I want to know how you guys set up your characters.
Wild Survivalist:
[spoiler]
Stats:
8 Strength
8 Dexterity
10 Intelligence
10 Perception
Traits:
Positive Traits:
Animal Empathy
Self-Aware
Negative Traits:
Glass Jaw
Lightweight
Truth-Teller
Ugly
Skills:
Level 1 Dodge
Level 1 Melee
Level 2 Survival
Level 1 Traps
He is designed for surviving in the wild for weeks on end, I survived 3 weeks in the wild with him (8 Bears magically appeared in my sleep.)[/spoiler]
Str: 14
Dex: 13
Int: 14
Per: 8
Glass Jaw
Lightweight
Addictive Personality
Wool Allergy
Truth Teller
Ugly
ST 11
DX 10
IN 12
PE 10
Fast Reader
Light Step
Night Vision
Robust Genetics
Poison Resistant
(Martial Arts Training/Shaolin Adept)/-3/5 points, respectively
Insomniac
Heavy Sleeper
Trigger Happy
(HP Ignorant)/+1 point
Truth Teller
Glass Jaw
1 point in Dodge=rank 2 at start
Taekwondo/Dragon Style
Don’t you melee guys need a lot of first aid kits and anti-biotics now that bites are infectious?
Wow you guys really pick insomniac? I love sleeping. It heals up a lot and you really wanna waste as little time as possible sleeping.
Personally I always start with Android, Quick and/or Fleet-footed. Android really makes every character different than the others, night vision is a nice one… Self-Aware is really a must now for me now that I’ve seen what it does.
I don’t make all characters the same, tho I usually try to squeeze in skills like mechanics, electronics etc into my loadout. I know some people have the idea that investing in skills, bionics etc from start is useless because you can get that later, well, the start is what I like the most, and having to run around looking for those starter books is a pain. I’d rather spend that time busting into labs etc, and if I do stumble upon some books that’s fine, I’ll store them somewhere for future characters.
Also, I like glass jaw but I don’t really think it’s a proper negative trait. I imagine the head is less durable normally so it’s like free points for me, just saying.
Finally I prefer to run and gun but for the people specializing in melee, 
I haven’t had a serious game in 0.3 yet and by serious, I mean I just play for fun in this version rather than surviving, so the character build proposed below might not work in 0.3 due to some minor problems (Read: Infectious bites that kill you).
For starters, the strength of my character, hereafter referred to as Bob (in reverse, because Bob is a pretty common name), is always brought to 14. He also gets Near-Sighted, Ugly, Truth-Teller, Addictive Personality (Because I never do drugs unless I’m dying), Weak Stomach, Lightweight, and of course, Chemical Imbalance.
The most annoying of these negative traits is the Chemical Imbalance, which isn’t annoying at all. Anyway, the positive traits I take are Fleet-Footed, Quick, and Parkour Expert. Night Vision is a must but I always forget to put it as a positive trait so it won’t be included here as my usual character choice either.
Anyway, as for skills, I always invest four points into Dodge. Why? Because I really, really don’t want to wear a ton of armour and stand around a lone zombie while he punches me and brings my dodge skill up. Not to mention it is pretty useful when running away from fast zombies, as most of them will miss with a Dodge level of 4. This was the best character setup I ever had and once lasted me for more than twenty days, where I committed suicide because of the boredom.
Recently, though, I am starting to invest in Material Arts…
Not terribly much, no. I don’t tend to get infected too often, and when I do, there’s usually MORE than enough antibiotics to fix the issue.
I do sometimes have issues where I’ve already used up all my first aid kits and need to wait for it to become infected enough for antibiotics to work, though >_>.
Not terribly much, no. I don’t tend to get infected too often, and when I do, there’s usually MORE than enough antibiotics to fix the issue.
I do sometimes have issues where I’ve already used up all my first aid kits and need to wait for it to become infected enough for antibiotics to work, though >_>.[/quote]
That sounds suspiciously like zombie thinking, son.
oh wait, zombie thinking is Braaaaaains.
Str 8
Dx 10
Int 12/14
Per 10/11
Strength dump stat forever and always, unless you’re melee a lot (which I do, but meh. much prefer stats in dex and per.)
I have a couple builds that I use regularly, and some I just make for fun, with some variation in between. I like to go for a ‘theme’ and I like to roleplay my characters somewhat.
Here’s my brawler archetype. He’s a big hulking brute with a heart of gold as evidenced by his ‘animal empathy’ trait. He sometimes gets depressed that his only talent is hurting things. In another life he’d probably raise animals.
Str 14
Dex 10
Int 8
Per 6
Fast Healer, Pain Resistant, Tough, Animal Empathy
Bad back, Ugly, Trigger Happy, Smelly, Mood swings, Truth Teller, Ugly
Take melee combat related skills with any extra points
The second is an archer/survivalist. I imagine this is an outdoorsman that has to hunt and camp to survive now instead of for fun.
