Character Creation

Building your Sheet

Now it's time to build your character sheet. Your character sheet is the list of attributes, skills, and other statistics that determine what your character can typically do. Follow these steps to build your character.

Join the Azure Crest Character Lobby

• You will need to make a  ForgeVTT Account before entering the  Character Lobby. Most of our games are hosted through Forge. For those of you who do not have a Desktop, the character creation process may be terribly difficult, as ForgeVTT is specifically a Browser Application- mobile support is somewhat unreliable.

Patiently wait for the Page to Load

• Sometimes, FoundryVTT can stop loading if you navigate away from it while it is trying to start. Try to keep your browser on the tab for the character lobby. Depending on your internet connection, you may need to wait awhile for your page to load.
• DO NOT REFRESH, as this will restart your loading time!
• Welcome to the Character Lobby! 

The Actor Directory

is where you and many other players in the Azure Crest will be keeping and maintaining your characters. You can open the Actor Directory by clicking on the tab that looks like 3 silhouettes. It is highlighted in the following image:

Click "Create Actor"

and give your character a name. You can use a placeholder name such as "[Your Discord Name]'s Sheet" if you want to add it later.

Unapproved Character Sheets will be deleted from the lobby periodically

Please also include the Date [MM/DD/YY] that you last used your sheet in its name until it's fully approved to prevent your sheet from being deleted prematurely. This being said, your sheet's name should look something like the example in the image below.

Please Add them to the "New Characters" Folder

In the "Create New Actor" dialogue, there is a drop-down selection box where you can declare where your sheet will be created. Please make sure to generate your sheet inside of the New Characters folder using this method.

Can You See Your Character Sheet?

If it you cannot, or if you close it accidentally, you can (re)open it by clicking your sheet on the right-hand bar. It should have the name that you assigned it in the previous step.

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Let's Make Your Character!

Good job! You're now ready to fill out this character sheet! Please keep the following information in mind when creating your character:

Drag and Drop to fill your sheet

Almost everything that you need to construct a character can be dragged/dropped onto the sheet. If you are copy/pasting or manually typing your features into your character, you are using more effort than is necessary.

Ancestries / Heritages

All official ancestries and their heritages are allowed.
Also consider the system's versatile heritages, which are "subraces" that can be applied to any ancestry.
We also allow the Alternative Ability Boosts, let you replace any Ancestry's stat boosts with +2 to any two stats. There is a checkmark on your foundry sheet that activates this option.

Classes / Subclasses

All official classes are allowed except for the Tyrant and Anti-paladin Champion subclasses, which are allowed as the variant subclasses Conqueror and Marauder respectively. These Variants are listed in our Bans/FAQ section
Playtest classes are allowed with Foundry support unless Paizo has published a finished iteration of them.

Starting Level

You can start at any level up to 3.
Characters who start at a level below 3 can level to 3 whenever they want to without gaining experience.
Experience gained prior to level 3 counts towards leveling after the character reaches level 3.

ex: A character who earns 10 hours of experience while at lv 1 does not become a lv 2 character. They are eligible to level up to level 4.

Equipment and Earning Money

All characters start with 100 gp. You can only buy items up to your character's level. Purchases can be done after creation in #downtime-journal
We also recommend utilizing our Guild Board for any purchases you would like to make.

Earning Money is handled either through Downtime Actions or Stipends.

Earning with Downtime is slow, but essentially infinite. Please reference the Downtime Rules for more details.
Earning with Stipends is much easier. You get a lump sum of money at each level as soon as your character reaches it. You can see the earning rates for Downtime and Stipends in the following chart:

Note that choosing Downtime makes you ineligible for Stipends and vice-versa. Choose wisely.

Age

Age 21 and above. Your character is expected to be an adult. No exceptions.

Alignment

Your First Character must be good or neutral. We recommend making a good character, as it is easier to make a good first impression with our DMs and your fellow players with one.
Any additional characters can be evil if you want, but be mindful of our Server Rules and specifically our Roleplay Rules when you do so.

Backgrounds

Most common and uncommon backgrounds are allowed.
Starter-Box backgrounds are NOT allowed.
Rare Backgrounds are allowed on a limited basis. See our FAQ (in the hyperlink) for more information.

Quick Insert

When creating your character in Foundry, try Ctrl + Space (or ⌘ + Space on Mac). This will open the Quick Insert module. This handy search bar allows you to search for ANYTHING in Foundry such as ancestry features, items, and feats to be dragged and dropped into your sheet.

