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Cerepol
Dec 2, 2011


It's a pretty elaborate joke. More importantly for a joke it's pretty drat complete and somewhat functional, and might make them money? I think at some point it might have stopped being a joke because they made something they are somewhat proud of. They just dress it up with a joke facade with the tone of the book.

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InShaneee
Aug 11, 2006

Cleanse them. Cleanse the world of their ignorance and sin. Bathe them in the crimson of ... am I on speakerphone?
Fun Shoe

Cerepol posted:

I think at some point it might have stopped being a joke because they made something they are somewhat proud of. They just dress it up with a joke facade with the tone of the book.

IIRC, they retroactively said that a lot of the 'jokeyness' of 4th edition was a licensing requirement from WotC, hence why 5th edition is more of a straight-up heartbreaker with some winks and nods thrown in.

Cerepol
Dec 2, 2011


Hello Thread! This here thread has nearly died, I've decided to hopefully get interest flowing again.

Following up on my Hackmaster character I'm going with more retroclones starting this time with Adventurers, Conquerers and Kings, otherwise known as ACKs (pronounced 'axe'). It is notable for being named after the 3 stages of the hero, starting as Adventurers, moving on to the larger scale of Conquering and finally ruling as a King.

Basic Rules:
Standard polyhedral dice set, nothing strange like DCC or whatever when they want people to roll d14s or something.

The system uses standard ability scores STR, DEX, CON, WIS, INT, CHA.

Class is restricted based on ability scores. Scores are rolled 3d6 in order.

No races, any additional non-human race is of course a demi-human class, as is Retroclone approved. Though they do have options, you don't need to be a dwarf, you can be a Dwarven Vaultguard or Dwarven Craftpriest

Creating a Character:

The game has a handy list of steps to follow to create a character so I will follow that. (I'll be rolled actual dice cause its more fun for me)
First off I need to roll scores in order which is STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA.

STR: 9 (±0)
Strength governs the basic stuff, how hard you hit, and how often you hit in melee.

INT: 8 (-1)
This applies to how many skillsProficiencies you get. It also increase the languages you know, and of course how many spell slots you get if you are an intelligence caster. Due to my lack of intelligence (any penalty), I cannot read more than a word or two and only know my native language (which I think means I can ensure I don't known commmon!)

WIS: 7 (-1)
Wisdom is a defensive stat against magical attacks. Gives a bonus to saving throws against magic and magical items.

DEX: 7 (-1)
Dex is once again a great stat, governing AC, Initiative and also Missile weapons (no damage bonus).

CON: 10 (±0)
Con governs your meat value, high value, more meat, low value, less meat.

CHA: 14 (+1)
Gives a bonus to character reaction rolls. As well as leadership values like how many henchman I'm allowed. As well as those henchmens morale. Thankfully this means I can acquire an additional henchmen to cover my inabilities! And he'll be happier!

Well, this is why I hate rolling dice, my rolling has never been strong...

Now I need to find out which classes I qualify for, the guide also mentions that each class has at least one "prime requisite" score that affects experience gain. As well in order to choose that class you need at least a 9 in that score, though some classes might require additional ability scores. Once you have chosen a class you can sac 2 points from any score to raise that classes prime score by 1, though you cannot lower any score below 9.

I'll outline a few of the basic classes such as the fighter briefly. Unfortunately due to "natural language" and a lack of a table, one has to read the paragraphs to figure out what your class can actually do. Codified or titled abilities of the class is too modern or something...

The Fighter
Prime Requisite: STR
Requirements: None
Hit Dice: 1d8
Max Level: 14

THAC0Attack Throw: 10+, I'll explain what this means later.
Proficient in all weapons and armours.
Best progression of Saving throws and attack throws, as well as a class feature of bonus damage.
At level 5, any hirelings recieve +1 morale when you personally lead them!

The Mage
Prime Requisite: INT
Requirements: None
Hit Dice: 1d4
Max Level: 14

Same Attack throw as fighters at level 1, though they progress at half the speed in both Attack throws and saving throws
Proficient only with Quarterstaffs, clubs, daggers and darts. Also no armour.
Gets spell progression up to 6th level spells.
At 5th level gains the ability to research spells, brew potions and scribe scrolls.
At 9th level, the mage can create magic items as well as build a Sanctum and will then attract apprentices.
At 11th level, the mage can ritual cast high level spells (7+), create constructs and create cross-breeds.

At max level the Mage gets 4+Int spells per day of 1st-4th level and 3+Int 5th & 6th levels.

Alright with 2 basic classes shown lets see what I can qualify for.

I can only qualify for STR, CON, and CHA prime requisite classes.

Humans
Fighter : STR
Mage : INT
Cleric : WIS
Thief : DEX
Assassin : STR & DEX
Bard : DEX & CHA
Bladedancer : WIS & DEX
Explorer : STR & DEX
Anti-Paladin*: STR & CHA
Barbarian* : STR & CON
Mystic* : WIS & DEX & CON & CHA (What's that monks require MAD? okay!)
Paladin* : STR & CHA
Priestess* : WIS & CHA
Shaman* : WIS
Venturer* : CHA
Warlock* : INT
Witch* : WIS & CHA

Demi-Humans
Dwarves additionally require Con of 9+
Dwarven Vaultguard : STR
Dwarven Craftpriest: WIS
Dwarven Delver* : DEX
Dwarven Fury* : STR
Dwarven Machinist* : INT & DEX

Elves require Int 9+
Elven Spellsword : STR & INT
Elven Nightblade : DEX & INT
Elven Courtier* : INT & CHA
Elven Enchanter* : INT & CHA
Elven Ranger* : STR & DEX

Gnomes require Con of 9+ and Int of 9+
Gnomish Trickster* : CON & CHA

Nobirs require All scores of 11+
Nobirian Wonderworker*: INT & WIS (Take the best features of each spellcaster and put em in one class, as well as good saving throws and disease immunity)

Thrassians require STR, DEX & CON 9+
Thrassian Gladiator*: STR

Zaharans require INT, WIS & CHA 9+
Zaharan Ruinguard*: STR & INT

*Indicates availible in the supplement of Player's Compendium

Alright so I can qualify for Fighter & Dwarven Vaultguard in the base game, though the Players Compendium opens up a lot of new avenues for me. (Anti-)Paladin & Barbarian, Venturer, Dwarven Fury are also available.

Now as CHA is the only stat I'm at a +1 in, I kind of what to use that leading me to probably the Venturer or some form of Paladin.

The Venturer
Prime Requisite: CHA
Requirements: None
Hit Dice: 1d4
Max Level: 14

The Adventurous merchant that seeks out exotic goods and new markets.
Medium throw advance, that being 2 points every 4 levels in Attack and Saving throws.
Proficient with 1 handed weapons and Missile weapons, Armour is leather or lighter.
Mercantile Network, in any previously explored market, you can treat it as a market of one class higher.
Expert Bargainer, +10% Sell value, -10% Buy value.
Hear Noise, literally the ability to listen to silent areas...
Reading Languages 75% chance to read or decipher any non-magical writings.
+4 to avoid getting lost
+2 when parlaying with Intelligent creatures
Can Bribe to improve diplomacy for +1 bonus at a days pay, +2 for a weeks, +4 for a months pay.
At 8th level, Can cast spells of Arcane nature. Up to 4th level at 14th level.
At 9th level, Can create a guildhouse and attack apprentices.
At 12th level, Can scribe scrolls, brew potions and research spells.

That one sounds like fun so I'll take it.

Now I have my class and my ability scores, so it's time for Feats/Skills in Proficiencies.

Proficiencies
Many are boring and not that interesting, some are fairly powerful.

For my choices I'll probably take Arcane Dabbling (basically use magic device) as it sounds rather handy, as well as a AC bonus with Swashbuckling.

Interestingly enough Spells are rolled for in this game. If I was a spellcaster as this point I would roll to see what spells I start with. Though the game does recommend the GM selects your starting spell. All mages are assumed to be apprenticed, so they gain new spells through 1 week of learning per spell.

With that done all I have left to do is select equipment. Though equipment is a fairly standard AD&D selection, with each character getting 3d6x10 gold. I'd rather not go through looking at each piece of equipment and just assume I'll grab the basic adventuring staples and a scimitar.

The last thing I want to go over which is while not explicitly character related, is the combat round.

Combat
First, you must declare if you are spellcasting or retreating or making a fighting withdrawal.

Second, Initiative is rolled EACH round for each combatant. It also is rolled with a d6 making Dex extremely important for going first.

Next each combatant goes in order of initiative. You can do one of the codified actions
Move & Attack
Delay
Cast a Spell (Must be declared)(Spell is lost if damaged or fails a save before acting)
Fighting Withdrawal (Must be declared)
Retreat (Must be declared)
Charge
Run

After that it restarts until everyone on one side is dead or gone.
The attacking in this game works as 1d20 + Bonuses - Targets AC vs. Attack Throw. Basically THAC0 that's been rearranged. Interestingly enough while I didn't see it mentioned in the Fighter's description, they get automatic cleave on killing a target.

Spells are only subject to saving throws and being interrupted before they can be cast, otherwise they will succeed.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*
I was just thinking of this thread yesterday, wondering if it had fallen to archives yet.

Since it hasn't, let's crack open one of my newer acquisitions and see what we can make...



AMP Year One is a superhero game that purports to be about the first year after the emergence of superpowered individuals. Basically back in the 1920s a bunch of scientists got together, managed to generate superpowers in people via an unpleasant process, and then discovered that powers were hereditary and subject to genetic drift. They then formed a super-conspiracy that went around tracing family trees and administering the Antidote (their capitals) to ensure no super-mutants were running around blowing up buildings with their mind.

Unfortunately the conspiracy kind of fell apart in 2014, so 2015 is 'Year One' - people's natural mutant powers are starting to manifest, and everything is going to hell.

It's not a bad premise for a setting, but the mechanics do nothing to support it so I'm left a bit underwhelmed.

But! We're not here for that. We're here for a character.

Step 1: Concept and Loyalties
My character concept is Supergoon. After catching a ban for his E/N meltdown, Supergoon was so filled with righteous fury that he underwent a psychotic break and woke up in hospital, the last week a blank, and oh by the way now he has superpowers.

Loyalties are just things which the character cares about. When trying to act against a loyalty you have to make a roll or be compelled to remain loyal, and if your loyalties screw with the plot you get XP. (Pretty standard stuff for a modern storygame.) The various loyalties also each come with their own benefit, like the useful skills of your Love or favours from your Comrades.

You get 10 points to drop into loyalties, with a max of 5 in any one:
  • Supergoon obviously has Loyalty: Self 5. This adds +5 to any checks to avoid death or survive near-death experiences. Supergoon can just re-reg and keep on posting.
  • He also has Loyalty: Truth 4, which helps him uncover the truth. He believes in pure reason - and when that fails, doxxing.
  • And for a faint hint of hope, Supergoon has Loyalty: Humanity 1. He's just a little bit better at helping people out, saving lives, etc., because buried beneath that neckbeard and fedora and about 150 extra lbs is a basically decent guy.

In this section you also choose your Affiliation. You can choose no affiliation, in which case you get more bonus points later on, or you can pick a side to join and gain their bonuses in lieu of a handful of points. Unaffiliated is a natural option for Supergoon, but I think Changeling would be more interesting - Changelings believe that following their expression they are no longer human, and Supergoon is totally ready to drink the homo superior Kool-aid.

This nets him a +3 bonus on Stealth checks and a 3 Bonus Point (BP) Hideout - which is obviously Mom's basement. He'll have 12 BP to spend on extras later.


Step 2: Skills
You get 35 points to drop on the 22 skills. Skills have a max rank of 10, but a sidebar recommends limiting beginner characters to 5. Since Supergoon is a noob at life, we'll stick more or less to that. After throwing some points around we end up with:

Beast Handling +0 (Cats +2)
Crafts +1 (Scale Model Anime Robots +3)
Deception +4
Discipline +3
Fighting +0 (Hanzo Steel +2)
Fortitude +2 (Raid Stamina +4)
Intuition +4
Knowledge +5
Persuasion +2
Stealth +4 (It Worked For Solid Snake! +6)
Technology +7
Travel +0 (Horses +2)

The things in parentheses are specialties - these are good for a further +2 bonus in that particular area of the skill. I've also already included his Changeling bonus in Stealth.


Step 3: Strain, Powers and Augments
It's superpower time! Broadly speaking Strain is the type of superhero a character is - a brick, a teleporter, a shapeshifter, etc. Powers are linked to your strain, and you can have up to three at character creation. Your primary power must be from your strain but the other two don't need to be. However, out-of-strain powers cost more XP to raise. Augments are special effects for powers, letting you customise your character's powers so not all bricks (for example) are the same.

For strain I make Supergoon a Mindbender. This covers all the Professor-X-style powers of telepathy, mind control, illusions, and being really clever. I figure Supergoon is going to be pulling heavily from these powers so we might as well set him up for a good future.

I have six points to spend on up to three powers. The primary is capped at 10, the secondary at 7, and the tertiary at 4, none of which I need to worry about at chargen. I give Supergoon:

  • Primary: Authority 3. This is mind control, from the Mindbender strain.
  • Secondary: Technopathy 2. This is control of machines and devices, from the Shaper strain.
  • Tertiary: Brainiac 1. Super-intelligence, from the Mindbender strain again.

This grants Supergoon the basic abilities of being able to influence people around him (+Authority to Intimidation and Persuasion checks, spend Juice to issue short commands), being kind of clever (+Brainiac to Knowledge and Technology checks, get bonuses when using items he's built himself), and being good with electronics and computers and poo poo (+Technopathy to Technology, +Technopathy/2 to techy Crafts, and can psychically assemble complex devices in seconds).

Supergoon also gets an augment at every even-numbered power level - so, one in Authority and one in Technopathy. For Authority I take Telepathic, so Supergoon can sit in smug silence while telling people to get out. For Technopathy I take Wireless, which gives Supergoon an always-on connection to the internet.

Step 4: Bonus Points
It's the merits and flaws section! As a purestrain min-maxer, Supergoon is going to take the maximum 10 BP of drawbacks in order to get better superpowers.

Gifts
  • Library (5 points, for +10 to research checks) - I figured this was the best way to represent an always-on psychic internet connection.
  • Hideout (3 points, free with Changeling affiliation) - I split this across the sub-categories of Defences (2) and Workshop (1), which grants a -4 penalty for people trying to find the place and a +2 bonus for anyone trying to make a Crafts check with things that might be found in a gooncave. The subcategories I skipped are Entries (0 means one way in/out) and Size (0 makes it about the size of the back of a van).
  • +1 Brainiac (3 points)
  • +1 Authority (3 points)
  • Light Sleeper (2 points) - Supergoon's Red Bull intake has left him wired at pretty much all times.
  • Untraceable (3 points) - Supergoon covers his identity well, giving people a -6 penalty to attempts to trace him.
  • Wealthy (4 points) - Supergoon was an early adopter of Bitcoins.
  • Pet (2 points) - Gooncat is trained to accept three commands: 'infiltrate', 'off-tank', and 'poo poo'.

