Ironclaw: Porcupine fire mage Part 1
When I first started to generate my character, I willingly accept Ban's guidance in this matter. The sequence outlined in the book is as follows:
Instead of following the book, Ban suggested that I look at Career first. In the end I picked Elementalist and so the next step was to choose which elemental to specialist in. It's not a must but it's better to specialist so as to focus on the Trait and Skills that matter.
I chose to specialise in Fire Magic because of one key feature of some of its spells: the ability to set people On Fire - a feature that is available even for its basic spell. The victim will suffer ongoing damage for as long as this status is in effect.
Then we both looked at the various spells to determine the Trait and Skill they are dependent on. It turns out that all Fire Magic spells depend on only two things: Will (Trait) and Presence (Skill). On hindsight, this is great compared to, say, the Green & Purple Magic where its spells depend on different Skills and thus makes it much harder to allocate skill marks later.
Species
From the above, it was then a matter of selecting a Species that maximised the Skill needed i.e. Presence. There are a few species that have Presence but I chose porcupine because it has also Digging skill, which is needed to cast Body Magic spells. I thought it was good to have a secondary set of spells in case of, say, resistance to Fire Magic spells.
Traits
Next is the allocation of 2 d8s, 3 d6s and 1 d4 to the various Traits. First d8 naturally went to Will as it is used in all the Fire Magic spells. Second d8 went to Career as its associated Skills - Academics, Observation and Supernatural - looked useful. I could have given the second d8 to Species with the associated skills Climbing, Digging and Presence to maximise the dice for Presence (needed to cast Fire Magic spells) but on hindsight, the Career associated skills were more useful in non-combat situations while Climbing and Digging were virtually useless.
Then Ban asked me to determine the 'dump' statistic i.e. allocation of the solitary d4. Only Traits left by then were Species, Body, Speed and Mind. d4 is almost useless. It's physically difficult to roll a d4 dice and also in many situations, the hurdle to beat is 3. So d4 in Species was a waste because I did need decent dice for its associated Presence skill. Body determines soaking capability (pseudo health points in Ironclaw) while Speed determines dodging capability - both important features. Mind was not useful for this character and thus this became the dump statistic. Thus the 3 d6s went to Species, Body and Speed.
- Traits
- Species
- Career
- Personality
- Skill marks
- Gifts
- Name
- Motto
- Equipment
- Goal
Instead of following the book, Ban suggested that I look at Career first. In the end I picked Elementalist and so the next step was to choose which elemental to specialist in. It's not a must but it's better to specialist so as to focus on the Trait and Skills that matter.
I chose to specialise in Fire Magic because of one key feature of some of its spells: the ability to set people On Fire - a feature that is available even for its basic spell. The victim will suffer ongoing damage for as long as this status is in effect.
Then we both looked at the various spells to determine the Trait and Skill they are dependent on. It turns out that all Fire Magic spells depend on only two things: Will (Trait) and Presence (Skill). On hindsight, this is great compared to, say, the Green & Purple Magic where its spells depend on different Skills and thus makes it much harder to allocate skill marks later.
Species
From the above, it was then a matter of selecting a Species that maximised the Skill needed i.e. Presence. There are a few species that have Presence but I chose porcupine because it has also Digging skill, which is needed to cast Body Magic spells. I thought it was good to have a secondary set of spells in case of, say, resistance to Fire Magic spells.
Traits
Next is the allocation of 2 d8s, 3 d6s and 1 d4 to the various Traits. First d8 naturally went to Will as it is used in all the Fire Magic spells. Second d8 went to Career as its associated Skills - Academics, Observation and Supernatural - looked useful. I could have given the second d8 to Species with the associated skills Climbing, Digging and Presence to maximise the dice for Presence (needed to cast Fire Magic spells) but on hindsight, the Career associated skills were more useful in non-combat situations while Climbing and Digging were virtually useless.
Then Ban asked me to determine the 'dump' statistic i.e. allocation of the solitary d4. Only Traits left by then were Species, Body, Speed and Mind. d4 is almost useless. It's physically difficult to roll a d4 dice and also in many situations, the hurdle to beat is 3. So d4 in Species was a waste because I did need decent dice for its associated Presence skill. Body determines soaking capability (pseudo health points in Ironclaw) while Speed determines dodging capability - both important features. Mind was not useful for this character and thus this became the dump statistic. Thus the 3 d6s went to Species, Body and Speed.
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