Chapter Two: Character Creation
From FFRPG
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How To Generate a Level 1 Character
Contents
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* 1 How To Generate a Level 1 Character
o 1.1 1: Character Concept
+ 1.1.1 Name
+ 1.1.2 Age
+ 1.1.3 Appearance
+ 1.1.4 Possessions
+ 1.1.5 A Quote
+ 1.1.6 Birthdate
+ 1.1.7 Blood Type
o 1.2 2a: Race
o 1.3 2b: Job
o 1.4 3: Attributes
o 1.5 4: Add Advantages and Disadvantages
o 1.6 5: Determine HP and MP
o 1.7 6: Generate Skills
o 1.8 7: Buy Equipment
o 1.9 8: Generate Combat Statistics
o 1.10 9: Precalculate Spell, Ability and Attack Damage
o 1.11 10: Character Advancement

The following pages serve as an introduction to the basics of creating a Player Character in the FFRPG. In order to make things simpler for first-time players, the process has been broken down into eight separate steps. To illustrate the character creation process in a little more detail, the Example sections following each step show how a typical character might be generated. While the process may seem daunting at first, time and experience should make this part of your role-playing life close to second nature.
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1: Character Concept

The first and most obvious step is to start giving some thought to the character you are planning on playing. At this point you will probably be painting with fairly broad strokes -- 'neurotic Black Mage' or 'narcissistic wandering Thief' are some basic examples of concepts that could be spun out into a well-defined character with a bit of thought. However, a concept is nothing more than the germ of a character -- in order to start fleshing out the person behind the idea, details you should settle on as early as possible include:
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Name

In a universe populated by heroes with monikers like Cloud Strife, Zidane Tribal or Laguna Loire, a good name can go a long way towards making a character seem like a plausible addition to Square's established mythos. There are no hard and fast rules for generating these, though some pointers are given with each race's description in Chapter 3. Ideally, a good name should be evocative and a little unusual; a Dragoon calling himself 'Bob Smith' is clearly neither.
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Age

Age nearly always equates to 'experience'; often drawing the fine line between a fresh-faced adventurer brat and a grizzled, world-weary veteran. Most heroes will be somewhere between 18 and 40 years of age, though there are exceptions on both ends. Characters between 5 and 13 years of age are considered to be Young; as a result of their age, they are weaker but more agile than normal. Conversely, characters of 60 years and above are considered to be Old, as with Young characters, they are weaker, but more knowledgable. Aside from the effect this has on the character's Attributes, characters of either type will encounter serious social discrimination from people around them; comments like 'old-timer' and 'squirt' are likely to follow them everywhere they go, and few - if any - will actually take them seriously, regardless of how many times they prove themselves.
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Appearance

Physical features, height, weight, build, hair-, eye- and skin color -- beyond the obvious factors, a character's Appearance as a much a measure of their 'style' as anything else. Clothing: do they lean towards all-concealing black trenchcoats, or a wardrobe consisting entirely of loud pastels? What about jewelry, or other distinguishing features such as tattoos? How does the character carry themselves, and what impression do the character's general posture and expression give others?
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Possessions

Beyond the equipment purchased during character creation, a character may have a few items of purely sentimental or personal value -- a signet ring passed down from generation to generation; a necklace or locket given to them from a loved one; a lucky coin or talisman; in short, anything that does not have a price tag as such, but still holds some importance. Those who wish to go into a little more detail with their characters may also want to make note of the following:
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A Quote

Optional, but just as effective at establishing a character as any number of descriptive paragraphs. This can be anything from an often overused catchphrase ('...Whatever.') to a short and pithy comment typical of the character's general outlook on life ('You thought a little thing like the end of the world was gonna do me in?').
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Birthdate

Given in month-and-day format (July 18, November 29, June 25). Amongst other things, this helps to establish a character's Star Sign.

Capricorn (December 22 - January 19) The pragmatic Capricorns are typically ambitious, hard-working, conservative and scrupulous, but can also easily be stubborn, overbearing egotists prone to sulking and fatalism. Notable Capricorns include Laguna Loire, Cyan Garamonde, Strago Magus and Seifer Almasy.

Aquarius (January 20 - February 1 cool The Aquarius is inventive, independent, logical, and understanding; however, they tend to be aloof, dispassionate, unpredictable and eccentric, and act withdrawn towards others. Two notable Aquarii are Aeris Gainborough and Setzer Gabbiani.

