Let’s roll…a Dwarf! Character generation and development in BECMI Dungeons and Dragons

The fifth in my "Let's roll..." series, where we generate and develop each of the BECMI character classes through the ranks, demonstrating how they work, what abilities they gain, and when. I hope you enjoy the series.
Link to my BECMI Dungeons and Dragons playlist: • BECMI Dungeon and Dragons
Let’s Roll… playlist!: • Let's Roll...a BECMI C...
Dwarves of Rockhome: • Gaz6 The Dwarves of Ro...
Weapon Mastery: • The Master Rules - Wea...
Rules Cyclopedia: • The Rules Cyclopedia -...
Character sheet front page can be found on Dragonsfoot at the following link, credited to Jesse Walker: dragonsfoot.org/php4/archive....
Supplementary character specific pages are my own creation.
If you like my channel want to support me further, please consider buying me a coffee at: www.buymeacoffee.com/becmiber... Your support is greatly appreciated.
Berserker image: www.pngall.com/viking-png/dow... (used under Creative Commons)
Many thanks to ITS A TRAPP for cleaning up the Berserker image for me. It’s a lot cleaner and sharper now.
Contact:
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[@johnstuartkeller5244]

**halfling in the shadows, patiently waiting his turn**

[@becmiberserker]

Not long now.

[@jasonbaldwin766]

My first D&D character was a Dwarf. Good times.

[@hopefulhyena3400]

Every day we arrive closer to the halfling video.

[@s-o-tariknomad6970]

I think they should bring back Race-As-Class, it would be good for more involved and exotic ideas. I recall once having a player tell me they "just want to play a Fairy" and I had to scratch my head as to which class fit that idea best. I went with Druid.

[@becmiberserker]

This is a good point. Some people can’t be bothered with too much information, and that’s not a bad thing.

[@ObatongoSensei]

Enchanter and illusionist are two other perfect class choices for faeries. In 3.5, there is also the beguiler.

[@midnightgreen8319]

Dungeon Crawl Classics is a has race as class! BECMI was a huge inspiration behind DCC.

[@gavinruneblade]

In 5e? Glamour Bard, race rock gnome or halfling (with all the luck feats), background use local hero but change the flavor so that instead of giving you free room and board because they love you it is because they're afraid to offend you and/or it is tradition. But druid is not a bad call. I have made several races into classes for my 5e Mystara games. Like giants, pixies, triton, and pegataur. It works. And to be fair, some of the race as class in BECMI needs adjusting. Like the sphynx's negative 3 million xp is just too high. By the time they're level 0 everyone else is vastly stronger than them. Sea Giants too need adjustment. But the idea is sound. I think it is a great option for people. Exactly like Berserker said, some people don't want to be overwhelmed.

[@TKFKU]

So grab a rules cyclopedia and play one.Even though even in becmi you really didn't uave to be a dwaef only, they gave you the option to add a class to it. READ THE WHOLE BOOK.

[@Rich_H_1972]

Personally, I love race as class. Always have. Was happy with the gazetteer additions too though so I guess I have a moving 'sweet spot' for them of perhaps a couple of options per race but no more.

[@Malkuth-Gaming]

I love Dwarves.. Especially the old school Dwarves. My players recruited a group of dwarves as retainers and its like their private hit squad. wouldnt suprise me if they sent them off on their own quest soon :P

[@rpick7546]

Speaking of old school,'These are my people and this is my crowd.' Nice. You did forget 'This is my axe, it makes me proud.'

[@AXSLA3]

I would say that's a pretty good example of dwarf. Many people would want to play a dwarf like that. He's not perfect, but he's more than competent for most.

[@MrChupacabra555]

On Infravision: I've been re-reading the 'Homeland' trilogy (about how young Drizzt ended up leaving the Drow city of Menzobarranzan). Sometimes it takes pains to try to describe how the drow manage to see everything with only 'infravision', and when it comes to it, you really just have to accept 'they can see in the dark' and forget they are only seeing 'heat' (how do they read scrolls, for instance?). Changing it to 'Darkvision' in 3rd+ editions was a good choice, but still 'problematic' in that no one can see beyond the distance of their darkvision, so things off in the 'horizon' (as that applies to the underdark) simply can't be seen.

