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Devlog #3
Character Creation
This is going to be an update on the development of Archquest- specifically an in-depth look at character creation. News of the game has been rather silent lately, but it is still under development.
This is the character creation screen. Before, there was only your class to select, but now there is a more comprehensive system where you select your ancestry, heritage, background, class, and more.
The system itself is standard for RPG computer games- There are menu items on the left which brings you to different sections of character creation. You can go back and forth as much as you want- it doesn't have to be in order.
Ancestry
For ancestries, Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling have been implemented. Gnome, Leshy, and Goblin are not yet available, but maybe in the future. Leshy in particular would be interesting to have as a playable ancestry. If you're not familiar, a Leshy is a plant-like person, that can take many different shapes like a cactus or pumpkin. Its something that would require a good amount of art support- not just for making all of the different models(each one would be unique), but also armors. Each armor piece has to be modified to fit the different ancestry bodies. What does a Leshy in full-plate even look like?
On the right panel, you can see what your ancestry gives you- as well as the available ancestry feats. It gives you a little tooltip so you can what it does. You don't have all of these right away- You pick one at level 1 and gain more ancestry feats as you level up.
Your Ancestry, Background, and Class give you Ability Boosts, and this is the way in which Ability Scores are distributed. There is also a section in which you get 4 free Ability Boosts. In this case humans get two free ability boosts.
You can also see your total Ability Scores at the top. The game is still using the traditional OGL numbers for ability scores. In the revised rules, it's just the modifier. So, instead of 18, it's just +4. The code has not yet been updated to support the new rules, and I need to look at the ORC license and evaluate if it would be a good fit for the game. But I do think Archquest will probably switch over.
Heritage
Heritages are like sub-ancestries which give you a minor bonus. For human we have Skilled Human, which gives you a free skill- And Versitile Human, which gives you a free general feat.
Background
Backgrounds give you ability boots and a trained skill. In the tabletop rules, each background gives you a different skill feat- but a lot of the skill feats in tabletop don't work very well in a video game. Some skill feats like Combat Medicine are implemented, but many of them are really situational or use mechanics that aren't going to be in the game.
Classes
For classes, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Barbarian, and Cleric are implemented. It'll give you a little preview of the armor you might wear with each class. Like with ancestry, it will show you what you get and what feats you have access to on the right. There's also class progression button that will show you what you get in the future.
Skills
Like weapons and armors, skills use the proficiency system. Skills start untrained, and go to trained, expert, master, and legendary. At first level, your maximum proficiency is trained. These skills are used in combat, dialogue, and in the world. For example, In combat you can use Deception to Feint, which throws your opponent off-guard. Intimidation to Demoralize, which makes them frightened, or acrobatics to Tumble Though an opponent's square.
Appearance
Lastly, you can customize your avatar's appearance. It's not exactly a AAA character maker, but there are still a good amount of options to choose from.
Thats all for this update. So far, the game is a small project. I haven't done any crowdfunding, Patreon, anything like that. A few people have donated via itch.io, so if you are one of those, thank you very much. I also haven't done much marketing- so you have an interest in the game, I'd appreciate it if you could get the word out any way you can.
day ruined