Character-Creation Thread

Let me know when you're ready to begin.

I haven't looked at the rules in ages, but got out my dusty old player's handbook. I can't see rules for random attributes, so what should we roll?

I'm thinking either Combat Spec or Free Agent.

Hey!
You can't find the rules for random attributes because they're in the Gamemaster Guide (pp. 22-23).
Do you want to wait and talk things over with Kaneda before deciding on who has what class?

Here it is for posterity.

Sure I'll wait for now :)

Yup, that's the one.

OK, let's see what happens with Kaneda. I'm busier than normal today, but, if we don't hear from him by tomorrow morning, I'll send him a note just to make sure everything's OK.

Hm. Kaneda's signed up, and he sent me a PM about his idea for a PC:
That looks like a Free Agent.

Furmyr, there's no reason you can't be one, too, or play some other class.

I'll be busy for the rest of the day and into tomorrow morning (attending a sleep clinic), so I'll be pretty much incommunicado until late tomorrow morning or later. I'll check in when I can, but you two can talk about who can play what.

Ohhh, well now looking at that table there, Tech Op and Mindwalker also look very interesting, personally picking different classes would be best for us, then we can have a variety of options to have fun with!

Mind Walker might be an option depending.
Let's move this discussion about the campaign's shape to the campaign's OOC thread:

Well then that narrows it down for me haha, Tech op., already got a concept for the character.

Kaneda, you saw what I wrote in the OOC thread?

I am thinking a former navy seal like soldier who's served for a few years so Combat Spec could fit very well. Was thinking the Soldier profession. A kind of hot shot adrenaline junkie who's been caught up in the cause.

I did!

Also digging the concept you got going on there Furmyr

Furmyr, having a (former?) spec-forces type is fine, but the PC's still a beginner ie level 1 with no achievement/experience points.

Furmyr, your stats are

STR: 13
DEX: 12
CON:14
INT:12
WIL:7
PER: 5

Kaneda, your stats are as follows (for a Tech-Op)
STR: 7
DEX: 13
CON:8
INT:11
WIL:12
PER: 7

Next big thing to do is skills. You both have the same (free) broad skills all humans have: Athletics, Vehicle Op, Stamina, Knowledge, Awareness, and Interaction. Furmyr, your PC has 60 skill points to play with and can purchase up to seven more broad skills (and, yes, those numbers are including the bonuses humans get); Kaneda, your PC gets 55 skill points and six maximum broad skills. I'll try to put up the list of skills in another thread (for charts and big chunks of written material) ASAP.

(At this point, you should also look over the list of permitted perks and flaws because perks cost skill points and flaws give you more; I'll provide a list of their costs, too.)

Meanwhile, Kaneda, is your Tech-Op concept the same as what I copied and posted from you? If it is, that's not exactly a Tech-Op, more like a Free Agent as I commented. See the list of professions I provided in the Game Details section for an idea of what a Tech-Op's career name might be like.

Then, we'll move on to your PCs' personalities and finally finish with the math stuff.

Questions?

Lol the dice gods were not kind to my stats, at least the ones I needed ended up alright, except for my CON haha. I can make this work.

I'm good with the Tech-Op I've read more into what they do and I like it and am already re-working on my concept for my character based on what I know now.

55

Broad skills given by Human:
(B) Athletics
(B) Vehicle Op
(B) Stamina
(B) Knowledge
(B) Awareness
(B) Interaction

Point purchased skills:
(B) Computer Science - 6
Land Vehicle 2 - 5
(B) Unarmed Attack - 5
(B) Investigate - 6
(B) Ranged Weapons - 6
Rifle - 4
(B) Demolitions - 5
Disarm 2 - 7
Set explosion 2 - 3

50 points spent
5 points remaining

Perks: Vigor 2, Reflexes, Observant, Danger Sense
Flaws: Obsessed, Poor Looks, Dirt Poor

Ack! I knew there was something I'd forgotten: how the point costs work. Sorry, Kaneda!
If you look at the skill list I put up, most skills are tabbed/indented over to the right, leaving a smaller number of skills sticking out to the left; those last are the broad skills. Those skills don't have levels; you pay the cost once and that's it eg 7 points for the Computer Science broad skill. However, you must have the broad skill to purchase the related specializations.

The indented skills under the broad skills are specializations; those have skill levels. For specializations, you pay the list cost on the chart (less one point if your profession is listed under the "Pr." column) for the first level in that specialization. Any additional levels (a PC can have a max level of three in beginning specializations) cost the list price (still modified for "Pr.") plus the specialization's current level eg if you want to have level 2 in the Brawling specialization, it'll cost you seven points (3 points to get the skill at level one, plus an additional 4 points to get the skill up to level two [because having the skill at level one means you have to pay your current level equivalent in points added on to the base cost for the skill ie 3+1]).

This is what I have so far. My break is over, so will finish up after work I hope :)

Edit: Think I'm happy with this selection.

