OD3d6GS Character Tool

Create your Archetype

By now we are learning a lot about Joe Shepard but we are missing key important information. Like how did he become a fighter? What are his defenses and vital stats? What does it mean to have a 3 next to a skill now that I have put it there? And, why am I choosing skills without picking a class?

Well, there is no class. By now you should have an idea of some archetype that your character fits into. Or, maybe you have some new concept that you have created. Joe is simple. He is Joe Shepard a Frontline Skirmisher who’s Archetype Skill is Sword & Board. Below we will answer all the questions and more.

Choose a Name for your Character Archetype

This name should make sense to you and the GM but is functionally inconsequential. I called Joe’s Archetype Frontline Skirmisher because I thought it sounds cool and reminds me that Joe is skilled with all Skirmisher/Soldier Weapons. I also chose a cool name for my archetype skill that reminds me that I have Weapon and Shield Skills in my Archetype. These choices are up to the Player and GM with the goal of helping to clean up the character sheet later. The important part about these names is that it helps players to personalize their character sheet in the hope they will spend less time searching for stuff on it.

Character Conceit

Each character must choose one of the following Character Conceits as part of their Character Archetype, representing a core aspect of how they engage with the world. These Conceits—Innate, Prepared, and Learned Abilities—reflect the unique ways in which a character utilizes their skills, powers, and magic. Whether a character relies on natural talents, carefully prepared strategies, or abilities honed through training, this choice helps define their role and approach to challenges.

Innate Abilities

• Definition: A natural talent or power that manifests without training or preparation.

• Description: Innate abilities are powers or skills that emerge from a character’s core essence. These abilities are instinctive, often manifesting in moments of need or high emotion. Characters with innate abilities have a natural affinity for certain types of magic, combat styles, or skills, making them uniquely suited to certain tasks without the need for study or ritual.

Prepared Abilities

• Definition: An ability activated through ritual, practice, or specific preparations.

• Description: Prepared abilities are skills or powers that require planning, rituals, or specific actions to activate. These abilities often involve components, detailed instructions, or physical conditioning. Characters using prepared abilities are strategic, ensuring that the circumstances are right before unleashing their power.

Learned Abilities

• Definition: An ability gained through study, training, or experience.

• Description: Learned abilities are developed through dedication, practice, and repetition. Characters with learned abilities invest time in mastering their craft, and their powers or skills reflect their hard-earned knowledge. These abilities can grow over time as the character continues to practice and refine their talents.

Archetype Base Scores

Archetype Bonus

Your character’s Archetype Bonus (AB) is your Archetype Skill Mastery Level plus your Archetype Attribute.

Archetype Save

Your character’s Archetype Save (Save) is your AB+8.

Archetype Defense

Your character’s Archetype Defense (Defense or DEF) is your AB+10. Adversaries will try to hit your character by rolling (equal to or) higher than your Defense.

Hit Points

All characters start with six Hit Points (HP). There is no way for players to raise this value at the time of writing.

Damage Threshold

In this system, Damage Thresholds (DT) categorize incoming damage into levels, affecting how much health a character loses:

• Minor Damage (1+ dmg): Deals 1 HP.

• Moderate Damage (7+ dmg): Deals 2 HP.

• Severe Damage (13+ dmg): Deals 3 HP.

• Deadly Damage: A special case, dealing 4 HP.

Each threshold corresponds to a specific damage range, determining the HP loss based on the intensity of the attack.

All characters start with their DT at 1/7/13. Players can raise these scores with Skills using Abilities.

Abilities

Abilities are what you will be using most during gameplay. Players will create their own Abilities based on the language available in the Skills section or the list of available pre-made Abilities associated with their respective Skills. BUT HOW!!!!!

Gaining Abilities

You gain Abilities when you attain the (0) Novice and (3) Skilled Skill Mastery Level in any Skill.

Augmenting Abilities

You augment Abilities when you attain the (1) Apprentice and (2) Adept Skill Mastery Level in any Skill.

