A player character in HEX is built to represent a person who could plausibly exist in the campaign world. There are no classes, levels, or fixed adventuring roles. The character's strengths, weaknesses, training, knowledge, possessions, social position, and relationships are assembled individually.
The chapter therefore begins with the person. Decide who the character is, where they come from, what they have done with their life, what they are capable of, where they struggle, what they know, and what connects them to the setting. The mechanical choices that follow translate that concept into game statistics.
Begin with a broad concept and discuss it with the other players and the Game Master. At this stage, the concept does not need to answer every question about the character; it only needs to establish a clear foundation for the choices that follow. Decide who the character is, the kind of life they have led, the work or training that shaped them, their broad strengths and weaknesses, and why they belong in the campaign. The Game Master determines whether the concept fits the setting and identifies any constraints that must be resolved before ratings are assigned.
Once the concept is clear enough to guide those choices, create a standard starting character in this order:
Define the character concept with the Game Master.
Assign Attributes.
Purchase Skills and Specialties.
Record Knowledge Areas, languages, and Background.
Calculate derived statistics.
Record starting wealth, equipment, vehicles or mounts, hired help, contacts, and other assets.
Review the finished character with the Game Master.
The sections that follow explain each of these components in detail before you assemble the finished character. Attributes describe broad natural capabilities; Skills and Specialties describe learned ability; Knowledge Areas, languages, and Backgrounds establish what the character knows and where they fit in the world; derived statistics convert those choices into game values; and Character Assets record the possessions, resources, and relationships available to them. Once you are familiar with these components, use the seven steps above as the sequence for completing the Character Sheet.
Attributes describe broad natural capabilities. When a Test is required, pair the relevant Skill with the Attribute that best represents how the character is attempting the task (see Adventuring > Dice Rolling).
Human Attribute values typically range from 1 to 6. Some nonhuman species have natural limits above or below the human range.
1 = Sub-par
2 = Standard
3 = Exceptional
4 = Remarkable
5 = Masterful
6 = Peak Human Potential
7+ = Beyond Human Potential
Strength measures muscular power and physical force. Use STR for lifting, dragging, pushing, forcing, holding, overpowering, and forceful close combat. STR also sets lifting and carrying limits (see Adventuring > Exertion and Rest > Encumbrance).
Agility measures coordination, balance, reflexes, bodily control, and precision. Use AGI when success depends on accurate movement or quick reaction. Common uses include balancing, dodging, careful climbing, confined or unstable movement, precise handling, and attacks where speed or coordination is decisive.
Endurance measures physical resilience, constitutional health, and resistance to fatigue, exposure, illness, and prolonged exertion. END contributes to Total Stamina, Stamina Tests, Rest Shift recovery, and bodily resistance to effects such as infection (see Adventuring > Exertion and Rest; Adventuring > Environmental Hazards).
Charisma measures social presence, confidence, and the ability to project a convincing manner. Use CHA when persuasion, deception, leadership, intimidation, negotiation, performance, or another social action depends on personal presence.
Intelligence measures reasoning, memory, analysis, comprehension, and problem solving. Use INT for understanding information, drawing conclusions, planning, calculation, diagnosis, research, or technical thought. Professional training and subject knowledge are represented by Skills and Knowledge Areas (see Player Characters > Skills; Player Characters > Knowledge Areas).
Willpower measures resolve, self-control, concentration, and determination. Use WIL for maintaining focus, resisting coercion or fear, self-discipline, or continuing under psychological pressure. All magical casting uses Willpower + Affinity (see Magic > Casting a Working). WIL contributes to Total Stamina and Stamina Tests (see Adventuring > Environmental Hazards > Stamina Tests).
At character creation, no Attribute may exceed its species maximum. The standard maximum is 6 unless the character's species specifies otherwise. The entries below list species whose Attribute caps differ from that standard, including any differences between males and females.
Human: male STR 6; female STR 5.
Erynari (Elf): STR 5 for both males and females.