[@thepaladinbelle]

i can't wait for halfling! my favorite class from BECMI!

[@dartanionbrallk9805]

Just saw the share in the Facebook BECMI group. Had to rush over and view this gem.

[@RoninCatholic]

I like race-as-class, and think it'd work even better if human adventurers _weren't_ divided into class, but were just Adventurers. Training yourself to be a thief won't take away your ability to wear armor, magic weapons in old mythology tend to either work for either a specific person/bloodline or for anyone who can get ahold of them, "wizard" is more about a guy who owns a bunch of magical treasures (probably including the spellbook) than about someone who knows and emanates magic by having a different nature, and so on; "I remember how to combine these reagents together and have a pouch of them" or "I can read the magic words out of my Big Honkin' Book", Scrying is a function of owning a crystal ball at all, etc. The Cleric archetype is built around things that should apply to all faithful members of the Church when holding the holy symbol, praying earnestly, and so on. I do think demihumans on the whole work better as an option you select and roll your stats from there, just because most people don't want that (or their character's sex) to be randomly selected for them most of the time. I often think about how it could be more fun for the different races to simply roll different dice combinations for their different scores instead of adjusting the numbers after rolling normally; elves roll only 2d6 for constitution but 4d6 for intelligence, charisma, or dexterity, halflings roll 2d6 for both strength and constitution but 5d6 for dexterity, dwarves roll 4d6 for wisdom or constitution, stuff like that. Could get into some real nonsense with that, or have fun replacing some of the d6 with d4, d8, d10, or d12 on some creatures.

[@anarionelendili8961]

Personally, I like the variant rules to remove the level cap from the demihumans. At the same time, I like the nerf their saving throw progression a bit. One gripe I have with the Demihumans is that they are quite OP at low levels (in particular the Elf), there is a brief moment of more or less parity, and then they pretty much suck in comparison to humans at high levels. In short, the opposite arch to the magic-user. I prefer to take that meta-gaming out, by making magic-users a bit more usable at low levels while nerfing the demihumans slightly. As for the availability of the demihumans, I allow the Players to roll the stats and then assign them, so if they want to play a demihuman, they can. The PC party does not need to accurately represent the demographics of the world. Indeed, as adventurers, they are already the outliers from the vast majority of their fellow people.

[@williammoore9794]

Another great video. The Dwarves of Rockhome says Dwarves should take Mining and Engineering as compulsory skills. I appreciate that's not the RC but as you mentioned the crafting skills i wondered why you didn't pick them?

[@becmiberserker]

I actually forgot. 😃

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@becmiberserker IMHO, when using the General Skills, the Detection Ability that the Dwarves have should become Engineering & Mining skills, that they'd get for free. Granted, you'd have to play with the values a bit, since straight up INT might be a bit too much. Which is why I like my house-rule for skills: Skill Value = (Stat+Level)/2. This means INT 9, Level 1 Dwarf would have Engineering and Mining at 5, giving them 25% chance of detecting stuff. If they had INT 10 or 11, the skill would be 6, and the chance would be 30%, pretty close to the 33% in non-skill BECMI.

[@Rashman101]

I like that your dwarven character creation came out so close to your review of the Rockhome Gaz. Thanks for all the great content and Happy new year, BB!

[@guerintueno2066]

Dwarves made great scouts. Able to see in the dark. Able to investigate the structure of the dungeon. Good all round resistances. Not made of tissue paper if they actually did run into any enemies.

[@kyzer422]

Yup, that's one of the reasons to send dwarves first. The other reason is that you can shoot over their heads.

[@thebattleofpelennorfieldsp6081]

Yes, I'm playing a dwarf in Dungeon Minister's campaign! Vlk the Veteran!

[@becmiberserker]

I spoke with the DM once on a call. A very nice fellow.

[@VanDavis]

Not arguing with your own interpretation, but I always took the "Detect New Constructions" bit to mean that they were experienced enough builders that they were really good at noticing things like freshly cut timbers, untarnished nails, carvings and scrapes in stone that were still sharply defined and not worn or smoothed with age... Basically, it's good for being able to tell where someone has come through and erected new walls or structures...repairs? Maybe to conceal something? To place a trap? To misdirect unwanted snoopers?

