3. Character Creation

Table of Contents

• 3.1 Experience Points
  • 3.1.1 Gaining extra EP during character creation
  • 3.1.2 Differences from FUDGE sec. 5.2
  • 3.1.3 Rules not covered in FUDGE sec. 5.2
• 3.2 Base Attribute Levels
  • 3.2.1 Method 1
  • 3.2.2 Method 2
  • 3.2.3 Method 3
  • 3.2.4 Method 4
• 3.3 Race
  • 3.3.1 Method 1
  • 3.3.2 Method 2
  • 3.3.3 Method 3
  • 3.3.4 Method 4
• 3.4 EP Value

3.1: Each character starts out with 100 Experience Points (EP) to spend.

Not all 100 EP need to be spent when the character is created.  These initial EP may be held in reserve for any Traits the player might realize the character needs during the course of adventuring.  EP may also be used to buy Fudge Points at a rate of one (1) Fudge Point per EP.

3.1.1: Characters may gain extra EP to spend by reducing their attributes and/or taking Faults.

• Lowering attributes below their initial base levels gives the character EP equal to what it would cost to raise the attribute to its old base level from the new level it is lowered to.  For example, it costs 6 EP to raise an attribute from Poor to Fair, so the character would gain 6 EP if he lowered an attribute from Fair to Poor.  Likewise, if he had an attribute with a base level of Superb (see section 3.2.4 below), he would gain 24 EP for lowering it from Superb to Great, or 36 EP for lowering it from Superb to Good.  No Attribute may be lowered below Terrible.
• Every Fault that a character takes gives the character an additional 6 EP to spend.

3.1.2: EP do not work exactly as detailed in FUDGE section 5.2.

3.1.3: The EP rules in FUDGE section 5.2 also need clarifications.

• There is one glaring omission in the FUDGE Objective Character Development rules.  Nowhere is there a listing of how many EP it costs to acquire a new Skill that your character didn't used to possess.  (Oh, sure, all skills of average difficulty are actually supposed to be known by your character at a default level of Poor, but what about skills that default to non-existent, huh?)  Based on the old skill-level-cost table that appears in FUDGE section 1.62, the cost of acquiring new skills in Death Munchkin! is as follows:

  Skill Difficulty	EP cost to acquire	Initial level when acquired
  Easy	1	Fair
  Average (Most)	1	Mediocre
  Hard	1	Poor
  Very Hard	1	Terrible

• The "Raising a Skill" table in the FUDGE Objective Character Development rules is good for looking up how many EP it costs to raise a Skill by one level, but is rather tedious to use for building the Skills of a newly-created character.  For example, it costs 1 EP to buy an Average-Difficulty Skill at Mediocre, 1 EP to raise any Mediocre Skill to Fair, and 2 EP to raise any Fair Skill to Good.  To give a character an Average-Difficulty skill at Good right off the bat, you would have to add these EP costs together (1 EP + 1 EP + 2 EP = 4 EP), which can get tedious rather quickly.  For this reason, I have summarized the EP costs for purchasing a new Skill at any level in the following table:

  Skill Difficulty ->	Easy	Average	Hard	Very Hard
  Terrible	—	—	—	1 EP
  Poor	—	—	1 EP	2 EP
  Mediocre	—	1 EP	2 EP	3 EP
  Fair	1 EP	2 EP	3 EP	4 EP
  Good	3 EP	4 EP	5 EP	6 EP
  Great	7 EP	8 EP	9 EP	10 EP
  Superb	15 EP	16 EP	17 EP	18 EP
  Legendary	31 EP	32 EP	33 EP	34 EP
  Legendary 2nd	61 EP	62 EP	63 EP	64 EP

  Each additional level of Legendary costs an additional 50 EP.

