
alkatrazshock |
This may be a waste of a thread, but I hope not, im very interested in starting to make custom characters for the group I play with and stuff, and the rulebook does give a good starting way to create characters, but it doesn't go into depth about it, the traits like stealth, arcane, etc. and their boosts, aren't covered I don't believe, and also abilities and such, if im correct, the only thing there is to tell you about how many cards should be in the deck list and how many of skill dice should be evened out and skill points, nothing else is covered and so id like to be thorough with my characters, but its important to me that the characters don't get broken, no one wants the game too easy, so has anyone developed a method to fill in the rest of the blankness on custom characters other than the deck/card list part, and the skills? again I apologize if this is dumb to ask

fiou |

I'm not sure I'm answering your question. In fact, I'm not but I think the subject is interesting so here is a few very incomplete ideas...
For the type of dice to use:
Roll a character using one the RPG Rulebook method and then set the die using a table like this:
3-5 1
6-7 d2 d6 / 3
8-9 d3 d6 / 2
10-11 d4
12-13 d6
14-15 d8
16-17 d10
18-19 d12
For the skills:
A list of skills could be available based on the race and the class of the character. The player could then choose some of those.
For the powers:
The RPG rulebook contains a lot of special powers, feats and skills descriptions that can sometimes be adaptable to the card game. Depending on the strength of the power, it could require to recharge, reveal, discard, bury or even banish one or more cards.
There is a lot of things to think about, to test and analyze... this game is not going on my shelf soon...

Fenris235 |

What i did for my Custom Chars was analysing the existing chars.
And here is how i build after that.
No Hero has a Dicetotal of more than 42. So your Attribute Dice added together should be at or below that number. (15 featboxes, no more than 4 in one Attribute.)
All Heros have skillbonuses between 4 and 9. And no skillbonus is higher than +3.
All Heros have atleast 2 Powers, atmost 3 on their Character Cards. (4 featboxes.)
All Heros have at least 4 Powers, atmost 6 on their Role Cards. (12 featboxes total) (These are not all new Powers, the ones from the Character Cards are in these numbers too.)
15 Cards to start your deck. (10 featboxes. No more than 3 in one Cardtype.)
I haven´t found a good rule for handsize or proficencies. So i normaly go with 5 handcards and proficiencies that fits the class. (Only rule is, Fighter have more proficiencies, caster more handcards.)
These are the guidelines i used to build Chars. I hope it can help you.

Hawkmoon269 |

I've been working on some custom characters too. And like Fenris235 pointed out, there are some additional things you can deduce from examining the iconics in the game.
Fenris235 is right on all accounts (though maybe not powers, see point 3 below). Only Lem and Kyra have less than 42 dice total, each has 40. And keep in mind the game itself breaks the limit on d4s with Seelah.
I've been trying to figure out how the various aspects are weighted to result in balanced characters (when compared to each other). There are a few things that make figuring that out difficult, if not impossible. Both really are due to the fact only 2 out of 6 decks have been released yet.
First, powers, especially if you are making something up, can't be judged empirically in terms of their advantage. I thought about having a character that could more easily defeat banes with the magic trait or acquire boons with the magic trait. But I have no idea how many of those there will be. Especially in the banes because I realized I hadn't seen on yet through Burnt Offerings. (Haven't checked Skinsaw). So would that be too useful? Not useful enough? Who knows.
Second, you have no idea how useful a skill is. When you count skill bonuses and skill bonus points, you'll see that Harsk and Merisiel each have 4 skill bonuses and Harsk has 9 points, Merisiel has 8. Most characters have only 2 bonuses and 4 or 5 bonus points. But how much more useful are Harsk and Merisiel's skills then the other characters? Will fortitude come up as often as Melee? Will disable be helpful as perception? You can't know with out seeing all the cards. And two of those skills are basically the ability to use spells, which is what the characters with them are usually built around. So Seoni without out Arcane is much more useless than Harsk without perception. So maybe all skill bonuses aren't created equal.
Third, how do proficiencies relate to powers? If you include each proficiency as a power, then Valeros has 5 powers. On one level this seems to make sense. They are under the Power section of the card and some characters can check a proficiency when checking a power.
Fourth, what about hand size? If having a smaller or larger hand size a power? If so, what is the "base" hand size to start with when building a character?
I've tried lots of ways to calculate these things. If I ever have some time I'll clean up the spreadsheet I made and post it somewhere to share. But I for one would also love a little more guidance. But it might not exist. The way the designers determined that these characters were balanced was having dozens of people play test them. You don't have that luxury.
So in the end, I'm going to do this:
Use the guidance you can get from the rule book and from others.
Think thematically, don't give your character a skill bonus it doesn't make sense to have.
And mostly, keep your game fun for you and for others. Fun is what the designers were seeking to do when they made the game. Of course what is fun is relative too. The designers had to worry about what would be fun for lots of people. But your target audience is much smaller. Maybe you don't care that your character is over powered because you just play solo and enjoy the feeling of easily mopping the floor with every bane and acquiring every boon. Others won't think its fun unless there is a high level of difficulty. If it is a solo character no one will care but you. In a group, you will alienate your friends if you character is way better then their's. So get their feedback about your character.
And if you want it, post your character on the forum and see what others say. You don't have to take their advice, but you might find it helpful.

