Character Generation Workshop

[Ineti]

This is an idea that just hit me, so I'll post it here and see if anyone has any thoughts or comments.

Many of the questions that come up a lot on this board and on the Decipher board revolve around character generation. Sometimes, pointing a person in the direction of the char gen summary isn't enough. Some folks learn better by example than by reading.

So, I thought a workshop would help. My though is that someone could propose a character they'd like to see created, and I or we could then sit down and step by step create that character here on the forums, showing exactly how to create a character.

For example, someone could post "I'd like to see a zero-advancement warrior" or maybe a character bio or something that we could use to build a character by the rules.

Good idea, sucky idea? Thoughts?

(just realized this should be in the other forum--could a moderator please move this thread?)

[Doug Burke]

Per Ineti's request, moved to the Council of Elrond forum.

[Eol]

I like your idea personally. So I will be the first to demonstrate in this workshop how to create an Elf of the 'ranger-y' variety>

*enters room and greets the people attending the workshop*
"Hello, everyone as a first class in thias workshop we will begoing through creating an elven ranger. Note that I use the term ranger ina generic way, I am not referring to the elite order. For example, a scout, waywatcher or hunter are also good description for the character we will be creating"

Primary and Seconadry Attributes

Let's start from the very beginnng...Atributes. Think for a moment what are the qualities a ranger must posses. I suppose we would agree that Nimbleness and Perception will probably be the most important atributes. Quick and perceptive he must be if he wants to survive in the wilderness. Of course a character like that will be using a variety of skills so I would suggest that he shouldn't be to specilised as far as attributes are concerned. Maybe put some more emphasis on Nim. and Per. but other attributes, like Wits, Vitality, Strength are not to be ignored.
Although a character like that might be a loner, I wouldn't suggest puting a low Bearing. Learning to survive in the wild and by relying to nothing more than your skills, will probably produce a character with confidence and a low Bearing might not be very appropriate.

So assuming we use the pick method, I would use the highest score for Nim. and Per. (10 and 9), then next I would put Vitality Strenght, Wits, Bearing in that order (7,7,5,4). The extra 8 points I would use to raise Vitality and Strength by 1 point each, and the rest on Wits and Bearing to bring them around a score of 8.
Note that Elves get a good modifier for Perception and Nimbleness, so you afford to not put any point on them for now. These two will probably going to be your favourite attributes so you can always increase them later at a lower price.


So take the example of a Silvan Elf, ....let;s give him a name...call him Durandir...his Attributes might look something like this:
Bearing: 8
Nimbleness: 12
Perception: 10
Strenght: 8
VItality : 8
Wits: 9

Here I used my 10 for Nimbleness and added an extra point to bring it to 12 (silvan Elves get +1 Nim). I used 9 for wits becuase I see my character as someone you depends on his wits to survive, I used my two 7s on Perception and Strenght, Iused one point ot raise Perception to 10 (SIlvan Elves get +2 Per.) and one point on Strenght to get a score of 8.
Finally I put my 5 and 4 on Viatlity and Bearing and used the remaining point to raise them to a score of 8.

Reactions follow naturally from your basic attributes. The good score on Nim and Per. would give you good Swiftness and Wisdom. Another reaction that would be useful to a survivalist like this character is Stamina. So I would suggest that for a favourite reaction a difficult choice between Swiftness and Stamina.

In the same example as above, Durandir would have the follwoing Reactions:
Swiftness: +3
Stamina: +1
Willpower: +1
Wisdom: +2

FInal touches, record your health, courage, etc.

Duarndir's Health would be 9 (Vitality + Strenght Mod. = 8 +1)


Racial Skills and Traits

One thing to remeber about racial skills and traits....you only have 6 picks! No think carefully how you want your character to react to certain circumstances. What skills does he like to use to resolve his problems. For example, if while on patrol spot a few orcs what would he do? Take matters in his own hands and attack them, follow them to see what they are up to, run back and report?

In the first case you are looking at a focus on the combat skills and traits, the second case would be a mix of skills like Stealth, Observe, Track etc. FOr the first case, skills like Run, Jump , climb should definately be in the list.

As an example let's take the second case, as Durandir likes to Observe his enemies before he makes any final decisions on what to do next. A good list in that case would be:
Stealth +1, Track+1, Observe +1, Survival +1, Ranged Combat +1.

This still leaves you with one pick, this can be an edge from the Elf list or another skill. A good skill would be Armed Combat, this would still leave you the choice of picking a flaw and an edge.

Traits are more tricky here, since you also get the option of getting flaws. I would leave these to your personal preference. Use as your guidline the concept you have in mind. Actually that should be rule number 1.

