ADVENTURERS THREE: Tarrant

For my final random 'Adventurers Three' character, showing the three different ways to generate a character in my fantasy Frankengame RPG system, I knew I wanted to create a fighter, to complement the magician and scoundrel I rolled up over the last two days.

At the moment, I'm sticking with the four core classes (fighter, magician, scoundrel, berserker) and leaving the provisional 'expanded classes' (knight, preacher, minstrel, and beastmaster) until I'm happy with them.

The great thing with the current state of our group, The Tuesday Knights, is we're only a couple of sessions into Pete's new GURPS campaign, so there's no sense of urgency about my work on this project, no need to rush things for a tight deadline.

Using the "veteran" method of character generation I rolled 4d6 (drop the lowest) six times, then re-arranged the scores as I wanted.

Of course, this means the character only starts with a single Hero Point, to get him out of sticky situations, but hopefully he will be handy enough that he won't need to rely on that 'get out of jail free' card anyway.

I rolled 11, 10, 17, 12, 13, 15, and immediately decided to put the three highest scores into my physical stats and the rest into the mental ones.

The fighter's stats thus started as:

STR:        17
CON:       15
DEX:       13
INT:        10
WIS:        12
CHA:       11

For nationality, I rolled a 44, meaning he was Teklish (a native of the campaign's homeland, Tekralh), his star sign was Leo (giving him a bump in STR and CHA, but a heavy knock to WIS, as as well as a bonus to reaction rolls and resisting fear, with a penalty to resisting charm), and a social class roll of 11, placing him firmly in the 'middle class'.

His secondary skill was wheelwright (bumping his CON) and his Life Skills came in at +1 Riding and +2 Swimming.

Unfortunately for his Boons & Banes, he rolled a 15 (less than 50 is generally bad) and I learned that he was "naturally clumsy", which means he makes all DEX checks at Disadvantage!

I shall name him Tarrant, which is a solid Teklish name, and his stats turned out to be pretty decent in the end:

STR:        18 (+3)
CON:       17 (+2)
DEX:       13 (+1)
INT:        10 (-)
WIS:        11 (-)
CHA:       12 (-)

Hit Points: 12 (maximum, plus two for CON bonus)

As a first level fighter he can choose two 'combat techniques':

• Weapon-Master (+1 to hit/damage with broad and longswords)
• Unarmed Combat: does 1d4+1 (+STR) damage with his fists and feet.

ABILITIES:

• As a fighter the damage die of any melee weapon he uses is increased by one (not in missile or unarmed combat)
• Shields May Be Splintered: can sacrifice his shield to absorb damage from one attack.
• Helms Shall Be Sundered: if no shield, may sacrifice helm to absorb partial damage from one attack.

Tarrant's age is 21, he's 5' 9", weights 175lb (12.5 stone), has brown hair, and is right-handed.

For languages, he speaks Teklish (skill 5), Common Trade Tongue (skill 5), Rheuma (skill 3 - one verb per sentence), and Valoise (skill 2 - no verbs).

He is literate though (having rolled a 19 on his WIS check to see if he could be bothered to learn his letters), which means his reading skill level is one point below each of his verbal skill levels.

His starting coinage is (3d6 x 10) = 100gp, which will get him a 15gp longsword (1d10 + 4 damage) and a 10gp leather jerkin for starters (+2AC).

Ultimately, as with my other random characters this week, I'm very pleased with how Tarrant turned out. 

As I've said, this mini-playtest has shown up a handful of glitches and oversights, but generally I think the character creation rules - at least - in my Frankengame have proved to be more than fit for purpose.