Creature Creation
There are three main components to creating a creature: Skills (from your Skills are derived Vital Statistics), Abilities, and Backstory. Each of these three (may) cost some amount of Points. Your GM will tell you how many Points you have to spend at the beginning of a campaign.
Skills
Your GM will give you a number of Creature Points, or simply Points, to assign to various Skills (and #Abilities). Putting Points in a Skill will increase its Modifier, and through synergies, every other Skill’s modifier, as well; these synergies represent the things you learned accidentally while learning the primary skill. The higher a Skill’s modifier, the more Points it will take to increase it; this feature represents the real-world phenomenon that it is easier to go from novice to moderately good at something, than it is to go from moderately good to expert. Furthermore, each Skill takes a different amount of Points to increase the Modifier from 0 to 1, representing the Skill’s inherent level of difficulty to learn. Lastly, each Skill has a roll associated with it. The larger the maximum of each roll, the larger its variability, representing the Skill’s lower reliability. In other words, those Skills with a large roll maximum are more chance-based. All these complex dynamics are captured in the Interactive Skill Sheet.
Skills summary
All the Skills available are listed below, grouped into categories. These categories are mostly for organizational purposes, with no direct mechanical effect (though they are more closely related and hence have greater synergies).
Natural Defenses
Toughness
Determines your Natural Armor value, i.e., the thickness of your skin.
Hardiness
Determines how much Health you have and/or Health damage you take from being sick.
Fitness
Determines how much Wind/Stamina damage you take from certain activities.
Mettle
Determines how resistant you are to losing focus and being mind controlled.
Physical, Non-Weapon
Brawn
Your overall strength and lifting ability combined. Contributes to Damage of melee strikes.
Dodge
Your ability to avoid being hit in combat. Also, your ability to perform feats of balance. Helps to reduce fall damage.
Movement
Determines your maximum running speed.
Stealth
Your ability to sneak silently or hide. Sneaking up on someone conveys significant combat advantages.
Legerdemain
Your ability to effectively and quickly pick locks. Your ability to perform movements with your hand that others don’t notice. Can also be used to pick pockets. Your ability to effectively and quickly disarm traps.
Mental, Mundane
Perception
Your ability to use your senses. Defends against Stealth.
Social Interaction
Your ability to communicate with other creatures. Includes persuasion, reasoning with people, leadership, intimidation, lying effectively, and haggling
Investigation
Your ability to reach reasonable conclusions based on data. Includes logic, basic math, and spatial/mechanical reasoning, e.g., trap avoiding/disabling, figuring out why things you have noticed are important.
Lore
Your knowledge of the natural world, city life, spoken and written languages, any crafting-related skills, history, culture, and the magical world. Can specialize---see #Lore Specialization.
Fieldcraft
Your knowledge of hunting, tracking, and navigation. Also your ability to ride horses or other beasts.
Alchemy & Medicine
Your ability to make and applying healing poultices, basic creature biology, and alchemical potions
Ranged Weapons
Thrown Weapons
Your knowledge of and ability to use thrown weapons, such as throwing knives.
Bows
Your knowledge of and ability to use bows, such as the longbow.
Crossbows
Your knowledge of and ability to use different types of crossbows.
Melee Weapons
Clubs and Maces
Your knowledge of and ability to use blunt weapons such as clubs and maces.
Hammers and Picks
Your knowledge of and ability to use hammers and picks, or any combination thereof, as weapons.
Axes
Your knowledge of and ability to use axes as weapons.
Swords and Daggers
Your knowledge of and ability to use one-handed broadswords, such as the arming sword; two-handed broadswords, such as the montante; sabers, such as the scimitar; fencing weapons, such as the rapier; and daggers and other short bladed weapons.
Polearms
Your knowledge of and ability to use polearm weapons, such as pikes, halberds, etc.
Unarmed
Your knowledge of and ability to be effective in combat with no weapons, using only hands, feet, etc.
Magic
Thought-binding
Reaching into the minds of others to accomplish a variety of things. At a very high level, includes summoning creatures and binding them to your will.
Telekinesis
The simplest application is moving physical objects with your mind. An extremely high level of achievement in this Skill gives one the ability to open Portals in space.
Weather Magic
Gives one control over the natural elements of lightning, wind, and rain.
Healing
Speeds up natural healing, like poultices.
Shapeshifting
The ability to change one's own shape.
