SPI’s DragonQuest is a great game, but there are some tweaks I use for my campaign.
Rule 8.6
The rules have a flaw here. It talks about being able to buy one profession more cheaply and states paying 100XP instead of 1000XP to raise it to Rank 0. However most cost a lot less that 1000XP, I change that to “
You can have one skill at rank 0 for 10% of the normal cost”.
Perception
My copy, the original SPI 2nd edition, has
5 as the starting Perception. It was changed for the Bantam edition to
8. So it is 8.
Magical Aptitude for second sight
At times the GM may judge it suitable that MA can be used as a kind of Perception for magical objects or supernatural happenings. Witchsight would give a bonus.
Beginning experience bonus for characters who are not in a magical college
Dragon Magazine #86,
June 1984 contained an article By Craig Barratt for an alternate way of creating characters for DragonQuest If they did not start as members of a magical college. The reasoning was that the talents and skills of a College amounted to a Having the benefit of large quantity of previous experience, and that non mages were disadvantaged by This. The author, Craig Barrett, proposed an alternative.
Basing his estimations on notes for the DragonQuest section of the multi-system “Thieves’ World”, he costed joining a College of Magic at 6,500XP and nine months of study. This valuation was then tased to estimate the compensation for characters who start the campaign without joining a College of Magic.
If choosing this alternate path, the player must follow these steps in designing their character. Do not generate their normal Experience Points until you have followed these steps. Skills in the
initial steps are
not able to gain the benefit of gaining one skill at 10% of the initial cost at Rank 0 (8.6).
- Spend 2,500 points on one of the two choices
- increasing Perception by 3 (The article uses 8 as the base Perception)
- increase Fatigue by 1 (as long as that does not raise it above 23)
- Buy one skill and raise it to Rank 2
- Buy a second skill and raise it to Rank 1 (This skill should be complementary to the first skill in some way, or at least you can persuade your GM that it is – eg Healer and Alchemist has an easy association, but Beast Master and Mechanician might take more persuasion)
- Buy weapon skills, possibly making them appropriate to the skill choices in the previous section
- Raise one weapon skill to Rank 2
- Raise two other weapon skills to Rank 1
- If there are any Experience Points remaining, up to 500 can be banked to be spent later
- If there are any other Experience Points left at this point they can be spent on the following, or they will be lost
- Perception
- Horsemanship (max Rank 1)
- Stealth (max Rank 1)
- Optional Hunting Skill (Dragon magazine #78)
After this is done, and unused Experience Points are discarded, then you use the normal experience rules in sections
8.5, 8.6 and
8.7. The author also suggests buying a language using the 10% rule in 8.6 because any language learned at the start of the game gets a free boost to Rank 8 (Section 49.5)
It should be remembered, of course, that skills have monetary obligations to keep your status in the appropriate guild, which will give the character some incentive to make money fast.
87.8 Experience Point chart – Characteristics
These were proposed changes, from the DragonQuest design team From the SPI 2nd editions but they did not make it into the Bantam edition.
Characteristic Each additional point
Fatigue 1250
Endurance 2500
Perception 1000
All others 2500
