Character Creation in Fantasy AGE: rolling up a level 1 warrior

Character Creation in Fantasy AGE

I haven't done a walk-through on character generation in a game system for a while, so time to visit one of the newer games out there: Fantasy AGE!

Character creation in Fantasy AGE is similar to Dragon AGE, so if you've played the latter before (presumably in it's three boxed sets) then you'll see a lot of similarities....they are about 95% compatible, with just a few new tweaks to the FAGE edition of the AGE System.

The rules describe character creation as a nine-step process starting with a concept: My concept will be a warrior named Pelayo who wanted to be a mage but didn't have the aptitude for it. I'll let the devil flesh itself out in the details as we roll along....

Step 2 is to determine the nine abilities in FAGE. You can buy with points, assign numbers or roll, referencing a chart for the results. I'm going to roll. Since FAGE uses a numerical range from -2 to 4 for initial character stats the 3D6 roll you make for character generation is designed to give you some random scores along this spread. After rolling for Pelayo I get the following results:

0 Accuracy
1 Communication
3 Constitution
2 Dexterity
3 Fighting
1 Intelligence
1 Perception
2 Strength
0 Willpower

Pelayo has no bad stats, but judging from his intelligence and willpower I can see why he flunked as a mage....

Step 3 has us choose a race. Pelayo is human, so let's see what FAGE gives them: you get to add 1 to fighting, pick a focus from either constitution (swimming) or dexterity (riding) (I'll go with the latter as slightly more useful), a speed score of 10+Dex (so 12), the common language and two benefits on the "human benefits table." Everyone in FAGE has a benefits table, letting you gain a bit of a random selection to your racial type. For Pelayo I roll twice and get +1 constitution and focus in accuracy (brawling).

Step 4 determines our social class and background. Pelayo could come from riches....right? I roll 1D6 to determine and get....1. So Pelayo is an Outsider, a barbarian sort of guy from "somewhere else." Not a local. Although I can now choose background I decide to roll instead, getting a 6: a wanderer. Okay, makes sense.....from the focus options I pick constitution (stamina) since it sounds like it fits well with the hearty travels of a man with no home.

Pelayo's stats now look like this:

Pelayo:
1 Accuracy (focus: brawling)
0 Communication
4 Constitution (focus: stamina)
2 Dexterity (Focus: riding)
4 Fighting
1 Intelligence
1 Perception
2 Strength
0 Willpower
12 Speed
Languages: common

Next up is Step 5: the class. There are three classes in Fantasy Age: the mage (spell caster), rogue (expert type) and warrior (hits things hard). Level 1 in FAGE is designed to be a "learner's level" so you don't start stacking complexity on to the class until later on (level 4 is where you can pick a specialization, for example). Classes in FAGE are otherwise very similar to D&D classes, in that they determine starting health, weapon and armor choices as well as key abilities.

Pelayo is destined to be a warrior, so the choice here is easy. Note that there are no specific multiclassing mechanics in FAGE. If you want to make a sword-wielding mage, for an example, then you'll likely want to pick mage and then specialize in "sword mage" at level 4.

As a warrior Pelayo gets a range of primary and secondary abilities, as well as 30+constitution+1D6 for health; I rolled a 2 so Pelayo starts with 36 health. He gets brawling weapons group for proficiency and three others: I pick axes, bows and spears because that sounds about like what an outsider wanderer would know how to use.

For his level 1 abilities Pelayo can pick two novice level talents and gains novice in armor training automatically. For his two novice talents I pick weapon and shield style and archery style: shields, axes and bows is my thought. Note that the class description lists what you can pick....but you really need to look up the talents in their section as each has requisite requirements that you need to meet. For this reason an initial choice mine (two handed style) was ruled out because Pelayo's strength is 2 and he would need 3 for that talent.

Step 6 takes us to equipment, but before I go there I want to read up on what my two talents mean. As a novice in Archery Pelayo gets a +1 to damage against close targets (within 6 yards). For weapon and shield he gets the full shield defense bonus as a novice.

On to equipment! It's always interesting to see how a game handles equipment, because you can quickly tell what the game's style and focus is by the way gear is distributed. Some games stick to the "write it down or you don't have it" formula along with a concrete cost you pay for goods. Some games dispense with the cost, moving to a flexible (but annoying) wealth mechanic in which gear is a thing...a prop....but not necessarily a focus. Then there are games that treat gear like an effect or a cosmetic thing....I hate that system. Blegh! FAGE, thankfully, is type 1: you do pick your starting gear, but then you get some coin to spend: 15+3D6 silver pieces for an outsider like Pelayo, who ends up with 21 SP.

