The RPPR Forum Users AD&D Stated Party

[clockworkjoe]

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/rogermw/ADnD/

The advance copies of the new issue of Dragon and Dragrace Magazine were already bought up first by Clerasil and Wierd Dough, as usual.  There was an interesting feature on the anti-paladin class and a side article on a new class called a "Weapons Master," but no new errata restricting the power of any obscure and exploited rules.  None they would tell anyone about, anyway.

Peter Perfect rode down from over the hill range, his horse's hooves never quite touching the ground and his new sword wavering proudly.  He joined the cleric and the magic-user by the lake.

"Wierd Dough, Clerasil," he presented the sword.  "It looks like our skeptical rival has one less near-artifact on his side."

"You mean YOUR rival," the adamantite-armored cleric responded.

"Oh, come now, Clerasil, he would have turned against you eventually too.  Balance of power and all that.  I know he would have eventually come down on you, Wierd Dough."  He pointed to the guy in the white Robe of the Archmagi.  "You're a chaotic force in his eyes."

"Not as chaotic as some people I know," Wierd Dough commented.

Peter chuckled.  "I'm not chaotic, just competitive.  Say, the tide looks a little high on the lake this afternoon.  I'd better fix that."

Actually, the tide was just where it should have been, but Peter wanted to show off.  He gestured, waved Prometheus a few times, and threw a pinch of dust into the lake.  A 200 foot by 200 foot section of the water sank out of sight.

Clerasil was astounded.  "That's a fourth-level spell!  I know magic swords can't have that spell, so you must have cast it; but last I saw you you were only tenth level.  You'd have to be at least fifteenth level to cast that spell."

"I'm twentieth level, actually."

Wierd Dough's jaw dropped.  "How did you get so many experience points so quickly?"

"Well, how'd you guys get your experience points?"

Clerasil cleared his throat.  "I plane-travelled to the Abyss and cleaned out all the demon lords."

"Likewise," Wierd Dough said.  "I went down through the nine circles of Hell and destroyed all the arch-devils.  And a good deal of greater devils to boot.  Nothing like a pair of petrification glasses with the lenses put in backwards."

Peter Perfect inhaled and exhaled contentedly.  "I got my ten levels from one lowly centaur."

"WHAT?!" the other two said in unison.

"Half the centaurs carry gems, right?  This one happened to be carrying a couple million gold pieces worth.  I just cut him in half, stole his gems, and got one experience point for every gold piece they were worth."

Clerasil quickly hauled out the Book of Infinite Wisdom.  "Hey, that's right!  A single gem can be worth up to a million gold pieces, if you roll the dice right."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" asked Wierd Dough.  "Let's go mug a centaur and take his four one-million-gold-piece gems!"

"Kill a centaur and take his four 1 000 000 g.p. gems," Peter Perfect corrected them.

#

Three centaurs later, Clerasil's level went from 28th to 38th, and Wierd Dough's jumped from 18th (just barely arch-mage status) to a whopping 49th.  They would have gone farther, but that was maximum spell ability in their campaign.  Clerasil could now cast ten of each of the seven levels of clerical spells per day (plus 2 each 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spells due to his superior strength of will), and Wierd Dough could cast 13 of each of the nine levels of magic-user spells each day (well, 26 actually, thanks to his 5 rings of wizardry).

They also had an extra 12 million gold pieces between themselves to spend.  Digging up another obscure rule, they found a use for a couple million of them: By using the psychic plane-travel ability, they could not only survive contact with a small black hole but actually destroy it and gain another major psychic power in the process.  They each bought about 30 black holes ("Spheres of Annihilation," they were called on the open black market) for some 30 000 gold pieces apiece, ran into each one, and gained every psychic discipline known to man and god alike.  These made a fine addition to the spells and potions whose effects had been made permanent upon them, and let them keep pace with Peter Perfect who had already gone through the spheres-of-annihilation bit before they'd even thought of it.

The whole group was decked out almost beyond recognition.  Enough rings, cloaks, magic armor and shields, bracelets of defense, and sundry magic gadgets to bring their armor classes down to the lowest allowable in the universe, -10; protection scarabs with enough gear to give them a 95% chance of avoiding the effects of magic that is supposed to be unavoidable; three or four different magic helms, all stacked one within the other, with the outer one bearing gems of explosive proportions; rings on each finger, covered by dexterity gloves, covered again by another ring on each finger; and all the wands of automatic missile fire stored inside their portable holes.

