Character conversion thread

Whoopsie! OK, it is now done. I also renamed the old one with "(Old)" to distinguish it.

I updated it. It's another way to spend those points, we can do that.

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As a side note, I was meta-gaming for you... Increasing from 0 to 1 is more expensive with XP than it's during chargen. But if you wanna that Fix skill now, it's a reasonable choice.

SWN has an optional rule that gives a flat 10 extra hit points for everyone. I'm thinking about using it. =)

Let me read those optional rules more carefully and wait for everyone to finish their sheets.

I am all for meta-gaming, but since you made the change, I'll keep whatever it is last. It may be more expensive, but I can always increase it later. Hopefully the loss of the +2 won't hurt me. Plus, with the Professor still involved, Hank has time to pump it up a bit. Also, with literally everyone else having Fix, maybe I should get Talk or Connect instead? I don't know. Lemme think about it for a day while everyone else handles theirs and make a final decision then.

On the HP, I was just worried about dying from a single attack from something pathetic. Sure, a laser pistol blast can still take me down, but it has to roll well. I will not turn down a free 10 HP, though! Honestly, it all depends on how much gun combat you want us to run through.

I'll toss out some ideas for Erin later, too.

Okay. Feel free to change it either way.

How helpful does the lv 2 of healer seem?
Level 2: Stims or other technological healing devices
applied by you heal twice as many hit points as
normal. Using only basic medical supplies, you
can heal 1d6+Heal skill hit points of damage to
every injured or wounded person in your group
with ten minutes of first aid spread among them.
Such healing can be applied to a given target only
once per day.

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Also I'm going to get 0 in shoot for 1 skill point. It seems like Slaine should already have that.
Then I'll bring Dex to 16 for 3 skill points.

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Where does it list what the most common used stats for a skill are?

It is useful... This is a special rule for this focus.

The regular healing rules are in page 53 (section "Injury, Death, and Healing" ) and 73/74 (Lift, Lazarus patches and medkit)

But you can choose another focus if you want to. =)

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I will check it at the end. Seems like Slaine has too many skills right now, but you are probably still choosing them. =)

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It actually doesn't. The rulebook says to add the most relevant skill level and attribute modifier, on a case-by-case basis, whenever you're rolling a skill check. The "pen and paper" version of the character sheet only have the first 2 columns.

But, in our case, because of the Gamersplane roller feature, it's useful to have some pre-calculated rolls in that table for what you think will be commonly used. It's just a one click shortcut. =)

Your attributes and rolls are fine =)

OK, let me reconstruct how you made my character, to make sure I fully understand.This matches what you have done. (I didn't know the best way to show the use of two skill points for Know-1.)

However, I can improve things if I just make a simple swap. For the Level 1 Bonus skill, I get more skills if I take Know-1 right then.This is taking advantage of two things. First, I know I am going straight to Level 2, so I can take some efficiencies like you mentioned. Now, I get the Know-1, but I get an extra skill (Fix is a placeholder) because I got the improvement in Level 1 and waited for the level-0 skills. That is a bit optimize-y, but I think that works.

Now, I could take this a step farther and gain a level-2 skill at Level 2! I chose Administer-2 below, but it could just as easily be Program-2 instead. Whichever is more useful.Doing this, however, prevents me from getting Know-1 because the skills taken for Level 1 are absolutely proscribed with no variance allowed (to get me to my goal), and getting Know-1 would force me to drop Pilot. (And Fix. Fix is again a placeholder.)

Also, if I am looking at game optimization, it looks like there actually isn't a whole lot of utility for level-0 skills. It just gets you a +1 on your roll, while level-1 skills give you an additional +2. So, maybe in "version two" I should drop any/all of the level-0 skills to hammer up to a level-1 skill?

New question: what is the Focus progression?

Is it one per Level, with an extra on Levels 1,2,5,7,10?
Or is it only one on Levels 1,2,5,7,10, with an extra only on Level 1 for Expert, Half Expert, Warrior, and Half Warrior? (I.e. no Foci are gained at all on Levels 3,4,6,8,9.)

From what I can tell on page 57 in Choose New Foci, it is the second, not the first. If that is the case, I should only have three Foci, not four. This is because I will only get one Focus at Level 2, not two Foci. (This would apply to all of the other characters, too.)

