I had a subscription to Dragon Magazine back in the late 80’s. I don’t remember what issue it was, but I remember reading the announcement that TSR was going to release Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition. I immediately called up one of my gaming buddies and I had to read the entire article to him. I don’t recall how much of 2nd edition I played. Just after the game came out I had moved to a rural area for a job and it took a while before I found any gamers. When I did, they wanted to play Twilight 2000. But I still have my 2nd Edition Player’s Handbook so I decided that I would revisit that time by placing an entry into the Character Creation Challenge.
Xal Tolman is a Human Wizard that has just set out to find his fortunes after studying under a master in his home city. His goal is to come back with an artifact that will secure his membership within the local spell casters guild.
The RAW for generating character ability scores is vast in 2nd Edition. There are seven different methods that can be selected. I’ve already done Method I in this challenge (roll 3d6 for each attribute in order) and Method V (roll 4d6 and discard the lowest die) so I decided to try Method II (roll 3d6 twice for each ability and keep the highest score). This didn’t always guarantee a high roll for each stat. One roll set had me selecting between an 8 or 7 for the attribute. Ugh. While another had me choosing between a 14 and 13. Double ugh. I had forgotten that ability scores of 13 and 14 don’t really get any adjustment bonuses, but on the flip side the STR of 8 will not give me any penalties either. The remaining attributes are DEX: 13, CON: 14, INT: 16, WIS: 12 and CHR: 14. I wrote down my abilities and stats.
A wizard didn’t get or need a lot of equipment so that was pretty easy to select. Magic Missile was the lone spell I got at first class. Filled in some skills and called it good. Here is the character sheets.
Afterthoughts:
It had been a long time since I had created a 2nd edition character. I can see where it still has hold overs from 1st edition and I can see where the foundation was laid down for 3rd edition. I really don’t know if I’d ever get a chance to play in a 2nd edition campaign. Most players want nostalgia with 1st edition or they liked 3.5 of the new 5th edition. But it was fun to go through the rules again. I’ve also been finding old notes in some of my older books. Some have been interesting to read.
Additional Notes:
Started getting the final prep done for the rest of the month. I’m trying to make it as easy as possible for the later half of the Character Creation Challenge. If you are still going, good job. If you’ve run into a stumbling block, pick yourself back up and keep going.
Coming Up Next:
Top Secret NWO