In game terms, a character is simply a collection of statistics and other information that help define and accurately represent a being in the Elder Scrolls setting. This same system is also used to define the various people, monsters, and other beings that populate the setting. From this point forward, the player characters will be referred to as PCs, while non-player characters will be referred to as NPCs. Even monsters and other creatures are classified as characters! Characters, particularly PCs, can be divided into two main parts: the character concept and the character profile.

Character Concept

A character concept simply defines who the character is within the context of the game setting. This can range from a simple idea in a player’s head (a dashing rogue who fights with a rapier!) to an in depth back-story written before the game begins. However extensive it may be, all characters should have a basic concept associated with them, even the NPCs that the GM creates for the party to interact with.

Character Profile

A character profile defines who the character is within the context of the game rules, providing a suite of stats which can be used to resolve a variety of dramatic scenarios in which the character may find themselves. These values are the focus of the majority of the rules in this book, and will be the focus of the rest of this section as well. Each character profile is made up of the following elements:

• Characteristics: Eight values that represent the broad physical and mental capabilities of the character.
• Attributes: Derived statistics that represent more specific measurements of a character capabilities and their current resources.
• Skills: A set of categories and associated ranks that reflect a character’s ability to perform certain actions.
• Talents: A set of unique abilities the character has come to possess through training or experience.
• Traits: Rules that reflect inherent physical facts about the character, certain abilities they naturally possess, or particular features of their personality.
• Magic: The set of all magical abilities the character possesses.

The primary means by which characters progress is through the accumulation and use of Experience Points (XP) awarded by the GM. XP can be spent by the players between game sessions in order to improve or change their character’s profile in a number of ways.

Characteristics

The eight Characteristics are values that define the broad physical and mental capabilities of each character. Characteristics have two pieces of information associated with them: the characteristic score, and the characteristic bonus.

A Characteristic’s Score is a numerical value representing that specific Characteristic. It has a minimum of zero, but there is no upper limit on its value. The scores tend to hover in the 35-45 range on average. Higher values are better. A given characteristic’s Bonus is a value equal to the tens digit of the associated characteristic score and is used for certain calculations where the full score is too large. Below is a list of all the characteristics that define a character, how they are abbreviated, and what they each represent.

Strength

Strength (Characteristic)

Strength (Str / SB) measures a character’s physical prowess and their ability to employ that prowess and push themselves to their physical limits.

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Endurance

Endurance (Characteristic)

Characteristics

Endurance (End / EB) measures a character’s Physical Health, stamina and toughness, and their resistance to damage.

Stamina Points

Stamina Points

A character’s Stamina Point (SP) maximum is equal to their Endurance (Characteristic) bonus, though it may be modified in other ways. When a character is below zero SP they have a level of fatigue for each point of Stamina below zero.

A character may still spend or lose SP even if they have none remaining, but each time they do so they gain a level of fatigue. This can cause them to eventually exhaust themself and fall Unconscious.

Regaining SP

A character regains an amount of SP equal to their Endurance bonus after a Long Rests and regains only 1 SP after a Short Rests (or removes a level of fatigue).

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Health Points

Health Points

Equal to Endurance (Characteristic) / 2 A character’s Health Points (HP) maximum is equal to half their Endurance (Characteristic) score (round up) and reflects how much damage they can withstand before they die. Damage that characters take reduce their current HP by the equivalent amount. For information, see Physical Health in Chapter 5.

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Agility

Agility (Characteristic)

Agility (Ag / AB) measures a character’s physical Speed, reflexes, and coordination, reflecting their overall ability to move quickly and gracefully.

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Intelligence

Intelligence (Characteristic)

Intelligence (Int / IB) measures a character’s mental prowess, problem solving, reasoning, ability to recall information, and understanding of the mysteries of Magicka.

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Willpower

Willpower (Characteristic)

Willpower (Wp / WB) measures a character’s mental control, resilience, and their ability to control and shape Magicka.

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Perception

Perception (Characteristic)

Perception (Prc / PcB) measures a character’s physical awareness, as well as the accuracy of their “gut instincts” and intuition.

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Personality

Personality (Characteristic)

Personality (Prs / PsB) measures a character’s natural charisma, presence, expressiveness, and social abilities.

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Luck

Luck (Characteristic)

Luck (Lck / LB) measures a character’s good fortune and how often events tend to go their way. See Luck in Chapter 5 - Advanced Mechanics.