Pisces (February 19 - March 20) A Pisces is a sympathetic character; intuitive, compassionate, emotional and sacrificing. On the downside, characters under this sign tend to be pessimistic, overly chatty, emotionally constrained or impractical. Notable Pisces characters include Celes Chere, Rinoa Heartilly, Zell Dincht, Cid Highwind and Ward Zabac.

Aries (March 21 - April 19) Aries characters are eager, courageous, independent and impulsive, but quick to anger, impatient and often violent. One notable Aries is Gau.

Taurus (April 20 - May 20) A Taurus character is stable, dependable, practical and thorough; however, they can be short-tempered, bull-headed, possessive, selfish, and materialistic. Notable Taurii include Tifa Lockheart and Mog.

Gemini (May 21 - June 21) Geminis are versatile, sociable, expressive, inquisitive, inventive and intelligent. On the other hand, they also tend to be absentminded, conniving and fidgety, and lack an attention span.

Cancer (June 22 - July 22) Cancers are supportive, sensitive and emotional characters, but can be overly selfish, moody and manipulative. Notable Cancers include Kiros Seagull and Selphie Tilmitt.

Leo (July 23 - August 22) Leos are proud, romantic, charismatic, ambitious, self-assured and idealistic, but have a cruel, conceited, childish streak running through them. Notable Leos include Squall Leonhart, Cloud Strife, and Edgar and Sabin Figaro.

Virgo (August 23 - September 22) Virgos are perfectionists; practical, analytical, exacting and diligent. However, they can easily turn picky, cynical, snobbish and self-centered at a moment's notice. Relm Arrowny is a notable Virgo.

Libra (September 23 - October 23) Libras are sociable, tactful, persuasive, peace-loving, sophisticated and fair. They can, however, be indecisive, inconsistent and easily-deterred. Notable Libras include Locke Cole, Quistis Trepe and Terra Branford.

Scorpio (October 24 - November 21) At their best, Scorpios are intense, motivated and resourceful individuals, but come across to others as temperamental, intolerant, domineering, distrustful and secretive. One notable Scorpio is Yuffie Kisaragi.

Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21) A Sagittarius is a freedom-loving spirit; straightforward, open-minded, philosophical, ethical, optimistic and enthusiastic. On the downside, they can also be quarrelsome, blunt, impatient, self-indulgent and hot-headed. Notable Sagittari include Barrett Wallace and Irvine Kinneas.
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Blood Type
A character's Blood Type may seem like a trivial detail, but popular belief considers it to be an important factor in determining personality and temperament. Of the four Blood Types, As are thought to be the conformists, placing great value in rules and customs; Bs, on the other hand, are creative and unconventional. The rarer AB type combines aspects of both types; AB characters are more emphatic and have a greater capacity for analysis, but tend to be loners and outsiders. Finally, O-types are leaders and decision-makers; domineering and opportunistic.
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2a: Race

Humans make up the standard population of most worlds, but not every hero will be human -- depending on the setting and circumstances, characters may belong to one of the other races detailed in Chapter Three: Races.
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2b: Job

A character's chosen Class generally determines his or her basic abilities -- Warriors can master a variety of different fighting techniques, Experts use their natural ingenuity to do anything from building steam-powered armor to creating lethal works of art, Mages harness the natural power of magic, and Adepts combine the best aspects of Warrior and Mage, slinging spells and swinging swords with equal aplomb.

Characters are further specialised by their choice of subclass, or Job, which gives them access to a set of Abilities, or specialised talents -- for example, the Warrior Job Dragoon allows the player to perform the gravity-defying Jump technique, while the Expert Job Thief can literally rob opponents blind with special attacks like Mug. The character's chosen Job also directly affects their starting Hit Points and Magic Points, as well as a whole host of other factors; bear this in mind when selecting a Job. Classes and Jobs are discussed in more detail in Chapter Four: Jobs.
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3: Attributes

Each starting character has a total of 40 Attribute Points to divide between the six Attributes - Strength, Vitality, Agility, Speed, Magic and Spirit - as the player chooses. Attribute Points are spent at a one-to-one ratio; by placing 6 Attribute Points in Strength, for example, a character would start with a Strength rating of 6. However, all races have their own limits to Attributes, known as Racial Maximums - no starting character may begin the game with any Attribute's rating exceeding these. For instance, ordinary Humans can have a maximum starting Strength of 10. These must be taken into consideration when allotting points to a character's Attributes. Racial Maximums are further modified by the character's choice of Job, but for the purposes of character creation, this bonus is not applied. In practical terms, this means Racial Maximums may thus only be exceeded if the character gains more Attribute Points during the course of the game.

