ANT-LERRR: Alternate Race Generation

Monday, 21 July 2014

Alternate Race Generation

So, I’ve been thinking about how races work through the various editions, and I came to the realisation I much prefer having race/class as a combination rather than being the same thing mechanically.

On top of this, I also felt that flat bonuses to stats were kinda boring and deterministic, so instead I made a system whereby you just have a different spread of values for your stats, generated by rolling dice other than 3d6. So, substitute the usual stat bonuses for the rolls below. Other abilities for races should probably be left as – is. The only issue is how to make humans operate on-par with the demihumans – possibly give them the ability to switch two stats? (Assuming hard rolling down-the-line)

This table should work for any system of D&D, and could be tweaked to other systems.

Statistic	Human	Elf	Dwarf	Halfling	Orc
Charisma	3d6	2d6 + 1d8	2d6 + 1d4	3d6	1d6 + 2d4
Constitution	3d6	3d4	1d6 + 2d8	2d6 + 1d4	1d6 + 2d8
Dexterity	3d6	1d6 + 2d8	1d6 + 2d4	3d8	3d6
Intelligence	3d6	3d6	3d6	3d6	1d6 + 2d4
Strength	3d6	3d6	2d6 + 1d8	1d6 + 2d4	3d8
Wisdom	3d6	3d6	3d6	3d6	3d6

The above rolls use human as a baseline, Elves as graceful, charming but fragile, Dwarves as strong, tough but dour and clumsy, Halflings as nimble yet weak and fragile and Orcs as powerful physically but stunted in other areas.

So, using the above table, we get the following spread of statistics amongst the average members of that race.

Statistic	Human	Elf	Dwarf	Halfling	Orc
Charisma	7-12	9-15	7-11	7-12	7-11
Constitution	7-12	5-9	8-16	7-11	8-16
Dexterity	7-12	8-16	6-10	9-17	7-12
Intelligence	7-12	7-12	7-12	7-12	6-10
Strength	7-12	7-12	9-15	6-10	9-17
Wisdom	7-12	7-12	7-12	7-12	7-12