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Favored Characteristics

Favored Characteristics

Not all characteristics are created equal! Some characters excel in certain areas over others, beyond a simple difference in raw characteristic score. Favored Characteristics are those characteristics a character is naturally gifted in; improving those characteristics, or Skills and abilities associated with them (including Specializations), is easier than usual. Each PC has two favored characteristics. Advancing or learning skills or talents governed by a favored characteristic, or advancing that characteristic, costs 75% of the usual XP cost (round down to the nearest multiple of 5).

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Attributes

A character’s Attributes are statistics derived from a character’s characteristics that represent more specific measurements of a character’s capabilities. While characteristics reflect general aptitude in a certain area, attributes measure specific values with very precise meanings used for particular game mechanics.

Health Points (Endurance/2)

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Wound Threshold (EB+SB+WB)

Wound Threshold

Equal to EB + SB + WB A character’s Wound Threshold (WT) is equal to the sum of their Endurance (Characteristic), Strength (Characteristic), and Willpower (Characteristic) bonuses and reflects the amount of damage an attack must deal to wound the character. For information, see Physical Health in Chapter 5.

Optional Rule Note: Alternate Wounds

If you’re using the rules for Alternate Wounds found in Physical Health later in Chapter 5, then your character will not have a Wound Threshold Attribute.

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Stamina Points (Endurance Bonus)

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Magicka Points (Intelligence)

Magicka Points

Equal to Intelligence (Characteristic) A character’s Magicka Points (MP) maximum, which is equal to their Intelligence (Characteristic) score, is a measure of how much magical energy (known as magicka) the character is naturally able to draw upon from their reserves. For information, see Chapter 6 - Magic.

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Linguistics (IB-2, to a maximum of 4)

Linguistics

Equal to IB -2, to a maximum of 4 A character’s Linguistics is equal to their Intelligence (Characteristic) bonus minus two to a maximum of four and reflects the maximum number languages that they can start with at character creation. Every character starts with Cyrodilic, which is the common tongue around Tamriel and doesn’t count as one of the languages known from this Attributes. One Exotic language counts as 2 languages known. Players should check in with their GM if they choose from the list of Exotic Languages. Additionally, GMs may expand this list of languages to fit setting of their game.

Common Race	Language	Exotic Race	Language
Imperial (Race)	Cyrodilic	Dwemer (Race)	Dwemeris
Khajiit (Race)	Ta’Agra	Falmer (Race)	Falmer
Nord (Race)	Nordic	Daedra	Daedric
Altmer (Race)	Aldmeri	Ayleids (Race)	Ayleidoon
Argonian (Race)	Jel	Dragon	Dovahzul
Dunmer (Race)	Dunmeri	Ehlnofey	Ehlnofex
Redguard (Race)	Yoku	Akavir	Akaviri
Bosmer (Race)	Bosmeri	Reachfolk	Reach-tongue
Breton (Race)	Bretic
Orsimer (Race)	Orcish
Important Note: Languages and Your Character
Of all of the Attributes, Linguistics is the most malleable. Think about this formula and chart as a starting point; if what you end up with needs some tweaking to fit the idea you have for your character, consider discussing your ideas with your GM.
Throughout the course of the game, Characters that wish to pursue learning languages can do so. Please discuss with your GM on ways to do this.

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Initiative Ratings (AB+IB+PcB)

Initiative Rating

Equal to AB + IB + PcB A character’s Initiative Rating (IR) is used when making initiative rolls and is equal to the sum of their Agility (Characteristic), Intelligence (Characteristic), and Perception (Characteristic) bonuses. For information on initiative, see Combat.

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Size Category (Standard by default)

Size Category

Standard by default A character’s Size Category reflects their physical size and the effects thereof. All roughly human sized characters are Standard size, but some characters can be larger or smaller. For information see Movement & Size in Chapter 5.

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Speed (SB+2xAB)

Speed

Equal to SB + 2 x AB A character’s Speed, equal to the sum of their Strength (Characteristic) bonus and twice their Agility (Characteristic) bonus, is a character’s movement ‘budget” for each Combat Rounds. Every meter that they move during a given round comes out of this total, and once a character has used all of their movement for the round they cannot voluntarily move any further. For information, see Movement & Size.

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Carry Rating 4xSB+2xEB

Carry Rating

Equal to 4 x SB + 2 x EB A character’s Carry Rating (CR), equal to the sum of twice their Endurance (Characteristic) bonus and quadruple their Strength (Characteristic) bonus, provides a measure how much weight they can carry, lift, or push. For information, see Items & Encumbrance Value at the end of this chapter.

