[Raid Earth] Skills and Character Creation

[Gary "Grail" Condra]

Well I went out of my way to make to make a fancy PDF version to show you but I can't host it for you to look at anyway.... I need idea's for skills. Immunity to the virus is already taken care of as is weapon skills and successful experiments but do you have any ideas for skills?

[Kyle R Cuthbert]

Knowledge of Plants & Fungi might be useful, last thing you want to bring back up is a poisonous mushroom in with your food supply.

Medical Skills to use for healing, maybe even used to catch the zombie virus early enough to stop it, weather that entails amputation or other means.

Also Knowledge of old technology, depending on the scenario, they might have been up in space for quite a while, new generations won't know about cars or motorbikes, though they would be very loud as gary said to me today. Using a skill like this would give characters a bonus using old technology that they have heard about or maybe even used before.

The zombies react to noise, so stealth might also be a good one.

Hope i've inspired some ideas for you gary, have a good weekend,

Kyle

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

Looking back at the Why Raid Earth....

o Some sort of "testing" or "analysis" skill to check for food contamination.
o Similar skills for extracting DNA samples and general research/lab work aptitude.
o Language skills to communicate with survivors that you are rescuing.
o Electronics, cryptography, hacking, security systems, and history to find, access, and recover/copy electronic records or scan hard copy records; and to find and recover entertainment media.
o Similar skills to get power stations online, repair electrical vehicles (gotta be some, and they're fairly quiet), and fix general mechanical failures of places being accessed or tools being recovered.
o Tracking, animal handling, and husbandry to be able to find needed breeding stock and care for it and lead it back to the dropship.
o Appraisal and art history to be able to accurately judge quality items to recover against the copies and paste in the world.
o Psychology, psychotherapy, leadership, and tactics to hold a team together and (if conniving zombies or a lot of roaming expelled criminals) to be able to gain tactical advantages over smart adversaries.
o All the usual movement skills, like running, swimming, dodging, piloting, driving, animal riding, etc, etc, etc...

That's what I ferreted out of the current list of "Why Raid Earth". I think it goes to show that your skills are directly coupled to your situational options. Otherwise, you will have players buying skills they never use, which is crappy. EVERY skill must map to SOME applicability vis a vis Why Earth Is Being Raided.

Those who DO must know HOW to DO it; therefore, what is to be DONE must be LEARNABLE. Nice an neat.... ;-)
David

[Gary "Grail" Condra]

That all makes sense but the problem is once someone is infected there is no cure..... Hold on I'll copy the word version of the skills and character creation to here....

Raid Earth:
Character Creation (0.5)

For character creation decide whether your character is male or female. Your species is human, now add to this your age.

For example:
   Gender: Male      Species: Human      Age: 26

Now the most important part of this is the characters name so name him/her. All right done that? Try and out it so it looks similar to the example character in layout.

   Name: Tak Avalar
   Gender: Male      Species: Human      Age: 26

Still with me? Okay now we have the character creation point pool, every player starts with 55 points to spend on their character. Now this is for their attributes and their skills, so read through the skills available then decide how to spend your points. BUT remember you have to buy your Attributes as well.

Skills:

Immune to the bug – 40 points
Your character has no infection rate but can still be killed by zombies. The plus is that they know they won't get back up a day later as a zombie. (Only available at the start)

Partial Immunity to the bug – 35 points
Your character's infection rate is halved. (Only available at the start)

Master at arms – standard- 1 points
Your character is proficient with any one weapon of their choosing in the game. As such they have no penalty when using this weapon.
-   Advanced- 3 points
Same as standard but your character is also able to take two standard master at arms skills for free. BUT they must be similar to the weapon they have an advanced proficiency with.
          - Master- 10 points
Same as standard but with a master rating in a weapons skill they are able to take two advanced level master at arms as long as the weapons they choose are similar to the weapon they have a master level with.

Infection suppressors – 12 points
When your character is infected you gain this skill for free (If the GM wants to allow characters to hold back their infect). After each adventure your character is given a dose of suppressors to hold back the infection but on each raid they must bring back: 1 zombie brain, 1 belladonna flower and aspirin. This will then be traded for drugs and the ingredients then sent off to make more. The point score is given as this may be taken at the start with the GM's consent.

Concealed Weapon – 9 points
Your character possesses a concealed 'loud' weapon (Talk with GM to decide what). Your character also gains a standard Master at arms skill with that weapon, your character also takes Smuggler for free. Your character also gains Dark Secret but doesn't gain the modifier.

Dark Secret – Gain 5 points to spend
Your character has a secret so damning that if it is found out then your character will be deported to the surface. The GM must know this secret.

Smuggler – 10 points

Your character can automatically successfully smuggle any arm-sized object through security.