alkatrazshock |
I got a character made using his advice, id say he is mostly spot on, I pretty much made a spell sword, I made his normal character card and such, and then made a single role card as well, I think he is decently balanced, maybe too balanced, he is weighed towards magic, and I love electric magic, so one of his 3 abilities is to boost electric trait checks, then I gave him ezren's reveal ability, and seoni's recharge ability, on his role I gave him the ability to recharge arcane spells when using a weapon to add the magic and electricity trait to the check, a major problem we had when using our group, was I was the only spell user, and too often my group was running into enemies they legit couldn't beat cause of having no magic use, for enemies that need the trait to be beaten, so spellsword, a balanced warrior with some magic, or balanced caster with some weaponry made a lot of sense to have, mine was also very ninja based, so I gave him auto proficient with weapons, and made it possible to become proficient with light armors, gave him lots of feat traits, but made the bonuses minimal, I think I maybe gave him like 6 different ones, but stayed in the 8-9 bonus limit, kept him in all the limits so im hoping he isn't overpowered cause I want the game to be fun, not too easy, abilities like you said, are a trial and error thing, id try and just use already created abilities, which exist a lot between the normal characters and their roles, and create semi flavorful abilities for your character , fit your theme and again, keep everything fun, I used open office spreadsheet for my character creation, its not flawless, but it works well enough, ill post him fully later on if I can

Vrog Skyreaver |

this is an interesting discussion. Adding my .02, I would say that most of the things that go into building a character are basic resource allocation (i.e. I have x amount of skill feat checkboxes and so on). the only things I see as being difficult to balance are powers and attribute dice. Let's talk about dice first, followed by building a character as an example (my example character is a witch that I am working on creating to try playing):
When making a character, I like to balance having my primary die be a d10 or d12 with my primary combat skill being +2 or +3. Statistically, it basically washes, but it changes the flavor of the character. Additionally, if I do a d12, I always include a d4 somewhere: I see it as a balancer for the higher die. If I do a d12, I also limit myself to only one d8 (and I would hesitate to build a character with a d12 and a d10). If I build a d10, then I can avoid having a d4, although I balance having a 2nd d10 with a d4 usually (although this is certainly not always the case; I build a bard who had 2d10s and everything else d6, but ultimately scrapped him cause he wasn't fun to play). I think an interesting way to go that I haven't seen before is a character that has like 3 or 4 d8s and then either 2 d6s or a d6 and a d4. kinda a generalist at a lot of different things.
I went with the following dice for my witch:
Skill:
str 1d4 []1 []2
dex 1d6 []1
con 1d6 []1 []2
int 1d12 []1 []2 []3 []4
arcane +1, Divine +1, Knowledge +1
wis 1d6 []1 []2
cha 1d8 []1 []2 []3 []4
diplomacy +2
Card:
Weapon -
Spell 6 []7 []8 []9
Armor -
Item 2 []3 []4
Ally 5 []6 []7 []8
Blessing 2 []3 []4
As a character who interacts with spirits on a regular basis, I felt that his/her primary ability skill should be diplomacy, especially if you take a look at his powers (below)
Now to talk about powers:
As far as Hand Size goes, I use the following formula: If it is primarily a melee character (a fighter/paladin/monk), I go with 4; A hybrid gets 5; and a pure caster gets 6.
For the most part, I like to build characters who only have 2 powers, even though there are characters who have 3. I will usually build a character who has an "offensive" power, and then a defensive or utility one. I always try to start with the powers of the iconic characters first, just to see how the basic mechanics of various rules shake down. From there, I make what I think would be interesting tweaks.
When looking at powers, my goal is for there to be an agonizing choice when you get a power feat. I want you to have to waiver between two different things for a while.
For my sample character, I have the following powers:
Powers: Hand Size 6
You may reveal an ally with the animal ([]or arcane) trait to add +1 ([]+2) to a check.
You may recharge a card to reduce the difficulty of a bane by -1 ([]-2).
As you can see, my witch character has an utility power that represents his/her familiar (which is similar to Lini's companion ability, but not as potent). It also gives room for growth, and adds in what few arcane allies their are (When I came up with the ability, I was thinking about the acolyte, but I'm sure there will be others).
My offensive ability is based on the Misfortune hex ability of the PnP witch class. It has less power, but more utility, in that it can be used with both banes and barriers.
In short, you can see how I like to break down creating new characters. I have a folder with about 15 or so, some based on various characters I have played, and some based on ideas that I found fascinating or "neat".