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Action Points

Action Points

A character always has a maximum of 3 AP. A character’s Action Points (AP) maximum determines how often a character can act in a combat round. Spent AP regenerates at the start of each new round (see Optional Rules, Turn-based AP Refreshing). A character always has a maximum of 3 AP.

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Luck Points (LB)

Luck Points

Equal to LB A character’s Luck Point (LP) maximum is equal to their Luck Bonus. LP can be spent for a number of unique effects, and return to full at the start of each game session . For more information, see Luck later in this chapter. Each session a character is afforded a number of Luck points, (or LP, see Defining a Character in this chapter). A character’s LP max is equal to their Luck bonus, and they begin each new game session with this many LP available to them. Characters may spend these luck points in order to influence their character’s fate:

• Characters may spend a Luck point whenever they fail a test. If they do so, the character may immediately reroll that failed test. This may only be done once for a given test, and cannot be used to reroll Critical Failure.
• Characters may spend a Luck point to add a Degree of Success to a successful test (including one passed using spent Luck points). This can be done multiple times for a given test. Once a character has used all of their LP for a given session, they can resort to burning luck (see below).
• Characters may spend a Luck point in order to modify the narrative in some way, such as retroactively “remembering” to purchase something that would be helpful for the party.

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Lucky-Unlucky Numbers

Lucky-Unlucky Numbers

A character has a number of Lucky Numbers equal to their Luck bonus, and a number of Unlucky Numbers equal to five minus their Luck bonus. These numbers determine when they critically succeed or critically fail, and are determined at character creation. If a character’s Luck bonus drops by one or more, then change one or more of their existing Lucky numbers (player’s choice as to which ones) into Unlucky numbers so that their total number of Lucky/Unlucky numbers remains the same. See Critical Success & Critical Failure for details.

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Experience Points

Experience Points

The character’s current amount of Experience Points (XP), which increase throughout a campaign, can be spent on advancements. See Character Advancement at the end of this chapter.

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Skills

A character’s Skills are a set of categories and associated ranks that reflect a character’s ability to perform certain actions. The ranks reflect the character’s experience, training, and overall ability to perform these various actions. Skills are either trained or untrained. Each trained skill has a corresponding Skill Ranks, which has an associated value from 0 to 5, which reflects how capable the character is at utilizing that skill. Each skill has one or more Governing Characteristics: a set of characteristics that reflect the different ways that a character can utilize a single skill.

Skill Ranks

Skill Ranks

Skill Rank	Value	Modifier	Total XP Required	XP Cost (Total)	Equivalence
Untrained	-	-20	-	-	No knowledge
Novice	0	-		100	Rudimentary knowledge
Apprentice	1	+10	1000	200 (300)	Basic proficiency
Journeyman	2	+20	2500	300 (600)	Competent
Adept	3	+30	4000	400 (1000)	Extensive experience or training
Expert	4	+40	5500	500 (1500)	Professional level ability
Master	5	+50	7000	800 (2300)	Complete mastery
Grandmaster (Talent)	-	-	-	-	-

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When a character makes a skill test, they apply a bonus equal to +10 times the value of their skill rank (starting at +0 for novice [rank 0], and up to +50 at master [rank 5]) to the base characteristic. Typically the player chooses which characteristic to use as the base, but the GM may require that they must use a particular characteristic if they feel the circumstances dictate it. If a character attempts to use a skill that is untrained instead of trained, the test suffers a -20 penalty instead.

Specializations

Trained skills can also have accompanying Specializations, which represent areas of concentration and focus in a character’s training and experience with that skill. A character may take as many specializations as their rank in a given skill. When making a skill test in the listed area of specialization, the character gains a +10 bonus to the test. A character may not benefit from more than one specialization bonus on a single test. For more information on skills, see 3 - Skills.

Talents

A character’s Talents are the various unique abilities the character has come to possess through training or experience. They include everything from passive bonuses to activated abilities, and can even modify how the character uses certain skills. For more information see 4 - Talents & Traits.

Traits

A character’s Traits are rules that reflect various natural facts about the character or certain abilities they possess. They include things such as the ability to fly, inherent physical weaknesses, personality traits, and so forth. For more information, see 4 - Talents & Traits.

Magic

A character’s magic encompasses the spells, rituals, powers, and other magical abilities they possess. For information, see 6 - Magic.