Please keep your "PHB, UA, and DMG" responses to yourself.
Does anyone have, or know of an easy to follow, step by step guide to creating a 1E character using Method V. I'm a returning player who hasn't played PnP in over 20 years. I have a group I want to play in this weekend and I haven't got all my books from Amazon yet.
Whew. I'm trying to remember what Method V was. Not at home so I can't grab my books.
Method I...4d6, drop 1, arrange scores as desired?
Method II...You roll a bunch of scores for STR, keeping the highest, then roll a bunch for INT, keeping the highest, and on down the line. I think.
Method III...Roll 3d6 12 times and keep the highest 6, arrange as desired. (Or 14 times if you are using Comeliness! :)
Method IV...Roll 12 sets of stats...I think just in order, no arranging, and keep the best set.
Method V...Oh, this was the crazy UA one, right? It was only for humans, if I recall (human characters, not human players). You picked your class first, and each class had its abilities arranged in order of priority. So for a fighter, STR would be 1st, then maybe Con, then Dex, etc. Not remembering the order for each class.
Anyway, you ranked the stats in order. And then you rolled 9d6 for your Priority 1 ability, 8d6 for your priority 2 ability, and etc, all the way until you rolled 3d6 for your lowest priority ability. For example:
Human Fighter:
Priority 1: Str - roll 9d6, keep highest 3
Priority 2: Con - roll 8d6, keep highest 3
Priority 3: Dex - roll 7d6, keep 3
Priority 4: Wis - roll 6d6, keep 3
Priority 5: Int - roll 5d6, keep 3
Priority 6: Cha - roll 4d6, keep 3
Priority 7: Comeliness (stat introduced in UA) - roll 3d6, keep all 3
So again, I don't remember what the mandated priorities were for each class, the above order is hypothetical for a fighter. And the method used Comeliness, so there were 7 stats. But that was it, iirc.
Edit: Oh, and I think for Method V, because there were minimum stat requirements for classes, any stat you rolled that didn't meet the minimum, because you had already selected your class, was raised to the minimum. Nice.
Edit Edit: And that is just stat generation. Are you needing the rest of character creation--proficiencies and calculating HP and all that? That'll take a lot of typing :)
Thanks for that! I actually got how to do the stats. But it seems like there is so much more involved. I've read something about social class, birth rank..... It's just been too long since I've played. Also, as you mentioned, minimum stat requirements and also I think there are limits to how many levels of certain classes for certain races..... you were right when you said WHEW! So much back and forth with the materials.
Thanks for that! I actually got how to do the stats. But it seems like there is so much more involved. I've read something about social class, birth rank..... It's just been too long since I've played. Also, as you mentioned, minimum stat requirements and also I think there are limits to how many levels of certain classes for certain races..... you were right when you said WHEW! So much back and forth with the materials.
Did I get the Method V right? lol. I'm home, let me check my books...hey, I was :) Although the Fighter apparently prioritizes being good looking (Comeliness) over Intelligence. LOL I had Method II and Method III reversed too, if you care. :)
So that's the only thing the Method #s referred to--how to generate ability scores. 4 Methods in the DMG, 1 in UA. The rest of character creation did indeed have tons of tables. Tables including:
chance to know a selected spell, by Int score (you may not be able to learn the spell you'd like to learn!)
Bonus cleric spells for high Wis, and chance of cleric spell failure for low Wis
There are multiple tables of which races can be what classes. I was going to say too many to type, but you know what...this is fun looking at these books again.
Any Race can be: Fighter, Thief, Assassin
Dwarves: can also be Clerics if you're using UA. Nothing else.
Elves can also be Magic Users, and cleric/druid/ranger with UA. Nothing else.
Gnomes can also be Illusionists, and Clerics with UA. Nothing else.
Half-Elves--only things they can't be are Paladins, Illusionists, Barbarians, and Monks.
Halflings with UA can be cleric, druid, otherwise nothing else.
Half-Orcs can be clerics (even without UA).
There are all sorts of level restrictions for non-humans. Even more with UA, because the level restrictions change depending on ability scores. A dwarf can advance farther as a cleric with a higher Wis. It's mind-bogglingly complicated at that point, way too much to type up.
