Character Creation

Playing Swords of infinity begins with creating a character. This character will be the player's proxy in the adventures that take place in the game.

Character Concept

Building a character begins with creating his or her concept. In Swords of Infinity, a character's concept helps to decide what tools and skills he or she will use when solving problems in the game. Some players will enjoy developing an elaborate biography for their character, but generating a simple concept is as easy as answering a couple questions. How will this character do battle, up close, at a distance, with magic, or some other way? What sort of problems is he good at solving, those requiring physical might, cunning, or charm? The answers to these questions help decide which ability scores should get the highest values and how experience points should be spent.

Example: Holtsmeistur is a Dwarven scout, commando, and combat engineer. He is adept at stealth, infiltration, constructing wooden field fortifications like palisades, destroying wooden structures like doors and bridges, and both finding and setting traps of various sorts.

Ability Scores

A character's ability scores represent their likelihood of successfully using a skill with no specialized training in it. All skills can be tied in to at least one of these abilities and examples for each are listed below. In some cases a skill might relate to multiple abilities, and it is up to the Storyteller to determine which of them is relevant to the situation.

Strength

• Resisted movement (e.g. running, jumping, climbing, swimming, pushing, pulling etc.)
• Determining the power of an attack.

Dexterity

• Hitting things (the ability to direct an attack and successfully connect with it)
• Complicated movement (e.g. dancing, tumbling, legerdemain, picking a lock, dodging an attack, horseback riding, moving unheard)

Vitality

• Ignore physical discomfort (e.g. ignore the ill effects of a disease or injury)
• Perform a physically draining activity (e.g. running for a long time, staying awake after not sleeping for a long time)
• Determining the power of a special ability.

Intelligence

• Remember information (e.g. about a certain subject or person).
• Solve a problem (e.g. mathematical, engineering etc.).
• Successfully cast a spell.
• Choose the right words to affect an opponent in social conflict.

Awareness

• Noticing things beyond surface details (e.g. noticing trouble, seeing hidden details, discerning odd noises, judging a person’s character or intent, detecting whether a supernatural ability is in effect etc.)
• Wilderness Survival (e.g. foraging, hunting, hiding etc.)

Personality

• Determining the power of a spell or a phrase in social conflict.
• Creating art.

Generating Ability Scores

The next step in building a character is generating the numbers that make up her ability scores. Swords of Infinity supports two methods of obtaining these scores, and it is up to the Storyteller to determine which of these methods is the most appropriate for the story they are attempting to tell.

Rolling

Using dice to generate ability scores produces the most dynamic and interesting results and is the preferred method when playing Swords of Infinity. To generate an ability score using this method simply roll a d% and divide the result in half (rounding up). Repeat this process six times and record the results so that they can be assigned.

Storyteller's Note: Depending on how difficult you intend your game to be, it is recommended that a limit be put on how low the sum of a character's ability scores can be. A good general limit is 150, this guarantees an average  score of 25 (a 25% chance of success) in all abilities and it is also the number of points recommended for the point buy method of ability score generation.

Point Buy

Some players want more control over their character's ability scores than the randomness of dice allows. The point buy method involves assigning a predetermined number of points into each of a character's six abilities. The storyteller can specify this predetermined pool of points based on how difficult she wants her game to be, but the recommended number is 150. This guarantees an average score of 25 in each ability, and gives players the opportunity to give their characters interesting strengths and weaknesses. No more than 50 points should be spent on a single attribute, and this is also the maximum value an ability can receive from the dice rolling method.

Storyteller's Note: If neither of these methods does it for you, try hybridizing the generation of ability scores. Players can roll six times and add the results to get their initial pool of points and then spend them using the point buy method.

Assigning Ability Scores

Picking which ability to assign a score to is as important as generating the score itself, and there are two ways that this can be accomplished. The method used to assign scores is typically left up to players, but requiring one method or another is a tool that Storytellers can use to influence the game (e.g. requiring organic assignment might push players out of their comfort zones).

Organic Assignment

Organic assignment allows chance to decide what a character is good at, and can only be used with scores that were dice generated. To use this method simply assign each score in the order they were rolled to each ability, Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Awareness, Intelligence, and Personality. Players should use this method if they enjoy the challenge of playing a character that hasn't had their abilities optimized for a particular role, alternatively the organic assignment method can help players come up with a character concept (e.g. a character organically assigned high dexterity and intelligence scores might make a good thief).

Picked Assignment

Picked assignment is the method that most players prefer, and is the default method for the point buy method of generating ability scores. To use this method, simply assign either the rolled score or points into each ability until no more rolls or points are available. Characters that are created using picked assignment can be optimized for a particular role in the party and so are often more successful. Players should pick this method of assignment if they are interested in having greater control over their character's strengths and weaknesses, or are interested in rounding out their party's capabilities.

Skill Specializations

As characters become experienced adventurers they specialize in the skills that help them perform their role in the party more effectively. When rolling for success or power, skill specialization scores are added to the ability score that they are keyed to, thus making it more likely that the character will succeed at that task. Most characters will begin play with one Experience Level, but Storytellers might opt to give new characters more Experience Levels (or none at all!) depending on the how they want the story to begin.

Point Buy

Skill specializations are bought using experience points, and each experience level that a character starts with is equal to a block of 100 experience points that can be spent on specializations, special abilities, or traits. Specializations are purchased using the scale in the following table, which represents a character's learning curve as they strive toward mastery -- making quick improvements in the beginning and slower improvements at higher levels of skill.

Score	Point Cost	Cost to Next Level	Total Experience Spent to Next Level
1-10	1	10	10
11-20	2	20	30
21-30	3	30	60
31-40	4	40	100
41-50	5	50	150
51-60	6	60	210
61-70	7	70	280
71-80	8	80	360
81-90	9	90	450
91-100	10	100	550

Special Abilities

Traits

Traits are special abilities that cause minor, permanent narrative effects, can only be purchased during character creation, and cost 10 experience points. As a general rule, if a special ability causes a narrative effect that only effects the character, is something they would need to be born with, and is something that is always passively effecting the character, its a trait; things like night vision or water breathing qualify as traits.

Storyteller's Note: Depending on your setting, it may not make sense to allow players to buy traits unless they belong to an appropriate race; humans probably should not be able to breath underwater, for example. This is entirely up to you, work out with your players what fits and what doesn't, Swords of Infinity is intended to be flexible.

Archetypes

packages that players buy to get certain specializations that are prompted by race/profession/background/etc