Chapter 3: Creating a Character
Player characters, or PCs, are the characters you play as you go throughout the world! PCs all have a lineage, a heritage, and a class. These describe your genetic background (lineage), your skills and training before becoming an adventurer (heritage), and your skills and training as an adventurer (class). Each class has a different theme, and taking a class will give you access to its two core feats—special rules that alter how you can play the game, for instance, granting you access to a Wizard’s spellcasting or a Barbarian’s rage. You can take feats from other classes, too, letting you mix and match to tell your character’s story. Creatures you encounter throughout the game and PCs share most of the same core attributes—ability scores,
Character Origins
In Monsters & Magic, you’re a character in a story, and all great characters start with a compelling backstory. To start building your character, you first need to determine their origin. To do so, choose your lineage—your bloodline and the bloodline of your parents. You choose 2 traits total: if you are a pure lineage, choose 2 traits from your lineage; if you choose a mixed lineage (half-lineage), choose a second lineage, and pick 1 trait from each lineage. Your size and appearance is based on your lineage(s), and your
Next, choose your heritage. Each heritage describes your background or how you’ve lived your life before you started your adventuring. You can either pick two common heritages, or one rare heritage.
Finally, describe your background before you started adventuring and write two talents representing the skills and experiences you gained before you ventured forth. As you
Classes, Feats, & Multiclassing
Once you’ve created your character’s origins, it’s time to decide how they’re adventuring out into the world! Choose a class for your character—your class determines your character’s HP (plus any bonuses you get from your lineage, plus your
Whenever you
Abilities
Once you have your character’s origin, class, and proficiencies squared away, it’s time to pick your abilities.
Abilities can range from -2 to 5, and you start the game with all abilities at 0 and 2 points to spend on enhancing them. When setting your abilities, you can decrease any ability you’d like by 1 to gain a point you can put into another ability. You can’t set your lowest ability lower than -2, and you can’t set your highest ability higher than your Prowess, which is 2 at character creation. A good typical spread of abilities is 2, 1, 0, -1. As you
Equipment
Finally, choose your starting equipment. You have two loadouts—from the weapons and foci that you are proficient with, choose either a single primary or secondary weapon or focus optionally with a shield (if you’re proficient), a primary and secondary weapon, two secondary weapons, a focus and a secondary weapon, or two foci for each loadout, keeping in mind your loadout can’t require you using more than two hands. Next, if you’re proficient with armor and want to wear some, choose the type of armor you want to wear (light, medium, or heavy) and select either Leather Armor for light, Hide Armor for medium, or Ring Mail for heavy. This initial set of weapons and armor does not cost you anything.
Finally, you start the game with 50 gold and 10 supplies. You can use this gold to buy adventuring gear, packs, tools, and musical instruments as you see fit.
Session 0
Before you start playing, you should have an introductory session, often called a Session 0, to get an introduction to the world, have game expectations set, and to build your characters’ collective backstory with each other. While the GM may include additional activities to do during your Session 0, you should make sure that you include an activity to weave your characters’ pre-adventuring lives to explain how you all have come together.
Once your characters are built, pass your character sheet to the player to your left and have them write a time where their character had the spotlight in your character’s story—this should respect your character concept. Then, pass to the left again, and again, until everyone’s character sheet returns to their owners. Everyone’s characters should now have a personal backstory where they’ve interacted with each other character in the group.
Once you have your character sheet back, write bonds for each of the characters in your group based on the backstory that has been built with this activity.
Tiers of Play & Leveling Up
When you reach the end of a session, choose one bond you feel is completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise resolved. If both you and the character’s player agree, mark it as complete, and write a new bond with whomever you wish. Then, answer the following questions, plus your class question:
- Did I resolve a bond?
- Did I learn something new and important about the world?
- Did I overcome a notable monster or enemy?
- Did I loot a memorable treasure?
For each “yes” answer, mark 1 XP.
There are four tiers of gameplay, Journeyman, Heroic, Epic, and Legendary, each representing a different step in your journey towards writing your character’s legend. When you have enough XP to reach your next level, you can take the Level Up extended rest downtime activity to reflect on your experiences and hone your skills to
- Tier 1: Journeyman
- Level 1—You’re just starting out, looking to make a name for yourself. Your Prowess is 2.
- Tier 2: Heroic
- Levels 2-4—You’ve got a little bit of experience under your belt and made a name for yourself locally. Your Prowess is 3.
- Tier 3: Epic
- Levels 5-7—You’re known far and wide, your adventures the stories parents tell their children. Your Prowess is 4.
- Tier 4: Legendary
- Levels 8-10—You’re the stuff of legend, your exploits shaping history itself. Your Prowess is 5.
| Level | Total XP | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Journeyman - Prowess 2 | ||
| 1 | 0 | - |
| Heroic - Prowess 3 | ||
| 2 | 10 | +1 talent, +1 |
| 3 | 21 | 2 level-up options |
| 4 | 33 | 2 level-up options |
| Epic - Prowess 4 | ||
| 5 | 46 | +1 talent, +1 |
| 6 | 60 | 2 level-up options |
| 7 | 75 | 2 level-up options |
| Legendary - Prowess 5 | ||
| 8 | 91 | +1 talent, +1 |
| 9 | 108 | 2 level-up options |
| 10 | 126 | 2 level-up options |