Character Creation for Gaxxian (OOC)

Humm... as written that would be essentially the Level 10 guideline of Rego Herbam, but I think that's not your intent (and alo seems too much restrictive to me).

My initial reading put the following spells from the corebook as valid for the focus of Animating Plants (and none of the ReHe spells I'm not mentioning):

  • Strike of the Angered Branch
  • Coils of the Entangling Plants
  • Lord of the Trees
  • Freeing the Striding Tree
  • Calling the Council of the Trees

If people thinks that Herbam 16 it's too much to start with, I could reduce it to Herbam 12+3 (using just 52 exp).
Then, lowering Vim to 0 for that single exp point, i could buy:

  • MT 4 ->5 (for 25exp)
  • Prof: Scribe 2 (for 15exp)

So... as people prefer. I can adapt :slight_smile:

With Animating Plants i was thinking more in line with the Levels 4, 5 and 10 from Rego Herbam. So, those spells that you said, plus: Twist the Living Tree

With Animating Plant Matter it would also include Level 3. So, to the previous list, it would also include spells like:

  • Dance of the Staves
  • The Treacherous Spear

Humm... I left Twist the Living Tree out because it doesn't animate the tree, it chages it's position for the duration. And I also understand Plant Matter to include the two spells you pointed out. So, it essentially leaves only wards outside of the scope of the focus (I'm including "Repel the Wooden Shafts" as a technical "ward").

That's why I said it covers a lot of Rego Herbam.

Technically... Wards, craftings with rego, flowers/fruits outside the season and any spell that throw wood or plants around (or turns them into projectiles).

Thanks @Arthur! :smiley: That superpower to move messages is very cool xD

Btw, u haven't given your opinion yet... D: What do you think?

I haven't had time to catch up yet. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I would slow down if i could... but i must win to Nithyn and Vortigern... xD

I'm pretty close I think...

I don't see a problem with Herbam 16. While it does feel a bit excessive, it also denotes an extreme focus which I think, for this character, is valid. I do expect some explanation, however, about why the master didn't force the apprentice to spread the arts more, since a 16 at gauntlet means the magus can do very little outside of his expertise.

However, if my math is not wrong you are about 19xp above the starting for a magus with skilled parens (with 189 points in arts and 130 in abilities. Already considering the first 5xp in Faerie Lore and Second Sight as free).

Re: Herbam 16

I tend to agree with Nithyn about the general level of believable competence at Gauntlet being roughly 10 before modification by virtues. But I will grant readily that is just a rule of thumb and not RAW.

Sufficient investment to hit 16 to me is taking so much of the xp of the character that it almost inevitably means other things on the build are going to be light/low enough that you end up questioning why they are so low.

Of course ... we never feel like we have "enough" xp when we are the ones building something. 8P

Personally I tend to see Art scores in the following scale.

5: Apprentice
10: Journeyman
15: Professional
20: Master
25: Grand Master

To compare, Ability scale roughly analogs to this.

1: Apprentice
3: Journeyman
5: Professional
7: Master
9: Grand Master

So having a 16 in an Art at Gauntlet I would compare to having a 5 in an Ability also at Gauntlet. I won't say it is impossible, but it is a very high level of ability at that point in progression. Having Affinity + Puissant to hit it together makes it much more believable say, not that I'll say it is required in RAW by any means.

Re: Characteristic Consistency

The contrast of Strength -3 and Stamina +3 seems incongruous to me. These both reflect near minimum and near peak levels of human ability in what we would normally consider related physical capacities. The level of physical conditioning I'd expect from someone who has Stamina +3 would seem incompatible with the level of weakness or frailness I'd expect from someone with Strength -3.

Because with Weak Spontaneous Magic she would face the same difficulties having 4 or 6 into an Art than having 0. At least, with 16+3 in Herbam, she can spontcast basic spells with her best Art.

And with a Skilled Parens (that you can understand as a Pedagogic Parents too) plus Affinity, you can gain like 30exp each season. So 16 Herbam is like 3 seasons in total. Using books instead of the parens, means 4 seasons anyway. Not a lot of time.

I mean, if people wants im ok with lowering her Herbam to 10 + bonuses, that ends being 12+3. But then that exp would go into Abilities, no into Arts from which she cannot benefit anyways. Unless she ends in a very new/poor Covenant (like Tugurium xD), who doesn't have a L5Q15 Summa for each Art anyways?

