Character Creation
Skills

Now that you have decided the essential characteristics of your character, you can start equiping him for his life as an adventurer. To survive for long, you will need both Skills and Equipment. Here, I will deal with the former.

It is important to reiterate at this point that there are no character classes in SLuRP. Your chosen occupation has no effect on the skills you may choose. Certain skills are restricted to members of a certain guild (particularly magic), but this is a practical limit, not a limit of the rules. If you can find some way of learning the skill without joining the guild, you may do so.

Your character is defined by what he can do, not by any label he may use. If you call yourself a fighter, yet you know only magical skills, you will be known and used as a mage.

Let us begin.

The Skill Lists

The available skills in SLuRP are sorted into eight (8) skill-lists. These are:

Strength

Skills for hitting things, doing damage, and general thuggery. It represents how strong you are (funnily enough).

Agility

Skills for dodging, leaping, and hitting things with more flair and aplomb. It represents how quick and dextrous you are.

Perception

Skills for spotting and detecting things, and for analysing there nature. It represents how observant you are.

Craft

Skills for making things, repairing things, and being good with your hands. Also covers Alchemy and Medical skills, and represents how creative you are.

Charisma

Skills for social interactions and manipulations, and for persuading people to do your bidding. Also covers Charm Magic, and represents how sociable you are.

Intellect

Skills that represent academic knowledge, learning and cleverness. Also covers Elemental Magic, and represents how intelligent you are.

Mysticism

Skills that represent more arcane knowledge and your awareness of your inner being. It also covers Divine Magic and Shamanism, and represents how spritual you are.

Life

Skills that represent your endurance and resilience. In particular it covers your capacity for withstanding damage, and represents how tough you are.

If you click on any of the links, it will take you to a list of the skills in the particular skill-list. If you are interested in becoming a magic-user of some sort then you will need to read the relevant parts of the magic section too.

Each skill has a base cost. This is the number of skill-points (and, later, experience points) it costs to choose that skill. However, there is a catch.

Skill-List-Multipliers.

At this point in your character generation, you must allocate to each list a list-multiplier. There are eight multipliers, one for each list. You may assign them in any order you desire. The multipliers are:-

x1, x2, x3, x3, x4, x4, x5, x5

The list-multipliers determine how much a skill actually costs to buy. To choose a skill, find its base cost, and multiply it by the list-multiplier you have assigned to its list. You need to spend this number of points to choose the skill.

So you can see, if your character is a fighter, he is likely to want lots of Strength skills. It would thus be sensible to allocate the x1 multiplier to the Strength skill-list, so that the purchasing of skills is not too expensive. If he is no more than an ugly grunt, he is unlikely to have much use for Charisma skills, so you might as well allocate one of the x5 multipliers to the Charisma skill-list.

Do you get the idea. In case you don't, here are a couple of examples.

Thrarg the Untameable is a Grunt. He is big and 'ard, and wants to hit things a lot. He will be using a lot of Strength skills, and will want plenty of Life points. He is not clever, not subtle and does not follow any gods. His player is likely to allocate multipliers as follows:

Strength x1; Life x2; Agility x3; Perception x3; Craft x4; Mysticism x4; Intellect x5; Charisma x5.

Meldor the Mysterious is a missionary of Lomara. He is a pacifist, and seeks only to spread the word of Lomara's wisdom. (See Gods to learn more of Lomara). He is deeply religious, and quite charming, but abhors violence. Multipliers are likely to be allocated thus:

Mysticism x1; Charisma x2; Intellect x3; Perception x3; Agility x4; Craft x4; Strength x5; Life x5

Notice that Meldor will be able to buy skills in Divine magic and Shamanism at base cost, and could also buy Charm magic (even Elemental magic) quite cheaply. If Thrarg wants to use any magical skills, he will have to pay at least x4 cost for them.

Guidlines for Skill choices.

To help you on your way, here are a few tips.

1. Make sure you have at least one decent weapon skill. Sword use is the best, but staff use is also good.
2. Priests are expected to have Mysticism at x1, and Mages are expected to have Intellect at x1. Priest-Mage characters do exist, but they have to make some sacrifices.
3. Try and get Navigation (a Perception skill) or Area Knowledge (an Intellect skill) quite soon. Without them, you will always be dependant on a guide.

Using Skills

Skills come in two varieties: one-off and unlimited use.

An unlimited use skill you need only choose once, and that will suffice for all your needs. These skills are usually knowledge-type skills, and allow you to do something that previously the rules would not allow. Examples include weapon skills, Navigation, Literacy, Swimming.

A one-off skill is one where for each time you buy it, you can use it ONCE per game day. When you use a one-off skill, you will usually need to inform the world that you are doing so, either by shouting its name or (if hiding) adopting a hand signal.

Changing the List-Multipliers.

What if you want to be Fighter-Mage, or a Scout-Medic? Is it possible to get two lists to be allocated a x1 list-multiplier? Well, unfortunately NO, at least not at first. However, it can be done in the future. This however, is a topic for the next page: Character Progression.