13th Age (and others?) House Rule - Combat Tactics

    Okay, I have to give props, again, to the great work done on Large Polyhedron Collider about adding tactics to RPG combat.  That series of posts kind of influenced this 13th Age idea, and while I have linked to them before I think they are worth mentioning again.
    That out of the way, let me ask you a question: what do you spend the most time thinking about in combat?

    Rolling dice, adding up modifiers, those certainly take up a chunk of the combat turn.  Deciding what spell to cast, or limited-use power, might take a little time too - assuming your class has those.  In Pathfinder we had all the combat maneuvers, you could try to disarm or trip or stuff - but I found they rarely took a lot of time to contemplate, since they generally sucked.  In Pathfinder if you didn't build a character specifically for maneuvers then they were very hard to pull off.  Even if you did take a feat or class good at them, a lot of times they were hard to do (unless you wanted to grapple the mage) - generally you would have better odds of success by stabbing something with your sword.
    13th Age seems even worse.  They don't have any maneuvers.  The flexible attacks trigger on die rolls, so you don't need to think about them at all.  1/Battle and Daily abilities you think about, but once you actually use them then you have nothing to think about again.  From my limited playing and watching my players as GM, there is not a heck of a lot you really have to focus on.  At least, not much that the rules help you with - sure, you could concoct some wild scheme, but without a rule or guideline you have no idea if that might be possible or even helpful.  Rules give you a degree of understanding - this might work, that probably won't - and you can't make a choice without some knowledge.  New players, I think, really have a hard time trying to pull some hair-brained scheme out of their back pocket.
    So, tactics.  Tactics are specific maneuvers to accomplish some kind of goal.  Strategy is a broad framework, I'm the Ranger- good in the wilderness and with a bow.  Tactics are specific, I'm going to shoot that guy.  Strategy is pretty well represented in most RPGs, it's all the character creation stuff.  The character you built (or rolled) defines your general strategy.  But every fight is not at 30 feet on a flat field at noon (or, well, hopefully it isn't) - so you need tactics for how you change your fighting style to accommodate the environment or the opponent.  Sadly few games have tactics, mostly tactical choices instead are strategic abilities when you build your character.  Pathfinder was pretty bad about that (again, if you didn't specifically build for maneuvers you had slim chance of pulling them off successfully, and who cares about an option that doesn't work?).  13th Age really seems to suck at that, since the flexible attacks that should be tactical are instead taken out of your control and there are no maneuvers, fighting defensively or aid another.

    Okay, all that complaining out of my system- here's a house rule to add some tactics to your 13th Age game, that shouldn't imbalance things too badly (actually, given that combat is generally against the players, this might really help them avoid the TPK).  Fair warning, I haven't implemented this system in my own game yet, so use at your own risk.
    My 13th Age game is a mashup with some Fate elements, but you don't need that for this house rule.  I am going to present the tactics tied to the Fate Approaches, but that's just flavor text in this case (though, honestly, I love them a lot better than the default 13th Age "skills").  So this is something you can actually drop on top of your vanilla game despite the strange wording.
    So, tactics are about choices.  I want these to be choices that anybody can make - so these tactics are available to every character (and monster, if you want).  The best choices are conflicted, they have elements that are good and bad, so I'm going to try to make these both positive and negative (in different ways).  I'm going to say that a character can change tactics at will, but the post above has a good point that once you start fighting a certain way it can be hard to stop (given the focus on staying alive) so you could say that you have to disengage to switch tactics.  You could also say that the lowest initiative has to declare what tactic they are using first, then they are resolved from highest initiative to lowest.  This lets the characters/ monsters with good initiative try to pick the best tactic for the situation, which might be worth the extra time (and means some monsters at least need to use tactics, like the "elites" and/or normals - mooks don't seem like they should be skilled enough to use tactics).  Basically, there are a lot of ways to play with this system that I will leave up to your imagination.

