Pregenerated characters

A special gift for our good friend Avatar_do_Grafite ...

I've started working on overhauling the pregen characters for the next release. Based on A_d_G's remarks up the thread, it seems like the main problems with them are:

• Their characters often have horribly wrong hairstyles and colors that don't match their portraits.
• There are no facemen.
• They are generally too weak (low in STR).

Some facts:

• There are 19 vanilla pregen characters.
• There is 1 Co8 pregen character (the giant).
• I've been able to match 13 ToEE pregen characters with traditional WotC characters: Alhandra, Devis, Ember, Hennett, Jozan, Krusk, Lidda, Mialee, Nebin, Regdar, Soveliss, Tordek, and Vadania.
• I suspect that the remaining 6 ToEE pregens were created by Troika to round out the alignments. Some have nearly the exact same stats and feats as the traditional ones.
• According to the Wiki, there are 5 other traditional (or "iconic") characters - Gimble, Eberk, Kerwyn, Naull, and Aramil.
• There are a few other characters listed at the Wiki, but I suspect that they are not 'traditional' - more modern creations of WotC.

Looking at the WotC character sheets, I see that the stats listed there are often not exactly reflected in their ToEE pregen counterparts. This loose translation may allow us to boost the stats of some where needed (e.g. STR).

What I suggest:

• We boost the STR of the strongmen types a bit where necessary (a bit - just so they can wear heavy armor, not to make them superheroes).
• We add the remaining five iconic characters.
• If there are no good facemen among those five, we boost the social skills of one or two likely facemen-esque existing pregen characters.
• We fix the hairstyles and colors so they match their portraits.

This would give us a total of 25 pregen characters: the 13 original traditionals, the 5 new traditionals, the 6 Troikans, and the Co8 giant.

We would need to approximate stats for the five missing traditionals for ToEE. Any takers for that job?

Later, for convenience, I'll post PHB images of the traditionals with my take of the ToEE portraits that were meant to represent them. (Most are obvious. There's even one that looks like the missing Gimble.)

Suggestions/input/feedback welcome, particularly from A_d_G, since you started this movement.

 

Okay, all these so called iconic character pics are taken from the 3.5 PHB, so they are 'official.'

For starters we have the obvious ones - no portrait changes necessary:

Alhandra the paladin



Devis the bard



Ember the monk



Hennet the sorcerer



Jozan the cleric

 

Continuing on ...

Krusk the barbarian



Lidda the rogue



Soveliss the ranger



and Vadania the druid



And coming in at #10 we have one that is less obvious: Regdar the fighter. His ToEE portrait doesn't look exceptionally similar to his PHB portrait to me, unlike those above. I suspect that the ToEE portrait was not drawn for him and they just shoe-horned it in. But meh, we don't have anything more appropriate.

[edit] Had a change of mind about Regdar. There's a sketch of him in Enemies and Allies (by the same artist) where he has his helmet off, and I think he looks more like the dark-haired bearded human you now see below.

 

Now come the last three of the original iconics, all of which need changing imo. One is marginally off, another is pretty clearly off, and the third is horrifically off.

Nebin the wizard would, I think, be better suited to the right portrait than to the left (his vanilla portrait).

[edit] Meh, switched this one back. when in doubt, do nothing.



Tordek the fighter's vanilla portrait (left) was pretty clearly a mistake, I think. Right is right.*



And Mialee the wizard? Vanilla left is pretty bad, especially considering the unused dead ringer on the right.*



*These discrepencies were of course originally pointed out in colorful fashion by A_d_G above.

 

Lastly we have the five heretofore unseen iconics:

Aramil the wizard. His is the lone iconic image that does not appear in the PHB. (The one you see below was found elsewhere on the webz and I'm assuming it is a half-assed faithful representation of him, but who knows and/or cares?) So our version will have blond hair and a cool jacket; get over it.

* replaced this with the image later provided by AdG.



Eberk the cleric. Not exact, but not bad either.



