This page is a flowchart designed to help you create characters in Chivalry & Sorcery The Rebirth. There will be a few examples eventually, but the first one will be a Fighter and the second a Mage.
When a page reference is given, e.g. 3-33, the first number is the volume and the second number is the actual page.
The first thing to do when designing your
character is to talk to the Gamesmaster. Find out the following
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If Human then you will only need Book
1 and maybe Book 2 if a Cleric or Mage, otherwise you will need book 3.
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Chivalry & Sorcery is set up to allow players to let the dice fall where they may or, if they prefer, use points. These points are used to purchase Attributes, Social Status, Special abilities etc. Some things, such as character deficiencies give the player more points to spend elsewhere. C&S: The Rebirth has three starting levels for points built characters
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Next see if the Stars favour or condemn your
character. If the Character's race allows a choice then a character can
Poor or Well Aspected characters have magical influences in their lives and the best magicians usually come from these people.
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Attributes are the raw numbers that show the innate talent of characters in physical and mental tasks. When assigning Attributes players should have in mind what Vocation he wishes the character to follow, bearing in mind that each Vocation will have attributes that it favours. If playing a totally Random character, roll a pair of 10 sided dice (adding one die to the other [0=ten]) eleven times, getting 10 numbers between 2 and 20. Discard the lowest two results and distribute the highest nine amongst the Attributes as you wish. If using a points method, spend points on Attribute in line with your character's Vocation. It might be worthwhile checking pages 1-37 to 1-41 for the attributes best suited for the Vocation you have chosen for that character. e.g. a thief with low Agility is going to have problems as is an Actor with a low Bardic Voice. Also other Attributes may be important to a character, e.g. a Warrior will always do well with a high DISC and AGIL and it is worth looking at the Attributes for bonuses in the skills a character in that Vocation is likely to use. For Mage and Cleric characters check 2-3 to 2-8 for Vocational information. Non-human characters have some extra, species specific, vocations to choose from. For Humans each point up to (and including) 15 costs one point and the last five points up to and including the maximum 20 cost 2 points each. Humans must purchase at least 2 points of any Attribute. Non-Humans will have some attributes that they have special rules for. For all other attributes they do the same as Humans. And find their "Attribute Roll" value (pg 1-4) Don't forget you can come back and change the figures if you have more points to spend or require more points to buy something else. |
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Social Class in a Feudal society determines your character's initial skills and, to a certain extent, his/her chances in life, how the law affects him/her and their status in that society. 5a Determine the general social class. A player can
Note that each general social class has specific effects in generating the character. For example someone from the Guildsman class will increase seven skills in which they have basic training by 1 skill level. Some of these are bonuses for the player character being superior to the ordinary, run of the mill, person. All character have Brawling as a default skill (although female characters can swap that for one of the "gentle" crafts) and, if their Intelligence is over 11, they have Counting as a skill. There are some other skills that everyone has, see pg 1-36 and, if Book 2 is used, everone also has the Faith Skill, see pgs 2-20 and 2-84 to 2-85. 5b Everyone rolls for their father's (or Grandfather if they are illegitimate) vocation randomly within the general social class. This gives the character his/her basic social status and their initial skills. E.g. someone who's father was a Castle-Armourer (Liveried Freeman)gains Blacksmithing, Weaponsmithing and 2 Combat Skills. |
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This determines the legitimacy of the
character's birth, the order in which they are born and, consequently,
how much a character will inherit. A player can
Illegitimate children suffer socially, gaining only a fraction of the father's social status (or, if unacknowledged, their grandfather's [see notes on tables 1.5b to 1.5i on pg 1-5]). |
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How your character is regarded
in his/her family. The status affects how much the character starts off
with in goods and funds. A player can choose
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Only Poorly Aspected characters have
to roll for a curse, or those who are directed to the curse table by the
Deficiency/Defect table (pg 1-15). Characters using the
points system can gain 5 points and roll on the curse table to take the
consequences. Or you can roll on the table for fun if you so desire.
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A character can chose to gamble on having a
special ability or talent, the downside to this is that they must also
risk rolling on the deficiency and defect table on 1-15.
Some abilities (marked in bold) are limited to those whom magical forces
have taken an interest in by making them Well or Poorly
aspected. Explanations of all the Talents and Abilities can be found on pgs 1-22 to 1-25 |
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If your character has rolled for a chance
of (or purchased) a Special Talents then s/he must also
roll for the chance of a flaw.