    On to the actual tactics.  I have two sets of them, you can use some or all.  First, let's look at the active tactics, the ways a character can modify how they attack.  These were mostly designed for melee combat, but might work well enough for ranged combat too (this is a work in progress).  There is one tactic for every Approach.  With every tactic you have to set an Approach Die (AD)- which is just a d6, you choose what number, before rolling or resolving the tactic:

• Forceful- add the AD to the damage you do and also to the damage you take.  This could be to only one opponent, or to everybody (up to your GM (or how crazy you're feeling?)).  This is like the "power attack" from Pathfinder, better damage at the risk of taking extra damage.
• Clever- roll your attack normally, without any modifier from this tactic.  If you hit subtract your AD from your opponent's AD for any positive elements.  For example, if your opponent does a forceful tactic subtract your AD from their AD damage bonus - but do not change the extra damage they take from the tactic. (this could go only on hit, or weather you hit or not depending on how hard you want to make combat)  This is only good if monsters (by which I mean any bad guy, including humans and humanoids) can also use tactics, but hey- you only need to be clever against damgerous opponents.  I guess you could re-work this as a penalty to a foe's special ability (like spells, spell-like abilities and such) depending on your system and how you want it to work.
• Quick- add the AD to your to-hit roll, but subtract it from your damage.  This is a fast attack (or series of attacks?), but that means not well aimed or very strong.  Good for when you have a hard time hitting anyways (I'd say a minimum of 1 damage after the AD mod) and to make weaker monsters a little dangerous.
• Deliberate- roll your attack normally, without any modifier from this tactic.  If you hit your maximum damage is the AD (or, each die rolled maxes at the AD).  However, if you get hit the maximum damage you can take is the AD.  This is "fighting defensively," looking to protect yourself, at the cost of doing less damage.  Good if you need to buy time for an ally to come to your aid.  Exactly how to convert the damage depends on your system (I'm actually moving to a different, simplified HP system myself which I'll describe later).
• Noticeable- roll your attack normally, without any modifier from this tactic.  On your next turn only, add this action's AD to your next action in a positive way (for example, to the bonus damage done with forceful, but not the extra damage taken).  Noticeable is about being seen, so this is where you create a false opening to lure in your opponent.  It's planning for the future, watching the fight unfold.
• Sneaky- choose weather to add the AD to hit or damage or armor class/defense.  After the action, lower the AD by 1.  If the AD is still in play (above 0) then the next time you use a Sneaky tactic in this battle you re-use the die.  You can still choose what to apply it to, and again lower by 1 after until it is out of play.  Being sneaky is very powerful, and flexible, the feint or backstab kind of maneuvers.  But, once you've stabbed someone in the posterior the odds are that they are going to pay more attention to you to avoid that happening again.  So I designed sneaky to stick around and lose effectiveness over time, keeping that "burst damage" feel I think.

    With those 6 tactics, players now have ways to modify how they act in combat, hopefully giving them something interesting to think about and a meaningful choice to make.  But after working out the above system I noticed that something was still lacking. There wasn't really a way to do that "aid another" like in Pathfinder.  I debated adding it as another tactic/approach, then had a really crazy thought- what if each tactic could be used either for oneself, or to aid an ally?  Now, there would be 6 different ways to help your teammates, which again hopefully you could customize to the situation.  So here is a list of six more tactics, when used to help an ally instead of yourself.  You still roll a normal attack/action - but instead of adding the Approach Die somehow, instead the AD is used for your ally.  If you hit, or no matter what if your GM is generous (since something that you know will work is worth doing as opposed to trying something that may or may not work).

• Forceful- knock your foe off-balance, giving your ally your AD as a bonus to hit.
• Clever- create an opening, giving one ally a free attack (with or without tactic modifiers?) against your opponent.
• Quick- interrupt your foe, subtracting your AD from their positive tactic bonuses against one ally.
• Deliberate- interpose yourself between your foe and an ally, taking the foe's attack against yourself instead.  You can intercept 1 attack for every point of your AD, but you also take your AD as a penalty to your defense.
• Noticeable- attract a foe's attention, giving that foe your AD as a penalty to hit any allies.
• Sneaky- set up your foe for an ally to finish off, adding your AD to your ally's positive tactic modifiers.

    Combat is important, life is on the line after all.  So we want it to be meaningful, to be engaging.  Which I think a lot of games have a hard time doing well.  Too much combat seems to be crunching numbers or adding dice, and not enough thinking about the situation and trying to find the best actions.  You should ideally be thinking about the fight from your character's boots, not juggling standard/move/quick/free actions, attacks of opportunity/reactions and 5 foot squares.  I think this tactic system might help add some meaningful choices to the player's list of things to think about.  I'm still polishing it to use in my current campaign, so I'll let you know after I have a chance to use it.  If any of you are brave enough to try, please throw me a comment below.  Theoretically you could use this in any game, Pathfinder or D&D 5th say, that had similar mechanics for resolving a fight.