Keep in mind that Attributes do reflect your character concept to an extent, and that all Attributes have their uses regardless of your chosen Race and Job. Attributes in the 1-3 range represent a character who is crippled in some way, because in game terms you're going to have a lot of trouble doing something with Attributes that low. Example: If a Mithra Bard started with 5 STR, she would not be automatically bumped up to 12 STR because of the Bard's +7 STR. That +7 STR adds to her Racial Maximum of 8 STR for a total of 15 STR throughout her career as a Bard.
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4: Add Advantages and Disadvantages

Choose your Advantages and Disadvantages to give a little personal flavor to your character (and gain some great bonuses in the process). It is strongly recommended that there also be an explanation of every single advantage and disadvantage, in order to show why the character has it and how it relates to the character. Remember - every point you build up in Advantages must be compensated with an equal number of points in Disadvantages, and all combinations are subject to GM approval. Any Advantages or Disadvantages that affect a step in character creation should be applied at that step in the process.
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5: Determine HP and MP

This step is quie easy for Level 1 characters.

HP = 30 + VIT + (One roll of your Job's HP Die)
MP = 10 + SPR + (One roll of your Job's MP Die, if it has one)

Note that any Job without an MP Die will always have Zero (0) MP, regardless of SPR.
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6: Generate Skills

In each Job write-up, there are three lines which relate to this step:

Skill Points: This is your total number of unassigned starting Skill Points (henceforth SP). Assigning them is the purpose of this step. In most cases, skills are bought with SP at a one-to-one ratio.

Skill Affinity: This is an area of skill use in which your chosen Job excels. Spending one SP in these particular skills gets you double the result.%% Starting Skills: These are skills a character in your chosen Job automatically know. You must have these skills at the given levels, though they do not affect the given SP. You may put more points into these skills to raise them if you wish, within limits. These do not necessarily hold for some Jobs.

Now that you know what you're dealing with, check out Chapter Five: Skills to find a detailed explanation of Skill Use and lists of the available Skills. This is where the fun begins - choose your skills and spend your SP!

For the rest of this section, I'll use an example (A Human Thief) to outline skill selection.

The first step is pretty easy - record your starting skills.

Escape (20%)
Lockpicking (20%)
Pickpocket (40%)*
One Weapon Skill (30%)

The notation may look a bit funny, but it's easy to grasp. The number in brackets after the skill name is the starting value for that skill. An important point to note is that no Skill may start above 50%. The * after Pickpocket is unique to certain Jobs - it indicates that the particular skill has a specific combat application for that Job.

The 'One Weapon Skill' is unique to your character. Using the available weapons for your Job, choose one and then assign the 'One Weapon Skill' points to the appropriate Weapon Skill for your choice. In this case, my Thief uses a Ninja Knife, so the Knives skill will be needed.

Now to assign the remaining 190 SP. I've decided I want my Thief to be aware of her surroundings a lot of the time, able to move quickly and gracefully and trained in numerous forms of Thievery. Thus the skills I would be interested in are:

Acrobatics
Awareness
Climbing
Concealment
Disguise
Escape
Gambling
Lockpicking
Pickpocket
Stealth
Streetwise
Traps

I already have three of these skills thanks to my Starting Skills, so that leaves 9 to assign my SP. I have 140 SP, and must start with at least 20% in each skill. An important note to keep in mind is that throughout your adventure, you may use Skills you haven't learned yet. This is done by using a Default Skill rating equal to twice the appropriate attribute. So when assigning SP to your new skills, always assign at least twice the default attribute, or else it's useless. Since my character is Human none of her attributes will exceed 10, therefore skill ratings of 20%+ are great.

This step is rather easy, though keep your Skill Aptitude in mind. Since I have an aptitude in Thievery, I get double the result when I assign points in any Skill classified as Thievery! This means I only need to spend 10 SP to get my desired 20% in my new skills. Here's what I have at this point:

Acrobatics - 20%
Awareness - 20%
Climbing - 20%
Concealment - 20%
Disguise - 20%
Escape - 20%
Gambling - 20%
Knives - 30%
Lockpicking - 20%
Pickpocket - 40%
Stealth - 20%
Streetwise - 20%
Traps - 20%
SP Remaining: 70

I now have 70 SP remaining, to assign to whatever skills I want. Pickpocket and Knives will be most important to me in a fight, so I'll boost each one up to 50% (5 SP for Pickpocket, 20 SP for Knives). Remember, no Skill may start higher than 50%. That leaves 45 SP. I'll assign 10 SP to Awareness and 5 SP each to Concealment, Disguise, Escape, Lockpicking, Stealth, Streetwise and Traps. Also, this is the time to add the one free Skill everyone learns - Language (Common) at 50%. Thus my final Skill selection is:

