Talk:OAAAA Character Creation

--Edmiao 08:50, 15 July 2008 (MST) details requested: what is the racial makeup of our island? is there a class stratification by race, like are all the humans the grunt workers and the elementals are the merchant class?

BEN: in the central isles, most islands are primarily (say 60-95%) human, with a hodge-podge of all other races making up the remaining percentage. Your island is particularly diverse, since the Temple of the Goddess of the Forge (Regina Templum Camini) has made it fairly prosperous by attracting traders and merchants from all corners of Amora. The government is fairly tolerant towards non-humans because of this, although the nobility of the island does frown on them and, unless they come to the island wealthy and powerrful, it is rare for them to achieve such status on the island. There are exceptions to this: dwarves, because of their skill at crafts of all types, are highly regarded on the island as long as they pursue a manufacturing trade and typically find patronage almost immediately (although they are still seen as "loose-cannons" and often as thuggish simpletons). Because of the importance of trade to the island (and most islands, at that), Sea Elves are also treated exceptionally well, regardless of their rank or station.
An odd thing about your island: since the patron goddess is a Goddess of the Forge, essentially a goddess of fire, Blood Elves, the piratical corsairs of Amora, are treated more respectfully than almost anywhere else (much to the chagrin of many islands' law enforcement). They are of course not permitted to "set up shop", but they are not murdered regularly in back alleys either.
The nobility is primarily human. A Sea Elf trade representative can be counted as among the nobility, living in a splendid house-boat in one of the islands' lagoons. There is also a wealthy Imadigo prince, exiled from his country, who runs in the noble circles. But overall, there is no class stratification by race.

Gabe: I like to put forward a strong vote/request to NOT have characters starting with different points... also that we be at least 75 points.

BEN: well, certain races will get "racial benefits" regardless, so we'll see.

JASON: Whether or not races get racial benefits, the player has to pay for them. If a race has infravision, the character still pays its points, it isnt free.

--Edmiao 11:28, 15 July 2008 (MST) at risk of overanalyzing things and pissing the gm off, I second gabe's request. and per jason's note above suggest that if you are of the "fairy" race that you must buy certain skills: 5 points cross dressing, 2 points knight vision, minimum charisma of 13. so you can make like a base racial character that the players add on to. or, different races could come with different "everyman" skill sets (dwarves have "weaponsmith at 8-" for free, humans have "doing gabe's mom at 8-" for free and orcs have "being gabes mom 8-" for free).

--Edmiao 11:32, 15 July 2008 (MST) no power frameworks i say yay! just imagine how nasty a spell book framework would be. will we be adding disads as the campaign progresses as well? do we have to rp out all our advancements (please say no)?

BEN: there will be no need to RP out advanacements: within the limits set out at the beginnning (most powers and some martial arts stuff, which will be by GM permission only) of the campaign, you get to spend your points where and when you want. There will be a "disad adder" system, based loosely on the deadlands system: I'm not going to elaborate till I have a better sense for how to do it.

Gabe: Sweet. Are there going to be langauge groups, like in the main book? Also I can't wait to see orcs, which is what I'm gonna play, which makes Ed's above statement that much funnier.

--Edmiao 15:47, 15 July 2008 (MST)not sure if this is what you were thinking: i suggest that characters take disads in game either voluntarily, because everyone needs to take more as game goes on, or by GM mandate. Characters get no character points for taking a disad in game. thus all maximum character points will be from starting 75 + xp. whatever disads you accumulate don't let you buy more spells. they are just part of the xp that everyone got (so some characters may have more disads but all will have the same max character points). ie i can't say, i want to take disad: afraid of dwarves for 5 points extra so that i can buy that dagger.

BEN: I've put up the disad system on the character creation page: feel free to comment, but overall I like it. there will be language groups, although I don't knwo what the rules are for buying a group rather than an individual language. I may turn to "the ultimate skill" book for this. Also, disads. will fall into the "by GM permission only" group of stuff.

JASON: I dont think you buy language groups per se. Instead, related languages allow you to speak their cousins at a reduced level. For instance (numbers not official), if you have German at 3, you can speak Yiddish at 2. If you speak Ukrainian you can then also speak Russian, etc.

--Edmiao 09:48, 16 July 2008 (MST) i am planning to buy ultimate skill book, fyi. try to have it by next week, and probably will leave it at BnD/Ks.

--Matts Are Faeries a playable race? What about half-faeries?

BEN: yes and yes, although the other part of the "half" may be subject to restriction

--Edmiao 11:42, 16 July 2008 (MST) i want to play a half orc half elf martial arts assassin whose main goal in life is to kill himself. that was a joke, but then again, maybe not...... Matt, are you going to play a half ferry half troll? cus that would be cool, you could like live under a bridge and then transport people across the river!

