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Character Design for the Uninhibited

Author:

John Fraser

Layout:

Jeremy Smith

Additional Layout:

Andreas

Rönnqvist

Interior Illustrations:

Rick Hershey, Shaman’s Stockart, V. Shane

Cover Illustration:

John Milner

This edition of

Complete Control

is produced under version 1.0a, 5.0, and/or draft versions of the Open Game License and the

System Reference Document by permission of Wizards of the Coast. Subsequent versions of this product will incorporate later

versions of the license and document.

Designation of Product Identity:

The following items are hereby designated as Product Identity in accordance with Section 1(e)

of the Open Game License, version 1.0a: Any and all Dreamscarred Press logos and identifying marks and trade dress, such as

all Dreamscarred Press product and product line names including but not limited to

Complete Control: Character Design for the

Uninhibited, Untapped Classes: Society Mind, Untapped Potential: New Horizons in Psionics;

and all artwork, symbols, designs,

depictions, illustrations, maps, and cartography, likenesses, poses, logos, or graphic designs, except such elements that already

appear in final or draft versions of the d20 System Reference Document or as Open Game Content below and are already open by

virtue of appearing there. The above Product Identity is not Open Game Content.

Open Game Content:

The entirety of this work with the exception of the above-mentioned Product Identity is designated as Open

Game Content.

and 2001 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. The remainder of the Open Game Content portions of this book are hereby added to Open

Game Content and if so used, should bear the COPYRIGHT NOTICE “Complete

Control”

terial is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction, re-transmission, or unauthorized

use of the artwork or non-Open Game Content herein is prohibited without express written permission from this book’s authors,

except for purposes of review or use of Open Game Content consistent with the Open Game License. The original purchaser may

print or photocopy copies for his or her own personal use only.

This document is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events is purely coincidental.

Adapted from the Buy the Numbers system (see www.stcooleypublishing.com for more information)

Some images contained within copyright V. Shane or Shaman’s Stockart and are used with permission.

Table of Contents

The Basics: Fundamentals for Everyone

Step One: How To Buy A Character’s Initial

Statistics With No Experience

Step Two: The First Purchase - Hit Dice

Step Three: Offense

Step Four: Resistance

Step Five: Selecting Feats

Step Six: Skills

Step Seven: Weapon and Armor Proficiencies

Step Eight: Attribute Increases

Summary of the Basics

Constant Abilities

Variable Abilities

Level-Variable Abilities

Use-Variable Abilities

Progression-Variable Abilities

Summary of Variable Abilities

Powers, Spells, and Incantations

Psionic Progressions

Arcane and Divine Progressions

Channeling Progressions

Psionics, Magic, and Channeling Summary

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esign

Introduction to Terms and Definitions

What Do You Mean My Character Has No Class?

Corollary One: Character Level

Corollary Two:

Purchasing New Elements of a Character

Symbols Used Throughout This Work

Play Considerations

Upper Boundaries

Game Breaking Possibilities

Creating Characters Above 1st Level

What To Do With Characters That

Have A Level Adjustment

Designer’s Notes

Hit Dice

Base Attack Bonus

Skills

Feats

Saves

Proficiencies

Ability Score Increases

Class Abilities

Psionics and Magic

Channeling

Conclusion on the Designer’s Notes

List of Class Abilities

Example Builds

Baruk, a Dark Wanderer

Deneva, a Connected Mind

Juran, a Magus

Marcus, a Pugilist

Shanra, a Force of Persona

Sirensia, a Sonic Mind

Tin’tal, a Woodsman

Quick Reference Pages

iii

Introduction to Terms and Definitions

Every character has to have certain statistics

in a role-playing game. Depending on the sys-

tem, the necessary statistics change.

Complete

Control: Character Design for the Uninhibited

is designed for gaming systems that incorpo-

rate known quantities like Hit Dice, Base At-

tack Bonus, six Ability Scores, three Saving

Throw modifiers, Skills, Feats, Magic, and

even Psionics and Channeling.

Of course, these are only a handful of things

that make up a character to be role-played.

Since this product has to begin somewhere, it

might as well begin with the most easily defin-

able quantities. Even still, before we can get

to the basics there are three fundamental mind-

shattering principles that must be accepted. I

suppose – to be honest – it is more like one

principle and two

additional corol-

laries.

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What Do You Mean My Character Has

No Class?

