All Character Builds

Introduction

Today, we explore how Abraxas enables different build styles, catering to players' preferences and allowing for build variation. We will be building upon our previous exploration of Argus Stonefury, the Dwarven warrior.

Argus is a skilled and honorable Dwarven warrior who likes games of chance and has a colorful history of "adventures" that not everyone has been excited about. The character Fred built is fairly standard warrior fare with a lot of innate toughness and physical training under his belt.

We will examine one of the other characters next, who Emma is playing. This is a character built on the "Heroic" Campaign Band, just like Fred's character. That is where the similarities end. Emma's character is a support character who heals and buffs the other player characters. Sera, Emma's character, is a crucial member of the team, providing invaluable utility and support.

Step I: The Concept

Our character concept is that of a woman of two worlds: the infernal and the mortal. Although able to tap into her darker nature when needed, Sera is a powerful healer and a woman of deep faith. She is optimistic and believes in the good in everyone.

Deeply religious, Sera was raised in a temple by the priestesses in secret, where she developed a unique style of support magic. Not everyone at the temple was supportive of Sera, and she was ejected after a rival seminarian exposed her heritage.

Sister Moonsong strongly disapproves of her infernal heritage despite Sera's actions. Sera can pass for human most of the time, which allows her to blend in. She travels in secret, knowing that Sister Moonsong is still out there looking to bring harm upon her. Sera lives an otherwise humble life devoted to service and prayer as a traveling woman of faith.

This is now the blueprint for Sera. The next set of choices will all refer back to this concept.

Step II: Attributes

Emma knows that her concept requires a high Spirit Attribute to represent Sera's innate intuition, wisdom, and faith. She would also like to have points in Charm to reflect Sera's ability to communicate effectively, be it from the pulpit or otherwise.

As a reminder, here are the seven attributes:

• Strength – Physical strength
• Agility – Reflexes and coordination
• Stamina – Overall toughness and ability to exert yourself
• Intellect – Reasoning and logical thought
• Technology – Your proficiency with the tools and tech of your time
• Spirit – Mental strength, wisdom, and creative endeavors
• Charm – The ability to influence others with words

Emma spends her points like this:

Step III: Skills

There will be a split here, as Emma will need some basic skills to survive on the road, as well as engage in more scholarly pursuits that one would expect from someone educated. Emma decides to spend her skill dice as follows:

• Dodge 1D – Sera has learned the basics of staying away from danger
• Fortitude 1D – Lots of walking on the roads has made her pretty tough
• Scholar 1D – A general skill die to represent a broad base of knowledge
• Medicine 1D – Always useful
• Willpower 2D – Sera has self-control
• Persuasion 1D – Representing her trained ability to influence others

Not a bad set of skills for a woman of faith. She can travel and navigate the world effectively, and her skills support her concept.

Optional Steps

These next steps are all about defining the special things that make Sera, Sera. We already know, based on Emma's concept, that she will be a magical healer of some sort. Emma would also like to be half infernal, which is not one of the four playable species templates in Sally's game.

Emma has 19 "Creation Points" (CP) to spend on the following few sections and to buy more Attribute and Skill dice. Before purchasing any powers, Emma decides to boost her raw Spirit Attribute by one die, which costs 3 CP. This leaves Emma with 16 CP to allocate to the remaining options.

Step IV: Species

Emma talks to Sally, and they agree that it's a fun concept; Sally is okay with constructing a special species template just for Emma. They work together and come up with some special abilities unique to the template.

The template grants the following abilities:

• Increased Intellect – Sera inherits +2 extra pips to her Intellect
• Increased Charm – +1 pip from her infernal heritage
• Darkvision – Her unusual eyes grant her the ability to see in the dark
• Fire Resistance – Although resistant to flame, she can still be harmed
• Hellfire Bolt – Once per day, Sera may conjure this attack
• Summon Darkness – Sera may conjure purest darkness once a day

Being of two worlds has its downsides as well:

• Planar Aura – Sera has an unusual aura that those who see such things recognize as being Infernal
• Demonic Blood – A social limitation to reflect the general population's unease with Sera's heritage

Totalling everything up yields a total cost to Emma of 8 CP. This leaves Emma with 8 CP for her magical spells.

Step V: Advantages

Sera's concept of being ejected from her temple and being a wandering faith healer does not cry out for any Advantages. Emma decides to forego this section.

Step VI: Powers

This is where much of Sera's unique abilities come together. This concept involves powerful forces, including infernal powers and faith-based spells. Emma is focusing on spells that grant her allies aid and provide help. Her particular healing style requires her to speak, gesture, and channel her power through her staff:

• Healing Prayer – A ranged heal to help revive and restore the wounded
• Blessing of Battle – Provides a boon for up to four allies that increases their combat prowess
• Sacred Ward – A protective spell that grants physical resistance
• Retribution – A protective spell that damages attackers when struck in melee
• Dispel Magic – Used to remove curses, magical blindness, runes, etc.
• Purification – Removes all diseases, poisons, and conditions from the target

This is a comprehensive toolkit for healers, which ultimately costs Emma the remaining 8 CP. She has her bases covered and room to grow as the campaign unfolds.

Step VII: Martial Arts

Nothing here fits conceptually for this character, and Emma is out of points anyway.

Step VIII: Disadvantages

The Heroic campaign band states that players get to purchase 15 points of Disadvantages. Sera has a lot going on in her concept for Emma to work with. Sera's disadvantages define the character just as much, if not more, than the other seven steps:

• Distinctive Features: Planar Aura (0) – Part of the species template. Zero points.
• Social Limitation: Demonic Blood (0) – An occasional hindrance from the species template.
• Hunted: The Temple of Order (3) – The temple still keeps tabs on Sera.
• Psychological Limitation: Devotion to the Gods of Order (5) – A defining character trait representing deep conviction in her spiritual beliefs.
• Psychological Limitation: Pollyanna (3) – Sera sees the good in everything and everyone, to a fault.
• Rivalry: Sister Moonsong (4) – A baked-in antagonist directly from the backstory who is actively trying to ruin Sera's life.

Sera is now completely defined mechanically. All that's left is for Emma to calculate her Secondary Attributes, choose her starting equipment, and write a background and appearance description.

Step IX: GM Review

Sally looks over the finished character and likes the duality of Sera. She sees a nuanced character who is optimistic and driven by strong faith while juggling a complex set of problems.

Sera is an outcast; she was ejected from the only home she had ever known for something beyond her control. Still, the character remains relentlessly optimistic throughout, even though Sister Moonsong is out there looking to destroy her work. All that adds up to make for some enjoyable story and roleplaying opportunities.

From a mechanical standpoint, Sally sees a powerful healer who also acts like a force multiplier for her allies. This is a heavy support build that would make for a fantastic backbone for the group.

Emma gets the green light from Sally to join the game.

Wrapping Up

Through following Emma in this example, we see how creating a character in Abraxas works. Emma progressed from a single-paragraph description she wrote in Step I to the GM Review in Step IX. Those are the nine complete steps of the process, which include defining her raw potential, skills, and, crucially, her motivation and story.

Sera has narrative and mechanical depth that define both who she is and what she can do in the game world.

Circling back to Argus for a moment, we can see that although built on the same starting Campaign Band and having identical starting resources, Argus and Sera are vastly different. Mechanically, Argus is the wall, and Sera is the one making sure that the wall stays standing. They have unique styles of play at the table and different narrative elements driving their choices and the types of stories that get told. They complement each other nicely without stepping on each other's toes mechanically or narratively.

How would you build a support character in Abraxas? What would you do differently to make a support character uniquely yours?