Then you have to determine the Lore and Languge skills. It would guess that our 'ranger' is not the most 'academic' kind of guy. I personally would get Lores like, nature lore, herbal lore, animals/plants an so on. Of course Lores than are connencted with your racial history for example are always good choices.
As for Languages, think of what kind of people does your character interact with. You will most probably know the languages of your friends and enemies whoever these may be.

In Durandir's case, we gets 27 (Wits X 3 = 9 X 3) points to spent on Lore and Language skills. Let's assume he is from Mirkwood. My piicks for his skills would be:


Order, Skills and Abilities

I think the most obvius choice for an order would be the Warrior.

Now we come to what determines primarly your abilities. Your order skills and abilities.

The principle here would be as before. Think how your character resolves his problems. For example if you like attacking the orcs youi spotted while on patrol, or while wandering in the forest you should spent more on combat skills and focus on abilities and edges and give you and edge on combat.

Of course here you can always opt for one of the pre-made packages. Alhtough it makes life easier for some, others feel that it steals away all the fun of chracter creation. Anyway, I will be hand-picking all the skills for Durandir in this case.

OK, now we have 15 pick from the warrior skill list. Although combat skills are probably the landmark of most warrori-characters, this order has a pretty good skill list, and i would suggest to not limit your character to combat skills. Observe, Track, Staelth, Heal, Inspire are just a few of the available skills for the warrior. For anyone familiar with DnD and D20, note that from just one basic order here, you can create the equivalent to the DnD Fighter, Ranger, Monk and any other warrior-based class.


Now let's move to our previous example. I do not see Durandir as focusing to much on combat skill, skills like Stealth, Track, Observe, Survival are probably eqaully important. Since he is someone who relies on his own skill and igenuity, a few rank on Heal would be appropriate. Also one or two ranks on other skills like Run, Climb, Ride, Jump would be nice and would increase his repertoire.
Skills like siegecraft are not probably very appropriate for our character. Inpsire and intimidate although nice skill, I wouldn't pick them. However, if you feel that your character is a captain or that he command a small band of elves these to skills should be in your list. Let's assume in this case that Durandir is not a captain or anything similar.

So let's pick his skills now:
Armed Combat +2
Ranged Combat +2
Observe +2
Stealth +2
Track +1
Survival +1
Heal +1
Ride+1
Run+1
Jump+1
Climb +1

Note that I have here trying to produce a varied list. We also get an extra 5 pick to increase any skill(s) we want. Because these extra 5 points can only e used to increase skills you have alrady purchase and not buy you new ones, it is a good idea to spent your 15 skill points one a more diverse list and then increase the skill you are more likely to be using more often.
In this case the candites for using these extra 5 points in, are: Armed and Ranged Combat, Stealth, Track and possibly Observe. So the final list would be:

Armed Combat +3
Ranged Combat +3
Observe +3
Stealth +3
Track +2
Survival +1
Heal +1
Ride+1
Run+1
Jump+1
Climb +1

Now we need to pick one edge and one order ability. I will say once more that the concept you have about your character is your best guide here.
But let's move again into our example. I quite like the idea of the Wary adge, since I see Durandir as someone who is rarely surprised. Another likely candite is the Woodcrafty edge. Of couse if you feel that your character needs some combat ability boosting edges like weapon mastery, accurate, etc. are good options.
For Durandir, personally I would pick Wary in this stage and probably keep Woodcrafty for later (remeber that as he is a Silvan Elf he also has the Woodsy racila ability).

As for an order ability, the favoured Weapon seems to be the best option for me. battle hardened and warrior born, i do not see as very good option for this kind of character. Swift Strike is too early to take as Durandir does not meet the requisites. That leaves Evasion and Favoured Weapon. I personally like evasion, but if you are to pick this make sure you also take the dodge edge. Since I picked a different edge, i will stick with favoured Weapon (short bow) here. I picked short bow becuase Mirkwood is a dense forest and a longbow is not really of any use. Plus the short bow is smaller lighter and easier to cary.

At this point you can pick up to three flaws in exxchange for three edges. Since, personally, I do see my charcter as having anu serious flaws I would skip this section. However, if you feel like it, by all means go on and fiddle around with different combinations of edges and flaws.

And the final step is the 5 free picks. Depending on what concept you have in mind, this pick will help you customise or tailot your character further to fit your initial concept.
I earlier mentioned the Woodcrafty edge, and I would probably be spending 2 ponts for getting it.
The remaining 3 points I would invest on my skills. Keeping in mind that there is no instant magical healing in LotR, i would spent 2 points on Heal and the remaining point on Ranged Combat.

So this what the character looks at at the end.

