Need help with character concepts for people new to TDF

[g33k]

A serious problem we had with Fate when we started was that, like other RPGs;...well here is the metaphor I commonly use; A veteran soldier in your game should have superior skills to the idiot I was just forced to graduate from his basic infantry course two months ago. PLUS; he should still be a functional human being off the battlefield. if a basic soldier IRL is competant enough in 4-6 weapons to qualify, can navigate, apply an bandage, carry a backpack a long ways, use a radio and still have a good chance of being a decent driver, 10% chance at a trade, 20% chance at knowing computers, and so on; a veteran character, should start with that and build on it.

We found it very, very hard to create a pure mortal who could fight and function out of combat in fate at less that a submerged level and even then there were glaring shotcomings.

Let's take your veteran soldier:
Skill 4: Guns
Skill 3: Fists, Athletics
Skill 2: Drive, [Something Civvie (but militarily useful in support/logistics)], [Something Com-Spec, Mil-Tech, etc]
Skill 1: 2-3 Civvie Skills (at least one of which, and maybe all, have SOME use in the military), + 1-2 Military Skills (maybe with some civvie uses)
2 Stunts for Combat; 1-2 stunts useful in the military AND as a civilian; (maybe) 1 Civvie stunt
He is, frankly, pretty kick-ass on a mortal-only battlefield.  He's far from incompetent in civilian life.  When he de-mob's, he can go straight into some physical job leveraging off his Athletics, or maybe use Vet's Benefits to ramp up one of those Skill-2 skills (i.e. most ComSpec/MilTech jobs have direct civvie analogues) by a level or two & become pretty kick-ass on the civilian front, too.

Yes, he's in over his head if you throw him into a Submerged game!  But then again, the other PC's shouldn't be Submerged, either -- their Skills and Stunts will be on par with his.  Even if they're supernatural, his Guns, Fists/Athletics, and surplus of FatePoints should have him holding his own, on AND off the battlefield.

Just out of Basic, he probably looked like:
Skill 3: Guns or Athletics
Skill 2: Athletics or Guns, Fists
Skill 1: Drive, [Something Civvie (but militarily useful in support/logistics)], [Something Com-Spec, Mil-Tech, etc]
1 Combat Stunt, 1 Military/Civilian crossover stunts, 1 Civvie-centric stunt

Yeah, he's relatively "weak" in the Dresdenverse... but one good roll with Guns:3 using an M-16 will take out most foes, even supernatural ones.  And this guy is On the Beach!  As a civvie, he's not much... hired to do unskilled/semi-skilled physical labor off his Athletics, likely.

[beachhead1973]

Really?

Because a Submerged mortal can be the world's greatest quantum physicist, an exceptionally-skilled medical doctor, an Olympic sprinter, a millionaire, and a skilled negotiator. They can do all that with enough room left in their build for the combat skills to kill vampires in duels. And they'll have half a dozen FP to spare.

I suspect that your standards might be unreasonably high.

I suspect one of us did his character creation wrong; probably me, since you sound confidant. The Character I built at submerged the first time was basically helpless.

[beachhead1973]

Let's take your veteran soldier:
Skill 4: Guns
Skill 3: Fists, Athletics
Skill 2: Drive, [Something Civvie (but militarily useful in support/logistics)], [Something Com-Spec, Mil-Tech, etc]
Skill 1: 2-3 Civvie Skills (at least one of which, and maybe all, have SOME use in the military), + 1-2 Military Skills (maybe with some civvie uses)
2 Stunts for Combat; 1-2 stunts useful in the military AND as a civilian; (maybe) 1 Civvie stunt
He is, frankly, pretty kick-ass on a mortal-only battlefield.  He's far from incompetent in civilian life.  When he de-mob's, he can go straight into some physical job leveraging off his Athletics, or maybe use Vet's Benefits to ramp up one of those Skill-2 skills (i.e. most ComSpec/MilTech jobs have direct civvie analogues) by a level or two & become pretty kick-ass on the civilian front, too.

Yes, he's in over his head if you throw him into a Submerged game!  But then again, the other PC's shouldn't be Submerged, either -- their Skills and Stunts will be on par with his.  Even if they're supernatural, his Guns, Fists/Athletics, and surplus of FatePoints should have him holding his own, on AND off the battlefield.

Just out of Basic, he probably looked like:
Skill 3: Guns or Athletics
Skill 2: Athletics or Guns, Fists
Skill 1: Drive, [Something Civvie (but militarily useful in support/logistics)], [Something Com-Spec, Mil-Tech, etc]
1 Combat Stunt, 1 Military/Civilian crossover stunts, 1 Civvie-centric stunt

Yeah, he's relatively "weak" in the Dresdenverse... but one good roll with Guns:3 using an M-16 will take out most foes, even supernatural ones.  And this guy is On the Beach!  As a civvie, he's not much... hired to do unskilled/semi-skilled physical labor off his Athletics, likely.

