Star Wars: Character Creation

Star Wars: Revised System
Table of Contents Character Creation Classes Attributes Abilities Backgrounds Feats Virtues & Vices Experience Game Mechanics Species List Force Powers Combat Starship Combat Equipment Starships Compendium
Stories
Prelude 1: A Treaty on the Brink 2: Amity in Peril 3: Fish in a Barrel 4: Measured Success 5: Empire of the Hand 6: Icy Reception 7: Galactic Chess 8: Heart of the Ascendancy 9: A Familiar Foe 10: Csaplarian Streets 11: Ascendancy in Turmoil
Characters
Akea Oahu - CS Allanar Onsai - CS Renora Cordalis - CS Greer Lachlan - CS Brance Maddox - CS

Classes

Classes will remain broad and they will determine the cost of purchasing different upgrades at level up, they will also dictate, at least to some level what feats or other advantages are available to you. For in-depth information about the classes see the Class page.

• Jedi - The force sensitive class, this generally constitutes being part of the Jedi Order but there may be exceptions. Force attributes and skills will be heavily favored. To start as this class expect to have the Force Potential background at 3 or higher.
• Noble - This class is the most socially adept, social based attributes and skills will be favored and background will also probably be cheaper to purchase.
• Soldier - This class is generally a physically inclined class, though not always. This class will also generally encompass leading troops. Expect combat abilities and other physical abilities to be favored.
• Scoundrel - A broad term for rogue, not necessarily a law breaker but someone who lives to survive. The class that is closest to the jack of all trades, this character can make do with any situation he is thrown into. this class will probably have the most freedom when choosing favored abilities and attributes.
• Savant - This class is for intellectuals, mental based attributes and abilities will be favored. This class will encompass the universes greatest inventors and scholars. A scoundrel can hotwire a ship, a savant can design and build one.

The Force

The force will be governed by several different factors. First a background that will determine if your character is force sensitive. The characters will also have to buy into optional force attributes which will likely include Control, Sense, and Alter. In addition to that, to become truly skilled with the force they will need to train the 5 force abilities: Telepathy, Telekinesis, Energy, Enhancement, and Divination.

See the Force Powers section for more information on specific force powers.

Attributes

My thought here was to use a system similar to what whitewolf already has in place, with 3 categories (Physical, Social, Mental) of attributes. Also there would be 3 optional attributes that govern only the force. I started making a list of the attributes that I thought we should probably use, these are the ones we see most often in other RPGs. I went through and mad ethe attributes I think are the best system in italics, some of the descriptions don't exactly fit, I'll try to explain them better. The general system I got them from is from the new WOD system where each attribute can basically be defined as finesse, power, or resistance. I can explain better in person.

Physical

• Strength - A strict governing of how strong a character is, it will function more like whitewolf's than a D20 system, so strength wont determine accuracy with melee weapons.
• Dexterity - The general measure of how coordinated a person is, this normally measures the accuracy of attacks.
• Stamina - How tough a person is, this is a measure of physical toughness and includes things like endurance and resistance to disease or poison.

Social

• Charisma - How likable a character is, this can be used for many social interaction but is not good for persuasion or deception.
• Manipulation - Manipulation governs how persuasive a character is as well as how deceitful he can be.
• Composure - How well your character keeps his cool.

Mental

• Intelligence - How mentally sharp the character is, how good is his memory, how fast does he learn, his IQ.
• Wits - How quick witted the character is, this shows how fast a character can come up with a solution as well as how well he performs under pressure.
• Resolve - The measure of a persons mental toughness.

Force

• Alter
• Control
• Sense

Abilities/Skills

Active Skills

Physical

• Combat
  • Firearms
  • Exotic Weaponry (examples: Bowcaster, Archaic Weapons, Lightsaber)
  • Heavy Weapons
  • Melee
  • Brawl
• Operations
  • Pilot: Starship
  • Pilot: Ground
  • Gunnery
• Agility
  • Stealth
  • Athletics
  • Dodge
  • Larceny

Social

• Persuasion
• Integrity
• Performance
• Socialize
• Bureaucracy
• Bluff/Con
• Intimidate
• Negotiation

Mental

• Technology
  • Repair: Electronics
  • Repair: Ships/Vehicles
  • Repair: Military
  • Engineering: Electronics
  • Engineering: Ships/Vehicles
  • Engineering: Military
  • Computer Use
  • Demolitions
• Intelligence
  • Awareness
  • Investigation
  • Survival
  • Medicine
  • Tactics
• Starship Operations
  • Pilot: Capital Ship
  • Astrogation

Force

• Telepathy
• Telekinesis
• Energy
• Enhancement (now includes healing)
• Divination

Knowledges

I liked the idea of doing knowledges like they do in shadowrun. points for knowledges would be separate from other skills (perhaps 3xint) so that people don't feel bad taking completely worthless knowledges. Like it or not things like video game knowledge don't get taken to heavily taken in games like exalted, those points can go someplace more useful.

