You may have have noticed some bits on character creation in the KS video, and I wanted to expand on some aspects. At its heart, SDS is a points based system with about 80 abilities each having ranks and costs. To create a character, players choose a Race, a Class and a Specialty. Each of these is a container of abilities, with each Class containing the same number of points as each other Class
Abilities run the gamut from offense to defense, mobility to senses, stats to skills. For example, a Dwarf has higher resistance to damage, and resistance to knockback, among his abilities. Each combination of Race/Class/Specialty yields a different balance. Some of the combinations seem obvious, Tough Knight, Rogue Scout, but the reverse of these combinations will also produce viable characters.
A Rogue Knight wouldn't have the stacked defenses of a Tough Knight, but he'd make an effective point man, with heavy armor for ambushes, and the skills to spot and disarm traps. A Tough Scout could slip into the back ranks of enemies, and still survive any counterattacks.
As characters advance, they gain points to upgrade their current abilities, or purchase new ones. Some abilities are reserved for particular Races, Classes, and Specialties, while others are open to all characters. So the player can either double down on his current set up, or broaden his characters to make them more adaptable to situations.
The values for each character's five main statistics (strength, dexterity, spirit, intelligence and hit points) comes from the choice of Class and Specialty. Buying additional ranks in Statistic Boost or Hit Point Boost will improve these later in the game. Statistics are used with Skills, and improve damage, Strength for heavy weapons, Dexterity for bows and light weapons, and Intelligence for Spells.
The whole goal of this system is to allow easy creation of the whole party, with lots of room for customization, and no degenerate solutions. In short, a great testbed for experimenting. Let me know if there are other aspects which interest you. The exact balance with each Class, etc. won't be set in stone until we finish final balance, of course, but the broad strokes are in place.