Lore Specialization
Your overall Lore skill will determine how many Lore Points can be spent to specialize in certain topics. By specializing in a given topic, you gain a fixed bonus to rolls pertaining to that subject. For example, you ask the GM what your creature knows about a magical artifact that your party has heard about. The GM would ask for Lore Skill Check roll, and if you have any potential relevant specializations. If you had such a specialization, you would add a +6 bonus to the roll.
Summary of Specializations
Languages and spell templates are either known or not known; whereas crafting skills, musical instruments, and broad knowledge areas give a fixed bonus of +6.
Languages
At least one Lore Point is needed for the knowledge to proficiently speak each language, and some may cost more than one. Proficient writing of any language costs an additional one or more Lore Points. Languages are very world specific, so the GM should come up with a list and reasonable costs.
Spell Templates
Action Templates for magical spells. Since the knowledge is of an arcane nature, they are guarded closely. Each template costs at least one Lore Point.
Crafting Skills
Blacksmithing, woodworking, brewing, etc. Players and GMs should work together for a fixed list that fits their fictional world.
Musical Instruments
Guitar, piano, drums, etc. Players can choose from a GM-defined list or make up their own. The GM will adjudicate at the table whether an instrument falls into the specialized category or not.
Broad Knowledge Areas
History, magic and magical items, culture, the natural world.
Abilities
The baseline creature is assumed to be an average human female. Abilities allow one to create a creature that exhibits fundamentally different biological traits, e.g., natural Flight. Each Ability is a one-time purchase that costs Character Points; GMs should decide which Abilities, if any, are appropriate for Player Characters.
A note on Skills. A stereotypical Elf creature may have "naturally" higher Fitness; similarly, a Dwarf creature would have higher Hardiness. To accomplish this, simply put the Points in the appropriate skills for your creature. The matching of Skills to species is a purely aesthetic one, so feel free to build your creature however you see fit.
Size
The one exception to the above rule on Skills is Size. Size is a special Ability that costs zero Character Points and which determines a creature's approximate physical size and weight. A creature's Size determines the Difficulty to hit them while they are not defending themselves, and it modifies two Skills, Toughness and Hardiness.
{What is the Passive Difficulty to Hit?}
Consult the table below for a guide to Size.
{Do we want to have it calculated automatically in the ISS? If so, it needs to be put in.}
| Size | Example | Passive Difficulty to Hit | Toughness | Hardiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -45 | tarantula | 90 | -135 | -45 |
| -31 | rat | 62 | -93 | -31 |
| -17 | domesticated cat | 34 | -51 | -17 |
| 0 | Human female | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Human male | -2 | 3 | 1 |
| 5 | male silverback gorilla | -10 | 15 | 5 |
| 12 | double-sized human female | -24 | 36 | 12 |
| 13 | double-sized human male | -26 | 39 | 13 |
| 21 | african forest elephant | -42 | 63 | 21 |
| 23 | Asian elephant | -46 | 69 | 23 |
| 25 | African bush elephant | -50 | 75 | 25 |
| 30 | diplodicus | -60 | 90 | 30 |
| 44 | blue whale | -88 | 132 | 44 |
Backgrounds and Specializing
Players are encouraged to develop backgrounds for their characters. Based on these backgrounds, the GM may apply circumstance modifiers to skills. For example, a character that grew up in an urban environment may gain a bonus to knowledge checks in urban environments, but receive a penalty in natural settings. These could also apply to stealth or perception rolls. A character whose background focuses on training with a particular weapon could provide a bonus with that weapon at the expense of penalties with other weapons in that category. GMs should be aware that these circumstance modifiers can impact game balance and should be careful in their application. Here are some guidelines:
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The modifiers should be applied to the same skill. A character should not be receiving a penalty in bows in exchange for a bonus in crossbows. That is what the points system is for. The background specialization concept is meant to provide incentive for players to develop detailed backgrounds and make those background details meaningful.
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The modifiers should be less than or equal to the effectiveness shown in column I of the interactive skill sheet.
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In applying bonuses and penalties, one must take into account the level of control the players have over those circumstances. For example, in most fights, a player can choose which weapon they will use. A penalty to weapons other than their favored weapon would rarely apply and a bonus to their favored weapon will often apply. Thus, in this case, the bonus to the specialized weapon should be less than or equal to the penalty applied to all other weapons. In cases where players have little control over the circumstances (e.g. terrain the adventure takes place in), modifiers should be balanced based on the relative frequency of encounters in those terrain types.
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The player should always have the option not to use specializations if they feel the negatives outweigh the benefits.