Section 1: The All-Important Concept
The first step in creating a character is to develop a strong, original concept. Are you going to play a noble, just warrior, a crafty treasure hunter, or an intelligent, studious wizard? You need to think about this for a while if you want a good playing experience later. Try to come up with something interesting, unique, and non-stereotypical.
Respond with a complete description to these five aspects of your character.
Think about these well, don't just search for a quick answer. The
more this character reflects your personal thought, the more fun you will
have when playing.
Once you have that written down in words, think it over, and think you
could confidently play this person and *enjoy* it, you can move down
to the second section.
Section 2: Stats, Skills, 'n Stuff
Flame me if you will, but I'm gonna stress this again: Don't do this part until you've done Section 1 completely and thoroughly. Doing Section 2 will be a lot easier and more enjoyable if you have a strong concept for these stats to reflect.
First, allocate your six attributes. This is very important, as it will decide your starting statistics, and how quickly your statistics increase as your character achieves experience levels.
There are six attributes to think about:
Muscle - Your character's physical strength and muscle mass. A character with Muscle 1 has trouble walking when there's a light breeze and a character with Muscle 30 bench presses cattle and eats gravel for breakfast. It affects the statistics Attack Power and HP. Basically, your ability to hurt people and break things.
Stamina - Your character's health, fortitude, endurance, and vigor. Characters with Stamina 1 faint at the mention of discomfort and someone who has Stamina 30's response to having a beluga whale dropped on him is to get up, dust himself off, and try not to be late to wherever he was going. Basically, one's ability to take a licking and keep on ticking. Affects Defense Power and HP.
Intelligence - Your character's intellect, perceptiveness, and capacity to learn new things. Someone with Intelligence 1 never got the hang of the whole 'ability to suckle' thing and someone with Intelligence 30 tries to master at least 2 new foreign languages on his lunch hour. Intelligence affects how fast your character achieves experience and skill levels.
Talent - A character's affinity for special skills and abilities. Someone with Talent 1 is capable of walking forward, stopping, and breathing. A character with Talent 30 can juggle flaming pumas while clog dancing and reciting all the episode titles from Star Trek (in chronological order, of course). It affects MP, Wisdom, and Magic Endurance. Higher Talent basically makes your special skills and magic more effective.
Dexterity - Your character's hand-eye coordination, and ability to do crafty, applied tasks with his hands. Someone with Dexterity 1 should not operate chain-saws and may have trouble patting his head and rubbing his belly in the same day. A person with Dexterity 30 can repair a watch with his right hand while writing in Greek with his left hand, blindfolded. It affects your Hit Rate, making your attacks hit more often and increasing the chance of the treasured Critical Hit.
Agility - Your character's wits, reactions, and reflexes. Someone with Agility 1 will hide under a table 3 hours after someone yells 'Duck!' while someone with Agility 30 sidesteps attacks before the assailant even knew he wanted to make them. It affects your Dodge Rate and Reaction, making your battle actions quicker and enemy attacks less accurate.
You have 90 points to distribute between these six attributes. You must spend at least 1 point on each attribute, and cannot have an attribute over 30. So, if you wanted all attributes to be equal, they would each be 15. BTW that would make for a very boring character.
After deciding your attributes' values, you must decide the orientation
of your character between combat, skilled, and rounded. Choose one
from the table below:
| Combat Oriented Character (i.e. Sandor) |
| Base # of attacks: 2 |
| Weapons/Armor: Best (based on your concept) |
| No. of Skill Groups: 2 |
| Rounded Character (i.e. Pottle) |
| Base # of attacks: 1 |
| Weapons/Armor: Good (again, depends on your concept) |
| No. of Skill Groups: 3 |
| Skill Oriented Character (i.e. P.J.) |
| Base # of attacks: 1 |
| Weapons/Armor: Poor (wands, butter knives, bathrobes, etc.) |
| No. of Skill Groups: 4 |
Section 3: Magic and Mayhem
Once you have attributes AND your character orientation, you must choose some skill groups that reflect your character's special abilities, talents, or training. You may choose as many as your character orientation allows.
Below is a list of skill groups that are most common in my version of Vay (Hey, the games magic system sucks, so this one won't!) and that I have devised a system for. If you have an idea for a skill group that you want your character to have, by all means, submit it with your character and I'll do my best to use it.
Elemental
Magics
Earth Magic - Power of the earth
Air Magic - Has both air and thunder magics
Water magic - Mostly contains ice, but some water techs are present
Fire Magic - Filled with both fire and smoke magics. Pyro Pyro!
Soul Magic - Psychic attacks and spells that deal with the soul. DO NOT take this one unless you...A: Have a good explanation on why you can have it!! or B: are a skilled character. This magic type is actually VERY rare in Vay, and isn't one to be taken lightly. Don't pick it only because the name sounds nice!
Litanies
Litanies are spells that affect a characters status or condition. Consider them white magic or assist magic
Assist - Spells that increase statisitcs such as power and defense.
Blight - Inflicts status ailments on foes
Health - Restore HP and status recovery
Spellcraft - Increases effectiveness of other magics. Spells like escape, MP drain, etc.
Weapon
techs
A number of characters may have various skills based on weapon prowess. Any weapon should be able to have a skill focused on it.
Note: Skilled characters can't get weapon techs. Usually because they have poor equipment. However, I MIGHT accept a wizard using bow techs. Why? Cuz I'm nice. Work it out with me when you send in your stats.
Archery
Spear
Glove
Polearm
Blade
Ax
Claw
Mace
Karate
Staff
(Bo's and quarterstaffs, not magician's staffs and canes!)
Throwing
weapons
Whip
This list is short and by no means should be a restriction. You may browse it over when deciding your character's skills, but don't hesitate to send me ideas for new skills that would work better with your character than these.
Once you've decided skills, you should be done! Email me a neat, tidy reply and I'll get back to you with a final draft character info sheet and instructions on when we'll play, etc.
GMLucca
e-mail:
lucca@sweetness.com