Found at: http://runequest.za.org/article/articleprint/75/-1/15/

Quick Roll Up Referance

Publishing date: 10.10.2002 16:51

The Rune Quest III rules assume that a character starts working at 15 years of age. Therefore his or her skills are based on the years in an occupation after that age.

Herewith a quick reference for rolling up new characters:

1.	Decide what Age, Sex and Culture you character will be.
2.	Decide what the characters parent's occupation is.
3.	Decide if your character remained in his parents occupation until his current age, or whether he tried other occupations
4.	If your character tried other occupations, decide the periods in each. Remember at least a year must be spent to accumulate the skills allocated by that occupation. Remember that equipment obtained in occupations is not cumulative
5.	Apply the formula: Age x Multiplier + Base + Modifier. Where Age is Age - 15 years (if you stayed in your parents occupation), or the number of years in an occupation (per occupation), Multiplier is the multiplier given by an occupation, e.g.: Throw x 3, Base is your base ability, e.g.: Agility = 3 and Modifier is the skill modifier if applicable, e.g.: First Aid (10) vis add 10.
NB:	Check the cultural weapons table when allocating weapon skills as the modifier's can differ from the standard weapons table.

Modifiers

Character skills are split up between several self-explanatory categories:

Agility
Communications
Knowledge
Perception
Manipulation
Stealth
Magic

Each of these categories is used to modify a skill within that category. This modifier can be increase or decrease an overall skill and is worked out from a character's basic statistics as per the following formula:

PRIMARY: Statistic minus 10. Thus if STR is 17 its PRIMARY will be +7. Note that negative results remain negative, vis-à-vis a STR of 8 will produce a PRIMARY of -2.

SECONDARY: Statistic minus 10, divide the result by 2 and round total up. From the above; STR is 17, its SECONDARY would be 4 IE: (17-10)/2. Negative results will remain negative.

NEGATIVE: Statistic minus 10. Insert a minus sign in front of result. From the above; STR is 17, its NEGATIVE would be -7. Note that is the result is already negative, adding a minus sign will make the result positive. From the above; STR is 8, its NEGATIVE would be +2.

Note: Try not to confuse NEGATIVE with itsr mathematical meaning, as the results of a formula may contradict its strict meaning. IE: A NEGATIVE formula may have a positive result.

These formula are applied for a reason; to create realistic characters. A huge (SIZ 18) clumsy (DEX 7) character will not have a decent Stealth modifier, in fact his Stealth will likely be a minus. thus a player should be careful with how characters statistics are applied. The best way is to have an even mix where a good statistic will negate any bad statistic while applying the formula.

Remember that a characters Agility modifier is applied to his or her weapons attack skill while the Manipulation modifier is applied to the Parry skill. Thus if a character plans to do any fighting (usually an unavoidable happening in Rune Quest), it would be helpful to have decent modifiers for these Categories. Remember too that Dodge (sometimes the last hope of savings a characters skin) is and Agility based skill.

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