Characters designed by a points method who do not have a special ability or talent may also take flaws for the extra points they will get to spend on other things, e.g. Taking (Heavy Sleeper) to get the 5 points to spend raising, for example, strength. A maximum of 25 points may be taken in this way. Explanations of all the Talents and Abilities can be found on pgs 1-25 to 1-27 |
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Unless due to a curse (step 8)
or character flaw (step 10), this section is purely voluntary.
A character does not need to have a phobia and there are no points to
be gained from taking one. A player can roll randomly or select from the
table as they see fit.
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If not defaulting to the average height
(for a Historic male 5'8") and Build (Average) characters
can either spend points to influence height and weight or roll. To determine
height and weight, two sets of die rolls are required, one for the height
and the other for the build. The build is used to adjust the weight depending
on whether the character is skinny or stocky..
Which die rolls you make depends on your gender, race and (if human) whether or not your GM is using "Historic" or "Heroic" sizes. Players rolling should
Adjust the build roll if AGIL or CON require it, and read the results off the Universal Table. The basic weight of a character is 10lbs plus 5lbs per inch over 40 inches, so an average Historic male character 5'8", having 28 inches over 40, would weigh 10 + (28 x 5) = 150lbs. If they were on the heavy side of average (+5% in weight) then the character would weigh 157.5 lbs Remember to check the errata for the amended details for Orcs, Goblins and Trolls, oh my! |
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The calculation for Body Levels (in effect,
hit points) is based on the character's weight. Take the reading
from the table on page 1-17, so our character in step 12 would have a
base Body Points of 19. Consult the chart against CON (on pg 1-18) to see how quickly the character resists disease or recovers from injury. |
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Fatigue is the Stamina of the character,
light wounds and any exertion will temporarily reduce Fatigue.
To find the Fatigue Level find the higher of Discipline or Strength . Add that number to your Constitution. Consult the table to find out how quickly you recover your fatigue if sleeping or resting |
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Fairly obviously, the Stronger your character,
the more your character can lift. C&S abstracts this as a sliding scale
of a percentage of your body mass compared to your strength, plus 5Lbs.
You normal carrying capacity is half your lifting ability.
Consult the table on pg 1-19
to find the percentage, e.g. for a character whose weight is 150lbs and
has a strength of 10 the lifting ability (LCAP) of your character
is |
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The figure given for Jumping is a base
figure for various types of jump. It is calculated by taking JUMP
= 0.25 x (STR + AGIL)
Humans get an extra two feet to add, Elves an extra three feet on their base jump. The Jump is reduced by weight carried or if jumping from a stand, but it is increased if a run is taken or the Jump Skill studied. |
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Movement, in this case, means how much a character can perform in a certain amount of time. This is particularly used in combat. Movement is measured by Action Points, to find out the Base number of Action Points (BAP) that a character has find the higher of Constitution or Intellect . Add that number to your Agility. Divide by two and round down If Intellect or Constitution is over 20 then use the figure 20. e.g. The Dwarf Boggis has Con 22, Int 12 and Agility 14. So Boggis uses CON 20 and AGIL 14 to calculate the BAP, in this case (34/2) = 17. The higher the BAP, the better chance that that character will have the initiative in combat. |
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Although optional, the Horoscope has always
been an interesting feature of C & S, giving bonuses to characters
who follow the Vocation that the Stars have charted for them. The Horoscope
may be rolled for, or paid for by spending 10 points.
In C & S: The Rebirth, this bonus is shown by the gift of extra skills. If these skills are ones that are important to the Character's Vocation (Primary Vocational Skill see pg 1-36) then they may become Masteries. (See Step 22 for a discussion of Masteries, Masteries are Skills that suits his/her Vocation that the character will learn much more easily than skills not of his/her Vocation. Briefly, these are areas whose skills the character may learn more easily. As the Stars show that certain areas are more suited to the character, the character chooses two bonus skills. If the skills chosen are Vocational skills then the character can gain extra experience points from use of that skill. A well-aspected character can gain a +5% bonus for a skill which the stars favour. |
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The older a character is, the more experience
s/he has, and the more experience points to spend on skills before the
character joins the game.
To determine the starting age of a character do one of the following
NoteThis is one area where a GM might easily tinker to affect his/her campaign by adjusting the level of Starting experience points. E.g. Terry sticks to the book and uses 5,000 as the base level of experience points. Nigel uses 25,000 as the base level so that characters can start off at higher levels or with better developed skills. ed does the same as Nigel but at the lower figure of 15,000 points. |
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If you have no particular ideas as to how
your character looks, you can look through the tables at the bottom of
page 1-21 to help you determine eye colour, skin texture etc.
