Arena talk:Character Creation

Character Creation Advice

You know, some ADVICE on creating a character would be good. Apparently A redguard ranger is very powerful with the right stats, but I can't remember which. 92.3.113.15 19:42, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Being mostly an encyclopedia of info about the games, we provide the facts to enable you to determine the best course of action for your playing style rather than providing "advice". If you're looking for advice, try a forum or chatroom. --GK^talk2me 21:21, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Odd Random Stat Abbreviation

Down in the Character Stats section the page says "2W10" and "2W12", what's the deal with the W? Shouldn't it be 2d10 and 2d12? Or is W some other kind of special random number generation abbreviation I've never heard of? --75.48.229.41 10:37, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

W? Looks like "weapon" to me. 81.233.217.129 13:30, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Grammar Corrections

Hey, all, I'm new here (for those who would like to offer me a special welcome, I'm also on the UESP Forums as Gandoril Spellbinder. Just say your greetings in the 'Welcomes and Goodbyes' topic there. I've already introduced myself on there), and I thought that helping with some grammatical clean-up would be a good start for a wiki noob. I've noticed that this article in particular (especially the 'Character Stats' chart) could use a few touch-ups; however, I wanted to get admin approval before doing so. Please note that I'm not talking about changing the class-generation questions; I understand the wiki's reasons for wanting to keep true to the source-material. Thanks in advance for bearing with me as I learn my way around here! --Gandoril The Spell-Binder (talk) 20:51, 29 October 2014 (GMT)

Although I'm no admin, feel free to make any improvements that you like to the articles here, it lies in the intention of a wiki that anyone can make edits to pages. And don't worry, sooner or later a Patroller will look over your edit and make sure it follows wiki standards. Happy editing :-) -- SarthesArai ^Talk 20:58, 29 October 2014 (GMT)

What values appear on d10 dice - and why this is important?

D10 dice have the values 0-9 printed on the ten faces. So when the Player's Guide starts mentioning that a character's starting health is 25+d10 (or d8, etc.), does that mean 25+(1-10) or 25+(0-9)? Although only the d10 had a 0 in most dice sets, it appears that for the Arena Health stats, all the die rolls start numbering at "0". This means a d6 in the manual (0-5), is not the same thing as a d6 mentioned on the Character Creation page (1-6). -----If you create a Mage character (25+d6) and re-roll your stats many times, you will eventually learn that "d6" means "0-5". (Don't forget to subtract the Health modifier added by Endurance. 26 Health with a +1 Health modifier = a "0" die roll. If you're using a Breton, you may see 24 with a -1 Health modifier which also equals a "0" die roll.) Due to the way Arena weights the die rolls in the middle, rolling the highest or lowest roll is more difficult than rolling the middle values. This becomes more exaggerated the higher the die value. It took almost 1000 re-rolls to get a "0" roll with a class that used a d16. It's much easier with a d6 class like Mage. Also be aware that the Thieves set of classes do not match up with the values listed in the manual. I wanted to add a table to provide the correct values for Starting Health calculations, but realized that I would also need to address the conflicting d-roll terminology. --Satribe (talk) 00:07, 29 November 2020 (UTC). (EDIT - grammar --Satribe (talk) 00:13, 29 November 2020 (UTC))

The correct values are listed on the "Classes" page, so they do not need to be duplicated, but I will be considering how to add an appropriate reference to help point to that information. Using information provided during a forum question; it currently appears that a D10 in regards to the Health stats is neither a 0-9, nor a 1-10, but rather a 0-10. So a value of 25+d10 can result in 25-35 final values. Current testing for the "d6" in the Endurance formula has resulted in 1-6 values. This means that it still appears as if the "d6" value for Health (or "Hit Die" as listed on the Classes page) and the "d6" value for the endurance formula are not the same. I want to finish testing and research before making any update, but want to explain why/how a "roll" is not calculated the same as rolling physical dice. --Satribe (talk) 06:59, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

The Endurance formula is listed on the page as: "You get 37 + 4d6 + racial/gender modifier for each attribute." I'm leaving this note just as clarification because it wasn't obvious to me at first. "4d6" is not 4 multiplied by the value of one d6 roll, but rather 4 dice rolled and added together. It could just as easily be 41 + d20 + racial/gender modifier; with d20 options being 0-20 which would match the "d" rolls for Health. This is speculation, and I wish to determine if the "37" value from the formula comes from the EXE file or if it is assumed because it allows the math to work. --Satribe (talk) 19:36, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

After much testing I've updated the character creation section with a dice rolling section. I'm leaving this note because of the one thing I've been unable to determine. The dice roll for Health and for the other 8 stats appear to use the same formula. This is how it is listed on the OpenTESArena wiki and my testing confirms they are identical with only one exception; the 8 stats roll seems to add "+1". While extremely rare, I have proof of rolling a "21" for the stats where the die used is a d20 in an unmodified game. In modified games, I can change the health and stat dice each to a d6 and the health die rolls 0-5 and the stat die rolls 1-6. Changing the dice to d10 the the health die rolls 0-10 and the stat die rolls 1-11. In the wiki I simply stated that the 8 stat rolls receive a "d20 + 1", but I would be much happier if I knew how that "+1" actually got there. --Satribe (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Bonus points range and starting attributes range

After rolling dice for multiple hours (around 5), I can confidently say that the range is 4-24 which coincides with 4d6. Also, an high elf will go from 30 to 51 endurance maximum which reinforces the idea that d20 is accurate for attributes. Feel free to modify the page if you have better evidence that the value is different. It was previously written that you get d25 bonus attributes, but I have never seen 1, 2, 3 and 25. 4d6 also better coincides with the dice rolling section. — Unsigned comment by Corsafire1 (talk • contribs) at 06:38 on 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Actually, you are wrong. I spent a few hours on the character creation myself: I got one 0, one 25, five 1, two 24, and of course much more in-between values. So, 5d6 - 5 would match pretty nicely, if I had to guess. Now, regarding the attributes range, it is obvious that it is not determined by a single dice roll. As with the bonus points, outermost values are extremely rare. (It is surprising that you never saw a 2 or a 3 in 5 hours. I got a bunch of them!) Arcanod (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Hit Dice rolling

In the Dice Rolling section, it mentions "Arena, however, uses a special formula to produce the dice rolls that doesn’t result in what we might expect. The values for d6 and d8 are not {1..6} and {1..8}, but rather {0..5} and {0..7}. This means the starting Health for the Nightblade Class is not a value from {26..33}, but rather a value from 25 through 32." but after several hundred rolls, I am quite certain it is actually 1-# (I have not verified every single class, but numerous have ended up as high as you would expect, like 33 for Healer or 39 for Thief in character creation.) Bushwhacker (talk) 14:39, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Page edit request, mod has been created

Hello, I am the author of a mod fixing the issues with spelling and grammar regarding generate class. Can someone please make 'hover link's (the added information which you get when you hover your cursor over certain sentences.) link to the mod https://www.nexusmods.com/tesarena/mods/61 TheSeldomConsitentEditor (talk) 23:01, 26 August 2024 (UTC)