Character Building Example

It is often easier to learn how to build a Character through seeing an Example. For this reason we present the below example Character.

As always to build a character we follow these steps:

1. Who is your Character?
2. Choose an Archetype
3. Choose an Ancestry
4. Creating your Background
5. Ability Scores
6. Level Up

## Step 1: Who is your Character

Let's briefly describe the context of the story.

* **Setting and Genre**
	+ The setting is a typical High-Fantasy medieval setting inspired by the works of J R Tolkien.
* **Who are the Players**
	+ The *Character* is a member of a group of heroic adventurers setting out on a quest to destroy an evil artefact.
* **Why is our Character**
	+ We know the goal of the story is to destroy an evil artefact, so lets tie our motivation into that. Our *Character* is motivated by guilt, as their family were partially responsible for the evil artefact not being destroyed a long time ago.
* **Backstory**
	+ For the purposes of this example, lets keep this brief! Our *Character* comes from a line of Humans with some Elvish lineage mixed in also. They have a claim to the throne of one of the great kingdoms of the setting, however they do not feel worthy of the role (due to the guilt they feel over the actions of their family not destroying the evil artefact that motivates the plot. Instead are a wandering adventurer who tries to do good where they can. In particular, they wander the wilderness and fight the monsters of those places. We'll develop the Backstory further by discussing details with the GM and other Players (e.g. which kingdom do we have a claim to, how did we meet the previous players, romantic interests etc)

## Step 2: Choosing an Archetype

We already envisage this *Character* as being a heroic person of action, so lets choose the **Hero *Archetype***.

We'll discuss the features we gain from this when we reach the final "Level Up" step.

## Step 3: Choose an Ancestry

For this we already envisage our *Character* as being of mixed ancestry, although they are primarily **Human** with some **Elf** traits**.** This step is much simpler when selecting a single Ancestry!

The **Lifespan** and **Ages of Maturity** will be the average of the **Human** and **Elf** *Ancestries*, so:

**Lifespan =** (100 + 750)/2= 425 years

**Ages of Maturity** = (16 + 90)/2 to (21 + 110)/2 = 53 to 65.5 years

This helps guide us on what the appropriate age for our *Character* should be. Let's go with a reasonably mature *Character* of 180.

**Size Category:** Our *Character* has the *Medium* and *Small Size Categories* available to them from both the **Human** and **Elf** races. We envisage our *Character* as being of *Medium* size, so we choose this.

For our Primary and Secondary Features we pick one from each of the **Human** or **Elf** *Ancestries*. Given the *Character* is mostly **Human,** it's reasonable (although not compulsory) to make their strongest feature derive from their **Human** ancestry, and use the Secoundary Features from the **Elf** *Ancestry*.

**Primary Feature(s):** From **Human** we gain only one primary feature:

* **Talented:** Pick one additional *Starter Feat* at Level 1.
	+ We envisage our *Character* as being a master of wilderness exploration, so let's give them the **Adaptable** *Starter* *Feat,* and use it to gain the *Survival Skill Proficiency.*
* **Prodigious:** This allows us to pick up two *Skill Specialisations* of our choice. We see our Character as being a master of *Tracking* and *Navigation*, both of which are related to the *Survival* *Skill*, consequently we'll add the following into our Skill Specialisation section:
	+ They have *Advantage* on *Survival Checks* involving *Tracking* and *Navigation*.

**Secondary Feature(s):** From the **Elf** Ancestry our Secondary features including:

* **Perceptive:** Allows them to ignore *Disadvantage* on *Awareness Checks* to see, hear, taste or smell.
* **Fey Ancestry:** Which grants Advantage on Check relating to being Charmed.
* **Trance:** Which enables them to gain the benefits of a long rest with only 4 hours sleep and grants immunity to magic which would put them to sleep.

**Lore and Description:** This is up to our interpretation. For now we will assume they appear to be a ruggedly attractive **Human**.