Rlly? D: I did the math like 1.000 times, but i have a superpower to misscalculate a lot of time on the same places... so... xD I will copy here the detailed info and i will redo the math from 0, so i can find the issue and change values:

Abilities
Second Sight (Invisible things) 1
------- First years -------- 45exp + native language
Language: High German (Swabian) 5
Awareness (Smell) 1 -5exp-
Faerie Lore (Faerie forests) 2 -15exp-
Second Sight (Invisible things) 1 -> 2 -10exp-
Survival (Forests) 2 -15exp-
------- Later life (5 years) -------- 75exp
Awareness (Smell) 1 -> 2 -10exp-
Concentration (Spells) 2 15exp
Music (Sing) 2 -15exp-
Second Sight (Invisible things) 1 -> 3 -15exp-
Stealth (Natural areas) 1 -5exp-
Survival (Forests) 2 -> 3 -15exp-
------- Apprenticeship -------- 300exp
Faerie Magic (Charms) 1
Artes Liberales (Geometry) 1 -5exp-
Language: LatĂ­n (Hermetic) 4 -50exp-
Magic Theory (Herbam) 4 -50exp-
Organization Lore: Order of Hermes (House Merinita) 1 -5exp-
Parma Magica (Vim) 1 -5exp-
Penetration (Herbam) 2 -15exp-

175 exp remaining for Arts <--- Yeah, i can see that here is something very fishy indeed... xD

Arts
Creo 8 (36exp)
Intellego 2 (3exp)
Muto 4 (10exp)
Rego 9 (45exp)
Herbam 16+3 (91exp) +0.5exp
Ignem 1 (1exp)
Imaginem 2 (3exp)
Vim 1 (1exp)

190 exp here... yeah... 15exp missplaced... it seems like that Penetration (Herbam) 2 shouldn't be there :open_mouth:

The contrast of Strength -3 and Stamina +3 seems incongruous to me. These both reflect near minimum and near peak levels of human ability in what we would normally consider related physical capacities. The level of physical conditioning I'd expect from someone who has Stamina +3 would seem incompatible with the level of weakness or frailness I'd expect from someone with Strength -3.

As i see this, you are compating apples to oranges here...

  • Strength -3, you are muscularly weak and you've never had to work.
  • Stamina +3, you have very good health and you've lived at an adverse place.

I don't see both as incompatible situations.

What it means for Alba?

  • Strength: she is an adolescent sized female that never had to do physical work.
    Long explanation:
    By RAW doesn't mean anything, but by logic, being smaller means something. That 110cm longsword is a lot bigger for a 143cm tall person that for a 172cm tall one.
    For being woman, again, by RAW doesn't mean anything. But irl life that means -33% muscular mass by default. Unless she trained... but spoiler, she didn't trained.
    And last but not least (in fact, surely the most important), she never nad any physical work to do. While all the other kids were helping at the fields, at the workshops, at carrying water or doing whatever. She was... on permanent holidays xD That's what it means growing with faeries. Don't just faeries don't need to work, but they spoiled her.

  • Stamina: she survived into a forest with a mother that had 0 knowledge about raise humans.
    If her mother was an elf queen inside a palace, that Stamina value would be much lower for sure. But she was a dryad. Into a dryad role doesn't exist any parameters about living as a human. For Alba that means that sleeping without roof, her mother forgetting to feed her and living in winter with no-clothes or at least with appropiated ones, was the norm.
    So, she either born with a great constitution, or she hardened with time, or a mix of both.
    If that wasn't the case, surely she wouldn't be alive right now.
    Oh, and women are a LOT more resilient to pain too. Men are the crybabies... Take it or leave it, but its the truth :stuck_out_tongue:

Stamina is described as "the limits of a character’s exertion, as well as how much physical punishment he can sustain". So I'm inclined to agree with Vort and say that being raised in a rough environment is only about half of it. Also keep in mind that this is a character with no Athletics skill. So it's not like she was running around the woods a bunch and built up her endurance a ton.

Not saying that I don't think something like a +2 isn't reasonable, just that the absolute peak of human endurance (both mental and physical) seems a bit off to me?

But it's not the hill I intend to die on as I generally am of the mindset that unless there's a truly compelling reason, you should abide by the cool of cool and say yes :wink:

Stamina is described as "the limits of a character’s exertion, as well as how much physical punishment he can sustain".

And continues: "It is staying power, both mental and physical, and one of its most important components is simply the will to live". So... what? You must be a strong warrior to have will to live? Or, that very same warrior cannot also have asthma and heart issues and being at Stamina -5 even with a +3 in Strength?
Cannot some office worker be able to work until late just because doesnt also have the strength?

I dont see any link between both characteristics... its like saying that somebody with +3 Int couldnt also have -3 in Communication, because being so intelligent its impossible that you are unable to find the way to resume and order your ideas. Or having -3 in Agility, since you are so fast thinking that you would be unable to be so slow reacting...
Those links between characteristics are completely arbitrary (same as the very own characteristics in first place...) and leaves outside a lot of possibilities :frowning:

Not saying that I don't think something like a +2 isn't reasonable, just that the absolute peak of human endurance (both mental and physical) seems a bit off to me?

