D10 Special Character Creation

Character Creation in d10 SPECIAL is a "point buy" system. It's expected that you already have an idea of what you want your character to be, and will therefore be building your character to fit those guidelines.

Character Basics

Start thinking about your character. Here you pick race, class, gender, give your character a name, and describe your character's appearance.

Unlike more complex systems, like d20 SPECIAL, d10 SPECIAL treats all races, classes, genders, and creeds equally, no matter their handicaps or orientation. It's assumed that all characters have been somehow prepared for their experiences, and therefore don't need to be handicapped or promoted specially other than their stats.

For example, all pilots in an Air Force narrative RPG have been trained to fly and dogfight, and know how all their equipment works. Some pilots are stronger than others, and some can weasel their way to better missions using flowery speech, but generally, all pilots are equally qualified to fly most missions.

Buy Stats

Once you have the basics of your character planned, it's time to buy your stats. You have 32 points to spend on your various stats.

No stat may have less than 2 points, or more than 9 points.

Distribute your points in a way that would best prepare your character for the days ahead. For example, a Military Policeman may require more STRENGTH, while a SWAT bomb defuser needs tons of INTELLIGENCE and LUCK. Make sure you don't handicap yourself too much! Just because you're a Security Officer doesn't mean that you won't be called upon to use tact when talking to a VIP, so spend wisely.

Also notice that your character's HP is defined by multiplying STRENGTH by ENDURANCE, so I don't recommend turning those into "junk stats" unless you have a really good plan (or at least a really, really good AGILITY for dodging.

A recap of stats:

  • Strength - Used for arbitrating physical actions
  • Perception - Used for deciding what characters can see and notice
  • Endurance - Used to determine the character's vitality and ability to operate while under a load
  • Charisma - Used during dialogs with NPCs
  • Intelligence - Used for calculating a character's success when operating equipment or speaking intelligently
  • Agility - Used for dodge saves and other high-speed maneuvers
  • Luck - A special modifier for die rolls and a check against serendipitous events.

An alternate method of buying stats

Want a little more randomness in character creation? Sometimes you can't decide what kind of character to play, or perhaps you want a challenge. Here's an alternate method for buying stats:

  1. For each stat, roll 1d20. Record the roll result.
  2. In case of tie, reroll both scores, or flip a coin and +2 to the original roll for heads, -2 to the original roll for tails.
  3. Order the stats in numerical order
  4. Assign scores to stats, in order from the top:
    • To the first stat, assign a score of 8
    • To the second stat, assign a score of 6
    • To the third stat, assign a score of 5
    • To the forth stat, assign a score of 5
    • To the fifth stat, assign a score of 4
    • To the sixth stat, assign a score of 3
    • To the seventh stat, assign a score of 3

Calculate HP

HP is easy to calculate:

HP = STRENGTH * ENDURANCE

Good to go!

That's it! You're done! Put on your costume, get in character, and have fun!

Caviats

Your game Scenario Guide may have special guidelines for character creation, such as calculating carrying weight, etc. However, standard d10 SPECIAL doesn't have any weight/armor guidelines. It's up to the Gamemaster to decide how much a character may carry.

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