This week we complete our introductions for the class exemplars, featuring the class portraits by Nikki Smith-Cielo. Alphabetically at the end of the pack, but certainly not least, is the Wizard Exemplar. In addition to utilizing both the optional Hybrid Ancestry and Backstory Trait rules, this character also showcases one of the ways that Resonance and magic items can be harnessed, even at low levels.
Franklin Devereaux Jr.
For Franklin Devereaux, his whole life can be summarized with one word: legacy. His father's legacy among the wealthy elite. The premier magical academy whose rigorous standards never even tested him simply because his father donated vast sums of gold. The secret society into which his induction was assured before Franklin had even heard about it. Every move of his life has been rigorously planned in advance, with no room for error. For Franklin, it was keep up with the demands or drown trying.
And yet Franklin loved his studies. He loves magic, and the arcane control it affords its wielder. He loves the academy that had become his home, and all of its quirky traditions. He loves the Recondite Brotherhood and the feeling of superiority it gives him, being a part of something most people would go their whole lives without ever knowing about. He even loves his father, strict and aloof as he is, and one of his greatest sources of personal joy is the looks of pride his success and persistence have earned.
Perhaps the worst thing to ever happen to Franklin Devereaux was graduating. It has always been a foregone conclusion that the young man would seamlessly assume the titles and responsibilities that currently belong to Lord Devereaux when his father is ready to retire. But Franklin Senior is still full of vim and vigor and, barring accident or assassination, looks to maintain his status for many years to come. In the mean time young Franklin is free, for the first time, to forge his own path in life. Outside of the (literal) ivory tower, he intends to experience as much of the world as he can, the good and the ill, and form his own opinions for a change.
Ancestry
Franklin is a Half-Orc. While he possesses many difference from the typical example, he is also part Human and chooses that ancestry to be the base template off of which he is built. Being human gives him 8 bonus Hit Points and two free ability boosts, which Franklin uses to improve his Agility and his Intelligence. For his first Ancestry Perk, he chooses Half Orc. This perk offers a menu of different benefits, but also unlocks all Orc and Half-Orc Ancestry Perks as available choices for his other three. From the Half-Orc menu, Franklin chooses Orcish Toughness and Orcish Vision. With Orcish Toughness, he treats his Endurance as one higher when gaining Hit Points from class. Orcish vision gives him low-light vision, allowing him to see better in dim areas than most humans.
For his other three Ancestry Perks, Franklin chooses Natural Aptitude, Orcish Stamina and Skilled. Natural Aptitude will give him a bonus Class Perk when he gets to that step. Orcish Stamina gives him an un-typed bonus to Fortitude saves. If he ever gains a Stamina Pool in the future, it will also increase the size of that pool. Finally, Skilled gives him an extra skill boost when he gets to the Details step.
Background
For his background, Franklin further improves his Agility and Intelligence and becomes an expert in the Knowledge skill. He chooses Class Training as his Backstory Boon, which will give him yet another bonus Class Perk when he gets to that step. He also chooses the Bookworm Backstory Trait. This trait gives him a large bonus to checks to Recall Knowledge and Recall General Knowledge, but imposes a small penalty to social checks against creatures.
Class
Franklin is a Wizard, which always uses Intelligence as its class Key Ability. This gives that ability another +1 bonus. The class automatically gives him another 8 Hit Points (6 plus his final Endurance of +1, and another +1 from his Orcish Toughness), as well as several Initial Proficiencies. He's an expert in Will Saves and the Arcana skill, and trained in Perception, Fortitude Saves, Will Saves, Light Armor and Unarmored Defense. The class grants him one esoteric proficiency boost for a weapon group, and Franklin uses this to become trained in Knives. Finally, he becomes trained in 6 more skills (2 plus his final Intelligence bonus of +4), and chooses Acrobatics, Crafting, Deception, Occultism, Society and Stealth. Since his Intelligence is at least +2, he also gets a bonus skill increase that he uses to further improve Society to expert.
Wizards approach magical proficiency somewhat differently than other classes. While Franklin casts arcane spells, he has a separate proficiency for each school of magic. At first level, he has the choice of beginning as a Universalist or a School Specialist. Franklin decides to be an Evocation Specialist. This gives him expert proficiency with that school, at the cost of training in other schools. He is untrained with the Divination and Necromancy schools, and trained with Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Illusion and Transmutation. As a specialist, Franklin also gains a bonus Class Perk, which much have a trait that matches his specialty school.
