Character Points
From D20advanced
You create your d20 Advanced character by spending character points on different traits. Each ability, skill, feat, power, and other trait has a character point cost, while drawbacks give you additional character points to spend.
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Starting Character Points
The campaign’s power level provides a guideline for how many character points you get to create your character (15 character points per power level), as shown on the Starting Character Points table. The GM can vary the starting character points as desired to suit the campaign. You can find more on this in Chapter X: Gamemastering.
Spending Character Points
Each trait costs a certain number of power points. You “spend” or allocate your power points to give your character different traits. Once spent, power points cannot be re-allocated without the use of a particular power or the GM’s permission. The basic costs of various traits are given on the Basic Trait Costs table, with specific costs for FX given in Chapter V: FX, and specific values for drawbacks given at the end of this chapter.
| TABLE 1.4: BASIC TRAIT COSTS | |
| Trait | Cost in Character Points |
| Ability Score | 2 per ability score point above +0 |
| Skills | 1 per 1 skill rank |
| FX | base cost × rank |
| Drawbacks | –1 or more points |
Power Level
Power Level is an overall measure of effectiveness and power, primarily combat ability, but also generally what sort of tasks a character can be expected to accomplish on a regular basis, assuming the ability to take 10 and take 20. A higher-level character is more capable of changing the world around him.
| TABLE 1.5: POWER LEVEL | |||||||
| Power Level | Character Points | Max Atk | Max Defense / Toughness Resistance | Max Effect Modifier | Max Fort / Will Resistance | Max Skill Rank | |
| 1 | 15 | +1 | +1 | +1 | +6 | 6 | |
| 2 | 30 | +2 | +2 | +2 | +7 | 7 | |
| 3 | 45 | +3 | +3 | +3 | +8 | 8 | |
| 4 | 60 | +4 | +4 | +4 | +9 | 9 | |
| 5 | 75 | +5 | +5 | +5 | +10 | 10 | |
| 6 | 90 | +6 | +6 | +6 | +11 | 11 | |
| 7 | 105 | +7 | +7 | +7 | +12 | 12 | |
| 8 | 120 | +8 | +8 | +8 | +13 | 13 | |
| 9 | 135 | +9 | +9 | +9 | +14 | 14 | |
| 10 | 150 | +10 | +10 | +10 | +15 | 15 | |
| 11 | 165 | +11 | +11 | +11 | +16 | 16 | |
| 12 | 180 | +12 | +12 | +12 | +17 | 17 | |
| 13 | 195 | +13 | +13 | +13 | +18 | 18 | |
| 14 | 210 | +14 | +14 | +14 | +19 | 19 | |
| 15 | 225 | +15 | +15 | +15 | +20 | 20 | |
| 16 | 240 | +16 | +16 | +16 | +21 | 21 | |
| 17 | 255 | +17 | +17 | +17 | +22 | 22 | |
| 18 | 270 | +18 | +18 | +18 | +23 | 23 | |
| 19 | 285 | +19 | +19 | +19 | +24 | 24 | |
| 20 | 300 | +20 | +20 | +20 | +25 | +25 | |
Power level is a value set by the GM for the campaign. It places certain limits on where and how players can spend points when creating characters. Power level affects the following things:
- Attack: Your character's total Attack Bonus cannot exceed the campaign's power level.
- Defense / Toughness Resistance: Your hero's total Defense and Toughness resistance modifiers cannot exceed the campaign's power level.
- Effect Modifier: Your character's total Effect Modifier cannot exceed the campaign's power level.
- Defenses: Your hero's total Fortitude and Will resistance modifiers cannot exceed the campaign's power level +5.
- Ability Scores: Ability scores are limited to a bonus no greater than the campaign's power level +5. Strength is restricted by the effect Modifier limit to a bonus no higher than the campaign's power level, as is Constitution by the maximum Toughness limit. This means a limit of the campaign's power level for Strength and Constitution instead of the campaign's power level +5 for other ability scores. The Strength and Constitution limits may be raised with an attack/defense trade-off.
