Guide: Making Your Character
While this guide takes your though generating a character with the standard template character sheet, there is
Your character is the person you are playing in Striker. This person is represented in Striker with a set of statistics, some listed personality traits and role-playing hooks, and whatever your imagination provides. To make a character, you follow some steps, including choosing a sophont (somewhat like a race), and a profession (such as engineer, soldier, or investigator). Then you invent a back story, and work out appearance and personality, with the aid of some suggested backgrounds and vocations.
The main thing to decide is what kind of science-fiction adventurer you want to play. You may go for one of the classic archetypes, such as the skilled pilot, the technical genius, the cyber-hacker, the wise-guy investigator, the war veteran, the lethal martial artist, or the secret agent. Alternatively, you may go for a combination, or go for something truly unusual. Its also possible that you haven’t quite decided yet.
The professions, vocations and backgrounds help you decide the kind of adventurer you want to play, while the sophonts give you differing physical characteristics and cultural flavour. One way of looking at this is: a sophont is what you are, and a profession is what you do.
This guide will take you through the creation of a Striker character. For this we will use the standard template character sheet. Various excerpts will be shown from this throughout the guide. Also the featured character, Jazz Randyboy is also written up on the Google Sheet Online Character Builder, and can be found here.
Step 1: Choose Your Sophont
The definition of sophont that we will use is: an intelligent (sapient) humanoid of some sort. You may belong to a species, such as human, cephene, clavian, freen, ronite or thot, or you may belong to a genetic modification such as a blink dog, canth, gly, mog, or xanji, or you may be an android or cyborg version of one of these.
The sophont establishes your appearance, culture and ancestry and in most cases, your background. Some of your physical traits are likewise determined.
Sophonts are summarised in the SRD, but more properly detailed in Chapter 2 of the Core Rulebook.
For the guide we will be building the freen known as Jazz Randyboy.
The "choose your Sophont step is therefore just to write "Freen" into the Sophont Box at the top as you can see here.
What you can also see are numbers in a whole lot of other boxes. So while this step is quick, we'll use this opportunity to explain a bit about what the rest of the numbers mean.
Experience & Levels
Experience points (XP) are gained by your character as they go on adventures, risking life and limb, and using their wits to get out of nasty scapes. Once they get enough experience points, they can advance in level, representing an advancement in their capability from this experience. At the start of the game you are on character level (CL) 1, and you have 0 XP, and need 300 XP to get to level 2.
You are awarded 5 ranks to distribute into your skills and 5 ranks to distribute into your techniques for each level that you gain. Awarding skill and technique ranks is the only purpose for levels.
Age, Personality & Alignment
Freen starting age is 15. Although we haven't filled anything in here (and there's no reason you actually have to), you can find Personality traits in Chapter 4 of the Core Rulebook. Personality traits are optional tags that you can add to your character to flesh out what they’re like as people. You can also use this area to decide your moral alignment (optional), which is described in the same chapter.
Striker has no layer of overarching capability that are often variously called abilities, stats, or attributes. This is why have stepped straight into the skills (I didn't forget)
Skills
Striker has 19 skills that every character has (the only ones that might not truly be common are the CBT skills, Cbt-Melee and Cbt-Ranged, but Striker is an adventure RPG, so realistically, every character is probably going to have to resort to them sooner or later). The 19 skills go down the left hand column of the sheet. You can also see space for eight more skills: these are in case your character needs one or more from Cbt-Tactical, up to 9 ENG skills, and up to 5 PSI skills.
Your ability in any skill is measured by the number of your modifier. Your modifier can range from -6 (very bad) to 20 (crazy and god-like). This is what you commonly add (or take) from your d20 check or save.
What's important to focus on here are the columns of scores shown in the excerpt:
The columns are:
- The starts. The start is set by your sophont. This is the modifier on the skill when you have not added any ranks to it. This can range from -6 to +5 (or just 5). Health, Energy and Focus all start on +0 (or just 0)
- Talent. When you roll up your character, you can choose 10 of the 19 skills to pick as your talents. You just tick the box and this means that you get +1 to that skill. So if you ticked the box in the first row, corresponding to the Health skill, you would get +1 to Health.
- R (ranks). You put the ranks you assign to the skill under the R column.
- M (modifier). The 4th column is the total modifier or just M. M is equal to the total of
- the number in the start column
- +1 if the box in the Talent column is ticked
- the number in the ranks column
The modifier is the number that you commonly add (or take) from your d20 check or save.
- Resource Factors. The numbers following HX, EX and FX are your resource factors, which come from your sophont. These influence the following two columns.
- Resource Points. Your resource points are your health points (hp), energy points (ep) and focus points (fp), which are explained under the Resources heading below.
- Recovery Rates. These are the rates at which you recover lost resource points.
The modifier (M) is very important in the game. Remember that this is what you add to any skill checks or saves.
Resources
To the right of the skills Health, Energy and Focus are the three traits of Health Points (hp), Energy Points (ep) and Focus Points (fp).
