7th Sea Hints for Making a Character
At this point, everyone in the campaign knows a lot of the tricks and
foibles of this system, so if you're just joining and making a new
character, it's only fair that you get the same information, so you're not
completely at odds with the skills of everyone else, and are thus
outclassed. So, here are some of what I've learned about how to
effectively... well, how to effectively min/max a 7th Sea character with
hero points (HP) and experience points (XP). Do note that this is just
how I personally approach 7th Sea character creation, and others have
slightly different philosophies. Feel free to forge your own path, and
I'll try (as the GM) to make sure you get to use the skills you come up
with, whatever they are.
The first thing you should know is that Footwork is an
incredibly important knack--it determines the TN people have to use to hit
you most of the time (your AC, in other systems). As such, all starting
characters should have Footwork, probably to 3. The exception is that if
you envision your character as always using a particular weapon, your
Parry in that weapon can be used instead whenever you're fighting
with it, so that can be an effective substitute. But in general, you want
to buy up Footwork.
If you peruse the die-rolling probabilities,
you'll see that increasing the number of dice you *keep* (aka your Traits)
is generally tons more effective than increasing the number of dice you
merely *roll* (aka your Knacks). This is particularly true because
increasing a trait increases *both* the number of dice you keep and the
number of dice you roll. So, sure, it costs more, but it's quite worth
it.
However, the one place where knacks are particularly useful are at low
levels--it's very cheap to go from knack 0 to knack 1, and you get a
pretty good die bonus as a result. Going from 1 to 2 is also not too bad.
After that, you're not, generally, helping yourself much.
Also, since you'll get both HP and XP to start your character, bumping
up knacks is generally cheaper with XP. So here's my trick: Buy a ton of
skills with HP, and don't spend HP to increase knacks (with the possible
exception of Footwork, or any other knack that has specific advantages at
higher levels as opposed to just 'you get one more die'). (Note too that
the University and Academy advantages can help here.) Then
take your XP and buy a bunch of advanced knacks to 1. Then maybe bump a
few more knacks to 2 (or special knacks like Footwork to 4 or 5), and
start spending XP to increase your Traits.
And, speaking of traits, min/maxing really helps you out here when you
have both HP and XP to spend at the start of the game. Setting one trait
to 1 is a good way to save a lot of HP to spend elsewhere, and then you
can bump it up to 2 with only 10 XP. You'll never get a deal this good
again.
Do note that Panache means 'the number of times you can act in a
round'. Since I've found that a reasonable 7th Sea fight is over in about
one round (for this group, at least), if you want in on the fights, you
should probably get your Panache to 3 before the game begins. (So far, everyone but Raelynn has Panache 3. (And
come on, do you really want to play *7th Sea* without *Panache*?)
One more trick with knacks: the 'if you buy two skills with
overlapping knacks (with HP), the rank of the overlapping knacks increase'
rule is great. Particularly if you can get one with Footwork ;-)
A final note: If you have a character-based reason to up a knack
beyond, say, 3, talk to me, and we'll try to come up with a game-based
bonus for having that knack that high, too (something along the lines of
the bonus you get for upping Footwork or the Thomas knack.)
OK so I lied, one more thing: Between adventures, if your character
concept is working for you but your character stats are not, you may
re-build your character from scratch using the same concept, but giving
them new stats. I let the old characters do that; only fair to let the
new characters do this, too.
This line last updated July 24th, AD 2006
lpsmith
@rice.edu