- Skill Rank: A character cannot have more ranks in a skill than the campaign’s power level +5. So in a PL 10 campaign, a player character cannot have more than 15 ranks in any one skill (10 + 5).
Types of Power Level Limits
There are a few different ways to limit different abilities in d20 Advanced based on Power Level. Depending on the style of game you're going to play, you might chose to limit certain abilities more than others.
Caps
Caps designate what can modify a trait, and whether those modifiers count towards the power level limits.
- Hard Cap: A trait that is hard-capped has its total modifier limited by power level, regardless of where the bonuses come from. By default, resistances like Fortitude and Will are hard-capped in d20 Advanced.
- Soft Cap: One the other hand, a trait that is soft-capped only has its ranks limited by power level, and its other modifiers (usually just the ability scores.
Limits
A power level's limits tell you how many ranks you can buy in a given trait.
- Unlimited: There is no limit to the number of ranks you can invest in a given trait. By default, FX which don't target a character's resistances (especially movement FX, like Enhanced Movement and Speed) are unlimited in d20 Advanced.
- High: High traits have their ranks limited at 5 + the campaign's power level. Non-combat skills (like Might and Acrobatics) are high-limit traits by default.
- PL: Normal traits have their ranks limited at a value equal to the campaign's power level. Combat skills like Defense and Toughness are PL-limit traits.
- Restricted: Traits with ranks limited to half the campaign's current power level. By default, d20 Advanced does not have any restricted traits, though you may consider restricting abilities which you want to be present but reduced in focus or potency in your game.
- Banned: Traits which are inappropriate for a game might be banned, with their total modifier set at zero.
- Required: Alternatively, PCs might be required to spend at least a certain number of points in a given trait. In a wuxia game for example, all the PCs might be required to have at least 1 rank in Enhanced Movement (leaping). The GM might wave the cost for required traits and award them as a bonus to all PCs.
Combining Caps and Limits
By combining caps and limits, you can quickly determine just how many points you can invest in a trait, and determine how high the bonus can go. For instance, by default, the Acrobatics skill is soft capped high, which means that the total ranks in the skill are limited to the campaign's power level + 5, and that your Dexterity score can improve your skill modifier beyond that. And an Inflict (Condition) FX is hard capped PL, so you can only have a total modifier for that FX equal to the campaign's power level.
Attack and Defense Trade-Offs
Although the campaign's power level defines certain limits, there is some flexibility to them. Players can choose to lower one power level limit on a character to raise another related limit. You can adjust power level limits in the following ways:
- Attack & Effect Modifier: You can trade-off an Attack Bonus for an Effect Modifier on a one-to-one basis. So a PL 10 hero could have a +8 Attack Bonus in order to have a +12 Effect Modifier, for example, or a hero that has chosen to have a +15 Attack Bonus is limited to a +5 Effect Modifier. This modification does not apply to powers that do not require attack rolls; they remain limited by the campaign’s normal PL limit on Effect Modifiers. Strength is considered an "attack" for purposes of this trade-off, so lowering your Attack Bonus limit increases your Strength bonus limit.
- Defense & Toughness: You can trade-off defense for Toughness bonus on a one-to-one basis. So a PL 10 character with a +7 Defense could have a +13 Toughness. Conversely a character in the same campaign who has a +15 Defense is limited to a +5 Toughness.
No limit can be reduced to less than 0 in this way and the GM must approve all such trade-offs. Attack/defense trade-offs allow for some variety in combat-related bonuses while maintaining power level balance among the characters overall. A good rule of thumb is to limit trade-offs to +5/-5 to keep things at a relatively manageable level.
Power Level and NPCs
While the GM should keep the power level guidelines and suggested starting power points of the campaign in mind while creating villains and members of the supporting cast, such non-player characters are not restricted by the campaign's power level and may have as many character points as the GM wants to give them.