Pelayo also gets to pick from a selection of starting gear, getting a backpack, clothes, water skin, heavy leather armor, three weapons, and a medium shield. For the weapons I consult the list and pick out a battle axe, throwing axe and long bow with a quiver of 20 arrows. So...with all that gear I guess the SP is pocket change since I don't know what he'd buy with it right now...maybe some rope, which costs 2 SP for 20 yards of the stuff.

Worth noting that anyone can fight with any weapon, but if you're not trained in it you deal half damage and get a -2 penalty to hit.

Step 7 in character creation is to calculate defense. Defense keeps you alive, and is equal to 10+dexterity+any shield bonus (+2 for medium). For Pelayo his defense is 14. Note that no armor value is being added; armor itself has an AR (armor rating) which is subtracted from damage taken.

Step 8 is to pick a name (done!) and Step 9 is to choose goals and character ties. It is suggested that each character have three goals that relate to why he is adventuring, and the ties are effectively what everyone in the group has in common that gets them working together. Since Pelayo is (for now) a solo adventurer I'll provide a basic tie that can work across a spectrum.

Pelayo's stats now look like this:

Pelayo
Human male warrior (outcast wanderer)
Health 36; Defense 14; AR 4 (leather); Speed 12

1 Accuracy (focus: brawling)
0 Communication
4 Constitution (focus: stamina)
2 Dexterity (Focus: riding)
4 Fighting
1 Intelligence
1 Perception
2 Strength
0 Willpower

Languages: common
Weapon and Armor Skills: brawling weapons, axes, bows, spears
Warrior Talents: Archery (novice), weapon and shield (novice)

Equipment: backpack, clothes, water skin, heavy leather armor (AR 4), throwing axe (1D6+2+strength damage), battle axe (2D6+strength damage), long bow (1D6+3+perception damage), quiver with 20 arrows, and a medium shield (+2 bonus)

Goals: seek out fortune, slay the ogre king who killed father, become a prince among men
Ties: owes money to the crime lord Bossadan of Aelghast

Pelayo is now ready to adventure! It's a very clean, concise stat-block. I like.

Notes:

Combat: combat and most ability tests in FAGE are based on 3D6 rolls plus the relevant ability modifier; one of your dice is going to be odd colored and is the Stunt Die. When you roll doubles then a stunt kicks in, and the stunt die gives you stunt points (SPs) to spend on various options. For Pelayo, he'll be using fighting to attack with his melee weapons and accuracy for his bows. There's a big list in the book of which focuses apply to which abilities.

Ability Tests: An average test in FAGE is 11 or better. On a 3D6 that means you tend to roll 10-11, so the ability modifier will likely sway your direction of success. Furthermore, the adventurer gets a +2 bonus to the check when it relates to his focus. So Pelayo in our example could make a riding check at 3D6+4 for hid dexterity plus focus. It would behoove him to get a focus in axes and bows, soon.

Next: fight! Pelayo knows an orc in a room with a pie who's just asking for it.

Mutants & Marvels: Let’s Roll a Hero

I have a lot of game systems floating around right now begging for attention….having taken a look at EGS, I thought I’d move on to another indie title, this one also steeped in a bit of the superhero corner of the OSR: Mutants & Marvels, a superhero genre RPG which takes a bit of FASERIP and merges it with the D20 roll-high aesthetic. It works rather well, and is a lot of game packed into a tiny space.

Rolling up a character in M&M (hereafter identified as not related to a similar game) is based on a “rank” purchase mechanic: you have three tiers of play being heroic (Batman, Daredevil), super heroic (X-Men, Teen Titans) and epic (Superman, Thor). We’ll stick to super heroic, which give you 25 ranks to spend.

Back in the day I used to run a lot of superhero game using the old Mayfair MEGS version of DC Heroes. I have a lot of old character concepts to draw from….I think for this one I’m going to see what Arbalest can do. Arbalest is Dan Carver, a former sidekick to Captain Liberty of the Liberty League before they were wiped out in a concerted attack by the Sinister Seven. One of several “sidekick survivors” Arbalest took on the mantle of dark vigilante to hunt down the Seven in revenge for the murder of his mentor, but he eventually realized that he had strayed from the ethos of his teacher and reformed (this happened during a major showdown with the Old One which manifested in New York in 1990). Arbalest eventually began to experience severe deterioration from the Demons’ super serum which he had stolen and used in 1989, but around 2000 he went on to work for The Nil Group which repaired the damage to his system in exchange for his service as an agent. The Nil Group is an ultra-secret espionage outfit designed to track down and contain dangerous metahumans. While working for them he took on the role of Agent 13. We’ll see what Arbalest/Agent 13 looks like in M&M.