Azraqan: female STR 6; male STR 8.
Syrathi: female STR 8; male STR 6.
Avar: STR 4 for both males and females. Female AGI 9; male AGI 7.
Sanguiri (vampire): STR 9, AGI 9, END 9, INT 6, WIL 6 and CHA 11 for both males and females.
Gik: STR 3, AGI 4, END 4, CHA 5, INT 15 and WIL 8.
Skills represent learned capabilities developed through training, practice, work, education, or experience. A Skill describes what the character knows how to do; the Attribute paired with it describes how the character is doing it. The Game Master chooses the combination that best fits the action, so the same Skill may use different Attributes in different circumstances.
A character may attempt a task with a Skill rating of 0 when the task can plausibly be attempted without specialized training. The Skill contributes no dice. Tasks that genuinely require trained knowledge, technique, certification, or other specialized access may be impossible without the appropriate preparation.
Skills are organized into the following five categories:
Brawl: Unarmed and close-contact fighting. Brawl covers striking, kicking, wrestling, grappling, controlling or escaping a hold, and similar physical fighting without a dedicated melee weapon.
Melee: Fighting with hand-held weapons at close range. Melee covers attacking, parrying, controlling weapon distance, and other weapon handling in close combat. Swords, knives, clubs, axes, spears, bayonets, and similar weapons normally use Melee.
Marksmanship: Deliberately aiming and firing or otherwise using ranged weapons. Marksmanship covers firearms and other weapons whose effectiveness depends on accurately placing a shot at distance. Specialized weapon systems may be represented by a Specialty such as Gunnery.
Maneuver: Trained positioning and body control. Maneuver covers dodging, defensive footwork, balancing, tumbling, slipping through tight spaces, moving through a crowded fight, scrambling into cover, and controlling a landing. Agility is the default Attribute; the Game Master may select another Attribute when the circumstances warrant it. Maneuver is the normal Skill used when a conscious character attempts to reduce fall damage.
Athletics: Trained physical exertion. Athletics covers running, jumping for distance or height, climbing, swimming, hauling the body over obstacles, and other strenuous movement. Use Maneuver when balance, positioning, or precise body control determines the outcome.
Stealth: Avoiding detection. Stealth covers moving quietly, hiding, using concealment, approaching without being noticed, shadowing a person, and controlling noise or exposure while remaining unseen.
Thievery: Criminal and covert manipulation of possessions and security. Thievery covers picking locks, sleight of hand, pickpocketing, bypassing simple security measures, concealing illicit manipulation, and similar techniques. Some uses require appropriate tools, and complex devices may require additional technical knowledge.
Perception: Deliberately noticing, locating, and examining details in the immediate environment. Perception covers spotting concealed movement, hearing an unusual sound, searching a room, detecting an ambush, finding a physical clue, or noticing that something is out of place. Perception finds information that can be sensed; interpreting specialized evidence may require another Skill or a relevant Knowledge Area.
Animal Handling: Working with animals. Animal Handling covers riding, driving animal-drawn vehicles, calming or controlling frightened animals, training, handling working animals, reading behavior, and managing mounts or draft teams.
Navigation: Determining position, direction, and route. Navigation covers reading maps, using navigational instruments, following landmarks, plotting courses, estimating position, and choosing routes across land or water. Navigation determines where to go; actually operating a vehicle, vessel, or mount normally uses Vehicles or Animal Handling.
Survival: Remaining functional and finding necessities away from settled support. Survival covers locating water and food, making shelter and fire, reading weather and terrain, tracking, hunting, trapping, selecting camps, and managing the practical hazards of wilderness travel.
Vehicles: Operating and controlling vehicles, vessels, or other conveyances that require learned handling. Vehicles covers driving, piloting, steering, managing speed and control, responding to mechanical behavior while underway, and handling a conveyance under difficult conditions.
