Tag: ADnD

Rezina carried over

Here’s what we’ve got so far, mainly from the post two days ago. The only thing I managed to do yesterday, pretty much was spend an inordinate amount of time waffling about all the classes and finally, roll a die to find out which one she was going to be. Turned out, it was Illusionist:

• Name: Rezina
• Pronouns: she/her
• Race: Halfling
• Class: Illusionist
• Ability Scores:
  • Strength: 11
  • Dexterity: 18
  • Constitution: 18
  • Intelligence: 17
  • Wisdom: 18
  • Charisma: 9
• 3ft 3in tall
• 59lbs in weight
• 41 years of age

Let’s move this along, shall we?

So, let’s get her sorted, remembering that she starts at 3rd level. I found a form-fillable AD&D 2nd Ed character sheet online so I am going to go down through that, addressing each element I need to consider since neither the PHB nor the Dark Sun Rules Book have anything so prosaic as a step by step guide on character creation.

Preserver or Defiler?

As it turns out, the first thing to decide is not on the character sheet which was meant for a more generic setting.
I like our little Rezina and I don’t think it would be in keeping with the Halfling culture to have her defiling the land with her spells so I am going to make her a Preserver for the purposes of casting spells.

Alignment

I’ve always liked the Chaotic Good alignment and it seems to fit our little Preserver Illusionist, in that she doesn’t ascribe to the rules and laws of the sorcerer-kings and she would rather project benevolence both onto and into the world around her.

Patron/Deity/Religion

Not Applicable in this setting

Place of Origin

Traditionally, the Halflings of this region of Athas come form the Forest Ridge off to the west of the map, beyond the Ringing Mountains. Now, looking at the description of the Forest Ridge in the Wanderer’s Journal, the setting guide that comes in the Dark Sun boxed set, I can see where I got the idea that Halflings were cannibals. Travellers in the forest need to watch out for being ambushed and caught by Halfling tribes. If presented to their king, he is likely to eat them alive! Anyway, this is where Rezina is from. Why has she made her way to the Tablelands? Perhaps she heard about the reputation of the secret Preserver’s organisation, the Veiled Alliance, and wanted to join.

Saving Throws

Technically, the next thing on the sheet would be the ability scores but I have covered those completely so I am moving on to Saves.
The Character Saving Throws table is unreasonably hard to find. They have stuck it in the Combat chapter, instead of the Character Creation one. Bonkers. Also, it’s so complicated. Why? Whyyyyy?

Anyway, she is a Wizard of sorts so these are her base Saving Throws at 3rd level:
Paralyzation, Poison or Death Magic: 14
Rod, Staff or Wand: 11
Petrification or Polymorph: 13
Breath Weapon: 15
Spell: 12
But she also gets +1 against rods, staves, wands, spells and poison for every 3 1/2 points of CON… so that’s an extra +5 for Rezina.

Armour Class

No armour allowed for our Illusionist, but, with DEX 18 she gets a -4 modifier, leaving her with a respectable base AC of 6, but a Surprised AC of 10, a Shieldless AC of 6 and Rear AC of 10.

DEX checks, vision checks, hearing checks

There is a section beside AC on this character sheet that includes these three things. I have no memory of these scores or modifiers and I am not sure where to look to find them (the index does nothing.) I will fill in the DEX Checks one with a +2, though as it seems to make sense as a reaction adjustment so save against falling or something similar. Moving on!

Hit Points

I rolled a 4, a 4 and a 3 on my 3d4 since she is 3rd level and added 6, +2 from her Constitution each level, to make 17.

THAC0

To Hit Armour Class 0. The most arcane thing about this complicated process, perhaps? Anyway, all Wizards of 1st to 3rd level have a THAC0 of 20. So, Rezina needs to get a modified attack roll of 20 to hit something with AC 0. Thankfully, this PDF calculates all the rest of the table for you!

Combat Modifiers

Once again, as a type of Wizard, Rezina has a non-proficiency modifier of -5 to an attack roll. That means that using a weapon she is not proficient, she is much less likely to hit.
But she does have a +1 to hit with slings (her one weapon proficiency) and thrown weapons.
She has no damage bonus due to her 11 STR and she has a -4 to AC from her DEX as stated earlier.

Weapon Combat

I mapped out here the details of the sling and her chosen ammo, the sling stone. She gets one attack with it per round, it’s size is small, has a speed of 6 (this has an affect on your initiative score), it has the blunt damage type, she has a +1 to hit with it, it does 1d4 damage and finally it has short/medium/long ranges of 4/8/16. There is so much to note and keep track of here it is honestly bewildering. Glad I didn’t get a class with more than one weapon proficiency, honestly.