The bonuses to Brainiac and Authority also come with a free augment each (since they hit even levels). For Brainiac I take Recalculate which lets Supergoon cover for his mistakes by rerolling them, and for Authority I take Many Minds which lets him tell up to [Authority] people to get out at the same time.

Drawbacks
  • Big Mouth (-2) - he can't shut the gently caress up.
  • Combat Fear (-2) - gives a -4 Initiative penalty.
  • Shy (-3) - gives penalties to Persuasion when trying to lead a crowd or talk to someone you fancy.
  • Poor Hygiene (-3) - -3 penalty to social checks where having good hygiene is important, and a +6 bonus to anyone trying to track him by scent.

Step 5: Integrity, Juice and Movement
Integrity is hit points, and works pretty much exactly like nWoD's health bar. Supergoon starts with 12 Integrity (10 + his Fortitude of 2).

Juice is the 'mana' stat - you spend it to power your abilities. It's tied to adrenaline, so after a rest every AMP resets to 3 Juice (max 10) - but if you need more, danger will cause your Juice to spike! So getting into fights generates the power you need to win at fights.

A couple of notes here: First, Supergoon is kind of stuffed because he's terrible in a fight and most of his powers are non-combatative.

Second, because Juice is tied to adrenaline there are a handful of ways to gain it without getting into a fight, including but not limited to: falling from a great height, working out, discovering a terrible secret, "sexual activity", and artificial stimulants. And I really like the idea of an intellectual hero thinking "I need more brainpower to solve this mystery - so I'm going to get jacked up on amphetamines."

Or in Supergoon's case, charging his mind control powers by necking a six-pack of Monster and wanking himself into a frenzy.

Yeah, now I think about it, this is far and away the best bit of this game. What would you do to get your hit?

(A tertiary note for metagamers: because you get Juice whenever a Loyalty comes under threat, or is harmed, even a single point in Loyalty: Self will ensure a ready supply.)

Movement is what it says, and is based heavily on three skills Supergoon does not have: Athletics, Might, and Speed.

As such, Supergoon can walk or jog at 5 feet per round. If he sprints he can go at 75 feet per round. He climbs at 2.5 feet per round if he makes a successful check using two skills he doesn't have. From a standing start he can jump 4 feet across or 2 feet straight up. He can't swim.

How long is a round? About 10 seconds. A swift bit of calculation (5280 feet in a mile, 600 rounds in an hour) gives us a walking speed of 0.6 mph and a sprinting speed of 8.5 mph - or alternatively, a 100-yard dash speed of 40 seconds.

Contrariwise, Usain Bolt can clock 300 feet in 10 seconds (if he stops for a bite to eat along the way) which means his Athletics and Speed are rated at +10 each (human maximum). Not so far off, right?

Wrong. My 70-year-old mother, with her stately walking speed of 3 mph, covers 15840 feet in an hour of gentle strolling. That works out to 26.4 feet per 10-second round, or a rating of +11 in both Athletics and Speed - so theoretically she should be able to out-sprint Mr Bolt (whose walking speed can be calculated at a positively snail-like 2.8 mph).

I swear, 'movement speeds' is always the place to look if you're searching for game designers failing to understand human capabilities.

P.S. With those stats my mother could pull a 22-foot long jump with a running start. Or a 10-foot high jump. My next AMP character is going to be geriatric Batman.

So we have our final character sheet:

quote:

Handle: Supergoon
Name: Supergoon, Mom!
Description: Supergoon
Personality: Supergoon, but maybe redeemable

Primary Strain: Mindbender
Starting Juice: 3
Affiliation: Changeling

Skills
Beast Handling +0 (Cats +2)
Crafts +1 (Scale Model Anime Robots +3, further +1 with Technopathy)
Deception +4
Discipline +3
Fighting +0 (Hanzo Steel +2)
Fortitude +2 (Raid Stamina +4)
Intimidation +0 (+4 with Authority)
Intuition +4
Knowledge +5 (+7 with Brainiac)
Persuasion +2 (+6 with Authority)
Stealth +4 (It Worked For Solid Snake! +6)
Technology +7 (+11 with Brainiac and Technopathy)
Travel +0 (Horses +2)

Loyalties
Self 5
The Truth 4
Humanity 1

Powers
Primary
Authority 4
Bonuses to influencing people, issue short commands with Juice expenditure, helps him resist mind control
Augments: Telepathy, Many Minds

Secondary
Technopathy 2
Bonuses to techy stuff, able to rapidly assemble complex devices.
Augments: Wireless

Tertiary
Brainiac 2
Knows a bunch of things.
Augments: Recalculate

Gifts
Library (5)
Hideout (3) - Defences 2, Workshop 1, Size 0, Entries 0
Light Sleeper (2)
Untraceable (3)
Wealthy (4)
Gooncat (2)

Drawbacks
Big Mouth (-2)
Combat Fear (-2)
Shy (-3)
Poor Hygiene (-3)

Combat and Misc
Initiative +0
Integrity 12
Juice 3/10
Walk 5 ft/round
Sprint 75 ft/round
Carry/Lift 50 lbs/100 lbs
Strength Bonus +0

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
Sprint at 15 times walking speed is pretty silly. Walking 5ft in 10 seconds is really silly. Most people can go faster than that on their knees.

Sprint being a fixed multiplier of walking speed is pretty dumb in general now I think about it. Something like walk being fixed at 5m/round and sprint being 5*(Athletics+Speed) might make more sense. Your fat goon can't even run for 10 seconds, so he just waddles 5m. A regular dude who works out can do about 40-50m. Usain bolt is about the peak of human potential, so he can cover about 100m even without a proper start.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*
I think pretty much any game which tries to tie movement speed down to a fixed number of 'feet per round' falls apart somewhere. In fact, this is probably true of all simulationist games - you could probably design a system to accurately derive a speed from general athletic potential, but at that point you're doing actual biology and it still won't work as well in play as a broad system of 'near enough to touch, near enough to throw things at, near enough to shoot'.

Roadie
Jun 30, 2013
Here's some Central Casting: Heroes for Tomorrow.

Why? Why not?

Like back in Central Casting: Heroes of Legend, Heroes for Tomorrow isn't a game, but instead a book-length lifepath generator for all kinds of genres. And, just like in Heroes of Legend (where random rolls got me a magical construct werewolf lizardwoman royal criminal with hypnotic powers who was chosen as an agent on earth by a god and given a winged walking fish with X-ray vision by him), Heroes for Tomorrow can come up with some completely batshit results.

Sadly, the game makes me choose what kind of scifi future: Tarnished Tomorrows (Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, etc), The Final Frontier (duh), Imperial Space (also duh), and Post Holocaust (perhaps a poor choice of name, and the category for Fallout, Gamma World, and whatever). But, to keep in spirit here, I'll roll for it anyway!

Future: 1d4 -> 2. The Final Frontier has a FutMod ("how fancy is this scifi?" modifier) of 1d6+6, means that future-specific events use Table 526: Final Frontier Events, and mean that if this character gets a personal spaceship as part of the table rolling, only a 6 on 1d6 will make it up to date and otherwise it's an outdated clunker.

FutMod: 1d6+6 -> 10. This means literally nothing by itself, other than suggesting that this character will probably come from somewhere fancy.

And here comes the first real table: character race, with a 1d10 roll. "Human" takes up 1 to 7, "Mutant Human" is the result on an 8, and only a 9-10 gets any kind of aliens at all. In fact, only a 9 or 10, then a 1, then another 1 gets a humanlike alien. Other options on the "Alien being" section include things like amphibians, Kzintibestial aliens, cetaceans, and Hortanon-organic aliens. Still, rubber forehead aliens seem awfully rare for something supposedly intended for Star Trek style games, among other things.

Table 101: Character Race: 1d10 -> 7. Human! So close to something more exciting. Dang.

Next comes a random table that determines the Tech Level of this character's culture. Since it goes from 1 to 20 and I'm adding that FutMod to the roll, it'll probably be pretty high.

Table 102A: Tech Level: 1d20+10 -> 26. This gets a Mixed Technology result. This tells me to...
Roll again, without FutMod: 1d20 -> 14. The character's culture is experiencing the Third Stellar Age. This includes hand-held lasers, antimatter power plants, FTL communications, humanoid robots, and small interstellar ships. It doesn't include widespread antigravity or energy shields. I guess this is Babylon 5 level, maybe. This result gives 22 "Education Points" (e.g. skill points and crap), and the 14 result also becomes the character's TekMod. But because of that high result I also...
Roll d6 for a special modifier: 1d6 -> 4. This tells me that something important about the culture's technology is more typical of a lower Tech Level ("say, steam-powered space ships"). I'm not sure what would fit yet! I'll see what else I roll.
Literacy: 1d100 (trying to get 95 or under) -> 1. The character is literate! Yay! Maybe they are super literate, I dunno.

Next is a table that determines what kind of culture the character has. This is actually nearly identical to the same one from Heroes of Legend, except that it has a couple of extra entries added for your Federation and Foundation games. For this we roll and add the TekMod from above.

Table 102B: Culture: 1d100+14 -> 71. This is (just barely) a Decadent culture. This is Space Late Imperial Rome, or maybe Solaria from the Honor Harrington books (except not completely helpless against even the most minor barbarians at the gates). This gives a CuMod of 8, 5 ranks of "Survival Skills", and another 2d6 Education Points. Being decadent also means this character gets 1d3 additional ranks of Urban Survival, and gives another special roll...
More Education Points: 2d6 -> 9.
More Urban Survival: 1d3 -> 1.
Special roll: 1d6 -> 6. This gives 1d3 "Darkside" traits from Table 643C: Darkside Traits, one "Neutral" trait from Table 643B: Neutral Traits, and one exotic personality trait from Table 644: Exotic Personality Traits.

Yay, more tables to roll on before we even know what age, profession, or social class this character is! :downs:

1d3 rolls: 1d3 -> 2.
First roll on Table 643C: Darkside Traits: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 11. The character is an egoist: they have a "selfish concern for own welfare".
Second roll on Table 643C: Darkside Traits: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 15. The character is thoughtless, and "rarely thinks of others".

So, basically any of the characters from a teen comedy movie.

Roll on Table 643B: Neutral Traits: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 31. Leader. The character "takes initiative, can take command".
Roll on Table 644: Exotic Personality Traits: First is 1d20 -> 12. This tells me this is a Behavior Tag. Then (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 38 indicates the character is a Pet Lover who "has many pets" and "may focus on a type of animal, cats, dogs, giant amoebae, etc". This is a Lightside trait, because everybody loves crazy cat ladies!

Now we go all the way back to Table 103: Social Status to figure out this character's social class. This is another d100 roll, modified by the CuMod from the Culture roll above (+8), and it gives me even more modifiers for other rolls.

Table 103: Social Status: 1d100+8 -> 101. This character is part of the Nobility! This means even more tables to roll on. First, though, it gives a +30% to literacy chance (oops, already rolled that, but it's not like it matters now), it gives +1d6 Education Points, and a 50% chance to have another Exotic Personality Trait.
Even more Education Points: 1d6 -> 5.
Another weird trait?: 1d2, 1 means "yes": 1, yes!

So now we hop back over to the traits tables.

Roll on Table 644: Exotic Personality Traits: First is 1d20 -> 17. This tells me this is a Sexual Disorder. :getin: Note that sexual disorders don't, unlike Heroes of Legend, automatically make you more evil! So what angst-driving sexual disorder does this character have? What dark secret do they not dare reveal lest they be considered "abnormal, even evil and unclear" and "persecuted and punished"? Well, 2d8 -> 15 indicates the character is... xenophiliac, "sexually excited by alien beings".

Wait, isn't that just Captain Kirk?

Now we go to Table 749: Nobles to figure out what kind of nobility this character is. This is a set of rolls: character gender (tangentially important for exact title of address), rank of noble, and sphere of influence. It's specifically noted that a player charater is not actually a noble, but instead the child of the rolled noble, who gets the bonuses from that rank of nobility but no personal power. It's also noted that the character gets +1d4 Charisma as long as people know they're of Noble birth.

Gender: 1d2 -> 2. Female!
Table 749A: Noble Notes: 1d100 -> 6. Daddy (or maybe Mommy) is a Khan! This is "powerful nomad", "ruler of a great tribe or tribal federation", and between King and Archduke on the table. Note that nomadic societies have a separate culture entry from Decadent, so maybe that's a different culture from the one the character grew up in. Anyway, this is pretty nice, and gives a 5d8 TiMod (which is added to the influence roll).
TiMod: 5d8 -> 20.
Table 749B: Sphere of Influence: 1d100+20 -> 101. Interplanetary. Whatever khanate this character originates from influences an entire star system, either from control or renown.

Now we go... back to Table 103: Social Status to reroll it for actual wealth! This time we're adding that TiMod, though.

Table 103: Social Status: 1d100+8+20 -> 96. The character is Wealthy. This also means a second roll...
Extremely Wealthy? 1d100, trying to get less than or equal to than TiMod (20): 20. Yes! Extremely Wealthy! This adds another +50% to literacy chance, a 30% chance to speak 1d4 other languages, enough wealth to start with anything up to and including a small spaceship, plenty of spending money even when out and about ("this should be limited to 20x the normal starting money"), another +3d6 Education Points, and a SolMod (Social Level Modifier) of 10 for Extremely Wealthy plus 5 for Noble for a total of 15.
More languages?: 1d100, trying to get 30 or under: 70. Nope. No free languages.
Even even more Education Points: 3d6 -> 11.

Now we get to the Birth & Family section, where we actually start to find out stuff about this character instead of just finding out that she's an ultra-wealthy xenophiliac thoughtless egoist pet lover noble khan's daughter from a decadent culture!

Table 104A: Birth Legitimacy: 1d20 -> 14 tells me the character is a legitimate birth (19-20 mean illegitimate, which modifies assorted other stuff).
Table 104B: The Family: 1d20 -> 7 tells me the character was raised by one parent, and 1d2 -> 1 tells me it was her father.
Table 104C: Siblings & Birth Order: 1d6-1 -> 3 tells me that 3 siblings have "survived birth". Yes, there's no modifiers for this for being in a shiny scifi future. Now a 1d6 -> 4 and then a 1d2 -> 1 tells me that this character is firstborn among those siblings. That means she's in line for inheritance of that khanate should dear Daddy die of some unfortunate accident arranged by some theoretical thoughtless egoist decadent character.

