Chapter 2: Min-maxing

-First Draft-

Aasimar. I chose to be an Aasimar for a few different reasons. One was the Darkvision. It was really appealing to be able to see even when it was completely dark.

Another appealing trait about the Aasimar is that they don't have an appearance different from a human. This would allow me to easily disguise myself in whatever new world I find myself in, and make deciding my appearance easier as well.

Finally, who wouldn't say they don't think it's pretty cool to become what is essentially a demi-god? After selecting to be an Aasimar, the layout of the screen changed to one for customizing my appearance. Now an interesting question opened itself to me. Do I want to be a girl or a boy?

I've asked myself what it would be like to be a girl several times in my life, mostly from being self-conscious about me believing myself to be average in appearance and knowing myself to have a dick that is much below average. Leading me to wonder if someday, my romantic other would laugh at me one day, after seeing it. And the thought just hurt inside.

This would lead me to think about how as a female, the size wouldn't matter, even if I were flat as a cutting board, I could still be attractive or good in bed. Anyway, this curious question caused me to be conflicted until I thought,

'Screw it, new world, new me. And, it's not like there aren't spells to change it if I ever feel like this isn't what I want.'

So I selected my gender to be female and started to customize my appearance. I first chose to be around 6 foot which would place me taller than the average female human. I had my hair down to my shoulders in waves of black. I made my eyes a piercing blue and gave myself fair Asian features to match my current ethnicity.

I didn't want to stand out too much but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make myself better looking. I gave myself smooth skin and straight teeth. I also chose to have double eyelids since I thought it looked pretty good.

After finalizing my appearance I moved on to the next order of business, deciding on my class. This is arguably on par with choosing my race if not more important. Since this decision would reflect on how I would live my life in the world I would go to.

I looked through my options after tapping on the box for my class. I immediately crossed off the wizard, warlock, and sorcerer classes because I already decided I wanted to focus on a more physical fighting style. This left with bard, barbarian, cleric, druid, fighter, paladin, ranger, monk, and rogue.

I thought that a bard might be interesting since I would already be gaining stats for my charisma by being an Aasimar, and I was already sort of interested in the musical side of things, being part of the school choir in middle school. And I always wanted to learn to play an instrument which could be a nice break to have while I'm adventuring.

Being a bard, I would be using a lot of spells, but I could also choose to focus more on physically attacking and using my spells as more as buffs and debuffs.

I decided to finalize my main class first before looking through the subclasses, so I moved on to the next option which would be to be a barbarian.

This option wasn't as appealing to me since I'm too introverted and prefer to not have confrontations face to face. If given the option I always want to have some distance between me and my opponent. So, despite the barbarian's clear advantage with physical combat, I decided it wasn't for me.

Next would be the cleric. If I chose to be a cleric I would have to be a cleric of a specific deity which would make this a bit more complicated but I already decided I wanted to be a follower of one since they give certain benefits for being one of their followers so this wouldn't be that big of an issue.

Clerics could be a bit like a bard in that I could choose to make my spells more for support and use a crossbow or another ranged weapon to deal damage. The difference is that I would be following a deity of a specific domain and that has specific effects on my abilities and my faith to them would also have effects on my strength.

After clerics would be the druid class. As a druid, my abilities would be linked to nature and its might. These would include being capable of shapeshifting into the form of an animal that I've seen, starting from level 2 with the limitation that its an animal without benefits for swimming or flying.

But by level 8 this limitation is removed so I could morph into any animal I've seen for as many hours as I have levels when halved and rounded down. This ability could be used twice long rest which could prove pretty helpful for combat and travel. For instance, I could become a cheetah for a quick burst of speed or a rhino to ram my horn into my foe. Or eventually, an eagle to travel great distances by air.

There are many other things that the druid class obtains down the line but I focused on the shapeshifting ability most and mentally put it on a list of classes that would be nice, next to the bard class.

I moved on to looking through the rest of my options. Crossing off monks for their focus on close combat, just as I had for barbarians. I crossed out paladins as well since I felt that I didn't want to be shackled by an oath to good since I thought that could be a problem if I run into conflict just to save someone I didn't know.

The ranger class seemed nice for its ranged fighting style that could easily be transitioned to close combat should the ranged style fail. But it didn't seem as interesting as the other classes that had already been singled out.

The rogue class was interesting as well since they seem naturally suited to an introvert that doesn't want to have face to face conflict by using stealth and sneak attacks. The rogue class was more suited to using close-quarters combat but could also turn to ranged combat if the need arises. But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use magic even if I didn't want to use it to fight.

So I sat there for a while looking between the druid class that had abilities that change depending on the circle of nature I decide on and the bard class, that had interesting abilities that caught my attention like the song of rest that can heal allies as they go through a short rest in order to regain more hit points. Not just that, but the bard class focuses on the charisma stat that I already obtain two points to just for being an Aasimar, along with one point in constitution from being a scourge.

After a few minutes of hard contemplation, I decided that although the druid class was really appealing with its shapeshifting ability and its interesting skills that link them with nature, it made more sense to pick the bard class since I already had a head start with two points in my charisma stat.

After finalizing my decision I moved on to my stats. I didn't know how I would obtain them and just tapped on the first stat, strength. Four floating six-sided dice appeared in the air in front of me not moving. I reached out to them and once I touched them they immediately stopped floating and dropped into my hand.

I knew that stats are normally rolled by rolling four six-sided dice before discarding the lowest number to make you have a better chance to have a double-digit stat. This is done six times before the results are placed in the stat slots at our discretion depending on our class and our preference of playstyle.

Knowing this, I chose to throw the dice softly in front of me on the ground I still couldn't see. This first roll went terribly with the dice saying, 4, 3, 1, and 1. So after getting rid of one of the ones, my first roll for my stats left me with a [8] which was terrible for me. I winced when I saw this before I saw on the floating hud screen now having an 8 next to my stats.

I let out a sigh of relief when it didn't automatically place the roll into my strength stat since that would be really bad if I were to want to be a physical fighter. I picked up the dice and rolled again and my eyes widened when the die read, 6, 5, 5, and 6. A nearly max roll resulted in a total of [17] after removing one of the fives.

I rolled four more times the results being 6, 1, 1, 3 to get an end result of [10], another great roll of 3, 4, 6, and 6 to give me an end result of [16], and then one [10] from a 2, 5, 1, and 4, after a [11] from a 1, 4, 3, and 4.

I realized from this that I would have to min-max my stats and stressed out trying to think about what would be the most important stats after charisma and I realized that depending on what world I end up in, this could get pretty bad for me.