Making Characters

Information and discussion for players of the game. No spoilers here please!
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Andrew1879
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Re: Making Characters

Post by Andrew1879 » Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:51 pm

Journeyman Tier Skills can be used for Profession Skills, to build a Profession around, but cannot be chosen for Core, Optional, or Free Skills for starting characters. P64 has an error there, which is corrected in the Character Creation summary on p552. Characters get a couple of Knowledge and General Skills as Free Skills at the end of Skill assignment, allowing them to pick up practical Skills from outside of their Profession as Free Skills. Thus, the Military Officer has picked up Gunnery, which is normally a Soldier or Sailor Skill. There will be a good deal more about how Professions are built in the forthcoming Players Companion, which will include a chapter on how to create your own Professions, and how to create Variants of existing ones. For example, we will show how the Outlaw is a Variant of the Cowboy. We're debating the mechanics for sliding into a Variant, for how a Cowboy might become an Outlaw.

KevinB
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Re: Making Characters

Post by KevinB » Sat Dec 30, 2017 10:09 pm

Is there supposed to be some kind of mechanical balance between Plains Saurids and Gliders? It appears there would be no reason mechanically to ever take a Plains Saurid, as the Gliders get an additional +1 to Dex but are otherwise identical in every way (other than increased difficulty in finding clothes that fit, I suppose) and they get limited flight/gliding.
Last edited by KevinB on Sun Dec 31, 2017 6:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Slimcreeper
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Re: Making Characters

Post by Slimcreeper » Sun Dec 31, 2017 12:22 am

I'm assuming the Saurids are mostly naked most of the time anyway ...

In the book there is not a mechanical difference. I think the gliders in Earthdawn took a lower toughness or something. I have always thought they should have limits on the sort of armor they could wear.

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etherial
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Re: Making Characters

Post by etherial » Sun Dec 31, 2017 6:21 am

Slimcreeper wrote:
Sun Dec 31, 2017 12:22 am
In the book there is not a mechanical difference. I think the gliders in Earthdawn took a lower toughness or something. I have always thought they should have limits on the sort of armor they could wear.
K'Stulaami had no mechanical difference except the ability to buy the Gliding Skill.

Slimcreeper
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Re: Making Characters

Post by Slimcreeper » Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:15 pm

Oh, but it wasn't an innate ability, something they had to build up.

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Andrew1879
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Re: Making Characters

Post by Andrew1879 » Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:33 pm

The big difference between the Plains Saurids and the Kistalmi is cultural/political. The Plains Saurids control the lowlands. The kistalmi don't like being down on the flat - they prefer the mountains, where they can find updrafts and launch points. Once we get the Saurids book out, the differences will be larger, with some Professions not available to one or the other. For example, the Plains Saurids have the hapatvnorefvos, the Sky Rider, who is a sort of jet fighter pilot who rides a pteranodon. The kistalmi do not have this profession, but they do have an air warrior. The lowland tribes are also a lot harsher about technology and magic use, being more or less Amish in their approach, while the kistalmi are more like Mennonites, and have an Alchemist Profession.

Comparing base stats, you might wonder why anyone would take a human, as all they get is a higher Karma die, while all the Boojum races get stat bonuses and racial abilities. Again, the biggest difference is cultural, and written into the Social Level mechanic. We've done a good deal of the balancing across multiple mechanics throughout the system, so that there's an advantage and a disadvantage to everything but not always within the same mechanic. Byrons, for example, can do things nobody else can with the Engines that control the British Empire, but in order to do that, they're going to stink at combat. You've only got so many Ranks to build your character with, after all.

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Re: Making Characters

Post by Slimcreeper » Sun Dec 31, 2017 4:47 pm

Do Elves have the social penalty? By the reading I say no.

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Andrew1879
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Re: Making Characters

Post by Andrew1879 » Sun Dec 31, 2017 7:03 pm

Elves are considered the "attractive" or aesthetically pleasing Boojum race, and so do not suffer a Social Level penalty, you are correct. They do however get some nasty physical stat penalties.

Slimcreeper
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Re: Making Characters

Post by Slimcreeper » Sun Dec 31, 2017 9:34 pm

That penalty to Toughness really hits them in the Death Rating, especially with the way durability works.

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Re: Starting Skills

Post by ChrisDDickey » Sun May 19, 2019 3:21 pm

So now that there is an Errata, did this get forgotten, or has thinking on this changed in the nearly 2 years since this answer was posted?
This is from the 2nd post in this very old thread.
Andrew1879 wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:25 pm
You start with eight Core/Optional Skill slots, not six, but must take a minimum of six Core/Optional Skills, and then have ten Ranks to distribute to them and your Professional Skill, which gets a free Rank. You get two Knowledge Skills and two General Skills as Free Skills, and then have five ranks to distribute to your Free Skills, which includes Knowledge, General, and Language.
...
I can see that we're going to have to add this to the Errata. The text on p72 did not get revised to bring it into line with the mechanics we used to build the sample characters. So: Eight slots available for Core/Optional, you must pick at least six but can take seven or eight, and then ten Ranks to distribute to them and your Professional Skill.
Specifically, the table on page 266 says you have six Core/Optional skill slots. The Errata on page 2 (Initial skills) specifically says you get six. This thread says 8. Most of the example characters in the book are built with 8. So does the Errata need a new paragraph to explain this, and update the existing (initial Skills) paragraph to update 6 to 8?

Also I want to triple-check how free skill slots work (because I just realized I have been doing it wrong).
Language skills are technically Free skills, but DO NOT take up a free skill slot. If you use your General Skill ranks to learn additional languages, it increases your Language skill ranks so again, do not use up free skill slots.
At character creation characters get two free knowledge skill ranks that DO take up free skill slots. If you put them in different knowledge skills you end up taking two of your 4 Free slots.
All other free skills you take at character creation (general skills, additional knowledge skills, artist skills) also take up one of your free skill slots.
Thus, at the end of character creation, you should have no more than 4 general/knowledge/artisan skills as free skills.
Most of the example characters from the book are mistakes. The Byron and Dodger have 7 non-language free skills. All the ones that have more than 4 are mistaken.
Correct?
One alternative might be that only General Skills take up Free Skill Slots, Knowledge, Artist, and Artisan skills, like Language skills do not take up free skill slots. That would make all but three of the example characters OK, but I realized it does not make all the example characters in the book OK, nor does there seem to be any textual support for it.
Another alternative is that the two free knowledge skills you get right off the bat do not take up free skill slots, but all others do.

So anyway, I would love to see some specific comment about the free skill slots and specifically what does and does not use them up. Maybe some specific references to the dodger example character and what would be required to make it legal. If it is legal, how are the free skill slots counted. Does it take removing one free skill and shifting it's rank somewhere else to make it legal, or three?
Last edited by ChrisDDickey on Mon May 20, 2019 7:17 am, edited 4 times in total.

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