RP-driven Icewind Dale run with an old school twist
Kneller
Member Posts: 438
I'm planning a roleplay-driven run of Icewind Dale with an old school challenge on the gameplay side. I'll be posting as I go and I'm open to comments and suggestions.
We are about to head on an old school D&D adventure. An unknown evil threatens the good (and bad, and neutral, and chaotic, and lawful, but let's not split hairs) people of Icewind Dale! And the only force capable of stopping it, aside from just uninstalling the game, are six brave heroes who feel they are up to the task. Who are these courageous few? I have no idea.
As I type this, I will be randomly generating the characters B/X style. The old school way to play (and the way I first played in sixth grade) is that one rolls their stats first, IN ORDER, then figure out what kind of character they can run with that. One can make adjustments, though. This is where it gets a little convoluted, B/X functions differently in a lot of ways and getting it to carry over to 2e AD&D is tricky. However, to simplify, It boils down to this. A point can be added to (only) a prime requisite, at the cost of two points from an ability that is not one of the prime requisites. The two points have to come from the same ability (you can't take one point from two abilities), and no score can be reduced below 9.
The prime requisites (and attribute minimums) are as follows:
Fighter: Strength (9)
Ranger*: Strength (13), Dexterity (13), and Wisdom (14)
Paladin**: Strength (12), Wisdom (13), Charisma (17)
Cleric: Wisdom (9)
Druid: Wisdom (12), Charisma (15)
Mage: Intelligence (9) (specialists have an extra prime requisite)
---Abjurer: Wisdom (15)
---Conjurer: Constitution (15)
---Diviner: Wisdom (16)
---Enchanter: Charisma (16)
---Illusionist: Dexterity (16)
---Invoker: Constitution (16)
---Necromancy: Wisdom (16)
---Transmuter: Dexterity (16)
Thief: Dexterity (9)
Bard: Dexterity (12), Intelligence (13), Charisma (15)
Some of these classes are not in B/X so I had to retrofit prime requisites on them based on the class requirements.
*Rangers also have a Constitution requirement of 14, but it's not a prime requisite so it can't be raised
**Paladins also have a Constitution requirement of 9, but it's not a prime requisite so it can't be raised
Race can adjust ability scores and make some classes possible or no longer viable. For example, with a Wis of 9, you can be a cleric, but not a Gnome cleric due to the Wis penalty. But, with a Dex of 12, an Elf could become a Ranger if they have the other ability requirements.
Also, a character can be scrapped if two abilities come up 5 or lower.
Multi-classing can get a little tricky. These characters generally have more prime requisites that they can and may need to increase, but then fewer non-prime requisites from which to pull points. Dual classed characters have it even tougher, since not only will they have more prime requisites, but the requirements will be higher. However, I'm generally not a super fan of multis and duals from a character concept perspective so I doubt it will come into play.
Since the in game roller can't work with this method, I'm actually rolling up these characters the old fashioned way. I attempted three methods for this. The first was to grab a few d6s out of my dice bag and start rolling. The results were catastrophically terrible. The average character using this method should be 63 points and most of what I was rolling were 40- and 50- point characters. As any old school gamer knows, this clearly means there's something functionally wrong with the dice. So, I did another pass, this time using the dice from my Eldritch Horror board game. My win rate is pretty high there, so clearly those dice work. However, this had the opposite effect. I rolled way too many 75+ point characters (like, more than half), and even the rest were generally above average. Not to mention, using those dice for a game other than Eldritch Horror summoned Yog-Sothoth, so then I had to deal with that. My final method was to use the dice roller on calculator.net. It gave me a nice 3x6 grid of dice and even provided the totals. The results seemed pretty average on average and no extradimensional beings were summoned. A win-win if you ask me.
So this is what we have:
A 9 11 7 13 14 13 67
B 12 13 15 13 10 13 76
C 12 9 15 7 9 9 61
D 14 12 16 12 6 15 75
E 9 11 12 10 11 13 66
F 10 8 12 11 7 13 60
G 13 13 12 8 11 6 63
H 8 6 11 9 15 11 60
I 9 10 6 5 11 14 55
J 11 6 13 9 12 11 62
K 12 13 13 10 10 8 66
L 3 10 12 12 14 12 63
Note: A Dex below 13 results in penalties to thief skills
These are in order of Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha with the total at the end.