Gimble the bard. That's right, Nebin's first portrait returns! The hair's off I know, but the coat looks somewhat similar.

[edit] Switched to the other gnome, since Nebin reclaimed his original above. Six and one-half ...



Kerwyn :scratchhe the rogue. Cue HK's popular rogue portrait; it's the only one that even comes close.



And last we have Naull the wizard. On this one I don't have a clue. There is nothing among all our portraits that even remotely resembles her.

[edit] Completely arbitrarily settled on Dean's human female portrait now seen below.



I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to just skip these last five, since they weren't there to begin with.

[edit] But we won't.

 

Okay then, I think we should make the follwing minor changes to these 'iconics:'

Strongmen types (fighters, barbarians, paladins, and clerics):

• Alhandra (iconic paladin): STR 14, no change
• Bellona (Troika cleric): STR 14(16), no change
• Eberk (new iconic cleric): STR 12, change to 14. Dump CON from 16 to 14
• Jozan (iconic cleric): STR 12, change to 14. Dump CON from 14 to 13, dump CHA from 14 to 13
• Krusk (iconic barbarian): STR 17(19), no change
• Moresh (Troika barbarian): STR 15(17), no change
• Regdar (iconic fighter): STR 15, no change
• The Kern (Troika cleric): STR 13, change to 14. Dump CHA from 14 to 13
• Tordek (iconic fighter): STR 15, no change

Facemen types (bards and rogues):

• Devis (iconic bard): CHA 15, no change
• Gimble (new iconic bard): could not find any stats for him, so using the standard array (15,14,13,12,10,8), give him CHA 15.
• Kerwyn (new iconic rogue): CHA 8, change to 14. Dump CON from 13 to 12, dump INT from 14 to 10, dump WIS from 10 to 9
• Lidda (iconic rogue): CHA 8, no change. She is too far gone, and I think she's supposed to be more of a sneaky type rogue anyway. With the wild changes to Kerwyn above and Stanford below, Lidda can stay unchanged.
• Stanford (Troika rogue): CHA 8 roll: seriously, WTF?), change to 15. Dump STR from 14 to 12, dump CON from 14 to 12, dump INT from 13 to 10

The above changes will make all strongmen types able to wear heavy armor, and will supply four capable facemen, accessible by every party alignment except LN. Boo hoo for them - they can make do with Alhandra and her 15 CHA. I've observed that most of these iconics use either the straight standard array or a variation thereof, so I'm beginning to think their stats are less significant than their identities ... or that they're just supposed to be examples of your average character in each class. Either way, fiddling the stats almost seems expected.

Speaking of party alignments ...

All the original iconics are either good (9 of them) or neutral (4 of them). The new iconics are also good (Eberk and Naull) and neutral (Kerwyn), but as I couldn't find stats for Gimble and Aramil, we will take the liberty of making them good and neutral respectively in order to round the alignments out - 12 good and 6 neutral. Troika's NPCs (6 of them) are all evil except The Kern. We'll switch him to evil for convenience's sake (he was CN).

So this means:

• LG: Alhandra (iconic paladin), Eberk (new iconic cleric), Ember (iconic monk), Naull (new iconic wizard)
• NG: Devis (iconic bard), Gimble (new iconic bard), Jozan (iconic cleric), Regdar (iconic fighter)
• CG: Hennet (iconic sorcerer), Lidda (iconic rogue), Nebin (iconic wizard), Soveliss (iconic ranger)
• LN: Aramil (new iconic wizard), Tordek (iconic fighter)
• TN: Mialee (iconic wizard), Vadania (iconic druid)
• CN: Kerwyn (new iconic rogue), Krusk (iconic barbarian)
• LE: Bellona (Troika cleric), Dusk (Troika monk)
• NE: Darshalla (Troika sorcerer), Stanford (Troika rogue)
• CE: Moresh (Troika barbarian), The Kern (Troika cleric)

A_d_G, wherever you are, I hope you're loving this.

 

Mialee's hot ... I didn't know hot girls played PnP.