Creating Archetype Abilities

Now that we know when we Gain or Augment an Ability how do we do it. Character Creation offers a unique opportunity to create Two Abilities that cost NO EFFORT. These Abilities are generally a ranged and melee attack actions, but players can use these two abilities how they like. These abilities are also available to chain with other Abilities you will see how soon. We will use Joe as an example. Consider Joe’s Skill choices during Character Creation:

• Sword & Board (3)

  1. Novice: Gain

  2. Apprentice: Augment

  3. Adept: Augment

  4. Skilled: Gain

• Athletics (2)

  1. Novice: Gain

  2. Apprentice: Augment

  3. Adept: Augment

That is 7 Abilities and 7 ways to Augment them. Your character will be different based on your choices. You have to link the Augments to Abilities that are in the same Skill. I also encourage players to start with the two free Abilities and then think about what their character can Maintain Effort on. By doing this, the player can Augment the Abilities by finding ways to Spend or Burn effort while Maintaining it, this give players access to more abilities. And finally, the Archetype Skill, in Joe’s case Skill Categories Skirmisher Weapons and Shield Arts, are one effectively one Skill, Sword & Board. That means that you can use Melee language and Shield language at the same time in the Abilities Language. This is confusing, let me show you with Joe;

Abilities have a Name, a Trigger (i.e. To Hit, On Miss, Maintain Spend or Burn Effort, Save,) an Effect, and a Description. We start with the two free Abilities.

1. Weapon Strike | To Hit +AB | Weapon Damage +STR | Joe can attack with any weapon on the Skirmisher/Soldier Skill menu using his AB and adds his Strength score to the damage.

2. Shield Parry | -5 On Miss | No Effort, Setup Riposte | When a player attacks Joe and misses by more than 5 it is considered an automatic shield parry and Joe can Spend Effort to Riposte.

The Weapon Strike was basic but Joe has no effective range weapons or healing or anything. He could take the Light Sleeper skill to create a passive ability, but I prefer something cooler.

Normally Parry is a Skill reserved for spent effort when an adversary misses. The ability to shield parry like that is too over powered for a free effort, so we add the caveat that the attack must miss for more than 5 under Joe’s Defense to balance it out. The Riposte allows Joe to take an attack immediately after a parry, which is part of the Parry language. A Parry always sets up a Riposte. Joe got a two for one deal by negotiating with the GM! We will continue to find ways for Joe to conserve his Actions so he can make attacks. As the GM I would also consider Shield Parry can work normally by spending an Action and Effort to try a Parry before an attack roll.

Let’s see how else we can gain the system by gaining a way to Maintain Effort with the first Ability gained from Sword & Board. Then two ways to spend effort and one way to burn that Maintained Effort.

1. Ready Stance | Maintain Stamina | Action Conservation | While maintaining Stamina in Ready Stance. If an Ability using Sword & Board Skills would normally cost Spent Action and Effort, Joe can just Spend Effort saving the action.

2. Block | Spend Action & Effort | +AB to Minor DT | In Ready Stance Joe can Spend Effort before a creature makes an Attack to raise his shield. Joe adds his AB to his Minor Damage Threshold if the Attack Hits. If the Moderate DT < Minor DT the Moderate DT increases to match it.

3. Riposte | Spend Action & Effort | To Hit +AB, Reduce Damage + STR | In Ready Stance Joe can Spend Effort after a Parry to immediately make an attack for Reduced Damage + Strength.

4. Berserker | Spend Action & Burn Effort | Extra Attacks | Joe goes crazy and makes three attacks with his weapon.

Ready Stance for Joe means he can conserve his actions very effectively being able to Block, Parry, Riposte, and even go Berserker without spending any actions or reactions, just effort. Notice that Joe must Maintain Stamina to be in Ready Stance. Maintained and Burnt effort require players to use effort from their Domain Pool. But, Berserker doesn’t, let’s exploit that. With the Supplemental Athletics Skills.

1. Braced Stance | Maintain Stamina | Defense +STR, Reduce Movement | While maintaining Stamina in Braced Stance and holding a Shield. Add Joe’s Strength Bonus to his Defense. Decrease Joe’s Movement Range.

2. Shove | Spend Effort, Save 14 | Move Back, Prone | While in Braced Stance Joe can Shove an adversary in Very Close Range as part of an action forcing them to move back with a chance of being knocked prone.