Backgrounds

• Allies - Personal friends of some reasonable power, this background is not intended to refelct other player characters but people on par with a level 1 character or greater. This provides either 1 person per dot in the background, or possibly a single more powerful ally for multiple dots. It should be noted however that this is not mentor.
• Contacts - This represents a characters informants, these are people who he can get information or perhaps a favor from, as long as he pays for them. These a acquaintances at best, each dot represents a major contact and a number of minor ones. This background can be taken more than once to reflect different areas, or scopes of contacts.
• Influence - Influence represents a characters pull in an organization, his overall power and ability to make something happen. This does not necessarily imply rank in the organization though they often go hand in hand. Emperor Palpatine certainly had influence 5 over the galaxy because of his official rank, however, Yoda certainly had a large influence (just not large enough) without an official position in that organization. Jabba the Hutt is another example of a character with a great deal of influence without official position.
• Resources/Wealth - This is a measure of the overall money that your character has, this money can be gained in any way but this background reflects them all. It should encompass all of a characters money making sources, it also covers his starting assets.
• Arsenal - This represents a characters access to major military weaponry, this could mean a major stock of small arms (thousands of blasters), artillery fire, droid armies, military ships, or anything else that would be considered military class weaponry. It should be noted that this is either the equipment that the character personally owns (And therefore should be reflected by wealth/resources) or has personal access to. If a army he commands is equipped with such weaponry than it is not technically his, but rather whoever funds the army.
• Backing - This represents a characters official position within an organization, this normally means a title but not always. Certainly army or navy rank is the most rigid and easily described form of backing but certainly not the only one. A crime lord is backed by his crime syndicate, the jedi are backed by the jedi order (not always according to rank). If a character is officially apart of multiple organizations this background can be taken more than once, though some organizations will discourage this. Backing will encompass command in my eyes, we could change that though if people want.
• Reputation - Reputation determines how well known your character is around the galaxy, this can be a doubled edged sword if you're trying to do something to not be recognized. Darth Vader is a good example of reputation 5, obviously reputationalso covers notoriety.
• Mentor - Mentors can be several different things to a character, they can be a boss or an adviser, or even a companion. They are always a source of power, be it knowledge or physical, but the degree of influence in a characters life is rather up the player. not all mentors are found of their students, nor the other way around, but mentors are willing to help their pupils for one reason or another. The most obvious case of mentor-pupil relationship in starwars are Jedi's and their masters.
• Force Potential - This determines both whether a character is force sensitive or not, when the character becomes intune with the force, and how strong of a force user the character is. A 3 in this background will allow a character to start with the force, most jedis will have this rating at 3. Ratings a 2 and 4 are also fairly common as late bloomers and prodigy children. Jedis with 1 are rare because often the character is too old and set in his ways, and 5 only comes along once in a generation at best.
• Workshop - This background will represent a specific place a character owns that is equipped with everything the character would need to perform some major task. This could be a ship repair shop, a ship yard, a droid manufacturing center, an occult library, an elaborate medical facility, or a number of other things. The higher the rating the better equipped and larger the workshop can be, workshop will likely provide bonuses to characters performing actions in them considering they are well equipped to perform them. Some won't provide a bonus but are necessary to even attempt a task, for instance a ship yard of some sort is needed to build a ship. (This could be excluded and just put under wealth or arsenal but I think its different from both. A character will a good repair shop isn't necessarily rich or well equipped.)

Feats/Merits

This will obviously be a pretty large list, I will probably start at some point pulling different things together from a variety of games to put into here. obviously feats from the currently existing D20 starwars will be the first things to go up, also merits and advantages from World of Darkness and Shadowrun will probably be looked at.