M&M has seven primary stats: fighting, agility, strength, endurance, reason, intuition and psyche (FASERIP). These rank from -2 (feeble) to +15 (unearthly). You’ve got titles (like “excellent” for each or you can use numbers (+2 is excellent). A nice chart lets you figure out where each attribute falls in relation to a chosen rank.

Arbalest is a borderline super-human; he was a well-trained normal when he was Captain Liberty’s sidekick in the 80’s, but he underwent a super-serum treatment which he stole from the villain called the Demon in 1989 which gave him metahuman strength and speed. In 2000 when he was recruited by the Nil Group received further cybernetic augmentations and was exposed to the Lazarus Mist to undo some of the genetic “unraveling” that the Demons’ super serum was doing to him physically.  This treatment repaired the damage and extended his life indefinitely—physically he looks 30 even though in 2015 he’s technically 56 years old.

(Can you tell there’s an entire genre of gaming I love which I haven’t even touched upon in the last four years of blogging?)

Anyhoo!

Arbalest has the following stats from the 25 point pool:

Fighting remarkable (+4), Agility incredible (+6), Strength remarkable (+4), Endurance incredible (+6), Reason typical (+0), Intuition good (+1), Psyche good (+1)

That leaves 9 ranks for powers. Since Arbalest isn’t heavy on unique powers that seems reasonable….he’s more of a classic grimdark post-Miller Batmanesque type, the sort of character that would later look comfortable in an early nineties Image lineup.

Resources are also tracked on the ability chart like attributes. Although I imagine you could spend points toward resources, the game suggests that the GM determine the resources based on the character background. Since the background for Arbalest/Agent 13 is one of a professional secret agent, we’ll give him Resources of remarkable (+4; equivalent to a small corporation….this is a super-secret outfit that skims its funds off of the receipts of the Pentagon, after all!)

Next up are powers. Power mechanics are very easy (spend ranks to get powers) and some additional rules include power packages (a way to make iron man’s suit, or other powers that are linked/grouped together) and power stunts (tricky stuff that you might be able to do….like Captain America slinging his shield around, I suppose). Additional rules here include some character origins (why you have powers) and the ubiquitous sorcery rules, since comics are notorious for making sorcery and spells very hard to model in RPGs. Finally there are 11 groups of powers presented, with an additional 25 subtypes.

For Arbalest we’re looking at some super attributes (technically already added to strength), and some general physical improvements….he’s got some residual super-serum in his veins, some cybernetic augmentations which affect regeneration and give him tougher skin and reflexes. From looking at the list, I see right off that super attribute will justify his already high strength as I set it, while Damage Resistant, Armor, Regeneration and Hardened Fists are also good choices. If I have the points I might add some senses as well, since Nil Group may have cybernetically augmented his vision and hearing as well.

Here’s what I go with:

Super Attribute: this justifies his strength and agility (which according to the chart at remarkable rank he can lift one ton and has a high natural agility….dodging single bullets).

Armor: after deciding damage resistance isn’t quite what I want (it seems to be vs. energy types) I opt for Armor excellent (+3) instead for 2 ranks. He’s basically got what was called “skinweave” in  Cyberpunk 2020; nanotech in his skin can harden up with a carbon fiber weave to absorb shock and impact.

Hardened Fists: I figure that same nanoweave carbon fiber in his skin that serves as armor also makes his fists tougher. We’ll give it to him at good (+1) for 1 rank as well, but only because his main schtick is going to be with the big arbalest he carries around.

Regeneration: the nanotreatment in his veins also keeps him alive and young. I’ll give him excellent (+2)  in this. That costs 2 ranks . We have 4 ranks left to spend.

I bypass enhanced senses for a moment and move to skills. Skills include a few specific rules: you have a series of “everyman” skills which everyone receives at a base value equal to the character’s Reason score. You can then spend one rank on a skill to get it at a value equal to the linked attribute plus one. So…in Arbalest’s case, I can buy Martial Arts, Lethal for one rank and link it to his Fighting Score, meaning he has a Martial Arts, Lethal at +5.