3. Deflect Projectile | Spend Action & Effort | Ranged Attacks Miss | While in Braced Stance and before the adversary makes the attack roll, Joe can use his Shield to block Ranged Attacks from Weapons who’s size is equal to or less than the Shield’s size. Successful Saves against AOE Attacks do no damage.

We see that Joe has used his Supplemental Skills to increase his survivability in combat. Again, I made new Abilities with augment by tying them to Maintained effort. It is important to know that Parry, Block, and Shove are all standard actions available with Joe’s weapons, but they have extended and augmented effects because of the Spent or Maintained Effort. There are other ways to augment abilities other than tying them to Maintained Effort. I’ll show you how with Slow Bleeder.

1. Slow Bleeder | Passive Effect | MinDT + CON | Add Joe’s Constitution to his Minor Damage Threshold.

2. Slow Bleeder | Passive Effect | MinDT, ModDT + CON | Add Joe’s Constitution to his Minor and Moderate Damage Threshold.

3. Slow Bleeder | Passive Effect | MinDT, ModDT, SevDT + CON | Add Joe’s Constitution to his Minor, Moderate, and Severe Damage Threshold.

4. Slow Hemorrhage | Passive Effect | Bleed Round + 1 | Damage or HP loss from Bleeding or Hemorrhaged conditions do damage every 4th Round of Combat.

And, now I can combine all that into one passive ability like this.

• Slow Bleeder | Passive Effect | Min/Mod/Sev DT + CON, Slow Hemorrhage | Add Joe’s Constitution to his Minor, Moderate, and Severe Damage Threshold. Damage or HP loss from Bleeding or Hemorrhaged conditions do damage every 4th Round of Combat.

Here you can see that I have greatly increased Joe’s combat survivability by putting every augment and the skilled ability into the same skill Ability. Slow Bleeder had no effect or definition until I tied it to Abilities that have Effects. Understand that players should interpret what an effect is liberally, but should be conservative about how the effect is applied. For instance, Joe could have decided to Spend Effort to increase the damage of a Weapon Strike earlier, and call it a Power Strike Ability. He would only go up one level on the Damage Dice Scale, but still Spend Action & Effort to perform it. If the language starts to include words like and, or, with, words like that, you should consider adding negative effects, wait for another chance to augment, or maybe the language needs to change completely. Consider that I did not include Slow Hemorrhage until I Gained a new ability, and then included it into the old one. Now we can see how powerful those Heritage Skills can be.

• Light Sleeper | Spend Focus or Inspiration | Add to Archetype | If Joe has Focus or Inspiration to Spend he can do it before setting up camp. Adversaries have disadvantage to sneak up on the camp. Use Joe’s Archetype Save for this camp.

As a passive ability Light Sleeper would allow Joe to add his Perception to 8 and sneaking adversaries would have advantage to ambush a sleeping Joe. Sneak Save 9 with Advantage, not good Joe. Spend an effort before a rest and now they Sneak Save 14 with a normal roll. Much Better! But you still spend effort from Inspiration or the Focus Domain. Now we can figure out Tracking Abilities.

1. Tracking | Maintain Effort | Add to Archetype | Joe can Maintain Effort while tracking creatures as an Archetype Ability.
   Joe makes Voluntary Saves to track creatures that are Medium or Larger and Aren’t Expert in Survival over Mountainous Terrain.

2. Tracking | Maintain Effort | Add Environment | Joe can Maintain Effort while tracking creatures as an Archetype Ability.
   Joe makes Voluntary Saves to track creatures that are Medium or Larger and Aren’t Expert in Survival over Forest Terrain.

Now I can maintain effort to make Voluntary Tracking rolls with my Archetype Save instead of rolling against the target’s save with only +Track+PER(+2) to the roll. I get a new environment as an augment and I can combine this as a single Ability.

• Tracking | Maintain Effort | Voluntary Save | Joe can Maintain Effort while tracking creatures as an Archetype Ability.
  Joe makes Voluntary Saves to track creatures that are Medium or Larger and Aren’t Expert in Survival over Mountainous and Forest Terrain.