ATOW Character Creation and Example

[Kitsune413]

(This is written on a phone so there will be editing done later on a computer)

So the first part of character creation probably doesn't need explained. You need to talk with your gm and fellow players about the type of campaign it is. The time period and the kind of players everyone will be playing. If everyone wants to play a Noble Mechwarrior and you really want to play a Spy then there may be a lot of things you are left out of. Unless creative GMing is in place. But you want to clear that.

For this example I am going to create Kitsune "Hey, are you drunker than I am? What's happening" Nagasawa from the community mercenary thread. I can guess because the designs are limited to 3049 tech that we are probably just about to be hit by the clan invasion.

Now I just happen to have the Era Report 3052 which is perfect for this and has affiliations listed for that time period. But I just want to use the main book to make him so we might have to get a little creative.

[Kitsune413]

So because of the GM applied rules in place I can't play a Sea Fox. So what I've done instead is taken the Nagasawa last name to insinuate that he is related to the First! Second Khan of Clan Sea Fox Karen Nagasawa. The Nagasawa family was in the sldf and left with Kerensky. But we know they were on Dieron and so we will assume the extended family stayed in the Draconis Combine.

So our affiliation is set in the Draconis Combine.

Here is the first real tricky part of character creation and one of the things I've seen my players stumble on over and over again.

Universal Fixed Experience Points:
You Start with 5,000 xp points to either build your character straight up or to buy life paths with. But, You have to to spend 850 of them to buy one in each attribute. Perception, a language related to affiliation and english. This tricky clause can be found on page 52. Why they don't just start you with 4,150 xp is beyond me.

Also part of this stage is your affiliation. Kitsune grew up in the Draconis Combine and this is going to cost him 150 xp. Which will leave him with 4,000 xp.

So on page 54 is the cost of and the things you receive from your affiliation. You can also choose a sub affiliation and I'm going to because I know he is from the Dieron District. This doesn't cost anything. The xp's will balance out.

So here is stage 0: Kitsune

Str: 
Bod: 100
Rfl: 100
Dex: 100
Int: 100
Wil: 100 (100 from fixed xp. +50 from DC affiliation. -50 from Dieron district)
Cha: 100
Edg: 100

Skills:
Perception: 10
English: 20
Japanese: 20 (he has a choice here of japanese, arabic, English, or Swedenese. I chose Japanese because it is ubiquitous to the Draconis Combine. Until Tai Dai Cultist comes in here and tells me it's not.)

Arts/Oral Tradition 15
Martial Arts 10
Protocol/Combine 15
(All from DC)
Interest/Star League History 5
Language/Any 15 (I am seeing an opportunity to throw in Swedenese here and I'm going for it.)
Negotiation 5
Arts/Any 15. (I am going to go with Writing here. Since "Journalism" seems like a profession choice )

Traits:
Compulsion/Xenophobia 50 xp. (-100 from DC. +50 from Dieron)
Connections +60 (Dieron)
Enemy: -100 (Dieron)
Wealth 0 (-50 from DC. +50 from Dieron)

He gets to choose between xp towards Pain Resistance it Combat Sense and he is going to go with Combat Sense +100 xp. We know that Karen Nagasawa had an intuitive grasp on it and I don't see him as being particularly tough.

And that is it for stage 0. We don't turn these numbers into anything else until later on.

[Kitsune413]

So getting into life paths. This part is pretty easy. We have 4,000 xp left to spend and we just have to choose our lifestyle.

Now there are a bunch of Stage 1 options but Kitsune Nagasawa is going to pick White Collar. He isn't from a posh Noble Family. But his Military Service family aren't manufacturing Dragon parts either.

This costs 170 xp. Leaving Kitsune with 3830. This had a pre-requisite. So now Kitsune needs 3+ trait points in Wealth or Property Traits that he will have to sort out before his character is finished. But you don't need to resolve it yet. Just don't forget!

It makes the following changes to his sheet.

