Chapter 2: Isekai Life & AD&D

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons

It is legendary among RPG gamers, as the old-school RPG system that reigned for nearly a decade, until eventually being unseated by the likes of Shadowrun and Vampire: the Masquerade as point buy systems because more favoured in the 90’s.

It is also hilariously broken.

Well, hilarious if you’re sitting down at a table with friends and not about to enter an alleged “Heaven” courtesy of a servant of Dog

Nonhuman characters could almost never reach 20th level, except in a few race/class combinations. Druids were limited in level by their ability to be promoted within the druid hierarchy. Classes had vastly different EXP requirements to level, and a Thief would level up twice as often as a Mage. Fighters eventually only became good for swinging around magic swords, but Mages started out almost useless and eventually became all powerful demigods of magical might!

Not only that, but a game where even at first level you had to roll for your HP total. Where bardsong had to play for three rounds before granting any affect. Where enemy saving throws were fixed and could not be altered by the caster’s stats. Where being polymorphed against your will carried with it a percent chance to die instantly of shock that could not go lower than 1%!

AD&D is one of the most brutal game systems out there. To succeed in it requires that a player be at their most cunning, carefully consider every option available to them, and be utterly ruthless when facing their enemies.

“Are we ready to proceed to the next step of character creation?”

The puppy angel interrupted my thoughts.

Clearly I found myself in a dangerous situation. Make the wrong choices, and I was doomed.

Like a good student, I help up my hand.

“Yes? You have a question?”

“How much control over the rest of character creation will I have?”

“Well, first off, we’ll use as many of these fun little charts as possible! Everything else that is a choice, I’ll let you choose.”

Hmm, good so far. Using randomness for everything is somewhat annoying but I least I know what I can and can’t choose.

More importantly, there is a lot of wiggle room there.

“So, if you’re satisfied, we’ll proceed with your race selection~”

Really, though, it was my class that was on my mind.

In AD&D, race and class selection are intimately tied. If you were to proceed how the Player’s Handbook implies you should proceed and pick a race without thinking of your class, you might receive some nasty surprises. Dwarves can only be Fighters, Thieves and Clerics, for example. The nonhuman races were all very powerful, but were very limited in what they could become.

First, though, I reviewed my Ability Scores.

My Strength was mediocre. No bonus or penalty to hit chance or damage, my comfortable weight allowance was only 40 lbs., and at best I could lift 115lbs. above my head. I could force open stuck doors a little better than 25% of the time, and could bend iron bars or lift heavy gates only 2% of the time.

In contrast, my Dexterity was phenomenal. I had a +2 bonus to Initiative, +2 bonus to hitting with missile weapons, and a -3 bonus to my Armor Class. I certainly couldn’t complain there.

Having only 8 Constitution was really troubling. There was no penalty to my HP, but I only had a 60% chance of surviving being petrified or polymorphed against my will, and more importantly, only a 65% chance of being resurrected if I died. If I died and failed that roll, it was all over for good, considering how often adventurers had to fight giant rats and the like I wasn’t liable to end up back here with this adorable puppy girl.

My other power stat was Intelligence. I would start play as a polyglot with an impressive six languages under his belt. If I were a Mage, I could cast up to 8th level spells, and had a 75% to learn a given spell. My maximum number of spell per level was 14.

My Wisdom was comparable to my Strength, being similarly mediocre, granting me only a single additional 1st level spell per day if I was to become a Cleric.

Of the AD&D Ability Scores, Charisma was the red-headed stepchild, always neglected except for the absurd scores needed to become a Bard or Paladin. At 14, I could have 6 hirelings, and all my followers would have +1 morale during large battles. I was likeable, at least, granting me a +2 bonus when determining other intelligent creature’s initial disposition towards me.

I had two priorities when making this character to live in my Heaven.

One was to maximize my enjoyment. I wanted to be rich and powerful, have a lot of fun, and get laid a lot, all things I couldn’t accomplish in my previous life.

Two, was to play the long game. AD&D had a variety of options that were strong at low levels, but weaker over time. This included races (who were limited my maximum level but had lots of starting abilities) and classes like Fighter. If I wanted to maximize my power level and thus my enjoyment, I had to go for the distance even if it put me in danger at low levels.

I had briefly considered the possibility at this point that this was a dream or some kind of hallucination, but I dismissed that out of hand. Pascal had it right, and there were few consequences to buying into a dream while it happened. So I’d go all-in on his wager, especially because this seems more interesting than church on Sundays.

So with reckless abandon, I uttered the first of my choices.