I'll take a little break for now. I want to let these numbers marinate and see what characters jump out to me. Is anyone jumping out to you?
We are about to head on an old school D&D adventure. An unknown evil threatens the good (and bad, and neutral, and chaotic, and lawful, but let's not split hairs) people of Icewind Dale! And the only force capable of stopping it, aside from just uninstalling the game, are six brave heroes who feel they are up to the task. Who are these courageous few? I have no idea.
As I type this, I will be randomly generating the characters B/X style. The old school way to play (and the way I first played in sixth grade) is that one rolls their stats first, IN ORDER, then figure out what kind of character they can run with that. One can make adjustments, though. This is where it gets a little convoluted, B/X functions differently in a lot of ways and getting it to carry over to 2e AD&D is tricky. However, to simplify, It boils down to this. A point can be added to (only) a prime requisite, at the cost of two points from an ability that is not one of the prime requisites. The two points have to come from the same ability (you can't take one point from two abilities), and no score can be reduced below 9.
The prime requisites (and attribute minimums) are as follows:
Fighter: Strength (9)
Ranger*: Strength (13), Dexterity (13), and Wisdom (14)
Paladin**: Strength (12), Wisdom (13), Charisma (17)
Cleric: Wisdom (9)
Druid: Wisdom (12), Charisma (15)
Mage: Intelligence (9) (specialists have an extra prime requisite)
---Abjurer: Wisdom (15)
---Conjurer: Constitution (15)
---Diviner: Wisdom (16)
---Enchanter: Charisma (16)
---Illusionist: Dexterity (16)
---Invoker: Constitution (16)
---Necromancy: Wisdom (16)
---Transmuter: Dexterity (16)
Thief: Dexterity (9)
Bard: Dexterity (12), Intelligence (13), Charisma (15)
Some of these classes are not in B/X so I had to retrofit prime requisites on them based on the class requirements.
*Rangers also have a Constitution requirement of 14, but it's not a prime requisite so it can't be raised
**Paladins also have a Constitution requirement of 9, but it's not a prime requisite so it can't be raised
Race can adjust ability scores and make some classes possible or no longer viable. For example, with a Wis of 9, you can be a cleric, but not a Gnome cleric due to the Wis penalty. But, with a Dex of 12, an Elf could become a Ranger if they have the other ability requirements.
Also, a character can be scrapped if two abilities come up 5 or lower.
Multi-classing can get a little tricky. These characters generally have more prime requisites that they can and may need to increase, but then fewer non-prime requisites from which to pull points. Dual classed characters have it even tougher, since not only will they have more prime requisites, but the requirements will be higher. However, I'm generally not a super fan of multis and duals from a character concept perspective so I doubt it will come into play.
Since the in game roller can't work with this method, I'm actually rolling up these characters the old fashioned way. I attempted three methods for this. The first was to grab a few d6s out of my dice bag and start rolling. The results were catastrophically terrible. The average character using this method should be 63 points and most of what I was rolling were 40- and 50- point characters. As any old school gamer knows, this clearly means there's something functionally wrong with the dice. So, I did another pass, this time using the dice from my Eldritch Horror board game. My win rate is pretty high there, so clearly those dice work. However, this had the opposite effect. I rolled way too many 75+ point characters (like, more than half), and even the rest were generally above average. Not to mention, using those dice for a game other than Eldritch Horror summoned Yog-Sothoth, so then I had to deal with that. My final method was to use the dice roller on calculator.net. It gave me a nice 3x6 grid of dice and even provided the totals. The results seemed pretty average on average and no extradimensional beings were summoned. A win-win if you ask me.
So this is what we have:
A 9 11 7 13 14 13 67
B 12 13 15 13 10 13 76
C 12 9 15 7 9 9 61
D 14 12 16 12 6 15 75
E 9 11 12 10 11 13 66
F 10 8 12 11 7 13 60
G 13 13 12 8 11 6 63
H 8 6 11 9 15 11 60
I 9 10 6 5 11 14 55
J 11 6 13 9 12 11 62
K 12 13 13 10 10 8 66
L 3 10 12 12 14 12 63
Note: A Dex below 13 results in penalties to thief skills
These are in order of Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha with the total at the end.
I'll take a little break for now. I want to let these numbers marinate and see what characters jump out to me. Is anyone jumping out to you?
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