Random Note- in Fate Accelerated the approaches have slightly different names.  What I call Deliberate is called Cautious.  And my Noticeable is called Flashy.  I kind of like my names better, for reasons, but I wanted to point it out to clarify any possible confusion.

13th Age House Rules - Shapeshifting

    My quest continues to re-vamp 13th Age.  The Shapeshifting Talent house rule needs some setup though.  I loved how 13th Age simplified the D20/Pathfinder mechanics, and introduced some new role-playing elements; but it felt like too much of the role-playing stuff was structureless "just make it up" like the one unique thing and background systems.  So I decided to incorporate some the the concepts and mechanics from Fate Accelerated, replacing skills with Expertises and Approaches that were dynamically combined to make a "skill check."  The Expertises were just broad areas of what the player knew how to do- Fighting, Exploring, Investigating, Working and Talking.  The Approaches were how that character went about doing the action, which determined the possibly consequences and complications.
    There are 6 Approaches, in basically 3 opposing pairs, and I re-named them recently: Forceful and Clever, Quick and Deliberate, Noticeable and Sneaky. 

• Forceful is the most direct, damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead way of tackling a problem.  It is a power attack in a fight, or an intimidate check when talking, it's crafting like a blacksmith- with direct and raw strength, climbing a mountain or a brute-force denial of service attack or password hack.
• Clever is approaching a problem from a different angle, finding a solution "outside the box."  It's using the environment against an opponent in a fight, finding a hidden door or path or trap, putting together seemingly unrelated clues, inventing or improving a device or tricking someone into saying more than they meant to.
• Quick is all about speed, moving around problems to get to the end.  It's a flurry of blows, parkour-ing through the city, running a massive database search, jury-rigging something to keep operating for a few more minutes or running a quick con on the door guard to get inside (knowing that soon he'll realize he was fooled).
• Deliberate is about caution, minimizing the risks or failure.  It's aiming carefully so you don't shoot your ally who is engaged with the monster, planning the safest route, searching a room with a magnifying glass to find every possible clue, repairing something (or someone), or slowly building rapport with someone.
• Noticeable is for when you want to be seen, when you're projecting your real self.  It might mean shouting at the monster to attract its attention (so it goes after you instead of your squishy friend), leaving a trail or signaling for help when you're lost in the wilderness, organizing a manhunt or asking for the public's help, marketing and packaging your new widget or sharing your own painful experiences to convince someone else to change their ways.
• Sneaky is when you want someone to see something other than the real you.  A feint in combat (or false opening), hiding your tracks, surveillance, hidden compartments or disguise and acting.

    So, that was just to lay the groundwork for actually talking about Shapeshifting.  In 13th Age the Talent to Shapeshift is broken into two parts, Scout (or non-combat) and Combat forms.  Scout form is a small animal, something not an effective combatant like a bird or squirrel.  Combat form is big and scary like a bear or wolf.  By default you can transform into one type an unlimited number of times and the other a limited number of times per day.  This is okay as far as an ability goes, but seemed a little flat to me.
    When I think of shapeshifting, the first thing that comes to mind is the danger of losing oneself in the mind of the animal you transformed into.  I like the stories where shapeshifting isn't just a generic change of shape, but also a change of nature - you are no longer yourself, now you have this animal spirit/nature that is going to color all your thinking.  This animal nature can make you much better at some things and the animal form can give you some extra abilities - but always at the cost of some of your humanity.
    So, in this revamp we introduce the Shapeshift Die.  I don't know why I have loved the idea of the Escalation Die so much, but I find myself incorporating something like it into all my ability revamps - including this one.  The Shapeshift Die is a d6 that does not start in play.  When the character chooses to shapeshift, they have to choose a number to set the Shapeshift die at, from 1 to 6 - and they have to choose one Approach that represent the type of animal they are shapeshifting into.  So a bear or wolf might be Forceful, while an owl could be Clever, a bird Quick, a housecat Sneaky.  The Shapeshift Die represents the degree of the shift; I have an idea to link different animal abilities (like Scent or Claws or Pounce from Pathfinder) to each number on the Shapeshift Die, but that's still a work in progress.  The Shapeshift Die is also added to all rolls using the Approach chosen - but it is subtracted from all other Approaches.  This represents how the animal nature is coloring/strengthening or interfering with the human nature.  When the character shapeshifts back into their human/normal form - they lose all animal abilities and lower the Shapeshift Die by one, but keep it's modifier to the Approaches; even after leaving the animal form, an echo of it is still going to linger.  The Shapeshift Die lowers by one on each short rest, and resets to zero on every full rest.  If the character shapeshifts again, while the Die is 1 or higher, they have to set the Shapeshift Die at least 1 point higher than it currently is at.  For example: Bob turns into a lion to survive a fight, and sets the Shapeshift Die to 4.  After the fight it drops to 3.  He manages to take a short rest which drops it to 2.  But he's been stuck in the wilderness, so he wants to shift into something that will help him survive.  His new form has to be set to 3 or higher - even if it is the same approach/form he previously used.  This is because the new form (or re-attuning an old form) has to overcome the human nature and any traces of animal nature.
    Now, eventually I want to use the Approaches in combat for all characters, in which case the Shapeshift Die will help in or out of combat.  For now though, each Approach needs some sort of combat ability:
    Forceful- add 2 x Shapeshift Die to your damage
    Clever- add the Shapeshift Die to hit
    Quick- add the Shapeshift Die to your Armor Class
    Deliberate- add 3 x Shapeshift Die temporary hit points
    Noticeable- all enemies engaged with you take the Shapeshift Die as a penalty to hit anyone other than you
    Sneaky- increase your crit range by the Shapeshift Die

