When leveling up, you sometimes get an extra ability point to distribute. When say, a fighter has a str of 16 and he adds his ability point to str, he gets 17, but that holds no further changes right? He'll need ANOTHER point in str to get to 18 before he gets +4? Isnt that just worthless? The difference between 16 and 17 str = nothing?

You get an extra ability point every 4 levels, regardless of class. And, yep, not much difference between 16 and 17 strength, except that now you're just one point away from 18.

Right. As the table on p. 134 shows, abilities go up in pairs. Unless the stat is an odd number, you won't get an increase when you raise it. So it's usually 2 points (or 8 levels) to get an increase. Which is marginally better than previous rules, where what you started with never changed, except through magic.

<cenetr>Nightowl2</center>

I gotta say I prefered the old system where getting 20 strength was a major accomplishment. :( My barbarian has 32 strength... seems so cheesy. I miss the 18/00 18/91 18/83 style 18's that made fighters so cool and rerolls so much fun. Just me I suppose but I really enjoyed endless rerolls. SERIOUS! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I miss the re-rolls too. One thing I don't like is the parity in character generation. No character of a particular race can have stat points totaling more than any other member of that race, and I think that's kind of lame. You've got your 16 points and the same starting stats, every time. Makes me tend to min-max stats without shame.

Say Jack, how'd you get a Barb with 32 strength? The most you can start with is 20, and by level 30, you've only had 7 increases, making for 27. Of course, if you're wearing a strength boost item, that would explain it.

Yeah, I miss rolling (and rolling and rolling and...or do I? ;) the dice myself. Patience can give you some good numbers over time.

Then again, what IWD2 uses for char gen is still better than the optional point system in the DM's Guide. There, everyone starts at 8 (!), you get 25 points, and it's 1 for 1 only up to 14. To raise a stat to 18 would cost 16 points. Ouch. I'm glad they didn't do that here.

<center>Nightowl2</center>

They made the ability score distribution more complex, useful and so damn confusing. In iwd1 charisma is not the basis of the sorcerers spells, wisdom and intellegence is not the determiner of the highest spell level you can cast.

Well, IWD1 was 2nd ed rules. This is 3rd edition (more or less, sometimes less).

Then again, 2nd ed didn't have sorcerers. At least not in my PHB.

<center>Nightowl2</center>

In ways I rather miss the rolling stats of 2nd edition rules too, but I also like the stat increase every 4 levels; I think that makes sense. If you're out in the field, fighting hook horrors and dread knights every day, you'll probably build some muscles, if you're a fighter, or increase your intelligence by thinking so much, if you're a wizard, etc. Too bad they couldn't have combined the two systems; they're not mutually exclusive. Have rolling stats, but also have the stat increases every 4 levels. That might make for some insane characters, but very fun!

Insanity is at the heart of any good character! ;)

As for my Barbarian: Yes he is wearing a belt I found in HoF called the Drawven Ogre. Raises strength by six... only usuable by Barbarians Rangers and Fighters... OR... [img]smile.gif[/img] character with ONE level of these. [img]smile.gif[/img] If it didnt mess up the BAB a Half Orc Monk 29/Fighter 1 would be SUPER powerful wearing this belt... But until a patch fixes that I will have to live with a monks strength maxing out at 27+2 with the Mercy Killer belt. :(

On a side note: has anyone made a Drow Monk? Monks get Spell Resitance but so do drow... and they stack. But only up to 50. I was wonder if ANY spells would get through at 50. The new system is a little weird. I beleive its a DC check against the casters Spellcraft level, which even in HoF should never be over 33. So with a little math it would be 33 + 1d20 Vs. 50 + 1d20 and since the max would be 53 for the spell caster and the MINIMUM for the monk would be 51 he should never be affected by a spell. Is this right??? I have also see a bug pop up where the Spell resistance stacked up to 81.