On Character Creation In HotDC

Heroes of the Dungeon Crawl will still offer four classes of character, Warrior, Wizard, Rogue and Cleric. There will be no multi-classing. This is how it was in the old Basic game, and I prefer it that way. Don't want things to get too complicated. Where we break ranks with the old red book is on race. In the old game, an Elf was an Elf. He could only be a Warrior/Wizard. A Dwarf could only be a Warrior and a Halfling could only be a Warrior with some Rogue abilities. Humans could be whatever they wanted to be. In HotDC, all races can choose whatever profession they wish.

What we don't have is all of the multi classing and specialty classes. Remember, this is a Basic Game. The more convoluted we make things with more rules and books, the more of a turn off it can be to newcomers. Plus, there are so many other games out there that do all of these things if that's what you want. We seek to keep it simple and fun, and I believe there is plenty of fun to be had with these four classes and races.

For the test game I ran recently, the characters were based on a stat build system. You had three main characteristics, Might, Agility and Cunning. Might is based on Strength, Agility is speed and Cunning is sort of a combination of how smart and wise a character is. This will still be the case. However, the point build system looks like it will be scrapped. What that system was based on was a character could roll one six sided dice per level and take the total and add it to each characteristic as desired.

The problem with that system is I feel that it could unbalace the game as a character gets to higher levels, and it might make it tougher at lower levels. So, in the name of game balance, the way a character will be rolled is simple. Roll three six sided dice and subtract the lowest roll. If you roll a 5, 3 and a 2, get rid of the 2. Your score for that stat is 8. This will slightly adjust what I had planned for Level 0 characters, but only slightly.

The way the bonus chart looks for characteristics now is still pretty simple.

Stat Bonus
2 -3
3 -2
4-5 -1
6-8 0
9-10 +1
11 +2
12 +3

A Warrior with a Might of 10 would then have a +2 on damage. A Rogue with an Agility of 9 would get a bonus of 1 to Armor Level.

This is only part of the character creation process, but it is an important adjustment. There will be some similarities of that old game, but some differences. Another of the differences is that only six sided dice will be needed for whatever game mechanics may call for, but discussion of that is for another day.