How to Create a Character

If you're here, it means that you're confused about how to make an Epic character. Don't worry; This is completely normal. This guide will hopefully help clear things up. If this guide still isn't clear on something, let people know so we can update it. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Creating a Character

First, you should open up a Blank Stat Sheet. Give it a quick look over. Let's start from the top.

Vitals

The first section you'll see are your vitals. These is is where basic character information goes.

At the very top is a spot for your character's name. If you need this to be explained, get out now.

The Level is your character's, well, level. As your character levels up, they gain extra stats and bonuses. These bonuses can be easily found in the level page. For now though, your character will start at level 1. This will increase as you play the game, through Experience Points, AKA XP or EXP. Unless you're transferring experience from another character (which, if you're reading this, you're probably not), you start at 0 EXP.

Money is the amount of money your character currently has. Money (known as Credits) can be earned through game events or selling items and services. New characters start off with 500 credits.

Next on the list are Keystones. These are magical items with a variety of different uses. They can be spent to go into Ascension (a powerful state that increases your character's abilities), summon powerful, one time magic effects (which can be found on the main keystone page), and even return from death. However, once a Keystone is used up, it's gone for good. Fortunately, you begin with one of these at level 1. That said, these will be described in more detail in just a moment. For the time, leave this section alone.

Up to now, apart from adding your character's name, your sheet should look pretty much unchanged. Well, now it's time to actually do stuff. Exciting. Take a look over at the races list. Lots of spiffy races. Each race has its own set of unique bonuses and penalties, known as their Racial Passive. Some races, like Cyborgs, have more than one option to choose from. When this is the case, you may pick out one, but only one, of the listed possibilities. A few other races, like Archons and Faeries have both a main Racial Passive, and a selection of Sub-passives. For these, your character will receive the provided main passive, and may also choose one of the listed sub-passives as an additional set of bonuses and penalties. Unless listed under the "NPC-Only" and "Special Circumstances Only" sections, every race is open for play.

Once you choose a racial passive, simply list it under the [Passives] section of your sheet.

Next up is Affinity. Character Affinities, like races, give your character a Passive. Apart from that, affinities can also affect what kinds of characters your character may have a slight battle advantage over (Called Affinity Advantage), what characters your character works best alongside (Called Synergy), and determine the affinity of their keystone.

Once you've selected an affinity, go back to Keystones. Each Keystone has an affinity of its own, providing various effects, depending on the affinity, if used in RP, depending on the number of a specific affinity used. While at later points you can obtain new Keystones of different affinities, your starting Keystone will always be of your own affinity, so be sure to mark that down in the Keystones section.

Your Armor refers to your character's armor type. For now, just choose either Light, Medium, or Heavy, based on what you think fits your character best. Like Race and Affinity, your character's armor type gives them a passive, which provides them with a bonus.

Finally, we have Alignment. This is more flavor than anything else, so don't stress too much over it.

Since several of the items in the vitals section involve passives, which reference other aspects of your sheet and the system, feel free to go back and change things as you come to understand their bonuses and penalties better.

Battle Stats

Time for the meat and potatoes. Your battle stats determine how your character functions in battle. To start, everyone has 400 HP. So, up top, just fill that in. At each level up, you gain 150 HP at base, though some passives you gain in later levels may change that.

Stamina starts at 100 at base, and refreshes back to your starting number at the beginning of each battle round. Almost every technique or ability at your character's disposal will cost some of their Stamina, which is deducted from this score the instant those abilities are used. Some things, like armor, passives and status effects can raise or lower your character's base number, but, for now, just keep it at 100.

At level 1, you begin with 100 points to distribute to your four battle stats (ATK, DEF, SPD, ACC).

Attack (ATK) determines the amount of damage you deal with you attacks. Defense (DEF) decides how well you can reduce the damage from others' attacks. Speed (SPD) determines the order you fight in battle, and gives you a chance at dodging enemy attacks entirely. Accuracy (ACC) works as a counter for the dodging power of speed, and gives you a chance at a double-damage Vital Hit depending on how much higher your ACC is over the opponent's SPD.

With your starting points, in each stat, you need to put a minimum of at least 1 point, but may not exceed 40. Consider carefully how you'd like your character to play, when doing this.