Exotic Pet – 7 points
Your character has hand reared a creature found on the surface and this pet travels with them everywhere (Work with GM to decide which creature you have).

Hoarder – Gain one point to spend
Your character does not hand over all the expected amount of the haul from the surface (character's normally keep two things from each mission as long as it's not illegal). Instead your character keeps one third and automatically takes Dark Secret but doesn't gain the modifier.

Combat reflexes – 5 points
Your character gains one free action at the start of combat no matter what circumstances.

Lightning Reflexes – 15 points
Must have Combat Reflexes. Gain one free action in each round but this bonus move is not cumulative.

-GM's offer-
Successful experiment – 55 points
Your character is a direct descendent of one of the original successes. As such you may choose from the following:

A)   The following numbers are for use as attributes: 7,6,12,11,9,5. You can choose which number goes to which attribute but you cannot change the numbers in anyway. You also gain 30 points to spend on skills, ignore IP and IR.
B)   Intelligent Zombie: IP: 100 IR: 0
Gets back up three days after dying and has no visible scarring afterwards. Automatically takes Dark Secret without the modifier. Also has standard skill points to spend.
C)   GM and player designed.
The GM can offer this to one player and one player only per party.

Now you have seen the skills available it's time to continue with character creation. Your attributes are as follows:

Strength:            Strength + Speed = Evasion
Speed:
Stamina:
Infection Points: (Max of 100)
Intelligence:
Wisdom:
Vision:
Infection Rate: stamina x speed – strength (The end result is gained by game day once infected once on suppressors)

Now then to show you how to make a character let's take Tak and finish him. Now he's going to be a normal human not offered the GM's offer.

   Name: Tak Avalar
   Gender: Male      Species: Human      Age: 26
   Attributes: -
   Strength:   5
   Speed:   5
   Evasion:   10
   Stamina:   5
   Infection Points (IP): 0
   Intelligence:      5
   Wisdom: 5
   Infection Rate (IR): 20

Okay so this is his attributes sorted out now he's just a basic character who doesn't want to be too much of any attributes. So he has decided to make himself balanced. Now onto his skills...

Okay now then he's spent 25 points leaving him with 30 points remaining to spend on skills so he decides to spend 10 on master level master at arms with swords. He then chooses his two free advanced levels to be with daggers and two-handed swords.

Now he has 20 points remaining so he opts to take Combat Reflexes and Lightning Reflexes. So he now looks like this:

   Name: Tak Avalar
   Gender: Male      Species: Human      Age: 26
   Attributes: -
   Strength:   5
   Speed:   5
   Evasion:   10
   Stamina:   5
   Infection Points (IP): 0
   Intelligence:      5
   Wisdom: 5
   Infection Rate (IR): 20
Skills:

Master at arms – Master level – swords
Master at arms – advanced level – daggers
                   - Two-handed swords
Combat Reflexes
Lightning Reflexes

Okay now you have hopefully completed your character just like Tak here has now been finished.

__________________________________________________

Hope this helps a bit.

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

A couple of basic points, some niggling, some ponderable:

1) Most of what you list above are powers, talents, abilities, or flaws. I don't see anything that implies a skill except the arms use. This might be a mere semantic objection, but there is usually a significant systemic difference between use of "skills" and use of "things that always work for my guy."

I think if you really want the skill list you called for, you will need to explain to us how your system resolves uncertainty of task accomplishment. Every "uncertain task" for which the GM will be able to provide a supporting situation must have a skill.

2) All that said, you have some fun stuff here. I suggest that you go ahead and consider some things merits (powers, talents), some things flaws (disadvantages, dependencies), and some things that require resolution to use (because they are opposed or difficulty is a factor or there is uncertainty of success for whatever reason, each time).

3) If the zombification is incurable, expect a very lethal game. One bite and you're on the road to zombie? Or is it impossible to cure only once you die and are "reborn" as zombie? If the latter, then you will still have all the science and medical and research stuff: folks will want a way to stop infection once it starts, of course. Nevermind that you will have it for normal bumps, bruises, and "normal" pathogens caused by the world's population being walking corpses. (Do flies try to eat zombies? Lay eggs in them? What about bacteria and fungi?)

4) Some of that stuff looks shaky (GM's Offer is a major red flag), but I will wait on such nitty-gritty feedback until we can see the whole game as one.

David

[Gary "Grail" Condra]

Thanks for the feedback David and yes this is only the first version (hence the 0.5). Anyway I'm thinking of making the GM's offer at his/her discretion instead and this is the basics that I could think of but it play-tested okay for the basics of the combat system (to follow soon) so at the moment it's more for that front but I need a major hand with the other skills and things.