Character Creation – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, Dark Sun

Showing some character

So the character creation posts have had some good feedback. People mainly seem to like it when it goes disastrously wrong for some reason. Schadenfreude maybe? Anyway, I thought I would continue the series with another one. This time, I thought I would go back to the game I think of when I think of my teenage years, AD&D 2nd Edition (TSR 1989), and, more specifically, the Dark Sun setting (TSR 1991). I have never been a player in a Dark Sun game, I was always the DM, so this will be interesting. Also, Dark Sun characters need to be pretty hardy to survive the scorching wastes of the magic-blasted world of Athas. So, if I roll bad, you sadists out there should get a kick out of it.

Step 1 – Ability scores

We see an immediate departure from AD&D norms with rolling your ability scores in Dark Sun. Because the setting is so brutal, your PCs get higher than average scores to reflect the hardness of life there. So, instead of the usual 3d6 for each score, you roll 4d4+4 for a minimum of 8 (even though the book claims the minimum is 5, which is numerically impossible) and a maximum of 20, unmodified. There are a bunch of optional methods for rolling included in the Dark Sun Rules Book but I am going to stick with the basic one. So, here we go:

• Strength: 13
• Dexterity: 16
• Constitution: 19 (Suck it Canon Fodder)
• Intelligence: 17
• Wisdom: 16
• Charisma: 10 (Oh well, they can’t all be winners)

First thoughts; obviously this method produces some high results. Also, I was very lucky. Also, these rolls mean that this character could choose almost any race or class.
Second thoughts; now that it comes to it, this is one of the reasons my players really liked this setting. They got to create some very powerful characters, even without cheating on their rolls (which was, I must be honest, the norm at the time)!

Step 2 – Player character race

There are Racial Ability Requirements in this setting as there are in the base game, but some of them are very tough to achieve. The only one I think is ruled out is the Half-giant. If you want to be one of those big lads, you need to have a minimum strength score of 17. So here are the races I get to choose from:

• Dwarf
• Elf
• Half-elf
• Halfling
• Human
• Mul
• Thri-kreen

Pretty much none of the races in Dark Sun bear any resemblance to the standard D&D ones, with the possible exception of bland old humans. There are also a few new ones here.

Dwarves are all hairless and obsessed with a focus that gives them bonuses to saves and proficiencies when performing them in pursuit of that goal. They can choose to be Clerics, Fighters, Gladiators, Psioicists, Templars or Thieves. Although all of these have level caps below 20 except for Gladiator and Psionicists. Some of them are really low. A Dwarf can only get to level 10 as a Templar for instance! But they can multi-class. They get a +2 to CON, +1 to STR, -1 to DEX and -2 to CHA.

Elves are tall and lanky and weather-worn with an incredible stamina needed for running long distances across the Athasian deserts. They are very insular and tribal. They get bonuses with long swords and longbows made by their own tribes and to surprise rolls in the wilds. They can choose to be any class except Bard or Druid. They get +2 to DEX, +1 To INT, -1 to WIS and -2 to CON.

Half-elves have to deal with terrible intolerance from both elves and humans and have to do without basic connections or friends (this shit is in the text, ugh.) Anyway, it makes them very much self-reliant loners. They get a free Survival proficiency at 3rd level and can make a pet friend at 5th level! All classes are open to them and they get to multi-class if they want. They get a +1 bonus to DEX and a -1 to CON.

Half-giants are a thing in this setting. And, although I can’t choose them, here is a little bit about them. They are up to 12 feet tall and weigh up to 1600 lbs! They have no culture of their own as a very young and dull-witted race. Once again, the text is pretty bad about this kind of thing. It really underlines for me the need for the push-back this sort of thing rightly received in more recent times. Anyway, they getting bonuses to STR and CON and minuses to INT, WIS and CHA. They can only choose from 5 classes.

Halflings are small humanoids from the jungles at the fringes of civilisation in the Tablelands of Athas. Their culture is concerned mainly with appreciating their local natural world and complex interactions of a social sort between their various villages and clans. They are not really into war and wealth. They get bonuses to use slings and thrown weapons, to surprise opponents and to save against magic and poisons. They get a -2 to STR, -1 to CON, -1 to CHA, +2 to DEX and +2 to WIS. They can choose any class except Bard, Defiler, Preserver and Templar. They can choose to multi-class.
As a side note, I had a memory of Halflings all being cannibals in this setting but it is not mentioned in the character creation section so it might have just come up in certain adventures or something. Not sure.

