Character Creation — Advanced Old School Revival

Table of Contents Jump to Page in Core Rules

Class & Kit

Choose a class that best suits your character concept. Each class comes with a special ability called a technique that’s unique to the class.

A kit provides an additional ability that comes from the sort of life you lead as an adventurer of your class.

If the setting supports it, you may choose an origin. Your origin might be represented as a non-human race, guild, or a nationality. Origins tend to confer a special mechanical advantage and disadvantage called a talent.

Ethos

Your ethos describes your ethical point of view. It guides your moral behavior and outlines what you think about good and evil, justice and duty. Each ethos has an ethos tag that you can invoke to recover fate points.

Conflict & Flaw

Your conflict defines you as an adventurer: it is the inciting incident that set you out on your quest. A flaw is a manifestation of that conflict. When you adopt a Conflict and Flaw, you create story tags that you can help improve your rolls or recover fate points.

Attributes

Divide 10 points between Mighty, Deft, and Smart. These attributes represent a mixture of your natural ability and your adventuring experience.

No attribute may start higher than 6.

These attributes form the basis for your ability to solve problems in the game.

Mighty heroes are strong, willful, or resilient.
Deft heroes are agile, charming, or clever.
Smart heroes are magical, calculating, or knowledgeable.

Skills

Skills make it easier to solve problems in the game. They add a +2 to your roll if they apply to what you’re doing. Pick skills that you would have learned starting out as an adventurer.

Hit Points

You start with 1 hit point (HP) + your Mighty. If you take damage that would reduce your HP to 0 or less, your HP becomes 0 and you become vulnerable. Each point of damage you take thereafter confers a wound. When you take a number of wounds equal to or greater than your Mighty, you're knocked unconscious and placed on death's door.

Magic Points

If you are a spellcaster, magic points (MP) represent your capacity to use magic such as spells or maleficence. For non-spellcasters, magic points represent exhaustion. Some kit abilities and techniques require you to expend MP to use them. If you are not a spellcaster, your starting MP is equal to your Mighty + Deft. (You recover MP as a spellcaster does.)

Fate Points

You start with 3 fate points (FP). Spending a fate point lets you do one of the following things:

Change the fiction so that it works to your advantage. You can say: “It just so happens the shopkeeper is my cousin!” Maybe he can cut you a deal on supplies. This is called creating narrative advantage.
Explode a die.
Defy death when you're on death's door.

Defense

Your defense is equal to your Deft attribute.

If you have a shield, add its defense bonus.
If you have the Reflexes skill, add +2. (Unless you are wielding a shield.)

Gear

Select your gear. You start with 250 gold (gp).

For Spellcasters...

If you’re playing a class that has access to spells, you’re a spellcaster. There are a few more steps you’ll have to take to complete your hero.

For Martials...

If you're playing a class that does not have access to spells, you're a martial hero. You get to choose a deed of valor each level that lets you take additional cinematic action in encounter and exploration mode.