Right off the bat he needs training in bows (arbalests) so I jam 1 rank into getting Firearms/Bows linked to Agility (since it’s a ranged attack) for a +7.

With one more rank I’ll stick it in Investigation, a skill not on the list provided and link it to Intuition, so he has Investigation +2. Not great but he needs something to reflect his role as Nil Group Agent 13.

The skill list is short: seven everyman skills, and a sampling of seven suggested skills with the basic rules on making whatever skills would fit your character. The key thing is each skill has to be linked to an attribute to get its base value plus 1 per rank spent to improve it.

After all that, a few additional topics are discussed: secret vs. public identities (Dan Carver likes to keep his identity secret, but due to a high-profile trial in the late 80’s leading to his brief incarceration his method of doing so these days is through numerous obscure aliases). Reputation by popularity and infamy is addressed as well….as a player I could argue to the GM that Arbalest/Agent 13’s reputation of infamy was from the late 80’s, and Nil Group helped wipe out much of that….so he could “restart” at zero. But as GM I’d probably assigned a couple points to Infamy because old stories never die.

Contacts and minions are also discussed (though not sidekicks curiously). Everyone gets a contact for free at character creation, so Arbalest gets one: Nil Group. Your contact is usually normal, but by spending a rank you can make it special…I’ll leave the exact nature of the Nil Group contact/relationship open…they like it that way, anyway.

Beyond that M&M talks about archetypes and identifies eight sample archetypes with some guidelines on what they do and how to make one, followed by a character example.  One thing that the process doesn’t really talk about is equipment. You can build equipment using powers, as suggested in the  power packages discussion section (making Iron Man’s armor) but not a lot of guidance on how you stat out, say, Batman’s utility belt (although I guess you could define it as a power package as well). There’s no “omnipower” such as the DC Heroes system had to fix this problem, as an example. However, the GM section does include rules on building things in the game (gadgeteering) which are very simple and boil down to: do you have the time, resources and space? If so then you can build it. With that spirit in mind, I’m going to give Arbalest his signature weapon…it’s a heavy crossbow essentially, designed originally for sieges, but this state-of-the-art edition is easy enough for a guy with augmented strength and dexterity to haul around. It’s definitely not something you’d see the Huntress using, though!

The game stats out bows and firearms but not this weapon, so I’ll make it slightly better than a bow, worse than a heavy handgun: +3 damage, range 100’, skilled and lethal traits.

When all is done, Arbalest/Agent 13 looks like this:

Arbalest

alias Dan Carver, alias Agent 13

Former sidekick, former rogue vigilante, current agent of Nil Group

Fighting remarkable (+4), Agility incredible (+6), Strength remarkable (+4), Endurance incredible (+6), Reason typical (+0), Intuition good (+1), Psyche good (+1)

Resources: remarkable (+4)

Powers: Armor +3, Hardened Fists +1, Regeneration +2

Skills: Martial Arts, Lethal +5, Firearms/Bows +7, Investigation +2

Contact: Nil Group

Weapon: arbalest (+3 damage, range 100’, skilled, lethal)

So how does Arbalest hold up in the wide world of bad guys? Stay tuned for next time, when we test out the combat mechanics (all two pages) of M&M. This is a very lite supers system, but honestly I suspect it will be a bit more entertaining to see how two super humans fare in a battle than the sad massacre that we saw in EGS previously….!

Exploring Character Generation in the Entropic Game System

Character Generation in EGS

The Entropic Gaming System (EGS) is a new system from Mystic Throne Entertainment.  I feel like it’s time to take a closer look at this generic multi-genre system that is directly competing in the space currently occupied by Cortex, BRP, Savage Worlds and Legend. A walk-through on how the game works, starting with character generation, will help to demonstrate these differences.

For our example, I’m going to assume Aston Kormak, our protagonist, is a Joe Genero of the Fantasy World set. Yep, we’re going to create a classic sword & sorcery adventurer for our example. Aston may pick up some magic if we can work it out as well.

Characters start with a concept (we have a basic one: fantasy adventurer) and a background (such as human, elf, Slavic, alien kree, etc.)  EGS includes a sampling of fantasy, historical and scifi backgrounds to work with. Human is not a background in and of itself, but the default assumption; backgrounds modify that. To keep it simple for now I’m keeping Aston a generic human (the core default).

As a human, Aston starts with a number of dice that he applies to his eight statistics. A character gets a range to divide among his stats: four D6s, two D8s and two D10s. You can drop a D6 to a D4 to boost a D10 to a D12 if you like. In this sense it’s similar to Savage Worlds (and also the Cortex game system).

