Player Characters

Player Characters

Player characters are the other part, alongside the Game Master, of Sigil of Uchma. This page will go over the basics of character creation.

Character Creation

Paths

Paths determine a characters' abilities gained through leveling up and half of their techniques. Current list of paths are:

Branches

Branches determine a characters' branch abilities and half of their techniques. Current list of branches are:

Aptitudes

A player character gains one aptitude point each level starting from level 1. Aptitude points can be spent on either Potency (P) or Control (C):

  • Potency (P) usually increases the strength of abilities, meanwhile
  • Control (C) usually increases the duration and size of abilities.

Health

Your path determines your base health. There are three tiers of maximum health:

Tier Base Health
High 80
Medium 70
Low 60

Energy

Energy is used for performing techniques and other abilities. As your character levels up, your base energy increases:

Level Base Energy
1 8
2 10
3 12
4 14
5 16
6 18
7 20
8 22
9 24
10 24

Resistances

Resistances lower the accuracy of incoming hits. They act as the success thresholds of precision rolls. List of resistances is given below:

Resistance Used Against
Parry Physical attacks
Warding Magical attacks
Constitution Status effects
Evasion Area of effect attacks

If an ability doesn't specify what resistance it is used against, it will either use Parry or Warding depending whether or not it is a magical ability.

Resistances are determined by stats, equipment, and other various things. At level 1, you can choose to focus on certain resistances:

  1. You can choose one resistance to be "major" and another one to be "minor".
  2. Alternatively, you can choose three resistances to be "minor".

Resistance choices affect their scaling:

Level Major Minor Neither
1 7 6 5
2 7 6 5
3 8 7 6
4 8 7 6
5 9 8 7
6 9 8 7
7 10 9 8
8 10 9 8
9 11 10 9
10 11 10 9

Techniques

Techniques are special abilities which usually cost energy to activate. A player character can choose a technique from their path every even level, and from their branch every odd level:

Level Path Techniques Branch Techniques
1 1 1
2 2 1
3 2 2
4 3 2
5 3 3
6 4 3
7 4 4
8 5 4
9 5 5
10 5 5

Walking Speed

See: Movement.

Initiative

See: Turn Order.
Each player character has a base initiative of 0. Initiative is affected by some abilities and equipment such as armor or weapons.

Starter Equipment

Each player character can choose a starting equipment:

Skills

See: Skills
Skills are miscellaneous abilities of a character.

Leveling Up

#TODO

Resting and Sleeping

Usually, a character requires 6 to 8 hours of sleep per day. Not getting proper sleep for a night gives a character one stack of fatigue. Skipping sleep while having 5 stacks of fatigue is lethal and the character dies. While it is usually the best to sleep at night, it is not rare to see parties resting during the day. When the players decide the party should rest or sleep, they must declare this to the GM. In the case of just resting, the players should also explain what their characters will be doing while resting. In this case, the GM can determine whether or not these activities are allowed as a part of resting.

There are a few basic requirements to resting and sleeping. For a character to be able to rest, they should:

  1. Be able to sit or lie down.
  2. Be relaxed.
  3. Be in a safe environment.

Sleeping has stricter requirements. Alongside the resting requirements, a character can sleep only if:

  1. They have a place to sleep.
  2. They are wearing clothing, robes or light armor.

Sleeping and resting, normally, have the following benefits:

  1. While sleeping, you regenerate 10 health per hour and 2 energy per hour until level 5. Starting from level 5, you regenerate 3 energy per hour instead.
  2. While only resting, you regenerate 5 health and 1 energy per hour.

However, not all damage and status effects can be healed this way. What makes sense and what does not is left primarily to the GM.

Traveling

When moving between points of interest with large distances between them, a player character can usually walk 25 kilometers in a day, from early morning to sunset. This is called "travel speed". If all members of a party is traveling on horseback or with a carriage, travel speed is doubled. There are various conditions that may affect the distance:

  1. Particularly good routes such as paved roads and good weather increase travel speed by 10 kilometers.
  2. Difficult routes and especially bad weather reduce travel speed by 10 kilometers each, depending on the conditions.
  3. Encumbrance also affects travel speed, explained in the next section.
  4. Minimum travel speed is 5 kilometers on foot and 15 kilometers on horseback or with a carriage. Below this, travel using that route is considered impassable.

Inventory Management

A player character can keep some items on their person.

When a player character wants to put an item into their inventory and it is not easy to see how they would achieve this, the player has to briefly explain their reasoning to other players and the GM.

Containers

In some cases, properties of an object might be as important as its size and weight. A thin rope might not have that much mass but it is difficult to carry around as it might unravel. Containers help with items like this.

There are many items that can act as a container: backpacks, pouches, boxes, belts, leather straps and more.

Quick Access Slots

Not every object can be accessed with the same speed. A bedroll deep in a backpack might take several minutes to take out, while a small flask of potion hanging from the backpack can be used almost immediately. This means only items in quick access slots can be used with use item special action.

Each player character has two quick access slots by default, and can place suitable items in them. Some containers might grant more slots, but a character can have 5 quick access slots at most.

Equipment

A player character can wear one set of armor and equip two weapon sets.

Encumbrance

#TODO