How to make a character
The Character Sheet
The character sheet for Ascendant Destiny is two pages long and it contains all the vital information about your character.
The basics of the character sheet are covered in chapter 1 of the book. Broadly speaking the character sheet can be broken into the following components:
General Information
Attributes
Derived Stats
Skills
Magic and Virtues
Weapons/Armour
Feats and Spells
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Creating a Character
The magic of character creation is covered in chapter 2 and basically a seven part process:
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Creating a Concept
Allocating Attributes
Assigning Skills
Choosing Feats
Spending Freebie points
Calculate Derived Stats
Finishing Touches
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Note: the following guide does not contain all the rules necessary for character creation. It is provided for getting to know the system better.
Creating a Concept
A good start in creating a character is to brainstorm a concept by thinking of two or three words to describe the general theme of your character. Words like ‘arcane warrior’, ‘charming mage’, ‘blessed archer’ and ‘swashbuckling shaman infiltrator’ can say a lot about a character.
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After you are happy with your character concept you need to choose a race for your character. Each race has unique rules and traits that add flavour to your character.
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At this stage you should also think about your character's values and what their virtues may be (although this stage can happen later).
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Once you have a solid concept for your character you can start to allocate your character's Attributes.
Assigning Skills
Starting characters will have a total of 15 points or ‘dots’ to spend amongst their trained skills, education/professions and abilities. These ‘dots’ are called skill points. Please note that some races have additions to certain skills.
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Before you start assigning these 15 skills, however, you need to take into account your character's natural aptitude in their abilities. This untrained skill is calculated using the ability rounding rules.
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Next to each ability on the character sheet there are three letters written in brackets. These three letters represent one of the attributes (example ‘Str’ is strength). The attribute represent the Natural Talent for that ability. Each of the character’s abilities start with half (rounded down) of their Natural Talent. Note: this only applies to Abilities and not Trained Skills.
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At this point of character creation no trained skill, ability, education or profession can intentionally exceed 3. The exception to this is if a character’s race forces the stat above 4.
Allocating Attributes
Each attribute has a maximum value which varies slightly from race to race. This limit is called the ‘racial maximum’ and it is equal to 6 unless stated otherwise under the race traits section.
For example elves have a racial maximum of 6 for each of their attributes except Dexterity, which is 7, and Constitution, which is 5.
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A starting character will have 16 points or ‘dots’ to spend amongst their attributes. These dots are called ‘attribute points’ and can be spent one for one in any of the attributes up to the racial maximum minus one.
The final point (or racial maximum) will cost two attribute points instead of one.
Choosing Feats
Starting characters get to pick 3 standard feats. The character must fulfil all the prerequisites for these feats. For example, if a player wants to give their character the Swim feat, then that character must have at least 2 in Athletics.
There are OVER 200 feats to choose from each based one of the 16 Trained skills/Abilities!
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It is possible for a starting character to have magic feats but those must be bought later using Freebie Points.
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It might be the case where the player wants to give their character a feat where the prerequisites haven’t been met at this stage. It is fine to choose feats that the character doesn’t have all the prerequisites for so long as those prerequisites are met by the end of character creation. If this is the case then the player should hold off on picking their feats until the end of character creation.
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Note that some races, like humans and half elves, have a bonus feat. This means they get to pick 4 feats instead of 3.
Spending Freebie Points
Freebie Points are a mechanic used to round a starting character off. Freebie Points can be spent to improve your character in any way of your choosing (within limits of course).
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If you wish your character to start the game with a large amount of skills then you can use your Freebie Points to purchase more. If you want your character to start the game with unusually high attributes then this is also possible.
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Freebie Points also give the player a way to give their character magic skills, magic feats or spells and have trained skills or abilities above 3.
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Each race has different benefits and drawbacks. Some races are inherently more powerful than other races. To balance this at character creation, each race starts with a different amount of Freebie Points.
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Those players who play more powerful races will effectively have fewer Freebie Points to advance their characters. Likewise, those who play less powerful races will effectively have more Freebie Points to advance their characters.
Calculating Derived Stats
After the main part of character creation is complete it is finally time to calculate your character’s derived stats.
Derived stats are made up from your character’s Attributes, Skills, Abilities,
weapons, Essence, feats etc. Derived stats are typically related to combat.
The formulas for calculating derived stats are included at the start of Chapter 11: Game Rules.
Finishing Touches
Now that you have completed the character creation it's time to put the finishing touches to your character sheet.
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This includes writing down what kind of equipment your character carries on them, the type of weapon(s) they wield (including offensive spells) and the armour they wear.
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Finally you may want to jot down some notes on your character sheet.
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And that's it you are done!
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For some example characters click the buttons below.