You'll get no argument from me there Dundee. It's a shame that choosing the class has such a major impact on the characteristics you (can) achieve but there you go. I still maintain you should roll the stats and then choose the class accordingly. It would make that paladin or druid much more memorable when you finally rolled them up.

I don't suppose you remember the old points conversion costs for transferring stats around do you? They were quite harsh as I recall. </font>[/QUOTE]I find the Paladin one of the easiest to roll for. The Paladin's Charisma never goes below 17 when rolling, so you're more likely to get better stats in everything else.

Paladins, rangers and druids all enjoy the high-end rolling advantage true single class characters do not enjoy. By true class I mean the originals: fighter, thief, cleric, magic user. (I do mean magic user, not wizard or mage.) Very, very unfair.

I agree. I tried to do this once before, and ended up giving up and going multiclass.

Yeah, but this game is starting in SoA, so there aren't any tomes.

I think the easist is the half-elf cleric ranger. The highest minimums are on an elven ranger: str 13, dex 13, con 14, int 8, wis 14, cha 8

best i ever rolled was str 18/42 dex 18 con 18 wis 14 int 12 cha 18. that was in bg 1 though, it seems easier to get that kinda roll, so i was str 19 dex 19 con 19 wis 17 int 13 cha 19 at the beginning of SoA. havent gotten to the watchers tower or the hell tears, so not sure what ill end up with. thats a paladin though, assassin was better i guess, str 18 dex 18 con 16 wis 15 int 11 cha 18 in bg1. finished game with that one, str 20 dex 21 con 17 wis 16 int 12 cha 20.
and it was on a thief hah

I consider my best roll to be the 89, with a natural 18/00.(don't remember how I distributed the points though [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

ACtually i managed 18/99 once (=18.99 ~= 19) but all other stats was very bad. But a friend of mine managed to get 18 in all attributes except charisma, wich were 3 i think, on BG1.

Actually, IIRC, 18/00 is a better roll than 18/99, but I can't remember what the second number was for anyway.

Yes, 18/00 is indeed better than 18/99. The second number represents a bonus strength percentage value that all warriors are entitled to for exceptionally high strength values. 00 ~ 100%. The percentage value adds to hit/damage bonuses depending on how high the percentage:

18 = +1 to hit, +2 to damage
18/01-18/50 = +1 to hit, +3 to damage
18/51-18/75 = +2 to hit, +3 to damage
18/76-18/90 = +2 to hit, +4 to damage
18/91-18/99 = +2 to hit, +5 to damage
18/00 = +2 to hit, +6 to damage
19 = +3 to hit, +7 to damage

I recently rolled a 94 for a solo druid in BG1, who was killed by a wolf before I got round to saving the game. To quote the late great Dudley Moore 'laugh? I almost shat. I haven't laughed so much since grandma died'.

Mostly true, unless you import that 19 strength guy into BGII and use an item like Balduran's Shield (which will drop your strength back to whatever it originally was). You should have an auto save when you left Candlekeep (assuming you never started another game).