Playtest Character Creation Information

AMP - Year One:
Character Creation (PG 38)
-Fill out the concept lines (childhood, adulthood, gender/sexuality, ethnicity/race, demeanor/appearance). Make it one-two sentences. It'll be longer if we play this as a campaign. Assume your character is college age, class-mates, and you don't know about your powers prior to our first session.

-Loyalties: You get 10 points. There are eight different Loyalties to choose from. Your loyalties can have anywhere between 0 to 5 ranks. Loyalties confer different bonuses.

-Affilations: Pick Unaffilated (16 BP). I may open it to other Affilations for an actual campaign.

-Skills: You get 35 skill points to spend between 22 skills. I am putting a cap of 5 on each skill. You can choose specialities if they make sense for your character. I can veto specialities that don't make sense or seem cheap.

-Powers: I'd prefer each player pick a different Strain, but won't require that you do. Be aware that if you pick a secondary or teitary power outside your core Strain, its harder to level up as a campaign would go on. You get 6 points and can choose a primary, secondary, and teitary power, then spend your points amongst your powers. For every 2 points in a power, you can pick an augment or trick. It is important to note that you can just choose one power (primary) and put 6 points in it. Or you can just pick a primary or secondary power. Essentially, you can make your power options look like this...

6
5/1
4/2
3/3
4/1/1
3/2/1
2/2/2

-Bonus Points: Because you're unaffiliated, you get 16 bonus points. You can spend these in different ways (Gifts, Skill Levels, Power Levels, Specialties, Augments, and Loyalties).

-Drawbacks: This is an optional, but you can take drawbacks (up to 10 BP's worth). By taking a drawback, you gain additional BP and can spend it on the aforementioned stuff.

-------------------

Once you've done all that, you kind of fill in the rest of your sheet with the following information...

-Integrity: This is the amount of damage you can take. You begin with intergrity equal to 10 + your Fortitude.

-Juice: This fuels your powers. Tricks and augments often cost juice. You start the day with 3 juice, but can't have more than 10 juice at a time unless you have an ability that allows you to ignore this limitation. You can take a rest (30 mins) to regain 3 starting juice. You can gain or lose juice through your actions (up to the DM's whims though). There is a list of actions that might earn juice for players.

-Movement: Figure out your different movement speeds. On foot, your movement is Athletics + Speed + 5 feet (1 square) per round. You can run and move your movement x 15 feet (3 squares) per round.

-Jumping: You can jump Might + Athletics + 4 feet horizontally or half this value vertically. You can add 50% to a horizonal distance with a running start of at least 10 feet. You can also make a Simple (10) Might + Atlethics jumping check to add 4 feet per boost.

-Climbing: You make Athletics + Speed checks and can travel at a rate of (Movement / 2) while climbing.

-Swimming: Accessible only with 1 rank in Athletics. In calm waters, no checks are needed and you can move at a rate of (Movement / 2). In harder waters, you may need a Might + Athletics check.

-Chase: Chasing another character is an opposed movement check (1d20 + movement vs 1d20 + movement). The difference between the checks reflects the number of feet gained or lost.

An idea of combat...
It seems more involved that most systems. Its always opposing dice rolls (Fighting vs Dodge for example). Initiative changes from round to round. The system actually uses an interesting aspect--you combo your skills together (adding them together) for checks where it makes sense. When it doesn't make sense, you get to add your 1.5x your normal skill modifier. There's no stats like in D&D, that's kind of covered in your skills instead.

---------------------------
NUMENERA

-Basic: This game works under this concept: "I am an adjective noun who verbs." An example, "I am a Rugged Glaive who Controls Beasts."
The adjective is your descriptor (character descriptor).
The noun is your character type (class).
The verb is your focus (character foci.)

Stats: You have three stats (MIGHT, SPEED, INTELLECT). Each stat has two components (POOL and EDGE). Pool represents your raw, innate ability while Edge represents knowing how to use what you have. A third element ties into this concept: Effort. When your character really needs to do something, you apply effort.

Character Type: This is like your class. You pick from Glaive, Nano, and Jack. Your stat pools are pre-determined by your class, but you're given additional points to customize and spend how you want between your stats. To think of it in simple terms, Glaive is a Warrior, Nano is a Wizard, and Jack is a Rogue.

Tiers: Basically levels (1-6). We're playing in First-Tier, so you get the abilities under the First Tier of your classes.

After you picked your character type, you pick your descriptor (from a list of 12). These give your characters additional perks, so you want to look each of them over.

