How many different starting characters are possible in Basic/Expert D&D? Don't say seven.
Let's start by assuming that two otherwise identical characters are "different" if one is a Fighter and the other is a Thief, all other things being identical. Let us also assume two Fighters are "different" if one has 1 hit point max and the other has 2hp. Also, two characters differ if one has a Strength score of 10 and the other has a Str of 11. That one will be a stretch for some people, but when you start to think about monsters that do stat damage even one point can be a big difference.
Furthmore, if one character is Lawful and the other Neutral, they are different. Additionally, a starting Magic-User with a Sleep spell is not the same as one who begins play with Shield. Finally, starting money differentiates characters as well. After all, a starting fighter that can afford platemail and a bow is in a different starting position than one who can barely buy leather and a spear.
By these criteria, I calculate 4.3775 x 10^18 possible starting PCs in Basic D&D. That's 4,377,498,837,804,120,000 or more than 4 quadrillion characters, before we even talk about names or homeland or personality or even starting equipment.
The actual number is higher when you start taking into account bonus languages for high Int score. Using the sample chart of 20 monster languages increases the total by a little more than one order of magnitude, I think.
A Return to the Stars
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After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got
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When you're actually playing the game, it feels a lot closer to seven than four quadrillion.
ReplyDeleteDid you include male/female in the numbers?
When you're actually playing the game, it feels a lot closer to seven than four quadrillion.
ReplyDeleteI find that players approach 1hp characters a lot differently than ones with 4 or more. And the starting spell for an MU or elf makes a LOT of difference.
Did you include male/female in the numbers?
No.
Milk & cookies keep you up last night? ;)
ReplyDeleteWotC will now add something like this to their editions:
"...now with 8,000,000,000,000 possible character combinations..."
@Grendelwulf
ReplyDeleteExcept that 4E only has, like, seven actual permutations including gender choices at this point.
There's a whole bunch
ReplyDeleteclasses 7
alignments x3
primary score bonuses of (0,+1, +2,+3)(as the exact score doesn't matter unless one uses a lot of ability checks)
gives us x4
wealth is 16 different numbers so x16
non-primary score based on bonuses gives a total of x35
so ability scores, class and alignment provide over 47,000 different characters if we don't care about the differences between a 10 and an 11.
That's a whole bunch.
But only seven of them have straight 18s.
ReplyDeleteI find that players approach 1hp characters a lot differently than ones with 4 or more. And the starting spell for an MU or elf makes a LOT of difference.
ReplyDeletePlayers may treat a character with 1 HP differently from one with 4 HP, but I doubt they treat one with 7 HP much different from one with 8 HP. Likewise, a character who can only afford leather is quite different from one who can afford chainmail, but the difference between the one who uses a spear and one who uses a mace is pretty minor.
So the real question is, how many significantly different characters are there? A hard question to answer, since it depends on how you define "significant".
Those numbers are quite impressive! But yes, as spartakos said, maybe it will be impossible to give a hard amount of different chars.
ReplyDelete___
call New Zealand
The choice of class matters. Attribute bonuses matter (although less in OD&D than later). Hit point ranges matter [If you're playing your 4hp character much different than your 1hp character you're doing it wrong. ;)] Alignment matters. AC, Weapon Damage, and Distance Weapons (if any) matter. Spell Choice Matters. Wealth Ranges matter. Language choice might matter - it depends on the campaign.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the other stuff doesn't matter. Or it matters so little as to virtually not matter. Str 11 vs Str 10 only matters when the Shadow hits you and you lose d4 hp and 1 Str. Except unless you have enough hit points to take 10d4 hits... it doesn't matter.
There's a good number of different characters, but is not a million hundred. :)
Thumbs-up, I approve. :-)
ReplyDeleteI think character *names* make more difference than hp in most cases than a few points on any stat, altohugh a high STR fighter is certainly different than a high STR+CON one or a high DEX+INT one. But realistically, most players boohoo a lot if they can't place their stat rolls and once you allow that...there are mostly optimized characters.
ReplyDelete