Stats:
STR: 50.
BOD: 50
INT: 175
Wil: 50
Cha: 175

Traits:
equipped 75
Enemy -200 (it added another 100 to the trait)
Extra Income: 50
Glass Jaw: -50
Reputation: 50
Wealth: 100

Skills: Art/Any 10 (we are going to dump this into writing to give him 25)
Interest Any:  10 (we can add this to star league history so that he will be more surprised when the clans invade. Making it 15)
Language/Affiliation 5 (this is going to add to japanese, making it 25)
Protocol/Affiliation 5 (this brings Combine up to +35)

Flexible XP's: These can be tricky. Flexible xp's can be spent on anything you want unless the instructions tell you otherwise. In this case it's 5 points each to three different attributes, traits or skills.

I'm going to add 5 to art, writing and 5 to Star League History because that is what young Kitsune is into. The last 5 I'll put into intelligence because of his interest in the other two. That makes

INT: 180
Art: Writing 30
Interest/Star League History 20

[Kitsune413]

So Kitsune grew up in a pretty nice lifestyle in the Combine. But during his childhood the alarming war of a 3039 is going to break out. As well as post 4th Succession War concerns. Not knowing that the next ten years would be surprising peaceful the Nagasawa's send young Kitsune off to Military School.

This costs 500 xp. Leaving him with 3330. It also has a pre-requisite of Willpower 3. Which he will have to hit with his 3 points of wealth and property.

He will have the following changes from this path.
Cha: 225 (+50, +75 from before and his starting 100)

Traits:
Connections: 75 (up 15)
Fit: 15
Rank 20

Skills:
Career/Soldier 25
Computers 35
Interest/Any +30 (Star League History 50)
Leadership: 20
Martial Arts: 40 (10 from DC)
Medtech: 10
Melee Weapons: 20
Protocol/Affiliation 30 (DC is up to 65)
Running: 30
Small Arms 50
Strategy: 10
Swimming: 30

(He gets 40 points on flexible xp's. This time they can only be spent on Skills. I'm going to dump them entirely into Strategy. Now we know what Kitsune likes so much about Star League History. He is starting to get a direction. This will make Strategy 50)

[Kitsune413]

Stage 3: Higher learning gets pretty tricky. We could have avoided the whole thing if we had just sent Kitsune straight to stage 4 during stage 2 and gave him a real job. That's legal in the combine. But we didn't and we know he is going to be an aerospace pilot. So let's get to the complicated stuff.

So Kitsune is going to land in a Military Academy.

This costs 830 xp right from the top. Knocking us down to 2500 xp. Simple stuff!

But fields are calculated diffirently. So I know that even though he wishes he went civilian journalist he is going to end up taking the basic training naval and pilot - aerospace combat fields. Which are his options under military academy. Now you can also take special training, and after that go to officer candidate school. But he is going to avoid that.

So when you take a field you have to spend 30 points on each skill in that field. There are six in Basic training and seven in aerospace pilot combat. So he will end up spending 180 xp on basic training and 210 xp on aerospace pilot combat.

But in a confusing move, because of the way you learn these skills you get 6 xp back for each one. Free xp is nice, but it is one of the more confusing aspects of character creation. That means from the two fields that give him 13 skills he will get back 78 xp. So 390 xp minus 78 is 312. And we are going to take that from our total of 2500. So we have got 2188 left.

Fields come with their own pre-requisites too. So now before we finish Kitsune needs 3 willpower. 3tp of wealth and property. 4 int and 3 rfl from basic training naval and dex 4 and rfl 4 from aerospace. You just take the highest requirement so we can forget about the 3 rfl from basic training naval.

So let's put it all together.

I'll list the skills he gets from the fields but also add in his previous scores if he had them. So:

Career/pilot 30
Martial Arts: 30+40=70
Medtech: 30+10=40
Navigation/space: 30
Small Arms: 50+30=80
Zero-G Ops: 30

Gunnery/Aerospace 30
Navigation/Air 30
Navigation/Space (a double from naval training. Making this one 60)
Piloting Aerospace 30
Sensor Operations 30
Tactics/Space 30
Zero-G Ops 30

Those are from the fields. But you get things from the Academy itself too. The Academy has pre-requisites. But because Kitsune went to Military School they are waived. If he didn't he would be charged the luck and connections it would take to get in.

