Category: Dungeons and Dragons

If you are looking for my 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge after action report with completion graphic, it will be posted when I’m caught up from being put behind by real-life events. If you made it to 31 characters, email me or privately contact me on one of the message boards or social media and I’ll make sure you get the graphic. Thank you for participating.

After the disaster that was yesterday’s entry, I’m using a system that will seem like an old friend for day 27 of the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge. Today I am using For Gold & Glory which is a retro-clone of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition. Now I had created an AD&D 2nd edition character in an earlier character creation challenge so I’m interested to see how this might differ.

The For Gold & Glory PDF is 384 pages long and was edited by Justen Brown. This is version 2.0.1 of this game that was released in June 2016. The armor class is given in descending values and uses THAC0. The character sheet is two pages long and the character creation process starts on page 6.

Being a D20 based game it has the standard ability scores of STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS and CHA. The first step listed is generating the ability scores. There are four methods listed. Traditional (roll 3d6 in order), Contemporary (4d6 and drop the lowest number then assign to attribute). New Age (roll 4d4+2 six times and assign) I wonder if I need to be playing Yanni if I do this one? Then there is a Points System for Method IV. Characters have 60+4d4 points to assign to their abilities. I’m not a fan of the points system in character creation, but I am interested in trying the New Age method that I’ve never seen or tried before. So let’s see what we get with that. Interesting, nothing was below 12 and nothing above a 14 by the time I had generated the stats. I didn’t have any class in mind when I started rolling as I wanted to see if the dice would lead me in one direction. The AD&D 2nd edition character was a wizard. I wanted to make an Illusionist, but even with any racial ability modifiers I didn’t think that I’d meet the minimum requirements (see afterthoughts below). So I selected a Human Cleric. Which is also the 2nd and 3rd steps in the character creation process. I wrote down the appropriate languages, THAC0, savings throws and other information provided so far. As a new cleric they automatically get a wooden holy symbol for equipment.

The fourth step is to select an alignment. This book uses the nine alignments from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil. I didn’t find anything about pantheons within these pages, but I would assume that this unnamed character would match his alignment to his deity. Plucking something out of the air the deity is going to be Apollo (a god of travel according to one of my quick internet searches) and the alignment is going to be Neutral Good. Since it seems like this is turning into a Roman campaign, I pulled up a random name generator for ancient Roman names and selected Marcus Dexsius Arcavius.

Steps five and six are to choose the skills of Marcus. At first level there are a series of skill points for combat skills. A Cleric has 2 points. According to the rules, I can pick two weapons, or I can choose a weapon group for 2 points that would give Marcus a proficiency in all the weapons listed for that class on Table 5.2 on page 31. The Club Class gives him training in Club, Morning Star and War Hammer. I’m going to go with that one. If the character had 3 combat skill points, he could have chosen a weapon by type (slashing, bludgeoning or piercing). But only the Warrior classes have 4 combat skill points. Additional skill points can be earned when the character reaches higher levels. The fighters also had access to buy combat methods like hurled weapon, brawling, shield bash or dual-weapon.

With the non-combat skills, a character rolls a d20 against their ability score (and adjusts it by any bonus or penalties from that ability score) and if the roll is equal or less then the character succeeds in the task. In the character generation process. As a a member of the Priest classes, Marcus has 4 starting skill points and gets one every 3rd level advancement. Marcus also gets a pre-game trade skill that they performed before starting their life as an adventurer. For this, I selected Brewing that he learned from his father before he entered the priesthood of Apollo. I picked the other four skills that I thought this character would know.

Equipment is usually the end of the character creation process. I made sure to get the starting money right after messing up on my Old School Essentials entry I made sure to roll 2d6x10 for this priest (I rolled 70 GP). There was a special rule that once I was done picking equipment that he was only allowed to keep 1d3 GP. The rest must be donated to the church. I wonder how this affects finding treasure? The book listed standard equipment first so I scrolled down to weapons and armor since those were usually the most expensive.

I realized that the Turn Undead and Spells section were blank, so I found them and filled them in. I think I’m done. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

Reading through the classes I was thinking about making an Illusionist. I don’t think I’ve rolled one up yet. However when I looked at the Specialist Mage section it had conflicting information. The Ability requirement on page 21 was INT 9+, but table 3.10 (specialist wizard restrictions) on the same page showed a minimum score of 16 DEX. So I abandoned that idea and chose another class.

The combat skills were interesting to read. I don’t recall if I saw these in AD&D 2nd edition. It’s been so long since I’ve actually played that so I don’t recall at all. If I get some time, I’ll have to look it up. But if a helpful reader wants to throw some wisdom my way, I’d be very grateful.

I wish they had put the turning ability with the cleric class description.

I wonder if running a FG&G one-shot at a convention would generate some sign-ups? I’d probably have to make a cheat sheet for the game to place on the table.

Additional Notes:

I had quite a few of you respond to my blog post about failing to make a character for The Strange. Apparently several other people experienced the same level of frustration that I had encountered. I’m glad to know that I wasn’t alone on that.

