Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Kaelan]

I’ll join, I just have to re-fresh my memory on the rules again.

Current concept I’d like to try (subject to party approval for semi party unity and the sake of GM sanity) would be a former town watchman turned thief, in effect a game keeper turning poacher.
Name: William Ballard

Rough idea would be a watchman who was good at cards and dice. All well and good until he won a sizeable amount from a minor noble lord who did not take well to this. Upshot of this was no money, no job, and no prospects in the local area (as well as a dubious criminal charge). As a result he is currently drifting through trying to build a suitable nest egg to retire on, preferably on purloined coin from the noble classes.

He’s seen enough magic blow up in a caster's face from his time in the watch to know that he wants to avoid learning it, and feels that the Gods can manage their affairs without any interference of bothering from him.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Follow the link in the first post to the original thread, it's mostly in there and can be cross posted if necessary;

not so sure about the character idea, though. Someone determined to be a hero is likely to oversell him or her- self, take too much on and get killed; someone with an objective or a conscience, with a dream to chase or a principle to defend, is about right; not setting out for adventure, that's do-able- it can always come and get you; but a character who wants a quiet life and to not have strange and dangerous things happen to him... you can take the principle of "never voulnteer" too far.

At this point my usual take on a character who wants to dodge the plot (whatever it may turn out to be) is "Fine- assume you succeed, the character goes on to have a peaceful, happy retirement. Next idea?" The character needs to be more willing to come forwards than it sounds so far- an outlaw might work, there are possibilities to be had, but he has to be up for them.

15, 14, 13, 13, 12, 12, 11, 10, 10, 8 to work with, by the way.

Tasoth, I can go with the character concept but the same objection applies; some of this can be sorted out during creation, when you figure out who the character's friends and contacts are.


Actually, time for those questions. For everyone. When the King of Kuquan was falling out with his lords and nobles, the enemy were snarling at you from across the border and everything looked likely to go quickly to hell in a handbasket, which side did you listen to- what did you want to see happen? When the country looked about to dissolve in civil war, who did you stand with?

When the lords of Tol Authran sent a band of heavily armed maniacs to keep the peace for, on and over you, how did you survive?

[Tasoth]

When the civil war was boiling over, the side I was on was my own. I wanted the war to break out because dead nobles and professional soldiers don't need their weapons and armor, but living ones will pay through the nose for a high quality item.

When the peace was enforced, I ducked my head down low and went to ground, still making money where I could, but robbing from the battlefield's dead became something I avoided.

Temper 12, Fellowship 12 , Charm 14
Logic 14, Creativity 13, Education 12
Strength 10, Endurance 13, Agility 11

Advantages:
1ap Family (Aunt Murielle the Witch), 2ap Fence network, 2ap Hired Muscle

Disadvantages:
2ap Enemy (The Law), 3ap Obligation (Taxes)

Imma need the skills list linked.

EDIT:

My name shall be Fallard Ruel!

[Simon_Jester]

You know, I'm beginning to worry we'll be short on grunts...

[Simon_Jester]

Consider this a less-rough draft. I am now actively seeking advice and recommendations. I have some questions I need DM feedback on, mostly of the "what does this skill do anyway" sort.

---

Larric Smith

I'm seriously considering having his surname be "Smith," for very logical reasons- there are a lot of blacksmiths in his family tree. It might be something else in some other language that translates as "Smith," but since by convention we assume everyone's speaking English anyway...

Larric is a first name that I came up with randomly that sounds Anglo-Saxonish without actually being, so far as I know, a real first name. It's there mostly so as not to clash with Smith.

Temper 13
Determination 8
Resist Magic 15
Resist Persuasion 8

Is magic resistance here supposed to come only from the knightly orders' devotion and so on? Because Mulber has a strong bloody-minded streak when it comes to magic. You used the phrase "I reject your reality and substitute my own;" consider this as "No, your reality is crazy; mine may be mildly loopy but at least I try to paint inside the lines on the page. I mean, seriously, you think fire is an element?" Something like that.

Fellowship 10

Bargain 10
Human Perception 6
Oratory 7

I wound up with 0.5 spare points.