--Matts 13:48, 16 July 2008 (MST)He was gonna be half-Chinese and get people across the river on his remarkably large junk!

GABE: Chinese and large junk just don't fit. So are the faries small? Like... human hand sized? So here is what I'm thinking of... Either an Orc Warrior type (maybe mystic warrior, or shaman warrior), or a human Alchemist - think lots of potions, crazy stuff like that...

Speaking of which, what is the general tech level?

--Gdaze 14:41, 16 July 2008 (MST) Holy crap those 75 points go FAST!

--Matts 14:44, 16 July 2008 (MST)Irrespective of nautical vehicle lineage, my character will be large and carry a bigger hammer with additional details fluid.

--67.160.116.72 14:53, 16 July 2008 (MST) So are you gonna be a fighter type?

--Matts 15:45, 16 July 2008 (MST)He could be. His skill at swinging the hammer will be there regardless. His strength too. What else he does I haven't decided. Except the bridge part.

--Edmiao 17:26, 16 July 2008 (MST) I plan to make an "ultimate" version of my character, what he might look like at the game end. this will give me an idea of where to start from and what advances to take as we progress, unless the story inspires a different track. what is the estimated xp mid and late game? if the game runs 12 months, say average of 3 sessions every two months (with cancellations and absences) then 3 x 12 / 2 = 18 sessions. 18 sessions x 10-15 xp per session = 180-270 xp gained over a year of game play?

BEN: yes, that is about right. If the xp gain rate turns out to be unmanageably fast (I dont' think this is likely), it may slow down mid/late game, likely at 100pt. markers (200, 300, 400, etc). again, I don't anticipate this, but I've thought about it. see "Advancement".
as to faeries, haven't put up their description yet, but they come in all shapes and sizes. Many are small, but many are also human sized: like elementals, they are highly variable in terms of their physical forms.

--Gdaze 18:31, 16 July 2008 (MST) Any idea how we are gonna do mounts? Those things are an expensive investment of points...

--Gdaze -- Do we have to use starting EXP on equipment? Or do we get some points for that? Also I'm not too sure about that lay down the law thing, I'd rather see rule 0. But m'eh.

--Edmiao 08:57, 17 July 2008 (MST) good question, what levele of equipment requires XP. certainly swords and daggers do, but probably not butter knives, and what about a pocket knife? Probably lockpicking tools do (or are included in a lockpicking skill?). does rope? a horse? Probably depends on how useful an item is or is envisioned to be? So maybe a pocket knife that is used to prepare food and whittle logs would not, but you could never use it to say stab someone in the back or cut ropes that you are tied up with.

--Edmiao 09:04, 17 July 2008 (MST)i was reading the disads section, where you have to spend xp to get disads and then when they come into play you get extra xp for them. is that still on? so with a 25 base + 50 disads, but the disads cost half, so that is actually 50 to spend on the character and 25 to spend on disads? just trying to do the math.

Gabe: Also if I remember correctly we have to spend exp on magic items? I'm most likely going to be needing a lot of bottles and alchmey supplies, so would I have to spend XP on these as well? I still think money would be easier but bleh! Also can we assume we have enough money to pay for a boat from point A to B? I can sell my potions, will that give me extra points to buy stuff with, or is that assumed to be how I make my general gold?

--Edmiao 10:07, 17 July 2008 (MST) my guess would be that supplies are free of xp but once you make a potion, that costs xp. how do potions work? i guess you buy a potion slot with one charge, with disad charge difficult to restore.

BEN: wow, lots of questions. So: 1.) deleted, see EDIT below. 2.) You do have to spend XP/character points on equipment. HOWEVER, every character needs to spend 5 character points at the beginning of the game for a custom power called "bag of necessities": this is intended to include: your food, your gold pouch, your sleeping roll, your flint/tinder, clothes, grooming supplies, bottles (lockpicking tools only if they don't give you a bonus for lockpicking), whatever "basics" your character would have (NOT a horse or other mount). Actually, thinking about the mount issue, I will probably re-increase the XP per session to 15 base. your "bag of necessities includes enough gold to pay for any basic goods and services (an inn to stay in, passage on a ship, etc) as long as you don't take "destitute" as a disad.
3.) you only buy disads during the course of the game (ie, for NEW disads). You HAVE to take your base 50, and you get NO extra XP for those disads coming up. If that's too confusing, we'll scrap the base disads.

Gabe: Oh okay... I was just using the potions the way they were set up in the magic book which is as follows.

Delayed Effect (You can have an amount of potions equal to your INT/2, or for +1/2 equal to your INT, mine are all at +1/2)

Concentration (0 DCV)

Extra Time (6 hours, to brew) Some also have extra time to use, such as applying it to armor.

