Friday, January 1, 2021

Character Creation Challenge: NIGHT SHIFT

Welcome to 2021! Happy New Year and here's to a better year.  I am going to start this year with the Character Creation Challenge. 

A lot of people will be doing this and that is fantastic.  So if you are doing this on your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or wherever you have an open invitation to post a link to you creation in the comments section below.  I have moderation turned on to stop the spammers, but I'll approve your post.

For me, I am going to do witches. That's my thing and it is why so many people come here I think. Plus it is a challenge for me to take a game and make a witch, Rules As Written.  In every post I will give a little bit of detail about the RPG used and then the character I make and how they might fit into my world or campaigns.

Today I want to start with a game very near and dear to my heart. 

The Game: NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars is a modern supernatural monster hunting game written by Jason Vey and myself.  We took all of the work we have collectively done with Old-School RPGs along with all the experiences we had while working on Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness, Ghosts of Albion, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten and poured it into this new game.  My personal goals here were to make a game that I could play any type of witch I wanted and to fill the Buffy-shaped hole in my life.  I feel I succeeded in both.  

NIGHT SHIFT is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

The Character: Sabrina Spellman

Last night the fourth (and sadly the last) season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was released. I am only up to episode 5 so far, but I have all day today.  Plus Sabrina gives me the chance to see how well NIGHT SHIFT holds up to my design goals.

Sabrina Spellman
4th level Female Witch (Supernatual)* 
(In Sabrina's world a witch is a different species of human and different than a "mortal."  Sabrina is also the daughter of Lucifer Morningstar.)

Strength: 10
Dexterity: 15 
Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 17

HP: 8
Alignment: Neutral (Good Tendencies)
AC: 9 [10]

Check Bonus: +3 (Primary) +2 (Secondary) +0 (Tertiary)

Familiar: Salem (Cat)

Arcane Powers
Supernatural: Astral Travel (to Hell only)
Witch: Innate Magic (Glamour), Telepathic Transmission

Spells 
First: (3) Command, Mind Obscure, Obscurement
Second: (2) ESP, Produce Flame

It's hard to nail down her spells really. She has shown she can cast teleport, exorcism, astral projection and more.  Some of this is plot-focused, others are one-shot abilities.  All I can explain with the use of my ritual magic rules from my Basic-era books.

This version stacks up well with the Swords & Wizardry version and the Cinematic Unisystem version I posted a while back.

I think this is a pretty good build for her to be honest. NIGHT SHIFT really works well for both of my design goals, and a great start to this challenge.



10 comments:

Timothy S. Brannan said...

TardisCaptain's Blog of Holding is also doing posts on this.
Prepping for the Character Creation Challenge and New Year, New Character.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Green Sage Library is also prepping for the Challenge.
New Year, New Character

Tom H said...

Excellent work, and good luck! I've just started off this month's Blog Carnival with a similar theme - is there a hub or homepage for this challenge I can link to?

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Tom H, thanks!
As far as a hub goes, none that I know of really. Maybe the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag on Twitter.

Rod Thompson said...

You can find my contributions over here: http://alesmiter.blogspot.com/2021/01/2021-character-creation-challenge-day-1.html?m=0

TardisCaptain said...

Thanks for participating. I've added your blog to the list of blogs participating in the Character Creation Challenge. http://tardiscaptain.com/gaming/character-creation-challenge/

Tom H said...

Thanks Timothy; I have linked there, and here as you're linking out to others.

The Grey Elf said...

There's also ritual magic rules in Night Shift: VSW, in the Nocturnumverse chapter. Those rules have been expanded and hammered out, and will be added to the Night Companion when it comes out.

Daruska said...

I've started this challenge myself, over at: https://stoneamongthedivine.blogspot.com/2021/01/character-creation-challenge-day-13.html (I figured it's easier to post here than email~)

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Fantastic!