Charm 13
Animal Handling 8
Banter 11
Persuasion 12


Logic 14
Evaluate 12
Perception 15
Runes 9

I have half a point left over. And what is Evaluate, anyway? Is it functionally equivalent to D&D 3rd edition's Appraise? Does it serve as a generalized "assess situations" skill in some situations? Which ones?

I would assume Runes are important to a spellcaster, but, again, I don't know what they're supposed to do, so I guessed they were important enough that I'd want at least a few points paid into the skill.

Creativity 14
Alchemy 17
Scrounge 12

What does Scrounge do, anyway?


Education 12 (Take a penalty for added AP for magic? If not: )
Craft: Bookbinding 10
History 9
Legends and Lore 11

Does History need to specialize? Am I out of my mind here?


Strength 9 (Take a penalty for added AP for magic? If not: )
Club 9
Brawl 9

He's not a total stranger to fights, but it is really Not Something He Does. His first instinct if he found himself sucked into a serious fight would probably be to pick up something heavy and hit someone over the head with it while they aren't looking, so...

Endurance 13 (Take a penalty for added AP for magic? Probably. If not: )
Resist Injury (???)
Resist Disease (???)
Survival (???)

Half a point left over. This is not actually the skill level I 'want,' so much as it's

Agility 11 (Take a penalty for added AP for magic? Probably not. If not: )
Dodge 10
Riding 5
Crossbow 9

He is a very poor rider, but not quite at the bare minimum level.

---

Advantages:

Allies: 2 AP
Larric has friends and contacts among the alchemists of the region within which he's traveled, which is large but not that large; they have very high respect for him professionally, and generally like him. Being professionals in a relatively high-end line of work, they have quite a bit of money, and contacts that could be used for minor things like getting introduced to important people.

By and large, would not do anything illegal for him without strong extenuating circumstances. But quite a few would at least hear him out long enough to let him explain his situation and become convinced that the circumstances exist.

Disadvantages:

Code of Honour- 2 AP
It's not so much that he's got unusually strong ethics as that he can be stubborn about them. He's not above the idea of doing dirty to people who obviously deserve it, he understands as a practical matter there are people the world wouldn't miss were they knocked over the head, and he's not a complete blithering idiot. But he can get quite vocal, sometimes at inappropriate times, about what he sees as Just Plain Wrong. More savvy and cynical characters may come to the conclusion that he is short on survival instincts

Phobia- 2 AP
Fear of dead bodies, more so than normal for a medieval society. I'd need to confer with the DM to figure out exactly how phobic this is.

Obviously, this becomes more of a problem in an RPG than it would in day to day life...

Note that I am looking to have significant AP freed up for magic, and this build doesn't have that- I haven't made up my mind what to do about that. More disadvantages, points taken off physical stats, some combination of the two most likely. This isn't a finished draft.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right- not only from the knightly orders; it has become essential for them, but they tend to drive it from the point of view of chivalric duty- one of the reasons that, in a fairly cynical world, things like codes of honour still get taken seriously. The other main reason it's strongly associated with them is they actually teach it, others usually tend to have to pick it up by trial and error which can be a pretty dangerous process. Not impossible, but that high?

Bump Human Perception up to 7, actually, no, 8, shift the spare half from Logic.

Evaluate is mainly to do with valuing, in the economic sense- how much is this thing worth, where is it from. provenance. The only general 'assess situation' it really works for is a market or auction room.

For 'what's going on here then?' Perception is good- and it's high anyway, so sorted.

Scrounge can be used to do what scroungers do, which is find odd things in odd places, ideally doesn't involve talking to people- hovers somewhere between theft and barter, actually.

Alchemy is very high- at this point, looking at the skill sheet, the character could make a better living through that than anything else. Alchemy does have an adjuvant relationship with magic, but it's mainly scene setting more than practical purpose.

History can specialise but doesn't need to, although at 9 you're not writing monographs on the subject, that's broad but quite shallow knowledge- and I'm surprised the craft is so low. Specialisations actually cost less, so that should be 14; 10 is bare journeyman level, good enough to keep body and soul together and not much more, 14 should be bringing in enough to live a little.