  Another thing is that 13 True Ways has an option to buy Shapeshifting for 1 Talent or 2 Talents.  The 1 Talent version can only shift into one type while the 2 Talent version can shift into anything.  I'm not sure how much I like this - not many Class Talents have 1 and 2 cost versions, and I hate making specialized mechanics.  But, you could keep the same system - a 2 Talent ability can shift into anything in or out of combat.  A 1 Talent ability has to choose: either it can only shift in (or out) of combat into any Approach, or it can only shift into 3 or the 6 Approaches combat or not.  Either way should limit it's usefulness enough without making the ability useless.


    This is still very much a work in progress, like all of these house rules have been.  I feel the need to say that I do like 13th Age, it's a good game - it's just not as good of a game as I think it can be, especially when combined with the more narrative, role-playing focus of Fate.

13th Age and Fate Mash-up

    Well, we played another game of 13th Age with some more friends, and this time we added some elements from the Fate RPG as well.  I was quite happy with the results, so I thought I'd present here what we did.

     First off, why change 13th Age?  I have to admit that after years of playing Pathfinder I loved 13th Age as a simpler, more focused version of a d20 game.  However, while it adds a lot of D&D concepts, I think it also carries some D&D baggage and makes some less than optimal additions.  The first thing I wanted to change was the Background system.
    For anyone who might not know 13th Age, the Background part of a character is basically the character's skills.  Each character has 8 points to distribute among as many backgrounds as they want.  Each background is a title or sentence that describes what the character knows how to do.  For example, you might have the background of "Inner Sea Pirate" or "Assassin of the Black Hand."  The idea is to add some more character and details by describing instead of choosing from a dry list of skills.
    The problem I have with the system is that while it is nicely descriptive it leaves too much wiggle room.  You and the GM need to be exactly on the same page for what kinds of tasks fall under your background and which ones don't.  Also, the system is pretty broad, so it is possible to make a background that applies to a very broad group of situations, or one that is very limited.  With no objective standards it can be hard to know when to, or when not to, use a background.  It can become a "one size fits all" system.  That I don't like because I think it limits the group dynamics, in the party I like it when some people are experts at a task, and others are trying to figure out how to make the best of a bad situation.
    My solution was to incorporate a concept from Fate, or rather a Fate variant, the Pathfinder Fate Accelerated.  Basically, you split "skills" into 2 parts- I call them Expertise and Approach.
    Expertise covers what sorts of things you know how to do, there are 5 total: Fighting, Exploring, Investigating, Working and Talking.  Fighting has to do with what Pathfinder called "Combat Maneuvers"; overrun, bull rush, trip, feint, disarm, grappling and that sort of stuff.  Exploring covers anything that deals with moving through the environment, survival, navigation, stealth, and even dealing with locks and traps.  Investigating deals with knowing and discovering facts, basically a way for me the GM to give the Player some extra information.  Working is making and creating things, craft and perform and even games/sports, as well as some odd things like healing (working with other people's bodies) and sleight of hand (working with your own body).  Lastly there is Talking, which deals with interacting with other sentient creatures.
    Expertise is only one half of the equation though, the other half is Approach.  Approach covers how you go about doing things, and there are 6 total: Forceful, Quick, Clever, Cautious, Flashy, and Sneaky.  So Talking + Forceful = Intimidation, while Talking + Quick = "fast-talking" or distracting someone with words.  Exploring + Quick = moving fast, while Exploring + Cautious = covering your tracks so you can't be tracked.  There are no hard and fast rules, you have to assess each situation and think of what combination makes the most sense.  In the one adventure I ran with the system though, it was not too hard to come up with a combination or two on the spot.
    The final part of the system is the same 13th Age stuff that I didn't change.  You always add the most relevant attribute modifier and your level to a d20 roll for a total.  There are only 3 DCs to aim for, Easy, Moderate and Hard, which change depending on your level.  For levels 1 through 4 (called the "Adventurer Tier") the DCs are 15, 20 and 25.  Each Expertise and Approach defaults to 0 and can go up to 3 (you divide 8 points total any way you want among them all).
    What I like about the system is that it is flexible, each element covers a fairly broad category of actions or outcomes, so you have structure but not a straightjacket.  Also, it helps to distinguish characters a bit more, the high Talking character does most of the interrogating and such - but since you can always add an Approach, it's still possible to succeed at something that is not your main focus (my goal was to do Elliot from Leverage, he is the Hitter (Fighting and Forceful) but can still talk to people, he just does it forcefully).  And even if 2 or more characters had the same Expertise, the different Approaches let them feel more distinct from each other.
    It's kind of an odd system, but it seemed to work well.

