HMK Sample Character
Would like to confirm before I proceed. I made a few sample characters so far. This one is... I think I made Superman? Did I do this right? This is a Young character, and I rolled BALLER (legit) using the 5d6-drop-2 method (from HMK) for Physical stats. TBF, I had to boost his mental points by 12, b/c his totals were 61, below the recommended minimum of 73 (also from HMK).
Where I'm wondering if I effed up is... Look at his combat skills, and then look at page 2. This guy -- raised by parents with the Man-at-arms background, being a man-at-arms himself, AND having rolled Angberelius, -AND- being Superman... He begins his adventuring career with 100 in most ATK/DEF skills? And b/c of his STR, it looks like that even being armed like a porcupine, wearing the Kurbul Cuirass outfit (he is a bit meagre), he has no combat penalties until he takes wounds; or fights for 60 rounds.
Is this just a fluke of the dice? Or did I screw up somewhere? I'd like to make sure I have this right before I start cranking out NPC's.
(NOTE: It doesn't seem the sunsign mods are calculated into the ML's on Page 1 -- which I think is correct -- so I had to manually add them in on Page 2; thus 85 becomes 100.)
Thanks, in advance!
Sunsign modifiers
Thanks for submitting this for review—it raises a very important detail.
The Sunsign modifiers are NOT added directly to the ML of the skills in the Social, Lore, Physical, Nature, Craft, and Combat groups.
Instead, their Sunsign modifiers most commonly serve as a modifier to a Fate Test (read page 276 and let us know if you have a follow up question about how to figure the ML of a Fate Test).
For skills in the Esoteric skill group (such as Pvarism) these very same Sunsign modifiers often, indeed, DO directly increase ML or EML (depending on the skill).
Thus, your various weapon ATK and DEF numbers on page 2 should be reduced by 15 (which is your Combat Sunsign modifier). This brings them back down to ML85.
Your 'superman' character, in my view, ends up being a pretty good stress test on the best-case upper bound of a combat character: this PC has DEX18, AGL15, Man-at-arms Parents, and 3 Sunsign DP in the Combat skill group. The maximum starting SM is 5+2 Mastery Boosts, for a starting ML93:
Starting SM2
Family SM1
Occupation SM2
Optional SM1
Sunsign SM1
With a Melee SB of 17, the final ML would be:
SB17 x 5 = ML85
plus 1 Mastery Boost of +4 = ML89
plus 1 more Mastery Boost of +4 = ML93
So, still quite high—but this is a near-perfectly rolled combat character. The Mastery Boost table—along with how all the various SM are designed and calibrated—will usually keep even the MLs of "perfect" characters in the 90s.
Thanks for sharing your character—very cool!
Roger That!
I'll modify accordingly, but great that it's close to spot-on. Thanks!