Including the default Class Perk that all characters get at first level, Franklin gets to choose 4 total perks. For his specialty perk, which must be an Evocation perk, he chooses Evocation Expertise. This perk teaches him the elemental admixture School Power and increases his Spell Point pool by 1. He can use this power as a reaction to change the type of elemental damage dealt by a spell he casts. At higher levels, he can even completely change the damage type to other non-elemental energy types, or even into alignment damage. For his other three Class Perks, Franklin chooses Enchanted Tongue, Hand of the Apprentice and Scholarly Counterspell. Enchanted Tongue lets him replace his Diplomacy checks with his Enchantment Spell Roll, making this typically Charisma-based skill Intelligence-based instead. Hand of the Apprentice teaches him the Transmutation School Power of the same name, which he can use to telekinetically fling weapons at foes, and also further increases his Spell Point pool by 1 more. Finally, Scholarly Counterspell lets him use any spell of a matching school to Counterspell, instead of requiring him to use the exact same spell.
All Wizards gain a Spellbook at first level. They use this book as a collection of the spells that they know, and Franklin can typically only prepare the spells collected in his book. While he can add to the spells in his spellbook during play, and while level up, it starts with eight Cantrips and six first-level spells. The spells Franklin has in his book ate acid splash, darkness, daze, detect magic, electric arc, mage hand, light, prestidigitation, charm, conjure creature, flamethrower, mage armor, magic weapon and spectral valet. Franklin also has access to an Arcane Focus, and he can spend two Spell Points while wielding his focus to cast any spell from his spellbook as a School Power, even if he did not prepare it, giving him some additional flexibility. With the two extra points gained from his Class Perks, he has 6 Spell Points to spend how he chooses each day.
Details
During this step, Franklin chooses his final round of ability boosts. He takes the option to accept an ability flaw to one score in order to receive a boost to all five of the others. He takes the penalty to Strength, thereby boosting Agility, Endurance, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. This sets his final ability modifier array at Str: -1, Agi: +3, End: +1, Int: +4, Wis: +1, Cha: +1. He chooses Impeccable Recognition as his General Perk, which gives him a large bonus to checks to identify magic items and recognize spells as they are cast, a critical step in Counterspelling, and also removes the penalty for trying to recognize magic of a different tradition. Because of his Skilled Ancestry Perk, he also gets to pick two skill boosts. He uses these perks to gain the Additional Knowledge and Thoughtful Preparation Knowledge Skill Perks. Additional Knowledge gives him two more Knowledge Specialties, increasing the number of categories where he can use the superior Recall Knowledge instead of Recall General Knowledge. Thoughtful Preparation lets him use his Knowledge skill in place of any saving throw against a creature he has identified, which is quite likely thanks to his broad expertise and his Bookwormish nature.
Equipment
Like all characters in Realm of Runes, Franklin has 150 silver pieces to spend on starting equipment. He buys a silver dagger to serve as his Arcane Focus, a backpack, bedroll, 6 rations, a belt pouch, writing set and water skin. Since he plans to rely on mage armor for defense, he spends the bulk of his money on two minor magic items: an Evoker's Workbook and a Transmuter's Workbook. These workbooks let him spend Resonance to gain bonus spell slots, though these slots can only be filled with spells of the school associated with the workbook used. The higher the level of the spell slot, the more resonance it costs to use. Since all of his best spell slots are first level anyway, and he has 5 Resonance each day, Franklin typically sinks all of it into these workbooks, allowing him to prepare a whopping eight first-level spells, instead of the three that a Wizard typically gets. He keeps the remaining 8 silver as cash on hand to spend during his adventures.
Final Touches
With all choices made, Franklin can fill out his important statistics. He has 16 Hit Points from ancestry and class. With mage armor active, his armor class is 17 (+1 from proficiency, +3 from Agility, and +3 from the Spell). His best school, Evocation, has a +6 Spell Roll and a DC 16 on its saving throws. Most of his other schools instead have a +5 or DC 15, while Divination and Necromancy only have a +3 or DC 13. While he has 8 Cantrips in his spellbook, he can only prepare four. On most days he chooses detect magic, electric arc, mage hand and prestidigitation. Thanks to elemental admixture, he can change the electric damage from electric arc to any of the other three elements, giving him a great deal of versatility out of that one spell. Thanks to his workbooks, he can prepare 8 total first-level spells, although five of them must belong to either the Evocation or Transmutation schools. He prepares two conjure creature spells, three flamethrowers, mage armor (which is typically immediately cast thanks to is 24-hour duration), magic weapon and spectral valet. As with electric arc, he can use his Evocation Expertise to change the damage type on his flamethrower, ensuring that he's covered for many different situations. The rest of his statistics are filled out similarly, depending his proficiencies and ability modifiers as appropriate.
Next week we'll once again take a closer look at an area of the rules which has improved over the course of the playtest process: stealth and senses.
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