Durandir (Silvan Elf)
Order: WarriorLore (wildlife of Mirkwood) +3
Lore (Geography of Mirkwood) +4
Lore( Elven History) +4
Lore(Herbal Lore) +3
Lore(Realm of Rhovanion) +3
Lore(History of Rhovanion) +2
Language(Sinadrin) +5
Language (Westron)+3
Elf racial Abilities + Woodsy (+2 to survival(forest))
Attributes: Bearing 8 (+1), Nimbleness* 12 (+3), Perception* 10 (+2), Strenght 8 (+1), Vitality 8 (+1), Wits 9 (+1)
Reactions: Stamina* +1, Swiftness +3, Willpower +1, Wisdom +2.

Skills: (ranks only)
Lore (wildlife of Mirkwood) +3, Lore (Geography of Mirkwood) +4, Lore( Elven History) +4, Lore(Herbal Lore) +3,
Lore(Realm of Rhovanion) +3, Lore(History of Rhovanion) +2, Language(Sinadrin) +5, Language (Westron)+3,
Armed Combat(blades: lonsword) +4, Ranged Combat(Bows: shortbow) +5, Observe(spot) +4,
Stealth(surveil) +4, Track(orcs) +3, Survival(forest) +2, Heal(treat wounds) +1, Ride(horse)+1, Run+1, Jump+1
Climb +1


Edges: Wary, Woodcrafty
Order Abilities: Favoured Weapon (shortbow)
Health: 9

So here is your elves ranger/scout/hunter, now you are ready to play.

Hope you enjoyed it!

[Ineti]

A couple things: you get 6 picks for racial skills and edges, not 5.

And the character's Wits is 9, which gives him 27 Language and Lore picks, not 24.

Other than that, good work so far!

[GandalfOfBorg]

This is actually the subject of an article I am writing in next month's issue of <i>The Hall of Fire</i>


GOB

[Eol]

Originally posted by Ineti
A couple things: you get 6 picks for racial skills and edges, not 5.

And the character's Wits is 9, which gives him 27 Language and Lore picks, not 24.

Other than that, good work so far!

Sorry about that, I didn't have the rulebook with me, so it was just stuff that that I could remember. Thanks for pointing out though, I will edit that ASAP.

For some reason I thought Durandir had Wits 8 instead of 9.

Anyway I fixed that now....

[Eol]

OK I have now finished the character I started. Hope that helped.

[JawD]

Good read! Just a quick question though. I`m still getting my head around the chargen. When you have your 5 free picks, I think you can increase a stat ie Strength. Could you not just do this to maybe gain an extra +1 in all Strength skills rather than increase the skill itself? Or can you not transfer these extra points across in this way?

[Eol]

Originally posted by JawD
Good read! Just a quick question though. I`m still getting my head around the chargen. When you have your 5 free picks, I think you can increase a stat ie Strength. Could you not just do this to maybe gain an extra +1 in all Strength skills rather than increase the skill itself? Or can you not transfer these extra points across in this way?

I suppose you are reffering to the free advancement here, right?

Of course you can use this advancement points to raise an attribute. However raising an attribute is fairly expensive (4 points for a favoured attribute and 5 points for a non-favoured one).
The other thing is that to get a bonus from your attribute modifier you effectively need to raise the attribute by 2 points.

Moving into the example I used, Durandir used 3 points to raise Healing by 2 and to raise Ranged Combat by 1.
The two skills here do not have the same governing attribute, so by raising skills you get more flexibility.

Another fibal point is that, for example instead of raising some Nimbleness based skill I could raise by Nimbleness by 2 ppoints and hence get a +1 bonus to all Nimbleness based skills. However, assuming that your Nimbleness is your favoured attribute you require 8 advancement points to do that.
Instead of that you could spent these 8 points as skill points, now you can raise skills by more than +1 and you can choose which skills you want to be raised.

I personally feel that skills are more important than attributes so I would invest by points there......but it is a matter of personal preference at te end.

Hope that helps....

[Arknight]

I agree with Eol.

The way I see it unless you feel there's a good reason for a character's attribute to go up, the majority of points should be used in developing the characters skills.

The increase of an attribute is something that should take placee over a lot longer time than simply becoming more skilled in something.

Tom

[ben hur]

This is a cool idea in my opinion. I get a blast out of making the characters myself, so I'd be one of those that would be available for making characters rather than being one who is asking for characters to be made.

What I think would be as cool (or maybe even cooler) than a Character Generation Workshop would be an Adventure Generation Workshop, where everyone can contribute ideas and help create ready-to-run adventures. Anyone interested at all?

[Mantyluoto]

yeah sounds good. not sure how often i'll be able to contribute but i'll helpout when i can.