Step 1: Character Concept

As silly as this may sound, you should have a basic idea of the type of character that you would like to play before you even attempt to create a character. This Character Concept will be important as you make your decisions in the other steps. Many of those later decisions should come naturally and easily based upon the concept that you have devised for your character.

Step 2: Choose Race

This aspect of the character is something that should have been fully decided in determining your character concept. You need only select that race which fits your character concept, record the racial information on your character sheet and then move on to the next step.

Step 3: Choose Background

One of the things to determine in the character concept is where the character comes from, his Background. One of the primary benefits of a Background is that it gives the character a number of free ranks in various skills. Additionally, a character’s Background can often determine a number of other factors about the character, such as which languages he has access to and thus can learn. Backgrounds often also instill a number of base perceptions and attitudes that can be used as a starting point for the character’s personality.

Most often, the specific details of a Background will depend upon the setting that is being used for the game. We have included a number of generic Backgrounds that can be used.

Step 4: Choose Character Class

Once you have selected your character’s Race and Background, the next thing to do is to select your character’s Class. This class defines some of the most basic information about the character, such as what skills he has an affinity for. Each Class has a number of skills that are classed as Favored, which means that they have a lower cost than other Standard Skills.

A character’s Class will also define one or more special capabilities that the character might have, such as access to a specific School of Magic or granting additional Favored Skills.

It should be noted that it is quite likely that none of the given character classes is a perfect match for your character concept. This is quite okay, nothing is likely to be a perfect match, but you should choose the Class that is closest to your concept.

Step 5: Determine Stats

Not everybody is going to enjoy the same method of determining their character’s stats. Novus offers you 3 separate methods for determining your character’s stats. There is the Random Method, the Point Buy Method and the Stat Array Method.

This section will also tell you how to determine any secondary stats such as how many Spell Points your character has and how many Hit Points he has.

Step 6: Develop Your Character

The player receives 30 Character Points (CPs) to use in creating a first level character. For each level beyond first level that the character achieves, he receives 15 additional Character Points. These Character Points may be spent on learning Skills, Spells, Combat Moves or acquiring Talents.

Individual Skills are the last type of item a player may purchase for his character. Players are limited on how many total skill ranks that the character may have in an individual skill. Refer to the section on Skills (p. 20) for more information.

Spells are codified methods of utilizing magical energy to create specific effects.

Combat Moves are special actions that can be performed instead of a normal, standard attack. They allow the character to produce results other than simple damage.

Talents are special capabilities that do not require or invite continued improvement once learned. In most cases, a Talent may only be acquired once. Some Talents may also require other Talents as prerequisites.

Step 7: Equip Your Character

Once the player has spent all of his character’s Character Points, it is time for him to spend his gold. Every character will start with a few basic items as described in the beginning of this section, but the player will likely want to get him some more equipment, specifically for the adventuring that he is planning on his character doing.

The tables given in this section will provide you with the most common items that an adventurer may require or want.

Step 8: Tally Bonuses

This is the point in time where the player should, if he has not done so already, go over his character and make sure that he has tallied all skill bonuses and to make sure that he has not forgotten anything.

Step 9: Begin Play!

Of course, this requires that you have other players and a GM to run things