1 - Character Creation
Character Creation
Character creation in Mystic is a backwards experience from most RPG’s, in a good way. Let’s run down the standard character creation for most games first.
Step 1: Choose a Race
Step 2: Roll Stats
Step 3: Choose a Class
Step 4: Choose Feats
Step 5: Choose Skills
Step 6: Gear up and go
The basic issues with this are that stats are completely random rather than a mixture of birth and lifestyle. So you roll a lot of 10’s and you’re hosed (or just toss it all and start again…) Races in and of them selves are fine if a little less than important in most situations. You get a few perks and a few quirks but a character of race A is in the grand scheme of things very similar to one of Race B presuming they have selected a similar Class the class is an attempt to give the character a sense of training and skill in a given area in early versions of the most popular role playing game, class made perfect sense as it was how you did things; in the current versions of the game, with the addition of skills, however, it is a far less useful construct, and far too limiting. Skills are great; however, they are not in anyway tied to the life experience of the character or indicative of anything in particular. Feats are basically “super” skills.
I prefer to think of what composes the character as a being:
A being is born (race) and lives a life. In its life it is taught things (skills) and gains a basic understanding of the world based on the perspective of its culture (race.) Some things will strike a chord with that being more than others or will be taught more strongly than others (skills) this will effect the development of that being in so much that being given a sword and trained to fight from birth is more likely to make one physically strong than one that was given a book and trained to think (stats.) When presented with new challenges, a physical person is more likely to do well with challenges of a physical nature (stats again). In a logical fashion we find that statistics are informed from the life of the character more than just from the birth of that character.
Thus we come to our preferred character creation method:
Step 1: Race (birth)
Step 2: Skills(learning)
Step 3: Stats (summary of training)
Step 4: Gear up and Go
If a being is born of a typically physical race, and spends its whole life doing and learning intensely physical things it is more likely to have high statistics in physical areas. This is exactly what the rules of mystic present.
Step 1: Race
The first step in creating a character is: knowing where that character comes from. This means first and foremost who its ancestors are and we do this simply by selecting a race for that character. There are a number of races to choose from and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Skill Pools
Selecting a race is a role playing choice first. Finding the character whose voice speaks to you is of utmost importance. The main differences here are social ones first and foremost but they also indicate where the character will (typically) find encouragement and genetic preference. As such each Race has four pools of points that they lend to the creation process (more on points later) these pools are: Physical, Mental, Mystical and Social. So an Elf will be less social and more mental than other races. This indicates the genetic and sociological predisposition of growing up in that particular Race. Consider it an average of how dedicated (as a percent) the full segment of the population is to a given interest. You will note that all four pools total to 100 points, this balances each race and gives an easy frame of reference for comparison for the various attributes of each race.
The pools for each race are as follows:
Miscellaneous Pool
In addition to this predisposition the character will have had a certain amount of choice (personal, social, or parental) in its course of study and will thus have a number of points that are not specific to any pool or “miscellaneous” points. These points are determined by a base number and a bit of chance (luck has a bearing on how much choice we have in our lives.) To get the total Misc. points for your character at creation roll 3d10 and add it to a base of 20. This will give you a range of points from 23 to 50.
Step 2: Skills
Skills are next. Skills are how the character will do things or demonstrate knowledge in the game. There are three levels of skills that are all related but separate: Base level skills are ‘common knowledge’ to most if not all sentient creatures on the planet. This group is full of broad knowledge and is possessed by each character. Learned skills are skills that the character specifically studied over time. In a way they are simply an extension of the knowledge of a base skill and are interpreted as a modification of the success chance of a given base skill. Expert Skills are a focused and intense learning that gives the character more than average expertise in a given skill. Expert skills do not so much make the character more successful with a given skill but rather more effective when it is used successfully. A learned skill for instance might give a character a better chance of hitting someone with a strike from a dagger, but an Expert will know where to hit to cause the most damage possible.
Inside these three categories skills are placed into one of four groups: Physical, Mental, Mystical and Social. These four groups correspond to the point pools you received when selecting your character’s race.
As you select skills pay close attention to the skill description if you see the following: [i] at the start of the description it is an irregular skill and will have rules governing it’s use that need to be understood before you go ahead with the selection of the skill. This most notably applies to magic skills such as those that allow the character to cast spells. You will find a complete explanation of each irregular skill type in the sections immediately following Rules.