[@becmiberserker]

All sounds sensible 🙂. I think I broadened my approach as the players came across new constructions so infrequently, so the ability felt a bit redundant. Maybe I should have put more new stuff in my campaigns! 🙂

[@chaostb]

Love the dwarves! When I was watching this I was reminded of Flint from Dragonlance. Love the cockiness and the stubborness that dwarves play. Awesome presentation and love the Kiss reference don't know if it was intentional

[@becmiberserker]

Totally intentional. 🤘

[@WizardDeadloss]

I prefer the idea that demi-humans are rare in human society. I don't know about other systems but judging from some computer games human cities are very cosmopolitan in the Forgotten Realms. There are elven shopkeepers and halfling innkeepers, etc... Though I may learn more about Mystara in this regard as I play more modules. Thanks for another great video.

[@becmiberserker]

You're welcome. Thanks for the comment!

[@lobomarks007]

Yeeeeeeah I was waiting for demi human videos 💪🏻🐺

[@DnDOldGuard]

A great look at the dwarves of BECMI! They really are unique!

[@patrickholt2270]

I read into the word "class", social classes, more or less, and the feudalism of most fantasy fiction settings. So demihumans don't have all that many classes, because they don't have the feudal and/or renaissance class systems that the humans have. They aren't tying income and status and legal rights to occupations that way. Elves are far too enlightened and close to the Creator to allow that kind of alienation, halflings aren't that differentiated in their division of labour, they are pretty much all small famers and village craftspeople and innkeepers who cherish a relatively slow-paced lifestyle, and don't even have landlords and serfs because that's far too socially awkward when everyone is so interrelated, and dwarves have a completely different relationship to the means of production in their mines and smithies, where pretty much everyone is both a warrior and an industrial worker, and they leave other kinds of work to the surface dwellers who they trade with on a collective basis. So humans have to specialise to be academics doing magical research, or priests, or soldiers or thieves because they live in those kind of societies that have that much social difference and inequality, and people have to resort to thieving because there's so much unnecessary and avoidable poverty in the human towns and cities due to having landlords and business owners and traders and so on, who also don't let people give as much time as they otherwise would to their spiritual pursuits, so they have to have professional priests to do it for them who then also have to be paid for by tithes and rents.

[@robbabcock_]

What an unexpected treat!

[@batou1976]

I also like the mystique of non-humans being rare and mysterious. My preferred version of the game is AD&D 2nd edition, and I miss how choosing to play a Demihuman was a real choice with pros and cons versus a baseline human. It also meant the game presented a human world, and the Demihumans were just rare fellow sojourners in it. One of the things that I really don’t like about what WotC has done to the game with their versions of it is they’ve taken those human centric worlds and turned the entire game into a “Mos Eisley Cantina” smorgasbord, where it kind of feels to me like humans are rarely seen at all, despite being theoretically the most typical race on the planet.

[@andrewhaldenby4949]

Continuing this outstanding series ty!

[@Axiie]

Great video. Loving these roll ups as a guide and demonstration of the different stages of character development. When this series is finished, you should totally do a short video on what all these characters are doing with themselves after retiring :P

[@becmiberserker]

You read my mind! I’ll be doing wrap up videos for this series and the Gazetteer one.

[@jarredalabran6298]

Another fantastic job well done. Keep up the good work!

[@becmiberserker]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@user-qf5pd4kr8k]

I have so enjoyed your presentations. The deep dives into each class and the GAZ publications are so informative and brings back thoughts of my youth. You are doing great work! One question, you regularly refer to BECMI and I was just curious if you were going to comment on Wrath of the Immortals rules that updated both all of the previous editions.

[@becmiberserker]

Thank you for your kind comment. Wrath will be some way off but I will cover it one day. If you’re not aware, I did a video on the Immortal Rules, if that will help. 🙂

[@wyattweber9983]

The irony of course is there's nothing resembling a Berserker class in BECMI, but maybe the dwarf is as close as it gets

[@becmiberserker]

Hello. The Berserker is in the monster section for BECMI. It’s basically a Fighter with +2 hit and damage for being Berserk and fights to the death. Obviously, these features could be ported to any class when a Berserker is required.