Instead, determine an NPC's power level based on the character's highest appropriate trait(s). This power level is simply an approximation to show what level of challenge that NPC offers, and is not necessarily related to the NPC's character point total, which may be greater than or less than the recommended starting power points for that power level. NPCs are often designed to fill a particular niche in the campaign and do not need to be as well rounded or balanced as characters.
Likewise, NPCs may have whatever traits the GM wishes to assign them. In fact, some non-player characters are better treated as plot devices; giving them game stats may limit them too much! For example, an omnipotent cosmic entity doesn’t need a comprehensive list of traits; neither does a mysterious alien artifact with vast and unknown powers. They serve whatever dramatic needs the GM wishes. You can find more about creating non-player characters and plot devices in Chapter X: Gamemastering.
Re-Allocating Character Points
Normally a character's traits are relatively fixed. Once character points are spent on traits, they remain there. In some cases, however, the GM may allow players to re-allocate their characters' points, changing their traits within the limits of the campaign's power level, perhaps even losing some traits and gaining entirely new ones. This change may come about as the result of events in the game, such as a character encountering something that alters her abilities (intense radiation, mutagenic chemicals, magic energy, and so forth). It's up to the GM when these character-altering events occur, but they should be fairly rare unless their effects are intended to be strictly temporary complications. Very few players enjoy changes to their characters made without their consent, so GMs should be very careful when implementing this type of change.
Power Level and Character Growth
As the characters earn additional character points through adventuring, the GM may wish to increase the campaign's power level, allowing players to spend some of their earned character points to improve traits already at the campaign's limit. Not raising the power level forces player characters to diversify, improving their less powerful or effective traits, and acquiring new ones, but it can make the players feel constrained and the characters to start looking the same if it isn't raised occasionally. Increasing power level by one for every 15 earned character points is a good rule of thumb, depending on how quickly the GM wants the player characters to improve in overall power.
Bigger Guns and Power Level
There is one problem with Power Level limits: what do you do when you want your character to run over and grab the big gun that a higher-PL NPC enemy just dropped? Is there some magic barrier which prevents you from using it until you're at a higher PL? Do they all suddenly malfunction and stop working? Should the GM even allow the looting of corpses and the like?
It really depends on the genre of the game and the intent of the players. For fantasy games, where killing things and taking their stuff is a staple of the genre (and has been literally since the birth of roleplaying games), this is probably something you want to allow. If, on the other hand, you're running a four-color superheroes game, looting a fallen enemy for profit is stealing, something no righteous do-gooder would ever stoop to. You also want to be aware of whether or not the player is picking up the gear just for one fight because he needs it to stay alive, or if he wants to add it to his cache of weapons permanently.
There are a few different, relatively simple ways to handle grabbing the bigger gun:
- The Recoil is Unbelievable: The piece of gear is unwieldy for the character, whether because of massive recoil from the giant gun, or a strange balance on the two-handed sword, or simply because the character hasn't attuned properly to the magic in the wand. The character can use the item at full effect, but in order to do so, the character takes a penalty to attack, as if using a trade-off to allow for use of the device normally. So if a PL 6 PC with a +6 attack bonus with guns picks up a gun which does +8 Damage, then his attack bonus with that exceptionally heavy gun is only +4 (essentially a +2 Save DC/-2 Attack trade-off).
- Paying Up-Front: Alternatively, you may want to charge the player one hero die for each scene the character uses the item in. It's not easy to wrestle an ancient, cursed sword under your control instantly, so it takes a little luck and a whole lot of guts to use it.
- If You Didn't Pay, You Can't Play: Finally, whether for a specific instance or just in general, the GM might rule that a particular item is just too advanced or unwieldy or bizarre for a PC to use effectively, at least until he's spent the character points to buy it normally (representing training to use the item, or maybe undergoing a ritual to magically attune oneself to the mana flowing through it).