Craft: Making, maintaining, modifying, and repairing physical objects through skilled work. Craft covers practical trades and workshop skills when the task depends on workmanship rather than purely theoretical knowledge. Required tools, materials, and technical familiarity depend on what is being built or repaired.
Medicine: Examining, stabilizing, diagnosing, and treating injury or illness. Medicine covers first aid, wound care, reduction and immobilization of injuries, diagnosis, ongoing medical care, and procedures appropriate to the practitioner's training. Advanced or invasive procedures may also require an appropriate Knowledge Area, suitable equipment, and appropriate working conditions.
Academics: Formal research, scholarly method, technical analysis, and the disciplined use of written or institutional knowledge. Academics covers locating reliable sources, interpreting scholarly material, conducting research, comparing evidence, and applying formal methods of study. A relevant Knowledge Area establishes the subject matter the character actually knows.
Lore: Recalling, recognizing, and interpreting bodies of contextual, traditional, historical, cultural, religious, esoteric, or specialized knowledge when the character has a plausible basis for knowing them. Knowledge Areas determine which subjects are reasonably available to the character.
Deception: Misleading other people deliberately. Deception covers lying, disguising intent, maintaining a false story, impersonation, bluffing, and presenting misleading information convincingly.
Leadership: Directing, organizing, and maintaining the cooperation of other people. Leadership covers giving clear orders, coordinating groups, maintaining discipline, rallying people under pressure, delegating tasks, and establishing confidence in one's direction. Use the relevant professional knowledge for technical decisions and formal authority when rank or office determines the outcome. Players determine their characters' tactical plans.
Intimidation: Influencing others through fear, threat, coercive pressure, or a credible display of consequences. Intimidation may rely on CHA, STR, WIL, or another Attribute depending on how the pressure is applied. A successful Test can compel compliance when the threat is credible to the target.
Persuasion: Influencing others through argument, negotiation, bargaining, diplomacy, rapport, or appeal. A successful Test can influence a target when the argument, offer, or relationship gives them a plausible reason to agree.
A Specialty is focused expertise within a Skill. Add the Specialty rating only when that narrower expertise directly applies to the Test (see Adventuring> Dice Rolling).
Specialty limits:
The parent Skill must be rated at least 1.
A Specialty may never exceed its parent Skill.
Specialties use the same cumulative cost progression as Skills.
Starting Specialties are purchased from the same Skill-point budget as Skills.
Choose a Specialty narrow enough that it does not apply to nearly every use of its parent Skill, but broad enough to arise regularly in play. The Game Master approves the final scope. Suitable scopes include weapon families, vehicle types, environments, professional disciplines, and techniques.
Examples include Gunnery under Marksmanship, Riding under Animal Handling, Tracking under Survival, Engineering under Academics, Wrestling under Brawl, Swords under Melee, Rifles under Marksmanship, Climbing under Athletics, Lockpicking under Thievery, Surgery under Medicine, or a particular class of vehicle under Vehicles. Seamanship, Investigation, and similarly broad fields should be assigned to the parent Skill that best matches what the Specialty actually covers in the campaign.
Starting Attributes:
All six Attributes begin at 1.
A standard starting character has 14 Attribute points total.
Distribute the remaining points subject to species limits (see Player Characters > Species Attribute Caps).
Starting Skills and Specialties:
A standard starting character receives 80 Skill points.
Skills and Specialties use the cumulative rating costs in Indexes > Character Rating Costs.
Skill ratings are independent from Attributes.
Skills are capped at 6.
Specialties use the same 80-point budget. Apply the Specialty limits above.
Skills and Specialties use these cumulative purchase costs. Advancing a rating one step costs the new rating.
Rating | Total points |
|---|---|
1 | 1 |
2 | 3 |
3 | 6 |
4 | 10 |
5 | 15 |
6 | 21 |
Total Stamina = END + WIL (see Combat > Stamina). Example: END 3 + WIL 3 = Total Stamina 6.
