🛡️ The ex-soldier (50 points)

A discharged veteran turning to adventuring work. Decent body, knows their weapons, and picked up plenty of useful bits during years on campaign.

Concept and assumptions

  • Starting budget: 50 character points (the default for a new player character).
  • Tone: grounded fantasy. No powers, no exotic weapons.
  • Party role: dependable front-liner who can also pull their weight between fights.

Statistics — 20 points

  • Strength 13 (6 pts) — swinging steel and surviving a beating.
  • Agility 13 (6 pts) — base for weapon, shield, and dodge skills.
  • Intelligence 11 (1 pt) — sharper than the average recruit.
  • Constitution 12 (3 pts) — can take a hit and keep marching.
  • Willpower 11 (1 pt) — kept their head when it counted.
  • Speed +2 (3 pts) — calculated from Agility (base Speed 7 → 8). A front-liner who can close, reposition, and bank extra actions when the fight stretches.

The two 13s do double duty: they raise every linked skill on top of the skill levels below. See Base statistics for the cost curve, and Calculated statistics for buying Speed levels.

Combat skills — 13 points

  • Sword (AGI) at level 3 — primary weapon. Roll target 16 (13 + 3).
  • Shield (AGI) at level 2 — block and brace.
  • Knife (AGI) at level 2 — back-up close in.
  • Bow (AGI) at level 1 — basic ranged option, target 14 (13 + 1).

Soldiering & life skills — 10 points

  • Survival / Bush-craft (INT) at level 2 — living off the land.
  • Tactics (INT) at level 2 — reading a fight before it starts.
  • Trading (WIL) at level 1 — sold loot more than once.
  • Blacksmithing (INT) at level 1 — kept their own kit working.
  • Animal Handler (WIL) at level 1 — looked after the company horses.
  • Carousing (CON) at level 1 — the after-hours half of every campaign.

All skill names come from the default list in the app — pick exact matches when you build this character in Edit Player Character.

Totals so far

20 (stats) + 13 (combat) + 10 (life) = 43 points spent. That leaves 7 points for advantages and/or net disadvantages.

Suggested traits — 7 points to play with

Pick one of these to taste, or mix freely. The exact mix is best agreed with the GM.

  • Veteran with backing. Membership of Military Order and/or High Pain Threshold — institutional ties and a body that has been through it. Spend up to your remaining points; no refunds needed.
  • Hard road home. Haunted (refund) for what the last campaign cost them, plus Quick Healer and Persistent bought with the freed points.
  • Wanted man. Wanted (refund) over an order they refused to obey, plus Fearlessness and a higher Sword or Bow level paid out of the refund.

See Advantages & disadvantages for the full default lists and the cost convention (same curve as skills).

Why this build works

This fighter is dangerous in their specialty and useful between fights. The party does not need to send for a stranger every time the ground is hard, the horses are sick, or someone has to talk down a merchant. The high AGI keeps the back-up weapons relevant, the Speed bump keeps them mobile in a brawl, and the leftover points let the table tune the personality without breaking the build.

Compare with the borderland scout or the cleric: same budget, very different problems solved.

See also

Build it in the app

Edit Player Character (app)