After that, you pick your character focus (from a long list of options). These give your characters additional perks, so you want to look each of them over.

The character type is sort of the core of your PC. The descriptor is generally used to enhance your character type (eg. Strong is a good choice for a Glaive). The character focus is really your chance to make your PC stand out; it'll be what helps make you unique to other PCs. For example, Howls at the Moon makes you a werewolf basically! They're all cool stuff.

I'd prefer you each pick different character focuses, but won't require it.

And that's it for character generation. Pretty straight forward as you read through the chapter on it. Rather than HP, it looks like combat damage hurts your stat pools. Damage is generally always a specific amount, though there can be modifiers. Most stuff is done with a d20 roll it looks like. Armor is damage reduction. When a pool reaches 0, you move down one on the damage track (hale, impaired, debilitated, and dead). Hale is your default state.  Players make the majority of rolls. If you're attacking, you're trying to beat a DC. If you're defending, you're trying to hit a DC.

-----------------
DEADLANDS (SAVAGE WORLDS)

*Race: You're all humans, since this takes place on Earth. Feel free to pick any ethnicity, many people immigrated to the US. All humans receive 1 free Edge for their racial traits.

*Traits: Defined by two things (Attributes and Skills). Attributes are like your stats in D&D, Skills are similiar, but encompass more (attack rolls, dodging, etc). Each stat (Agility, Smarts, Spirit, Strength, Vigor) starts at 1d4. You have 5 points with which to raise them. For each point you spend, you raise the die for it by 1. (Eg. d4 -> d6 -> d8 -> d10 -> d12). An attribute can't be higher than d12.

For Skills, you have 15 points to spend. For each point you spend, you increase the die associated with that skill by 1 (starting at d4) as long as the skill is equal to or less than the attribute it's linked to. If you exceed the attribute, the cost becomes 2 points per die type. No skill may be increased above d12. We're using all the standard skills presented in the Core Rulebook.

*Derived Statistics: You have a few other stats that you'll need to fill in including CHA, PACE, PARRY, and TOUGHNESS.

--CHA: Your character's appearance, manner, and likability. This is normally 0 unless you have an Edge or Hindrance that modifies it. It gets added to Persuasion and Streetwise rolls and determines how NPCs react to your hero.

--PACE: How fast you move in a combat round. You walk 6" in a round, and can move an additional 1d6" if you run.

--PARRY: This is equal to 2 + half your character's Fighting skill, plus any bonuses for shield or certain weapons. This is the Target Number to hit your hero in hand-to-hand combat.

--TOUGHNESS: This is your hero's damage threshold. Anything over this causes him to be rattled or worse. Toughness is 2 + half your hero's Vigor, plus Armor. Vigor over a d12 is calculated just like Parry.

--GRIT: This is specific to Deadlands. You receive 1 point in Grit for each level you are (novice, etc.). Each point of Grit adds +1 to Spirit rolls.

*Edges and Hindrances:
A Hindrance is kind of like a "flaw". You pick one Major Hindrance and two Minor Hindrances. A Major Hindrance is worth 2 points and a Minor Hindrance is worth 1 point.

For 2 points, you can raise an attribute one die type or choose an Edge. For 1 point, you can gain another skill point or gain additional starting money ($250).

You can choose from Hindrances presented in the Core Rulebook or the Deadland's PDF.

You can choose from Edges presented in the Core Rulebook or the Deadland's PDF. Take ones that make sense; I may veto ones that aren't campaign approriate. For those looking to play a "caster", this is how you do it. You take the edge Arcane Background and pick the one for your archetype (eg. magic, miracles, shamanism, chi mastery, weird science). Psionics/Super Powers aren't allowed, same with the Mentalist, Soul Drain, and Wizard edges. You can also only take one Arcane Background edge per PC.

*Gear:
You start with $250 with which to buy your equipment with and a set of clothes. Use the Deadland's PDF for your equipment (PG 55-57).

*Languages:
You start out with English. If you wish to know another language, you'll need to put some effort into the Knowledge skill.

*Background/Worst Nightmare:
Background is just fluff; so figure out your character's backstory. Worst Nightmare ties in specifically to Deadlands. Figure out what your character is afraid of. Choose one thing. Try to pick different concepts (see PG 23+) for your characters, just so y'all are unique and fit into the setting.

*CAMPAIGN NOTES:
The Deadlands PDF refers to a Guts Attribute. We're not using that. When it refers to Guts, we're instead using the Spirit attribute.