General Merits

• Ambidexterity: Reduce penalty for fighting with weapon in off-hand. (Character Creation Only)
• Blind Fight: Reduce the penalty for fighting with impaired vision.
• Power Attack: With this feat the character becomes skilled at attacking with great ferocity, when making a melee attack the character may sacrifice a die of accuracy in exchange for a die of pre-soak damage. A maximum number of dice can be converted equal to the characters melee ability.
  • Cleave: (Prereq: Power Attack) If an opponent is knocked into incap or killed with a melee attack the attacker may immediately make another action, the attacker cannot take any type of step of movement. (Can only be used 1)
    • Great Cleave: (Prereq: Cleave) This feat functions just like Cleave except it removes the cap on number of times it can be performed per action. The character still cannot move between attacks so the target must be in range.
• Combat Expertise: Your character knows the ins and outs of fighting, he knows how to fight defensively or offensively. The character may sacrifice offensive capability by subtracting accuracy to increase his DV, or sacrifice his DV for extra accuracy. It requires 2 accuracy to raise your DV by 1, and 1 point of DV raises accuracy by 2 die. (establish a maximum?)
• Dodge: Your character has received special training at avoiding attacks, add 1 to his dodge DV. (Make scene long effect for price of willpower point?)
  • Mobility: Your characters motions are fluid and when he dodges he is capable of moving some distance. When the character successfully avoids an attack with his dodge DV he may take a movement action. This may allow him to move back and out of range of a melee flurry, or run to cover to hide from incoming blaster shots.
• Steady Shot: Your character has trained to become steady even when pushing the range of his weapon, the feat makes him an ideal sniper even if his target is out of range. This feat decreases the internal penalty received when firing at a target at a longer range.
• Heroic Surge: By spending a willpower point the character gains an additional action at the end of the tick that he acts on. At lower levels this can be performed only once per day, at higher levels it can be performed more. This action may never be used multiple times in 1 round.
• Improved Critical: When purchasing this feat the player chooses a specific weapon such as vibroblade or blaster pistol, when using that weapon 10's are counted as 2 successes on damage rolls. This can be taken multiple times for different weapons, the effect doesn't stack.
• Lightning Reflexes: With this feat your character becomes almost supernaturally quick on his feet, he is always ready for a fight to break out. A character with this feat receives a bonus to all join battle rolls.
  • Combat Reflexes: The character gains the ability to sense when his time is running out, with the feat the character can rush the timing of his actions. The character can move his reaction count up 1 tick to perform his action early at the expense of a -1 external penalty for that action and on all actions until his DV refreshes again. This can only move the timing up 1 tick. 91once per day?)
  • Danger Sense: A character with this feat is always prepared for combat. The character may spend a willpower point and instead of being the target of a surprise attack the character may apply his full DV to the attack. Join battle is still rolled as normal after the 'surprise' attack round. (Once per day?)
  • Quick Draw: With this feat the character can draw his weapon as a reflexive, free action. (Use of this feat allows the character to take a single shot, or attack on join battle?)
• Two Weapon Fighting: This feat reduces the penalty of fighting with a weapon in each hand.
• Quickness: This feat enhances the movement actions of the character, add 1 to the effective dexterity of a character taking a movement action. Also, instead of Dex + 6 yards during a dash action the character can move Dex + 8.
• Toughness: Your character gains an extra -0 health level. (This feat may only be taken once)
• Pain Tolerance: Your character can shrug off the effects of pain on his body, the character subtracts 1 from all wound penalties.
• Blind Fighting: Your character has trained to fight even when he is visually impaired, subtract 1 from any penalties incurred on the character from difficulty seeing.
• Eidetic Memory: Your character has a near photographic memory, he can remember anything he has seen or heard. normally the character does not need to make a check to remember anything unless he is under pressure, when under pressure (such as combat) the character receives a +2 bonus to his intelligence roll. To represent your characters memory sense birth you also gain extra knowledge points at character creation, take Intelligence x 3 instead of Intelligence x 2. (Available at character creation only)
• Quick Healer: Your character halves the healing times to recover from damage.
• Force Resistance: your character naturally, or through extensive training, is more skilled at resisting the mind altering effects of the force. Characters with this feat add 1 to their MDV to resist the mind altering effects of the force.
• Will to Live: Your character simply refuses to die, even if the wounds he's taken would have killed a normal person. When this feat is purchased the character gains 2 additional dying health levels.
• Lucky: The character may reroll any failed dice roll. At level 1 the character can use this once per day, and at higher levels more often. A roll can never be rerolled more than once.
• Technical Aptitude: The character has a natural technical ability that halves the time required to repair.