[Flawless P]

str 9
int 13
wis 16
dex 11
con 7
chr 18

I'm pretty sure THAC0 is wack0 but there are my stats not that i would know what to do with them or even how to play 2nd ed.

[Moondog]

str 9
int 13
wis 16
dex 11
con 7
chr 18

I'm pretty sure THAC0 is wack0 but there are my stats not that i would know what to do with them or even how to play 2nd ed.

Charisma is essentially worthless in 2nd edition unless you just want to be respected. There're no sorcerers or other Charisma-using casting classes, and bards are Fighter-Thief-Druids (the  1st/2nd ed Bard in 3.0 is the Fochluchan Lyrist).

High wisdom would lend itself well to being a Cleric.

[Fizban]

Charisma is essentially worthless in 2nd edition unless you just want to be respected. There're no sorcerers or other Charisma-using casting classes, and bards are Fighter-Thief-Druids (the  1st/2nd ed Bard in 3.0 is the Fochluchan Lyrist).

Something else I'm not a fan of in the later editions - that every stat has to be "useful" - ie pertaining to a direct plus to a dice roll for some skill gain.  Just how does a sorcerer bend arcane magic to their will using their good looks and personality skills?

I know some people say about D&D that you have three physical stats, two mental stats, and one social stat, and you use them in that order ("fight us or give us a quest" style) but I've never found my D&D games going down that road.  Adventurers should not be islands of muscle and spell power.  Who would want to live that life of powered isolation?

(PS I know this isn't necessarily your attitude, Moondog, just made me think of it.)

[Moondog]

Charisma is essentially worthless in 2nd edition unless you just want to be respected. There're no sorcerers or other Charisma-using casting classes, and bards are Fighter-Thief-Druids (the  1st/2nd ed Bard in 3.0 is the Fochluchan Lyrist).

Something else I'm not a fan of in the later editions - that every stat has to be "useful" - ie pertaining to a direct plus to a dice roll for some skill gain.  Just how does a sorcerer bend arcane magic to their will using their good looks and personality skills?

I know some people say about D&D that you have three physical stats, two mental stats, and one social stat, and you use them in that order ("fight us or give us a quest" style) but I've never found my D&D games going down that road.  Adventurers should not be islands of muscle and spell power.  Who would want to live that life of powered isolation?

(PS I know this isn't necessarily your attitude, Moondog, just made me think of it.)

It's cool. Particularly because that is my attitude. If you are going to make me do the extra bookkeeping to keep track of, memorize, and otherwise know what something is used for, make it useful or remove it from the system.

This doesn't mean that purely flavor related things are bad or should be filed off, or that mechanics should always come first, only that if it doesn't matter, make it optional.

I'm reminded of the Comeliness stat that appeared in optional 2nd edition supplements (and the hilariously terrible Book of Erotic Fantasy in 3rd). It did something that was actually 'useful' roleplaying wise, in that it said 'You are X amount of attractive. People react Y way because of this', which differentiated itself from Charisma in an important way, in that Charisma is force of personality and general 'intensity' of character.

It was almost universally panned however, because it actually did very little, mechanically, and only added to book-keeping and furthermore, skewed things in terms of point buy. Most people considered it 'yet another dump stat'.

Charisma as a dump-stat has always been one of my hot-button topics in Dungeons and Dragons. I look at characters in Fantasy literature, see how they inspire, lead, and generally be awesome and highly charismatic. . . and then at three quarters of the Fighter population, all of whom are apparently as charismatic as the average farmer, which is at odds with the archetype.

I think I've gotten off topic, though.

[FuzzyDan]

  STR:13
  INT:13
  WIS:15
  DEX:11
  CON:10
  CHR:14

[Fizban]

Charisma as a dump-stat has always been one of my hot-button topics in Dungeons and Dragons. I look at characters in Fantasy literature, see how they inspire, lead, and generally be awesome and highly charismatic. . . and then at three quarters of the Fighter population, all of whom are apparently as charismatic as the average farmer, which is at odds with the archetype.