Normal Movement = AGI ÷ 2 hexes (AGI × 5 metres) per Turn, leaving the Action available. Full-round movement = AGI hexes (AGI × 10 metres) per Turn and uses both the Action and Movement. One combat hex represents 10 metres (see Adventuring > Movement; Combat > Movement).
Knowledge Areas describe subjects a character knows through education, profession, personal experience, hobbies, culture, or other parts of their background. They are not rated and are not added to dice pools. They establish what the character may reasonably know.
Choose Knowledge Areas that fit the character concept and Background in consultation with the Game Master. A Knowledge Area may give the character access to facts, terminology, procedures, or conclusions that would not be obvious without that background.
Record the languages the character can speak and, where relevant, whether they can read and write them. Languages have no numerical rating. Starting languages follow from species, culture, upbringing, education, profession, and Background.
Knowing a language permits ordinary communication in that language. Unfamiliar dialects, archaic forms, codes, technical jargon, damaged texts, or difficult interpretation may still require an appropriate Skill, Knowledge Area, or Test when the outcome is uncertain. A character can acquire another language during play when sustained study, immersion, instruction, or other circumstances make that knowledge plausible.
A Background describes the character's place in the setting: occupation, social position, upbringing, affiliations, or another broad life context. It helps establish appropriate Knowledge Areas, languages, starting possessions, resources, contacts, obligations, and other setting-facing details.
Backgrounds are setting-specific, are not rated, and do not add dice by themselves. Choose one with the Game Master and use the campaign's setting material to determine the assets and social assumptions that accompany it.
Character Assets record the possessions, resources, and relationships available to a character. These include money, clothing, tools, weapons, vehicles, animals, property, documents, contacts, employees, and institutional access.
Credits (¢) are the default currency for item values, equipment prices and other monetary amounts throughout HEX. The credit is the galaxy's primary reserve currency and most widely used currency. Use credit or credits in ordinary rules text and price lists; 250¢ means 250 credits.
When dealing with protected or uncontacted worlds such as Earth or Veyrath, use the relevant local currency. Earth uses its local currencies. Veyrath prices are expressed in Sovereigns, represented by the dollar sign ($). The Sovereign is an in-world currency; the prices in the Veyrath Equipment List are normalized to late-nineteenth-century purchasing power for ease of use. Local price lists retain their stated values; no exchange rate to credits is implied.
Credits are fully digital account balances and have no physical form. Transfers occur directly between accounts using software. Vendors use point-of-sale software that interacts with a customer's wallet-connected device to make payments.
Track money that is immediately available to the character as accessible account balances and, where the local currency has physical forms, coins or banknotes. Record these separately from property, equipment, investments, institutional budgets, family wealth, and other assets. Ordinary listed prices assume normal market conditions. Scarcity, isolation, war, tariffs, monopoly control, black markets, custom workmanship, and similar circumstances may alter the actual price.
Record equipment as specific items. Use equipment lists appropriate to the setting and region for prices, listed masses or bulk descriptions, weapon statistics, armor statistics, tools, clothing, field gear, services, and other common goods. General item values use credits (¢); protected or uncontacted worlds use their local currencies. For Veyrath, use the Veyrath Equipment List and its Sovereign ($) prices.
Gear adds +1 die when equipment provides a tangible advantage beyond the tools required to attempt the task (see Adventuring > Dice Rolling). Resolve weapon and armor statistics under Combat > Damage and Combat > Armor.
Availability describes how readily an item can be obtained in a particular setting, region, market, and set of circumstances. Use the same five statuses for weapons, armor, gear, and vehicles, and record the status by name.
Common: These items are easily found on worlds and stations that see interstellar commerce.
Uncommon: These items are not always found and are subject to varying local availability.
Rare: These items are hard to find and may only be available in certain systems or via certain channels.
Restricted: These items are not sold to civilians or the general public and are obtained through contracts, typically military, law enforcement, or government.
Prototype: These items are either a one-off prototype or are emerging technology and are not yet commercially available.
