Character 1:Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons is the Windows of the gaming world. Actually, that metaphor is so good i'll run with it a bit. It takes up by far the largest portion of the RPG market. It has many vocal detractors, who consider D&D unusuable at best and at worst the spawn of the devil himself. Mechanically It's easy to tinker with and utterly break.

But overall, I consider it to be a classic. Sure, it has its faults, but they make the game far from unplayable. Combat can be a little complex and long-winded sometimes, but it's great for those of us who love making good tactical descisions. And there's just something about smiting evil with your +2 flaming longsword that keeps bringing me back to the game that started it all.

A while ago I actually constructed a random class and race generator for D&D 3.5 when I realised that they'd made almost 50 generic base classes. It was this table I used to create the character below.

Okay, here we go...

I start with stats. For this I'm using the classic roll 4 d6s, drop the lowest, no rerolls.

Here are my results:
12, 18, 14,11,15,7

An interesting set. That 18 looks nice and the rest, apart from the 7 make this a fairly solid set of scores. It's not too good if I end up with a class that's MAD (Multiple Ability Dependancy) though. These classes, such as paladins or spirit shamans tend to require at least 2 high scores to be good and if you get more than one score with a penalty, you're going to have problems.

Time to get out that table (If I can figure out how, I'll link it here one day). I get a 65 for race and a 48 for class, giving me a Poison dusk lizardfolk monk.

Okay. For those of you who don't know, the poision dusk lizardfolk is a subrace from the Monster Manual 3, originally introduced in the Eberron campaign setting. Basically, they're pygmy lizardfolk with a few cool things like chameleon skin (grants a bonus to hide checks) a few skill bonuses and a natural armour bonus. I think I'm going to go for defense and stealth with this guy.

20 minutes later, here's what I've come up with:

Llesk Coldshadow
Male Poison dusk lizardfolk monk 1
LN Small Humanoid (reptilian)
Init:+5; Senses:Listen +4, Spot +4, low-light vision
Languages: Common, Draconic

AC:21, touch 18, flat-footed 14
hp:10 (1HD)
Fort:+4 Ref:+7 Will:+4

Spd: 30ft.
Melee: Claws +6 (1d4+2) or flurry of blows +4/+4 (1d4+2) or bite +2 (1d4+1)
Ranged: Javelin +6 (1d4+2)
Space: 5ft Reach:5ft
Base Attack:+0; Grap:-2
Atk Options: Flurry of blows, Stunning Fist 1/day (DC 12)
Combat Gear: 5 javelins

Abilities: Str 14 Dex 20 Con 15 Int 11 Wis 14 Cha 5
SQ: Chameleon skin, Hold breath, Poison use, Unarmed Strike
Feats:Stunning Fist(b), Weapon Finesse
Skills: Balance +9, Hide +18, Jump +6, Listen +4, Move Silently +9, Spot +4, Swim +6, Tumble +9
Possessions:combat gear, backpack, bedroll, 3 torches, flint and steel, 2 days trail rations, waterskin, 1 gp, 4 sp, 7 cp

Chameleon skin: Llesk can adjust his scales to blend in with the colour of his surroundings granting him a +5 racial bonus on hide checks as long as he doesn't wear armour, robes or cumbersome clothing
Poison use: Llesk can apply poision to weapons without rish of poisoning himself
Hold Breath: Llesk can hold his breath for 60 rounds before he risks drowning.


So there we have it! not too bad if I say so myself. Llesk's bonus to dex and small size actually makes him quite a decent monk. He's got a pretty high AC and attack for a 1st level character, and chameleon skin+high dex+small size gives him a whopping +18 to hide! He's got a fairly solid ste of saves and his skills make him pretty mobile. His damage output is a little low though, so he works best as a backup fighter and flanker.

Llesk's one major weakness is quite obviously the social arena. With a charisma penalty of -3 and no ranks in any social skills, any party he joins had better hope they're not going to have to rely on him to talk his way out of anything. His size penalty on top of that makes intimidating anything a failed enterprise.

Were I to use Llesk in a game (and as randomly generated characters go, Llesk is pretty playable) I'd probably end up giving him a few levels of rogue, as sneak attack would make him a lot better in combat. It would also be worthwhile looking at the Scaled Guerilla prestige class from Savage Species, which gives a few handy bonuses to mobile combatants, which he seems highly suited for. Heck, i wouldn't mind playing this guy in someone's game at one point.

So there we have it! Stay tuned for the next installment soon!