OAF - Fragile (The actual potion)

Charges - 4 (sometimes with a duration like my potions of underwater breathing last for 6 hours)

And finally requires a skill roll.

By the way, a healing potion for 4D6 costs my dude 9 freaking points.

So ingredents are gonna be rare?

Oh and shit just noticed, we gotta spend those five points, so really we start out at 70 character points. Kinda crazy to have heroic characters but with super heroic limitations on them haha. In that regard, if we pay points for a weapon, do we auto-know how to use it? Cuz if so I'm gonna drop these points off my WFs so I can have that bag.

Sorry, minor edit.

BEN: the way they do potions in the book sounds fine to me, we'll just do it that way. It still counts as a form of hag magic. I've thought about the ingredients thing and changed my mind: as long as you are in a place where the ingredients for your potions are available (as in, could be available) you can get them. The only time ingredients will be hard to get is for really powerful potions. I'd enjoy it if you actually made up what strange ingredients are required for each potion. Just a quick note: you CAN'T make healing potions. Anything else is fine, but healing is the sole purview of priests/priestesses of Amor. No other discipline has ever been able to create healing magic. This limitation doesn't include antidotes for poisons or disease (which you can make just fine), but healing damage already done or insanity can only be done by Amorean Devotees (who can also cure poisons/diseases).
if you pay for a weapon, you still need the WF, sorry. I know the limitations are high, but you will be getting boatloads of XP so it will even out quickly.

Gabe: Cool cool, I actualy just thought that like wait, can I even make healing potions? Well hope we have a healer then. Actually since I have to drop 5 points anyway I'll just take some five pointy potions. Perhaps some giant growth for Matt? +40 Str for five minutes?

BEN: a potion that gives +40 Strength will definitely require some special/very rare ingredients: this would make a str. 20 character stronger than a dragon. +10 str. would require ingredients you could find in any town: that already makes you as strong as 4 men. +20 str. I'd let you get anywhere, but only with some RPing (the tragedy...). Anything above that, expect it to take a mini-quest (easily completeable within a game night with time to spare).

--Edmiao 12:20, 17 July 2008 (MST) rulesmongering: i think jason has previously said that if you buy a weapon with character points that it includes the WF, likewise if you buy a car with character points it comes with the TF. free to change the rules if you want to up the cost of all equipment by 1, or if this is wrong.

BEN: fair enough. I'd prefer to make people take the WF, it being a heroic game with some superheroic limitations, but if the players would prefer it that way, that is ok. NOTE however, that if you don't take the WF for your sword, you can ONLY use that specific sword: in any scene where you want to pick up some piece of equipment and use it (till the end of the scene, without spending XP), swords are off limits to you.

Gabe: Well yeah, I knew the usual rule Ed, I was just asking to see how we were gonna run this since it already doesn't follow the usual way. But since now it is different...

So I buy a sword, as I have to, with exp. I don't buy the WF with it. I loose said sword, and I get in a fight, I can not use any swords that drop, right? Like at all, not even with a -3 or whatever it is?

So as long as I have the WF I can pick up weaons and use them only for that scene?

Also am I understanding it correctly that some of the starting 75 points has to go towards equipment? Like if we want a sword?

JASON: If you buy equipment with character points that doesnt have the Independent limitation you dont need the WF. But also, for instance, if you dont have the WF for swords you cant pick up and use a magic sword until you pay for it (next session). And for horses etc, they arent that expensive if purchased as a vehicle, follower or equipment (points/10).

Gabe: This game is a little different though, we buy all equipment with character points, and they are indepdent to boot. So its got some house rulz'in so to speak which is why we are asking so many questions.

BEN:Jason may be suggesting that for "independent" equipment you do need the WF, although I will follow the book on this one. If the penalty for no WF to use stuff is -3, you of course can use stuff you just pick up with that penalty even if you don't have the skill. Yes, you can use weapons you pick up for the scene with the WF. Yes, you have to buy equipment with your 75 points, if you want it.

--Matts: We don't need to buy independent for gear, right?

BEN: EDIT, see below

JASON: If a guy doesnt buy independent its like he has a source, so he always has one. He can be out temporarily (like if a thief takes it), but as long as he goes back home (or to the source) there is another. Or possibly its something where any old piece of wood functions like a 2d6 club for the guy, etc. It still probably requires an explanation though.

--Dieter the Bold 16:07, 17 July 2008 (MST) If you wanted to be part of an organization, like a Priesthood or something, could you have certain things as not-independent, so you could simply recharge at the nearest church, temple, etc.?