And yes, magic will not be impressive- that's one set of powers at a base 4, which is just about enough to make yourself a target without being enough to accomplish anything. 2AP disadvantage isn't massively disabling- a severe shock. lose lunch, back away in horror, be pale and trembling and incoherent, find it difficult to focus and difficult to function, but not impossible to compose yourself afterwards once it's gone. muhc worse if it's actually somebody you know, of course.

[Kaelan]

My Posting is being lost\held up in moderation, so I apologise now if I appear to be posting slightly out of sequence in the beginning.
I think you’ve added an additional number to the string by mistake, so I dropped one of the 13’s. Let me know if this is wrong and I will amend accordingly.
I think I need to define my characters concept of a suitable nest egg for retirement. He’s looking to acquire enough wealth and political clout to obtain some land. A Grand Duchy would be a reasonable starting point.....

Question time answers:
When the civil war broke out I did what most young health men non noblemen did – was pressed into service to fight for a Lord I did not know, for a cause I did not care about, over an issue I did not understand. There were a couple of surprises though. First was that I was actually good at fighting. I was considering going professional until the second surprise came; a bunch of heavily armed maniacs cresting over the side of a hill...

When the peace came I decided to put my new found skills to work – as a town watchman for the new rulers. It was better than the family trade of chicken farming, I also felt that it’s better to watch out for your own people, rather than have a stranger do it.

Name: William Ballard

Temper 14
Interrogate 11
Intimidate 12
Persuasion 10
Resist Magic 11

Fellowship 12
Carousing 10
Con 8
Human Perception 9
Streetwise 9

Charm 11
Banter 9
Con 10
Persuasion 10

Logic 13
Evaluate 8
Law 9
Perception 10
Survival 9
Tracking 6

Creativity 10
Burglary 11
Scrounge 8

Education
Vet 7
Craft – Chicken Farmer 8
History 6

Strength 15
Athletic 10
Axe 14
Brawl 10
Shield 11

Endurance 12
Resist Injury 13
Survival 11

Agility 10
Burglary 6
Dodge 8
Stealth 5
Cross Bow 6

Advantages
2ap relationship (town watch)
Fellow co-workers who know the truth of why I’m out of work.
2ap Cast Iron stomach
Developed during the course of the civil war.
2ap Hard to kill
Either very tough, or just lucky enough for all those war injuries to miss vital parts of my anatomy. Either way, I’m still around.

Disadvantages
1ap Enemies (nobles beaten at cards)
Some people take losing money far too seriously.
3ap Code of Honour (oppress the oppressors, not the oppressed!)
If it’s a rich noble or merchant, take him or her for all they have. Otherwise be fair as life is hard enough.
1ap Phobias (freaky magic)
Seen too many examples of battle magic to be comfortable around the ‘Head boom’ brigade.
1ap Exiled (from home town)
As from the history, an upset card losing noble with an agenda had me run from town on pain of death.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Actually, that seems to work. Although Stealth 5 screams "instant comedy hook".

I'd rather have a party without muscle than without brains, but it does raise dangers once things start happening.

Tasoth, the skill list;

Temper;
Animal Handling, Bargain, Determination, Interrogate, Intimidate, Leadership, Persuasion, Resist Magic, Resist Persuasion
(Notes; mostly self exlanatory, although a temper- based peresuasion skill might as well be labeled "bullying" because that's what it amounts to, and Resist Magic is a wierd one. Leave it for now, there are cultural artifacts attached to it, I'll explain later.)

Fellowship;
Acting, Bargain, Carousing, Con, Culture, Human Perception, Leadership, Oratory, Politics, Streetwise
(notes; culture has nothing to do with spaceships, it is basically the know something about that bunch of people over there skill. Culture (elvish) for instance, gives a basic idea of their history, some cluse as to who their movers, shakers and celebrities are, and some grasp of the language- the higher the level, the more you know obviously. Human perception is the, what is this person really thinking? skill.)

Charm;
Acting, Allure, Animal handling, Banter, Con, Courtliness, Perform, Persuasion, Resist persuasion
(Notes; if you ever want to appear at court, courtliness is what you need. Pretty straightforward, although there are lots of 'perform' specialisations to be had.)