    The last thing I did for my mash-up was to add Aspects.  In Fate an Aspect is a sentence describing some part of your character that is both good and bad.  So "World-Renowned Outlaw" could be an aspect, or "Wizard Private Eye," or even "Sucker For A Pretty Face."  This is similar to the One Unique Thing that exists in 13th Age but where your One Unique is meant to be storytelling-based, and what could literally make you unique from everyone on the planet, Aspects give actual mechanical benefits and are internal to the character.  With Aspects you also get Fate Points.  I started everybody with 2.  When you "compel" an Aspect, or use it as a reason to fail at something and get yourself in trouble, you gain a Fate Point.  You can also spend a Fate Point on an action related to one of your Aspects to get a +5 bonus to the action (the whole action, so attack and damage or the whole turn increase to AC for example).  That's a pretty darn big bonus.  You can only spend one Fate Point on one action, and you can spend them before or after you roll (I wanted to be flexible).  Players did not have to use their Aspects or Fate Points, some pretty much ignored them.  Also I only had them come up with 5 Aspects, if I remember correctly Fate uses between 7 to 10.
    If you want to know more about Aspects, they are a pretty big topic, try this link on "Writing Good Aspects" by Robert Hanz.

    The game we ran was the Shadows of Eldolan adventure for 13th Age, and as a quick side note it was well written and everybody liked it.  Two players had played 13th Age before, and Three had not - nobody had played Fate before (including me, I just liked the concepts).  Everyone seemed to pick up the system easily, for being new to it.  Overall I was happy, and I am still tinkering with some more changes I'd like to make to 13th Age (though, I'm getting close to re-writing the whole game at this point, I have a bad habit of doing that).
    I have also been making character sheets for 13th Age and the 13th Age/Fate hybrid.  Here is a link to the general sheet that I have on my Google Drive, and the Adobe Illustrator source file.  These sheets are based on the most excellent work done by Dyslexic Studeos.  Those were the best Pathfinder sheets I had ever found, so I used them as my base.

13th Age / Fate Generic Character Sheet  and Adobe Illustrator Source File

    Anyways, not sure if any other 13th Age players out there might find this useful (or consider it sacrilege), but there it is.  I'll post my more regular 13th Age character sheets sometime soon, but I need to merge some files together (I've done too many variants and I'm getting confused myself).   Also, I used a custom system for equipment which I may describe if anybody's interested.  Hope some of this is useful, as always you can leave a comment below.