Acrobatics - 20%
Awareness - 30%
Climbing - 20%
Concealment - 30%
Disguise - 30%
Escape - 30%
Gambling - 20%
Knives - 50%
Language (Common) - 50%
Lockpicking - 30%
Pickpocket - 50%
Stealth - 30%
Streetwise - 30%
Traps - 30%

There are only four factors remaining now:

Languages and Lores - all characters start with 120 bonus SP to spend on Language and Lore only. Again, no Skill bought with these points may start below 20%. Normal skill points can always be spent on Languages and Lores, but the Language and Lore points may not be spent on other skills.

Double Cost Skills - some Skills (Two Weapons, Teaching, Invent) have a steep cost thanks to their valuable effects (Duel wielding weapons, teaching new Skills and inventing new items respectively). These skills require 2 SP to raise a Skill's value by 1%. If a character has an Aptitude or Advantage, this cost can only be reduced to a one-to-one ratio. Be careful.

Accuracy - now that you have your Weapon Skill, you can fill in the Accuracy field for your character. There is an Attack Bonus listed in your Job's write-up in Chapter Four. Use that along with the following formula:

Accuracy = (Weapon Skill) + (Attack Bonus) + (Level) + (AGI x 2)

Using my example Thief (assuming an AGI of cool , she has:

Accuracy = 50 + 20 + 1 + 16 = 86

Expert Abilities - many Expert class Jobs use their Skills to augment combat Abilities. The formula for those is similar to Attack%, but without the Attack Bonus, and potentially using a different attribute from AGI. Again using my exmaple Thief:

Expert% = (Expert Skill) + (Level) + (Attribute x 2)
Steal% = (Pickpocket Skill) + (Level) + (AGI x 2)
= 50 + 1 + 16
= 66

Now pat yourself on the back. You've just gotten through what I consider the roughest part of character creation.
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7: Buy Equipment

Equipment is bought from the files in Chapter Six: Equipment. No rolls for Availability are required, as you are restriced to equipment level 1. All equipment is restricted to whatever the character's Job is allowed to use. The characters all start with 500 Gil to buy their Weapons, Armor and Items. Please note that the Gillionaire and Gil Sink advantage and disadvantage do affect starting gil.
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8: Generate Combat Statistics

Combat Statistics are generated as follows:

Armor (ARM) = (Total ARM from Armor) x (VIT Bonus)
M. Armor (MARM) = (Total MARM from Armor) x (SPR Bonus)
Evade (EVA) = SPD + AGI
M. Evade (MEVA) = MAG + SPR
Magic Accuracy = 100 + LVL + (MAG x 2)

Remember that in the FFRPG, decimals are always rounded down.

Table 2-XX: VIT/SPR Benefits

VIT/SPR HP/MP Arm/MArm
Score Boost Boost
----- ----- -----
1 +0 105%
2 +1 105%
3 +1 110%
4 +2 110%
5 +2 115%
6 +3 115%
7 +3 120%
8 +4 120%
9 +4 125%
10 +5 125%
11 +5 130%
12 +6 130%
13 +6 135%
14 +7 135%
15 +7 140%
16 +8 140%
17 +8 145%
18 +9 145%
19 +9 150%
20 +10 150%
21 +10 155%
22 +11 155%
23 +11 160%
24 +12 160%
25 +12 165%
26 +13 165%
27 +13 170%
28 +14 170%
29 +14 175%
30 +15 175%
*NOTE: The HP/MP Boosts only apply when gaining a level and do not factor into character creation at level 1.

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9: Precalculate Spell, Ability and Attack Damage

All Spell, Ability and Attack damage is calculated as (Attribute x Damage Scale) + Dice; the first part can be precalculated for player and GM convenience. However, you should still keep the original formulas on your character sheet in case of any attribute-influencing status condition. This also helps you remember what the formula was when you level up and add to an attribute.

Example: Fire does (4 x MAG) + 2d8, M.ARM Fire damage. For a Black Mage with 10 MAG, this could be written as '40 + 2d8, M.ARM Fire Damage.'

The same can be done along with the entry for your chosen weapon.

Example: A Short Sword inflicts (2 x STR) + 1d10 Physical damage. For a Knight with 9 STR, this could be written as '18 + 1d10, ARM Physical Damage.'
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10: Character Advancement

Eventually your character will advance beyond level 1, so follow the guidelines in Character Advancement to determine how to go about this step.