Table 105A: Home Worlds: 1d10 -> A colony world "at the fringe of civilization" is the character's home world.
Table 105B: World Types: 1d10 -> It's an artificial world "constructed by sentient beings", which suggests some kind of alien artifact or something, since the tech level isn't high enough for that.

Now we go to Place of Birth, which has all kinds of weird results ("in a brothel (this does not necessarily indicate that the character's mother was a prostitute)" and "in the temple of an evil or malignant cult" are two of my favorites). First we roll for a general place of birth, adding Tech Level (not TekMod, just the tech level).

Table 105C: Place of Birth: 2d8+14 -> 17. This means the character was born in an exotic location. Yay! I love how weird those exotic locations are.
Table 105D: Exotic Places: 1d20 -> 19. "Roll twice more on this table. Combine the results (and BiMods) in a workable way." Well, uh, okay... 1d20 -> 14 is "born within the gravitation effects of a black hole", with a BiMod of 25. 1d20 -> 16 is "in another dimension", with a BiMod of 25, with a footnote that "character was then transported to this world 1d4 years after birth" (and I roll for that and get 1d4 -> 3). Ahaha what the gently caress? So I guess this character spent her first few years being raised by the Prophets from DS9 or something?

And with a total BiMod of +50, I'm literally guaranteed to get something on the next set of tables, Unusual Births.

Table 106A: Birth Circumstances: 1d100+50 -> 137. This means that there were five "unusual occurances" surrounding this character's birth, 1d3 of them that the character doesn't know the truth about.
Mystery!: 1d3 -> 1 mysterious occurence.
Table 106B: Birth Events first event: 1d100 -> 96.
Table 106B: Birth Events second event: 1d100 -> 59.
Table 106B: Birth Events third event: 1d100 -> 57.
Table 106B: Birth Events fourth event: 1d100 -> 63.
Table 106B: Birth Events fifth and MYSTERIOUS event: 1d100 -> 94.

I... just... hahaha, wow.







So this character is not just an ultra-wealthy noble, she's a psychic cyborg ultra-wealthy noble who may be the Kwisatz Haderach and was visited by a mysterious stranger bearing gifts upon her birth in another dimension before being raised by wormhole aliens for three years.

I expected nothing less from Central Casting.

Well, I have more tables to roll now!

First is that gift. To start with I roll 1d6 -> 3, so the character doesn't know who gave that gift. Now I'll roll for the actual gift...

Table 864: Gifts & Legacies: 1d20 -> 2. "The guardianship of a young ward." Wait, what the hell? I, um, what, how? At birth? Well, I'll go over and roll on...
Table 752A: Companions: 1d10 -> 5, "a robot or computer". But, wait, that's not a ward! Now this sends me over to...
Table 750A: Artificial Persons: 1d20 -> 14 tells me that this is a "War Machine", and with that I roll on...
Table 750B: Intelligence Levels: 1d10 -> 6 tells me that it's "Self Aware", and...
Table 750C: Body Types: 1d20+1d10 -> 6 tells me that it's "Machine-like", and its "form and appearance are tailored to its function".

I decide right now that this is a mini-Bolo, or maybe a sarcastic teenage comedy relief version of the Tachikomas from Ghost in the Shell. In any case it is a self-aware space tank that this character was trained in the operation of as a toddler by wormhole aliens.

Now I figure out who died when this character was born. Oooh, spooky!

Table 104D: Other Relations: 2d8 -> 13. Great Grandparent. I guess this character is supposedly the reincarnation of great grandmammy khaness or something.

But what cyborg parts does the character have? I flip over to Bionics and roll 1d3 -> 3 for the number of bionic parts.

Table 861A: Replacement Parts: 2d8 -> 16 tells me that the character has a partial artificial brain. I, um, I, okay, I guess. I don't even know what the gently caress. I haven't looked at this table before so I hadn't realized that was a result. Wow.
Table 861B: Function: 1d10 -> 10 means that the partial artificial brain grants superhuman powers. This "enhances any skills or attributes that may be affected by it by 1d3x1d6 Ranks/points". I guess that's, uhh, most of them? But it has a 15% malfunction chance, which basically means that from this point on at least fifteen percent of the time the character will devolve into comical/saddening uncoordinated flailing and/or seizures when her brain fails in the middle of a fight.
Table 861C: Device Appearance: 1d10 -> 8 means that this part "duplicate(s) life", and is completely indistinguishable from the living body part. WORMHOLE ALIEN MAGIC!
Nervous system enhancement: 1d3 x 1d6 -> 9 ranks enhancement for anything to do with the brain. Which I guess is basically any mental skill.

Now for the second part.

Table 861A: Replacement Parts: 2d8 -> 5 tells me that the character has two artificial eyes.
Table 861B: Function: 1d10 -> 4 means that the artificial eyes duplicate the original. But they still have a 5% malfunction chance.
Table 861C: Device Appearance: 1d10 -> 4 means that this is an "obvious machine" - basically Geordi's eyes from First Contact or weird irises or chrome cueball eyes or something. It doesn't give any penalties, so it's not outright ugly, just strange.

Now for the third part.

Table 861A: Replacement Parts: 2d8 -> 11 tells me that the character has an artificial heart.
Table 861B: Function: 1d10 -> 9 means that this artificial heart exceeds the performance of the original, and "enhances any skills or attributes that may be affected by it by 1d3 Ranks/points". It also has a 10% malfunction chance when used in a stress situation.
Table 861C: Device Appearance: 1d10 -> 7 means that this, like the nervous system, "duplicates life".
Heart enhancement: 1d3 -> 2 points enhancement for anything to do with the heart, which I'm going to assume means basically any physical skill.

So, I just have to say here, the whole "mlafunction in stress situation" thing is stupid as poo poo, and possibly the only thing so far in this book that's made me frown at the stupidity instead of giggle at the stupidity. I'm going to just ignore it and pretend that it doesn't exist, because not only is a malfunctioning heart basically a death sentence for anybody, but having something like a 32% chance in every "stress situation" for some random vital body to malfunction (even if it's a temporary disabling instead of harmful way) just degenerates everything into asurdist slapstick, like how in games with critical miss tables there will inevitably be 1% of each army in a pitched battle cutting off their own heads each round.

Anyway, now it's time to get back on the train and roll up a tragedy!

Table 520A: Tragic Result: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 39, "the character's home is destroyed along with all personal belongings". A roll of 1d6 -> 3 means the Social Status remains the same, though. Clearly that's why it's now an interplanetary khanate instead of a planetary khanate! Space war! :woot: (I actually rerolled a bunch on this because almost none of these actually make sense as something to have happened before the character was born.)

And now for those psionics. I roll 1d3 -> 2 for the number of them. I flip over to Psionics for the first one...

Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 13 means the first power is Mind Block.



The number in the brackets there is the Strength cost to manifest this - yep, it's basically self-invoked ability damage, which makes these powers in the Central Casting mini-system nearly useless most of the time unless you put most or all of your skill ranks into them. (It does note that "If the game system being used has rules for psionic abilities, use the power or powers that most closely match those selected from the table below", though.) Each power can have points put into it like a skill, at least, to reduce the Strength burn.

And for the second power...

Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 19 means reroll time! Yes, like, half the tables in this book have reroll clauses. Now I roll 1d3+1 -> 4 for 4 more powers. The first of the four rerolls:

Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 6 means the second power is Psychic Healing.



I'm pretty sure now that this character is the Space Messiah, except as Cher from Clueless.

Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 19 means reroll time, again! Dang. Okay. Uh. I roll 1d3+1 -> 3, so now I have 5 more rolls to do.

Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 12 is Mind Block again. Rather than adding another instance of it, it adds 1d3 -> 2 ranks to it.

Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 8 is Persuasion.



Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 11 is Teleportation.



Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 9 is Telekinesis.



Table 862: Psionic Power: 1d20 -> 5 is Clairvoyance III.



...Wait, does that brain enhancement mean all of these get +9 ranks automatically? After all, they're all things that "may be affected" by having a super brain. I'm going to assume yes, because that's pretty hilarious. Oh, hey, and there's the +2 ranks from the heart, given that using them drains Strength!

So now that the character is done getting loaded up on cyborg parts, wormhole alien magic, and self-aware space tanks gifted from mysterious strangers, I'm going to zoom all the way back to Table 107: Parents & NPCs. Since Mary Sue here has only one parent, I'll roll for her father.

Table 863: Appearances: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 28. Dad is "unusually muscular", with "a body like a professional weight-lifter".

Table 107A: Occupations: 1d20 -> 10. Daddy dearest has one full-time occpation and one part-time occupation. Now I roll for both, one with social modifiers for the full-time occupation and one without for the part-time.
Table 413A: Occupations: 1d10+15 -> 18 means... a roll on another table.
Table 413E: Occupation Table IV: 1d20 -> 5 means he's a clergyman. Now I roll on...
Table 537A: Religions: 1d20 -> 6 means that he's a clergyman of a splinter faith of a universal monotheistic church.
Table 53B7: How It Begins: 1d10 -> 9 means that he converted to that religion after a chance encounter.
Table 53B7: How It Begins: 1d3 -> 3 gives 3 events. 1d20 -> 9 and then 1d10 -> 5 show that when he joined the religion, he became a devoted follower of the faith's principles. 1d20 -> 2 mean that at some point he made a pilgrimage to "an important but distant shrine of the religion, possibly on another planet". 1d20 -> 19 mean that he studied the priesthood for 1d4 -> 3 years, gaining 2 ranks of literacy skills and 3 ranks of religious knowledge.

I'm pretty sure Dad is the Space Khan Pope.

Table 413A: Occupations: 1d10 -> 2 is, yes, a roll on another table.
Table 413B: Occupation Table I: 1d20 -> 11 means that Dad is a part-time soldier. Now I go over to Table 530: Military Experience to figure out his experience...
Table 532A: Branch of Service: 1d4 -> 3 means Space Navy. Space Navy is the best navy. And 1d6 -> 3 means Space Fighter Pilot. I'm going to assume that this actually means Ship Captain, because, like, goddamn, man, he's a Khan! A Khan with a planet!
Table 533A/B: Military Rank: 1d10+15 -> 24 means that his rank is "Planetary ruler". That's dang right! This would give a bonus to SolMod, except it's already maxed out at 15. It also gives dear old Dad direct command of 50,000 men during any events that pop up under Military Experience. This actually worked out well, because basically any other roll would have been nonsensical with the whole Khan thing already rolled up.



Table 534: Military Skills: First, Dad automatically gets Rank 2 in a ranged combat weapon, Rank 1 in martial arts, and +1 rank to Wilderness Survival. Then a 1d10 -> 10 on Combat Skills increases his ranged combat weapon use by 1d3 -> 1 rank, a 1d10 -> 3 on Special Survival skills gives him Rank 3 Camouflage & Concealment, a 1d10 -> 4 on Special Survival gives him Rank 3 Trailing ("following someone unseen", not navigating trails), a 1d10 -> 5 on Combat Skills gives Rank 3 Military Strategy (and a floating +1/-1 bonus that can be used on Table 531 if it ever comes up), a 1d10 -> 1 on Space Skills gives Rank 3 Space Piloting, and a 1d10 -> 7 gives Rank 3 Null-G ("function normally in little or no gravity").
Table 539: In the Service Of...: 1d10 -> 6 tells me that the army he's a part of serves the senior officials of the land. Uh, duh, that's him.
Table 530: Military Experience: There are 1d3 -> 3 notable events during Dad's term of service.
Table 530: Military Events: 1d20 -> 15 means he's promoted one rank. Given that he's already a "planetary ruler", this bumps him up to "interplanetary ruler", who "conquer[ed] several neighboring ... planets".
Table 530: Military Events: 1d20 -> 12 means that his troops are involved in numerous skirmishes. And a 1d10 -> 8 means we get the results of one of those from another table!
Table 531: Battle Events: I roll 1d20 -> 14 for Dad, versus 1d20 -> 10 for enemies. Dad wins, but his best friend dies at his side during the battle. Wait, was this how Mom died? :(:
Table 530: Military Events: 1d20 -> 2 means that a major battle happened.
Table 531: Battle Events: I roll 1d20+1 -> 20 for Dad, versus 1d20 -> 5 for enemies. Dad wins, and in fact he wins so well that he performs "a successful heroic mission that did real damage to the enemy's ability to wage war" and ends the war in 1d6 -> 6 months.

Now, with all the military stuff over, we go back to more lighthearted things! Maybe! I hope!

Table 107B: Noteworthy Items: 1d3 -> 2 means two noteworthy items. For the first, 1d20 -> 7 means he has an "unusual ability or physical feature". For the second, 1d20 -> 3 means he devotes time for a hobby. Now I have to go and roll on...
Table 859: Talents, Mutations, & Modifications: 1d20 -> 12 means that Dad has a unique talent, and 1d8 -> 1 means that it's Blind Trust: "Other beings want to trust the character as if he were their best friend." Okay, that's, uh, that's kind of spooky. Gotta say.
Table 419A: Type of Hobby: 1d20 -> 13 means that Dad's hobby is gameplaying. 1d8 -> 8 means that it's roleplay gaming.

:hurr:

Table 419B: Degree of Interest: 1d20 -> 5 means this is a "sporadic and variable hobby" that the character will spend 1% of his total income (that's still a crapload, what with being Extremely Wealthy).
Table 419C: Hobby Proficienciy: 1d4 -> 4 means that dad has Rank 4 Roleplaying skill. As a Sporadic and Variable Hobby, it gets no modifier to that.

Okay, uh, that's enough about the interplanetary ruler ultra-rich space navy captain khan pope with psychic charm pheremones. Let's get back to the superhuman psychic cyborg ultra-wealthy noble khan's daughter who has a self-aware space tank for a companion and was raised by wormhole aliens for three years.

Well, next is Table 208: Significant Events of Childhood and Adolescence. First, I roll 1d3 -> 2 for 2 significant events during childhood (ages 1 to 12), then 1d3 -> 3 for 3 significant events during adolescence (13 to 18). For each of these events, I roll on a big table with SolMod as a modifier.

Table 208: Events: 1d20+15 -> 16. 1d3 -> 1 more Significant Events occur. :hurr: Yes, it's a reroll option that doesn't even guarantee actually adding another event.

Table 208: Events: 1d20+15 -> 24. A special age-specific event occurs at age 1d12 -> 11, for which I go over to...
Table 209A: Special Events of Childhood: 1d20 -> 11 means that the character becomes well-known for some event during her life, which is indicated by rerolling.
Table 312A: Personality Trait Check: 1d100 -> 97 means that the fame made her develop an Exotic Personality Feature.
Table 644A: Exotic Feature Categories: 1d20 -> 11 means it is a Behavior Tag.
Table 644E: Behavior Tags: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 27 means that it left her Bloodthirsty, a Darkside trait.
Table 209A: Special Events of Childhood: 1d20 -> 19 means the event was one that would normally affect an adolescent, so I roll on...
Table 209B: Special Events of Adolescence: 1d20 -> 9. While on a school trip to her planet's capitol city, the character has an unusual encounter, for which I roll on...
Table 524: Group Encounters: 1d6 -> 5.