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If you have points left over or need points
to balance the character by taking disadvantages or reduce the expenditure
on something then now's the time to do it.
Also a good time to name your character if you haven't done so already. By now you should have an idea of the Vocation of that you want for your character. If you don't then now's the time to pick one. Look through the pages 1-37 to 1-41, 2-3 to 2-8 and/or the non-Human sections in Book 3 and you will see which Attributes best suit the various vocations. e.g a character with high INT and WIS would make a good Necromancer where INT and AGIL should be high for a Physician. Note that each character gets 10 free skills at level 1 (See second column pg 1-37), the only restriction being that at least six of these are used for Primary Vocational Skills. These may be used for skills later chosen as Masteries so that the Mastery takes the skill up to level 2. The number of Masteries (the skills a character finds easiest to learn of all) a character has is 5. But they may add another every so often, in game mechanics this is abstracted by saying that the character may gain a new Mastery every N levels. To find out what number N is check the first table on page 1-37 . e.g. A Thief with AGIL 16 and Int 12, but DISC 14, adds AGIL to DISC to get 30, he consults the chart and finds he can gain a new Mastery every 7 levels. Each vocation lists skills that are best suited to that Vocation. Primary Vocational Skills are more easily learned than any others, Secondary skills have the option of being more easily learned, see Step 22 |
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At this stage the character should buy
skills using experience points gained in section 18 depending how old
you are. Masteries are skills that the character specialises in or has
a talent for, perhaps from their horoscope (see Step 18).
Each skill has a Difficulty Factor (DF). The higher the DF the more Difficult to learn. Primary Vocational Skills are always easier to learn but may be made even easier to learn by being Mastered. In both cases that reduces the DF of a skill. Reducing the DF and make the skill not only easier to learn, but give the character a higher starting chance to succeed. There are three catagories of skills which may be Mastered
Mastered skills have their skill levels raised by one. EG if a skill gained from the character's background is Mastered, then that skill has level 1. If the Skill is not known then basic knowledge (level 0) is gained. Skills are purchased using experience points and are bought in levels, each skill level adding 3% to your chance to succeed at that skill. The Base Chance is based on the DF. To that are added any bonuses from his Attributes(Each skill has a pair of associated Attributes. These are totaled and compared with table 3.4 on pg 1.29 to find the bonus) plus 3% per the level of skill. Remember The cost of the skill level is determined by consulting the chart 3.3 on Page 1-29. Eg for a DF 4 skill each level costs 600 exp to go up a level, as opposed to 300 exp/level for a DF 1 skill. Any Primary vocational Skill bought when the character is generated automatically gains 1 free level in the skill. If you try and raise a skill by more than the character's experience level, then mulitply the cost by the difference between Skill level and experience level. e.g. a level 1 character trying to buy a DF 1 skill to level 2 pays (2 - 1) x 300 = 300 points. To raise it to level 3 would cost (3 - 1) x 300 = 600 points. (see pg 1-34 second column "Improving a known Skill beyond one's experience level") Mages should check their "Personal Magic Factor" and "Magick Level" (see pg 2-23). These are measures of the Mages power and is used in calculations of the effects of spells and how long it takes to learn spells and enchant things. Starting Mages get the total number of levels in Methods of Magic x their ML in Spell MRs (see pg 2-27) Spell MR's are like skill DFs, the higher the number the harder the spells are to learn. All mages have two common spells they can learn, Enchant Materials and Transfer, see pgs 2-25 to 2-26. Clerics should check their Personal Faith Factor on table 7.1 on pg 2-84 There are some skills that everyone has as part of their background, Brawling has been mentioned already but there is a list on page 1-36 under Background Skills. Remember that these can have a Mastery Spent on them and this reduces the DF by 1 and puts the skill to level 1. In addition everyone posseses the Faith skill, see pgs 2-20 and 2-84 to 2-85. Finally the character can choose a few Hobby or Tertiary skills. These are skills that characters have picked up but not yet, fully, developed. For the number of Tertiary Skills a character can have check the table on pg 1-36 |
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Finally we come to what the character owns
and how much money they start off with. This depends on their
Consult the list chart on page 1-95 find
out how much your character receives in money, eg the child of a Petit
Sergeant receives 400 pennies in cash, a weapon for each of the Mastered
weapons skills, some armour and a light warhorse.
As stated earlier Fighters get possessions to start off with, an average quality weapon for each of their weapon Mastery and, if of the appropriate class, a horse and gear. The last thing before your character is ready for play is to spend your starting funds on any other gear from the lists on pages 1-96 to 1-100. |
Proofreaders - Tim J W Simth, Guy Robinson.