The eight stats include charisma, dexterity, intelligence, perception, psyche, spirit, strength and vitality. For Aston, we’ll divide his stats as follows:

CHA D6, DEX D6, INT D10, PER D8, PSY D10, SPT D6, STR D8, VIT D6

Next up is Attributes. Attributes are the secondary stats, such as health and combat actions. We have in order:

Combat Action-these define how many actions you take per combat round. Every normal character starts with 3 CAs.

Defense-this is based on dexterity and is used as the target number against attacks. This is a passive score, and you can also burn a CA to take an active defense action. Aston’s Defense is 7.

Health-the hit points of EGS. Aston’s hit points are 14 (based on the maximum of the dice for strength and vitality).

Hero Points-you start with 3, and these are burned for extra die effects when rolling (among other things). Hero Points essentially replace the concept of the wild die from Savage Worlds.

Initiative-this is based on the die maximums for dexterity, perception and acrobatics skill. Without acrobatics Aston has 14 Initiative.

Characters also get a base speed of 30 feet and start with their native language. Aston, being from Fantasy Land, will know “Common.”

Aston’s attibutes are as follows:

CA: 3, Defense 7, Health 14, Hero Pts 3, Init 14, Speed 30, Language: common.

Skills in EGS are point-buy and also die-based. You get 18 points to spend on skills. It costs 1 point to get a skill at D4, another 1 point to boost it to D6 and again to D8, but 2 points to get a D10 and 3 more points to get a D12. So starting with a skill at D12 costs 8 points.

Skills in EGS are of a wider range than Savage Worlds, including 36 base skill choices and a much larger array of skill specializations, and “skill combinations” which are examples of how you would apply the skill+relevant ability score to achieve specific results (i.e. psyche plus husbandry equals animal handling). The skill combinations are demonstrations of how each skill works differently with certain ability scores depending on what you are doing. EGS provides 37 skill combinations, which encompass the majority of typical adventurer interactions that would involve a skill plus ability combination.

Archetypes are also offered as well. These are basically suggested professional builds by category with typical skill choices. You have twelve sample archetypes, such as sorcerer, priest, thief, investigator and so forth.

While the skill system takes the die-system method of Savage Worlds, it is much more robust in terms of options than SW could ever be, and shows some influence from Legend and other skill-focused games.

For Aston’s purposes I’m going to pick Sorcerer since I want to push him into this path to demonstrate how magic works in EGS. Sorcerers get arcana, performing, resist and streetwise as suggested skills. Interesting…

So here’s what I pick for Aston. I’m aiming for an athletic, healthy younger mage:

Awareness D8, Husbandry D4, Melee D6, Performing (scribe) D8, Resist D8, Streetwise D4, Arcana D10

Those 18 points went fast….

Skill Combinations that Aston meets are as follows:

Insight, Parry, Questioning, Willpower.

Next up is Qualities, of which EGS provides 28 examples (but encourages players and GMs to make more). Qualities are similar to the various advantages, disadvantages and perks in GURPS and a bit like Edges in Savage Worlds, but with a key difference: they are all role-play focused “triggers” for gaining additional hero points during play. For example, Acrobatic as a quality lets the character gain a hero point when using acrobatics to perform exceptional stunts with the skill. While an assassin could use it to gain hero points on stealth checks used against a target. A lazy character could gain hero points when engaging in quintessential laziness. 

There's a real edge to picking "negative" qualities over positive qualities, too: you can stockpile the hero points. A character with the assassin quality can gain a hero point for stalking his prey, but he has to use it in the context of that action. A lazy hero however by being lazy gets a hero point he can use later on.

Qualities are kind of cool, actually, especially if you yourself are a low record-keeping GM like I am. One problem I run in to with awarding inspiration in D&D 5E, to use my personal bugaboo, is not keeping track of the chosen ideals and various background traits of seven or eight characters….thereby meaning if my players aren’t on the ball with asking for it, I usually don’t notice until too late that I ought to have awarded it. Here, however, a player using a Quality is calling upon it specifically for effect, and will then wait to see if the GM agrees it deserves a hero point. This sort of “bakes” the reward process into the roleplaying with an easy prompt system. Nice.

Anyway, Aston as a standard human hero gets up to five qualities. I’m picking the following for him:

Enemy-he’s got someone he pissed off in his life. I’m going to say it’s his mother, from whom he is estranged; she’s a sort of Maleficent type and he ran away from her to avoid being sucked into her dark cult to the Old Ones. When the enemy rears its ugly head he could get a hero point. This is his negative quality. 