Mental;
Logic;
Artillerist, Debate, Economics, Evaluate, Geology, Herbalism, Law, Mason, Rites&Rituals, Politics, Perception, Physician, Runes, Survival, Theology, Tracking
(Notes; I'm going with the old mediaeval three guilds system for medicine, theorising and diagnostics under Physician, cutting and stitching and so on under Surgeon, medicines and maladies under Apothecary. Oh, and Perception is an absolute must.)

Creativity;
Alchemy, Art, Burglary, Composition, Dance, Inspire, Musical instrument, Preaching, Scrounge, Surgeon, Tactics
(Notes; there are a lot more skills that could potentially go here, but let's not overload it, yes?)

Education;
Apothecary, Business, Craft, Culture, Cypher, Evaluate, History, Legends and Lore, Monstrology, Survival, Vet
(notes; craft has to specialise, this is for things like pottery, parchment- makers, the like. Day to day useful stuff unlikely to fall to an adventurer. Monstrology would be cryptozoology in a sane world, and elves have been known to use Veterinary skill on humans without penalty.)


Physical skills;

Strength;
Athletics, Axe, Brawl, Club, Craft, Labourer, Lance, Maul, Shield
(Notes; lots of 'ug, bludgeon' stuff here. Labourer has to specify.)

Endurance;
Athletics, Resist survival, Resist injury, Resist disease, Survival
(notes; mostly resistances, as you can see- this bit of the rules might be getting tuned up soon.)

Agility;
Athletics, Burglary, Dance, Dodge, Martial Arts, Riding, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival; most weapon skills, must be taken individually
(notes; weapon skills are by individual weapon type, but with heavy bonuses for commonalty- someone who can wield a longsword effectively is going to be fairly capable with a broadsword form the off, for instance.)

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I knew this thing would need some reworking; towards the end I was just trying to get numbers on paper so I'd have a starting point for the inevitable next draft.

Evaluate is mainly to do with valuing, in the economic sense- how much is this thing worth, where is it from. provenance. The only general 'assess situation' it really works for is a market or auction room.

About what I thought- but I wasn't sure; I don't know what the skills do in the non-obvious cases.

Alchemy is very high- at this point, looking at the skill sheet, the character could make a better living through that than anything else. Alchemy does have an adjuvant relationship with magic, but it's mainly scene setting more than practical purpose.

It just sort of... happened. I'll tone that down and generally work on straightening things out today, and also talk a bit about what I expect Smith's magic to be best suited to doing.

History can specialise but doesn't need to, although at 9 you're not writing monographs on the subject, that's broad but quite shallow knowledge- and I'm surprised the craft is so low. Specialisations actually cost less, so that should be 14; 10 is bare journeyman level, good enough to keep body and soul together and not much more, 14 should be bringing in enough to live a little.

He should probably be somewhere between those two points- remember, he stopped doing bookbinding shortly after his apprenticeship ended; "pure journeyman level" would not be an unreasonable description. If he's better than that, it would mostly be because he's sharper than the average journeyman in that trade.

And yes, magic will not be impressive- that's one set of powers at a base 4, which is just about enough to make yourself a target without being enough to accomplish anything.

I figured- I'll be working on that, because this was a first rough cut. The next draft will have more AP paid into magic. Quite a bit more, I think.

2AP disadvantage isn't massively disabling- a severe shock. lose lunch, back away in horror, be pale and trembling and incoherent, find it difficult to focus and difficult to function, but not impossible to compose yourself afterwards once it's gone. muhc worse if it's actually somebody you know, of course.

Hmmm. I need to think about this. I mostly picked that particular disadvantage because it's one I can easily picture a normal person having, which could reasonably have in-game consequences (so that it doesn't act as a free points source), but not back-breaking ones (so it doesn't define the character). It isn't pivotal to the way I imagine Smith working.

Then again, I'm not entirely sure I want to be saddled with playing that particular disadvantage.