Maybe we just play different kinds of D&D, because in my games, charisma is never a dump stat, even if it doesn't add +X to your spell damage or your turn undead rolls.  Characters with low charisma in my games have a hell of a time getting quests, making friends, finding out information, inspiring leadership, getting good prices at merchants, hiring henchmen, getting healing at temples - basically any social situation is made more difficult if you are not charismatic.

Sure, you're unlikely to make checks against your charisma in combat (although it's not impossible), but my games have a lot more than combat in them.  I don't think you should have to entice people to value one stat over another by making it add a +1 to something.  They should be making a well-rounded character, in my opinion anyway.

Perhaps those people who play the more Diablo style game don't need charisma at all - in which case, for sure, drop it off the sheet.  Deckard Cain will give you the horadric cube no matter how uggo you are.

[Moondog]

Charisma as a dump-stat has always been one of my hot-button topics in Dungeons and Dragons. I look at characters in Fantasy literature, see how they inspire, lead, and generally be awesome and highly charismatic. . . and then at three quarters of the Fighter population, all of whom are apparently as charismatic as the average farmer, which is at odds with the archetype.

Maybe we just play different kinds of D&D, because in my games, charisma is never a dump stat, even if it doesn't add +X to your spell damage or your turn undead rolls.  Characters with low charisma in my games have a hell of a time getting quests, making friends, finding out information, inspiring leadership, getting good prices at merchants, hiring henchmen, getting healing at temples - basically any social situation is made more difficult if you are not charismatic.

Sure, you're unlikely to make checks against your charisma in combat (although it's not impossible), but my games have a lot more than combat in them.  I don't think you should have to entice people to value one stat over another by making it add a +1 to something.  They should be making a well-rounded character, in my opinion anyway.

Perhaps those people who play the more Diablo style game don't need charisma at all - in which case, for sure, drop it off the sheet.  Deckard Cain will give you the horadric cube no matter how uggo you are.

Even when you handle it like that, the status quo remains exactly the same - Sorcerors, Bards, some Rogues, and Turning oriented Clerics still dominate social encounters - while simultaneously hurting the classes that already can't afford to divert points towards Charisma, such as Fighters (who need every single bit of help they can get in the universe) or Monks (for whom almost everything that isn't Charisma is necessary).

Still, I think that's a very valid way to handle games. It might just be that you go out of your way to emphasize Charisma as an important stat 'under the table', while my DM tends to not an aerially locomoting coitus what your Charisma score is; all that matters is how you carry yourself at the table/the way you speak/how you approach people. Professionals appreciate professional banter, the gnoll tribes appreciate a 'If you don't listen to me I *will* kick you in the face' tactic, and so on.

So, yes, we play different kinds of D&D.

I still think that an attribute should be useful, or shouldn't be in play at all, though.

[Fizban]

Just for people's curiousity, I had two new people join my game last night.  Both rolled their stats at the same time.  One rolled 13,13,12,12,12,11, which puts him on about equal rankings with three other characters in the party (he's playing a human cleric of the god of holiness) and the other rolled 17,16,15,14,13,11, which gives him the best stats in the party to date.  I was cut that he didn't make a paladin, as he's the only person so far to roll the stats necessary for one!

[Moondog]

Just for people's curiousity, I had two new people join my game last night.  Both rolled their stats at the same time.  One rolled 13,13,12,12,12,11, which puts him on about equal rankings with three other characters in the party (he's playing a human cleric of the god of holiness) and the other rolled 17,16,15,14,13,11, which gives him the best stats in the party to date.  I was cut that he didn't make a paladin, as he's the only person so far to roll the stats necessary for one!

First guy sounds like me, second guy sounds like the rest of my party.

DM says 'I know I usually do an array, but this time, let's do two sets of 3d6, pick whichever one you like.'

I get 11, 15, 11, 11, 12, 12, everyone else is more along the lines of 16, 16, 14, 16, 12, 14.  Ain't dice grand?

[AmishNinja]

Took the test on the front page and got:

Str 13 Int 15 Wis 11 Dex 15 Con 13 Cha 15

I volunteer for party (B)rogue!

edit: or if we're going by 4th ed something else possibly but I haven't kept up on it, so I'm going by the classic 3rd/2nd ed ones.