Begin by Being

Hjalmar’s farewell to Örvar-Oddr after the Battle of Samsø (1866), by Mårten Eskil Winge

Hello friends!

I’m still recovering from the Bridge of the Damned Kickstarter, so we’re going to keep this week’s post short and sweet.

I know some of you have been wondering how to make higher-level starting characters in Torchbearer. This is for you.

This is playtest material. We’ve made lots of characters up to third level and been pretty satisfied with them, but we haven’t tried heroes of even higher level in play. If you use these rules and bring the characters to the table, let me know how they play!

Creating a Higher-Level Character

  1. Create a first-level character
  2. Spend advancement tests (pass or fail) as per the table to the right:
  3. Choose level benefits
    1. Magicians and rangers gain one new spell of the appropriate level per spell slot
  4. Reduce Nature to buy the following effects. Each costs 1 Nature:
    1. Increase an ability or skill by 1
    2. Buy a new Wise
    3. Buy a new Trait
    4. Increase a Trait by 1
    5. Buy a new known spell

Notable Replies

  1. Via the Terrible Price, there’s an opportunity to bring in characters who have already featured in the narrative (friends, mentors, etc). Wouldn’t it be cool if you got some kind of discount when buying traits, wises or equipment for those replacement characters if the purchase was in line with their previous appearances?

  2. Perhaps this is more obvious than it reads to me as I haven’t played more than a couple “test” one-shots…

    Would the points be cumulative? Or would you choose the target level and use only the points at that level?

    For example: I am building a level 5 Dwarf Adventurer. Do I get 34 points? Or 76 (6+13+23+34)?

  3. Avatar for Thor Thor says:

    Choose your target level. You get that many advancement tests to apply. (34 points for your dwarf)

Continue the discussion at forums.burningwheel.com

Participants

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