Remaking the Solo Character

A couple of weeks ago I reported on my first session of a solo hexcrawl. The problem that I ran into was that D&D wilderness encounters are not “leveled” like dungeon encounters. This means that all the monsters I ran into were beyond my ability to deal with. This is why wilderness adventures were considered part of D&D “Expert” Set and started when the characters were fourth level.

I thought about some solutions to the problem:

• Treat the distance from the portal like dungeon levels. Everything within a couple of hexes would be “first level.” The next couple of hexes would be “second level,” etc.
• Increase the size of my party. Sadly, I can’t afford any hirelings. I could, though, roll multiple characters and play a party instead of a character. I’m afraid this would lessen my immersion, though.
• I could increase my character’s level.

That last thought reminded me of my Traveller style character creation rules. That is a way to “legitimately” start with a higher level character. So this week’s post will be me making a character with those rules.

When I wrote the rules I intentionally made them for original D&D with no house rules. But I will be using at least three house rules:

• The Crowfield Talent System
• Modifiers as Attribute Scores
• I’ll roll stats in aging groups. I’m doing this because it matches the Traveller feel, and because I’ve never combined it with the “modifiers as attributes” house rule before. This will give me the opportunity to see if they work well together,

Because my rules weren’t written with the modifications in mind, I’ll have to make adjustments “on the fly.”

Step 1: Attribute Scores

The first step is to generate the attribute scores. As mentioned above, I’m combining 2 house rules. Together they’ll work like this:

• All rolls are 1d6. A “1” is considered to be “-1” and a “6” is considered to be “+1.” Any other result is considered to be “0.”
• During the Birth Phase the die is rolled for each stat, in order. No modifications or swappings are allowed.
• During the Childhood Phase the die is rolled and then assigned to the stat of the player’s choice. Once a stat has a die assigned, it can not be changed. Repeat this until all six stats have been assigned.
• For the Adolescence Phase, six dice are rolled at once, and the player assigns each die to the stat of his choice.
• Each stat’s final score is the sum of the dice assigned to it. Scores will range from -3 to +3.

That’s how it will work. Let’s do it.

Birth Phase

All six stats were a “0,” which is rather boring. I was hoping this wouldn’t be a common occurrence, so I ran the math. There was less than a 10% chance of that happening.

Childhood Phase

My strategy for the childhood phase was to put the first +1 into strength—Matias is a fighter after all. If I were to get a -1, it would go into intelligence because that’s where the original character had a -1 modifier.

If I were to get really lucky, a second +1 would go to constitution (again, to match the original character). A third would go to dexterity to help his armor class.

That was the plan. The dice had different ideas:

#	Roll	Attribute	Notes
1	1 (-1)	Intelligence	Matias de Aurélio previously had a -1 for INT, so this made sense.
2	4 (0)	Wisdom	According to my plan, either wisdom or charisma would be a 0. I’m saving charisma in hopes of another +1. As the son of a noble, Matias should have some charisma.
3	2 (0)	Dexterity	Darn, I was really hoping for a +1 here.
4	1 (-1)	Constitution	Ugh. I wasn’t expect another -1. I reluctantly put it here. Hopefully I’ll get a +1 in Adolescence to put here.
5	1 (-1)	Charisma	Another -1? WTF?
6	2 (0)	Strength	I was really hoping for a +1 for STR, but at least is wasn’t another -1!

This tells me that as a child, Matias wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He was also a little sickly and not very well liked. I imagine that his mother was the snobbish and doting kind. As the only noble family in the village, she felt that it would be “beneath his station” to socialize with the other children. She also felt that one of the locals were smart enough to educate a local, so she took care it herself, albeit poorly.

Adolescence Phase

I was hoping to roll a +1–I figured I was due one by now, but it didn’t happen. Again all six results were 0. I ran the numbers again. Yes, there’s only an 8.8% chance of all zeroes.

At least there’s no hard decisions.

Attribute	Modifier	Description
Strength	±0	Average
Intelligence	-1	Below Average
Wisdom	±0	Average
Dexterity	±0	Average
Constitution	-1	Below Average
Charisma	-1	Below Average

Mercy Rule

I don’t talk about it much, but I have what I call the “Mercy Rule.” If the sum of a character’s modifiers is negative, I allow them to re-roll the lowest score. If the lowest scores are tied, they can pick which one to replace. If the the sum is still negative, then we do it again.

I like how it leads to cases where a character’s highest stat is something the player never considered.

I don’t invoke the Mercy rule if it looks like the player was intentionally making decisions that lead to such a low score.

At a sum of -3, I definitely qualify!

Mercy Round 1

I rolled a +1–finally! I decided to put that into CON.

Attribute	Modifier	Description
Strength	±0	Average
Intelligence	-1	Below Average
Wisdom	±0	Average
Dexterity	±0	Average
Constitution	+1	Above Average
Charisma	-1	Below Average

My modifiers now sum to -1, so I’m entitled to another Mercy Roll.

Mercy Round 2

I rolled a 0. As I mentioned before, the original character had a -1 for intelligence, so it makes sense to put this one into charisma.

