 January 2, 2014 - 8:29pm | Character Creation Rather than relying on the chance of dice rolls, I've adjusted the rules for character creation such that all the power resides in the player's hands. Following is the modified process for creating a new character. Race Selection and Starting Ability Values The player begins by choosing one of the four races for his/her character (I'm utilizing the original canon races, but these rules can apply to any of the newer races should you so desire). The starting values for each ability is 30, which is then adjusted per the Racial Ability Modifiers: Race Ability Modifier Table
For example, a vrusk character would begin with Strength and Stamina values of 25 (30 - 5), Dexterity and Reaction Speed values of 35 (30 + 5), and the remaining abilities would be 30. Ability Customization Players are then allotted points to raise their character's abilities. Non-human characters are allotted 180 points at the start, and human characters receive 200 (due to the lack of any special racial abilities). These points are spent towards the character's ability values using the following conversion chart: Ability Point Conversion Table
For example, raising a character's Strength ability by one would require one Ability Point, but to raise a character's Stamina by one would require two Ability Points. In addition to raising a character's abilities, the player also has an option of reducing one ability in order to increase their allotted Ability Points. The player can't reduce the ability by more than five, and the amount of Ability Points earned is equivalent to the Conversion Table (for example, reducing Personality by five would result in five Ability Points for use elsewhere, whereas reducing Logic by five would earn the player ten Ability Points). Players can use their Ability Points to customize their character's ability values however they desire, so long as the following rules are met:
Skill Selection Once the player has decided on the character's ability scores, the next step is to customize his/her skills. A character's Expert Skill Area (ESA) represents a skill set of expertise, and it allows the character the opportunity to advance in that particular skill area beyond someone who isn't an expert. Skills and their subsets will be covered in another thread, so for now we'll focus on the number of ESAs permitted for a player. The following table determines the number of ESAs a player can choose for a character: Expert Skill Area Selection
If a player increases a character's Logic score during their lifetime such that an additional ESA is earned, then allow the player to select an additional ESA for the character. After selecting the ESA(s), the player then selects three skills for the character. At least one of the skills must come from the character's selected ESA(s), unless the character has no ESA (Logic below 30). All skills begin at level one. The player has the option of selecting a starting skill at level two rather than one, but to do so would reduce the number of skill selections to two rather than three. |