Geomancer-Aston can apply this when he uses elemental magic in arcane mastery. His aptitude for geomancy is why he fled his mother’s control to avoid becoming a necromancer.

Weird Quality-Aston is talented with magic, and in the next step we’ll discuss his Talent; but for now, he needs to spent one Quality on being weird, essentially.

I’ll devise two of my own for the last two:

Horse Whisperer-Aston gets along well with horses, and has a knack for calming them down, although he’s never learned how to ride well.

Clumsy with the Ladies-Aston has a natural fascination for women and tends to pursue attractive ladies although he has little social prowess due to the years his mother kept him locked away, so he's prone to all sorts of social mishaps. This is his other negative quality.

We’re now ready to take a look at Aston’s talent for magic. When devising a talent, you spend one quality on the “Weird Quality” feature which opens up the talent. Then you need to pick a governing attribute and skill for that talent. For Aston the choice is easy: Intelligence and Arcana are great choices for picking the Sorcerer concept.  Other concepts include the cleric, hierophant, psion, steampunk scientist, shaman, super hero and warlock.

Aston then starts with Weird Points equal to three times the die type for his weird ability (INT), meaning he starts with 30 WPs. Individual talents are based on your skill type: since we’re using Arcana, he starts with half the die type, or 5 talents.

Additional concepts for talents to consider include “manifestation” which is how the power looks/feels by genre (similar in concept to the FX notion in Savage Worlds), as well as a series of manipulation effects that…I’ll be perfectly blunt….are pulled directly from Legend (which is okay! This is an OGL book using the OGL version of the Legend and Renaissance rules to great effect).

So you heard that right: we have the flexible features of the Savage Worlds power system wedded to the extremely customizable manipulation options of the Legend system, which originate in Runequest’s sorcery rules. Nice.

There are 55 talents to choose from in EGS. The list is pretty varied and the wide range makes it more flexible than, say, the modest selection in Savage World’s core rules. It’s also designed with more “types” of weird concepts in mind than the sorcery spell rules in Legend, so this is not merely an OGL-borrowed set of mechanics but its own range of options with a lot of flexibility in the design.

For Aston’s purposes we’re looking at a classic sorcerer, and I’ll pick five useful spell talents for him to get along with:

Abjure (he learned this spell talent to survive without food or water while on the run)

Animate (when your mother is a necromancer you sorta have to learn this)

Burst (his natural elemental talent for creating bursts of fire and ice manifesting)

Elemental Manipulation and Earth (his geomantic talents in full swing)

So we’re almost done with Aston Kormak’s character creation. Equipment is up next. The rules allow for a selection of choices including a suit or armor worth 2 points of protection, an appropriate weapon and a genre-appropriate adventurer’s kit plus $200. For Aston a shortsword (4 Dmg) and leather armor (2 points) seem appropriate. When all is done, Aston looks like this:

Aston Kormak

Background: human male

Archetype: Sorcerer; Weird Concept: Sorcerer

CHA D6, DEX D6, INT D10, PER D8, PSY D10, SPT D6, STR D8, VIT D6

CA: 3, Defense 7, Health 14, Hero Pts 3, Init 14, Speed 30

Language: common

Skills: Awareness D8, Husbandry D4, Melee D6, Performing (scribe) D8, Resist D8, Streetwise D4, Arcana D10

Skill Combinations: Insight, Parry, Questioning, Willpower

Qualities:

Enemy-he’s got someone he pissed off in his life. I’m going to say it’s his mother, from whom he is estranged; she’s a sort of Maleficent type and he ran away from her to avoid being sucked into her dark cult to the Old Ones. When the enemy rears its ugly head he could get a hero point.

Geomancer-Aston can apply this when he uses elemental magic in arcane mastery. His aptitude for geomancy is why he fled his mother’s control to avoid becoming a necromancer.

Weird Quality-Sorcerer Concept

Horse Whisperer-Aston gets along well with horses, and has a knack for calming them down, although he’s never learned how to ride well.

Clumsy with the Ladies-Aston has a natural fascination for women and tends to pursue attractive ladies although he has little social prowess due to the years his mother kept him locked away, so he's prone to all sorts of social mishaps. This is his other negative quality.