:(: And that has a Darkside effect on her.

Table 542B: Other Events: 1d20 -> 18. "The deceased was declared legally dead after having disappeared years ago, but may actually be alive." Wait, what? Is this going to be one of those things where the childhood friend reappears some day as RoboCop?

Table 208: Events: 1d20+15 -> 10. At age 1d12 -> 10, the character develops jaded tastes for exotic and possibly expensive pleasures. This counts as a Darkside trait, and reinforces my view of this character as Space Messiah Kwizatz Haderach Cher.

Table 208: Events: 1d20+15 -> 20. Roll again! But this time with just a +2 instead of adding SolMod.
Table 208: Events: 1d20+2 -> 6. At age 12, the character has a misadventure on another planet, for which I roll on...
Table 312A: Personality Trait Check: 1d100 -> 71 tells me the event has a Lightside effect on her, for which I roll on...
Table 643A: Lightside Traits: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 33 means she is Wise, and "understands what is right, true, or lasting".
Table 522A: Other Worlds: 2d8 -> 14 tells me it's an artificial world (ringworld, Dyson sphere, etc), and...
Table 522B: Reason for Being Here: 1d10 -> 4 tells me that it was a religious pilgrimage, and...
Table 522C: Otherworld Events: 2d8 -> 15.



I need an image of that HA HA guy with an "all the loot!" caption.

So, now, I need to go roll on even more tables. I roll 1d4 -> 4 for the number of "Gifts and Legacies" she recovers.

Table 855: Techno-Wonders: 1d20 -> 3 gives a result of Battle Armor, which "protects against damage and the vacuum of space, enhances physical abilities, and provides several types of weaponry". It goes nicely with the self-aware space tank she already has! :hurr:

Table 854: Gifts and Legacies: 1d20 -> 12 gives an old but functional space ship. Now, remember this is a The Final Frontier future, so a 1d6 -> 6 tells me that, in fact, it's actually up to modern standards instead of outdated. The details are rolled on...
Table 866A: Ship Type: 1d20 -> 17 says that it's a Destroyer, a "small but well-armed military ship".
Table 866B: Space Capabilities: 1d20 -> 10 says that it's a short range interstellar ship, which can "travel to nearby stars only".
Table 866C: Armament: 1d20 -> 16 says that it's a well-armed ship, with "fair offensive strike capability".
Table 866D: Special Features: 1d20 -> 14 says that it has "special defenses", which are "one step better than those found on similar ships".
Table 866E: Liabilities: 1d20 -> 14 means that the ship is "very old, possibly dating back to the beginning of star travel".

Table 854: Gifts and Legacies: 1d20 -> 3 gives an Unusual Pet, with details rolled on...
Table 751A: Special Pet Types: 1d20 -> 20 means that it's an alien creature, which is reminiscent of 1d20 -> 16 a mini-dragon. Wait, what? Why the hell is that even on this table? 1d3 -> 3 means it has three special abilities.

Table 751B: Special Pet Abilities: 1d20 -> 7. The alien mini-dragon has 1d4 -> 2 psionic powers. Of course it does. What else would it have?
Table 862: 1d20 -> 13. The first psychic power is ESP.



Table 862: 1d20 -> 2. The second psychic power is psychometry.



Table 751B: Special Pet Abilities: 1d20 -> 6. The alien mini-dragon has the ability to "slip between alternate universes (or dimensions)".

Table 751B: Special Pet Abilities: 1d20 -> 3. The alien mini-dragon is telepathic and can communicate by mental speech.

Table 854: Gifts and Legacies: 1d20 -> 1 gives a weapon, and 1d10 -> 7 says that it's an energy sword. How... appropriate.

And, since there's a spaceship by the time I get to it, I'll roll on...
Table 866D: Special Features: 1d20 -> 8 means there's a Techno-Wonder installed in the ship. For which one I roll on...
Table 855: Techno-Wonders: 1d20 -> 1. Time machine.

Time machine.

This ancient (yet up to modern standards) ship has a time machine installed in it.

I don't even know. Christ. Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like? This train has no brakes. The character isn't even rolled up to adulthood yet!

Well, if I'm ever going to finish this, I have to get back to Table 208: Significant Events of Childhood and Adolescence for the events that happen during adolescence. Now I'm rolling three more times for events that happened ages 13 to 18.

Table 208: Events: 1d20+15 -> 20. This is the same as before, rolling again but only at +2.
Table 208: Events: 1d20+2 -> 4. At age 1d6+12 -> 13, the "character's friends involve [her] in illegal activities." This counts as a Darkside trait! Now I roll on...
Table 529A: The Wrong Path: 1d20+2 -> 7. The character got involved because she wanted "a lifestyle filled with dangerous thrills and excitement." During her time in the underworld, 1d3 -> 3 notable events happened.
Table 529B: The Wrong Path: 1d6 -> 5. While involved in the underworld, she was a pirate! This happened on someone else's ship, not her ancient alien time travel destroyer - I'm going to assume she wanted experience with a skilled crew. 1d3 -> 3 indicates 2 piracy events. For that I roll on...
Table 529D: Piracy: 1d10 -> 10. "The character becomes one of the pirate captain's officers, and learns the location of many rival pirates' strongholds."
Table 529D: Piracy: 1d10 -> 3. The character gains 1d4+1 -> 4 Ranks in operating a space ship.
Table 529D: Piracy: 1d10 -> 6. An "old pirate" teaches the character +2 ranks in energy blade use (how convenient!).
Table 529C: Underworld Events: 1d20 -> 11. Also during that time in the underworld, the character develops extensive contacts, "including thieves, informants, smugglers, thugs, fences, and spies". So long as they're not turned in, they "remain friendly and can even serve as allies in 'legal' activities".
Table 529C: Underworld Events: 1d20 -> 3. The character is severely wounded in a fight, detailed by...
Table 860: Serious Wounds: 1d20 -> 1 indicates that she gained an impressive facial scar. A 1d100 -> 20 indicates this gives +1 point of Charisma.
Table 529C: Underworld Events: 1d20 -> 20. The character becomes the pirate captain. I guess before giving up the title of pirate captain when she leaves the underworld. :v:

Table 208: Events: 1d20+15 -> 30. The second event, at age 1d6+12 -> 15, is an extravagant birthday party thrown by her family, which "everyone who is anyone" attends. There's one gift given without any indication of who it came from. It's detailed by...
Table 854: Gifts and Legacies: 1d20 -> 14. A deed to a property, which is... 1d20 -> 14 an old military base.
Table 312A: Personality Trait Check: 1d100 -> 73 means the incident had a Lightside effect on her.
Table 643A: Lightside Traits: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 33 means she is Enthuasiatic, and "excited, can't wait to act".

Table 208: Events: 1d20+15 -> At age 1d6+12 -> 14, something good happens to the character. This counts as a Lightside trait. It is 1d4 -> 3 Something Wonderful, which is detailed by...
Table 521: Something Wonderful...: 1d20 -> 4. "While repairing the family home, the character discovers a magical item." Yes, it just straight-up says magical. Somebody wasn't paying attention when copy-pasting. :v: For details, I roll again on...
Table 854: Gifts and Legacies: 1d20 -> 6. "An archaic device that functions like a technological wonder", rolled on...
Table 855: Techno-Wonders: 1d20 -> 18. A hand-held energy weapon that is "more powerful and possibly even more deadly to the user and his target than any similar device known".

Done? No, not yet! Next, there's still more tables to roll on. Almost there! Almost! Next is Education, with a roll modified by both SolMod and CuMod.

Table 210: Education: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1)+15+8 -> 42. The character had an Outstanding Education. This gives 5d6 -> 20 more Education Points, plus two occupation rolls, rerolling results of 5 or less.
Table 413A: Occupation Selection: 1d10+15 -> 18. This gives a roll on another table.
Table 413E: Occupation Table IV: 1d20 -> 19. Mage. "A wielder of magical force." So now she's a wizard psychic. Mage skills have a cost multiplier of 1d3 -> 2 when spending Education Points.
Table 413A: Occupation Selection: 1d10+15 -> 24. This gives a roll on another table.
Table 413D: Occupation Table III: 1d20 -> 10. Diplomat or Negotiator. That's, uh, this thing really wants this character to be a super Mary Sue Jedi, doesn't it? Negotiator skills have a cost multiplier of 3 when spending Education Points.

If you've been keeping track, by now the character has 67 Education Points. It's time to spend them! I put 2+4+8+16 points into Mage and 3+6+12+16 into Negotiator. Now both have 4 ranks, and I have 0 points left.

Now I make a single roll on Table 211: Significant Events of Adulthood, for an event that happens while just entering adulthood.

Table 211: Events: (1d4*10)+(1d10-1) -> 35. The character has a romantic encounter. 1d3 -> 2 events happen during the romantic relationship, which is still ongoing in adulthood.
Table 312A: Personality Trait Check: 1d100 -> 23 means it has no obvious affect on her personality.
Table 538A: The Beloved: 1d20 -> 9. The beloved's age is much 1d6 -> 2... younger than the character. :v:
Table 538A: The Beloved: 1d20 -> 10. The beloved is a member of a different race. This is detailed on...
Table 748: Aliens: (1d4*10)+1d4 -> 13. Bestial. "A 'humanized' version of a common animal, such as wolf-like, cat-like, or ape-like beings."
Table 538B: Romantic Events: 1d20 -> 1. The character marries the beloved.
Table 538B: Romantic Events: 1d20 -> 15. "The character rescues [her] beloved from certain doom. Create an imaginative near-doom scenario."

So, uh, that happened, I guess.

Now all the random rolling is done, it's time to compile everything together! To keep in the spirit of things, I use a random Mongolian name generator.

quote:

Name: Mönkhtsetseg
Sex: Female
Future History: The Final Frontier

Future History Modifier (FutMod): +10
Tech Level Modifier (TekMod): +14
Culture Modifier (CuMod): +8
Social Level Modifier (SolMod): +15
Birth Modifier (BiMod): +50
Title Modifier (TiMod): +20

Race: Human
Tech Level: 14, Third Stellar Age / Mixed
Education Points: 0
Culture: Decadent
Social Status: Noble, Extremely Wealthy
Literacy Chance: 175%
Nobility Title: daughter of a Khan

Legitimate Birth?: Yes
Family?: Father
Siblings: 3 siblings
Birth Order: First

Home World: Colony on an artificial world
Place of Birth: Born within the gravitation effects of a black hole in another dimension (was transported home 3 years later)

Unusual Birth: Bestowed a gift by a mysterious stranger; a great-grandparent died the day of her birth; she was born with serious physical afflictions that were replaced by bionic parts; she was born immediately after a tragedy where the character's home was destroyed along with all personal belongings; she was born with psionic powers under mysterious circumstances.

Notes about Parents: Her father is unusually muscular. He inherited the title of Khan and, before she was born, had conquered a planet. Sometime after she was born, her mother, who was part of her father's army, died while he was trying to conquer more planets. After that he drove the war to a close in 6 months. He has an unusual ability that causes anyone who comes into contact with him to trust him like a best friend. He is an Average (Rank 3) military combatant and strategist and a Fairly Competent (Rank 4) roleplaying gamer. He is also the religious leader of his Khanate.

Notes & Events:
• At birth, Mönkhtsetseg: was gifted a self-aware war machine resembling a tank as a companion by a mysterious stranger; received a lifelike bionic partial brain that enhances any skills or attributes that may be affected by it by 9 points; received a lifelike bionic heart that enhances any skills or attributes that may be affected by it by 2 points; received obviously artificial bionic eyes; gained psychic powers under mysterious circumstances: Clairvoyance III (Rank 1), Mind Block (Rank 3), Persuasion (Rank 1), Psychic Healing (Rank 1), Telekinesis (Rank 1), and Teleportation (Rank 1).
• At age 10, Mönkhtsetseg developed jaded tastes for exotic and possibly expensive pleasures. [D]
• At age 11, while on a school trip to her planet's capitol city, Mönkhtsetseg and a friend were accosted by a group of young punks. She drove them off, but not before her friend was fatally injured. She became well-known for this event, and the fame left her Bloodthirsty. The deceased was declared legally dead, but may actually be alive. [D]
• At age 12, Mönkhtsetseg had a misadventure during her family's pilgrimage to another artificial world. She discovered a spaceship that became hers by right of discovery. It was an ancient but up-to-modern-standards destroyer, short range interstellar, well-armed, with special defenses and a time machine installed. Onboard, she found battle armor, a pet alien mini-dragon with the psychic powers ESP (Rank 1) and Psychometry (Rank 1), and an energy sword. The entire incident made her Wise.
• At age 13, Mönkhtsetseg's friends involved her in illegal piracy. While she was a pirate: she gained 4 Ranks in Spaceship Operation; she was taught 2 Ranks in Energy Blades by an old pirate; she was involved in a fight where she gained an impressive facial scar; she became one of the pirate captain's officers, learning the location of many rival pirates' strongholds; she developed extensive contacts, including thieves, informants, smugglers, thugs, fences, and spies; and she became the new pirate captain. [D]
• At age 14, while repairing the family home, Mönkhtsetseg discovered a magical item. It was an archaic hand-held energy weapon that was more powerful and possibly even more deadly to the user and her target than any similar device known. [L]
• At age 15, at an extravagant birthday party thrown for Mönkhtsetseg by her family that everyone who was anyone attended, a gift was left for her without any sign of who left it. It was a deed to an old military base. The experience left her Enthusiastic.
• As she approached adulthood, Mönkhtsetseg received an exceptional education as a Mage (Rank 4) and as a Negotiator (Rank 4).
• At age 18, Mönkhtsetseg entered a romantic relationship with a Bestial alien much younger than her. At some point she rescued him from near-certain doom, then married him.