Level 0skills let you avoid the -1 untrained penalty.

Which means that all stats are actually 1 lower and that Skill 0 is +1 and Slik 1 is +2... effectively.

This is what I see.

Nope, your reverse engineering is wrong. Sorry, should have given you the whole procedure:There are a couple of things there, based on pages 7,8 and 57:
- You have to spend or bank at least 1 point improving psychic skills or gaining new psychic techniques during your level up.
- Improving the Precognition skill from 0 to 1 costs 2 points. (As does improving any skill)
- To have a Level 2 skill you have to be, at minimum, a level 3 Adventurer.
- Level 1 skills give you an additional +1, not +2. It's the same number (Level 0 = +0, Level 1 = +1, Level 2 = +2)

You're right, it's 3 not 4. Corbin has 4, though, because of the double bonus from his Warrior + Expert. Douklan I did it right. My mistake was only with yours =)

Regarding the Skill-2, also on page 57, under the Foci section, is this:
So, with your modified progress, I could get Program-2, but it would cost me the Know-1.

And I know I have to spend at least one skill point on Psychic stuff what I missed is the cost of two skill points to raise it. That's where I screwed up.

This also means Levels 3 and 4 are gonna be very anti-climatic, if not disappointing. This also means my only real question now is whether I want two Foci for Hacking or Administer. Any guidance on which would be better? Can my precog tell me which is more likely to be used?

Alternatively, I guess I should contemplate ditching that level-2 Focus in favor of a level-1 Focus for Trade. That would give me Trade-1 for free and free up a skill point for a different level-0 skill. Honestly, that's probably the better play, since I am now the ship's Trader, too. Does that make sense?

EDIT: I went ahead and changed the Level 2 Focus to Specialist-Trade-1. I'm still thinking on the extra level-0 skill to take.

Okay. That's a very specific / edge case to get those points, but it's okay. You spend the level 2 focus in that process, so that's the trade-off.

OK, I think Hank is done. Since literally everyone else has Fix, Hank went with Connect. Seems to fit with his Administrate and Trade.

I added a couple items to his Gear list, just so they were noted. The Line Shunts are there in case he needs them for any Hacking. I threw in the Translation Torc for the fun of it. I can delete that if necessary.

Also, looking ahead, I'd say that once a character reaches Level 2, they are about half-way to as powerful as they are gonna get. They only get three more Foci, of which only two really matter. And they get a very small number of skill points and getting two level-2 of the skill requires pretty much all of them. So, at character Level 2 they probably pretty much have all of the skills they are gonna have and they then need to focus on just improving what they already have.

And a character only gets (on average) six Foci selections. So if the desire is to end up with level-2 Foci, that limits it to only three of them total, and that last level-2 is only gained at 10th level. So, they are definitely a finite resource. Honestly, I think characters may be better off with maybe one Foci at level-2, and the rest at level-1, because of the extra skill points gained with level-1 Foci.

Note that isn't a complaint or a criticism. It is simply observing how character creation and progression work. It just means that while the first two Levels are a lot of fun, they following Levels will be more pedestrian. Again, not a complaint. Just important for setting expectations.

On an unrelated note, I will make a post for my attempt at Erin. Since she is a minor NPC, I am going to assume she is just a Level 1 character, not Level 2 like the PCs. She's almost ready, but I want to go through it one more time.

Also, is it OK if I take a pass at Gabe? Given the write you did of him for the prior game, I should have the basis. You don't have to use it if you don't want, but I do want to give it a try to see if I am actually learning anything here.

@daryen,@PhoenixScientist You're good to go. Let's get back to the game. =) I will create another thread for secondary characters / NPCs.

@spaceseeker19 I have written a suggestion for Douklan here in this thread, but it got very long, very fast, so you probably missed it.

OK, I just read some more rules I hadn't covered yet. My last skill is going to be Shoot-0, not Connect-0. The non-proficiency for combat is -2, not -1. If I want a chance to actually hit, I have no choice but taking the Shoot-0 skill. Unfortunately.

Then I'm finished with Hank. Sorry for the last second change.

Yup. But the combat die is 1d20, not 2d6. But that's okay, you can still change that skill. =)