Coming Up Next:

Planet of the Apes

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.

Day 21 of the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and I’m going to create a character using the Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy book from Necrotic Gnome. This is a clone of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition which I used to create a character in a past challenge. This PDF from DriveThruRPG also includes the expansion with extra classes, optional rules and spells. There are 257 pages in the PDF and the character sheet is two-pages.

This is a standard D20 clone so it uses the ability scores that we should be familiar with. The character creation options are listed on page 14. There is a basic, advanced an optional character creation option. The basic option states that the class selected also determines the character’s race. If you pick an Elf or Ghome, that is both your race and your class. If you pick a Fighter, Thief or one of the other regular classes, then you are a Human. In the advanced option your race and class are separate (which is how I remember it in AD&D1e). In the optional rules, you still create the character with the two methods just mentioned, but there is an option for secondary skills and weapon proficiency. I think I’m going to let the dice decide. If I roll an even, it’s basic and odd will be advanced. I rolled a five so we are going with the advanced option. On page 16 is a step by step guide for basic creation and on page 18 is the guide for advanced creation.

Step 1 is to roll the ability scores. 3d6 is rolled for each ability. It doesn’t have an option to choose so I’m assuming that we are going down the line. There is a note about sub-par characters with ability scores of 8 or less results discarding all of those rolls and starting again. Let’s see how we do. Actually rolled pretty well and with a high strength, I guess we are making a fighter. This is how it was originally done, roll and then select the class from the abilities.

Step 2 is to pick a race and then adjust the ability scores from the racial descriptions. Our options are Drow (dark Elves), Duergar (grey Dwarves), Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Halfling, Half-Orc, Human, and Svirfneblin (deep Gnome). Some of these races had minimum requirements that my low CON roll of 8 didn’t meet. So my only options were Drow, Elf, Half-Orc and Human. If I have made an Half-Orc in a past challenge, I haven’t made one in a while. So we are going with that one. I added/subtracted the ability modifiers and wrote down the languages and other abilities. It also listed which classes were available for this race, luckily Fighter was one of them.

Step 3 choose a Class. As mentioned above, I’m selecting a Fighter for this yet-to-be-named Half-Orc.

Step 4 is to adjust the ability scores. Only the STR, INT or WIS can be lowered by 2 for 1 point addition to another ability score. I could drop my WIS by 2 and add the 1 to STR to give me a higher modifier. Yea, I want this guy to be tough so I’m doing it. I really can’t drop my INT because it would go below the minimum of 9 in the adjustment formula.

Step 5 is to note the ability score modifiers now that they are set. I wrote them down.

Step 6 is to note the attack values. Warning, warning, there is a THAC0 involved. While there is an option to use the Ascending AC I’m going to stick with the THAC0 since I haven’t seen it in a while.

Step 7 is to note the savings throws and class/race abilities. There is a listing for weapon proficiencies here as well, but I’m not following that path today.

Step 8 is rolling Hit Points. Unfortunately I can’t add any CON bonus as there isn’t one. But there is an optional rule to re-roll any 1s or 2s for the first-level character. I had rolled a 5.

Choose alignment. The only options were Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic. Had this been an actual organized game I would have inquired with the GM. So on this challenge entry I’ll just use Neutral.

Step 10 is to list down the known languages that the character knows. Since the INT score isn’t high enough to add any new languages, this unknown character only knows what his race and class lists. Alignment, Common and Orcish.

Step 11 is purchasing equipment. I see the familiar 3d6x10 for starting gold and rolled it. Luckily the Fighter can use all weapons, shields and armor.

Now that we’ve got our equipment. Step 12 is to note the AC of the character. I included the DEX bonus.

Step 13 is to note the level (first) and XP (zero). I also noted that the character needed 2,000 XP to reach second level and that he gets a +10% bonus due to primary attribute bonus.

Step 14 is an optional step for Secondary Skill. I looked at the list and it was randomly rolled on a d100. Sure lets see what we get. A 73 shows a… Miner? I’m, sure I guess. Perhaps he was a slave before he escaped the mines?

The last step is to name the character. I pulled up a random Half-Orc name generator and selected Thamar. Sounds good enough. I transferred my notes to the character sheet and scanned it.

Afterthoughts:

I like how the character sheet lists information on how to use the ability check and savings throws. I remember suddenly needing to look them up during some games in the past.

I ended up rolling for 1,000 starting GP. (5+2+3=10 x 100) and the costs of the equipment, armor and weapons left a lot of GP for a starting character. I wonder if this was correct? I went back to the AD&D 1e players handbook and the starting money ranged from 5 to 200 GP on page 35. I thought it was a little strange.

Additional Notes:

I had something really good happen today that has caused me to switch out one of my games that I was going to use in an upcoming Character Creation Challenge entry. I don’t want to announce it now, but you’ll know it when it’s posted. I’m quite excited by this.

Coming Up Next:

GI Joe

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.