Weird Talent: Sorcery; INT based, Arcana; 30 WPs

Spell Talents: Abjure, Animate, Burst, Elemental Manipulation, Earth

Equipment: shortsword (4 dmg), leather armor (2 pts), adventurer’s kit, 200 gold

I’m pretty excited to play this character. In fact….I’m pretty excited to play EGS, or more accurately to run it.

Next time I’ll show off how the combat works a bit. 

A Walk Through Character Generation in Magic World

While I tend to take it for granted that everyone has played or is familiar with the D100 system that powers Basic Role Playing, Magic World, Runequest, Legend, Call of Cthulhu and many other game systems, the truth is that’s not really the case. Even if you are, there are lots of little differences between various versions of the system, so a walk-through on how character generation works could be beneficial to many.

Magic World is BRP-powered but hangs off of the skeleton of the older Elric//Stormbringer 5^th edition mechanical assumptions. This makes it a bit more streamlined than Runequest, and since its focus is fantasy only it has fewer extraneous chunks than its parent game, BRP. Magic World deviates from Runequest in a few specific ways: no hit-location system, a core HP mechanic, a single unified magic system, and a reliance on the resistance table of BRP instead of two skill-based saving rolls.

All good characters begin with an idea or a core conceit. I’m going to roll some stats up first and then think about who it is I want to create. MW uses strength, constitution, size, intelligence, power, dexterity, and appearance. Humans roll 3D6 for all stats except for intelligence and size, which are 2D6+6. I’m going to roll these straight across and see what I get:

STR 8, CON 4, SIZ 17, INT 16, POW 11, DEX 8, APP 13

Holy cow….this guy is frail, sickly, enormously tall (around 6’7” and maybe as skinny as 150 lbs), very smart, a bit clumsy and despite all that he’s either fairly congenial or decent looking. Nice. With stats like that I think I shall call him Asterius Crane. I see a fellow who is excessively bookish, and who’s exotic height contrasts with his weak frame, so he overcompensates by being friendly and affable.

There are a variety of derived stats in MW. The derived “rolls” are percentile approximations of the core stats that can be used to resolve various situations that skills alone don’t cover. Each derived stat is a default of the main attribute multiplied by 5. SIZ is the only stat that doesn’t get a derived roll. When I calculate these we get:

Effort 40%, Stamina 20%, Idea 80%, Luck 55%, Agility 40%, Charisma 65%.    

So by percentage Asterius’s strength is in being an idea man and fairly charismatic.

There are several other derived stats as well:

Damage modifiers are based on strength and size. Despite being physically underwhelming, Asterius has reach and leverage due to size, so he actually qualifies for a +1D4 damage modifier to melee attacks.  He has okay hit points thanks to his size (but with a better constitution it could have been so much more); his HPs are 11 and his major wound score is 6 (the number of HPs below which bad things can happen). If I were to use the optional heroic hit point system he would have 21 hit points, instead (the total of size and constitution instead of the average) and a major wound threshold of 11. Alas, Asterius is probably destined for the world of Sarvaelen and there are no robust heroes in that land.

With a POW of 11 Asterius has 11 magic points, so he’s no hard-hitting spellcaster. If he had 16 or better in POW then he would gain 3 levels in magic just for being awesome…but he is not awesome.

Having a variable appearance provides distinctive features, which you can choose or roll for. With an APP 13, he gets 2 features on the good side. I roll and get “torso” and “bearing” options. I choose “tall” because it’s a no-brainer; because he has a good appearance score this means his height is an asset; he towers over people and maybe that’s somewhat intimidating or impressive. For bearing I choose “casual” because I am thinking Asterious is a bit laconic, and comes off with a “always in control” vibe….he doesn’t seem to panic, so this inspires those around him a bit.

I roll for his age and it turns out he is 23 years old.

Next up is culture. There are four default cultures in MW, with the option for campaign-specific cultural packages.  A culture provides guidance on choosing a profession as well as a 10% bonus to three cultural skills. The choices are band, tribe, chiefdom and state. Each culture includes a description and extensive list of real-world samples of what it is talking about, as well. As I am imagining Asterius I could see him coming from any of these, although his hope of being a bookish giant rests heavily on a more advanced culture so I pick “state.”  Specifically, since I’m putting Asterius in Sarvaelen I will assume he comes from  Aeronost, a feudal coastal culture with a handful of prominent cities.  I pick oratory, world lore and  scribe for his three cultural skills.

