There are many things that make your character unique. Once you’ve figured out a character’s personality, backstory, race, and general “theme”, it’s time to give them attributes and abilities to match. Fresh characters begin at level 1 and slowly increase their capacity over time. Characters stop leveling up at level 10.
The Character Progression (Leveling Up) page has one big table of the perks that characters receive upon leveling up. This page splits those perks into different sections so that it’s a little less overwhelming.
Contents
Attributes
Six abilities provide a quick description of your character’s physical and mental characteristics. Are you muscle-bound and insightful? Brilliant and charming? Nimble and hardy? Your Attributes define these qualities — your strengths as well as your weaknesses.
You receive points to allocate in any way you want to your main attributes. The number of points you can allocate are based on your level. At level 1, you begin with 10 points, and you gain new points every level. These stats are mostly used for RP, though spellcasters typically need 5 or more Arcana to cast spells, and non-casters a certain amount of Dexterity and/or Strength to wield weapons.
Physical attributes
| Strength | Physical activities that require toughness, like swimming, climbing, running a long distance, lifting something heavy |
|---|---|
| Dexterity | Physical activities that require speed or balance, like sprinting, dancing, moving in a stealthy fashion |
| Stamina | Used for fortitude/constitution checks against poison, frostbite, or other things that require hardiness |
Mental attributes
| Knowledge | Used for recalling important pieces of lore, being able to identify monsters, strategizing, or other tasks requiring wisdom or intelligence |
|---|---|
| Arcana | Used for a propensity towards magic, such as spell casting and identifying magical effects |
| Charisma | Used to be likable, intimidating, or inspiring, whatever best suits your character |
Points Gained Over Time
By the time you reach level 10, you will have 30 points allocated to your attributes. These points are allocated every level you get new ones. You can shift around points you have already allocated when you level up with DM approval.
| Level 1 | Begin with 10 points |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | Gain 4 more points |
| Level 3 | Gain 2 more points |
| Level 4 | Gain 2 more points |
| Level 5 | Gain 2 more points |
| Level 6 | Gain 2 more points |
| Level 7 | Gain 2 more points |
| Level 8 | Gain 2 more points |
| Level 9 | Gain 2 more points |
| Level 10 | Gain 2 more points |
Hit Points
Hit points (HP) are an abstraction of a character's durability. Characters do not sustain serious injuries until they are pushed to 0 hit points. Every other loss of HP wears down the character's endurance, deals durability damage to their armor, and generally causes minor wounds like bruising or fatigue.
Hit points are accumulated over time as a character levels up. Level one characters begin with 10 hit points. Commoners, peasants, and other simple humanoids generally have 10 hit points. By the time a character is level 10, they will have 60 HP total.
| Level 1 | |
|---|---|
| Level 2 | Gain 10 HP |
| Level 3 | |
| Level 4 | Gain 10 HP |
| Level 5 | |
| Level 6 | Gain 10 HP |
| Level 7 | |
| Level 8 | Gain 10 HP |
| Level 9 | |
| Level 10 | Gain 10 HP |
Movement Speed
All characters and monsters have a Low, Medium, or High movement speed which is tied to the Dexterity attribute. Although there is no grid system to track movement by feet/yards, there are approximations for how far you can travel with the different movement speeds to aid in RP.
| Required Dexterity | Level of Movement Speed | Approximate Distance Traveled in One Move Action |
|---|---|---|
| 0 Dexterity | Low | 10 feet |
| 4 Dexterity | Medium | 15 feet |
| 8 Dexterity | High | 20 feet |
Snaring, slowing, or crippling a character reduces their movement speed by one level. A character with High movement speed who is snared, for example, will move at Medium movement speed.
Additionally, a character’s movement speed gives them an edge to initiative rolls:
- If your speed is Low, add +1 to your initiative roll
- If your speed is Medium, add +2 to your initiative roll
- If your speed is High, add +3 to your initiative roll
Attack and Defense
As explained in the Three Golden Rules, every creature in the Ilisara RPG can attack or defend itself in combat by rolling a d20 and adding their Attack or Defense modifiers.
Attack Modifiers
Attack modifiers are rare. You can get attack modifiers (bonuses) through Character Passives, items, a conditional for a caster basic attack, or simply by leveling up. The attack bonus gained while leveling up is fairly trivial; at levels 5 and 10, gain a +1 bonus to your attack rolls.
Defense Modifiers
Wearing armor grants you a bonus to your Defense rolls against physical attacks. Wearing armor enchantments grants you a bonus to your Defense rolls against magical attacks.
The Equipment page provides detailed information about different types of armor and their defense values.