As for why an experienced soldier is level 1. I was thinking maybe he took damage in action, and his body is hurting. Leveling up for him is actually the body getting back into its old shape.

Remember there are no levels for the broad skills . . . .

Well right on, more points to spend on skills and perks!

Edited, got my skills set up and still have some points to help with perks when we do that.

Kaneda, I think you made at least one boo-boo wrt at least some of your skills eg your point cost for Land Vehicle at level two should be five, not seven. I figure you forgot to subtract your discount for the skill being relevant to your class.

Mmm. The problem is that the game's system doesn't really work in such a way as to take this idea into account. For example, if your character is "experienced", he should, theoretically, have at least one skill higher than level 3 or have more skills at this point, but beginning PCs should all start at roughly the same "power level" eg number of skills constrained by points to buy them with and the arbitrary, but still sensible, rule about no beginning PC starting with more than three levels in any specialization.
Your idea is, of course, imaginary "fluff" for your PC's background, but it might create problems later that I won't want to deal with. Maybe you could explain why your heart is seemingly set on this idea for your PC . . . .
Now, all this being said, there is, sort of, a way to come close to this idea of yours, taking into account your new idea about healing an old wound: take the flaw "Old Injury" at a high point value, say six (the max) and put those extra points places that give you more skills at level 3 or just give you more skills overall.
Your age could also start out higher than the assumed starting age for PCs (ie 25) to suggest someone who's been around for a while, but I don't think your PC should be 40 or older (that would mean giving your PC bonuses in INT and PER with no corresponding penalties).

Perks and Flaws are up in Charts and Stuff.

Alright, not bad, only one outstanding mistake, think I did pretty well haha. Made the change.

Great! I didn't go through them all, just picked one that looked a bit off.
Questions from you, Kaneda, about any skills? Or the perks and flaws?

It just flavor that I've used successfully in D&D as well before representing old retired characters coming out of retirement. What is even is a level in the world the game depicts. Is the skills he gets when leveling up, just relearning old tricks or getting in the swing of things.

I was thinking of the character being in his 30s.

>shrug< OK, we'll run with your idea, but it's just fluff.

Re. "What is a level?" I have yet to see a game where there is literally no concept of level of any kind because, not only is it a concrete way of rewarding players just for game play (even if they don't get "treasure" in the game's genre) and helping GMs determine an appropriate "difficulty level" of opposition to the PCs, it also provides a game mechanic to model the way people grow and develop over time and activities, whether this growth takes the form of skills that individually increase in "success probabilities" or "inherent qualities" of experience that may or may not have something to do with one's profession.

Re. "skills": Well, this is where modelling breaks down some. This game system gets a little more loose and noisy with this idea because there seems to be little or no justification to improving/learning skills other than a mechanical one. RoleMaster does a bit better job with this by having players pick skills for their new levels before the new level gets reached; IIRC, Warhammer Fantasy RPG does kind of the same thing with its emphasis on career paths. The idea in both games is that the PC spends some unspecified and undifferentiated amount of time "learning" about the new skills before levelling up. I tend to prefer the 1st ed AD&D system where, in order to get up to the new level, your PC typically has to find someone else to train them, spending time and money on the project.

The only questions I got for skills at the moment are for later because they will be about rolls so we can wait for that.

I guess for Perks and Flaws, if I could just get a description of what the ones I picked do for me, that would be appreciated, but other than that no questions at the moment.

(NB: I put up the list of Perks and Flaws with their costs/bonuses.)

Vigor 2: makes your PC slightly ie one point more difficult to stun (stunning is the lightest form of damage a character can get)
Reflexes: increases your DEX resistance modifier by one point (typically, this makes you harder to hit with a ranged weapon when you know you're the target, but it might come into play in other situations)
Observant: adds a bonus of one to any Awareness-perception checks
Danger Sense: adds a two-point bonus to Awareness-intuition checks
(I notice you have the Awareness broad skill only; the above two perks will work with this skill, but they won't be quite as effective than if you had the proper specializations.)
(NBB: max of three perks)

Obsessed: generally, this flaw means your PC has some sort of "trigger" (a person, place, or thing we have to determine before the start of the game) that possibly (the more points you get from this flaw, the more likely this possibility is) causes him to forget what he's doing or focus entirely on the trigger instead of the matter at hand (no matter how desperate the situation). This is very much like James Bond's very well known reaction to women.
Poor Looks: basically, what it says on the tin: something about your PC (and it doesn't have to involve physical beauty) causes a one-point penalty on any PER checks wherever the flaw might be noticed eg having this flaw involving nose-picking won't matter if, for example, the person your PC's interacting with is blind (until someone tells the blind person about said nose-picking)
Dirt Poor: first, starting funds will be _way_ lower than anyone else who doesn't have this flaw; second, your lower-class background sticks out like a sore thumb to those who care even minimally about that sort of thing eg people of higher social standing, causing a one-point PER penalty in such situations; finally, the flaw creates an NPC to whom your PC owes money and who needs to be paid regularly (or something bad happens)