It will make the following changes
Str: 50+50= 100
Bod: 50+100= 150
Rfl: 100+125=225
Will: 50+100=150

Traits:
Equipped: 100+75=175
Rank +200

Skills:
Interest military history: 15
Leadership: 20+10=30
Protocol: 65+15=80
Swimming: 30+15=45

Now, we also get 100 xp that are flexible with no stipulations. We could cut it up and place it however we wanted. Our pre-requisites are adding up though and I've got some things I want to do with him post creation. So let's pump it into reflex for now to try and satisfy the aerospace pilot field.

Rfl:225+100=325.

[Kitsune413]

At this point you are probably wondering how Kitsune has managed to end up in a mercenary unit from this notable Draconis Combine Academy.

The easy option is to go straight into stage 4 tour of duty and end it there. We can assume that the quiet, pre-clan invasion decade was too peaceful and he went to a life of mercenarying. Stage 4 really isn't different from Stages 1 and 2 except the way that you age. Speaking of age when you leave a Stage 2 Module you are sixteen years old. After that you just add the length of time of Fields up in stage 3, and the amount of years stage 4 courses take. Right now Kitsune Nagasawa is 18. 16 from Stage 2. He took a basic training field (1 year) and an advanced training field that also only cost 1 year.

Instead of taking the optional stage 4 module he is going to take his second stage 3 higher learning path and drop out of the academy to find his way to the interesting life of a Solaris Journalist. Finally living out his dream.

So lets do another Stage 3 because they are complicated.

So Kitsune is going to enter the Solaris internship path. You can only take two Higher Learning Modules (Stage 3) without GM approval and they can't be the same type of school. So you can't Military Enlist and go to the Military Academy. But Solaris Internship is considered a civilian path.

This path costs 700 XP. Knocking Kitsune down from 2188 to 1488.
Now I don't really care about the basic fields. but I HAVE to choose one. and I can take up to three fields in schooling. So flipping over to page 82B to check out these fields. So I'm going to Take Communications from the basic field and Journalism from the Advanced Field.

Both fields have 6 skills. So they are gonna cost me 180 each. So 360 together. And they both give me 36 xp back. For 72 xp. Once again, this is confusing. But its one of the few ways to get MORE xp. So 1488 - 360 + 72 = 1200. And I'm gonna need all that XP to try and bring him together here at the end.

So lets see what Kitsune's second round of schooling has done for him.

Communications:
Acting +30
Career/Communications +30
Comms/Conventional +30
Computers +65 (+30 + 35 from his days in the Military School.)
Protocol/Any +30 (We are in the Lyran Commonwealth now. So lets make this Protocol Lyran)
Sensor Operations 60 (30+30 from his aerospace training.)

Journalism:
Acting 60 (30+30 from communications)
Art/Writing 60 (30 and 30 from his first two life paths. His early interest in writing.)
Career/Journalist 30
Computers 95 (He's getting pretty good at using computers these days! adding 30 to the previous trainings.)
Investigation 30
Perception 40 (30 + the 10 you get from the universal fixed XP's.)

Now he's got some new Pre-requisites too now. From Solaris Internship he has to be on Solaris. He also needs 2 trait points worth of Connections.
Communications requires Int 4. He already needed this from Basic Training. Journalism is more strict. It wants Charisma 4, Willpower 4 (And intelligence 3 but the requirements are already higher than that.

Now from the internship itself we get some modifiers. So lets do those really quick.

Attributes:
Charisma  375 (225 + 150 xp. Which is good. We have pre-requisites to fill.
Edge: 150 (100 + 50)

I get 50 points to put to any other stat I want and at this point we need most of them. I'm going to drop it into Dex just to get the ball rolling on the Pre-reqs.

