Some of you may already be familiar with my Characters-By-Level (CBL) project that I tried to run last year, but after getting some very good advice from some friendly people here and on other forums I canceled it and went back to the drawing board. After streamlining the scope of what CBL is and getting more of my ducks in a row, I will be relaunching my Kickstarter on January 22, 2014.
My CBL's Facebook page contains all the latest details about my Kickstarter project as well as show all the character artwork that has already been completed for it. If you don't like Facebook, you can get the same information from my website or on my CBL Google+ page.
So what is Characters-By-Level?
Characters-By-Level (CBL) is a RPG gaming aid that consists of Pathfinder compatible pre-generated characters ready to be used in your Pathfinder games of any level. CBL will be released in monthly installments with each release consisting of a PDF containing 5 characters that also comes with Hero Lab portfolios and high quality character art files. For those that are only interested in our character artwork, it will be offered separately as its own product called Game Avatars (GA).
Each month’s release of CBL will contain the following:
* A 200+ page PDF book detailing 5 characters with NPC & PC stat blocks for levels 1-20
* Separate, high quality artwork files (jpegs) for all characters
* Hero Lab portfolios for all characters
We will be launching our Kickstarter campaign on January 22, 2014 to help fund our CBL project and the majority of the funds will be used to pay for the highly detailed character artwork. If our Kickstarter is successful, we will produce 5 months of CBL with stretch goals extending our monthly releases for up to a year. That means we plan to produce anywhere between 25 to 60 pre-generated characters depending on the success of our campaign.
Characters
All of our characters will include descriptions detailing their class builds, backgrounds, appearances, personalities, and ways to help you to fit them into your games. The details will tend to be more generic due to the fact that our characters are not campaign specific, but we will provide enough information so that you should be able to use them in your games with little effort. Unlike other books that provide pre-generated characters, we provide complete NPC as well as PC stat blocks for levels 1-20 for all of our characters and this will allow you to use them in any of your Pathfinder games regardless of level! Additionally, every stat block for a character beyond 1st level is based off the level immediately previous so that you can see how each character evolves.
Our characters’ NPC stat blocks will be created by using 15-point ability score builds or the NPC heroic ability array while PC stat blocks will be using 20-point builds and be assigned 2 starting traits. In deciding which races, classes, feats, equipment, spells, etc. to allow in the designs of our characters, we plan to use OGL content from the following Pathfinder books: Core Rulebook, Advanced Player’s Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Advanced Race Guide, Bestiaries 1-3, and Ultimate Equipment. As you can see there is a lot of material to draw from that will allow us to create a wide variety of characters to use in your campaigns.
By providing NPC and PC stat blocks for all our characters, GMs as well as players can find our CBL gaming aid useful for their games.
Artwork
We have talented artists on board to draw high quality colored bust portraits of all our characters. Besides using our character art inside our PDFs, we plan to make the same artwork available as separate image files (jpegs) of various sizes so that they can be used in your games or gaming websites. You will also receive large wallpaper versions of all our characters for personal use though we ask that you not post them on the internet. If certain stretch goals are reached during our Kickstarter in January, some of our character portraits will be upgraded to full length and our backers will determine which ones receive this upgrade.
Here is a list of some of the character image files you will receive:
*Website avatars
*Virtual tabletop avatars with different token rings
*Wallpapers (up to 1200 pixels vertically)
All of our latest character artwork will be posted on our Facebook page.
Hero Lab Portfolios
We will include Hero Lab portfolios of all of our characters as a bonus to individuals that use that program for their Pathfinder games.
Availability of Paper Versions of CBL
CBL will only be offered as a PDF for we feel that the production cost of a physical book of character stats is too high for most people interested in purchasing our product. However, we do plan to sell POD versions later on through RPGNow.com and other websites for people that really want them.
My CBL project will be using the following Pathfinder classes & races:
- Classes - All. However, no mythic at this time.
- Races - All races from the Pathfinder's Advanced Race Guide is fair game. This also includes - gnolls, lizardmen, and kasatha.
Our current character lineup:
Month 1 – Adventurers I
- Human Cavalier male
- Dwarven Rogue male
- Elven Druid female
- Half-Elf ranger female
- Halfing Wizard male
Month 2 – The Wicked I
- Half-Orc Anti-Paladin male
- Elven Cleric female
- Tiefling Ninja/Assassin male
- Human Dragon-Blooded Sorceress female
- Aasimar Bard male (with evil mustache!)
Month 3 – Adventurers II
- Gnome Alchemist male
- Half-Orc Monk male
- Fetching Summoner (Shadow Caller) female
- Tengu Oracle male
- Human Fighter female
Month 4 – Outsiders I
- Ifrit Inquisitor male
- Undine Cleric male
- Onead Barbarian male
- Sylph Witch female
- Sulis Magus female
Month 5 & All stretch goal month characters
- Determined by kickstarter backers
I will be launching my CBL Kickstarter at 8pm EST this coming Wednesday and I will post a link here when it goes live.
Also, the final version of the artwork for my tengu oracle character is now posted on my company's Facebook page.
My CBL Kickstarter is now live!
Two bonus pictures have been added for backers that pledged at the GA Champion, CBL Champion, and CBL Creator levels. At least two more will be revealed over the course of the Kickstarter.
So it's not a single book? It's an ongoing subscription?
And have you considered doing 3rd party classes for your NPCs?
Looks very interesting, I can always use (even more) NPCs, especially those coming complete with artwork and fully made stat blocks. Backed.
I applaud the lack of chainmail bikinis and the fact that the character with the least clothes on is a male monk. Way not to objectify the fairer sex :)
Stay classy.
So it's not a single book? It's an ongoing subscription?
And have you considered doing 3rd party classes for your NPCs?
This time around, there will no be a subscriptions, I will be releasing books with 5 characters each and people who support my Kickstarter will get 5 books (25 characters), plus any other bonuses that are offered.
Unless there is a demand for 3rd party classes, I don't plan too.
I applaud the lack of chainmail bikinis and the fact that the character with the least clothes on is a male monk. Way not to objectify the fairer sex :)
Stay classy.
Thanks. Even though Pathfinder/D&D is fantasy game where magic plays a part, all our female characters will be wearing realistic armor and clothes.
Here are 2 more examples of our ladies wearing suitable attire, but are still in development:
Two more bonus character pictures has been revealed for my Kickstarter backers and can be seen here.
You can also see the initial sketch for CBL's aasimar bard which had his evil mustache upgraded to a more evil-looking beard!