Base Skills
‘Base skills’ are ‘primed’ by simply giving each base skill in a category the same starting value as the pool for that category so if you have a pool of 40 in Physical all base physical skills will have a base value of 40. This does not consume those points, meaning that you retain them to be spent as part of the character creation process. Base Skills have a Maximum Level of 50 points
You spend your points by raising skills. But before you do you need to understand a little of how skills and statistics work:
- Statistics are generated by the summation of points (above the base) dedicated to skills that are related to that stat
- The success of a skill is modified with a statistic (more on stats later)
- the more one studies skills that relate to a common stat the greater the modifier of all skills in that group will be
- Upon Success the Effectiveness of the skill is determined
- Effectiveness is modified by a second, potentially different, physical stat than the success is.
Thus a skill both determines and relies on statistics. A character that has skills that are successful based on strength and effective based on Agility, would want to ensure a balance of points being distributed to skills that fall into both of those categories. (unbalanced skill selection leads to unbalanced statistics which make your effectiveness lower.)
As an example: Weapon:Edged is a base skill that uses AGL to determine success and STR to determine effectiveness.
This needs to be considered as you choose your skills.
**** Base Skill List****
Learned Skills
As learned skills are extensions of base skills each has a pre-requisite value in a base skill before they can be taken. Broadsword, for instance requires a Weapon:Edged skill of 35% if your base pool in Physical is 35 or higher you will meet the criteria at once (being a reflection of your society’s physical bent) if it is not you will need to spend points to raise the base skill until it is at least 35% The success chance for using a skill is then based on the Base skill plus Learned skill. Learned skills have a maximum Level of 50 points. Learned skills are also applicable in a more strictly defined situation: while the base skill Knowldege:Nature is a very broad and basic skill that could be applied anywhere anytime the Learned Skill that stems from it: Knowledge:Poisonous Plants is only applicable when looking at a plant and only then to determine if that plant is poisonous (it may well have other properties that would be unknown to you.) Similarly Broadsword is only usable when your character is actually wielding a Broadsword, if you had to grab a short sword (and didn’t have the appropriate leaned skill) you would rely on the Base skill Weapon:Edged as you have no specific knowledge of the short sword.
**** Learned Skill List****
Expert Skills
As your character progresses in the game it will find opportunities to hone it’s abilities even further. This is represented by the Expert skill. Like Learned skills Expert skills have pre-requisites, typically one or more Learned skill of a given level. However, some skills have specific Racial constraints or even geographic restrictions. These are all listed in the pre-requisite to simplify things. (For instant Aerial Combat is limited to races capable of flight.) Even with these restrictions many of these skills require a mentor or special instruction of some sort and must be earned in game. Each skill will lend a bonus to the effectiveness of a given Base skill (or group of skills) Expert skills have no maximum level but advancing them costs more points for each level. Also Expert skills are NOT available at the creation stage of the game unless your GM indicates otherwise.
**** Expert Skill List****
As a quick reference for skills and their relationship to one another:
**** Skills Tree ****
Step 3: Statistics
Statistics at creation are a summation of rather than something inherent in the character. Think of it like this: the more physical skill(or activity) your character has the greater the level of those stats. Each skill has a related stat that is listed in the description of that skill. Weapons:Edged for instance is an Agility Skill as is Broadsword. For each point you spent on these skills you would be in some way affecting the agility of the character. There are no ‘average’ stats and stats are considered Modifiers. Statistics start at 0 meaning that your character has spent no more time (or only slightly more) than the average person of their race pursuing things that related to that stat. Stats are not meant to be compared as a metric from character to character race to race, a De’Mere with a STR of 5 would be strong for a De’Mere but no where near as strong as a Minotaur with the same 5 in STR. This would be evident in the base skill Exertion [STR] where a minotaur would have a base of 40 in this skill (used for lifting heavy objects carrying loads and other feats of strength) the De’Mere would only have a 20 base. As you can see the overall Physicality of the races is no where near one another. Even races where the pool is similar the differences exist and as we cover the rules for skill use and situational modifiers this will be come perfectly clear. For instance a situational modifier for Exertion:Physical would be -1 per 10% the total weight is to the body weight of the character. A De’Mere averages 60 lbs a human 180 lbs. So for each 6 lbs the demere would have a -1 to it’s success. If trying to lift a 180 lb weight the modifier would be -30. the Human would have -1 per 18 lbs so for the same 180 lb load the modifier is -10 (note the De’Mere would get the same -10 for something it’s own weight) In all cases where an actual measurable attribute is needed it is presented in this manner.