Next up is occupation. There are twenty core professions to chose from, and many more that could be introduced (or borrowed from other BRP books).  MW offers skill points to the skill package of each occupation, although it does so a bit differently than BRP, by allotting +60 to one occupational skill of choice, +40 to three more skills, and +20 to four others. After that you get 40 points to add to one non-occupational skill and three more non-occupational skills that get +20 each. Aside from occupational and cultural skill points characters get some points by skill category based on half of the derived attribute.

Finally, if you want to make an experienced adventurer rules and numbers are provided to start a veteran, heroic or legendary adventurer.

After looking at the occupations available, I think Asterius Crane would make a great physician, apocethary or scribe. Each occupation is presented from the context of a “you learned to be this, but now, for various reasons, you are adventuring” sort of approach. Kinda cool. I think I’ll go with scribe.

As a scribe Asterius can pick from several skills. I choose the following: Scribe (+60), World Lore (+40), Evaluate (+20), Insight (+40), Nature (+20), and I’ll pick another language (Emoniae, from Sarvaelen) at +20 as well. He can have a skill as a personal specialty, so I pick Potions with +40. Asterius is something of an exotic brewer and apothecary on the side, it seems. Finally, his occupation awards him 200 bronzes to spend.

Aside from his occupational skills Asterius can allot extra points into “other” as well. Those points end up in Dodge (+40), Navigate (+20), Listen (+20), and…because this is a guy who will face danger, lets put the last +20 into short sword, with which he’s had some minor training. Being experienced with the short sword means Asterius’s practice with the weapon will also improve familiarity with everything in weapon class 2 (broadswords, cutlasses, falchions, rapiers, scimitars, and short swords). One thing I could not find clarification on (yet) was if weapon skills received the physical skill modifier. I am assuming they do here.

Finally we come to Allegiance. Old fans of Elric/Stormbringer will recognize this as derived from the old order/chaos system of allegiance. It is now a division between light, shadow and balance. Adventurers start play with 25 allegiance points in one, 15 in a second and 5 in a third. I think Asterius is fairly neutral, so I split it like this:

Light 15, Balance 25, Shadow 5

Being aligned with balance grants some perks (as do the others). For those aligned with balance they can attempt to call on inner reserves of strength, which can grant 1/5 of their HP total in recovery. Allegiance can be strained when calling upon abilities, as well as when acting contrary to one’s aligned nature. Neat stuff, lots of role-play potential.

After a bit of spending to equip Asterius with some leather armor and a short sword (he started with a grand total of 401 bronzes), the poor fellow is ready to get killed adventuring. So what does Asterius Crane look like right now? Here he is:

Asterius Crane

Human male, 6’7” tall, 150 lbs., Age 23

Occupation: scholar; Culture: State; Distinctive Features: tall and casual

STR 8, CON 4, SIZ 17, INT 16, POW 11, DEX 8, APP 13; Hit Points 11, MW 6, Magic Points 11

Effort 40%, Stamina 20%, Idea 80%, Luck 55%, Agility 40%, Charisma 65%.    

Skill Category Modifiers: Physical +4, Communication +6, Knowledge +8, Manipulation +4, Perception +2

Damage Modifier +1D4

Allegiance: Light 15, Balance 25, Shadow 5

Occupational Skills: Scribe 74%, World Lore 73%, Evaluate 43%, Insight 57%, Nature 53%, Language (Aeronistic, native) 88%, Language (Emoniae) 28%, Potions 48%, Oratory 21%

Additional Skills: Dodge 60%, Navigate 53%, Listen 37%, Shortsword 43%

Weapon: Shortsword:  Attack 43%, Damage 1D6+1+1D4, weapon class 2

Armor: soft leather: 1D4-1 APs, light burden

Remaining Bronzes: 101

Asterius is now ready to go adventuring!

A few more notes:

Character generation is pretty quick the way MW does it because it gives the player a set number of discrete skill point packages to apply instead of a lump total number of skill points. MW does insure that a starting character has a decent set of starting skills in this fashion.

For those not familiar with BRP, note that a character can attempt any skill pretty much that has a starting base value of 1 or better…so a skill like oratory, which has a base chance of 5%, can be tried by pretty much anyone even if the chance of success is tiny. The skills above only reflect those in which Asterius got training, however.

The flavor text in MW is rife. It’s aimed at helping the player to imagine who his or her character is as they roll the PC up, so you can start blind with char gen (as I did) and end up with a character that you can “see.”

There are no point-buy rules provided in MW (BRP does offer this however in its core). The game is focused on a starting core of random char gen.

I may roll up a mage next so you can see what the sorcery looks like. Until next time….!