Military equipment is generally Restricted. Civilian and dual-use equipment is classified according to its normal market access. Prototype applies to equipment that is not yet commercially available, rather than to advanced technology in routine use.
Treat the listed status as a baseline for the relevant market. On isolated worlds, use local production and trade to judge availability. Supply, demand, trade routes, war, and access to particular suppliers can change what can be obtained. An item may be absent from a local market without requiring a separate availability status.
Availability describes access to an item. Quality, technological capability, price, and local legal requirements are assessed separately. Contacts, brokers, and alternate markets can provide access where ordinary retail cannot; local conditions may also affect price as described under Wealth.
Vehicles and mounts are character assets when owned, issued, or otherwise under the character's control. Record the actual vehicle or animal, its associated equipment, and any continuing requirements such as fuel, feed, water, stabling, crew, maintenance, or storage.
Use Animal Handling for riding, animal-drawn transport, and working animals. Use Vehicles for mechanically operated conveyances. Use Navigation for route and position, not vehicle control. Purchase prices are in the Veyrath Equipment List; travel rates are in Adventuring > Travel.
Paid servants, laborers, guards, guides, crew, specialists, and other hired personnel are normally NPCs controlled by the Game Master. Their willingness to work depends on pay, conditions, loyalty, authority, personal interests, and the circumstances of play.
The Agent rules are optional. Use them when a Main Character commands, employs, or otherwise maintains subordinate characters who may act in scenes without the Main Character present.
Each player maintains one primary Main Character (MC) and may also have subordinate characters in the same roster. When the MC is absent from a scene, the player may take the role of one of those subordinates as an Agent.
Agents use complete character sheets and are mechanically identical to Main Characters. Advancements may be applied to them normally.
A player controls only one character at a time. This must be the highest-ranking individual in that player's roster who is present in the scene; other subordinate characters present are treated as NPCs.
An Agent may be a soldier, servant, hireling, volunteer, retainer, or other subordinate. The character must be plausibly answerable to and sufficiently loyal to the Main Character. Temporary hirelings remain NPCs unless they meet those requirements.
Other assets may include homes, workshops, businesses, land, ships, collections, licenses, legal documents, letters of introduction, lines of credit, institutional authority, social connections, dependants, and similar resources. Record what the character actually possesses or can legitimately call upon.
Apply each asset through its concrete effect. A workshop may provide necessary tools or favorable Gear; a title may provide access or authority; a contact may provide information; a line of credit may make a purchase possible.
The Game Master awards Advancements at meaningful milestones (see Running Adventures > Awarding Advancements). Unspent Advancements may be banked. During play, a player may spend one banked Advancement to automatically succeed on one Test (roll) of their choosing. The player must declare the expenditure before the roll is made. Resolve an uncontested Test with at least 1 success, or a Contest with at least one success more than the opposing side. If at least 1 die remains after all modifiers, roll normally and keep a better result. If the final pool is 0 or less, roll no dice: the Advancement still grants automatic success, provided the action is otherwise possible. For a nullified roll, declare the expenditure before the Test is resolved. An Advancement does not make an otherwise impossible action possible. A Test granted automatic success cannot produce a Mishap, regardless of the faces rolled (see Adventuring > Hazard Dice and Mishaps).
Skill and Specialty cost: pay Advancements equal to the new rating for each step. Costs are cumulative. Example: 3 → 4 costs 4 Advancements; 3 → 5 costs 9 total (see Indexes > Character Rating Costs).
Skills are capped at 6. A Specialty may only be purchased for a Skill rated at least 1 and may never exceed the rating of its parent Skill.
Attributes are not purchased with Advancements. An Attribute increases only after sustained experience, training, conditioning, or another plausible cause of real change. The Game Master decides when the requirement has been met.
Attribute improvement normally requires meaningful time. Increasing STR, for example, usually requires months of consistent training, demanding physical work, or comparable sustained exertion.
Attribute Damage is restored under Combat > Damage > Attribute Damage > Healing Attribute Damage.