Martial Arts

Lightsaber Forms

• Form I:
• Form II:
• Form III:
• Form IV:
• Form V:
• Form VI:
• Form VII:

Experience

Dan and I talked briefly about some ideas for how to award, spend, and in general work experience. Originally we brought up the thought of keeping with levels, per D20, but I think we both talked our way out of it. At least for the most part. Tracking levels certainly has a certain satisfaction that white wolf games don't match, but we felt the sudden boost of abilities was unrealistic and overall less fun. So we proposed that experience be distributed and spent very similar to the whitewolf games we currently play. We did bring up the possibility of still level tracking, and perhaps making levels prerequisites to certain merits/feats or awarding class only powers by level. And example might be that 20 total exp is level 2, and that a level 2 Scoundrel receives some sort of sneak attack ability. (this is not to imply that we should have a sneak attack ability, simply an example of something that might be class only)

Leveling

• Level 2: 4 XP
• Level 3: 9 XP
• Level 4: 15 XP
• Level 5: 23 XP - New Feat
• Level 6: 31 XP
• Level 7: 40 XP
• Level 8: 50 XP
• Level 9: 61 XP
• Level 10: 74 XP - New Feat
• Level 11: 89 XP
• Level 12: 106 XP
• Level 13: 125 XP
• Level 14: 146 XP
• Level 15: 170 XP - New Feat
• Level 16: 197 XP
• Level 17: 227 XP
• Level 18: 260 XP
• Level 19: 297 XP
• Level 20: 338 XP - New Feat

Character Creation

Species

Characters may choose from any species in the star wars universe or make up their own species, with storyteller permission. Many species have already had their modifications put into stats and adding more can be handled on a case by case basis. Choosing a species first may help in choosing further things down the road, as well as helping to build a suitable concept and back story for the character. Be sure to make any and all species bonuses and subtractions on your character sheet

Each species will have its own unique qualities, this may include altered attributes and possible other traits.

There are over 300 species with D6 statistics. They will be converted on an as-needed basis. Feel free to comment on the ones I have worked out.

Star Wars: Species List

Class

After determining your characters species you should decide which class he fits into. The class of a character is generally geared towards his concept, and dictates what the character is most skilled at as well as what he learns the quickest. Class will determine a characters favored attributes, abilities, and backgrounds. Class will also dictate how many knowledge points you receive and what class advantages are received at higher levels. Choose your class carefully, classes are not meant to be changed without a major life-altering change the character’s life.

Choose from one of the 5 character class: Noble, Savant, Scoundrel, Soldier, Jedi. Each class has its own set of unique favored attributes, abilities, and feats. See the Class Page for more detail.

Attributes

First mark the 3 favored class attributes, dictated by your choice of class. You also receive an additional favored attribute to pick among the remaining 6. (Force attributes may not be favored.) After choosing your favored attributes assign priorities to the 3 groups, primary receives 6 dots, secondary 4 dots, and tertiary 3 dots. Characters also begin play with an additional ‘free’ dot to place in any of their 4 favored attributes. (Jedi may place this free dot in a force ability if they choose.)

Abilities

Characters will also receive a set of favored abilities based upon their class, in addition to these favored class abilities you may choose 2 extra abilities to be considered favored. (Scouts receive an extra 3 for a total of 5 to pick.) After choosing all favored abilities you receive 30 dots to place in abilities, at least 10 of which must be in class or favored abilities. You may not raise an ability above 3 without spending bonus points.

Abilities are broken into 4 categories: Physical, Mental, Social, and an optional category for Force Abilities. Each class will have a number of favored abilities that will suit it towards its designed purpose, characters will also have some ability to customize their favored abilities during character creation.

Backgrounds

Characters receive 7 dots to place in backgrounds at character creation; no background may be raised above 3 without spending bonus points. A background may be taken multiple times, though these backgrounds cannot overlap, or stack. (A character may have multiple backings, for instance a senator is backed by the republic and his own planet, this is represented by taking the backing background twice.)

Feats

Characters receive 2 feats at character creation; the character must meet all prerequisites for the feats before they can be purchased. Humans receive a bonus feat at character creation.

Virtues & Vices

Characters begin play with a single characteristic virtue and single characteristic vice, these determine how your character regains lost temporary willpower and should reflect the driving characteristics of your character’s personality.

Bonus Points

Characters get 15 Bonus Points (BPs) to spend at character creation. Costs are as follows:

• Attribute: 4
• Force Attribute: 4
• Ability (favored): 1
• Ability (unfavored): 1 up to 3 dots, then 2
• Backgrounds: 1
  • Force Potential: 3 to raise from 3 to 4, 4 to raise from 4 to 5
• Willpower: 2
• Feat: 5
• Specialty: 1 (2 per 1 if favored)