1 Character, 13 Systems - Part 7: Fate Core

    I described my character, Korsanian, in a previous post here. 
    Swinging from the high-detail of GURPS let's go low-detail with the Fate Core system:

Books Used: Fate Core rules
Approximate time to create: 40 min

Korsanian Vambrae  -  Cursed Wood Elf, Devourer of Magic
High Concept: Carries a powerful burden
Trouble: The darkness inside

Phase 1- adventure:
    While patroling the forest he encountered a necromantic curse which he has taken into himself.
Aspect: Can no longer be a Ranger

Phase 2- crossing paths:
    Left the forest for the largest northern human city.  Met a wizard who helped him gain the trust and support of the Wizard's Council.
Aspect: Stranger in a strange land

Phase 3- crossing paths again:
    While investigating the curse's origin he stumbled across an evil cult, was saved by a paladin.
Aspect: Doesn't count the cost

Skills:
Great (+4)- Will
Good (+3)- Lore (arcane), Lore (nature)
Fair (+2)- Contacts, Craft, Notice
Average (+1)- Deceive, Fight, Investigate, Shoot

Stunts:
Absorb Magic- can use Will to counter magic spellcasting or suppress effects
Detect Magic- can use Notice to detect sources of magic
Alchemy (?)

Refresh: 3
Physical stress- [1] [2]
Mental stress- [1] [2] [3] [4]
Consequences- mild [2] moderate [4] severe [6]


    Fate is quite the change of pace from the other games so far.  I both like and dislike the open-ended nature of it.  On the one hand, thinking of trouble for the character got me thinking about how his curse was basically an evil spell, so having it bottled inside him much be doing something bad.  Which I had sort of in the back of my mind, but with the free-form definitions it sprang out as something to think on more carefully.  On the other hand, when picking his Stunts I had no idea what exactly to make up.  The absorb and detect magic seemed obvious, the only other stunt I could think he might have would be something related to his alchemy, but I don't know mechanically how to use it.  I thought afterwards of maybe letting him substitute Craft for Shoot (saying he throws bombs), then I'd drop the Shoot skill and have to think of something to replace it.  And while Lore is just one skill, I felt it worked better if his wizardly arcane knowledge and his ranger nature knowledge were two separate skills.
    As with 13th Age I like how the character sheet actually has something about the character, through all the Aspects (which do a far, far better job of showing one's nature than the simplistic alignment system).  I like how Fate also has something about the rest of the party on your sheet with the background phases (though, it's hard when you're making a character alone like I am).  Since this was my first Fate character ever, I'm sure with practice I could turn them out in 20 minutes or less.
    Since Aspects are so crucial to Fate, in how they generate positive and negative plot twists, I want to do a quick rundown of each Aspect I took and how it is good and bad:

⦁    Carries a powerful burden - positive: that powerful part, he constantly absorbs magic which has expanded his mind and senses; negative: that burden part, he didn't want this, and it is an evil he has to keep contained (also which others may want to release)
⦁    The darkness inside - positive: it shows his strength of will and determination, negative: who knows what it is whispering into his soul?
⦁    Can no longer be a Ranger - positive: has the knowledge and skills and reflexes of a ranger, negative: no longer has the body of one, has accepted his fate but is not exactly happy about it
⦁    Stranger in a strange land - positive: no one really knows him or what he is capable of, though an elf his shrunken form makes him look more like a gnome; negative: this is his first time out of the forest, and studying other cultures is not the same as knowing them
⦁    Doesn't count the cost - positive: mostly fearless, willing to sacrifice for a cause, negative: tends to get in over his head, has a hard time knowing when to stop

    This Aspect system is what I love about Fate, and why I'd like to play it.  It is a character dynamic, about conflicted choices, rather than most games that are role dynamics, ie, do your job.  Not many games have these character elements.  You'll notice, there is no equipment listed on the sheet- it's all about the character.  I do like that a lot.  However, these kind of character dynamics are harder to deal with; because they are ambiguous it takes some negotiation on what applies to which situations.  But it opens up an extra layer of possible gameplay.  My only wish is that the "role" side of stunts and skills was a little more traditional RPG, there the open-ended nature made it really hard to choose.
    Overall I'm quite happy with how this version turned out.  A lot of his story and nature made it onto the character sheet, and it stayed true to the concept.

P.S.- you know, after all the time making this character and writing it up, it only just now occurred to me that I'm missing his animal companion.  I guess I'd drop the Alchemy stunt and make Sovan the faelynx a +2 bonus to fighting (only when attacked/defensively) as an Animal Companion stunt; I think that would work mechanically and it would fill in a part I somehow overlooked.