[Panzersharkcat]

Backstory: When the civil broke out, Alfred Norden, son of Friedrich Norden, joined the fighting as part of his duties as a baron's son. To absolutely nobody's surprise, he was good at fighting, given his predilection for hitting things with a big hammer. He was very sad when it ended because he could no longer hit things with a big hammer without people getting mad at him.

Temper 13
Interrogate - 15 (4+6(.5)+5)

Fellowship 10
Oratory - 12 (3+7(.5)+2)
Politics - 4 (3+1(.5))

Charm 11
Courtliness - 12 (4+6(.5)+2)
Resist Persuasion - 10 (4+6(.5))

Logic 12
Perception - 15 (4+6(.5)+5)

Creativity 12
Tactics - 15 (4+6(.5)+5)

Education 13
Survival - 12 (4+6(.5)+2)
History - 10 (4+6(.5))

Strength 15
Maul - 15 (5+5(.5)+5)
Brawl - 10 (5+5(.5))

Endurance 13
Resist injury - 12 (4+6(.5)+2)
Resist disease - 10 (4+6(.5))

Agility 12
Martial arts - 12 (4+6(.5)+2)
Athletics - 10 (4+6(.5))

I'm not too sure if I'm doing advantages and disadvantages right.
Advantages
3ap rank
Son of unimportant baron and junior officer in the war.
2ap wealth
Money coming from being son of unimportant baron.
1ap reputation
Slightly notorious for hitting things with a hammer.

Disadvantages
4ap enemies
His habit of hitting things with a big hammer has gotten him into a lot of trouble.
4ap secret
Not actually the baron's son. Not that he knows it.

[Feralgnoll]

I would like to play. Panzersharkcat will help me get up to speed.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Hm. The setting is pretty well fleshed out- there aren't all that many barons about the place, and none of them are that unimportant; only three landed, with an actual barony to call their own, one where the actual family became extinct and the title attached itself to the mayoralty of the nearest market town, and one retired naval officer living in the county. The three important ones are all characters, and at least two of them are fairly unpleasant characters at that.

Baronets, on the other hand- essentially it runs Count, Baron, Baronet, and then we're down to knightly rank, Banneret, Bachelor, Squire.
Duke, Marquis, Earl (Jarl)are all perfectly viable titles but not used in the peerage of the kingdom, not since a bout of reformation about two hundred and fifty years ago at the hands of an elvish queen consort.
The place was starting to suffer from something like the spanish hidalgo problem, so many descendants of little- divided estates claiming noble priviledge while being actually dirt poor that it was getting to be unfeasibly difficult to actually govern and raise knights; the way the politics of it worked out the lesser nobility stayed loyal to the crown while the great nobility and nobles-in-name-only did not, and they were comprehensively outmanoeuvred.

The body of the nobility, and the table of rank, was aggressively pruned in the aftermath, resulting in a lot more land and wealth at a lower level on the usual list of noble ranks than would be the case anywhere else, and a Kuquani Baron is actually a seriously important figure, usually with at least one walled town and numerous villages and hamlets under his (or her) protection. (Maybe I need to rejig the values in the list of advantages and disadvantages to reflect that.)

Baronets, on the other hand, can be major landowners with retinue, territory, and by-blows (or disloyal wives) without actually appearing on the map, and that's a much safer bet. Being the illegitimate son of a baron would start you off in too many people's crosshairs; not literally in most cases, but...

Apart from that, and nothing to change on your part anyway, looks good. Enough rank to be taken seriously by the commonalty. Not exactly hero material, not a shining defender of truth and right, but there'll probably be somebody around who can fit the bill for that. That's three done, more or less. Simon?

Ah, feralgnoll, you posted while I was preparing this. I don't suppose you actually want to be a feral gnoll? Just a thought. (I'd need to generate a different set of attributes and typical A/Ds, anyway.) What sort of character did you have in mind?

[Panzersharkcat]

Alright, I'll lower it to baronet, then. As far as him being hero material, if there was an alignment system, I suppose he'd be chaotic neutral.

@Feralgnoll: If that's what you want, I'll PM you the specific stat determination stuff. It's in the old thread but it'll be good to have a handy guide to begin with. Mind you, I'm still reading the last campaign's stuff so I'm not exactly that up to speed on the story.