Attribute	Modifier	Description
Strength	±0	Average
Intelligence	-1	Below Average
Wisdom	±0	Average
Dexterity	±0	Average
Constitution	+1	Above Average
Charisma	±0	Average

My sum of modifiers is now exactly zero, so I don’t qualify for another Mercy Round.

Step 2: Adult Phase(s)

Traveller assumed that most characters are in military careers. Even those that aren’t are treated as if they are. Every character goes through their adult life in 4 year chunks called “terms.” Each term you learn new skills or gain attribute boosts. That means each term that your character serves, the more powerful they get. So why not just max out your terms to get an uber-powerful character? Traveller controls this in three ways:

1. Re-enlistment rolls: characters can only continue if the dice say they can.
2. Aging rolls: After characters have served 4 terms, they have to roll to avoid certain attributes decreasing.
3. Survival rolls: Each term the character has to make a certain dice roll or he dies. If you mention Traveller to any gamer they will talk about dying during character creation. A lot of people don’t like the rule (though I do).

My system uses versions of #1 and #2, but not #3.

Instead of Re-enlistment rolls we use “Continuation rolls.” If you roll too low, you can’t continue. If you roll too high you are forced to continue.

We use a form of aging tolls.

Instead of survival rolls, we use Bane rolls. If you roll too low on the Bane roll, something bad happens. Maybe you lose a level, maybe an attribute is dropped, maybe you find a cursed sword or armor. You get the idea.

Enough talk about Traveller. We’ll talk about the other things as we get to them. Let’s begin!

First Adult Phase

Matias is 16 years old as his first adult phase begins.

Level Up

The first roll in each phase is a “level up” roll. The number needed varies by character class, but if you roll this number or higher, then you go up a level. I rolled a 10, so Matias is now a 2nd level fighter!

Boon

If you roll high enough on the Boon roll, something good happens. Maybe you gain a talent. Maybe an attribute increases. Maybe you gain a magic item.

In this case, I rolled a 1, so no boon for Matias.

Bane

We already talked about the Bane roll. I rolled a 12, so I avoided a Bane.

Aging

As I mentioned, every term is 4 years in Traveller because it’s based on military enlistments. My fantasy game isn’t based on the military, so each adult phase is a variable number of years. Matias is a fighter, so I roll 1d8. I get an “8” so Matias is now 24 years old. That’s less than 31, so there will be no detrimental effects.

Continuation

The continuation roll is the same for all classes–simply roll higher than your current level. Matias is a 2nd level fighter, so I need to roll 3 or higher. I roll a 5. I get to continue if I want. And I do want…

End of Phase Summary

Name:	Matias de Aurélio
Age	24
Class/Level	Fighter/2
Hit Points	9
Strength	±0
Intelligence	-1
Wisdom	±0
Dexterity	±0
Constitution	+1
Charisma	±0
Talents	—

Second Adult Phase

Purpose	Roll	Result	Notes
Level up	3	No	Darn!
Boon	11	YES	Based on other tables, the boon was a level in the Observation talent.
Bane	6	No	Yay!
Aging	8	Age: 32	8 again? Grrr!
Continuation	10	YES

Aging

Because I rolled so high for both terms, my character is now over 30. Had I made average rolls, I could have gone another term and still not have been this old. The dice hate me today.

Anyway, every term that ends at age 31 or over, we need to see if the vigor of youth has started to fade. We roll to see if strength, dexterity, and/or constitution decline. The rules I wrote are based on actual attribute scores, so we’ll wing it.

The concept is that higher attribute scores are more likely to fade than lower ones. We’ll roll a standard U13 roll, but using the inverse modifier. That is a +1 will be a -1 and vice versa. On a roll of 14 or better, nothing changes. On a 12 or less the attribute drops by 1. On a 13… let’s cross that bridge if we come to it.

Attribute	Roll	Result
Strength	14	No change
Dexterity	20	No change
Constitution	16-1=15	No change

So maybe the dice don’t hate me that much. I managed to survive this term with no bad effects.

End of Phase Summary

Name:	Matias de Aurélio
Age	32
Class/Level	Fighter/2
Hit Points	9
Strength	±0
Intelligence	-1
Wisdom	±0
Dexterity	±0
Constitution	+1
Charisma	±0
Talents	Observation

End of character creation

I don’t want to risk another bout of aging rolls, so I’m ending the character creation here.

The final step is starting gold. Instead of the normal 3d6 × 10 gold pieces, fighters¹ get (3 + # of adult phases)d6 × 10 gold pieces. I roll a 22, so Matias will get 220 gold.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this exercise. I think that these house rules worked well together. While the character wasn’t as powerful as I was hoping, it’s a good character. I also know something of his backstory. I already wrote about his childhood. Clearly he had an adventure in his first adult phase that caused him to level up. Maybe he went to battle with his father the knight. That got him the experience to work as a spy for the thane during his second adult phase, and that’s how he picked up the Observation talent.

I think that I will tweak the “Traveller” style rules to work with the Crowfield house rules and it will be the official character generation method for Crowfield. Maybe I’ll turn it into a web app.

As for the initial problem, I think Matias is still too weak to handle the wilderness on his own. He does have some extra gold now, so maybe he can get some hirelings. Either way, I think I will “level” the wilderness around the portal.

---

1. Thieves get more; clerics less.↩