You might as well roll to see if you have psionics, because they can be really useful and over-powered if you can get them :) If you have one or more of Int, Wis, or Cha of 16 or higher, you have a chance. Roll percentile. For ever point of Int above 16, add 2.5 to your roll. For every point of Wis above 16, add 1.5 to the roll. For every point of Cha above 16, add .5 to the roll (drop fractions). Any roll of 100 or higher indicates psionics!
From the DMG, we have:
Secondary Skills table (percentile roll)
Age (roll varies wildly with race and class)
Do you need to convert a Gamma World character to AD&D? Got a table for it.
A random demon generator
Random condiment generator table: 1-15 Garlic, 16-50 Herbs (see unnumbered list of 100+ herbs on next page), 51-55 Mustard, 56-58 Pepper, 59-85 Salt, 86-00 Vinegar
From the UA, we have:
Social Class! Percentile Role:
1-4 Lower Lower
5-10 Mid Lower
11-20 Upper Lower
21-35 Lower Mid
36-55 Middle Mid
56-87 Upper Mid
88-96 Lower Upper
97-99 Middle Upper
100 Upper Upper (the literal 1%ers)
Birth Table: Percentile
1-5 Only
6-10 1st
11-20 2nd
21-35 3rd
36-50 4th
51-65 5th
66-80 6th
81-85 7th
86-90 8th
91-94 9th
95-97 10th
98-99 11th
100 12th
Parents
1-80 legally married
81-00 parents unmarried (down 1 social class!)
Race mods
Dwarves -15 to both tables
Elves -15 to -30 depending on type of elf (high -20, wood -10, drow -15)
Gnomes -20
Half elves -10
Halflings -10
Half Orcs +10 birth, +75 parents
Humans 0
25 Different Kinds of Polearms
Whew. That's all I'm prepared to type :D Let me know what race and class you pick and your ability scores, I can tell you what level you'll top out at :P
Please keep your "PHB, UA, and DMG" responses to yourself.
Does anyone have, or know of an easy to follow, step by step guide to creating a 1E character using Method V. I'm a returning player who hasn't played PnP in over 20 years. I have a group I want to play in this weekend and I haven't got all my books from Amazon yet.
This is the best I was able to find. All 5 Methods are listed. Sorry, I haven't played anything before 3e.
Whew. I'm trying to remember what Method V was. Not at home so I can't grab my books.
Method I...4d6, drop 1, arrange scores as desired?
Method II...You roll a bunch of scores for STR, keeping the highest, then roll a bunch for INT, keeping the highest, and on down the line. I think.
Method III...Roll 3d6 12 times and keep the highest 6, arrange as desired. (Or 14 times if you are using Comeliness! :)
Method IV...Roll 12 sets of stats...I think just in order, no arranging, and keep the best set.
Method V...Oh, this was the crazy UA one, right? It was only for humans, if I recall (human characters, not human players). You picked your class first, and each class had its abilities arranged in order of priority. So for a fighter, STR would be 1st, then maybe Con, then Dex, etc. Not remembering the order for each class.
Anyway, you ranked the stats in order. And then you rolled 9d6 for your Priority 1 ability, 8d6 for your priority 2 ability, and etc, all the way until you rolled 3d6 for your lowest priority ability. For example:
Human Fighter:
So again, I don't remember what the mandated priorities were for each class, the above order is hypothetical for a fighter. And the method used Comeliness, so there were 7 stats. But that was it, iirc.
Edit: Oh, and I think for Method V, because there were minimum stat requirements for classes, any stat you rolled that didn't meet the minimum, because you had already selected your class, was raised to the minimum. Nice.
Edit Edit: And that is just stat generation. Are you needing the rest of character creation--proficiencies and calculating HP and all that? That'll take a lot of typing :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Thanks for that! I actually got how to do the stats. But it seems like there is so much more involved. I've read something about social class, birth rank..... It's just been too long since I've played. Also, as you mentioned, minimum stat requirements and also I think there are limits to how many levels of certain classes for certain races..... you were right when you said WHEW! So much back and forth with the materials.
Did I get the Method V right? lol. I'm home, let me check my books...hey, I was :) Although the Fighter apparently prioritizes being good looking (Comeliness) over Intelligence. LOL I had Method II and Method III reversed too, if you care. :)
So that's the only thing the Method #s referred to--how to generate ability scores. 4 Methods in the DMG, 1 in UA. The rest of character creation did indeed have tons of tables. Tables including:
Whew. That's all I'm prepared to type :D Let me know what race and class you pick and your ability scores, I can tell you what level you'll top out at :P
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)