As you create your character, you may have questions about how you can make your character function well in the context of the game. This section will act as a guide during the character creation process to answer those questions. One of the most important parts of this process is to gather as much information as possible, both from your GM and the other players. Even if your GM can’t give away particular details of the campaign, they should be able to give you a sense of the overall tone, as well as what kinds of skills will be important to have. It’s also important to talk to your fellow players, particularly while building your characters, so that you can make sure your party as a whole is capable of taking on a variety of challenges and that each member has an important job to do.
Priorities
When building your character it’s important to determine what your priorities are: what are your character’s most important traits, and how are you going to represent them within the system? You’re working with a limited budget of XP, and while you might have an idea of where you want the character to go in the future you’ll likely find that you have to focus on purchasing only the essentials at first.
Magically oriented characters should ensure that they have enough Magicka Points to support the types of spells they want to cast, and a high enough Willpower (Characteristic) to reliably cast them. The best way to increase one’s Magicka Points is through the use of the Power Well (X) trait, a trait that increases the amount of one’s Magicka Points and that can be attained as both a racial bonus or through the use of certain birthsigns. Though for some characters there may be no need for lots of magicka: a high Intelligence will suffice for an Alchemist or Enchanter.
Combat oriented characters should think about how their character fights. This means considering both how they plan to engage and defeat their enemies in combat, as well as how they plan to survive combat. Don’t be a “one-trick pony”! Characters who focus on a singular style of engagement should consider having back-up options available for when they find themselves in an unexpected situation. For example, a barbarian who prefers to fight in melee with an axe might choose to also carry axes with the Thrown quality so that they can attack at range when getting in close is not an option. Characters that aren’t naturally tough will need another way to mitigate damage, either through magical means, the use of armor, or evasion. When it comes to winning the fight, it’s important to consider how your character will position themselves relative to the rest of the party: having a “front line” can be very useful if certain characters intend to engage at range, though these front-liners will often find themselves fighting outnumbered. There are also a wide variety of non-combat oriented characters that one might wish to create. There are too many to cover here, but in general it is still important to consider how these characters will handle themselves if the party gets into a fight.
Skill and Talents
The UESRPG 3e has a large number of skills and talents that players can choose from when creating their characters, which can lead to some difficult choices. Fortunately there are a few general guidelines that players can follow when navigating character creation. When it comes to skills, it’s important to decide how specialized your character needs to be. Mages dedicated to one particular school of magic, or warriors devoted to a specific way of combat, would both benefit from having a high rank in the relevant skill. Rogue type characters, on the other hand, can adopt a more “jack of all trades” approach as they need to be able to navigate a wide variety of situations. There are also a number of non-combat skills that every character should consider learning, even if only at a very low level. Skills like Observe, Survival, Lore, Ride, Navigate, Profession: Medicine and Athletics are extremely useful for all types of traveling adventurers. Talents are a little more difficult to choose: there are a variety of talents that have powerful effects, but it’s easy to go overboard. Some talents unlock the ability to do things other characters cannot, while others function to augment a particular skill (such as by providing rerolls or replacing degrees of success). The critical decision is which of these abilities are necessary to the character, and which are just nice to have. The former are worth investing in early, while it is often better to replace the latter with additional skill ranks that will prove critical at lower XP values.
Surviving Combat
Even characters who shine off the battlefield can expect to find themselves in combat at least once during a campaign. It is important for every character to have a plan when things get violent. Perhaps the most important thing to remember when approaching combat is to not bite off more than you can chew: fighting outnumbered is a very dangerous prospect, even for skilled warriors. There are ways to prepare for this situation, however: clever use of flanking and long Reach weapons, or proficiency in the Evade skill can allow a character to survive in combat against many enemies, while heavy armor and healing magic can allow characters to last longer under pressure. Additionally, all characters stand to benefit from raising their Endurance score where possible regardless of their approach to combat or their character archetype. Given that Endurance directly relates to HP and Wound Threshold, a high endurance score increases a character’s general survivability. In other words, Endurance is not a dump stat! Characters who have neither the ability to effectively fight in heavy armor, or the speed to dance around their foes, will benefit most from simply not getting caught in a direct engagement. Characters wielding ranged weapons or using ranged magic can have a profound impact on the fight from a safe distance, where there is a much lower risk of having an axe buried in one’s skull.