Ironworks Gaming Forum - View Single Post

SixOfSpades · 11-18-2003, 08:26 PM

Well, there's really no such thing as "playing things like a pencil & paper game," or to be more precise, there's really no ONE thing. Different DMs do different things: A dyed-in-the-wool, hardcore purist DM would force the players to rigidly accept the first dice roll, no changes or exceptions. A wishy-washy munchkin DM, in contrast, would let the players to roll the dice as many times as they wanted to, and allow them absolute freedom in removing points from certain stats and putting them into others. You can see for yourself which path the BG games take. There are, however, some popular "middle grounds:"

You roll the stat dice 6 times, and then decide which roll goes toward which stat. For instance, if you're rolling a Fighter and your last roll is an 18, that 18 does not have to be your Charisma--you can make it be your CON if you want to.
Just like #1, but the players are allowed to roll 3 sets of stats. If they don't get any good numbers (16 or higher) on their first set, they can start over a second, and even a third time.
My method: You are allowed to hit Reroll as many times as you want, but you may not use the + or - buttons at all: No moving points from one stat into another. Just Reroll until you hit a set of stats that you can live with.
Just like #3, but you're allowed to keep 5 sets of "saved" stats. When you see a set of stats that looks good, write them down, and keep Rerolling. When you've written down 5 sets of stats, you must choose 1 of them.

There is also the matter of what dice are rolled: Many people think that each of your 6 stats is determined by a roll of 3D6. In the BG games, it's not--it's actually 4D6, and the lowest die is thrown out. Purist DMs may insist on 3D6.

There are similar "shades" of the hitpoint rolls as well:
1) You must accept the first hitpoint roll you get. No exceptions.
2) You may Save the game, Level Up, and then Reload, 3 times, and then take the best hitpoint result of those three.
3) You may Save, Level Up, and Reload, until you get a hitpoint roll that is at least 66% of the maximum gain you could have gotten.
4) If you're playing BG2, you may move the Difficulty slider down to Normal (which automatically makes all hitpointrolls be the maximum) during the early Level-Ups.

I confess that I'm no purist when it comes to hitpoints: If I'm going to lose a battle, I want it to be because of an error on my part, not because my party simply isn't healthy enough. Having a high-hitpoint party also decreases the odds of us suffering one-hit kills or getting chunked, which are just plain no fun. In BG1, I use #2 or #3 to determine my hitpoints, and I use #4 in BG2.

11-18-2003, 08:26 PM	#3
SixOfSpades Dracolisk Join Date: September 16, 2001 Location: Bellingham, WA, USA Age: 48 Posts: 6,901	Well, there's really no such thing as "playing things like a pencil & paper game," or to be more precise, there's really no ONE thing. Different DMs do different things: A dyed-in-the-wool, hardcore purist DM would force the players to rigidly accept the first dice roll, no changes or exceptions. A wishy-washy munchkin DM, in contrast, would let the players to roll the dice as many times as they wanted to, and allow them absolute freedom in removing points from certain stats and putting them into others. You can see for yourself which path the BG games take. There are, however, some popular "middle grounds:" You roll the stat dice 6 times, and then decide which roll goes toward which stat. For instance, if you're rolling a Fighter and your last roll is an 18, that 18 does not have to be your Charisma--you can make it be your CON if you want to. Just like #1, but the players are allowed to roll 3 sets of stats. If they don't get any good numbers (16 or higher) on their first set, they can start over a second, and even a third time. My method: You are allowed to hit Reroll as many times as you want, but you may not use the + or - buttons at all: No moving points from one stat into another. Just Reroll until you hit a set of stats that you can live with. Just like #3, but you're allowed to keep 5 sets of "saved" stats. When you see a set of stats that looks good, write them down, and keep Rerolling. When you've written down 5 sets of stats, you must choose 1 of them. There is also the matter of what dice are rolled: Many people think that each of your 6 stats is determined by a roll of 3D6. In the BG games, it's not--it's actually 4D6, and the lowest die is thrown out. Purist DMs may insist on 3D6. There are similar "shades" of the hitpoint rolls as well: 1) You must accept the first hitpoint roll you get. No exceptions. 2) You may Save the game, Level Up, and then Reload, 3 times, and then take the best hitpoint result of those three. 3) You may Save, Level Up, and Reload, until you get a hitpoint roll that is at least 66% of the maximum gain you could have gotten. 4) If you're playing BG2, you may move the Difficulty slider down to Normal (which automatically makes all hitpointrolls be the maximum) during the early Level-Ups. I confess that I'm no purist when it comes to hitpoints: If I'm going to lose a battle, I want it to be because of an error on my part, not because my party simply isn't healthy enough. Having a high-hitpoint party also decreases the odds of us suffering one-hit kills or getting chunked, which are just plain no fun. In BG1, I use #2 or #3 to determine my hitpoints, and I use #4 in BG2. __________________ Volothamp's Comeuppance Everything you ever needed to know about the entire Baldur's Gate series......except spoilers.