Advanced Fighting Fantasy
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Advanced Fighting Fantasy Character Generation Guide Creating a Hero - Introduction The single most important component of any Dungeoneer adventure is the Hero. Without a Hero to do all that daring stuff with his sword and his other skills, the princess would never get rescued, the evil necromancer would never be dispatched, the country would never be saved for good and loyal citizens everywhere! Every Hero is defined in terms of two things. First, there are his characteristics; these are SKILL, STAMINA, STRENGTH, DEXTERITY, APTITUDE, PRESENCE and WILL. We shall always write them like that so that you will know we are referring to them. These characteristics are each assigned a numerical value which reveals – when we use the game rules – just how adept or not our Hero is at something – rather like knowing one’s IQ score, for example. Secondly, there are the special skills and spells a Hero has. Just like anyone in the real world, each Hero is very experienced and practiced at doing certain things, while he knows nothing at all about other things. These special skills are based on a combination of Initial characteristics of a Hero together with any learning he may have received. Character Creation Basics Follow these simple thirteen steps to create a beginning character of <Social Scale> (SS) one. You will need a photocopy of the <Character Sheet>, a pencil, some scrap paper, and some six-sided dice. STEP 1: CHECK WITH YOUR GAMES MASTERS STEP 2: CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER ARCHETYPE STEP 3: ROLL CHARACTERISTICS SCORES STEP 4: CHOOSE YOUR CLASS AND RACE STEP 5: ASSIGN AND ADJUST CHARACTERISTIC SCORES STEP 6: REVIEW THE STARTING PACKAGE STEP 7: SELECT AND ASSIGN SPECIAL SKILLS STEP 8: SELECT SPELLS (for Wizards and Priests Only) STEP 9: GENERATE A BASE INITIATIVE VALUE (BIV) STEP 10: NOTE DOWN YOUR SOCIAL SCALE AND RANK STEP 11: SELECT YOUR STARTING AGE AND SIZE STEP 12: SELECT EQUIPMENT STEP 13: INVENT YOUR CHARACTERS BACKGROUND STEP 1: CHECK WITH YOUR GAMES MASTERS Your Games Masters (GM) may have house rules or campaign standards that vary from the standard rules presented here. You might also want to know what 2 character types the other players are playing so that you can create a character that fits well with the group. STEP 2: CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER ARCHETYPE All character race / class combinations (more on this later) fall into two major archetypes, melee and magic. The Melee archetype encompasses all race / class combinations who wish to hit things with sticks, swords, daggers or otherwise carry out general carnage with the use of weapons or their bare hands! The Magic archetype on the other hand encompasses all race / class combinations who wish to channel the complex weavings of mana required to perform all types spell casting from bringing back mortally wounded comrades from the brink of death with divine healing to blasting enemies out of their way with powerful lightning blasts. STEP 3: ROLL CHARACTERISTICS SCORES If you have gone for the Melee archetype then you now need to roll 10d6. Disregard the three lowest rolls and record the remaining seven results on scrap paper. If you have gone for the Magic archetype then you now need to roll 10d6. Disregard the lowest roll and record the remaining nine results on scrap paper. STEP 4: CHOOSE YOUR CLASS AND RACE You want to choose your character’s class and race at the same time because some races are better suited to some classes, indeed some races are prohibited from taking certain classes. The description of each class and race can be found in the section on <Class and Race>. You can look there to see what class and race combinations are most common (Table 4: Race/Class Restrictions table). Write the character’s class and race on the character sheet. Take some time to think about what sort of person your character is going to be. You don’t have to develop his or her whole personality at this point, but now’s a good time to start thinking about it. The available classes are Warrior, Barbarian, Wizard, Priest, Rogue, and Archer. The available races are Human, Dwarf, Elf, Centaur, Goblin, Orc, and Troll. STEP 5: ASSIGN AND ADJUST CHARACTERISTIC SCORES Now that you know your character’s class and race, assign the scores you rolled in step 3 to your character’s characteristics as follows. 