• Likewise, there is no quick-and-easy table in the FUDGE Objective Character Development rules good for building the Attributes of a newly-created character.  There is only a note that raising an Attribute costs 3 times as many EP as raising a Skill.  It costs 3 EP to raise any Mediocre Attribute to Fair, and 6 EP to raise any Fair Attribute to Good.  If you use one of the random methods for determining base Attributes (sections 3.2.2 to 3.2.4), and you roll a base Strength level of Mediocre, and you want to raise it to Good, you would have to add these EP costs together (3 EP + 6 EP = 9 EP), which can get tedious rather quickly.  For this reason, I have summarized the EP costs for raising an Attribute from any level to any other level in the following table:

  From —> To	Terrible	Poor	Mediocre	Fair	Good	Great	Superb	Legendary
  Terrible	0 EP	-3 EP	-6 EP	-9 EP	-15 EP	-27 EP	-51 EP	-99 EP
  Poor	3 EP	0 EP	-3 EP	-6 EP	-12 EP	-24 EP	-48 EP	-96 EP
  Mediocre	6 EP	3 EP	0 EP	-3 EP	-9 EP	-21 EP	-45 EP	-93 EP
  Fair	9 EP	6 EP	3 EP	0 EP	-6 EP	-18 EP	-42 EP	-90 EP
  Good	15 EP	12 EP	9 EP	6 EP	0 EP	-12 EP	-36 EP	-84 EP
  Great	27 EP	24 EP	21 EP	18 EP	12 EP	0 EP	-24 EP	-72 EP
  Superb	51 EP	48 EP	45 EP	42 EP	36 EP	24 EP	0 EP	-48 EP
  Legendary	99 EP	96 EP	93 EP	90 EP	84 EP	72 EP	48 EP	0 EP
  Legendary 2nd	189 EP	186 EP	183 EP	180 EP	174 EP	162 EP	138 EP	90 EP

  To raise an Attribute above Legendary 2nd, each additional level of Legendary costs an additional 150 EP.

• GM permission is not required to raise Traits to Legendary level or higher, or to purchase Gifts.
• Attribute levels do not affect the EP cost of raising Skills.
• EP may also be used to buy Magic Spells, Psionic Powers, and Mutant Powers, as detailed in later sections of these rules.

3.2: Attributes may start out at levels other than Fair.

• 3.2.1: Method 1:

  All attributes start out at a base level of Fair, just like in the normal FUDGE rules.

• 3.2.2: Method 2:

  Use the attribute table in the Random Character Creation rules (section 1.8 of the normal FUDGE rules) exactly as written.  That is, roll 2d6 and consult the table to determine the base level of each attribute.

• 3.2.3: Method 3:

  Use the attribute table in the Random Character Creation rules (section 1.8 of the normal FUDGE rules), but roll 3d6 and discard the lowest d6 before consulting the table to determine the base level of each attribute.

• 3.2.4: Method 4:

  Use the attribute table in the Random Character Creation rules (section 1.8 of the normal FUDGE rules), but roll 15d6 and discard the lowest 13 d6es before consulting the table to determine the base level of each attribute.

3.3: Choose, or roll, your character's Race.

• 3.3.1: Method 1:

  Races are purchased for EP, just like Skills and Gifts are.  EP costs for each Race are listed in Section 4.

• 3.3.2: Method 2:

  Roll percentile dice for each character, and consult the following table:

  roll	Race
  01-40	Human
  41-70	Half-elf
  71-90	Half-orc
  91-93	Half-troll
  94-96	Half-ogre
  97-99	Half-giant
  00	Half-Tarrask

• 3.3.3: Method 3:

  Use the table listed in Method 2 (Section 3.3.2, above), except roll the percentile dice 6 times, taking the highest roll.

• 3.3.4: Method 4:

  Use the table listed in Method 2 (Section 3.3.2, above), except roll 12 ten-sided dice, take the two highest (or two 0's, if there are two 0's), and arrange them higher-roll-first so that they spell out the highest 2-digit number.

3.4: Your EP Value determines how powerful you are relative to others.

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