Humans are much like humans in other settings except they generally have some weird little traits, like mutations. This is a post-apocalyptic setting after all. So players are given latitude to come up with some little physical idiosyncrasy that is purely for flavour. They can choose any class and can be dual-class, but cannot multi-class.

Muls are yet another “half-race.” Its genuinely so distasteful, this whole business. Anyway, here we are, they are half human, half dwarf. They are the product of slave-owners “ordering their births” for gladiatorial or labourers. They are born sterile. FFS. My stomach truly turns at this description of this race. It’s just so cruel. They also “live out their lives in servitude, driven by hatred and spite.” Give them a break! They are tall and well built. They get a +2 to STR and +1 to CON, but a -1 to INT and a -2 to CHA. They can work longer and harder than others as well. They have to choose, at the time of creation if they are considered human or Demi-human. If considered human they can have unlimited advancement in any class and become dual-classed. If the player chooses demi-human, they can, instead become multi-classed and can only choose from Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Gladiator, Psionicist and Thief. This really puts a great big question mark over the entire idea of class restrictions on Demi-human races, if you ask me. This suggests that the reason a demi-human can’t choose any class or get all the way to 20th level in it, is not because of a physiological, racial impediment, it’s only because human society says they can’t… I mean, what?

Finally, Thri-kreen. They’re big mantis guys who have a base AC of 5 but never wear armour. They don’t need to sleep but they can’t use most magical items as they are generally designed for use by human shaped people. Their hunting packs control much of the Tablelands. They have a well-known taste for elves (maybe I was mixing up the Thri-kreen and the Halflings.) They get natural bite and claw attacks and a powerful leap. They get venomous saliva at 5th level as well as a bonus proficiency with the Chatkcha, a thrown weapon. They can also dodge missiles at 7th level. They get a +1 to WIS and +2 to DEX, but -1 to INT and -2 to CHA. They can choose to be Clerics, Druids, Fighters, Gladiators, Psionicists or Rangers and they can multi-class too.

This post is already much longer than I had intended. I started going through the races and couldn’t stop commenting on them. It was like watching a car-crash in slow motion.

Anyway, I think I will have to continue this character creation process in another post tomorrow. But, before I go, I think I will have to complete the choice. Obviously, as always, the race you select will have a direct effect on the choice of class due to the ability score modifiers. But, since we have a tradition of randomness in the character creation posts, I think I will stick with it and roll for it. There are seven races available to me and, luckily, I do have a d7 to hand thanks to DCC. Here goes:

I rolled a 6 on a d7, dear reader, but I just can’t accept it because that would have been a Mul and that makes me too sad. So I re-rolled and got a 4, Halfling!

So, that leaves me with ability scores as follow:

• Strength: 11
  • Hit probability: Normal, Dmg Adjustment: None, Weight allow.: 40lbs, Max press: 115lbs, Open Doors: 6, Bend Bars/Lift Gates: 2%
• Dexterity: 18
  • Reaction Adj.: +2, Missile Attack Adj.: +2, Def Adj.: -4
• Constitution: 18
  • HP Adj.: +2 (+4 for Warriors. This means Fighters, Rangers and Gladiators in Dark Sun), System Shock: 99%, Resurrection Survival: 100%, Poison Save: 0, Regeneration: Nil
• Intelligence: 17
  • # of Lang: 6, Spell Level: 8th, Chance to learn spell: 75%, Max. # of Spells/Lvl: 14, Spell Immunity: –
• Wisdom: 18
  • Magical Def Adj.: +4, Bonus Spells: 4th, Chance of Spell Failure: 0%, Spell Immunity: –
• Charisma: 9
  • Max # of Henchmen: 4, Loyalty Base: 0, Reaction Adj.: 0

The final task for today is to flesh out this Halfling a bit. I am giving her the pronouns she/her and calling her Rezina.

She is 3ft 3in tall, 59lbs in weight, and 41 years of age.

Back tomorrow with the choice of class and probably everything else. See you then!