Characters and Character Creation
Re: Characters and Character Creation
You have the right of it Marullus - the only skills that should be at 0 or better should be those skills granted by your Background and Class Training. Actual "Class Skills" are just those skills that your class is especially well suited for and thus has an easier time of learning and advancing with skill points down the line.
Skills that both your background AND class training give you start at 1 because of the overlap. I'm 99% sure of this, unless Other Dust does it differently.
EDIT: Check Out Page 65 for the tables that show the different advancement rates for Class Skills vs. non class skills.
Skills that both your background AND class training give you start at 1 because of the overlap. I'm 99% sure of this, unless Other Dust does it differently.
EDIT: Check Out Page 65 for the tables that show the different advancement rates for Class Skills vs. non class skills.
Last edited by Glintwine on Fri Mar 06, 2015 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- DexterWard
- Pathfinder
- Posts: 344
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:02 am
Re: Characters and Character Creation
I just checked the Other Dust rule book and it says the same thing as the SWN book:
A class focuses a character’s potential, but it does not prevent them from gaining skill in other spheres. A Scrounger can learn the red arts of the spear, and a Slayer can gain proficiency in repairing the tech of Old Terra, but both will always have the easiest time gaining expertise in their natural skills.
Every class has two attributes which are prime requisites. These are attributes which are very important to functioning in the class. For Scroungers, these are Intelligence or Dexterity. For Slayers, they are Strength or Dexterity. For Speakers they are Wisdom or Charisma, and for Survivors they are Intelligence or Constitution.
At your discretion, you may replace one of your character’s prime requisites with a score of 14 to reflect the natural aptitude that led them to their present role. If both of their prime attributes are 14 or higher, you need not replace either. Make sure to adjust the attribute modifier for the score you replace.
Each class also has a certain special ability related to their focus. Most of these abilities can be used once every game day, though the red hand of the Slayer may be used once in every fight.
Once you’ve picked a class, choose a training package from the ones provided for your class. Each skill listed for the training package is gained at level-0. If you already have the level 0 skill from your character’s background package, the skill instead starts at level-1.
Some training packages also have skill listings that allow you to select any specialty for Combat, Culture, Profession, Tech, or Vehicle skills. You may choose such skills as you like, but you cannot duplicate a skill already on the training package list. You may also need to justify the choice of certain very rare or unlikely skills such as Tech/Maltech or Vehicle/Space.
A class focuses a character’s potential, but it does not prevent them from gaining skill in other spheres. A Scrounger can learn the red arts of the spear, and a Slayer can gain proficiency in repairing the tech of Old Terra, but both will always have the easiest time gaining expertise in their natural skills.
Every class has two attributes which are prime requisites. These are attributes which are very important to functioning in the class. For Scroungers, these are Intelligence or Dexterity. For Slayers, they are Strength or Dexterity. For Speakers they are Wisdom or Charisma, and for Survivors they are Intelligence or Constitution.
At your discretion, you may replace one of your character’s prime requisites with a score of 14 to reflect the natural aptitude that led them to their present role. If both of their prime attributes are 14 or higher, you need not replace either. Make sure to adjust the attribute modifier for the score you replace.
Each class also has a certain special ability related to their focus. Most of these abilities can be used once every game day, though the red hand of the Slayer may be used once in every fight.
Once you’ve picked a class, choose a training package from the ones provided for your class. Each skill listed for the training package is gained at level-0. If you already have the level 0 skill from your character’s background package, the skill instead starts at level-1.
Some training packages also have skill listings that allow you to select any specialty for Combat, Culture, Profession, Tech, or Vehicle skills. You may choose such skills as you like, but you cannot duplicate a skill already on the training package list. You may also need to justify the choice of certain very rare or unlikely skills such as Tech/Maltech or Vehicle/Space.
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Yep. That pretty much confirms what I said above then. Your "Class Skills" don't actually affect starting skill values. If they did, then Experts would literally start with a 0 in every non-combat skill other than Tactics and Tech/Psitech.
As I said in my above edit, you can check out Page 65 of the SWN corebook for a table that shows how skill advancement works and what the book means by "class skills" vs. skills allotted to you by your training package. Those skills that count as "Class skills" for you just cost less to increase.