Your character's stat layout is usually referred to as their Build. Mono-Stat builds primarily focus on a single stat, with the intent of giving the character a guaranteed advantage in this stat, no matter their opponent. These types of builds can be reliable when it comes to specific strategies, but the three stats they don't focus on may open up considerable weaknesses. Dual-stat builds are the most popular type, placing most of a character's stat points into two particular stats, while usually ignoring the others. These types of builds tend to provide clear, reliable strategies, and are the easiest to start playing with but, for similar reasons, they can be more easily panned against. More information on Dual-Stat Builds, and how they tend to play, can be found in the Glossary. Tri-stat builds place their points fairly equally between three stats, allowing them to get mild advantages in all three. However, because their points are spread relatively thin between these three stats, they'll often lose advantage in one or two against most mono or dual build opponents. However, they do have the bonus of having more options to fall back on, and don't have nearly as glaring weak points as mono and dual statters. When your points are spread evenly, or close to evenly, across all four stats, they're called a Joker. Jokers, by definition, neither excel nor struggle in any particular area, making them a bit tricky to play. For this reason, new players are often discouraged from playing them. That said, if you'd like to give it a shot anyways, and feel up for a challenge, give it a go!

Of course, you don't have to keep your character set to a particular build. You can mix things up a bit, if you're feeling creative. Maybe go for one high stat, two medium, and one low? How about one where the four stats are completely uneven with each other? The choice is all yours. Builds are more suggestions than anything. Find something that suits what fits your character best, or sounds fun to you. Anything is viable.

At every even level up (Level 2, 4, 6, etc.) you'll gain another 12 points to distribute, with a minimum of 1 to each stat and a maximum of 5, so remember that you can use this (along with equipment) to later change up your build a bit if you want.

Skills

These are already explained pretty well in the general Skills topic. Give it a read, and remember that at Level 1, you begin with 100 skill points, unless a passive states otherwise, and you cannot put more than 50 points into a skill, apart from Harvesting and craft skills. You can put points into two craft skills, but only one can go up to 100 points. The other can only have a max of 50 points in it.

Abilities

Anytime you get an ability, such as a special Quick Action from universal passives or a skill ability, that isn't a technique, place a short description of it here. At level 1, it will probably remain blank, unless your race or armor type happens to provide one of these. For example, the Light armor passive:

Quickstep (Armor Passive): Once per battle, you may re-roll a failed dodge attempt one time.

This qualifies because it can be activated, and does not affect your character until it's been activated. Passives that have ongoing effects, on the other hand, should have their bonuses/penalties listed in the [Modifiers] section.

Traits

Traits are extra little bonuses for your character, usually based around their personality. Unless a Racial Passive or something says otherwise, you can begin with up to two free positive Traits, which give your character small, beneficial bonuses. You can also add up to two negative Traits, which are small penalties, but for each negative Trait you have, you earn another free positive trait. For example, at the normal maximum, you can have four positive traits, due to having two negative traits.

At levels 10, 20, and 30, your character may lose, gain, or switch out some of their existing traits, based on any character development they may have gone through.

Passives

As explained earlier, passives do stuff, usually useful. Most passives provide ongoing effects and bonuses, which apply to your character at all moments, though some only work when activated. If a passive needs to be activated to work, it will state pretty clearly how and when to do that, so don't worry too much about the difference.

At level 1, you should put your Affinity passive, Racial passive, and Armor passive here. As you level up you'll start putting Universal Passives in here, and, at level 14, you'll even get a Unique Passive special to your character. Centurions start with a Unique Passive at level 1. If you find yourself needing to make one of these, go ahead and ask a member or staff for help. They'll be sure to do what they can to translate your ideas well into something that works in the system.

Modifiers

These are various little bits of information that should be left as they are for now, unless you have a passive or something that changes one of them. Anytime you get an ability like, say, +5% with reactions against Heavy armor users, you might put that note here in Modifiers.

Languages and Knowledges

This is where you'll put the languages and knowledges you get from lore and other things. You start with two free languages, and two free knowledges. It is recommended that one of these languages is Universal.

Knowledges and languages only ever affect things in RP.

