Character attributes in Ultima II

Ultima II character creation (EGA upgrade)

Characters in Ultima II have different statistics that affect gameplay. This article will attempt to cover these characteristics.

Hitpoints

Characters have “hitpoints” that determine the maximum number of damage they can receive. Any character in Ultima II begins with 400 hitpoints, and these are increased by paying tribute to either Lord British or the Lord of Castle Barataria. Note that the higher the hitpoints are, the lower the gain per unit of gold.

Level

Experience is obtained by killing monsters. One hundred experience points (EXP) are needed to go up one level, but a character's level seems to be only a "score gauge", with no other noticeable effects.

Attributes

Characters in this game have six attributes or statistics (often abbreviated as "stats"), each with a value from 10 to 99, which govern different aspects of gameplay:

• Strength: heaviest armor that can be worn; damage done by a character (if agility allowed to hit).
• Agility: most powerful weapon that can be wielded; chance to hit; chance to successfully steal (although stealing is unnecessary).
• Stamina: absorb part of damage suffered (whereas the armour determines evasion rate).
• Charisma: prices in shops.
• Wisdom: ability to successfully cast spells (cleric and wizard only).
• Intelligence: both prices in shops and spellcasting power (for one wizard's spell only).

These attributes can be raised (somewhat randomly) by visiting the clerk at the "Desk" of "The Hotel" (California) in New San Antonio in the year 1990 A.D. For a donation of 100 gold, there is a 75% chance of him raising an attribute. With the Ultima II Upgrade Patch, the stat can always be chosen.

Character Creation

When creating a new character, the following steps are taken, in order:

• Distribute 90 points between the six attributes, in order. Each attribute must have at least 10 points allocated to it (but not all points must be spent)
• Choose a gender (M/F)
• Choose a race (#1-4, see above)
• Choose a profession ("Type," #1-4, see above).
• Assign the character a name (maximum of 12 letters).

Suggestion

Actually, it is more convenient to plan ahead backwards (e.g. on a piece of paper): Assign 10 points to each attribute (this is 60 out the 90 initial points); Choose gender (female gives larger bonus), and add its bonus; Choose profession (the thief is the least powerful), and add its bonus; Choose race (with a bonus different from the profession one), and add its bonus; Distribute the remaining 30 points;

Gender

Ultima II allows each character to be either male or female. The choice of gender affects attributes as follows:

Suggestion	Gender	Attribute bonus
Male	Strength +5	Females gain a greater bonus. However, charisma only allows players to buy equipment at a discount. Most equipment can be stolen, the strongest sword doesn't get a discount, and money is more valuable for raising stats.
Female	Charisma +10

Race

As in Ultima I, the player can choose from several different races, including humans, dwarves, elves, and bobbits. The following table shows the attribute bonuses each race receives:

Race	Attribute Bonus	Notes and Suggestions
1. Human	Intelligence +5	Choose race and profession that give bonus to different attributes.
2. Elf	Agility +5
3. Dwarf	Strength +5
4. Bobbit	Wisdom +10	A larger starting bonus to the attribute that is useless at game start.

Profession

Characters can be one of four professions. The player's choice of profession does not affect choice of weapons or armour, but does determine which spells the character can cast, if any (see Sosarian magic for details).

The following table shows the attribute bonuses each profession receives (in the IBM PC version; bonuses in other ports may vary slightly):

Profession	Attribute Bonus	Notes and Suggestions
1. Fighter	Strength +15 (+10 in C64-port)	Cannot use magic, therefore during the random attribute-raising, about 4000gp will be wasted on Wisdom.
2. Cleric	Wisdom +10, 6 spells	The best dungeon crawler, but less powerful at game start. Dungeon crawling isn't required for beating the game outside of the FM Towns version.
3. Wizard	Intelligence +10, 6 spells	The most powerful class, but spells can only be used in dungeons.
4. Thief	Agility +10	The least powerful profession: they're just a "wizard without magic" or a "fighter with less strength".

See Also

• Character advancement
• Character attributes in Ultima I
• Character attributes in Ultima III