For Base skills you get 1 point per every 5 spent for Learned skills it is 1 for 2. So if your character is a human from the kingdoms and you have 20 physical points in your pool and you spent 15 to raise the Weapons:Edged to 35 (pre-req for Broadsword) and 5 on Broadsword you would gain 6 points in agility (15/5)+(5/2) Rounding up. The same would go for skills in strength and toughness. Note also that Misc points spent on skills also roll up into the stats for that category. It is important to pay attention to both stats that work with a skill and take skills that balance your character’s abilities out. So for instance if you have broad sword as above your base chance to hit is 56% (Base Skill:35+Learned Skill:5+ Agility:16) but your effectiveness with the weapon is (as indicated in the Broadsword skill listing) Tool Effectiveness Modifier+STR (the tool effectiveness for a broadsword is 1d10) or 1D10+STR and if you spent all 20 points you had you would have a base STR of 0 making your maximum damage with a broad sword 10. Not great. You would need to spend some skills on a STR skill area (such as Shield) in order to raise your STR statistic. Or you might just wait until you have played and earned some points as advancement.
That being said there are 12 statistics; three each: physical, mental, mystical and social. These three stats can be thought of being related in what they represent about a given aspect of your character: the First stat in each category is the raw power of that category so STR is the power of physical stats, the second is the aptness of a given category so Agility is a measure of physical aptness, while the last stat is a measure of the resilience of a given group, so Toughness represents physical resilience.
Physical Stats
Strength (STR)
Agility (AGL)
Toughness (TOU)
Mental Stats
IQ (IQ)
Intellect (INT)
Spirit (SPI)
Mystical Stats
Power (PWR)
Control (CTL)
Essence (ESS)
Social Stats
Appearance (APP)
Manner (MAN)
Grace (GRA)
If you have spent your pools and miscellaneous points on skills you have already determined your character’s statistics. Simply total all the points you spent on Skills in the category for each stat divide the number of points spent on Base skills by 5, divide the number spent on Learned Skills by 2 and add the two numbers together.
Do this for each stat.
We are almost done with the numbers for our character all that remains is to determine the points that you character has to expend in each category as a result of damage or in order to use special abilities such as magic, prayer or as an indicator of sanity: there is one of these “variable” statistics per category as follows:
Physical: Lifeforce
Mental: Sanity
Mystsical: Mana
Social: Confidence
To arrive at these numbers we add the First two stats in a category and multiply it by the third (so Lifeforce=(str+agl)*tou)
When your character is hit with a weapon or other attack or is placed in a situation where it takes physical harm the Lifeforce of the character indicates how close to death the character may be.
When you character is under duress, stress or in a situation that calls into question the character’s reality then Sanity indicates how close to crumbling or loosing touch with reality the character is
When casting spells or resisting spells cast at you Mana indicates how much personal power your character has available to it. the lower this level the closer the character is to having to tap into it’s own Lifeforce to continue the use of magic or resistance to it
When interacting in a social situation such as bartering, or when asking for a favor from a mysterious and removed god that demands things for it’s favors the character expends Confidence as this lowers the less the character exudes surety. A negotiation may swing based on the confidence of the character doing the negotiations for instance. If a character hasn’t got the confidence that a deity will reply to a prayer then odds are it will not.
All these scores will lower during the course of normal play, they can also be regained through rest or magical means.
Lifeforce = (STR+AGL)*TOU
Sanity = (IQ+INT)*SPI
Mana = (PWR+CTL)*ESS
Confidence = (APP+MAN)*EGO
Step 4: Gear Up and Go
Gear is for the most part a given, you may equip your character with any items you feel it would have acquired throughout it’s life to the point of creation this may include a basic weapon, some armor, perhaps a book or two. This will not cost the character any ‘money’ as it is presumed that it has gathered these items over the course of its life. This is of course up to the discretion of the GM. But most reasonable equipment lists should be honored unless the character’s back story precludes it.