The numbers in the boxes come from the modifiers in the skills above and from the three corresponding factors, such that:
hp,max = HX • (1 + M(Health))
ep,max = EX • (1 + M(Energy))
fp,max = FX • (1 + M(Focus))
Since freens begin the game with 3(HX), 2(EX) and 2(FX) and M(Health), M(Energy), M(Focus) are all 0, we end up with the scores 3, 2 and 2.
The recovery rates are given in terms of points per rest. A rest is nearly always completed by sleeping overnight. The recovery rates for hp is usually half of the rate of ep and fp. All three are given by:
hp/r = ½ • HX + M(Health)
ep/r = EX + M(Energy)
hp/r = FX + M(Focus)
Half of HX = 3 is 1 (when rounded down), which is why the rates are 1 hp per rest, 2 ep per rest and 2 fp per rest.
Step 2: Choose Your Profession
Every character has at least one profession. The profession is centred around an activity like combat, diplomacy, survival or engineering. The profession is really a pattern for choosing a sensible set of skills to put ranks in. Since everything is a skill in Striker, this helps you build a viable character, navigating you through all the choices.
As you choose a profession, you also choose a vocation. These are like your character’s main hobby, but as adventurers are a bit more determined than most, their hobbies are taken pretty seriously as well. Vocations represent a way to either add skills you think you need, or reinforce some skills that you have.
At every level, your profession grants 4 ranks to distribute to its pool of skills and 4 ranks to distribute to its pool of techniques. Your vocation similarly grants you ranks, but in this case it’s 1 rank for its skills and 1 rank for it’s techniques. On any level, you will have one profession and one vocation, but at each level you can change both (though most don’t).
Jazz Randyboy is to become a forensic scientist, so this means picking the Investigator (Analyst) profession and to back that up we'll give them the Hacker (gene) vocation.
This is a good time to set their talents. The Investigator (Analyst) profession, makes a recommendation of which talents to pick, so we'll tick the following 10 boxes: Health, Focus, Perception, Resolve, Agility, Insight, Antiquities, Science, Investigate, Society.
Step 3: Choose Background(s)
At the top, left of the character sheet, there is space to enter one or more backgrounds and even the number of terms you want your character to have spent in each.
Each term is a 6-year period in your character's back-story.
We’re going to have Jazz Randyboy take the Colonist background, then the Academic background twice. This choice of backgrounds awards Jazz with 13 skill ranks and 4 technique ranks. Also he rolled a 2 and 3 on a d6 for his academic rank progression, so perhaps we need to address them as Doctor Randyboy from now on. The professional rank progression is just for flavour, so rolling is optional. Having taken 3 background terms all up, they have advanced in age by 18 years. As freens start at age 15, Dr Randyboy is now 33.
At the end of Step 3, the first page of the character sheet will look something like this.
Step 4: Assign Skills & Techniques
Now that the profession and backgrounds have been selected, its time to go through each and assign the ranks you're give from each to the available skills and techniques.
Lets start with the colonist background.
3 ranks spread to these skills
Aegis, Climbers-Tools, Medicine-Tools, QTM-Tools, Scan-Tools, Vcl-Air, Vcl-Ground, Vcl-Mech, Vcl-Space
Insight, Investigate, Antiquities, Science, Survival, Machinery, Materials, Medicine, Munitions, Neuronetics, Robotics
2 ranks spread to these techniques
Clarity-Save (Insight), Track (Investigate), Bushcraft (Survival), Tenacious-Save (Survival)
The skills in the first row are qualifiers, and the trick with them is that you can only give them 1 rank. A rank in a qualifier skill means that you are “qualified” and you no longer get a penalty from it. Given that Jazz Randyboy is taking Investigator for their profession and Hacker for their vocation, it may be a good idea to pick up some skills from the Colonist background that they won’t get from their other choices. So they’ll take Aegis (a qualifier in using EVA suits and the like), and put 2 ranks in Survival.
Clarity-Save and Track might be pretty useful, so we'll take those.
Now, Jazz has taken the academic background twice, so plenty to do here.
5 ranks spread to these skills
Forensic-Tools, QTM-Tools, Scan-Tools
Focus, Insight, Antiquities, Science, Investigate, Society, Cybernetics, Genetics, Machinery, Materials, Medicine, Munitions, Neuronetics, Robotics.
1 rank spread to these techniques
Forensics (Investigate), Bureaucracy (Society), Finance (Society), Law (Society), Language (Society)
So we can assign 10 ranks to the skills. Notice that we get to choose from two new qualifier skills: Forensic-Tools and QTM-Tools; the first of these seems particularly relevant for Dr Jazz Randyboy – the forensic scientist.
We’ll put a skill rank on qualifying with Forensic-Tools, put 2 ranks on Investigate, 1 rank on Science and 1 rank on Society. With the remaining 5 skill ranks we’ll put one on each of Cybernetics, Genetics, Medicine, Neuronetics and Robotics.
We’ll put the two technique ranks on Forensics (Investigate).
In the resulting character sheet, we have filled out 3 techniques on page two.
Explanation: Skills, Ranks & Modifiers
The figure below shows part of the first page of the character sheet, featuring the chosen skills and ranks so far distributed.