Oh god, my brains. I was with you, right up until the M16 bit.

Yeah based on how you described that; we did it very, very wrong.

[g33k]

... I was with you, right up until the M16 bit ...

Now, give Mr. On The Beach a clued-in (even if just Feet In the Water) ally, who feeds him custom-load ammo.  Silver, FrEx.  Bullets scribed with a cross and blessed by a priest.  Tranq-darts loaded with Holy Water.

Put all those into clips for a P90, like Murphy got from Kincaid.

Our soldier becomes something VERY feared in the supernatural world.

As Harry remarks (more than once) -- there is a reason the Supernaturals want to keep the mortals more-or-less clueless:  they can quickly get scary-dangerous.

You can equip a division of elite soldiers in the way I described above VERY fast, and that group could assault almost any Vamp stronghold -- of any court -- with a VERY high probability of success.

[Sanctaphrax]

I suspect one of us did his character creation wrong; probably me, since you sound confidant. The Character I built at submerged the first time was basically helpless.

Huh. Gotta wonder how you pulled that off.

Maybe you spread your skills too wide? One Superb skill tends to be a lot more useful than five Average skills.

Generally speaking, if you put your highest skill slots in the skills you intend to use and then take some stunts to boost those skills you should be fine.

What did you do?

PS: It's also possible that the problem wasn't in character creation. If people are demanding Good rolls for routine tasks, then everyone is gonna look incompetent.

[MagusVulpes]

Tranq-darts loaded with Holy Water.

That is beautiful in it's cheap simplicity. Makes me wanna play a Divine Gunner now, lol, especially since if wouldn't be NEARLY as lethal as silver rounds for mortals. Use Steel tipped darts and it'll cover Fae, Ghouls, and Vamps all at once, possibly even Fomor...

[Magicpockets]

PS: It's also possible that the problem wasn't in character creation. If people are demanding Good rolls for routine tasks, then everyone is gonna look incompetent.

That was probably the main reason why my first character in DF (a White Court Virgin at Chest Deep) sucked donkey balls. Good was the default difficulty for stuff like navel gazing maneuvers, picking locks etc. I took the skill pyramid while everyone else took the pillar. That, and being a White Court Virgin and not abusing the hell out of Incite Emotion. I was basically a True Mortal with 4 Refresh less.

[beachhead1973]

Huh. Gotta wonder how you pulled that off.

Maybe you spread your skills too wide? One Superb skill tends to be a lot more useful than five Average skills.

Generally speaking, if you put your highest skill slots in the skills you intend to use and then take some stunts to boost those skills you should be fine.

What did you do?

Couldn't tell you. We did everything up in word first, translating over from WoD characters from our campaign there (and we were very, VERY glad at the switch, even with my issues with FATE), copied them to character sheets and then as we played re-did them onto that TDF Character creation program that got abandoned.

The campaigns we ran tended to be long and busy. After a few major milestones and two computer crashes, I have no accurate idea what our characters originally looked like.

My buddy played an un-trained wizard, and his style was less concerned with covering his bases anyways. I stuck with my previous experience and laid down a point in everything I thought I needed, bulked out the right "stat" skills and then tried, badly to do justice to the skills I was supposed to have been good at and then re-did it with "stats" and vital skills first.

My vital skills being hurting people and my buddy being the kick-in-the-door kind of player, our campaigns followed the track-find-kill pattern and we couldn't handle anything else.

[Magicpockets]

A couple of notes from our home game:
-Use Declarations. They're free, so everyone should use them whenever they're appropriate. In our game, I was literally the only one using them, and got a lot of mileage out of them.
-Use maneuvers. We had a bruiser in that game with Supernatural Strength/Speed who only ever attacked, without doing anything else. Needless to say, she failed to outperform the other characters, even though they were nowhere near that level of ability.
-Be creative. Certain skills like Scholarship and Burglary depend on proactive use to get any mileage out of them.

[fantazero]

A couple of notes from our home game:
-Use Declarations. They're free, so everyone should use them whenever they're appropriate. In our game, I was literally the only one using them, and got a lot of mileage out of them.
-Use maneuvers. We had a bruiser in that game with Supernatural Strength/Speed who only ever attacked, without doing anything else. Needless to say, she failed to outperform the other characters, even though they were nowhere near that level of ability.
-Be creative. Certain skills like Scholarship and Burglary depend on proactive use to get any mileage out of them.

Don't you have to use Fate Point to declare things?

[Taran]

Don't you have to use Fate Point to declare things?

You don't have to.  You can use a skill roll instead.  There's a chart for the Difficulties of a given declaration.  I'll try to find it.

[beachhead1973]

Talked to my buddy and got it figured out. I was thinking of a whole different system, two actually.

Mea culpa for talking out my butt.

[beachhead1973]

Those links were extremely helpful. I have a batch of ideas sketched out using the newest character generator i could find.