Skills:
Fairly Competent Energy Blades (Rank 4) (base 2, heart +2)
Legendary Literacy (Rank 10) (base 1, brain +9)
Mythical+ Spaceship Operation (Rank 13) (base 4, brain +9)
Mythical+ Survival (Wilderness) (Rank 12) (base 1, brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Survival (Rural) (Rank 12) (base 1, brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Survival (Urban) (Rank 15) (base 4, brain +9, heart +2)

Mythical+ Clairvoyance III (Rank 12) (base 1; brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Mind Block (Rank 14) (base 3; brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Mind Control (Rank 12) (base 0; Persuasion +1, brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Persuasion (Rank 12) (base 1; brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Psychic Healing (Rank 12) (base 1; brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Telekinesis (Rank 12) (base 1; brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Teleportation (Rank 12) (base 1; brain +9, heart +2)

Occupations:
Mythical+ Mage (Rank 15) (base 4; brain +9, heart +2)
Mythical+ Negotiator (Rank 13) (base 4; brain +9)

Personality:
Bloodthirsty [D]
Egoist [D]
Enthusiastic [L]
Pet Lover [L]
Thoughtless [D]
Xenophiliac
Wise [L]

Alignment: Neutral
Attitude: Egalitarian

Companions:
• Self-aware war machine tank companion
• Ancient alien mini-dragon pet with the psychic powers ESP (Rank 1) and Psychometry (Rank 1)
• Young alien (Bestial) husband

Bionics:
• Lifelike superhuman partial brain (+9 Ranks to related skills)
• Lifelike extraordinary heart (+2 Ranks to related skills)
• Obvious machine eyes

Gear:
• Ancient destroyer, short range interstellar, well-armed, with special defenses and a time machine
• Ancient magic starbreaker pistol
• Ancient battle armor
• Ancient energy sword
• Extremely Wealthy spending money (x20 starting wealth)

Other Resources:
• Extensive criminal contacts
• Previous pirate crew
• Widespread fame on home world

The one thing I can't decide on is what the exception in tech level is. Psychic crystal FTL drives? A preponderance of melee weapons? Other weird stuff? Any ideas?

Roadie fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Dec 17, 2014

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



I need to find my Central Casting fantasy character I made for a previous Fatal and Friends post and put it up here, because she turned out possibly even crazier than that.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


I want to help, too!

Quickly, give me two basic, different character concepts for fairly typical medieval fantasy, and I will make them for you using an arcane and hoary old system. Try to include adjectives that cover: a) something that might be a fantasy RPG class, b) something that might be their job/profession/hobby beyond the obvious implications of their class, and c) something to suggest a personality. For instance, "crotchety old court wizard" and "jovial gladiatorial fightsman" would be an okay pair. It's just more interesting if someone else picks and I am left at their whim. Remember how off-the-wall old school fantasy could be, too. Do you want me to make a bird-man? That's pretty doable!

I promise that—unlike a review—I can probably finish this in less than a year.

potatocubed
Jul 26, 2012

*rathian noises*

Plague of Hats posted:

I want to help, too!

Quickly, give me two basic, different character concepts for fairly typical medieval fantasy, and I will make them for you using an arcane and hoary old system. Try to include adjectives that cover: a) something that might be a fantasy RPG class, b) something that might be their job/profession/hobby beyond the obvious implications of their class, and c) something to suggest a personality. For instance, "crotchety old court wizard" and "jovial gladiatorial fightsman" would be an okay pair. It's just more interesting if someone else picks and I am left at their whim. Remember how off-the-wall old school fantasy could be, too. Do you want me to make a bird-man? That's pretty doable!

I promise that—unlike a review—I can probably finish this in less than a year.

OK!

1. Glam wizard up to their neck in conspiracies.
2. "I'm not an 'adventurer', I'm a missionary!"

How do those work out?

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Off-Brand Doc Savage
Infinite Supply Of X-Com Rookies

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


potatocubed posted:

OK!

1. Glam wizard up to their neck in conspiracies.
2. "I'm not an 'adventurer', I'm a missionary!"

How do those work out?

Alright, here we go. Welcome to…



Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing (RMFRP) is almost entirely just an organizational repackaging of the previous edition, Rolemaster Standard System (RMSS), an attempt to make the books less intimidating to newcomers. I'd say it does that job as admirably as anything could while not actually changing anything of substance. RMFRP was and remains the "latest" version of Rolemaster, part of the last gasps of Iron Crown before it went bankrupt and was later bought and sort-of-revived by fans. They have since released "new" Rolemasters that are further repackagings of even older editions. They also released High Adventure Role Playing (HARP) which was an honest-to-god attempt at "Rolemaster lite" that I guess mostly succeeded at being what it was meant to be. This system, in all its iterations, continues to have a reputation for crushing complexity. While sometimes overstated or misaimed, this criticism is pretty fair when it comes to character building.

Thanks to you, we have already completed Step 1 of Part II • Creating a Character—Character Design Summary, which is "Decide what type of character to play." That was easy! On to the harder ones! Let us start with our Glam Conspiracy Wizard.

2) Make your initial choices.

Since I want to pursue a character concept above all else, any supplement is on the table. That means we're going to be delving into Character Law heavily, because the core book is severely pared down for this edition. Where in the core we have five races and nine professions (classes), Character Law (and some relevant spell supplements) add seven more races, plus five more cultures for Men, and 11 more professions. This brings us back up to the total of 12 races, 16 cultures and 20 professions that was found in the core product of RMSS.

To be ultimate in our glam, especially since this is definitely not a Tolkien rip-off, our Conspiracy Wizard will be a High Elf. The only other option I really considered was High Man, which is like a High Elf but worse.

One of the reasons Character Law is important for this is because of the pretty restricted options on profession in the core RMFRP. A lot of the 20 available professions are right out just because of our character concept. The most appropriate ones are Magician, Mentalist, Dabbler, Illusionist, Sorcerer and Magent. I'm going with Magent, and here's why:

quote:

Magents are Semi spell users who combine the realm of Mentalism with the realm of Arms. Their base spells deal with information gathering, subterfuge, and performing stealthy missions.

Oh, good, more stuff to explain. In Rolemaster there are typically four "realms of power." The realm of "Arms" is just your "martial power source" a la D&D4—your Fighter, Thief, half of your Ranger, etc. There are then three realms of magical power: Channeling, Essence and Mentalism. Channeling is your divine magic, your spells are prayers to or gifts from a god. Essence is raw magical force, often manipulation of the elements. Mentalism tends to be defined as just expressing personal willpower in a magical way, but it has a lot of overlap with Essence. That said, the three magic realms remain remarkably distinct even though there are literally thousands of spells spread over dozens of spell lists with a couple dozen spells each.

So, we're a High Elf Magent, a Semi spell user profession, making our realm "Arms/Mentalism."

Phew!

3) Generate stats.

quote:

Use 660 point or 600+10d10 points…

Oh, you know what we must do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIf6NYn4jh4

Here we go: 4, 7, 1, 6, 5, 10, 8, 5, 2, 10, for a total of 58. Aw, we're pretty average.

Our race doesn't matter too much right now, but our profession is super important during stat assignment. Every profession has two "prime stats." You can assign as little as 20 points to most stats, if you want to suck, but each prime stat has to get at least 90 points. Stats are notionally a 1-100 trait, but the book also says they go up to 101, and the stat bonuses table covers stats at 102+. These points you get translate one-for-one into a stat's rating, up to 90. There's an increasing point cost per rating above 90.

As a Magent, our prime stats are Reasoning and Presence. Now before we assign points to those and the other eight stats, let's learn a little about them!

Development Stats and Primary Stats
Stats in Rolemaster are like Abilities in D&D, only they pull a lot more weight, and also there're 10 of them. They are divided evenly into two important categories. Development stats, in addition to providing bonuses to related rolls, are the five stats that you average to determine your per-level Development Points (DP) that you spend to gain Skill Ranks. "Primary" stats are the ones that provide bonuses to related rolls and don't do anything else. That's why they're called "primary"! I'll list and talk about the stats in order of development stats first, then primary stats.

Agility (Ag) is manual dexterity, aka "dexterity, deftness…stealth, dodging ability…" This is despite the fact that Quickness is the stat that forms your basic "dodging" bonus. Agility actually figures in heavily to weapon attack bonuses.

Constitution (Co) is exactly what you think, aka "health, stamina, endurance…physical endurance…" It influences resistance to diseases and poisons and how many hit pointsconcussion hits you have. You'll see later why it's not nearly as important for these things as what race you pick. In every edition of Rolemaster, you increase a skill to get more hit points. In editions prior to RMSS, each rank in the skill let you roll 1d10 and add your Co, and that's how many hit points you got. In this edition, each rank of your Body Development skill adds a diminishing but fixed number of hit points determined by your race, on top of your one-time skill bonus that includes Co.

Memory (Me) is information retention and recall, aka "intelligence, wisdom…I.Q.…" Memory and Reasoning figure heavily into "lore" types of skills.

Reasoning (Re) outright states that it's a little redundant with Memory, but it also covers using information to come to logical conclusions, aka "…study ability, analysis rating…wit, judgment, I.Q.…"

Self Discipline (SD) is pretty self-explanatory, aka "will, alignment, physical endurance, faith…self control, determination, zeal." It adds into your hit pointsconcussion hits, though not as much as Constitution, and also figures into various magic bits and the haphazard fear resistance rules that probably won't come up.

Those were the development stats.

Empathy (Em) which is what it says, and also covers mystical connectedness to primal energies for the realm of Essence. In addition to aiding in casting and resisting spells, it (and the other magic stats) help determine the amount of Magic Points (MP)Power Points (PP) you have to cast your spells. In editions prior to RMSS, your magic stat's rating translated into a multiplier for your level to determine how many PP you got. Now, like Constitution and its hit points, it adds a modest amount which in later levels is dwarfed by the amount you get by developing your Power Point Development skill.

Intuition (In) is a "combination of luck, genius, precognition, ESP, and the favor of the gods…" making it the stat tied to the Channeling realm of magic.

Presence (Pr) is "control of one's own mind" but isn't Self Discipline, and also "self esteem, charisma, outward appearance…vanity…" and is tied to the magic of Mentalism.

Quickness (Qu) is "raw speed, reflexes" and is the one stat that figures into your natural defense against attacks.

Strength (St) is just like in D&D, except also "stamina" because whatever. Like Agility, it figures into weapon attack bonuses, and it also helps determine carrying weight limits.

And those were the primary stats.

Now, like D&D, a stat's rating translates into a bonus that is used mostly to increase the results of rolls. This is a nominally percentile system, using a d100 for most things, so it makes sense that the bonus increments that stats translated into were +5's. RMSS and RMFRP don't have time for that simpler math poo poo. Here, each stat's rating will tend to hover around 0-4, and instead you combine three of them to apply to each skill. So, for example, in older editions you'd add a +10 Strength bonus to your Swords skill and a +5 Agility bonus to Bows, but in this edition you'd add a +7 Strength/Agility/Strength bonus to Swords and +5 Agility/Strength/Agility to Bows. Exciting, I know.

Because of the flattened individual stat bonuses, there is a lot of dead space between each increment until you get into the ratings above 90. There's almost no reason to pick 71-74, when a rating of 70 will give you a +1 bonus just as good. This will figure into how I assign points to determine our starting stats. Of course, those dead ranges can still figure into how many Development Points you get out of your development stats, but it's honestly pretty negligible unless you hamstring all five at once. Oh, but there're also two kinds of each stat. You see, nearly all of this has to do with temporary stats, which are what your stats currently happen to be at any given time. Later during character creation, you use these ratings to determine your potential stats, which are the maximum ratings you can have in them. Your temporary stats can go up and down quite a bit…potentially:rimshot:

This is why our Glam Wizard is going to have Presence 98 instead of 99, because that one point costs a hell of a lot more to buy and provides no greater stat bonus and only minimally increases our chances for a higher potential Presence.

Okay, so, time to actually spend our 658 stat points. As a Glam Conspiracy WizardMagent, I guess we have to bump our Reasoning up to 90 even though we don't care too much about logical deduction when all we really want is to look fabulous while executing convoluted wizard subterfuges. So that's 90 points. Our Presence also needs to be at least 90, but because we are GLAM I think we need to bump that up to the greatest level without feeling like we're wasting points, which means a rating of 94 costing 106 points.

Now, this being D&D: Calculus Editionbut not really, our combat stats are paramount. Oh, also, we are lithe and gracefulGLAM, so our Agility and Quickness are important. We are going to be whispering to minions and cutting deals, so we also want some good Empathy and Intuition. We're a wizard and also a social spider, and also we convince everyone else to make that long trip to the bar to get our drinks, so our Strength and Constitution aren't that hot. But we probably want respectable Memory and Self Discipline, if we're going to be a conspiracy master. These last few are going to be really similar, though, because we're running out of points and the +0 bonus range for a stat is a huge 31-69.

Stats.................Rating...Bonus...Point Cost
Agility (Ag)..........85.......+4......85
Constitution (Co).....38.......+0......38
Memory (Me)...........55.......+0......55
Reasoning (Re)........90.......+5......90
Self Discipline (SD)..45.......+0......45

Empathy (Em)..........70.......+1......70
Intuition (In)........70.......+1......70
Presence (Pr).........94.......+7......106
Quickness (Qu)........80.......+3......80
Strength (St).........31.......+0......31
.......................................658 total


Now for potential stats! One way of doing this is finding a range into which they fall on a table, then adding a fixed sum to them. For instance, our Self Discipline of 45 falls within the range of 45-54, and the fixed modifier for that is +28, so it would give us potential Self Discipline of 73.

Or you can do what we're absolutely going to do, and determine them randomly. You look your potential stats up on the same table, but instead you get a base modifier that you roll some dice to increase. So our 45 Self Discipline gives us 50+5d10!

Stats.................Rating...Roll......Result
Agility (Ag)..........85.......90+1d10...98
Constitution (Co).....38.......40+6d10...57
Memory (Me)...........55.......60+4d10...81
Reasoning (Re)........90.......90+1d10...95
Self Discipline (SD)..45.......50+5d10...80

Empathy (Em)..........70.......70+3d10...89
Intuition (In)........70.......70+3d10...92
Presence (Pr).........94.......93+1d7....98
Quickness (Qu)........80.......80+2d10...97
Strength (St).........31.......30+7d10...65


You may notice a "1d7" up there. For Rolemaster, we use d10's exclusively, like it's White Wolf or something, which translates pretty readily into various multiples of 5 or 10. So, what do we do here? You roll 1d10, and anything higher than a 7 you just reroll. :eng101: You do the same thing with 1d8, instead of actually going and getting a d8. Awesome.

Anyway, we can finally finish out this roughly three-page section by looking up our racial stat bonuses and figuring our totals.

Stats.................Rating...Stat....Race....Total
Agility (Ag)..........85.......+4......+2......+6
Constitution (Co).....38.......+0......+0......+0
Memory (Me)...........55.......+0......+2......+2
Reasoning (Re)........90.......+5......+0......+5
Self Discipline (SD)..45.......+0......-5......-5

Empathy (Em)..........70.......+1......+2......+3
Intuition (In)........70.......+1......+0......+1
Presence (Pr).........94.......+7......+6......+13
Quickness (Qu)........80.......+3......+6......+9
Strength (St).........31.......+0......+0......+0


At last, we are done with our stats! We might as well go ahead and figure out our Development Points before we leave off, by averaging our development stats (Ag, Co, Me, Re, SD), giving us 62 DP (62.6, rounded down).