[@gavinruneblade]

Dwarf (and all demihuman really) saving throws were always something I was jealous of as a player of humans. It felt correct. That's something that from 3e through 'till today I still don't like about the newer editions. Right out of the gate dwarves shrugged special effects off. Newer editions try to make survivability too much about HP.

[@Sarum9nich]

I remember playing original baldurs gate and being shocked how little class options are avalible for the dwarf race. And it looks like it was even worse in the past. Im so glad that those dark days are gone, i hate humans.

[@gunjfur8633]

> "i hate humans" And I love how misanthropic this would sound out of context! also, brohoof /)

[@Sarum9nich]

@@gunjfur8633 (\

[@m.a.packer5450]

One thing I point out to people who whine about race as class, almost every dwarf I've seen played at my tables was a fighter or some other warrior class. Elves always took on a magic-wielding class, and halflings were alwaya fighters or thieves, so there isn't much change when you go back to BECMI. I also like the game being more human-centric because players who play humans tend to make more interesting personalities and descriptions so their human isn't "just another human"

[@becmiberserker]

A good point. The original literary references have created a core legacy for these creatures, so playing versions of them that are at odds with these are, well, odd.

[@Nobleshield]

I'm sort of torn on race-as-class. it makes sense in some ways, but race being part of your class's feel also makes sense as you might have an Elf Fighter behave differently than a Human Fighter in how they progress. It does lend itself to more generic abstractions though. For example, if I want to be a Half-Elf or Half-Orc Fighter, am I _really_ that much different than a regular Fighter to warrant a difference? Or is that just a cosmetic thing or even something related to my stats (maybe I rolled really high STR and really low CHA, so it's because I have orcish blood)?

[@justjunk3803]

I do like that the rulebook specifically tries to describe the other races as being similar to humans, and with a fitting name to describe that. Many people try to get to into the mindset of being a completely different kind of person, but any character someone tries to RP is inevitably going to be seen through the lens of a human perspective.

[@becmiberserker]

Exactly.

[@rgmadd7]

Elf! Elf! Elf!

[@becmiberserker]

Next! Next! Next!

[@josephbrowning4220]

Where in the rules does it say you can't get max hp at 1st level? I've looked at the info on page 8 in the Rules Cyclopedia and don't see anything.

[@becmiberserker]

It doesn’t say you can’t, it says you roll. So, you may get maximum hit points or you may not.

[@josephbrowning4220]

Ah, I misunderstood what you said. Thanks for the reply!

[@joshuawilson8804]

I kept races as class, but I made it 'cultural'. A human could be raised as a Dwarf or an Elf. It was the traditional way Dwarves and Elves fought, similar to how we might see a Samurai. It'll keep the mystique of an exclusive path of a warrior, while allowing players to just have a flavor of being an Elf Wizard or a Dwarf Cleric without being shoehorned by someone else deciding that all elves and dwarves behave in a specific manner.

[@THEFabianValenzuela]

Bump

[@davidbrennan660]

We had a power player who played a Dwarf very much to character.... he was a nuisance otherwise.

[@becmiberserker]

🤣

[@ObatongoSensei]

I always found a bit strange the race-as-class thing. There are other ways to show the racial differences without forcing a character into a too specific role. Also, why such long-living races should have level limits? Their brains fossilize once they reach a certain level of knowledge? One thing that in the years has been lost about the dwarves is their incredible resistance to magic. Modern games do not put much emphasis on that aspect. I think it was quite characteristic and the best viable explanation why dwarves couldn't be wizards or similar magic using classes.

[@becmiberserker]

I think the lifespan vs level limit thing is a classically human perspective. We perceive that more time equals more product. However, consider a perspective alien to ours, where time is not something we’re trying to do as much as possible in, but more a thing we just exist in and carry out whatever tasks are needed at that time.