The peak is +5. +-3 is inside the average (lower and higher, but still inside the normality), since you doesn't need any special virtue to reach those values. Do you need a virtue to reach +-4 / 5? Yes, then THATS exceptional. At least that's how i see it :person_shrugging:

Oh, I didn’t include the 45xp due to childhood, I think. That’s the reason I counted 130 instead of 175. ^^


I really don’t see a problem with disconnected (even highly disconnected) values between Str and Sta. Unusual, maybe, but surely not impossible.

A weak but healthy woman seems very fitting IMO.

Oh, I didn’t include the 45xp due to childhood, I think. That’s the reason I counted 130 instead of 175. ^^

Even then... you weren't wrong about the important point xD Just in the quantity :stuck_out_tongue:

I really don’t see a problem with disconnected (even highly disconnected) values between Str and Sta. Unusual, maybe, but surely not impossible.

A weak but healthy woman seems very fitting IMO.

Thanks :smiling_face_with_tear:

Im pretty sure that they just want to delay me so they can finish their characters first :thinking:

Realized I was looking at a different math than you. My comment makes no sense. XD

Check again. It should be 170xp for Arts. ^^

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Srly? Omg... im so bad at this... even breaking down the costs i don't know how to add up... :sweat_smile:
Sigh... let's try again xD

Artes Liberales (Geometry) 1 -5exp-
Language: LatĂ­n (Hermetic) 4 -50exp-
Magic Theory (Herbam) 4 -50exp-
Organization Lore: Order of Hermes (House Merinita) 1 -5exp-
Parma Magica (Vim) 1 -5exp-
Penetration (Herbam) 2 -15exp-

5 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 5 + 5 + 15 = 130
300 - 130 = 170

Ffffffffffffffffu D: Ok, i will make the Ars change to lower it to 12 as i said, so i will redo that part completely...

Creo 8 (36exp)
Intellego 4 (10exp)
Muto 4 (10exp)
Perdo 2 (3exp)
Rego 9 (45exp)
Herbam 12+3 (52exp)
Ignem 2 (3exp)
Imaginem 2 (6exp)

36 + 10 + 10 + 3 + 45 + 52 + 2 + 6 = 165 unless im crazy

With that, i can have the skills as i did the first time. And i could add: Profession: Scribe 1

Ok, starting from scratch here, so I may be missing a few things that were discussed later on. I'll still make my comments based on this post, since it seems the only one with a complete stats set.

I see there was a discussion about the Str -3 / Sta +3 combo. I also tend to dislike that,as it turns Strength into a dump stat. It isn't so much that it cannot happen in a very few case, but rather that every second mage seem to have that stat high contrast, which stretches believability.

Considering that Second Sight is a virtue based on Perception, so a score of 0 will limit its usefulness.

I see a few oddities there.

If dryad faerie blood is the same as nymph blood, which not srite it down as Nymph? Makes it easier to find in a sourcebook. :wink:

Faerie Upbringing and Sheltered Upbringing overlap quite a bit. Both represent much the same thing, namely a lack of understanding with mundane society, even if they manifest in a slightly different way. As such, it weakens the value of the second one.

Social Handicap pushes that even further into the territory of a person ill-fitted for social relations. Com +3 and Good Teacher pushes the character into the opposite direction -- someone who can communicate very well and is a great teacher. How could she develop these traits when she led such a sheltered and weird upbringing with no social interactions?

The Magical Focus seems to be a bit less than all of ReHe (excluding things like Rego craft magic) so that's fine by me.

Rest of the V&F seems ok to me.

Nothing greatly wrong there. I see there's been some discussion about the exact number of xp, and there is some reviewing going on there, so I'm not going to count too closely.

But the character seems very weak in abilities. If all the xp in Concentration comes from before her apprenticeship, the specialty looks wrong to me.

No Area Lore, not even of the forest where she grew up?

Note that ArM5 p.31 seem to imply that xp spent in Supernatural and Academic abilities (such as Second Sight and Faerie Lore) should come out of Later Life experience, not Early Childhood. So the breakdown I see in post 32 doesn't work.

And here we see why the character is weak in abilities. Too many xp spent on Arts, and a hyper-specialization in Herbam.

That makes the character unbalanced. I tend to agree that Herbam 16 is simply too high. As ArM5 p.32 says, "It is probably unwise to put more than 55 experience points, for a score of 10, into any one Art, as that tends to indicate that your magus is over-specialized."

I would suggest you cap the score at 12 and reduce the overall xp spent on Arts. Particularly since none of your spells require such a high Art.

Enough for now.

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