Here're some other racial bonuses for contrast:

Stats.............Common Man...Wood Elf...Halfling
Agility (Ag)..........+0..........+4.........+6
Constitution (Co).....+0..........+0.........+6
Memory (Me)...........+0..........+2.........+0
Reasoning (Re)........+0..........+0.........+0
Self Discipline (SD)..+2..........-5.........-4

Empathy (Em)..........+0..........+2.........-2
Intuition (In)........+0..........+0.........+0
Presence (Pr).........+0..........+2.........-6
Quickness (Qu)........+0..........+2.........+4
Strength (St).........+2..........+0.........-8


I've been kind of jumping around here, because a lot of this stuff is explained waaaaay later in the book, or not at all and you just have to figure this poo poo out on your own, even in our accessible, newcomer-friendlier RMFRP edition. I think that's mostly out of the way, now. Stay tuned for our next episode where we start digging into skills!

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Plague of Hats posted:



Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing (RMFRP)
I really like Rolemaster, sure it has its flaws but it's still a lot of fun. :shobon: If you use the book Races and Cultures there are more races and cultures and even subcultures to chose from.

My group is currently playing Spacemaster and I'm trying to put together a character for it, again (long story). There are rules for playing as cat people, which is awesome. Space Khajiit.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Rolemaster was my jam for a long time, years ago. I probably won't ever play it again, but I'll never sell my books and I don't hold any malice for it.

I'm pretty specifically avoiding R&C and Construct Companion, and probably Elemental Companion (20XX). They feel kind of "other" from everything else in RMSS/RMFRP, what with being assembled by an entirely different crew after they revived the company.

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Dec 19, 2014

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Plague of Hats posted:

Glam Conspiracy Wizard, High Elf Magent.

Stats.................Rating...Stat....Race....Total
Agility (Ag)..........85.......+4......+2......+6
Constitution (Co).....38.......+0......+0......+0
Memory (Me)...........55.......+0......+2......+2
Reasoning (Re)........90.......+5......+0......+5
Self Discipline (SD)..45.......+0......-5......-5

Empathy (Em)..........70.......+1......+2......+3
Intuition (In)........70.......+1......+0......+1
Presence (Pr).........94.......+7......+6......+13
Quickness (Qu)........80.......+3......+6......+9
Strength (St).........31.......+0......+0......+0


At last, we are done with our stats! We might as well go ahead and figure out our Development Points before we leave off, by averaging our development stats (Ag, Co, Me, Re, SD), giving us 62 DP (62.6, rounded down).

H'okay!

In RMSS/RMFRP you have Skill Categories, Skill Groups and Skills. Skill Categories are broad groupings of similar Skills, like Athletic skills, Awareness skills, Weapon skills, etc. Skill Groups are sub-categories within Categories, so you have Awareness • Searching or Weapon • One-handed Concussion. Not every Category is broken down into Groups, but most of them are. Then, at the bottom of this hierarchy, you have individual skills, like Athletics • Endurance: Swimming or Subterfuge • Stealth: Hiding. Oh, and sometimes there are Specializations, which are sub-skills within an individual Skill. Despite these distinctions, the book constantly refers to Skill Groups as Categories.

There are also three "tags" that can be attached to skills to change them further: Restricted, Everyman, and Occupational. Restricted skills cost twice as much as normal to gain one rank; you can pay piecemeal to gain a half-rank if you want to buy a rank over two levels. Everyman skills gain two ranks every time you pay enough to buy one rank. Occupational skills gain three ranks for every rank's worth you purchase.

I won't get deep into skill bonuses here, but I'll describe what's going on in broad strokes. In addition to all that stuff up above, there are various types of "bonus progression." In older editions, where you just had a big list of skills, each rank was worth +5 up until rank 10, then each rank was worth +2, and so on. Now, we have Standard progression, Combined progression, Limited progression, and Racial progression. Most Skill Categories and Skills are Standard progression. This effectively splits up the +5 bonus between each corresponding rank in a Skill and the Category/Group it falls under, with the higher portion under the Skill. For instance, rank 1 in Artistic • Active would grant a +2 bonus to all skills that fall under it, while rank 1 in Acting grants a +3 bonus to Acting rolls. Combined skills are those that have the whole +5, etc. progression for each rank in them, and the Categories they fall under can't be developed in the first place. Limited skills usually spell lists. Like Combined skills, their Categories can't be developed. Each rank provides a +1 bonus, which doesn't seem like much, but that's okay. Spell casting rolls, when they arise, have lots of big situational modifiers, and in my experience a lot of GMs will forgo them because they are often boring.

Special Racial development covers pretty much just Body Development and Power Point Development. Like Combined and Limited skills, you don't develop the categories. Each category only has one skill in it, anyway. Each of these skills has a unique "bonus" progression based on your race. The differences here aren't too pronounced to begin with, especially for hit pointsconcussion hits. Everyone's first 10 ranks of Body Development are going to grant either 6 or 7 hit points per rank. On the other hand, Dwarves and Halflings have really lovely Power Point Development in the realms of Essence and Mentalism—they're clearly meant to be clerics! This variety may seem a little daunting, and it's present in a kind of intimidating way, but there are really only a handful of progression schemes used for all umpteen-whatever races.

As a High Elf, our Body Development progression is 0•7•3•2•1, and as a Mentalism-user our Power Point Development is 0•6•5•4•3. That leading 0 is there for the 0th rank of every progression, I guess for thoroughness' sake. No one starts with 0 ranks in Body Development, though it's technically possible to get enough stat penalties in Constitution and Self Discipline that you naturally have zero or negative hit points, if you choose the right race, culture and profession combo. Woo!

Oh, there's also an "untrained skill use penalty" for most skills, since having 0 ranks in something tends to impose a hefty penalty instead of just being a +0 bonus.

In previous editions, things looked simpler, but they largely worked the same way. For this edition, they just codified what was going on. The part where a bunch of new complexity comes in with RMSS is that they piled in all the extraneous skills from all the supplements into the core game, and also changed how bonuses work a lot. They pulled back from that a bit with RMFRP, but only by paring down the skill list. It's still way more complex than it needs to be.

:words:

Anyway, at this point in character creation, we are ready for "Adolescence Skill Development", which is the first part where we actually put ranks into skills. Each culture gets a set of free ranks, many allotted to specific skills, to reflect the skills you learn by growing up in that culture. You also gain a chunk of "Hobby Ranks", which you distribute as you see fit amongst the Hobby Skills listed for your culture. There are a variety of human cultures that you choose from if you're a Mixed Man or Common Man. If you're anything else, including a DúnadanHigh Man, your race and culture are automatically the same, because no one's as interesting and varied as (mostly) natural humans.

Since Glam Conspiracy Wizard is a High Elf, he has the High Elf culture. If you look at the table below, all this information will come together and make more sensehere just stare at this I guess:



You can look at the table if you want to break down how the various cultures compare. It's pretty obvious that elves get some pretty sweet boosts, and despite High Elves supposedly being snooty elitists they have the best Communications Adolescence. And, of course, High Elves get the most free Spell ranks. High Elves also have the least amount of Hobby Ranks because I guess immortal elitists don't have time for that poo poo.

I'll cover Background Options later. Right now, we'll get down to the choices we actually have to make with our Adolescence skill ranks.

First, languages. Languages work pretty much like other skills, with an extra widget attached. Each rank indicates a level of fluency/literacy, mostly from 1-10. As indicated by the full-page chart explaining each level, rank 6 is "native fluency of the common man." Your dumb peasant. That's why PCs always start out with at least 8 ranks in speaking their native tongue, because no PC is a scrub. Rank 8 is "college level writing" and "fluency in related dialects." Rank 10 is complete mastery of the language and all dialects. GMs who want to screw their players can decide that Ranks 11+ matter for untangling super complex ideas in the language. Like, I dunno, string theory? That seems like it'd be better covered by the Science skills. Whatever.

We're a conspiracy-monger and, pursuant to GLAM, also a socialite, so we want to focus on high-falutin' languages. Our culture's language entry has this to say:

quote:

Language: Starting Languages: High-elvish (S10/W10), Grey-elvish (S8/W6), Common-speech (S8/W6). Allowed Adolescent Development: Grey-elvish (S10/W10), Common-speech (S10/W10), North-speech (S6/W6), Elvish (S8/W8).

This means we get a free 10 ranks in each of Communications • Languages: High-elvish (Spoken) and Communications • Languages: High-elvish (Written), and likewise eight and six ranks respectively in Grey-elvish and Common-speech. For some reason we're not allowed to learn the High Man's High-speech, yet. loving High Man, always keeping us High Elves down. :argh: Well, we're not left with much choice. Might as well max out Elvish, costing 16 of our 20 points, then spend our remaining 4 points to bump us up to "college level writing" in Grey-elvish and Common-speech. So, apart from High-elvish, we've got ratings of 8 across the board in Common-speech, Elvish and Grey-elvish. The excitement is palpable!

We get three ranks free in the Region and Culture Lore skills pertaining to our homeland. Then, because High Elves are best elves, we get four ranks in one Open Mentalism spell list.

Spells in Rolemaster come in huge lists. Each list goes from 1-20, then 25, 30 and 50, but some of these slots can be blank, meaning you have to develop them but get nothing for doing so. There are 10 Open and 10 Closed lists for each realm of Essence, Channeling and Mentalism. Then there are six Base lists for each Semi, Pure and Hybrid spell user profession. Everyone, even pure Arms professions, can learn any spell, but the more removed your realm(s) are from the list, the more DP it costs. Technically. There's a big table of costs involved, and multipliers based on how many different lists you're trying to develop in a given level, too.

For instance, it's super-cheap to develop many ranks in your own Base lists, but super-expensive to develop the Base lists of another profession. In particular, the costs for non-spell users to develop high level spells or any Base list are so great that it's effectively impossible without shenanigans. Typically, your Fighters and Rogues can only learn the first five spells of their own realm's Open lists.

For Mr. GLAM, we have the following options: Anticipations, which involves bullet-timey stuff as well as guess-based divination; Attack Avoidance, which is more overt defensive magic, including hampering arrows that aren't even aimed at you; Brilliance, which starts out with "palm flashlight" and quickly ramps up to lightning bolts (psionics!?); Cloaking, which is personal illusion-biased stealth; Damage Resistance, using mind-powers to endure or ignore harm; Delving, i.e. postcognition; Detections, with spells like Detect Mentalism, Detect Emotion, Detect Traps and Detect Evil; Illusions, which is duh; Self Healing, again duh; and Spell Resistance, once more duh.

There are some pretty obvious candidates for which we should pick for a Conspiracy Wizard, but I'm going to keep this short and say we're going with Detections. Our four free ranks will get us Detect Mentalism, Detect Essence, Detect Channeling, and most important Detect Emotion. This last one just outright tells us what, if any, extreme emotion a target is feeling, which seems like a useful tool for a conspiracy-monger.

Next up, the all-important Weapon skills! As you may notice from the table above, our culture determines what weapons we can choose. This is rarely much of a restriction for most characters; the lists are pretty big. Here we go:

High Elf Cultural Weapon List posted:

Dagger, broadsword, mace, composite bow, long bow, flail, two-handed sword, quarterstaff, javelin, lance, falchion, foil, main gauche, rapier, bastard sword, irgaak, kynac, long kynac.

Those last three are weird fantasy weapons from the Greyhawk of Rolemaster, Shadow World.

Since we want to be subtle and low-key, and also we're a wizard, let's go with dagger and composite bow for our available free ranks.

Finally, we have six Hobby ranks. These are like the other free ranks above, except it's just a ball of ranks we can distribute however we please amongst the list below. Well, not however we please. We can't put them in skills it would cost more than 40 DP to develop during normal leveling, nor can we gain more ranks than we could develop when leveling. This will be nice and quick since we're a High Elf and so don't have time for personal interests :jerkbag:

High Elf Standard Hobby Skill list posted:

Acting, any Armor skills, Attunement, Body Development, Dancing, Direct Spells, Embroidery [Crafts], History (famous weapons, enchanted creations), Jewelry-smithing [Crafts], Languages, Leadership, Meditation, Metal-crafts, Observation, Play Instruments, Poetic Improvisation, Public Speaking, Read Runes, Riding, Sewing, Singing, spell lists, Star-gazing, any Weapon skills, Weather-watching.

Again, there are some pretty obvious candidates, especially once you look at a given skill description to see just what it does.

Acting is what you might expect, covering stuff from stage presence to impersonating people and covering up your own reactions to things. Direct Spells is the "weapon" skill used to aim poo poo like lightning bolts, so we're going to ignore that one, at least for now. Leadership is mostly about group morale and inspiration, which might be relevant to our character concept, but not nearly as important as other choices. Observation is about actively peering around to notice ambushes or secret doors, so that's a good choice. Public Speaking is about enrapturing and manipulating large groups. Attunement is mostly "sense a magic item's powers" skill, and Read Runes is "use magic item" for spell scrolls.

Well, we don't have much room anyway, and some stuff gets expensive later, so let's game the system a little. This is a lot like the Bonus Points/XP situation with some White Wolf games. I'm going to put one rank into the Open Essence list Lesser Illusions, to get the spell Ventriloquism, which is the only place it shows up. It's a really nice spell, especially for a conspiracy dude. With our precious Development Points, this one low-level spell from a different realm of magic would've cost 35DP, which can be nearly all of a starting character's DP. Here it costs a single Hobby rank, just the same as if we'd bought a 1DP rank in some other skill.

Our remaining Hobby ranks will go into our Base spell lists, because even though they're our own Base spells the costs build up quickly. Our choices are: Assassination Mastery, which covers concealing objects, setting up fall guys, and True Strikes; Disguise Mastery; Escapes; Gathering Secrets; Misdirections; and Poison Mastery. We'll go with three ranks in Escapes, which gives us Locklore (:effort:), Unlock I (not bad), and Ungag (safeword: Utility spell). This is mostly a cost-saving measure since we're aiming for higher spells on this list, namely the 5th rank spell Unlock II. We'll put our other two ranks into the spell list Gathering Secrets, netting us Copy I, which allows us to duplicate the text (but not handwriting) of a piece of paper, and Listen, which is a pretty standard eavesdropping spell.

