Eschalon: Book I Q&A

RPG Codex had the opportunity to quiz Basilisk Games’ Thomas Riegsecker about their upcoming “old school” RPG, Eschalon: Book I. Here’s a bit of what was talked about:

Q: Tell us about the character system. What kind of characters can we expect to create and develop?

A: The story in E:B1 involves a human male character. You can develop this character in any way you want and master any combination of Skills, but to maintain storyline integrity we had to lock down your race and gender selections. To make up for the lack of racial choices, you do get to pick the region you hail from which gives you Attribute bonuses and has a similar effect to that of choosing a unique race.

You’ll also choose a “Base Class” when creating your character. This gives you a bonus starting Skill and works with other factors in determining how certain rules are applied to your character, but ultimately character development is purely Skill and Attribute based. Class has no effect on weapon, armor or magic usage. So, you can become a sword-wielding Mage, a Healer-Rogue, or a barbarian Ranger…whatever you want.