Example Character Sheet #1: Bob Everyman

Basics

Sword: D (0/21)
Other: E

n/a

1) Mushroom
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)

• Armor: None
• Money: Coins (100)

Combat Stats

Field Stats

Strength: 5
Hand-Eye: 5
Platform: 5
Knowledge: 5
Clever: 5
Charisma: 5

• Unique: n/a
• Weight: 9

Attacks

• AP: 0/3
• Basic Attack: Punches the target in the face.

1) Iron Sword (E)
2)
3)
4)

Special Attacks

• Charge~ Charge: 2, VP: 1
  "Builds up extra power for his next attack."
• Heat Stroke~ Attack: WBAP, VP: 3, Target: One, Weapon: Sword, Element: Fire, Ailment: Burn, Turns: 3, Chance: 100%
  "Sets the sword on fire and attacks with it, inflicting a Burn on the target."
• Astra~ Attack: WBAPx0.5, Hits: 5, VP: 10, Target: One, Weapon: Sword
  "Strikes five times in quick succession, but each hit is at half power."

Psychic Attacks

• None

Magical Attacks

• None

Technicalities

• Appearance: A dude.
• Personality: That of your average dude.
• Backstory: He's pretty much an average dude.
• Trivia: Under very few circumstances can he not be accurately and comprehensively described as "a dude."

This is a very basic character who hasn't done anything terribly interesting with his stats. Let's start from the top. He's come up with a name, but the Level that he starts at and his XP amount are set automatically, so he can't do anything with those. The first thing that he can actually affect is his Affinity: he's chosen Earth. This does appear to match the character's personality, or lack thereof, so that's good.

Next, he's chosen a D Weapon Level in Sword-type weapons. Player characters may start with one D Weapon Level, while the rest must be E. So, all's well here too. He doesn't have any support levels, which is also the automatic starting point—support levels are earned by winning battles with your friends and helping them complete field puzzles, so, since he hasn't played any of the game yet, he obviously won't have any of those to begin with.

Bob has a Mushroom in his Inventory. Players are allowed to start out holding a few simple items, but ideally they should not get anything too game-breaking right off the bat. He isn't wearing any armor, but he does have 100 Coins. Players can start with or without some money or armor, but again, nothing that would provide an unfair advantage.

Bob has chosen to begin the game with 10 VP and 5 MP instead of the other way around. This means that Bob probably isn't thinking about specializing in magical attacks, and you can see that he hasn't created any to start with. His Attack, Magic, and Brain stats all start at 1, and once again this is predetermined: the player cannot affect the starting values of these stats, so no need to worry about them. Defense, on the other hand, is marked as 0—we'll get back to that in a minute.

We can see that Bob has spent his 30 field stat points rather uncreatively: he's set all six of his main field stats to 5, and decided not to bother coming up with a Unique field ability. Well, that's okay—Bob may not be especially great at any one particular task, but he can do any normal task respectably well, so he can help to balance out any field weaknesses in his team. He's also set his Weight to the maximum of 9—so he probably won't have to worry about being carried around by an enemy, and he'll usually be able to step on weight-sensitive switches and activate them without any help. He also has great alcohol tolerance, so he can drink several alcoholic items to heal himself without getting drunk. However, if he falls off a cliff, he'll take significant damage due to his Weight (specifically, he would take 9 + 10 - 5 - 0 = 14 damage from a Long Fall).

Bob has an Iron Sword equipped, which matches his D Weapon Level in Swords, so that's fine and dandy. He's also spent his 3 AP (Attack Points) and given himself three special attacks. Remember how I said we'd get back to talking about Defense? In character creation, you can sacrifice one, two, or all three of your AP to instead increase your Defense by 1 each. So, if you wanted to start out with 1 Defense, then you would only be able to start with two special attacks. Spending all three points on Defense means that you won't have any special attacks and must rely on your equipped weapon to make yourself at all useful or interesting—on the other hand, AP that you earn by leveling up cannot be spent on Defense, only on new attacks, so think carefully about this option during character creation.

Bob has spent all three points on attacks. His Charge move is identical to the effect of the Charge Badge in Paper Mario, and his Astra attack is based on the Swordmaster skill from Fire Emblem. Speaking of fire, he can use a flaming sword attack, too—this attack has a 100% chance of inflicting the Burn Status Problem on the target, which could come in handy for causing some extra damage. Bob doesn't have any attacks that can hit all enemies at once (referred to as "multitarget" attacks), but his Charge ability means that he'll be able to do a lot of damage to one enemy if he survives long enough. And once he levels up and gets some more VP, he can combine Charge with Astra for massive damage.

Bob doesn't have any psychic or magical attacks, and he didn't choose any Elemental Modifiers. This means that Elemental attacks will not work any differently against him than any other attacks. That's okay—to create a resistance you have to create a weakness, so not having any weaknesses or resistances makes things easy to think about. Bob won't have to worry about running into his weaknesses, and can focus on surviving long enough to get a few Charges in.

That's about all there is to say about Bob Everyman. He should have been pretty easy to understand, but the other two example characters will show you some of the more complicated options available in Arpeggio.