RQ2/general. character creation

[iamdiggerdoug]

Interested to hear peoples house rules on how they roll/create their characters stats etc. My group is about to start playing and I'd like to pitch some options on this.

So far we have:

Roll 4d6 instead of 3 and pick which ones you use (personally not a fan of that one) (on this one i'd preffer to roll 3d6 in one colour and one in a different colour, you can use the odd one instead but at a -1 moddifier)

Roll 3d6 6 times and record the results and then asign each score to which stat you want.

Allocate 66 points (11per stat) as you wish.

Roll the stats as normal and you can reroll or swap stats but only 2 actions ao reroll 2, swap twice, or one reroll and one swap.

 

[Haimji]

Hi !

I use my own allocate rules :

1) each stat starts at 8 (for a human)

2) you can up Stats with 40 Points : 1 => 1 until 12, 2 => 1 until 14, 3 => 1 until 16, 4 => 1 until 18

3) you can down a Stat to get more points (1 for 1) but INT & SIZ can't been downed.

 

ps : there is 7 Stats not only 6 in RQ2

Edited October 13, 2016 by Haimji

[iamdiggerdoug]

Thank you I love that method sounds very fair. (I forgot power!)

[g33k]

3 hours ago, iamdiggerdoug said:

Thank you I love that method sounds very fair. (I forgot power!)

If you are likening to D&D's 6, POWer is akin to WISdom; RQ's odd non-D&Desque characteristic is SIZe ! 

[g33k]

Point-buy vs. roll is a perennial debate.  

Some prefer one, or the other.  

Some can get... quite ardent about their preference.  

 

[Belgath]

For a bit more hi powered games have the Players pick two stats to roll 12+d6 any 1 are rolled I have them note it each time. Then have them re-roll that die. At the end of rolling all the 1 rolled can be added to any stat.

 

[MJ Sadique]

19 hours ago, iamdiggerdoug said:

Roll 4d6 instead of 3 and pick which ones you use

Roll 3d6 6 times and record the results and then asign each score to which stat you want.

Allocate 66 points (11per stat) as you wish.

Roll the stats as normal and you can reroll or swap stats but only 2 actions ao reroll 2, swap twice, or one reroll and one swap.

==> Good choices... the later is funny

Personally, I let them choose their poison and a bit boost for fixing the level of the game:

-Classic Random rolls (as much as they want) + 7 pts free to use

-Allocation of Points : 10 ever where, 14 pts (7+7) to allocate and they can lesser one/two charac to boost another one but at a 2:1 trade.

-Pick a pre-generated character (I provide 7 types) with 7 pts free to use to custom it. (Skills are pre-generated with a quarter of % at the player' choice)

The first take time (I had a player doing it for 2 hours and making more than a hundred profiles, results are worth the motivation), the second is often choose by unlucky player because there is no luck so no complain. The later take a lot more preparation from the master but you can easily add a player or replace a dead character in the middle of your game.

A late concern to me is not having dismorph character : I had a FOR 18 / TAI 8 player, and today it bother me to have let this abnormality live. (but he doesn't want to die XD). Now, I impose some extra rules :
-FOR/CON can't be more than 5 pts to SIZ (human, elder race 10, other 7).
-No carac under 8, unless an great reason to do it (kingdom of war covered with scars can have a 5 at CHA).
-POW and CHA can surpass 18 but only for magician or priest offspring. (and the restrictions linked to it)

Edited October 14, 2016 by MJ Sadique
Some errors

[Mugen]

For BRP games, I prefer semi-random characteristi generation, because of the many "steps" in the game and possible optimization.

For instance, roll 1d6+Base for each characteristic (7 for 2d6+6), then spend X points.

15 hours ago, g33k said:

If you are likening to D&D's 6, POWer is akin to WISdom; RQ's odd non-D&Desque characteristic is SIZe ! 

I disagree.

In the original D&D, Wisdom was the prime requisite to be a cleric, and was of no use for a Magic-User, for instance.

In more recent versions of the game, Charisma has become the source for some classes, becoming partly akin to POW, and Wisdom became also the "intuition" ability, used for Perception, for instance.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Mugen

[styopa]

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

In the original D&D, Wisdom was the prime requisite to be a cleric, and was of no use for a Magic-User, for instance.

In more recent versions of the game, Charisma has become the source for some classes, becoming partly akin to POW, and Wisdom became also the "intuition" ability, used for Perception, for instance.

Basically, D&D3+ simply made the design decision that they were going to try to make every stat equally meaningful, as AD&D originally had a very narrow stat-applicability depending on class, so everyone had at least one or two (always including CHA) dump stats that they could use for crappy rolled values in chargen systems that allowed arranging-to-suit.  Whether it's realistic or not wasn't really relevant, it was a game-mechanic decision.

Personally, I like in the current version how they've boiled the point-buy system down to non-extreme stat-distribution choices: you can take the standard array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.  Point buy IMO invites extreme optimization, it's one reason I don't like point buy systems generally.*

 

*I find it a curious but pretty clear gulf between OSR rpg'ers and modern gamers: OSR systems tended to say 'roll the stats and make the best character you can out of the results' where modern-generation systems are almost always about picking what you want to play, and then finessing the character to fit.  Now, I'm not going to say OSR players didn't do the latter (ie, the "how are there so many paladins?" issue with AD&D (https://muleabides.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/you-must-be-this-lucky-to-play/) but they certainly seemed more willing to live with what they got. Of course, we did play in a D&D campaign in the early 80s where the DM was going strictly RAW, 3d6 in order for stats, and my g/f at the time, in front of us, rolled 3 18s for a single toon.  Made her a legend.