Looking at the Agility skill, you can see the first column shows the freen starting value for that skill, -3, which is pretty standard. Agility has been chosen as a talent, so it has been checked, contributing 1 to the value under the modifier (M) column. There have been no ranks placed under Agility, so the resulting modifier is:
-3 (the start) +1 (the talent) +0 (no ranks added) = -2 (the resulting modifier)
Target Challenge
You can see that the Agility skill also leads to the TC (Target Challenge), this gets a bonus of +1 because freens are of the small size. The TC is the score an opponent needs to overcome in a targeted attack in order to hit you, and is found with:
TC = 10 + size factor + M(Agility)
Social Challenge
The Insight skill leads to the SC (Social Challenge). The SC is the score an opponent needs to overcome in a social contest (from either Deceive or Persuade) in order for to be convinced of, or to to, something. The SC is found with:
Perception Challenge
The Stealth skill leads to the PC (Perception Challenge). The PC is the score an opponent needs to overcome in a perception check in order to find or notice you. The PC is found with:
Starting Aspects
You might notice that both Agility and Stealth have a an additional set of check boxes, labelled "Body", "Mind" and "Skill". For most characters, the "Body" item would be checked in both. However, both Agility and Stealth have more than one meaning, and these other meanings may be important for Jazz Randyboy.
If you tick the "Body" item then Agility and Stealth have the meanings that you would normally expect:
- Agility means your dexterity or dodgy-ness, and
- Stealth means your ability to move silently and hide in shadows
If you tick the "Mind" item, then
- Agility means your ability to think on your feet, do a fast comeback, react to your changing circumstances, and
- Stealth means your ability to blend into a crowd, make yourself look like you're supposed to be there, or when conversing with someone, make yourself forgettable.
If you tick the "Skill" item, then
- Agility means your ability to make the (usually) vehicle your're driving/piloting more agile
- Stealth means your ability to make the (usually) vehicle your're driving/piloting hard to find or not where your opponents expect it to be.
Each of these are aspects of Agility and Stealth.
Since no ranks have been placed on Agility or Stealth, both the white modifier hex and the grey modifier hex have the same value. When you assign a rank to either of these:
- you tick one of the boxes, based on the aspect (Body, Mind or Skill) you are choosing to apply, and
- add the rank(s) to the white hex only,
and from then on, the white hex is the modifier for the aspect you ticked, and the grey hex is the modifier for all others.
For the purposes of working out your TC, you can only add the white hex (in Agility) if you have the Body aspect ticked, otherwise, you're adding the grey hex.
For Jazz Randyboy, it's likely that we'll be picking the Mind aspect for both of these, but as already mentioned, we don't have to make that choice yet, because we have not assigned any ranks to either.
Engineering Skills
Most of the skills that you can see in the figure above are the common skills that all characters have. The last 5, which are all engineering skills, are the first special skills. These special skills work exactly like all the common skills, its just that only a few characters will have them. Jazz Randyboy is a forensic scientist, so they will have many of the technical skills represented.
Freens start with a -2 on all engineering skills, and we gave Jazz Randyboy one rank on each of Cybernetics, Genetics, Medicine, Neuronetics and Robotics, and so they have a modifier of -1 on each.
Continuation: Adding the Ranks for Profession & Vocation
Regardless of the profession and vocation chosen, you can assign 4 skill ranks and 4 technique ranks from the skills listed in the profession, and you can assign 1 skill rank and 1 technique rank from the skills listed in the vocation.
We established before that for Jazz Randyboy, we are going to pick the ranks from the Investigator (Analyst) profession and the Hacker (gene) vocation.
4 ranks spread to these skills
Forensic-Tools, Qtm-Tools, Scan-Tools, Surveillance-Tools
Health, Focus, Perception, Resolve, Insight, Deceive, Antiquities, Science, Investigate, Persuade, Society, Cybernetics, Genetics, Machinery, Materials, Medicine, Munitions, Neuronetics, Robotics.
4 ranks spread to these techniques
Forensics (Investigate), Interrogate (Investigate), Surveillance (Investigate), Track (Investigate), Bureaucracy (Society), Finance (Society), Law (Society), Bypass (Neuronetics)
From Investigator (analyst) we’ll place 1 skill rank on Investigate, and 1 on Medicine, and because those health points look pretty frail, put 2 ranks on the Health skill. We’ll place 1 technique rank on each of Interrogate, Surveillance, Track and Law.
After adding this final skill and technique, we get to the character sheet near its final form.
Step 5: The Finishing Touches
Each of the backgrounds you have chosen give you starting money and equipment, and some other items or considerations. In this step, you would be enhancing and equipping your character.
On the last page of the character sheet, you can see space set aside for conjugates. We deliberately chose a profession for Jazz Randyboy that was neither an Engineer or a Chopper, so that we didn't have to go into this area. You would need to select conjugates if you were to acquire the Conjugate technique for your chosen engineering industry.
You can get a Google Sheet version of the character sheet
The calculations you need to make in filling out the paper character sheet are pretty simple really, so the Google Sheet just helps to speed things up a bit.
A Couple of Further Explanations
We can take a little time to discuss a couple of the other features on the first page of the character sheet.