Equipment

For now, all we need to put into equipment are your starting weapons and armor. Characters can have up to five pieces of armor (One for each section of the body), and can carry (not the same as equip) several weapons. In any given battle, as long as both of your arms are functional, you may equip either a single two-handed weapon, or two one-handed weapons.

With armor, start with 5 pieces of level 1 armor, one for each part of your body. (Head, Upper Body, Lower Body, Hands, and Feet) Each will have 5 points to spend at level 1. These points can be spent to increase your character's battle stats, with 1 armor point translating directly to 1 stat point. All of your armor's stats will be added to your total at all moments, unless something gets unequipped.

Weapons are similar. You have five total levels to spend on your starting weapons, and you may start with up to two. So you have the choice to start with one weapon at level 5, or two with a mix of levels up to 5 total. (For example, one at level 4 and one at level 1) These weapons may be either one handed or two handed. If a weapon is one handed, it starts with 5 points at level 1, and gains 1 additional point at each level. If a weapon is two handed, it starts with 10 points, and gains 2 points at each level.

• Note that you cannot give free levels to martial arts this way. Martial arts are always the same level as your character.

Weapon types are listed in the main weapons topic. The type of weapon your character wields in their main hand (or both hands, as is the case with two handed weapons) determines the active weapon bonus, their attack range, and the tags associated with their attack. However, if dual-wielding, the stats from both equipped weapons, main hand and off hand, will apply.

Every character also starts with the placeholder weapon "Disarmed" for free. This is simply used to represent what weapon stats they have when nothing is equipped. It's considered to be a one-handed weapon, has no stats, its range is always Basic(1), and it does not come with a weapon effect. Unarmed never takes up an item or weapon slot. The only reason to ever have it on is when one or both of your hands is not carrying a weapon, whether due to dueling or having been disarmed in battle.

The remaining sections of equipment are Accessories and Consumables. These should be left blank for now, as neither are obtained at start. Accessories are items you can equip for small extra effects to your character. Consumables are items such as Potions or Gadgets which can be used in RP and battle. Reagents also go here when received. You'll know them when you get them.

Everyone starts with 10 starting consumable slots. A character may also gain more consumable slots through certain accessories, like the backpack, which can be bought at the General Store in the forum, and the Munitions Pouch, which can be made with Engineering.

Techniques

Next on the sheet you'll find your Techniques section. Techniques are your character's unique attacks and abilities in battle. During a battle, you'll be able to use two of these a turn. They can deal damage, heal, cause status effects, change the map terrain, and much more. You can target enemies, allies, or empty spaces. Most abilities target one space, some large areas. Just toy around with the Technique Guide, found on the main Techniques page, a little bit and ask someone if you need help; this is the hardest part of the game to grasp. At level 1, you have 6 techniques. You gain more of these as your character grows.

Reactions

This section should mostly be filled out already. Reactions are actions you can take in response to being attacked. For example, if your character is a high Speed type, they might choose to attempt a dodge. Alternatively, someone might choose to counter, to get in some extra damage.

One thing you will need to do is choose a status effect for the Parry reaction. For more information, read up on Parry in the Reactions article.

Awakening

This is where you keep your characters special power ups or transformations, however you want to role play it. When activated, these allow your character to get some considerably powerful bonuses and unique abilities. Just refer to the Awakening page for a tutorial on how to fill this section out. You can also access an Ascension if you use a Keystone, which is an exceptionally strong version of their Awakening.

What to do from here?

With your character made, you can now post your stat sheet in the forum, in the board labeled Characters, levels 1-10. As it advances in level, it'll get moved into higher character archives. Now you can do whatever you want! Traditionally though, a new character usually has a good introductory quest written in Chronicled Journeys. This will plug your creation into the game and start getting you noticed.

Finally, it is highly recommended that, in order to save time for battle preparations, all important extra battle bonuses and modifers (Such as "I have a +5% dodge chance" or "I can avoid Knockback by 1 space") are all listed in one spot on your sheet so refs have a far easier time starting up a battle. When players don't do this, battles can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to get started. If you're uncertain how to do this, check out some existing character sheets. Each person has their own methods, and you may get some good ideas.