Character Creation and Setting Information

Welcome welcome!

We'll be starting our game in Sharn, where your characters will be joining the Clifftop Adventurers Guild. For those unfamiliar with Eberron, Sharn is located in the nation of Breland, and is the largest city on the continent of Khorvaire. It sits on a manifest zone to the plane of Elemental Air, so the architecture is unlike what you'll find in other cities. It's basically a group of towers that reach up into the highest heights and plunge down below into the depths.

Character creation in Fate Accelerated is pretty straight forward. If you're stuck on a High Concept for your character, you can always use a race/class combination from Dungeons and Dragons, like Gnome Artificer or Warforged Fighter. If you plan to play a magic user of some kind, you'll need to build permission to use magic into your High Concept.

Tell me about the character you want to play. Please ask questions about the game and the setting. And again, welcome to Eberron!

Thanks, GM, and greetings to everyone!
I’m fairly familiar with the setting, I just need to brush up on the Fate Accelerated rules since it’s been a while since I last played.
Since we’re starting in the Clifftop Adventurers Guild, I assume our characters don’t know each other yet and there aren’t really restrictions on what kind of character we can play, right? Except maybe that they should lean more toward good than evil, since the guild for unscrupulous adventurers in Sharn is in another district. ;)

Thanks for the invite.

The whole concept of "play anything" is a little daunting :) I've been kicking around a few concepts all week.

One thing I'm trying to figure out about Fate Accelerated - it seems armor has no purpose. I'm not even sure weapons do - other than a ranged weapon lets you attack at range.

If my plate armor warrior is in a fight, i can use Forceful in defense with a description "turns to block the blow on his armor".
my naked rogue could use Quick with a description "I casually step out of the way."
my mage in a tee shirt could use Clever to say "my magical barrier intercepts the blow"

They all have the same chance of success - the only difference is if we fall into a lake - the plate warrior is more likely to drown.

It's melting my D&D brain a little bit.

@Caleb75 Your character should have a reason to join the Clifftop guild. And yes, please play someone with more heroic impulses than evil tendencies. You do not have to know each other from the onset, but it wouldn't hurt either.

@DrifterDwarf You're right, armor and weapons are just flavor. I'm also an avid D&D player, and it did take some getting used to when I was first introduced to Fate.

I've got two completely different concepts I've been toying with.

First one: I really like artificer class in Eberron, but I don't do the steam punk approach, I lean more toward the rune mage. Everything is covered in magical runes and when the character casts a spell, they activate certain ones. I played one very briefly who was a soldier who lost an arm during the war. Having a fully magical replacement, it was covered in runes which he used to power his spells. Kind of a Fighter/Artificer in D&D. I started thinking he could lean into the Armorer flavor with built in magical armor (which is all flavor obviously).

Then I realized - I was building the "Winter Soldier" from the Marvel movies. Which I'm totally cool with :)

Second one: In a completely different direction by going full Telekinetic. Not the D&D I can move up to 10 pounds kind, but pulling objects off the walls, ripping a door off its hinges, tossing that guy off the roof kind :) Someone who can use Telekinesis to block arrows and force choke people :)

I have to start thinking of Aspects.

Have you considered your magic system yet? I've read in some places since Fate is just descriptive - if your character could normally do it - then great. The question comes in when the air wizard wants to cast a Fly spell.

For magic we're going to start with permission aspects. You have to have an aspect that grants you permission to use magic. Like Grumpy Old Wizard or Cleric of the Silver Flame. This will let you do things I would allow within the game anyway. Then, if you want your magic to do something more powerful, you should develop a stunt that does that thing.

What are you thinking the equivalent power level is when we are talking magic? First level D&D or is this something higher? To follow the the "Fly" example - that is usually 5th level character. Is that in reach - or is that something where you would invoke an aspect with a Fate point in order to do something normally out of bounds.

Let’s say your characters start at a power level higher than 1st level D&D characters, but not at earth shaking power level from the jump. And yes, if you want to do something outside of what’s usually allowed and you don’t have a stunt for it you would spend a fate point and invoke an aspect.

For really complex magical effects I might have you make a series of rolls to achieve them.

We should also keep in mind that in Khorvaire very few individuals can cast spells higher than third level (meaning very few have more than sixth level experience). Maybe we could roughly consider ourselves as around third-level characters?

If you need a frame of reference that's a good one to start at. I don't want you to limit yourselves to the vancian magic of D&D though. If you want to do something tell me, and we'll figure it out.

👍

Greetings all! I'm looking forward to this.

I'm thinking of something that would be along the lines of the Arcane Trickster in D&D but not quite that. Touchstones would be the Grey Mouser and Shadowspawn (I may be dating myself with those references) but not tied into that.

I'm used to full fat Fate, so I'll need to review which parts get excised for Accelerated besides skills being replaced by approaches and the narrower default Stunt system.

As for some of the stuff you're already been discussing: Yes, equipment is generally just narrative permission (armor letting you use forceful to defend, a rope letting you use clever to climb, etc...) but in regular fate, they can also be Extras that give certain advantages or bonuses without needing to expend a Fate point or generate an aspect (so Armor might give +1 to defend in certain circumstances or a weapon might impose a condition on a Success with Style). My understanding is that's less common with Accelerated (but, by definition anything from Fate Core can be incorporated if the GM chooses to).

I’d rather not delve into the weeds of gear as extras, although gear as aspects is a different story. If you wield the Axe of Agony that could be cool.

Hi all! I'm looking forward to this game. It's been an age since I played anything D&D flavoured, but I've got plenty of experience with Fate Accelerated (it's my favorite Fate version).

I might need to read up on some of the Eberron lore. I've found an Eberron Wiki. Is this the best place for lore?

My thoughts on a character is only this at the moment: I'll probably avoid a character that has deep ties into the religion as that could require a little more knowledge of the setting than I have.

@dunderklumpen How much do you want to know about the setting?

I'll just leave this here.

Depending on how much lore you want, start with the Eberron Campaign Setting.

This might be useful to you all as well.

Totally makes sense on not using Extras frequently in Accelerated.

I'm thinking about a Changeling former magical spy for Cyre. Trouble is something like "The attentions of The Traveler"

focus is on Sneaky with Flashy being their worst approach.

@Bullseyepsa Sounds fun!

Thanks muchly for the links, @JoshuaMabry