OD&D OD&D: Ability score generation

[king_ghidorah]

Looking through my old white box rules for the first time in ages, I came across on page 10 of Men & Magic the comments that "Clerics can use strength on a 3 for basis in their prim requisite area (wisdom), for purposes of gaining experience only." Likewise, ther is a comment under Intelligence that "Both fighters and Clerics can use it in their prime requisite areas... on a 2 for 1 basis." Similar comments are made about wisdom.

Does that mean that a character can:

1. Trade ability scores (which doesn't quite match), reducing the scores to increase the prime requisite or...

2. Count the fraction of the secondary ability to increase the character's prime requisite in terms of determining either bonuses or experience bonuses or....

3. Something else I just don't get?

What the heck was Gary trying to say?

 

[Christian]

Sounds like #2 to me ... I'm pretty sure it's not #1, and I can't think of any alternatives for #3.

 

[Anthelios]

Sounds like a question for Gygax's question thread.

 

[Plane Sailing]

1. Trade ability scores (which doesn't quite match), reducing the scores to increase the prime requisite or...

It was trading ability scores (at least that is the way we always used to play it)

 

[HellHound]

It was trading ability scores (at least that is the way we always used to play it)

It was definitely re-written to be that way in B/X

 

[Christian]

It was definitely re-written to be that way in B/X

Yes--that was a rule in the blue-box set as well. But it doesn't sound like this is what was intended in the older ruleset ...

 

[Professor Periapt]

My read on the LBB is that you could use those conversions to see if you could reach the figure you would need in your prime requisite to earn the extra 10% bonus to xp, but it DOES NOT mean any of your actual ability scores change. It's just to give more characters a chance to gain the xp bonus.

Keep in mind that the way abilities were rolled in that same original rule set: roll six times in order for STR INT WIS...
and no swapping or rerolling or roll 4/take three or roll a 6x6 matrix and choose one row or one from each row or jeez...and on and on...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

What the heck was Gary trying to say?

It was for sacrificing points in one score in order to raise the points of a different score. The original notion was that when you created a character you rolled the dice for ability scores and recorded them in the order you rolled them. You then had to make SOME kind of character out of the scores you'd just got. You didn't get to put the rolled scores wherever you wanted them. That meant that if you wanted to, say, play a cleric but you rolled crap for wisdom you were kinda screwed. But the various listed options on page 10 allowed you to, for example, choose cleric as your class and then sacrifice 3 points of strength to gain one point of wisdom, if you HAVE the points in strength to sacrifice.

The bit about, "for purposes of gaining experience only," simply refers to the chart at the bottom of p.11. HAVING a higher wisdom doesn't really GAIN you anything - unless you have a 13 or better in the prime requisite score for your chosen class (which for clerics is wisdom, obviously) which gains you more xp. So, if you have enough points to be able to sacrifice out of your strength to increase your wisdom (at the ruinous rate of 3-for-1), you can increase wisdom and get the 5% or 10% bonus to earned experience as a cleric for having a higher wisdom.

Other ability scores as listed can be sacrificed to increase something else, or vice-versa being increased by sacrificing some other score, AND the various point-trades were limited to certain rates for certain classes.