As I said in my above edit, you can check out Page 65 of the SWN corebook for a table that shows how skill advancement works and what the book means by "class skills" vs. skills allotted to you by your training package. Those skills that count as "Class skills" for you just cost less to increase.
- Mister-Kent
- Ranger Knight
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- Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 10:17 pm
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Sorry I missed your question Dex! Everyone who chimed in was right--the class skills are just cheaper for ya when you level up. Which I hope everyone survives to do!
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Morvith, Human Wizard, The Western Lands
Ekene Orjee, Xenologist and Imperial Agent, Shadow of the Storm (Traveller MgT2e)
Ekene Orjee, Xenologist and Imperial Agent, Shadow of the Storm (Traveller MgT2e)
Re: Characters and Character Creation
I added Phosphor Tattoos to my character but let me know if I'm pushing it with the free ware.
Also so people have it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1140766937 - it's an automated character sheet.
Also so people have it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1140766937 - it's an automated character sheet.
Last edited by kmbll on Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Characters and Character Creation
I'm binging on sci fi movies lately; just saw the 2012 version of Total Recall tonight and they have phosphor tattoos - it is totally awesome. Now that I can visualize them.kmbll wrote:I added Phosphor Tattoos to my character but if I'm pushing it with the free ware.

Re: Characters and Character Creation
Malachi Lykos
Revised background below, accounting for the newly-released homeworlds and sector info. Set his homeworld as Agamemnon, he studied in the Republic on Bergthora. Changed to Vehicles(Land) to reflect his Tech 3 upbringing, and the wider availability of their use in the military (given only Tech 4 planets have grav to use).
Also of note - I'd like to add the Colbayb as a plotpoint, and took their Culture (and thus language). The idea of a race controlled by neural symbionts is too good to pass up... he is implying a conspiracy: a lost past-history similar to a Burning Empires thing before they were beaten back. Is that good?
I focused his languages on those he needs for Primary Source research - Russian/Chinese for Maltech and Colbayb for looking into pre-Scream symbiont knowledge. Also, I implied that the Galactic Republic has a Russian cultural and linguistic feel.
If any of that is not kosher, I can change it. Just throwing it out here for review.
Background:
Malachi Lykos was born on the planet Agamemnon in the Epistrophes system. A warm planet of rich farmlands, coastlands, and salinated oceans like Earth. Populated by southern European stock and highly influenced by Ancient Greek culture with Greek as their primary language, this planet prizes the history of both Athens and Sparta among its cultural influences and is ruled by a Senate of intellectuals. Malachi was an upper-middle class youth, his parents Citizens of the Republic, and he had a comfortable life with education and escapes from school drudgery - martial arts, rifle team, motercycles, and fast cars among them. He wanted more than their dreams of schools and studies... More than this small Tech 3 planet.
He lied about his age to enlist in the Galactic Republic as the war began. He was raised on the glories of Sparta and thought joining the war would be romantic, that he'd see the universe. Amidst the releases he signed was one for enhancement procedures. Based on his aptitudes, he was selected for a program where they built the soldiers they wanted, and he was the right raw material. His emotions chemically suppressed and his reflexes enhanced by science, he dispassionately pulled the trigger until the war came to an end. He was honorably discharged as a Corporal from the Special Forces, his skill and training involving him in special maltech projects, some of which are classified SECRET RED and deadlocked by his circuitry to prevent disclosure, other TOP SECRET YELLOW ones which it prevents him from remembering.
When he was released from service, they 'normalized' his implants. He struggled with the emotions caused by the memories of what he had dispassionately done, a form of PTSD. His parents were glad he came home, hoping to reclaim their lost teenage boy, but that person was gone forever. They hoped to help him by paying for him to attend University, get him back on track, back home to the life they intended for him. He tried to flee from his past, to prove he was more than just a gun, built to serve. While many just forgot the memories of what they did and where they went in service to the galaxy, he did not.
