Character Creation
Overview
- Roll or choose stats.
- Choose a Class, Stock, and Ethnicity.
- Choose a name and describe your appearance.
- Choose skills, languages, and equipment.
- Calculate derived attributes
Stats
Your character has eight numerical statistics which range from 3 to 18, with 10-11 being average. Stats cannot exceed a score of 18 at level 1.
- Physical stats
- Strength (STR) - How physically strong your character is. Affects how hard you hit and how much you can carry.
- Dexterity (DEX) - How nimble your character is with their fingers. Affects your ability to accomplish precise tasks.
- Agility (AGI) - How fast and light on their feet your character is. Affects movement speed and dodge chance.
- Constitution (CON) - How robust and hearty your character is. Affects how much physical strain you can endure.
- Mental stats
- Intellect (INT) - How clever and knowledgeable your character is. Affects arcane magic and knowledge checks.
- Wisdom (WIS) - How wise and in tune your character is. Affects divine magic and ability to resist magic.
- Perception (PER) - How keen your character's senses are. Affects ranged accuracy and ability to notice details.
- Charisma (CHA) - How charming and convincing your character is. Affects ability to influence, persuade, and deceive others.
Modifiers
For each stat, compute its "modifier" by subtracting 10, dividing by 2, and rounding down. This new smaller number can be positive or negative (or zero). Unless stated otherwise, when you make a roll that is related to one of your stats, you will add your modifier for that stat.
| Stat Score | Modifier |
|---|---|
| 3 | -4 |
| 4-5 | -3 |
| 6-7 | -2 |
| 8-9 | -1 |
| 10-11 | 0 |
| 12-13 | +1 |
| 14-15 | +2 |
| 16-17 | +3 |
| 18 | +4 |
Assigning stats
There are two ways of generating stats. The referee may choose to allow either option, or both, or to offer even more options.
Method 1: Roll
The traditional way to generate stats is to roll three six-sided dice (3d6) and add them together, rolling once for each stat, in order, starting with Strength. This will give you a completely random character. Due to the bell curve distribution generated by rolling 3 dice, most stats will be in the range from 8-13. The lowest possible roll is 3 and the highest is 18.
If you are unhappy with the stats you have rolled (perhaps because they are unusually low across the board, or perhaps you rolled a bad mixture of stats for the type of character you wanted to play), the ref should permit either a re-roll or re-arranging a few scores to better suit your intended character. That said, if you have a specific character in mind, perhaps a better approach would be to use the other stat generation method.
Method 2: Array
Use the following array of numbers and assign one to each stat in whatever order you wish:
| Stat Score | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modifier | +2 | +1 | +1 | 0 | 0 | -1 | -1 | -2 |
Derived Attributes
- Health Points (HP) - Equal to your Constitution score at 1st level. Every time you gain a level, you gain HP equal to your CON modifier (or 1, whichever is higher).
- Magic Points (MP) - Equal to your spellcasting stat score (Intellect for arcane casters, Wisdom for divine casters) at 1st level. Every time you gain a level, you gain MP equal to your spellcasting stat modifier (or 1, whichever is higher).
- Speed - This is how many feet you can move per round. It is equal to twice your Agility score, rounded up to the nearest 5 feet. (For example, if your Agility score is 12, your speed is 25 feet per round.
