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 Gnome, 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
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