He attended university on Bergthora with his parents money and the privileges of being a Galactic Republic Citizen based on his honorable military discharge. He tried to return himself to what his parents wanted at first, schools and studies, and he studied voraciously about the ruins and worlds that they had fought over in the war. He studied science and technology - biology, chemistry, xenobiology - he found he was driven to go out and explore, to discover what was lost. He tried to unlock the portions of his memory containing Maltech files, but part of him feared knowing more as well. Something nagging about the nature of neural symbionts... the current race of Colbayb has reached an accord with them, but he dug deeper into their history, making it a subject of his theses. The appearance of the symbionts before the Scream... deep in knowledge and technology, feared as "infiltrators" and mind-wipers, he learned as much as he could of this race but too many records were destroyed to find a full truth. Finishing his degrees, he found his way back to the Rim. Searching for and studying PreTech Ruins drives him forward... trying to make ends meet by clumsily fencing artifacts got him quickly branded a criminal, a minor felony. He was rescued and hired by the Cat's Cradle.
Languages:
English - Lingua Franca of the Sector
Greek - Homeworld language planet Agamemnon and the Epistrophes system
Russian - Primary language of Bergthora, cultural influence for the Republic
Chinese - Besides Russian, most common language for Maltech research and manuals
Colbayb - language of the neural symbionts and their Pretech records
Goals:
* "I am not a gun, I am a mind." Acquire schematics for a Slowtime Window from Pre-tech records. (...then get it installed it with my hardware.)
* "Knowledge is the best treasure to acquire." Learn Pre-tech science from Doctor Shefelbine.
* "Leave no man behind." The ship-s crew his his new unit, and his military mindset runs deeper than blood.
Revised background below, accounting for the newly-released homeworlds and sector info. Set his homeworld as Agamemnon, he studied in the Republic on Bergthora. Changed to Vehicles(Land) to reflect his Tech 3 upbringing, and the wider availability of their use in the military (given only Tech 4 planets have grav to use).
Also of note - I'd like to add the Colbayb as a plotpoint, and took their Culture (and thus language). The idea of a race controlled by neural symbionts is too good to pass up... he is implying a conspiracy: a lost past-history similar to a Burning Empires thing before they were beaten back. Is that good?
I focused his languages on those he needs for Primary Source research - Russian/Chinese for Maltech and Colbayb for looking into pre-Scream symbiont knowledge. Also, I implied that the Galactic Republic has a Russian cultural and linguistic feel.
If any of that is not kosher, I can change it. Just throwing it out here for review.
Background:
Malachi Lykos was born on the planet Agamemnon in the Epistrophes system. A warm planet of rich farmlands, coastlands, and salinated oceans like Earth. Populated by southern European stock and highly influenced by Ancient Greek culture with Greek as their primary language, this planet prizes the history of both Athens and Sparta among its cultural influences and is ruled by a Senate of intellectuals. Malachi was an upper-middle class youth, his parents Citizens of the Republic, and he had a comfortable life with education and escapes from school drudgery - martial arts, rifle team, motercycles, and fast cars among them. He wanted more than their dreams of schools and studies... More than this small Tech 3 planet.
He lied about his age to enlist in the Galactic Republic as the war began. He was raised on the glories of Sparta and thought joining the war would be romantic, that he'd see the universe. Amidst the releases he signed was one for enhancement procedures. Based on his aptitudes, he was selected for a program where they built the soldiers they wanted, and he was the right raw material. His emotions chemically suppressed and his reflexes enhanced by science, he dispassionately pulled the trigger until the war came to an end. He was honorably discharged as a Corporal from the Special Forces, his skill and training involving him in special maltech projects, some of which are classified SECRET RED and deadlocked by his circuitry to prevent disclosure, other TOP SECRET YELLOW ones which it prevents him from remembering.
When he was released from service, they 'normalized' his implants. He struggled with the emotions caused by the memories of what he had dispassionately done, a form of PTSD. His parents were glad he came home, hoping to reclaim their lost teenage boy, but that person was gone forever. They hoped to help him by paying for him to attend University, get him back on track, back home to the life they intended for him. He tried to flee from his past, to prove he was more than just a gun, built to serve. While many just forgot the memories of what they did and where they went in service to the galaxy, he did not.