3 Melee archetype: STAMINA: 12 + two of your rolled scores SKILL, STRENGTH, DEXTERITY, APTITUDE, PRESENCE: 6 + one of your rolled scores Magic archetype: STAMINA, WILL: 12 + two of your rolled scores SKILL, STRENGTH, DEXTERITY, APTITUDE, PRESENCE: 6 + one of your rolled scores Adjust these characteristics scores up and down according to his or her race, as indicated on Table 3: Racial Characteristics Adjustments from the <Class and Race> section. Put high scores in characteristics that work for your character’s class. Each class description includes an entry called “Characteristics” that points to the important abilities for that class. You’ll also want to assign characteristics according to your concept of what sort of person the character is, and his is her strengths and weaknesses. STEP 6: REVIEW THE STARTING PACKAGE Look at the class’s starting package at the end of each class description in the <Class and Race> section. It offers a fast way to complete the next several steps of character design. If you like the special skills, spells and equipment listed there for a character of the class you’ve chosen, then you can record this information on your character sheet. You can also use it as a guideline for making your own decisions from scratch. STEP 7: SELECT AND ASSIGN SPECIAL SKILLS To determine how many points a character has to spend in his various <Special Skills>, average out all their stats except for STAMINA and WILL, rounding all fractions down. Someone with SKILL10, STRENGTH 8, DEXTERITY 12, APTITUDE 9 and PRESENCE 8 would have 9 points to spend on <Special Skills>. All <Special Skills> relate to one of the five primary characteristics. So, if a hero were to put two points into their Sword special skill, which is based off SKILL, they would have a Sword skill of 12, with seven points left to spend (you add your two points spent to your base SKILL score of 10). If he had put a further two more points into the Climb skill, which is based off DEXTERITY, you would have a Climb skill of 14 with five points left to spare. For a full list of <Special Skills> and which ones relate to which characteristic refer to the <Special Skills> section. 4 You may assign a maximum of four points into any one <Special Skill> as a part of character creation. Certain races are forced to take certain <Special Skills>, for example all Elves have to spend at least 1 point in Wood Lore, Bow and Magic <Special Skill>, see the section on <Class and Race> for these details. If a player has chosen one of the two magic archetype classes (Wizard or Priest) then the Hero must assign at least 1 point to the Magic <Special Skill>. Studying magic and the supernatural requires a very intensive effort, which is made partly at the cost of his melee style abilities. For every point put into Magic skill, a Hero must reduce his SKILL score by a similar 1 point. This does not affect how a Hero calculates his initial amount of points he has to spend on <Special Skills> (it’s still the average of their five main characteristics rounded down), but it does affect his SKILL and SKILL related <Special Skills> scores and dice-rolls from now on. This new, reduced SKILL score is now counted as his Initial score, where necessary, and his SKILL may not be raised above it. So, all <Special Skill> points are spent on a range of <Special Skills>, and a Hero’s SKILL is then reduced by the number of points put into his Magic <Special Skill>. Example: Two sample characters Our first sample Hero has 9 points to spend and STRENGTH 8, DEXTERITY 12, SKILL 10, APTITUDE 9, and PRESENCE 8, as well as STAMINA 21. Having put two points into Sword, and two into Climb, he elects to put two more into Plains Lore, and the final three into Bow. Thus, the Hero’s stats are as follows; STRENGTH 8 DEXTERITY 12 SKILL 10 APTITUDE 9 PRESENCE 8 STAMINA 21 <Special Skills>: Sword (12), Climb (14), Bow (13), Plains Lore (11). And now, we’ll create a wizard character for those magic-users out there. Note that only the SKILL characteristic and related skills are reduced in this case, and the SKILL score before reduction is used to determine how many points the character has to spend. Our second sample Hero also has 9 points to spend and STRENGTH 7, DEXTERITY 10, SKILL 8, APTITUDE 12, and PRESENCE 9, as well as STAMINA 17 and WILL 20 The wizard decides to put three points into the Magic skill, one point into Ride Horse, 3 points into Dodge, and one more point into Sword. But the above 5 characteristics are for before the character reduces his SKILL score and related special skills due to spending 3 points in Magic. Thus, the Hero’s stats are as follows; STRENGTH 7 DEXTERITY 10 APTITUDE 12 SKILL 5 PRESENCE 9 STAMINA 17 WILL 20 <Special Skills>: Magic (15), Ride Horse (11), Dodge (13), Sword (6) <Spells>: Stamina (1), Fire Bolt (1), Starry Orb (1), Illusion (2), Fly (4) STEP 8: SELECT SPELLS Every magic spell requires a great deal of energy to be channeled and costs a certain number of WILL points to cast.