Maldin’s 2nd Edition AD&D Character Sheets Denis Tetreault Maldin’s Greyhawk I’m pleased to make available my custom 2nd Edition player character sheets as a pdf file for easy printing. As my own personal campaign is still 2nd Edition, a campaign that has going on since 1980, I still use these sheets as I write this in 2006. I hope others find them as useful as I have.
They are based on the original “gold” 1st Edition character sheets available way back then, in 1980, modified and perfected (for my campaign) over the past 25 years of game play. I hope others will find them useful for their own campaigns as well.
Ad- definition, a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin, where it meant “toward” and indicated direction, tendency, or addition: adjoin. Usually assimilated to the following consonant; see a-5, ac-, af-, ag-, al-, an-2, ap-1, ar-, as-,. Player's Option: Skills & Powers. 2nd Edition, Core Rulebook/2160). For it doesnt hold every information you need to make character sheets.
While updated for 2nd Edition rules, I’m sure you could still use them in a 1st Edition campaign. You’ll notice that I use 9 characteristics. Comeliness came from the original Unearthed Arcana hardcover. I also use Perception and Willpower, both of which are explained on my website at If you don’t wish to use them, you can use the space for something else by covering over that part before photocopying the sheets for your players.
A bit of an explanation about the different pages found here. For single-classed PC’s, I use the obvious front pages for Fighter (pg 2), Priest (pg 3), Thief (pg 4), Wizard (pg 5), and Psionicist (pg 6), with the generic back page (pg 7). For multiclassed characters, I use one of the first pages, combined with the specialized back pages (Wizard, pg 8; Priest, pg 9; Thief, pg 10; Psioncist, pg 11; for Fighters, I just use the generic back page). I give players the choice of which they want as their first page, and which for their second page. If you like my sheets, let me know! You can email me at “maldin” at the “canonfire.com” domain (my attempt to limit the effectiveness of spambots harvesting my email address). Also, drop by my website for maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!
There is loads of Greyhawk information, but alot of the material can be applied to any campaign. Denis Tetreault, aka “Maldin” AD&D PLAYER NAME CAMPAIGN # CUSTOM PLAYER CHARACTER SHEET DATE CHARACTER BEGAN by D.
Believe it or not: there are reviews of over on Amazon dot com. Some of the cited comments: -a fighter with maximum encumberance that is higher than his maximum lift. I can carry all these things at once, but I can't pick up my own bag.) -the 'sample' psionicist from the back of the book is incompatable with the point-based generation system presented by the book itself.Large chunks of ambiguous text which you may need a lawyer to interpret.Characters can be hyper-optimised relatively easily. Well, I once used the priest build to create a fighter that was better than a fighter: she had warrior THAC0, HD, armor and weapon access, warrior Con bonuses, percentile Str, and weapon specialization.
And a few buffing spells and save bonuses to round her out. By 2E standards, she was obscene. Generally, though, I didn't set out to abuse the system; I'm more a concept-driven/RP kinda guy. (Which is why I never actually played the aforementioned character.) I enjoyed the flexibility and customization the Player's Option books offered. Yes, PO had its flaws.
Yes, it was potentially abusive. It really should have been called DM's Option, since its use mandated careful oversight - just letting players go nuts with the point builds was asking for trouble. But it was potentially fun, and the PO series did more to knock D&D out of its cookie-cutter box than any D&D books before or since. So it was relatively easy for me to forgive PO's flaws. (Formerly known as I Hate All Life; new moniker as pretentious, but with a third less edgelord.) 'By treating a mathematical process as if it were a thought process, and either trying to mimic that process ourselves or merely accepting the results, we are in danger of losing the capacity that has been the essence of human cognition.' - Henry Kissinger 'I honestly don't recognize the games I'm playing in the frantic gesticulations of the prophets, and the whole thing leaves me nonplussed.'
It depended how silly you wanted to get, and what the GM would let you pull off. Attribute wise, the first thing they did was split each stat into 'Useful/Notuseful' - basically.
For instance. Strength divided into two stats I can't remember - one was your muscle strength, the other was your muscle endurance. Endurance effected your encumberance, and muscular strength or whatever it was called was what you used to hit with weapons. You could lower one to raise another.
I don't think I need to explain how this effected characters. Basically everyone could have an 18 in whatever was important to the class, raise their con to 16 for the purpose of HP, raise Dex for the purpose of AC. Then there was the class creation system, which was really a DM tool, since if the players got ahold of it they could create ungodly abominations like 300xp a level character classes, characters who got +15 to damage and to hit with thrown weapons at 1st level, and characters with unarmored AC's of -8. The simplest way to show how Skills and Powers creates overpowered characters is to make 2 characters, using the original PHB 2nd Ed and then using Skills and Powers. I'll create Fernandez the Fighter both times, and look at the difference. Okay, original PHB style. Lets roll our ability scores: 12, 12, 14, 15, 10,12.
