Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Characters and Levels

Spirit of Greyhawk's character generation process is probably as much about "conversion" as it is about "generation". Or at least you need to be considering the viewpoint that players will likely be looking at their SoG character with a thought about how it looks from the perspective of the source material. By way of a running start, here's a summary of "starting characters" in Fate Core and Spirit of the Century...

Fate Core Starting Character Summary

Skill Pyramid: 1 x (+4), 2 x (+3), 3 x (+2), 4 x (+1)
Stress Track (Base): OOO in each track
Aspects: 1 High Concept + 1 Trouble + 3 Additional Aspects
Fate Point / Refresh: 3
Stunts: 3 free stunts, extra stunts cost Refresh

Spirit of the Century Starting Character Summary

Skill Pyramid: 1 x (+5), 2 x (+4), 3 x (+3), 4 x (+2), 5 x (+1)
Stress Track (Base): OOOOO in each track
Aspects: 5 phases x 2 aspects = 10 aspects total
Fate Point / Refresh: 5
Stunts: 5

...From that information and a bit of fiddling with the dials, I generally consider Fate Core starting characters to be the equivalent of 8th level, relative to the source material. Spirit of the Century starting characters would the equivalent of 10th level.

So given those two points of reference, I ventured off on that heading to make the following character "levels" for Spirit of Greyhawk. SoG uses a guild-based naming convention--I like the concept that the game's feel reinforces a cultural assumption for the game world that education is generally a function of a feudal-ish guild structure, and that a character class is a guide into the sum total of that character's skills. Plus, the source material's class titles implied a pretty similar assumption.

Spirit of Greyhawk - Character "Levels"

"Apprentice" (0 Level--in case anyone wants to try it)

Skill Pyramid: All at +0
Stress Track (Base): (none), one hit takes out character (barring Consequences)
Aspects: 1 Race/Alignment Aspect
Fate Point / Refresh: 0 Stunts: 0

"Craftsman" (2nd Level)

(This would be closest to the source material starting character)
Skill Pyramid: 1 x (+1)
Stress Track (Base): O in each track
Aspects: 1 Class Aspect + 1 Race/Alignment Aspect
Fate Point / Refresh: 1
Stunts: 1

"Journeyman" (4th Level)

Skill Pyramid: 1 x (+2), 2 x (+1)
Stress Track (Base): OO
Aspects: 1 Class Aspect + 1 Race/Alignment Aspect + 1 Additional Phase Aspect
Fate Point / Refresh: 2
Stunts: 2

NOTE: The "Additional Phase Aspect" is similar to a character creation phase, because the character has now begun journeying.)

"Experienced Journeyman" (6th Level--I haven't researched a better title yet)

Skill Pyramid: 1 x (+3), 2 x (+2), 3 x (+1)
Stress Track (Base): OOO
Aspects: 1 Class Aspect + 1 Race/Alignment Aspect + 2 Additional Phase Aspects
Fate Point / Refresh: 3
Stunts: 3

"Master" (8th Level)

Skill Pyramid: 1 x (+4), 2 x (+3), 3 x (+2), 4 x (+1)
Stress Track (Base): OOOO
Aspects: 1 Class Aspect + 1 Race/Alignment Aspect + 3 Additional Phase Aspects
Fate Point / Refresh: 4
Stunts: 4

"Guild Master" (10th Level)

Skill Pyramid: 1 x (+5), 2 x (+4), 3 x (+3), 4 x (+2), 5 x (+1)
Stress Track (Base): OOOOO
Aspects: 1 Class Aspect + 1 Race/Alignment Aspect + 4 Additional Phase Aspects
Fate Point / Refresh: 5
Stunts: 5

Reinforcing the Character Class Mechanic

To further support the source material's assumption of character classes, and working again from the assumption that education in the game world is largely a result of a guild system, Spirit of Greyhawk has a rule mechanic that separates the skills for all classes into three categories...

  • Skills that a particular class can elect to have in their skill list. A Thief can choose the Missile skill, just not as an Apex skill.
  • Skills that a particular class can elect as their Apex skill. For example, the Wizard class is the only class that can elect Wizardry as an Apex Skill.
  • Skills that are not available for a particular class. A Fighter cannot elect the Wizardry skill.

...So while it's conceivable from a narrative perspective that a fighter COULD have the Wizardry skill, it would require the character to multi-class / split-class to gain access to skills that wouldn't be otherwise available via a single class. Additionally (and this probably doesn't even need to be said), the distinction between classes also provides a more natural backdrop in the game world for why characters of different classes would band together into adventuring parties: to gain access to skills that would improve chances of survival.

Low-Level Non-Fighters and Combat Emphasis

There is a natural tendency for players with low-level characters in the non-Fighter classes to want to select the Melee or Missile skill as early as possible, to improve their chances of surviving combat. However, this can result in the majority of successful (i.e., surviving) low-level Thief and Wizard characters to be less distinguishable from the Fighter characters or Clerics. SoG tries to encourage non-fighter characters in two ways:

  • The Skills by Class table (shown in post "Character Statistics and Skills") requires a non-fighter character to pick an apex skill that is NOT Melee or Missile.
  • Similar to the source material, give all starting character classes a truly "free" stunt: Weapon Specialization. This means that the character will pick a weapon from the Weapons Table and when the character is fighting with that weapon (and only with that type of weapon), they receive a +1 bonus.

Given the larger benefit of a +1 in the Fate Core game mechanic, hopefully this gives a player a comfort level that the non-fighter character is not being unduly penalized when it comes to combat.

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