Dex: 150 (100+50)

Traits:
Connections: 175 (100 + 75. Good we need to get it to 200 for our Pre-requisites.)
Enemy 250 (200+50)
Reputation 150 (100 +50)
 
Now I get to choose between equipped and Vehicle. I know that Kitsune owns an SL-26 Samurai. So I'm going with Vehicle.
Vehicle 100

Skills:
Acting: 85 (he's learned a lot from Solaris.
Interest/Solaris Games 30
Perception: 60 (40 + 20
Streetwise/Any +25 (Going to go with Lyran Commonwealth here.)

Flexible XP's 100. with no instructions. Once again I'm going to drop this into Intelligence to try to make my Pre-requisite.

Int: 275 (175+100)

[Kitsune413]

Putting it all together. Lets look at what we need to make this character work. First of all his Pre-requisites.

Solaris Internship: 2 tp Connections. Must be a resident of Solaris VII.
Fields:
Commnuications: Int 4
Journalism: Int 3, Cha 4, Will 4

Military Academy: None.
Fields:
Basic Training Naval: Int 4. Rfl 3.
Pilot Aerospace (Combat) Dex 4 Rfl 4

Military School: Will 3+
White Collar: 3 TP total in wealth or property

So he needs quite a bit of stuff to fulfill his requirements. So when you are calculating your final levels your Stat is going to be determined for every 100 xp. So if you have 200 xp in Int your Intelligence is 2. If you have 225 xp in Int, its 2 with 25 xp left over. Lets look at where Kitsune is currently.

Str: 100
Bod: 150
Rfl: 325
Dex: 150
Int: 275
Will: 150
Cha: 375
Edge: 150

So this is where he is at. I've got 1200 xp left over. But I've got a lot on my plate. I have to buy him an Aerospace fighter and I really wanted the "Tactical Genius" spa which I've been a bit coy about. So for that I need an INT of 5. A leadership of 5 and a tactics of 5. Which means it might be off the table. I also need his piloting to be high enough for him not to plow into the dirt if he gets shot in the atmosphere.

Now before I bump everything up to pre-requisite levels, which I'm going to do anyways. I want to mention Link Attributes.

When you are taking a test whether you are good at the attributes related to a skill can really effect you. Check the chart on page 41. So if I decide to make something a dump stat, say Strength. (P.S. Gonna make Strength a dump stat!) and then I want to do an action that involves it I might do terribly. So I can't hamstring things to much. On the other hand. If I raise an attribute above 7 I am just naturally better at it. Now I'm just spread too thin to get those 7+ modifiers. So I'm just going to buy enough to not be penalized and meet my pre-requisites.

So:
Str: 200 (100+ 200xp.(-100) I'm just trying not to get heavily penalized. At this level he still gets a -1 to str checks. (see notes on edge below.))
Bod: 300(150+150xp same as above. I may have to change my mind on these two to make the character really work)
Rfl: 400 (325 + 75 xp. to get to my pre-requisite level. I wish I could get this up to 7. It helps with almost all aerospace things.)
Dex: 400 (150 + 250 xp  Same as above.)
Int: 500 (I want to get it to 5 for the SPA. So lets drop 225 xp into it. We already had 275 so that'll make it 5.)
Will: 400 (A big investment here. Going to add 250 xp to the 150 to get to my pre-req requirement.)
Cha: 400 (375+25xp to hit the pre-requisites)
Edge: 150 (at this point I've got about 25 xp left and a whole lot of character building to do. Seems being a journalist and an aerospace pilot is a bit much. But we are still going to work on it. Edge is more important to me than Strength right now. So I'm going to take 100 from strength. and put this at 2 for now. with which gives me 75 xp to work with. Hopefully I can come back and spruce it up.)

[Kitsune413]

I'll finish this up in another post or two but can't edit it on my phone at this point. So it will have to be tommorow.

Going to show examples of unoptimized and optimized Kitsune Nagasawa. Then a quick and easy point buy example.