BEN: I guess I should clarify: I guess what I'm thinking of isn't really "independent": if you spend character points on an item, and it gets lost, broken, or stolen, you don't lose the character points unless its a one of a kind item. The points just go into escrow, so to speak, until you get to a location where you could reasonably replace the item: then you get it back for free. I suppose this is closer to OAF without independent, except that if an enemy steals items from you in this game, they can use them if they have the skills, which is independent-esque. So to answer dieter's question: yes, if you go somewhere, you get to recharge your stuff. RPing that out (ie, through your organization, whatever) is great and I would like that, but I won't require it. For loss of your "bag of necessities" RPing out how you get money etc again should be done. So I am changing my answer: you DO have to buy OAF, you DON'T have to take independent. Of course, this means gear gets more expensive as a result.

--Edmiao 21:20, 19 July 2008 (MST)ben, can you clarify what the fae thing about +/- char max/min means: what is the differnce between base and figured, is it base is (str dex con body int ego pre com), and figured is (pd ed spd rec end stun)?

and those + and - are changes to the normal characteristic maxima, right? Thus a dwarf could not go above 9" run without paying double? or do all dwarves start with 5" run, and get the character points back to spend on something else (in the spirit of which would not be run at first?)? does your base dwarf normal start at 13 STR 15 CON, etc, (with a normal maxima of 23 STR 25 CON) and any dwarf with less than that is a weakling by dwarf standards?

When you say distributed (for Fae), is that any way the player wants to distribute them? Is that +/- to the base/figured/movement characterisitcs per point of the stat or per character point; ie if i want to use up that +13 base characteristics on one stat (which i will not, but just for example) do STR +13 max (cost 13 char points) vs DEX +13 char max (cost 39 points) both are valid, or is it a max of +4 DEX (12 char points)? this is probably important based on the value of DEX for everything.

Does + 3 to the movement for Fae include flight if the fae has wings?

Magesight is Detect Magic (a class of things) (Int roll) for 5 points, yes?

And a Fae can come in any shape or size so i can specify what my gay fag fairy looks like?

please define "second basic language" is that an everyman free skill or do we purchase it with character points? I assume everyone speaks common tongue (ie human speak) for free. elves speak Fairy and not elven?

MATT: As far as I understand it, char maxima don't affect starting value, just the maximum. In the case of fae it's almost certainly that the value is character points and not end value, since when you buy increased maxima you buy them as the stat whose maximum you're increasing.

BEN: matt is correct, on both counts. Ed your base/figured split is correct: in the hero book there is a list of the maxima for both types. Flight is NOT included: like everything else, this must be purchased separately. Magesight is as you say.
Faeries do come in all shapes/sizes: the ones that look more like humans tend to incorporate best into ordinary society. Also, I've thought about this, and I think that a half-faerie would be able to learn the trickery magic of the fae, but you need some faerie blood in order to cast illusion-type magic.
I've included a list of everyman skills at the top of the character creation page, and yes, everybody from the central isles gets a second language for free, just to keep things simple. For most non-human races, you have to pick your own language.

--Edmiao 20:23, 20 July 2008 (MST) anyone know how to edit the normal characteristic maxima in hero designer?

--Edmiao 23:26, 20 July 2008 (MST) yes my character is a fairy with 24 comeliness

--Edmiao 23:28, 20 July 2008 (MST)oops did i need a bag of useful things? what was the cost of that?

--Gdaze 23:41, 20 July 2008 (MST) I think it was like 5 points.

--Edmiao 23:02, 20 July 2008 (MST) Unanswered Question:

10 Distinctive Features: Startling yet unnatural beauty, wings, legs that are insect like (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses)

OR

5 Distinctive Features: Startling yet unnatural beauty, wings, legs that are insect like (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses) not distinctive in some cultures

BEN: the second one.

--Gdaze 23:00, 21 July 2008 (MST) So all humans speak one langauge? Also, very cool on humans get one free re-roll. I was pretty sure I was going to play human but that was a very neat power for them to have. (I mean really, I think a FREE re-roll in hero is pretty freaking good!)

So how is barter used? Like not when buying normal equipment, so for like any big trading we'd do?

BEN: not sure what you mean. In game, the characters can RP out any bartering they want, if they want to add flavor to their advancement: this doesn't net them any points benefit, of course. For things that fall into the "bag of many things" category (purchasing a ride on a boat, getting a night's stay somewhere, etc) trading will get you upgrades, etc to better compartments, rooms, whatever. If you succeed well enough at a trading roll when buying equipment, I may give your equipment that you get some minor benefit for free, although I still need to think about the mechanic for this.

Gabe: Yeah trading is what I meant! Since most everything is stright EXP it didn't seem a worthwhile skill.

So do all humans speak one language?

BEN: yes, although the dialects vary enough that it may not be easy to understand people from far away (Csara, and Eburon, especially).