He attended university on Bergthora with his parents money and the privileges of being a Galactic Republic Citizen based on his honorable military discharge. He tried to return himself to what his parents wanted at first, schools and studies, and he studied voraciously about the ruins and worlds that they had fought over in the war. He studied science and technology - biology, chemistry, xenobiology - he found he was driven to go out and explore, to discover what was lost. He tried to unlock the portions of his memory containing Maltech files, but part of him feared knowing more as well. Something nagging about the nature of neural symbionts... the current race of Colbayb has reached an accord with them, but he dug deeper into their history, making it a subject of his theses. The appearance of the symbionts before the Scream... deep in knowledge and technology, feared as "infiltrators" and mind-wipers, he learned as much as he could of this race but too many records were destroyed to find a full truth. Finishing his degrees, he found his way back to the Rim. Searching for and studying PreTech Ruins drives him forward... trying to make ends meet by clumsily fencing artifacts got him quickly branded a criminal, a minor felony. He was rescued and hired by the Cat's Cradle.
Languages:
English - Lingua Franca of the Sector
Greek - Homeworld language planet Agamemnon and the Epistrophes system
Russian - Primary language of Bergthora, cultural influence for the Republic
Chinese - Besides Russian, most common language for Maltech research and manuals
Colbayb - language of the neural symbionts and their Pretech records
Goals:
* "I am not a gun, I am a mind." Acquire schematics for a Slowtime Window from Pre-tech records. (...then get it installed it with my hardware.)
* "Knowledge is the best treasure to acquire." Learn Pre-tech science from Doctor Shefelbine.
* "Leave no man behind." The ship-s crew his his new unit, and his military mindset runs deeper than blood.
Re: Characters and Character Creation
I'm sorry I'm such a noob. How do I get started on making a character?
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Oh hey, welcome!
If you go to http://www.unseenservant.com/ and click "Characters" then Create a Character and enter a Character Name and the Campaign # (254) you can then generate stats which is the 3d6 option. Beyond that it's outlined in the first post in the Asskickers of the Universe section. Beyond that it's important to have a character concept with a background and goals. The free Stars Without Number book will help: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/864 ... ee-Edition
Beyond that, feel free to ask any questions and we'll help you out either here or through PM.
If you go to http://www.unseenservant.com/ and click "Characters" then Create a Character and enter a Character Name and the Campaign # (254) you can then generate stats which is the 3d6 option. Beyond that it's outlined in the first post in the Asskickers of the Universe section. Beyond that it's important to have a character concept with a background and goals. The free Stars Without Number book will help: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/864 ... ee-Edition
Beyond that, feel free to ask any questions and we'll help you out either here or through PM.
- Mister-Kent
- Ranger Knight
- Posts: 1941
- Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 10:17 pm
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Yes--anything you need, let us know 

- DexterWard
- Pathfinder
- Posts: 344
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:02 am
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Are we going to go over gear soon? Or did I miss it somewhere along the way?
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Some people have gear and goals in our character sheets alreafy. Should we post them distinctly?
- Mister-Kent
- Ranger Knight
- Posts: 1941
- Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 10:17 pm
Re: Characters and Character Creation
As long as everyone has their gear listed on their sheet its fine.
Did you need help with yours, Dexter? The equipment list is the basic core book stuff, but if you'd like to spend Cool Points on a rare artifact, I'll PM some options to you
Did you need help with yours, Dexter? The equipment list is the basic core book stuff, but if you'd like to spend Cool Points on a rare artifact, I'll PM some options to you

Re: Characters and Character Creation
Working on my background and pic now. I'm going to PM Mister Kent for a little help with the Coolness and starting equipment (I'm a little lost there). Just wanted to post this now. I'll let you guys know when it's all finalized.
Don't leave Amir without me!
Don't leave Amir without me!
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Excited to see what you come up with for Coolness! For equipment it's just items TL4 and under in exchange for your starting creds.
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Very cool! Check the link in the Galactic Encyclopedia thread for the list of alien races. Only a few have narrative introduction so far.
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Hi there so this is my character I hope everything is up to snuff!
Mutation Flaw [1d12] = 7 Mutation Benefit [1d12] = 12

Mutation Flaw [1d12] = 7 Mutation Benefit [1d12] = 12

Last edited by LtTibbles on Thu May 28, 2015 3:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Mister-Kent
- Ranger Knight
- Posts: 1941
- Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 10:17 pm
Re: Characters and Character Creation
Intriguing backstory ~ I love backgrounds that develop the world. I've sent you your mutation options 

- Mister-Kent
- Ranger Knight
- Posts: 1941
- Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 10:17 pm
Re: Characters and Character Creation
I'll get Mort's sheet added to the first post tomorrow. Welcome to the game, LtTribbles!