift in English would have affected neither vowel in Alfret. We can kind of replicate the Inland North American accent by moving to Olfreat (not really, but good enough for old school roleplaying.

So I present the Olfreat the fragile human plant ready to be sent by his village elders into the wastes for his youthful trials.

As Always, I'll Start with Holmes

It is time once again for the character a day challenge for January. Last time I tried at my now moribund general blog but it seems more appropriate here. Since that is where I started with the hobby I will begin with a character for Dr. Holmes's basic Dungeons & Dragons. 

Holmes, being based on OD&D is a 3d6 in order system. Our initial rolls, in the ability order in Holmes are Strenght-15, Intelligence-11, Wisdom-6, Constitution-10, Dexterity-9, Charisma-16. The dice want me to have a fighting man given my strength of 15 is just enough to qualify for a ten percent experience bonus. Holmes does allow trading of ability score points to raise prime attributes but the only one I could lower is intelligence to 9 to get a strength of 16. Given the limited bonuses of Holmes there is no benefit to doing so. I'll stick with my initial roles. 

The next question is do I wish to be a human, dwarf, or halfling. I could also be an elf which is a combination fighting man and magic user. Let's just stick with humans for now. 

The next step in Holmes is hit points. Fighting men in post-Greyhawk OD&D use a d8 for hit points. I roll a 7 and with no constitution bonus or penalty will begin in the top 25% of first level fighting men with 7 HP. 

Finally, I roll 3d6 for gold pieces and get an 8 for 80 gold. I can afford plate mail armor as it is 50gp leaving me 30gp. I need a weapon and a shield. Choosing a hand axe and a round shield costs another 13gp leaving me with 17gp. A leather backpack and a week of standard rations eat up 10gp leaving me 7gp to find a meal or two and a couple of nights at an inn.

I do have two more decisions left, a name and an alignment. For a name let's go with Alfred, a good Anglo-Saxon name, perfect for an axe and shield fighter.

Recently on Twitter I had a thread on alignment about mapping Palladium alignments to D&D. Stepping a bit outside of Holmes I see Alfred as a good guy but not a paragon. We'll go with Chaotic Good for someone who will help the good and do good for them but not so tied to rules as to think he owes even evil individuals. 

I think Alfred's family was betrayed by orcs under a banner of peace, killing his father and brothers and destroying their family lands. From this he learned the lesson that honor and trust for good but only for other good individuals.

After destruction of his family he has wandered, fighting as a mercenary here and there, until rumors of treasures under the ruins of the tower of a dead wizard named Zenopus. Following those rumors to Portown he signs on as a caravan guard and arrives in the city with 2gp and a week of food left in his pack. Now he needs to find companions to hunt for Zenopus's treasure.

In fine 1970s form, I present Alfred on an index card.