Holy poo poo, we're done! Let's summarize our progress so far:

Stats.................Temp...Potent...StatB....RaceB....TotalB
Agility (Ag)..........85.....98.......+4......+2........+6
Constitution (Co).....38.....57.......+0......+0........+0
Memory (Me)...........55.....81.......+0......+2........+2
Reasoning (Re)........90.....95.......+5......+0........+5
Self Discipline (SD)..45.....80.......+0......-5........-5
Development Points....62

Empathy (Em)..........70.....89.......+1......+2........+3
Intuition (In)........70.....92.......+1......+0........+1
Presence (Pr).........94.....98.......+7......+6........+13
Quickness (Qu)........80.....97.......+3......+6........+9
Strength (St).........31.....65.......+0......+0........+0


Skills..................Ranks
Athletic • Brawn..........1
Athletic • Endurance......1
>>Swimming................2
Athletic • Gymnastics.....1

Awareness • Perceptions...—
>>Alertness...............6
Awareness • Searching.....1

Body Development..........1

Communications............4
>>High-elvish (spoken)....10
>>High-elvish (written)...10
>>Common-speech (spoken)..8
>>Common-speech (written).8
>>Elvish (spoken).........8
>>Elvish (written)........8
>>Grey-elvish (spoken)....8
>>Grey-elvish (written)...8

Lore • General............3
>>Own Culture Lore........3
>>Own Region Lore.........3

Outdoor • Animal..........1
>>Riding (horses).........1
Outdoor • Environmental...3

Power Awareness...........2
Science/Analytic • Basic..2

Spells • Other Realm Open (Essence)
>>Lesser Illusions........1

Spells • Own Realm Own Base (Magent)
>>Escapes.................3
>>Gathering Secrets.......2

Spells • Own Realm Open
>>Detections..............4

Subterfuge • Stealth......2
>>Hiding..................2
>>Stalking................2

Technical/Trade • General.1

Weapon • 1-H Edged........1
>>Dagger..................1
Weapon • Missile..........1
>>Composite bow...........1


Next time, we'll cover Background Options, finishing out our Adolescence Development phase!

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Plague of Hats posted:

Next time, we'll cover Background Options, finishing out our Adolescence Development phase!

I'm sad to inform everyone that this post isn't going to be nearly as fun as I had anticipated. I had misremembered how crazy the Talents & Flaws optional system from Character Law was. It's mostly a huge grab-bag of poorly balanced combat powers, with a few workhorse non-combat extras. There are still enough things in there that do better to highlight our role as a Glam Conspiracy Wizard than anything else in the system, though, so we're still going to use them. I just thought the list of social/status Merits and Flaws were more extensive.

Oh, well. Just so you can see what we're missing from the core game, here's the Background Options (BO) table:



You spend one Background Option to pick one of the rewards on the table. In the optional system of hosed-up Merits & Flaws, which we will be using, allows you to spend your BOs in a variety of ways. There're actually a huge amount of suggested options for dealing with this, but I prefer the one that serves creating the loving character we want best, so we're going with Talent points. This is where your BOs are replaced by a larger number of points, and you spend them to buy Merits, and you get some back by taking Flaws. Or, according to the book, being assigned Flaws by the GM. There's actually a moderately complex system for creating races (in a different book), where you point-build a race/culture and this revolves around Talent points, which are then translated back into BOs if you want to use those.

As a High Elf, our 3 BOs translate into 30 Talent points. We're going to take the two Special Status "Talents" of Noble and Patron, Significant (Greater). "But wait," you say because you have memorized the many hundreds of entries in this optional subsystem, "that totals up to 40 points!" That is correct, rear end in a top hat, we're going to exploit the hell out of some Flaws! You might get a sense of where I'm going with this character because, first, I'm picking Sense of Duty (Major), and the entirely different Flaw Duty (Major). Haha! Exploitative! We're also going to go with Secret (Minor), which is the level between Lesser and Major that means we wont' be executed if someone figures us out, but we will be imprisoned. Then, Secret Identity. Finally, to liven up our glamorous lives, we're going to pick up Rival/NPC (Minor), who will be the "party interested in uncovering our secret identity."

Total Talent Points "spent", now: -20! What to do with these extra points? Well, there's still the Wealth optional subsystem. Normally, a character begins with 2gp worth of coins or, for elves, precious gems. Then, you can spend Background Options to roll randomly for extra monies. In the case of spending Talent points, we spend more points to determine our starting wealth level, then roll on a corresponding column on a wealth table. Your starting wealth roll gains a special modifier based on which column you choose, and then you can spend further points to gain more rolls for more ducats, without the special modifier. 20 points can buy us "Rich", which is one step below the tippy-top "Very Rich", and as our starting Wealth we roll with a +30 modifier. I rolled 67, so I got the result "97 - pg(1mp)." That means I have a precious gem worth 1 (one) mithril piece, which converts to 10 platinum pieces, which translates to 100 gold pieces. So, instead of starting with 2gp like usual, Talent points have allowed us to start with 100gp from a pretty average roll. Hm!

Allow me to just loving quote all these new traits:

quote:

Noble–You are a member of the nobility. You were either awarded nobility, or inherited it from your parents. You and your GM should determine your title and the extent of your noble powers. [Minor, 10]

Patron, Significant (Major)–You have a patron that provides for you. The patron is either a huge organization (e.g., a whole religion or country) or a single organization that is influential worldwide (e.g., a network of guilds). However, this patron can only provide you with bare necessities (food, clothing, shelter, etc.). [Major, 15]

Patron, Significant (Greater)–As the major status, except the patron can provide you with almost any normal items that you want. [Greater, 30]

Sense of Duty (Lesser)–You feel that you have a responsibility to someone or something. This is an internal feeling, one you have placed upon yourself. You will never betray, harm or mislead those to whom you have a Sense of Duty. Your Sense of Duty is towards a close friend or small group. [Lesser, -5]

Sense of Duty (Major)–As the lesser flaw, except you have a Sense of Duty towards a country or equally large group. [Major, -15]

Duty (Lesser)–You have a responsibility to a particular individual or organization. Whenever they call upon you to do something, you are duty-bound to cease everything you are working on and take care of the situation. A duty is something imposed upon you from the outside, not something you feel you have to do (i.e., a Sense of Duty). You may determine exactly who or what you have a duty to, but the GM must approve it. Once per month, the GM will make a roll to determine if you are called to duty during that month. The percentage chance that you will be summoned is 25%. [Lesser, -5]

Rival/NPC (Lesser)–You have a rival. Your relationship to this rival and what caused you to become rivals are up to you. Your rivalry could be romantic, professional, or personal. Whenever possible, your rival will do his best to outdo you, even hinder you. This rivalry is rarely, if ever, violent. Both of you respect each other too much to kill one another. You will even endanger yourself and your comrades if it gives you the chance to outdo your rival. The rival is either a personal, romantic, or professional rival. The GM must approve all rivalries. [Lesser, -5]

Rival/NPC (Minor)–As the lesser flaw, except the rival is some combination of personal, romantic, and/or professional. [Minor, -10]

Secret (Lesser)–You have a secret that if discovered will cause you much embarrassment and pain. You may choose the actual secret you are keeping and it can be related to another flaw you have. You also may choose what could happen to you if the secret was revealed. The GM must approve all secrets. You must do your best to keep your secret; you are terribly embarrassed about the situation and will do whatever it takes to keep it quiet. If the secret were found out, it would cause you great embarrassment. [Lesser, -5]

Secret (Minor)–As the lesser flaw, except if the secret is discovered, it could cause you to be either exiled or imprisoned or it could cause you to be injured severely (but not killed). [Minor, -10]

Secret Identity–You have an alternate identity that you keep hidden from the general public. You actually lead a double life, one as yourself and one as your alter-ego. You also have a group of people who are interested in who you really are, thus making you cautious about who you disclose your identity to. The GM must ascertain that there is really a need for a secret identity, or that there is someone or something that cares about the character's real identity. [Minor, -10]

Duty (Major)—As the lesser flaw, except the chance of being summoned is 75%. [Major, -15]

Even with that padding, there, this post is going to be pretty short. Don't worry, the next one is Apprenticeship Skill Development, which in my experience is the biggest barrier to entry for this game!

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Are you planning on taking the noble training package too?

Plague of Hats posted:

I'm sad to inform everyone that this post isn't going to be nearly as fun as I had anticipated. I had misremembered how crazy the Talents & Flaws optional system from Character Law was. It's mostly a huge grab-bag of poorly balanced combat powers, with a few workhorse non-combat extras. There are still enough things in there that do better to highlight our role as a Glam Conspiracy Wizard than anything else in the system, though, so we're still going to use them. I just thought the list of social/status Merits and Flaws were more extensive.
You can say that again. :shepface:
My group had to ban a few powers beyond the cheapest level.

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Poil posted:

Are you planning on taking the noble training package too?

Maybe. I'll almost certainly take Spy. TPs can really eat up your starting DPs with mostly uninteresting poo poo, and spells are expensive. (I did consider taking a Talent to make some spells Everyman, but I didn't want to be that huge a dickshit.)

quote:

You can say that again. :shepface:
My group had to ban a few powers beyond the cheapest level.

I recall fondly the default "giant fuckoff random roll, alphabetically sorted tables" that were the only presented option for RMSS--in the core book!--until Talent Law came out. "Dave, you happened to get +10 to Lookin' at things skill as long as you're holding a feather. Jerry, you rolled +8 to a stat of your choice."

Heliotrope
Aug 17, 2007

You're fucking subhuman
A while back, someone did a FATAL and Friends writeup of Magical Burst, a Madoka-inspired RPG by Ewen Cluney (the same person behind the translation of Maid and Golden Sky Stories). Since then, he released the 4th edition of the rules. It has some improvements but also now has some more complex combat rules. With the changes though come random tables, lots and lots of random tables so that you can just roll for everything about your Magical Girl PC. I'm curious to see if I can think of a good character concept with literally everything about her being random, so let's give it a whirl. It uses d66, which means "roll 2 six sided dice and use one of them as the tens digit and the other as the ones digit."

Meet Setsuna (5,2) Nagisa (5,4). Her magical girl name is Sugar (5,6) Savior (5,6) Magical (3,6) Setsuna. Wow that's kind of an odd one. She is a "broken doll" (2, 2), which I think means she's sad or depressed for some reason. Why did she make a pact to become a magical girl? "Using magic for real is a dream come true!" (2,5). So she probably thinks having magical powers will make her feel better because I mean, who wouldn't want magic powers? When she collects enough Oblivious Seeds, she plans to wish for "the fighting to end" (4,3). Wow okay I think we know why she might be depressed now :smith:

Next up we see what kind of magic this girl has. Setsuna's element is Shadow (2,4). She wields a Magical weapon, specifically a Tome (1,4). So she hits her enemies with a large book (or casts spells from it but I kind of like the idea of her just beating horrific nightmare creatures over the head with a comically over sized book). Her magical power is Illusions (3,5) - she can whip up illusions that will confuse foes long enough for her or her allies to get the upper hand on them, presumably by manipulating and altering any nearby shadows.

Her costume is a skirt and blazer (1,3) colored Pink (3,3) and Indigo (2,6). She wears a Mask (4,5) and her outfits has circuits on it. Beep boop I am sad magical girl.

Next up is attributes. There's two kinds here - Magical and Normal. Magical is what you use when fighting youma or doing any magical girl poo poo, Normal is for everyday stuff. Magical stats are Heart, Fury, and Magic. Normal stats are Charm, Insight, and Tenacity. Setsuna's Magical attributes are Heart 7, Fury 7, and Magic 4 (26). Normal Attributes are Charm 2, Insight 6, Tenacity 6 (5,3). So she's terrible at socializing but pretty smart and able to keep going despite adversity. She's about average at magic (as much as you can be "average" at it I suppose) and she cares for the people in her life - but there's a lot of anger underneath the surface. Yikes. We assign Magical stats to Attack, Defense, and Support for combat, but first we gotta see what her specialization is.

Base Resolve for all PCs is 18. Resolve is pretty much HP - run out, and you transform back into a regular person and will probably get killed if hit by any magical attacks.

New to the 4th edition is specializations and talents. There are 3 specializations: Knight (Defense), Priestess (Support), and Witch (Attack). In a real game you should make sure you pick a specialization based on the other PCs and what the group needs. Setsuna is a Priestess (4). We can assign any Magical attribute to any function so we're going to want to have either Heart or Fury be our Support stat. While Heart would make sense, let's go with Fury. I just imagine this normally socially withdrawn mopey girl just loving screaming her head off at her team mates and that somehow helping them fight better. She also will use this for Sorcery, which is basically "use magic to do a thing" and that can be done both in and out of combat. This sounds like a person who might also want to get in there and beat the poo poo out of her enemies so Heart is her Attack stat. She really does care for her team mates and these GODDAMN loving MONSTERS AREN'T GOING TO HURT ANYONE ELSE EVER AGAIN! Finally, Defense is Magic. Not great, but not bad either.

Talents are magical abilities. Each PC starts off with Boost and Recover. Boost lets you put Overcharge on a magical attribute to gain another die and can be done 3 times in one scene. Recover lets you regain 1d6+2 resolve and is usable twice per episode. You get three additional Talents. One is from a general list, one is based off your specialization, and the third can be from either.

Setsuna's common Talent is Shield (5,1). When she or an ally is attacked, Setsuna can put 1 point of Overcharge on Fury and reduce damage by 5. She can spend 3 points of Overcharge on a single attack. Her priestess Talent is Rouse (6,3). Once per scene she can give a nearby ally the Calm or Excited status effect. Excited gives +1 to damage for all attacks, Calm gives +1 to all defense challenges. Yes, this means she can scream at someone to calm them down ("DID YOU NOT SEE HOW CLOSE THAT ATTACK CAME? JESUS loving CHRIST PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS!"). For our final talent, the roll to see what category it will be came up for common (1). She gets...Hate the World (3,2). Oh boy. Twice per scene she can reduce the rank of a relationship by 1 to get +2 to the result of a challenge along with +2 to damage if it was an attack, or she can instantly regain 1d6 Resolve. Considering you gain and restore relationship ranks by using Charm, this is probably not such a great move for the character. She's going to most likely need make multiple attempts to restore each lost rank - which will take time she may not have during episodes. Definitely a last resort sort of thing and in a real game I would not take this Talent with this character.

Now we see what her Crisis is. A Crisis is a situation or problem the PC can't ignore and that will drive the story at the beginning. Setsuna's problem here is that she fell through a portal and is now stranded in a different part of the world (2,2). This can't help with her depression and social isolation. This girl needs some friends.

Luckily there would be the other PCs, and in addition you start off with a number of points to spend on relationships with other people. Normally I would assume she has Relationships with her parents but apparently she's been cut off from them. Who has she managed to connect with recently though? While she could have more, I'm just going to make 2 NPCs and assume the rest of her ranks are going to the other PCs. Names are listed by male and female names, so I rolled 1d6 and went with 1-3 male name, 4-6 girl name.

First off is Ena (2,3) Kagura (2,2). Ena is a Significant Other (5,5). So Setsuna may be forced to fight deadly creatures no one knows exist while being cut off from her family, but at least she has a girlfriend :unsmith: Better hope Ena doesn't get curious about where Setsuna goes in her free time though.

Her second relationship is with Yukito (6,6) Miyakawa (3,6). He is an Exchange Student (2,3). This is a little weird, because it says that they're someone who is staying with your family and needs help learning about the area but Setsuna's family isn't here. So we just reverse that. I like the idea that Yukito knows Setsuna is not really an exchange student but she's obviously not from around here and needs some help. So he's lying to his family about that, while wondering who this mysterious girl is and what she's really up to.

