Jorstadt the Owl/Witcher TRPG

After finally picking up the Witcher TRPG through a Humble bundle, I decided to follow the example of a couple others here and work the character out mechanically to see how it shapes up. I knew I wanted the character to excel at Education, but didn't expect just how much of an Empathy hit and lack of certain skills the starting totals results in. Now, I know the character would have a blind spot for those things, and write it into stories concerning him (for example, his terrible Stealth score plays a role in the vampire in Mossyrock knows he's set up a trap for him). Certain levels of development later can lead to corresponding increases in Skills and Stats. I'd absolutely recommend doing the same for your own characters, if just to see what the character creation rules lead you to discover about them. (I'll be making an infobox template for Stats soon in the parchment-paper Character Sheet style I've been using soon. If it's a format you find you like, feel free to use it to post and share your own characters' stats and skills!)

## 1159

I started Character Creation with the assumption he's a starting character (think "Level 1" in D&D terms), and decided to use it to represent Jorstadt fresh from Kaer Seren's training, about to set out on the Path. I started with the default 60 points for Stats, taking the -4 to Empathy and +1 to Reflexes and Dexterity to bring it to 58 total.

Admittedly picking rather than rolling through the Lifepath up to Graduation, I took Early Childhood for his age of taking (no modifiers), Griffin School for training (+2 to Vigor Threshold), Extensive Research to represent his time spent alone focusing on monster lore (+1 to Witcher Training class skill), and Poorly Accepted result for the Trials (-1 to Empathy). He has yet to go through the rest of the Lifepath, and receives no benefits or detriments from it yet.

Reading into Stats, I decided to max out Intelligence and Reflex at 10 out of the gate. Intelligence is the stat Jorstadt banks on as an alternative to the more physical stats and can still be further increased. When he attends Oxenfurt, after all, he knows enough that he argues with the professors. Reflexes is a more traditional pick for the Profession, but as the stat behind Swordsmanship--his only weapon skill and the main tool of witchers--it's something no witcher neglects. His Body, Dexterity, and Speed are all at middling levels; he's a witcher, and they are probably on the higher side of the bell curve for humans on the Continent, but he doesn't excel physically among his peers. He's going to have to think ahead to make up the difference when hunting a monster. A decent Crafting and choice skills therein are going to be helpful, while still having room for improvement.

By contrast, his Empathy winds up his lowest stat due to the collective -5 from his training and the Trial of the Grasses. It's on par with Geralt's by the game's stats, though I imagine that's low-balled a bit since the much more dour Letho is scored at 2. I've characterized Jorstadt before as being a bit awkward, owing to his introverted focus on study on top of a Witcher's dehumanizing training, but I should probably play up more that people find him difficult to tolerate. He geeks out about details of biology and monster lore if given a chance, and has the annoying habit of correcting people on petty things (see: whoever wrote Geralt in W3's Novigrad chapter correcting people about bat hearing and Dandelion having a lute instead of a mandolin). His other low stat is Luck; that can always be fun to write into a narrative. Sometimes things just don't go his way, and problems drop haplessly into his lap. Guaranteed luck plays a role in how he loses the money invested for him in the Vivaldi Bank.

## *Statistics*

### *Dexterity*

10
10
6

### *Empathy*

6
6
3

### *Luck*

7
6
3

## *Derived Stats*

### *Stamina*

30
30

### *Focus*

40
24

With the initial 44 points to split between the witcher Profession's Skills, Swordsmanship and Witcher Training are easy picks to max at 6 each. Awareness gets a boost later, so we'll use 5 points for that. Swords are the witcher's main method of combat, Awareness is critical to their survival (and always good to have in a TRPG when the GM wants you to notice something plot-relevant), and Witcher Training is Jorstadt's fundamental skill. This means we've spent 17/44 points. One point has to go into each Skill in the Profession's pack, including 2 to raise Alchemy and Spell Casting by one point each, which brings us up to 27/44 used. Stealth and Riding we can ignore after that, as Kaer Seren didn't much favor stealth for its witchers, and Jorstadt doesn't buy a mount for many years. We still have those critical Alchemy and Spell Casting skills to raise, and they take 2 points to raise by one level. Jorstadt didn't focus as heavily on Signs as his school emphasized, however, and Spell Casting checks are only called for on Alternate Sign forms. Thus, we'll dedicate 6 points to bring Alchemy to 4 and 2 to bring Spell Casting to 2. That puts us at 9 for the last four skills. Jorstadt will capitalize on his high Intelligence and Reflexes, so instead of an even split, we'll put 4 to Deduction and 3 Dodge/Escape, and the last two points can go to Athletics and Wilderness Survival. Jorstadt was never as powerful as his peers, and spent as much time as he could indoors.

His Life Path and Witcher senses mean Awareness jumps to 6, and Witcher Training bumps to 7, and characters get an 8 in their native language at the start, which is Nordling in Jorstadt's case.

Intelligence + Reflex gives us a hefty 20 points to devote to Pick-Up Skills. 6 toward Education means he'll have that 16 skill base to argue at Oxenfurt. Eight in Trap Crafting is halved to give us a decent start to building traps to help make up for our low physical stats, and six remain. With how often he's out in the elements, 4 points of training in Endurance gives Jorstadt a base of 10 to work with, and the last two... he's more pragmatic than courageous, but he can be stubborn in insisting his is the right way. Thus, we'll slot those into Resist Coercion, and Skills are done.

* Intelligence (10)
* Reflexes (10)
* Dexterity (6)
* Body (6)
* Empathy (3)
* Craft (7)
* Will (6)

 Wilderness Survival: +2

 Swordsmanship: +6

 Stealth: +1

 Endurance: +4

 Seduction: +0

 Trap Crafting: +4

 Ritual Crafting: +0

* **Gear:** Griffin School armor, Griffin School steel & silver swords, Griffin Medallion, Alchemy set, 30 crowns
	+ **Diagrams:** Swallow potion, Thunderbolt potion, Beast oil, Cursed oil, Griffin decoction