## Step 3: Creating your Background

### Pick a Skill

Firstly we pick a *Skill*. We already have the Survival Skill, so perhaps we want to consider something related to our royal bearing. The *Communication Skill* would be appropriate for this.

### Pick a Skill Specialisation

Next we pick a *Skill* *Specialisation*. We already have two excellent ones covering their ability with Survival, so let's lean further into the communication Skill and use the key word "Persuading" under the Communication *Skill* *Specialisation,* consequently we'll add the following into our *Skill Specialisation* section: "Has *Advantage* when making *Communication Checks* involving *Persuading*".

### Choose your Tool and Language Experiences

As a Character with some Elf *Ancestry,* lets pick *Elvish* for our language experience.

In addition to this we could pick one other language or a Tool Proficiency. Since we want our Character to be good at using herbs found in nature for healing, a good Tool Proficiency for them would be the *Herbalism Kit* which can be used to treat many ailments.

### Choose your Starting Inventory

Going through the list presented quick list we can add the following to

* 50 Credits or 10 Credits + a mount/personal vehicle
	+ Given the setting involves a *significant* amount of travel, we'll pick the second option, 10 Credits + a Mount (Riding Horse is appropriate for this setting)
* A Set of *Tools*
	+ This is simply the tool set we are proficient with, so add Herbalism Tools to our equipment
* Typical Clothing your Character would be expected to own
	+ As our character travels often, travelling clothes would be appropriate here.
* A light source
	+ A set of 5 torches is appropriate to the setting.
* A source of fire
	+ A tinderbox including tinder, flint and steel.
* Food to last 5 days
	+ These would be simple dried rations
* Communication tools (e.g. writing implements or smartphone)
	+ This would include ink quill and parchment
* 3 Personal Possessions (i.e. objects of sentimental importance)
	+ These would depend upon our Backstory more than anything, but let's include:
		- A locket gifted to us by a lover we have left behind
		- The broken shards of a sword which belongs to our royal bloodline, broken during a historic conflict
		- A signet ring from our noble bloodline

## Ability Scores

For our ability scores let's assume we're using the point buy method.

Let's quickly review how Point Buy works:

We have **30** points which we can spend to increase the Ability Score of our 7 Abilities (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Awareness, Charisma, Intelligence and Luck). The Ability Score we start with is determined by the number of Points we spend on it, as seen in the table below.

Score
 Point Cost

We should keep in mind how this Ability Score will impact our Ability Score Modifiers, given by the following table.

The easiest way to decide how to invest our points is to first decide our priorities.

We want our Character to be Strong in physical challenges, such as combat, as well as capable of enduring it for some time. Therefore we may wish to make both our Strength and Constitution our highest Ability Scores.

The maximum number of points we can put into an ability score is 9, which will raise the Ability Score from "8" to "15", so after raising both our Strength and Constitution we will have spent **18** points in total, and have **12** remaining.

From there, we may not see our Character's Dexterity or their Intelligence as terribly important, and so we may decide to make these our lowest Ability Scores. Let's not put any points into these two Ability Scores for now.

Our remaining ability scores are Charisma, Luck and Awareness. As we have 12 points remaining, we could put 4 points into each of these, raising all three to a score of 12. This would give us the following array of ability scores:

* Strength: 15
* Dexterity: 8
* Constitution: 15
* Awareness: 12
* Charisma: 12
* Intelligence: 8
* Luck: 12

After this we get to apply our Starting Ability Score Bonuses, allowing us to add either:

* **+1** to **3** different Ability Scores, or
* +**2** into 1 Ability Score and a **+1** into a different Ability Score

Let's add a +2 to Strength and a +1 to Constitution. This gives us our final Ability Scores given by the following table:

## Level Up

Now for the final step, we can begin determine what features are Archetype grants our Character.

To do this, we first need to understand our Starting Level. Let's assume it is Level 2.