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Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.
There was an article by pelgrane press on building Sword-mages in their system 13th age. This inspired me to try my own hand at making such a character. The results didn't turn out how I expected, as you will see, but I do like the outcome.

First off, let me speak a bit about 13th Age for people who have never heard of it before. The game runs off an extremely altered version of the d20 system called the Archmage system. This system was developed for the game by the lead designers of 3rd edition D&D and 4th edition D&D: Johnathon Tweet and Rob Heinsoo. Like D&D, it has ability scores, races, and classes. These three factors are going to drive much of what we design here today.

With that out of the way, my first step was narrowing down a concept. Sword-mage is a very vague idea and gives me just that, a vague idea, to work with. As I'm pondering this, I peer over my blank character sheet and I see the box for One Unique Thing. This is a mechanic in 13th Age to encourage you to explain how your character stands out from the crowd. I decided picking a one unique thing might help me narrow down the concept for my sword-mage: what would make my sword-mage unique. After deliberating for a bit, I get the strangest idea that the sword-mage's power should come from demons. Specifically, a demonic implant. Now, there are two factions in the Dragon Empire, 13th Age's default setting, who would even consider this, in my opinion: the Diabolist and the Crusader. The former as she is a master (or servant, depending on interpretation) of demons and the later as he is a "ends justify the means" demon hunter who morals are in question, values power, and views his subordinate as pawns. I decide the former would be too obvious and go with the latter. Besides, the idea of being an experimental, living, anti-demon weapon is a cool concept.Thus, I write down my One Unique Thing as In a hasty surgery, an agent of the crusader replaced my left arm with that of a demon's. The hasty surgery part comes from my thought that this experiment would probably not be one where you ask for volunteers, but more a result of opportunity.

Working out my One Unique Thing lead me to write my backstory and, by extension, concept: When I was young, my family was attacked by demons. An agent of the crusader saved my life, but was too late to save my family. I had lost my arm in the battle. Interested in the chance to experiment on a living subject, he offered to heal me. In a mix of delirium and rage, I took the offered and he gave me the demon's arm. He took me to be raised by the crusader's forces so he can keep an eye on his experiment. The arm has given me innate magic powers, but I regret my decision that day as the arm whispers to me.

Even though I haven't fleshed him out mechanically, I already like the character I thought up. It sounds like he would be an interesting addition to an adventure as he has an inward crisis (being demonically possessed, technically), an outward crisis (demon clean-up duty), and a direct-tie to two of the settings big factions (Crusader as he was raised by them and the Diabolist because of his arm). In 13th Age, there is a system to represent ties to the factions of the setting called the Icon system. You distribute 3 points between relationships with the Icons of the setting. The Icons represent themselves and the factions they lead. These relationships can be positive, negative, or conflicted. At the start of every session, you roll 1d6 per point in a relationship. On a 5, you gain a benefit at a cost from your faction during the session and, on a 6, you gain a benefit from your faction during the session. I decided to create a 2 point conflicted relationship with the creator as his forces raised me, but also used me as a guinea pig. I spend my remaining relationship point on a negative relationship with the Diabolist as a demon lives within me.

Instead of a long list of skills like in most d20 games, 13th Age has a background system instead: a series of freeform skills that cover a large base and are rated from 1-5. I decide this to be the next step for making my character. Starting characters have 8 points to distribute among backgrounds. Backgrounds cannot have less than 1 point or more than 5 points. They should be vague enough to be useful, but not too vague. Their intent is to inspire creativity so that players are likely to elaborate on their backstory and their approach (as an ability score, which will we get to, is also added to the check) when making checks to overcome obstacles outside of combat. Personally, I always keep to two backgrounds as I think, with 8 points to distribute, two backgrounds leads to more optimal numbers. These two optimal arrays, in my opinion, are 5, 3 and 4,4. I decide on the former as I feel being raised by the crusader has more influence than the whispering of the demon in my arm. These leads to me choosing the following backgrounds: Raised By The Crusader's Forces (5) and Whispers Of The Demon In My Arm (3).

It's at this moment that I kind of want to laugh at what I wrote so far. Earlier, I said ability scores, races, and classes were going to drive most of my decision making and I haven't even touch them yet. Now, it's time to get in to them.

As this was inspired by an article about how to make a sword-mage through multiclassing, I decide this must be a multiclass character despite the fact that there are ways to making a sword-mage with a single class (like the bard). The list of classes in 13th Age, to date, are Barbarian, Bard, Chaos Mage, Cleric, Commander, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Necromancer, Occultist, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Wizard. As far as spellcasters go, the best spellcaster for a sword-mage, in my opinion, is a sorcerer. Sorcerer's have a talent that allows them to use ranged spells at close range without risking an opportunity attack. This talent is called Spell-Fist. This is invaluable for a sword-mage since, otherwise, they risk being hit everything time they want to use a ranged spell while close to an enemy. With one of my classes decided, I decide that my martial class will be the Ranger. The Ranger is the only class without class features as it is meant to be build by it's class talents. To explain, all classes -- except for The Ranger -- have a special power(s) that all characters using that class receive. These are called class features. All classes also have a list of powers you must choose 3 from called Class Talents. As the Ranger is meant to be built from its class talents, it has some strong ones: particularly, Animal Companion and Double Melee/Ranged Attack. The former gives you a companion and, thus, an extra turn per round for it which is a big deal. The latter gives you a 50% chance to attack twice in a turn which is also a big deal.

With my classes decided, I need to work on my ability scores. Ability scores are the classic D&D 6: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. Like in most post-3e D&D derivatives, ability scores matter a lot in making a character. This is when I notice an issue with my idea for this character. For multiclass characters, before using what the system calls a basic attack, you decide which class is attacking. The Ranger, who I originally thought gets to choose whether to add Dexterity or Strength to its attack and damage for melee attacks, I find only gets to choose the prior for the attack roll, not the damage roll. In other words, you always add strength to damage regardless of the bonus you add to the attack roll. Further compounding this is that multiclass character have a mechanic known as the Key Modifier. As a way of making sure multiclass characters aren't better than normal characters, every class combination has two key modifiers: two ability scores that, when one or the other are called for combat checks, you use the lower score. This means you generally want to make sure both key modifiers are equal or having one higher is mostly pointless. The key modifiers for a ranger/sorcerer are Dexterity/Charisma. Even worse, Spell Fist forces all Sorcerer spells to add Constitution to damage instead of Charisma, but Charisma remains one of the key modifiers. Keeping a focus on melee would require a focus on 4 of the 6 ability scores. Thankfully, one is constitution which adds to your HP total so it would have been important anyway.

I decide to drop the idea of a sword-mage and focus more on this class being a frontline arcane caster at this point. I do so as I look over the defense calculations for a ranger/sorcerer and realize they could be potentially great. In short, I realize I can make a frontline caster that is hard to hit and can take a hit.

With this alteration in concept out of the way, I decide to be lazy and steal one of the stat arrays from the back of my book for my ability scores. I decide to use the 16,14,14,12,10,8 stat array. I assign them in this fashion: Str 10, Con 16, Dex 14, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 14. Every race and class combo give an option of two ability scores that can receive a +2 bonus. Multiclass characters get all the options their class provides, but your class can only provide one +2 bonus and it cannot be the same as your racial bonus (you can't add +4 to one ability score at character generation). My choices from my classes are Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Charisma, and Constitutions. I decide to pick out a race so I can decide my racial bonus. My options are: Humans, Half-Orcs, Dark Elves, High Elves, Wood Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings, Dragonspawn, Aasamar, Forgeborn, and Tieflings. Dark Elves have a choice between +2 Dex or +2 Cha and have a power that allows them to inflict ongoing damage. This seems like a perfect fit and I choose it. I decide to add a +2 to my Dex and my Cha for a new array of: Str 10 (+0), Con 16(+3), Dex 16(+3), Int 12(+1), Wis 8(-0), Cha 16(+3).

This stat arrays gives me an initiative of +4, 27 Total HP, and the following three defenses: Armor Class of 20 (I decided to wear Light Armor as neither class takes penalties for wearing it), Physical Defense of 15, and Mental Defense of 12. For the curious, defenses are calculated by taking the middle mod of 3 ability scores plus a flat number plus level to keep them in a certain range. Multiclass characters get the better defenses of their two classes. So, AC: 14 + Middle Mod of Con/Dex/Wis + Level, PD 11 + Middle Mod of Str/Con/Dex + Level, and MD 10 + Middle Mod of Int/Wis/Cha + Level. Some of you may notice that I should only have an Armor Class of 18, not 20. Spell Fist gives a +2 AC bonus on top of its other features.

These stats also decide that both my melee and ranged attacks have a +4 to hit bonus (Dex Mod + Level). Basic melee attacks receive a +0 modifier to damage. Basic ranged attacks receive a +3 modifier to damage. Multiclass characters have their weapon damage die dropped by one step (d10->d8, etc.) if one class is not a skilled class (Barbarian, Bard, Commander, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue). As such, both my basic attacks end up with a d6 damage die. That is on the lower scale as far as damage die in 13th Age is concerned.This is fine as my new concept of the character won't be relying too heavily on basic attacks, but may use them as a fall back plan considering their bonus to hit.

Like 4e, 13th Age has healing surges, in a way. They call them recoveries. You start with 8 of them unless you have a feature or talent that increases or decreases that number. They a number of dice equal to your level plus your Con mod. The size of the die is determined by your class. Multiclass characters pick the better of their two options. As such, I end up with 8 recoveries worth 1d8 + 3 at level 1.

I now move on to writing down what my class gives me. As the Ranger has no class features, I just write down the Sorcerer's class features. As I do, I remember the Sorcerer has a class feature that allows it to pick Wizard spells that are one level lower than the highest level of spell casting the sorcerer has access to (When a sorcerer can access 3rd level, it can use 1st level Wizard spells). It's nice to have variety.

I then move on to picking my talents. I already decided on spell fist so I take that. This leaves me with two talents left to purchase. In my opinion, if you're a ranger without an animal companion, you made a mistake. It gives you an extra attack guaranteed as well as a new target to be hit instead of you. Animal Companion, since the 13 True Ways sourcebook, has two versions: an initiate and adept version. The former costs 1 talent while the later costs 2. In the former, your animal companion can only arrive every other battle. This is the only time that a power doesn't recharge after level-ups, full heal-ups and the like: you have to use it every other battle. In the later, you can use it every battle and it gets access to daily spells. In my head, the demon in my arm is the animal companion. Either it appears behind me like a stand in Jojo or makes a giant, ephemeral fist like Nero from DMC 4, it is my "partner" in battle. As such, I feel it should be active every battle and, as I said it is the source of power, be magical. Not only that, but a 9th level Animal Companion spell allows me and my animal companion to switch bodies when I hit 0 hp. Considering my relation to my animal companion, this is rather thematic. I decide to spend my last two talents on Animal Companion Adept.

Every level, you get a feat to spend. This feat is a little upgrade to one of your pre-existing abilities given to you by your race and class. While I haven't picked my spells yet, which can be upgraded with feats, I already know I want to spend my adventurer feat (they come in tiers: Adventurer (1-4), Champion(5-7), Epic(8-10) and any higher tier one can be spent to unlock a feat of a lower tier) on allowing my Animal Companion to benefit from the escalation die. The escalation die is a d6 that increases every turn of combat (as long as combat is intensifying) and starts from 0 and goes to 6. While some powers key off it's value, it's main function is a bonus to your attack rolls. Besides the fact that demons are one of the few monster types that add the escalation die to their attack rolls (normally, it's just players), making sure my animal companion can hit is important since it's main function is a guaranteed extra attack per turn.

Now, it's time to pick out spells. People more used to other d20 games may wonder how I can plan to be an effective level 1 spellcaster in close quarters without martial attack support. After all, in most d20 games, spellcasters have a limited number of spells per day. This game runs off an alteration of 4e's At-will/Encounter/Daily/Utility system. As such, I can always attack as long as I have an at-will spell. Mind you, at-will spells lag behind martial damage dealing, but I can always pull back and use my longbow if I needed to. Also, Sorcerers can sacrifice a standard action to double their next spell's damage which is another option. One, mind you, that I'm better off using at range.

Multiclass characters in 13th Age lag behind one level for each of the classes they use. For level 1, they included special notes on how to treat multiclass characters. The big setback is the lost of 1 spell slot. In other words, I can "equip" one less spell to my character. For the curious, I can swap out my spells with any spells available to me (any spells available to my class that are of a level I have access to and lower. Spellcasters generally have 20 spells instead of the 200 in other D20 systems) at a full heal-up. I choose Lighting Fork which is a recharge spell that gives me the chance to attack multiple targets depending on if my roll is a natural (just the value on the die) even number. Recharge spells are a unique thing to 13th Age: they are essentially daily spells where, after battle, you can pass a DC to try and keep them for further use without a full heal-up occurring. I choose Chaos Bolt as my at-will spell (I need at-least for this build to work) as it is both thematic (demons are born from Chaos in this settings) and does decent damage with the chance of a chaotic benefit (a random bonus you normally only get from gathering power). Finally, I choose Breathe Of The White as my daily spell to help me do more damage. For a daily spell, it gets a chance to recharge for further use in that battle at the start of every turn as it is a breathe weapon (this comes from one of the sorcerer's class features).

It's at this moment that I realize I forgot to choose what type of Animal Companion I have. I decide on the wolf as a bonus to hitting the same targets I hit this round seems useful for a demon physically attacked to me. I also write down the companion's stats. As I am a level 1 character, it starts a level 0. This is not a result of my character being a multiclass character, but rather the result of normal animal companion rules. I don't need to choose spells as animal companions work on a more vancian system: they have access to all spells of their level or lower, but can only cast a certain number per day.

Finally, a fart out a character name: Natel Veroic. It means nothing. If this means something, whoops!

And there you have it! My attempt to make a sword-mage in 13th Age resulted in more of "close combat" mage. Battle Mage? Regardless, it's rather more physical than it would be otherwise. While a vanilla sorcerer can get up close and personal with the rest of them without multiclassing, this build really helps them with their defenses, gives them an extra attack and access to more spells through animal companion, and a viable martial back-up attack with their normal ranged attack. It's worth noting that rangers get more ranger talents as they level up. Normally, they get them at 5th and 8th level, but, as this is a multiclass, they will get them at 6th and 9th level instead. As such, the Ranger can invest in Double Ranged Attack to further it's ability to fall back on its normal ranged attack later on.

If anyone wants to see the character for this guy, here it is!

I also wrote up an alternate version that focuses more on melee and one that forgoes Adept Animal Companion for Double Ranged Attack.

Covok fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Dec 25, 2014

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