Name, Class, Portrait & Attributes

You just decided to start a new game, and have been dropped into character creation? Then it's time to create your dysfunctional group of four player characters!

Your first order of business is to give them a name and a class. Yep, that's right: You can play as whatever class you want! What your class can actually do is up to your attribute distribution and your skill & ability preferences.

Their portraits can be changed via the button next to them.

The character creation screen. Pick your name, class, portrait and attributes here.

Portrait selection

Player portraits are unique. Under normal circumstances, NPCs cannot have the same portraits.

In the vanilla game you can choose from 40 player portraits. Don't like them? You can easily add more yourself, with just a few clicks. More about that in the first chapters of the Editor.

Pick your portrait and let's continue.

Attribute distribution

Time to distribute the 10 attribute points each character starts with!

Hovering over the attribute names will show you a tooltip that explains what they do. There are 5 primary attributes you can spend your points on. Can't decide at this point? Don't worry, you can also save them and spend them later during the game. Just keep in mind that once you have spend them, they cannot be easily refunded (though it is possible).

Hovering over any attribute shows a tooltip.

Primary attributes

Your primary attributes can be improved by spending points on them. Here is what they do:

Strength
Determines your physical attack strength and how much extra item weight you can carry for the group.
Endurance
Determines your maximum health points.
Dexterity
Determines your maximum energy points, and helps with the evasion of attacks.
Intelligence
Determines your maximum mana points.
Perception
Determines your precision and your chance for critical strikes.

They can also be improved via equipment, items and effects.

Secondary attributes

Your secondary attributes are determined by the primary ones.

Health
Influenced by Endurance.
You always start with at least 5 points of health. Try not to lose them.
Mana
Influenced by Intelligence.
The maximum amount of mana you have. Mana is needed to use most magical abilities.
Energy
Influenced by Dexterity.
The maximum amount of energy you have. Energy is needed to use most physical abilities.
Physical Attack
Influenced by Strength.
Increases the amount of outgoing damage through most physical attacks.
Precision
Influenced by Perception.
Increases the chance to hit your target. This is countered by the target's Evasion attribute.
Critchance
Influenced by Perception.
The chance to turn a normal attack into a critical attack which does more damage.
Evasion
Influenced by Dexterity.
Increases the chance of evading an incoming attack. This is countered by the attacker's Precision attribute.

They can also be improved via equipment, items and effects.
There is another attribute that is hidden during character creation: Physical Defense.
This attribute can only be increased via equipment, items and effects.

Starting skills

Every player character starts with two skills. There are more skills that can be discovered during gameplay and there is mostly no limit to which skills a player character can learn.

Skills can also be taught by a trainer for some coins, but during your first hours these starting skills will determine your playstyle.

You can hover over any skill to read their description. Remove already selected skills by clicking on them.

Modding your own skills (of any kind) is super easy. The possibilities are endless.

Body customization

The turn button at the bottom of the screen turns your player characters by 90°.

All player characters can be customized. Change their hair-style, body-type and eyes to your liking. Turn them around with the turn button at the bottom of the screen.

Each texture also supports coloring, giving you a few additional options, in case you don't want to add more textures yourself (which you totally can, modding yo).

Texture Selection

Hair-styles, body-types and eyes can be adjusted to your liking. Simply click on the one you think fits best. If you like the texture, but not the color, you can also change that.

Each hairstyle is put onto your character to preview it.

Color customization

The controls allow you to Cancel, Reset or Accept the current color.

Press the colorwheel button at the bottom of the screen to adjust the colors of your textures. Using the brightness control, you can also have white, gray or black.

Accepting a color will show it applied to all the previews. If you don't like it, change or reset it. Simple as that!

Personality selection

Roleplay-wise the most important decision is your character's personality. Personality directly influences dialogue, and dialogue is written in a way that always accounts for all personality types.

Always remember: You have the last word. Just because a character is 'good' does not mean they can't learn stealing, brewing poisons or dirty combat tricks.

(Between us, they are all lunatics, and even they don't know why they formed a group.)

Dialogues will be heavily influenced by personality. Other things too, if the modder says so.

Personality types

The vanilla default personalities are:

Virtuous: Good and kind. Paladins, Knights, Improver of worlds.
Evil: Does not care for collateral damage. Rogues, Dark Wizards, Destroyer of worlds.
Crazy: Unpredictable and 4th-wall-breaking. Tinkerer, Gamer, Author of this web page.
Intelligent: Wise and thoughtful. Mage, Bard, Scholar.
Mischievious: Opportunities and money. Thief, Scoundrel, Trickster.
Mysterious: Talks to the spirits and sometimes they talk back. Druid, Shaman, Invoker.

Trivia

Canonically, the player characters are called Michael, Jack, Francis and Melody. They use the default portraits and personalities, and their classes are knight, rogue, engineer and mage.
It is possible to only have 3, 2 or even 1 playable character(s). Mods can easily set this value, and character creation will then only show the respective number. The Mod should account for this with some custom content though, as the vanilla game was made with 4 playable characters in mind.