[Feralgnoll]

read up on character creation. Ready for stats OP.

[Tasoth]

Trying to work this out, but how many points do I have for skills? I know they open at a third of the root stat, but how much do I have to spend per stat?

[Panzersharkcat]

Trying to work this out, but how many points do I have for skills? I know they open at a third of the root stat, but how much do I have to spend per stat?

Twice as much as a third of the root stat. A strength of 15 has 5 for stats it governs and 10 points to spend. You can spend half a point to improve by one up to 10, then you have to spend one point to improve up to 20.

[Tasoth]

Fallard Ruel

Temper 12
Bargain 11 Determination 11
Fellowship 12
Oratory 11 Streetwise 11
Charm 14
Courtliness 10 Persuasion 12

Logic 14
Debate 12 Politics 8
Creativity 13
Scrounge 12 Surgeon 10
Education 12
Apothecary 8 Evaluate 10 Culture(Merchants) 10

Strength 10
Brawl 9 Club 9
Endurance 13
Resist Disease 10 Survival 12
Agility 11
Riding 9 Dance 9

Advantages:
1ap Family (Aunt Murielle the Witch), 2ap Fence network, 2ap Hired Muscle

Disadvantages:
2ap Enemy (The Law), 3ap Obligation (Taxes)


Did I do this right?

[Simon_Jester]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 3#p3268663

Check that.

Also, what do you mean by Obligation: Taxes? Does your player have to pay more taxes than normal people? Because the default level of taxation wouldn't really count as a special obligation, I'd think.

[Simon_Jester]

Here's a draft which I actually tried to polish up a bit, though some of the roughness will need to be milled off before it's safe to allow small children and economics majors to handle it.

Allow me to clarify his biography a bit. If you need this adjusted to fit Kuquan and your magic system, ECR, I am totally happy to do so; I am not intending to cause any conflict with this, but since there is so very much I don't know about the setting and system, I have to generate some kind of a background for the man if I want to get a handle on him. Filing it to fit will have to come after I've got more feedback so I know what to file off.

---

Larric apprenticed under a bookbinder, but quickly turned out to be a lot more enthusiastic about reading books than about threading and gluing them together. Alchemy is what he took up after his apprenticeship was over; if you asked Larric about himself he would probably call himself an alchemist. So he is supposed to be quite good at it, that's a feature not a bug, although I'm open to negotiation since I don't want to make him utterly preposterous. Remember, he's inspired by a man who is not known as one of the great figures of early 19th century chemistry only because his contributions to the study of electromagnetism overshadowed his chemical research.

The magic started coming to Larric after he began experiments with alchemy (though he may have been fiddling with chemicals before his apprenticeship ended, he wouldn't have been doing so much before it ended). Actual ability to manipulate the world comes coupled (for him) with an instinctive sense for the structure of matter and fields of force. What talents he has focus on manipulating such structures and forces as he understands, in ways that he understands. Which mostly limits him to manipulating what we would call chemistry, electricity, and magnetism, and doing so in comprehensible and fairly simple ways- nothing exotic like turning a human being into a chimpanzee with a bolt of existence bleach, or transferring a woman's soul into a potted plant.

Magic is not as yet central to Larric's identity, though I fully expect that to evolve over time. He is not, by inclination, a staff-brandisher or a "fear my lightnings!" kind of man. If he is not required by some kind of complex wizards' guild regulations to stop practicing as an alchemist, he would continue to do so because he honestly enjoys doing that.

...

That's deep background. Shallow background- I figure that he is good, professionally, as an alchemist, but doesn't save up much money at it for a number of reasons. One, he doesn't work as hard at it as he might, because he spends a lot of time doing experiments that don't pay and doing work that does pay to cover the experiments' costs. Two, he spends a lot of money on books- books on magic as well as on alchemy, if and when he can get them.

Three and perhaps most important, as part of the general chaos ensuing from when the Twentieth Cataphracts showed up in his town, his shop got ransacked and at least partially burned out. He may have been able to salvage some possessions, but he'd be restarting his business from scratch and rebuilding much if not all of his library, so no matter how great his income potential is, he's very short on money now.