No, it isn’t quite what you think. A charac-

ter can have as much class or as little class as

desired. Anyone can role-play class into or out

of any character. But the principle that must be

understood is that this system frees characters

from the concept of having a class or a prestige

class. A character can have class, but a charac-

ter no longer has a class.

Let that thought sink into the mind for a little

bit. How much of current role-playing is cen-

tered on this concept of class? Many abilities

that a character can attain are dependent on their

class. The amount of damage a character can

endure is based on class. The skills a character

can have are based on class. The psionic pow-

ers, magic spells and incantations, or divine

abilities are based on class. But what if this no

longer had to be true? What if – like in some

top grade spoof that combined

The Matrix

with

role-playing – Morpheus was sitting before

you holding out two pills? One of them

was red and the other was blue. And you are

told, “Take the one pill, and life goes back the

way it was. You go back to gaming, close

this document, and make characters based

on class like you’re familiar with doing.

But, if you take the other pill, your eyes

will be opened and your mind will be

freed. Character design will know

only the boundaries of your Game

Master and your imagination. The

choice is yours.”

Think about it. What would it be

like to play a wizard who actually

can have d10’s as their Hit Dice if

they are willing to sacrifice some-

Now, the sky is the limit for your concepts. So shoot for

thing in return? What would it be

like to play a functional melee bard

what you want, and don’t be limited by classes.

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that gets Base Attack Bonus and Hit Dice like

a fighter by selectively choosing to give up a

few of the typical bard abilities that don’t re-

ally fit the player’s concept of their character

anyway? What would it be like to play a fight-

er who gets to keep their Hit Dice but gives up

a few fighter feats in exchange for a few levels

of psionic power progression and some actu-

ally functional skills – maybe even a few sneak

attack dice?

The mind-shattering fundamental principle

that absolutely cannot be overlooked is that

role-playing done through spending earned ex-

perience is most free when it is classless. Yes,

that’s right – without class altogether. In this

system there are no such things as class skills

or cross-class skills. There are no such things

as class abilities. There are no such things as

feats that you have to take because they are

built into the class. There is no such thing as

a predetermined save progression, Hit Dice

progression, or even Base Attack Bonus pro-

gression. None of these things are predeter-

mined by a choice of class! Not only does the

concept of “dead levels” go away completely,

but all of a sudden an increase to Base Attack

Bonus, Saves, or spell casting mean something

significant again. All of a sudden experience

is collected, hoarded, and spent as it’s earned

instead of all at once in the form of a new pre-

determined class level.

That is the fundamental difference between

playing in a standard role-playing game and

playing in a game where class is eliminated

from the system. Not that there is anything

wrong with playing in either system. To be

honest, a classed system is far easier for the

Game Master to manage. But in a classless

system, every part of a character is the way that

the player wants it to be. It is as close to ulti-

mate freedom in gaming as we can get without

holographic technology!

Corollary One: Character Level

There are certain inherent problems that

creep into game play when a system that was

originally designed to have class as a part of it

suddenly has class yanked out of it. For exam-

ple, what if a player is trying to decide whether

the effect of a spell can affect their character

based on the number of Hit Dice they have?

Since Hit Dice in this system will be bought

as desired instead of gained every level (see

Hit Dice section below), Hit Dice no longer

becomes a legitimate means for determining

the ability of a power or spell to effect a char-

acter. In this case, and cases like it, in place of

determining a character’s Hit Dice it is easiest

to find their effective character level based on

the amount of total experience that they have

earned. Then, treat that result as the number

of Hit Dice that a character would have when

considering the effect of spells and power ef-

fects. In cases where total Hit Dice is the de-

termining factor, this system will always use

total character level instead.

Additionally, certain class abilities talk about

class level and character level. Later on, this

document will get into more detail this subject;

but for right now understand that these distinc-

tions will be handled. Character level remains

the same in all cases. Simply compare the ex-

perience earned with an experience table and

you have the character level. However, class

level is not so easy to overcome because class

is no longer a word that has any meaning in

this kind of game. For now, know that all abil-

ities that are class level dependent will have

individual ability levels. As will be discussed

later, that too is an incredibly freeing proposi-

tion once the mind is allowed to absorb it.

Corollary Two: Purchasing New Ele-

ments of a Character

From a player’s perspective, this is almost

always the first question that is asked once the

new system is absorbed. When can experience

be spent? How much can be spent at one time?

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