Ideas for character generation

[Artius]

I saw that a couple of people commented on this, both here in the form and (for example) in Scorpia's review.

It seems that there are two common complaints about the process:
1. You're incented to just reroll over and over until you get a good set of stats
2. There isn't much variety amongst the classes.

I think that the biggest reason to reroll isn't necessarily "optimizing" the full stat set, it's making sure that you get reasonable stats for the character type that you want to play. For instance, if you want to be a melee fighter, then you can't really accept a STR of 7.

The character's origin is only used to grant 3 addition attribute points (the +2, and +1). You could make this (either instead or in addition) designate an order or your stats, or at least indicate what the strongest stat and weakest stat would be. So if one of them is "strong but slow", then whatever I rolled would be shuffled around so that the highest single roll was put in Strength, and the lowest single roll was put into Speed.

A system like this might also might it possible to hide the actual dice rolls during character creation, removing that element of the game completely.

Might be something to keep in mind for book 2 (or not!).

#2, for me anyway, is just a result of that initial choice you make having little impact on the way you play or where you end up. It seems to really just mandate a single skill choice, and grant you a single piece of starting equipment. I also think (but am not sure yet) that when you level up, healers and magickusers are granted more magic points and fewer hit points.

I'd be tempted to just remove that choice entirely. Give the user an extra 3 skill points and let them choose one item from the list and just get rid of the "class" entirely.

[Unclever title]

I must say I'm intrigued by the idea of the character origin affecting the dice roll. It sounds like a fantastic idea to me. It doesn't make the stats more or less random but does give provide enough insurance to make such a decision useful.

As for classes I would rather there be some additional differences rather than completely remove them. I can't remember where it was posted originally, but someone had the idea of reducing the cost of class related skills from 3 pts to 2. That seems like a good option to me.