Don’t do any sort of drugs except possibly make poppy painkillers if necessary. Do everything possible to keep your Strength above 10 and carry a crossbow or compound bow for backup if illness or pain drops your stats and makes you too weak to pull your longbow.
Str 10
Dex 8
Int 10
Per 11
Fleet Footed, Quick, Light Step, Night vision
Glass Jaw, Lightweight, Addictive Personality, Trigger Happy, Weak Stomach, Truth Teller
1 point in dodge, 1 point in archery, 1 point in survival, so you can immediately set about building a longbow.
The talented one: A natural born leader and skilled individual. He probably worked a job with his hands, perhaps as a construction foreman. This guy needs to read to learn more skills, Savant trait means he won’t gain as much from ‘in the field’ practice. Set him up with some books pronto. You can shuffle points around if you want to keep Savant to give him ‘Fast Reader’ as well which will help with that.
Str 10
Dex 8
Int 14
Per 8
Inconspicuous
Near Sighted, Heavy Sleeper, Lightweight, Savant
Mechanics, Construction, Traps, Speech
And now for a real challenge build. This is a Russian immigrant used to the harsh life and was already a loner before the cataclysm. She’s very tough and resourceful but doesn’t speak English very well nor does she read it at all, as represented by the ‘Illiterate’ trait. She had some sort of accident that causes her intermittent pain and odd effects now and again, as evidenced by the ‘chemical imbalance’. She’ll be the happiest over a steaming pot of soup with a nice bottle of vodka in her hand.
If you want to modify this, perhaps add ‘glass jaw’ to further simulate her lingering head injury, or change poison resistance and packmule out for disease resistant and fast learner
Str: 8
Dex: 10
Int: 9
Per: 9
Fleet-Footed, Packmule, Poison resistant, Light Step
Illiterate, Chemical imbalance, Ugly
Dodge, Firearms, Survival, Traps
I have made a few ‘one off’ characters for fun like a 24-point martial artist named Kenshiro, a 16 strength/tough/thick skinned bruiser with mood swings named Marv (always wear a trenchcoat and tank top), and a 24-point Android with very high stats named Motoko Kusanagi.
[quote=“sodapop, post:9, topic:612”][spoiler]I have a couple builds that I use regularly, and some I just make for fun, with some variation in between. I like to go for a ‘theme’ and I like to roleplay my characters somewhat.
Here’s my brawler archetype. He’s a big hulking brute with a heart of gold as evidenced by his ‘animal empathy’ trait. He sometimes gets depressed that his only talent is hurting things. In another life he’d probably raise animals.
Str 14
Dex 10
Int 8
Per 6
Fast Healer, Pain Resistant, Tough, Animal Empathy
Bad back, Ugly, Trigger Happy, Smelly, Mood swings, Truth Teller, Ugly
Take melee combat related skills with any extra points
The second is an archer/survivalist. I imagine this is an outdoorsman that has to hunt and camp to survive now instead of for fun.
Don’t do any sort of drugs except possibly make poppy painkillers if necessary. Do everything possible to keep your Strength above 10 and carry a crossbow or compound bow for backup if illness or pain drops your stats and makes you too weak to pull your longbow.
Str 10
Dex 8
Int 10
Per 11
Fleet Footed, Quick, Light Step, Night vision
Glass Jaw, Lightweight, Addictive Personality, Trigger Happy, Weak Stomach, Truth Teller
1 point in dodge, 1 point in archery, 1 point in survival, so you can immediately set about building a longbow.
The talented one: A natural born leader and skilled individual. He probably worked a job with his hands, perhaps as a construction foreman. This guy needs to read to learn more skills, Savant trait means he won’t gain as much from ‘in the field’ practice. Set him up with some books pronto. You can shuffle points around if you want to keep Savant to give him ‘Fast Reader’ as well which will help with that.
Str 10
Dex 8
Int 14
Per 8
Inconspicuous
Near Sighted, Heavy Sleeper, Lightweight, Savant
Mechanics, Construction, Traps, Speech
And now for a real challenge build. This is a Russian immigrant used to the harsh life and was already a loner before the cataclysm. She’s very tough and resourceful but doesn’t speak English very well nor does she read it at all, as represented by the ‘Illiterate’ trait. She had some sort of accident that causes her intermittent pain and odd effects now and again, as evidenced by the ‘chemical imbalance’. She’ll be the happiest over a steaming pot of soup with a nice bottle of vodka in her hand.
If you want to modify this, perhaps add ‘glass jaw’ to further simulate her lingering head injury, or change poison resistance and packmule out for disease resistant and fast learner
Str: 8
Dex: 10
Int: 9
Per: 9
Fleet-Footed, Packmule, Poison resistant, Light Step
Illiterate, Chemical imbalance, Ugly
Dodge, Firearms, Survival, Traps
I have made a few ‘one off’ characters for fun like a 24-point martial artist named Kenshiro, a 16 strength/tough/thick skinned bruiser with mood swings named Marv (always wear a trenchcoat and tank top), and a 24-point Android with very high stats named Motoko Kusanagi.[/spoiler][/quote]
Nice selection, I like the archer one the most.