Proficiencies

So, these are the non-weapon proficiencies and include languages. My INT 17 gives me 6 slots to play with. On top of my free language, Halfling, I took two more, the common tongue and Gith, the tongue of the desert raiders. I also took some Dark Sun specific ones, Somatic Concealment allows spell-casters to hide the somatic components of their spells. Being an unsanctioned wizard in one of the city-states is a dangerous business you see. Heat protection seems important to survival in this setting. Sign language looked for someone who is potentially part of a secret rebellion. Finally, boring old Reading/writing from the

Equipment

Money is a bit different on Athas compared to other D&D settings. Metal is incredibly rare here so the most common coin is the ceramic piece, which can be further broken Doen into ceramic bits. 1000 ceramic bits = 100 ceramic pieces = 10 silver pieces = 2 electrum pieces = 1 gold piece = 1/5 platinum piece.

A Wizard starts off with 1d4+1 x 30 cp. Of course I rolled a 1 so that’s 60 cp. yes. Not a lot to start with.

According to the Dark Sun Rules Book nonmetal items cost one percent of he price listed in the PHB and all metal items cost the price listed. This puts most metal items out of my price range. But at least a sling is affordable along with a few stones.

But this exchange rate means the price of the sling, 5cp in the PHB, would be 1/2 a ceramic bit so this is kind of a pain. I will round it up to one bit. And get 100 stones for another bit.
Down to 59cp and 8 bits. I’m also going to buy a fire kit for 2 bits, a tun of water for 1 sp (10cp,) a common robe for 1cp, some sandals for 5 bits, a backpack for 2 cp, a small belt pouch for 1cp, 50ft go hempen rope for 1 cp and a week’s worth of dry rations for 10cp. I’ve rounded up or down here or there because the maths was doing my head in. But, basically, I’ve got 34 CP and 1 bit left after that.

Movement

As a Halfling, Rezina is not the fastest thing on two legs. Her movement is 6, this means she can move 60 yards in a single round. In this game, a combat round is approximately one minute long. WTF? I did not remember that. That seems like a huge gulf of time! I think the current rules in 5E have a round at like 6 seconds. So, ten times less. Anyway, her movement rate of 6 means she can also walk 12 miles in a day.

Encumbrance

Just no. Honestly, I couldn’t be bothered with it in 1991 and I can’t be bothered now.

Character Class information

Special Powers/benefits

• Wizard spells
• 10% bonus to XP due to INT 17
• +1 to saves against illusions
• enemies have -1 to saves against my illusions
• Extra illusion spell at each level
• Easier to research new illusion spells (I don’t know how this works exactly)

Special hindrances

• Harder to research new non-illusion spells
• Cannot learn spells from the schools of necromancy, invocation/evocation or abjuration

Psionics

All characters in Dark Sun have a psionic wild talent, a minor or major power that they get for free! I’m going to roll on the Wild Devotion table in the complete Psionics Handbook to see what I get. I rolled a 100! Unbelievable. What that means is that I get to choose any devotion (minor power) from the table and then roll again on the Wild Science (major power) table. I think I will choose Flesh Armour for my squishy Illusionist from the Wild Devotion table and then I roll a 36 on the Wild Sciences table, which gives me the Death Field psychometabolic power. This power is going to gradually turn Rezina evil. Oops. It costs 40 PSP and, when I sacrifice a certain number of HP, everyone else I the filed loses the same amount if they fail their save v Death. Flesh Armour has a table you have to roll on when you use the power. That determines the level of armour you get from it. It costs 8 PSP.
AS for Psionic Strength Points, Rezina starts with 31 thanks to the table in the Complete Psionics Handbook where it’s based on her Wisdom score and modifiers from CON and INT. This of course means that she will never be able to use Death Field…

Wizard Spells

Finally, onto spells. My Illusionist has three 1st level and two 2nd level spells. And here they are:

• Colour Spray – Blinds creatures
• Change Self – self explanatory really
• Audible Glamer – can make a noise equivalent of that made by 4 men…
• Blur – gives enemies penalties to hit her
• Invisibility – makes you invisible, dunnit

Conclusion

When I went into this, I thought I would get through it in a couple of hours. Here I am, three days later, and I finally have a fully formed Dark Sun Halfling Illusionist PC. It is not an easy process. It is very difficult to find all the information you need to make your character. I had to use at least three different books and had to go searching through them to find things like Saving Throw and THAC0 tables that should be easy to find. I ended up with a character I would happily play but was it worth it? Honestly, I’m not sure. It was educational alright. It taught me that it might be not such a great idea to try to start up a new Dark Sun campaign using the old Ad&D rules, for certain.

What do you think of this whole process? Do you enjoy a protracted character creation process? If you were one of my players, would you want to go through all this?

Get in the comments!