Daggerfall Inspired Classless Char-Gen
2025-07-28
Box art for Daggerfall
This is very much a weird article for me, partially because I was in the middle of two much larger articles, one of which being Monsters Of /X/ #3, and that the concept itself is rather spur of the moment and incomplete—something I want to put out there but don’t myself intend to follow up on at the moment.
When I found out that Julian LeFay passed away a couple days ago, I had a bit of a nostalgia trip. His authoring and contributions to the Elder Scrolls setting shaped a good deal of my childhood and enjoyment of computer games. Daggerfall is a slept-on entry in the Elder Scrolls series, as it was easily the most expansive and ambitious title within the series, only let down by the technical limitations of its time—something that, as of late, is being corrected by both Daggerfall Unity and the upcoming Wayward Realms, a project Julian was in a lead role with.
Upon revisiting the Elder Scrolls series, I found myself being inspired once more by the way character creation and leveling was handled in Daggerfall, with the concept of skill selection being a large determiner of level progression. My brain wheels got subtly turning.
Something I’ve been struggling to find is examples of OSR games which are both classless and have randomized character advancement. Games like Baptism of Fire or Shadowdark have the latter but not the former, while things like Maze Rats or Knave have the former but not the latter.
I can only name two to three-ish OSR games that have both elements (excluding the one I’m working on), so I searched for inspiration elsewhere. The character gen rules for Be Not Afraid are likewise classless with randomized character improvement. The ones I’m presenting now are probably a bit more original but don’t suit the type of setting or gameplay I’m going for.
I’m hoping this is at all interesting or a good baseline concept unto itself. It’s something I might pick back up for another project, or if I find it somehow is a better fit later down the line for my main project. Nevertheless, this is what I got.
Character Creation
-
Roll Attributes:
- Roll 3d6 for each attribute in order.
- Attributes range from 3 to 18.
- Each attribute provides a modifier used in derived stats, checks, or combat.
-
Attribute Modifier Table:
| Score | Modifier |
|---|---|
| 3 | –3 |
| 4–5 | –2 |
| 6–8 | –1 |
| 9–12 | +0 |
| 13–15 | +1 |
| 16–17 | +2 |
| 18 | +3 |
-
Choose Skill Priorities:
- Select 2 Primary Skills, 3 Secondary Skills, and 4 Tertiary Skills from your skill list.
- Skills outside these categories begin at 0 and must be trained through use.
Skill System
-
All skills are broken up into skill-level and skill-bonus, level is percentile-based, ranging from 0 to 100.
-
Every 10 points in a skill grants a +1 skill bonus when using that skill.
- Example: A character with Swordfighting 46 has a +4 to rolls involving sword use.
Starting Skill Values
- Primary Skills: Start at 30
- Secondary Skills: Start at 20
- Tertiary Skills: Start at 10
- Untrained Skills: Start at 0
Skill Advancement
-
At the end of each session, each player may select 3 skills they used successfully during the session.
-
For each selected skill:
- Roll 1d100.
- If the result is greater than the current skill level, increase the skill level by 1 point.
Level Progression
-
For every +10 points gained in one of your Primary or Secondary skills (e.g., swordfighting going from 30 to 40), the character gains +1 XP.
- Each +10 milestone counts (e.g., 10, 20, 30, etc.).
- Example: Raising a skill from 42 → 53 would not gain XP until it reaches 50.
Level Thresholds
- Character level equals the highest XP threshold reached (not cumulative).
- Each level requires XP equal to its level number:
| Level | XP Required |
|---|---|
| 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 |
| … | … |
- XP is not cumulative. You must reach the full XP threshold for the next level.
Leveling Up
- Upon reaching a new level, roll once on the Level Up Table.
Level Up Table
| d100 Roll | Level-Up Bonus |
|---|---|
| 01–30 | +1 to an Ability Score (roll ability-score sub table) |
| 31–60 | +1 Hit Die (HD) — roll your new HD and add it to max HP |
| 61–70 | +1 Melee Damage |
| 71–80 | +1 Attack per Round |
| 81–100 | Saving Throw Reduction — lower one save by 2, or two saves by 1 |
Ability Score Sub-Table
| d6 | roll ability |
|---|---|
| 1 | STR |
| 2 | DEX |
| 3 | CON |
| 4 | INT |
| 5 | WIS |
| 6 | CHA |
Design Thoughts & Considerations
Something to keep in mind is this character gen system doesn’t have a broader game in mind; it’s more akin to a kernel or foundation piece, or something you can use to drop in and replace an existing one if you want to make it classless or add random advancement.
Interestingly, despite being classless, the system does have a form of niche production built into it—mainly that leveling is entirely determined by improvement in your primary and secondary skills. So your character is really built around 5 core skills, which everything else is defined around—not unlike how the skills and leveling functions in Daggerfall.
In a way, you could reintroduce classes by having predefined skill packages. Players foregoing a class-skill package are basically just building their own. Also, I didn’t have a skill list or skill system in mind with this character generation, but something I think would fit really well is the Daggerfall skill list, which would be a cool (albeit very large) article converting the Daggerfall skills for an OSR system—though I’d also need to adapt the way Elder Scrolls magic works into an OSR format, which itself would be a big undertaking.
Other things which I also intentionally didn’t specify were the saving throws or what die size player character Hit Dice were. That is up to other designers who might want to expand on this system for themselves.
I am actually rather partial to using the classic 5 saves over something like ability scores or a monosave, but that’s just me. Likewise, the game I’m currently working on assumes 1d6 is for normal human Hit Dice.
Anyway, not much more to say, as this was more just a spur-of-the-moment brain worm I needed to quickly write out so I could focus on other things, and to likewise pay my respects to Julian LeFay. May he rest in peace.