Character Generation
Creating a character for Outbreak: Undead consists of three parts. They are Attributes, Abilities, and Paradigms.
Attributes
You have 120 points to distribute between the SPEW attributes. The first is Strength. It helps with certain skills which helps hit harder. It also helps with the all important encumbrance. The second is Perception. It represents hand eye coordination and general agility. The third is Empathy. It is how much of a people person you are and influences several social skills. The fourth is Willpower. This represents determination and strength of will. Each attribute gives access to specific Abilities. For every 10 points in an Attribute a character gets a free rank of Ability for that Attribute. For example, if a character has a Strength of 30 they would get 3 free ranks to put into Abilities marked for Strength.
Abilities
Abilities are advantages, talents, and familiarities linked to one or more Attributes. Some give advantages such as healing faster. Others help you improve skills faster such as swinging sports equipment at zombies. Some provide familiarity with a type of tool set which allows a character to finish longer actions faster such as setting up a shelter or scavenging.
Also included in this category are Disadvantages. They are free, given they make your characters life harder. However, they can be used as emotional crutches to avoid loosing Morale.
Paradigms
Paradigms are optional roles that you may fill. You get an assortment of advantages and or skill bonuses for picking a paradigm. The downside is the experience cost to the group for you getting injured or dying is higher. Besides the mechanical benefit they help define your role in a group. Each paradigm can only be taken by one character and each character can have a maximum of one paradigm. For example, Steve is the Clown raising everyone’s mood so Cynthia can not be the Clown but she can still attempt to help the mood.
Gestalt Levels
Every character starts with 30 Gestalt Levels. They may be spent before or during game. They can be used to raise Attributes, Raise or Gain new Abilities, gain abilities that don’t fit into other categories, or raise skills.
Skills
Skills come in three levels of difficulty. Basic skills have a base skill of an Attribute plus the bonus from another Attribute. Having an Ability that Supports the skill helps it advance faster. Trained skills are similar but slower than Basic skills. They may be optionally Specialized which helps them advance faster than a Supported Trained skill. The most difficult tier are Expert skills. Expert skills are based on two Attribute bonuses. They must be Supported or Specialized to be raised. These skills often require considerable natural talent and training as well as good tools to have a good chance of success.