So the 15 could go in Dex or Con to give us a bonus. I'll put it in Con so Fernandez will be tough.
The other stats I'll arrange as follows: Str: 14 Dex: 12 Con: 15 (+1 hp per level) Int: 12 Wis: 10 Cha: 12 I'll make him a Dwarf for the Con bonus, taking Fernandez to 16, Cha goes to 11 but what the heck, he's a Fighter not a lover. As a Warrior, he gets 4 Weapon Profs. We'll specialise in Longsword (seeing as over 50% of all magic weapons found are longswords its the smart choice!) and give him Prof in Long Bows and Short Swords. So now he gets 3 attacks every 2 rounds, +1 to hit and +2 damage with Long swords. With the 'maximum hp at first level' rule he has 12 hp. We'll buy him some chain mail, a long sword and medium shield. Combat stats using his default gear: THACO 19, attacks 3/2, Damage D8+2, hp12, A/C 4.
Not bad, buts lets see what Skills and Powers can rustle up: We get 75 points to split between our stats. I'll choose the following split: Str: 18 Dex: 15 Con: 17 Int: 8 Wis: 8 Cha: 9 I'll make him an Elf which changes his Con and Dex to 16/16.
But thats not all! In Skills and Powers all the stats are split into 2. You can reduce 1 half to raise the other half.
So lets see what we can do with this power-gamalicious rule! Str: Stamina 16 / Muscle 20 (70 encumbrance, +3 to hit, +8 dam) Dex: Aim 14 / Balance 18 (0 missile Adj, +2 reaction, -4 a/c) Con: Health 14 / Fitness 18 (88% sys. Shock, 100% res. Chance, +4hp) Int: Reason 6 / Knowledge 10 (+2 prof's) Wis: Intuition 6 / Willpower 10 (0 save penalty) Cha: Leadership 9 / Appearance 9 (4 henchmen) I now get 45 points to buy 'racial abilities', things like infravision, bonus to hit with bows etc. I'll choose to swap the Elven +1 to hit with Bows and Secret door detecting to gain the ability to identify magic items like a bard (5% per level). I still get the +1 to hit with Long and Short swords though!
As part of Skills and Powers you can customise your classes abilities. I'll choose to forgo the ability to get followers at 9th level, and to restrict myself to weapons useable by Thieves (which includes longsword!) to gain D12 hit points instead of D10 for each level. Weapon proficiencies, we now get 8 'points' rather than 4 proficiencies, however there are some other options you can spend your points on. Again we'll specialise in Longsword (4 points). However, we'll spend a point to become proficient in Medium Shields. This gives us a +3 AC bonus (!) against up to 3 attacks from the front each round.
We'll spend 2 points to gain Sword and Shield specialisation, giving us +1 to hit or AC (our choice) each round whilst using a sword and shield. Again we'll but him a Long sword, med. Shield and chain mail. So, combat stats: THACO 15, attacks 3/2, Damage D8+10, hp16, A/C -3 from the front, 1 from the sides and rear. Fernandez gains D12+4hp per level and each round can choose to gain +1 to hit or +1 AC.
As you can see, Skills and Powers is so open to abuse its not even funny. Even a weak character created using it will be light years ahead of any character made using the core book. And I haven't gone in for the full points-based character build method, which ups the madness by several degrees!
Needless to say almost nothing from the book can be used in a serious campaign without severe GM oversight. The DM oversight bit can't be overstated. Neither can than the use of the word 'option.' Player's Option is a toolbox (the books themselves say so), and while its innovations can all be used together, it's very possible to cherry-pick the bits you like and toss the rest - and in fact this is the purpose for which PO was designed. For instance, when I ran games featuring PO I eliminated subabilities and race point builds, leaving only the class-building option and proficiency rules. Further, I kept a close eye on what my players built.
Were their custom characters more powerful than the classes as written in the PHB? Often yes, they were.
But the NPCs they faced and interacted with were similarly customized. People forget that applying the rules fairly, and being unafraid to let abuses fly, leveled the playing field rather nicely. I had once planned to resurrect PO for 3E, but never got around to it. (Formerly known as I Hate All Life; new moniker as pretentious, but with a third less edgelord.) 'By treating a mathematical process as if it were a thought process, and either trying to mimic that process ourselves or merely accepting the results, we are in danger of losing the capacity that has been the essence of human cognition.' - Henry Kissinger 'I honestly don't recognize the games I'm playing in the frantic gesticulations of the prophets, and the whole thing leaves me nonplussed.'