Reflavoring

Sometimes the system is not able to reproduce an item or effect that you want to have, or a race/character origin that isn't reproduced by the system. Maybe you can't find good character art for your concept/build. In these situations you are allowed to freely reflavor your character's appearance and abilities with the following conditions:

1. Reflavoring has no mechancial benefits.
   Please don't reflavor your notebook to a Death Note and tell the DM that everyone whose name is written in it has to die. Not only is that overpowered, it's cringe.
   Also, please don't use reflavoring to pass yourself off as something that is mechanically different than what you are. Examples of this would be Orcs being reflavored to being "Large" in order to emulate some kind of half-giant, or playing a Shoonie and saying that you're "Medium" because you don't want to be a small dog.


2. Whatever you are reflavoring to does not have an equivalent in the system.
   You want a Katana? Great. Don't buy a spear and tell me it's a Katana because you want the spear's stats instead. Go buy a Katana, please.

Free Archetype

Free Archetype is a Variant Rule that gives a Character extra Feat Slots to play around with, though these feats can only be used to gain Archetype Feats. Archetypes are special feat trees that allow Characters to specialize their builds in unique ways, but are generally weaker options than your normal Class Feats. Free Archetype lets players make characters that are more unique without sacrificing power.

Undead Characters

You cannot turn your characters into undead characters by taking an Undead Archetype. You must create them as an undead character.
The single exception to the rule above is the lich archetype. Characters who become Liches can never reverse this process, even with a respec token.

Character Builders

Want to get your build right the first time? By all means!
Pathbuilder (Browser/Android)
Wanderer's Guide (Browser Only)
Please keep in mind that no matter what, you will need to manually build the character inside of Foundry. The above resources are here to make the creation process easier, not automate it for you entirely.

Character Progression/Leveling Up

In the Azure Crest, experience is tracked in hours (⌛).
⌛usually represents real-time spent in a voiced game.
When you get a certain amount of experience, you level up.
When you create a character, you can choose for them to have Gated or Ungated Experience.

Gated Experience

Your character will level up after 5 logged hours of playtime. However, your character has an initial level cap of 6.
For every calendar month [tracked on the first of the month]that passes after the character's creation, this level cap increases by 3 levels.
If you continue to play a character who cannot gain ⌛, your effort is not completely lost. You instead gain Event Tokens

Ungated Experience

Your character has no level cap. However, your character will take longer to level, taking 10 logged hours of playtime per level-up.
The Ungated Experience is not recommended, unless you plan to be incredibly active in the server or would rather level more slowly.
As a friendly reminder, you would need to play for at least 40 hours per month to level faster than a Gated Experience character.

You can see how your character progression breaks down in this chart below.

While this chart my look intimidating, deciding if you want a gated or ungated character is easy.
Just ask yourself if you see yourself playing in more than 30 hours a month, if you do, you should be ungated, if not you should choose gated.

Player Resource Tracker

We have a Resource Tracker that is specifically coded for Ungated Experience. You can see it, and all of Gin's current and former characters here, to serve as examples of the Resource Tracker's ease of use.

Characters who reach Level 15 become Locked, and are unable to level again.

Do note that no matter what, characters who reach level 15 will be locked, and unable to gain ⌛until they Breakthrough. More about this in our Advanced Character Rules.

All Done?

Great! We're proud of you. Please open up a character creation ticket, and mention your character by name so that a sheet checker can evaluate your character and make sure that everything is set up correctly for your first quest c:

Making Additional Characters

Each Player can make one Character per two calendar months- resetting each Even Month- up to a limit. There are a couple exceptions to this rule:

Character Creation Limits

If you have 4 or more Characters in a Tier, you cannot create any new characters. As a friendly reminder, the Tiers are as follows:

• Tier 1: Levels 1 - 3
• Tier 2: Levels 4 - 6
• Tier 3: Levels 7 - 9
• Tier 4: Levels 10 - 12
• Tier 5: Levels 13 - 15

If your Character reaches Level 15, they no longer count towards this restriction.
If you get access to a new character from the Lv 20 milestone reward, you can create them regardless of the above limits.

Leveling Milestone Rewards

The first time that one of your characters hits Level 12 and Level 15, you are allowed to make an additional character.
Each time that your character hits Level 20, you are allowed to make an additional character.
You can redeem this additional character at any time, but only once per milestone reward.

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STOP!

Everything beyond this point is not required to finish character creation. If you are new to the server, please consider leaving and coming back later after you've gotten past lv 10.
For those of you who ARE back, feel free to peruse our Advanced Character Rules