How does that sound?

---

Larric Smith

Temper 13
Determination 9
Resist Magic 12
Resist Persuasion 10

I dialed down Resist Magic somewhat; I am willing to dial down further if you consider it unreasonable, but I point out that Larric still has a strong bloody-minded streak when it comes to magic. You used the phrase "I reject your reality and substitute my own;" consider this as "No, your reality is crazy; mine may be mildly loopy but at least I try to paint inside the lines on the page. I mean, seriously, you think fire is an element?" Something like that.

Fellowship 10

Bargain 10
Human Perception 8
Oratory 6

I took the half point here and the half point from logic and piled them both in on Human Perception. That's 4.5 points paid to raise all three skills to six, and six points paid to raise them to ten, eight, and six respectively. How's that?

Charm 13
Animal Handling 8
Banter 11
Persuasion 12


Logic 14
Evaluate 10
Perception 15
Runes 11

A certain amount of ability to appraise market values is par for the course, since Larric's stock in trade all his life has been fairly rare items and he's had to learn a lot about those items in particular (books, exotic chemicals, and possibly precious metals if he dabbles in assay work). Also to some extent on what comes into his shop if people start trying to barter one curiosity for another, which they might. As a player I don't think it's justified for him to be using this skill on things well outside his areas of knowledge (obscure languages he might be able to read, and he's certainly going to be able to tell real gold

I still don't know what the Runes skill is supposed to do, which makes my balancing of points a bit awkward.

Creativity 14
Alchemy 17
Composition 9
Scrounge 10

Some skill at wandering around, bartering, and figuring out where the hell he's going to find really obscure things- he's got a good deal of practical experience as a shopkeeper, and good improvisational skills overall. He's supposed to be good at Alchemy, perhaps not 17 good, but I don't know what to do with the points otherwise and I'm reluctant to decrease Creativity.

Education 9 (12-3)
Craft: Bookbinding 10
History 8

This does not take into account any reduced point cost for specializing one's craft, because I don't know how the rules for that are supposed to work; can you please explain them?

Most of Larric's relevant self-taught education falls into areas not actually covered by Education skills.


Strength 9 (Take a penalty for added AP for magic? If not: )
Club 9
Brawl 9

He's not a total stranger to fights, but it is really Not Something He Does. His first instinct if he found himself sucked into a serious fight would probably be to pick up something heavy and hit someone over the head with it while they aren't looking, so...

Endurance 10 (13-3)
Resist Injury 10
Resist Disease 11

I find myself idly curious as to what "Resist Survival" does. I don't want to spend any points on that skill, though, because I don't think I want to risk it doing what it says on the label...

Agility 11
Dodge 10
Riding 5
Crossbow 9

Some proficiency with crossbows from residual militia training, but that was years ago, in another city, and besides, the drill instructor got trisected by an orc.

---

Advantages:

Allies: -1 AP
Larric has friends and contacts among the alchemists of the region within which he's traveled, which is large but not that large; they have very high respect for him professionally, and generally like him. Being professionals in a relatively high-end line of work, they have quite a bit of money, and contacts that could be used for minor things like getting introduced to important people. However, none of them feel so indebted to him that they would endanger their own lives or livelihoods for him- they might loan him money, but they'd expect it back.

With perhaps a few gullible exceptions, they would not do anything illegal for him, not without strong extenuating circumstances. A few would at least lend him a sympathetic ear, but that's about it.

(This might equally well be modeled as a 1 AP reputation which has basically the same effect- alchemists within a loosely defined area know who Larric is and respect him, while other people have never heard of him)

Supernatural Awareness: -2 AP
Although the way Larric perceives supernatural effects can be rather odd; if there's such a thing as synaesthesia of the second sight, he's got it.

This is a relatively recent experience for him, and he's still not entirely comfortable, or sure he can tell truth from illusion, when it comes to things like auras.