[@ObatongoSensei]

@@becmiberserker Yeah, but an unlimited time also means unlimited improvement, no matter how slow. There is no reason why an elf or a dwarf should stop learning, even if they took their time. To simulate their different perspective in time, in AD&D 2nd Edition I used a homerule for long-living races: they needed double, triple or even more experience to rise in level, but they had no level limits. Some class or kit restrictions made sense for some races, such as the dwarves being resistant to magic (and the beastmen being virtually immune), so they could not be any kind of arcane magic user, with some specific exceptions, such as some bard kits. I also reworked the multiclass rules to allow more combinations for all classes, humans included, albeit with harsher requirements.

[@Liethen]

@@ObatongoSensei I get what you're saying, and I don't see why the long lived species would cap out lower than a human. But, there would not be unlimited improvement. In any skill you will hit a sort of wall and plateau out. Also if you don't use a skill it will deteriorate and be lost. So we can expect some sort of equilibrium to be reached where you might shift your skill set over a few decades, but not really add to it. Actually there was a scishow video a few days ago that might be relevant to this.

[@ObatongoSensei]

@@Liethen That's why it would be best if new experience levels would need increasingly more points to be reached. AD&D was lacking in that, since after 10th level most classes needed the same amount of XPs to gain each new level thereafter. At some point, it would start to become really hard to gain enough experience to consistently advance in levels, mostly because more and more challenges would become trivial accomplishments with increasingly diminishing returns.

[@spartaninvirginia]

Race as class gets a bad rap. It needs to come back.

[@Gaurelin]

I always appreciated the goals of race-as-class, in trying to establish individuals and cultures which would be truly alien to humans, rather than them simply being "humans with funny ears" as they tend to be treated in most modern RPGs. I still find the use of the word "demihuman" unfortunate (demi literally means "lesser" or "inferior") as it really just highlights a very Gygaxian human superiority kind of thinking which I frankly never found appealing. Nonhumans works just fine, imo. Regardless, it's always nice to see another upload from you, Berserker! You just keep whetting my appetite for a return to my roots.

[@becmiberserker]

Come back to the dark side!

[@Gaurelin]

@@becmiberserker I'm in the middle of a Pathfinder 2e campaign right now, but once it wraps up, I'm going to lobby my players pretty hard to play some BECMI with me. I'll set it in the Known World, and already have some plans for adventures! I want them to have a chance to experience the game I cut my teeth on, and see how different the feel of the game is from modern iterations. I like the modern approach as well, but yearn for the days when the players had to be careful, because their characters were fragile, and adventuring a dangerous occupation. When becoming a hero was something to strive for, rather than being one right out of the gate.

[@RoninCatholic]

In my setting, "demihuman" refers to the player character versions of various monsters all being _literally_ half human by blood. The other ogres reject you for being too short and handsome, the other dwarves reject you for being some 4 foot tall giant instead of 2-3 feet tall, the other elves notice you seem to be aging and possibly *gasp* growing facial hair at under a century old, so you have little choice but to be seen as "the ogre" or "the dwarf" or "the elf" among a group of humans who will be somewhat prejudiced, but ultimately welcoming if you're behaved and competent. There are also often hints that most player character "full humans" actually aren't, and have some distant mixed ancestry elsewhere that can awaken with some adventuring experience. The NPC Dwarves are more dwarfy than your PC Dwarf, with more dwarfy levels of the Dwarf abilities you can Dwarf around with. Your Dwarf might dwarf them with his dwarven personality if you're playing to stereotype intentionally, but (as you're roleplayed by a human and need to make some considerations for getting along with the rest of the party/table) when you relax, a little of your human winds up showing despite yourself.

[@Gaurelin]

@@RoninCatholic That's an interesting and valid approach, and even kind of addresses the fact that "demihuman" could literally mean "subhuman" as it could also mean "half-human", but I still find it to just be terminology that makes me uncomfortable, so I think I'll just go with "nonhuman ancestries" rather than "demihuman races" when I run BECMI again.

[@RoninCatholic]

@@Gaurelin I like terms like ancestry, clan, bloodline, and kindred/kinship more than race (feels a bit modern to me) or species (feels overly formal and scientific).