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Editorial: Character Creation
The system was inspired by Titan Quest (a computer name), which has you select one profession at the start, and a second one later on, given a lot of combination of classes (but you then buy skills/spells with points after that). I liked the two classes, but then thought it would be even better to buy levels in different classes.
I think I may have ended up with a system something like Dnd 5e, but purely by coincidence (I have only played a bit of the 5e starter set, with pre-made characters). I am pretty sure 5e goes beyond just the classes, with race options and other choices too.
The system I have ended up with gives a relatively small total number of combinations, but my view is that that is enough. I will see how the players feel!
Clearly there is a spectrum of character creation complexity, with pre-generated characters at the left and a system when the player can freely a thousand points on dozens of skills and feats to construct their own snowflake towards the right end. Where is the optimum point?
There are two different factors, I suggest, that determine that. The simplest is time. Picking from a handful of pre-generated characters will take seconds. Spending 1000 points will take many hours. The further to the right you go, the slower it will take. Indeed, the further to the right you go, the longer it will take to read the instructions, let alone create a character!
The other factor is the amount of choice or the flexibility. Clearly as the number of possible combinations increases, the number of choices increases, however it is my belief that the number of meaningful choices does not go up so fast. The difference between the pre-generated wizard and the pre-generated rogue is huge, the choice very real. The difference between a character with +4 in poison detection and +3 in poison preparation, compared to a character with +3 in poison detection and +4 in poison preparation is so slight as to be meaningless.
It is usual for RPGs to give each race its own bonuses. Elves are often better at magic, dwarves are strong, both can see in the dark.
What this means is that if you want to play a wizard, you should be an elf, if you want to be a warrior, be a dwarf. Sure, you could be a dwarf wizard, but you will just be a worse wizard than the elf.
Occasionally this is done for genders too, with men getting a bonus to strength, and women to, well, various stats. It is not common because it is regarded - quite rightly - as sexist. Women can be strong, just as men can be... whatever the other stat is. But if you want to be a warrior the system is pushing you to be a man.
Sure, the average men is stronger than the average woman, but character creation is not about modelling a population. It is about generating balanced characters. Most games realise this, and have men and women identical.
So why not do that for races too?
In this game, all races are perfectly balanced. Because they are all the same.
There are no clerics built into the the system. If you want to play a cleric, just put "cleric" in the profession box on your character sheet, build a character, and role-play him as a priest.
I would like to give some mechanical alteration, but have yet to devise one!
There is not much scope for healers. In my view, the healer is a boring class to play because all you do is patch up your friends. It is great to have a healer in the party keeping you going, but not fun to play one, as everyone else does the exciting stuff.
Furthermore, if a character is doing more healing than everything else put together (as you would expect if the character is described as a "healer"), then that is a lot of healing; either each healing spell has little effect or the healer is doing nothing most of the time or the healing is keeping the party at full health all the time, and there is no risk of death - until the healer is taken out, and suddenly it is looking like a total party kill!
A thread rpg.net also discusses this.
There is nothing random in the character creation process. Randomness necessarily creates unbalanced characters. A player who rolls well during character creation will have a better character than a player who rolls bad for the entire game.
Randomness during play creates excitement. Randomness during character creation creates frustration.