Disadvantages:

Code of Honour: +2 AP
It's not so much that he's got unusually strong ethics as that he can be stubborn about them. He's not above the idea of doing dirty to people who obviously deserve it, he understands as a practical matter there are people the world wouldn't miss were they knocked over the head, and he's not a complete blithering idiot. But he can get quite vocal, sometimes at inappropriate times, about what he sees as Just Plain Wrong. More savvy and cynical characters may come to the conclusion that he is short on survival instincts.

Phobia: +2 AP
Fear of dead bodies, more so than normal for a medieval society. See ECR's descriptions for a rough sense of how bad his reaction is.


Leftover
6 AP of ability scores sacrificed, 4 AP of disadvantages, 3 AP of advantages. Total of seven left over. How's that?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right, in reverse order;

Simon, there's a phrase which, when I was still a LARPer before I grew up and started playing with steel weapons, drove me bloody mad- but I can see the sense of it now. 'Find Out In Play'. They took it too far, but a measured dose sometimes doesn't go amiss- you don't need to know everything to begin with, I'd prefer to start and fill in the last blanks as we go. The character's likely to be fairly confused about some of it anyway.

The character who did those things started out moving exactly the opposite way, incidentally; a thaumaturge, started picking up on the fact the world didn't work that way through the study of alchemy. You might meet him. I'll try to keep him further out of it this time. You really don't ant to know the assortment of rnks and titles he enede up with, which is one of the reasons I'm going back to more or less the beginning.

Nothing glares out as wrong from the background, good to go. most of the skills are sound- although because of the cost of specialisation (one cost step lower than normal), if you want to keep the craft at the same level History could be as high as 12, or you could take something like 'natural history' at 8.

Seven points of magic- do you want me to arrange that for you, or do you want the list? It's about what would be expected from a properly- trained apprentice about half- way through, and good for a self- taught amateur. Good enough for one field at professional level, or two at good- beginner.

Ruell; looks good, nothing glaring. One point. 'Witch' is an interesting subject- shades from the historical reality, more or less keepers of folk wisdom and lore and unfairly persecuted for what they really were, (although less so in Kuquan), all the way to the summonings and pentagrams of legend. How far along that continuum?

Feralgnoll, assuming you want to be human- you haven't told me yet, remember- you have 15, 13, 13, 12, 12, 11, 10, 10, 9 to arrange.

[Simon_Jester]

Simon, there's a phrase which, when I was still a LARPer before I grew up and started playing with steel weapons, drove me bloody mad- but I can see the sense of it now. 'Find Out In Play'. They took it too far, but a measured dose sometimes doesn't go amiss- you don't need to know everything to begin with, I'd prefer to start and fill in the last blanks as we go. The character's likely to be fairly confused about some of it anyway.

All right, I can live with that, it's just foreign to my experience because so far I've only played systems where I'd plunked down and read the rule books some time earlier.

Seven points of magic- do you want me to arrange that for you, or do you want the list? It's about what would be expected from a properly- trained apprentice about half- way through, and good for a self- taught amateur. Good enough for one field at professional level, or two at good- beginner.

Two at good-beginner sounds more right. I'm content to see you set it up, bearing in mind that his areas of focus would be electricity, magnetism, and possibly (later, or not at all, I don't know) crude manipulation of chemical reactions.

Healing, telepathy, biomancy in general, are right out. He doesn't know those areas well enough to be comfortable in them.

[Tasoth]

Aunt Murielle the Witch is only a witch in that she is eccentric, knows a large volume about survival out in the woods, various herbs that can be used for remedies and tends to be introspective and good on the advice. The isolation and the kookiness coupled with the aid has lead those in the communities to reach her to attribute magic powers to her, and for some, rumor she traffics with demons. If she does have magic, it'd be something low level and not really world changing.

As for the obligation: taxes, I figured if he was a high volume trader/moving around goods, he has to pay customs taxes, taxes on weight, etc. Not the yearly taxes, but something that crops up whenever he tries to make a big sell.

[Feralgnoll]

OP, I do want to be human. Working on a character now. Will post when I am way less Intoxicated. planning on some type of werewolf if that is alright.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure a werewolf counts as human...

Sounds like major Secret points, for one.

[Kaelan]

Can we call him "Mr Snuggles" ?