Character creation and development (Wasteland 2)

Creating a character in Wasteland 2 is a mandatory process. While originally the player could use a pre-made party in Wasteland, the sequel provides pre-made characters for use, but creating own Rangers is still a better choice due to greater flexibility.

Creating a Character
There are eight pre-made character available for selection: Bear, Big Bert, Cherry Bomb, Cold-Eye, Fade, Hex, Pills, and Slick.

There's an excellent online tool available, called the Ranger Creation Toolkit, which allows the player not only to simulate party creation, but also check how well rounded it is by factoring in recruits and their skills. The squad view allows you to check which skills your target party makeup has and which ones it does not.

Attributes
Ranger's basic attributes are:

Together, they form the basis of the C.L.A.S.S.I.C. (CLASSIC) system. Each Ranger starts with a value of 3 in each of these attributes and 7 points to spend, giving you a total of 28 points for 7 attributes. A value of 1-2 is considered poor, 3-7 is varying definitions of average, 8-9 is great, and 10 is exceptional.

Each Ranger gain 1 attribute point per 10 levels.

Derived Stats
Derived Stats determined by the attributes.

Character Plans
Common stats of squad members (level 40 stats given in  brackets):

Skills
Skills are also expressed in a range from 1 to 10 and are divided into three separate branches: Combat Skills, Knowledge Skills, and General Skills. The player only has 12 skill points to distribute. Purchasing the first level in a skill costs 2 points. Levels 2 and 3 cost a further 2 points each, while 4 and 5 require 4 each.

Each Ranger gain skill points per every level. Its number depends on his or her Intelligence.

The skills are divided into separate branches:

Combat Skills
As expected, combat skills determine the base chance to hit with a given weapon type, weapon range, chance for a critical hit and critical damage, bonus to area of effect attacks, reduce reload costs, shotgun range damage falloff, and incidence of jamming, increase the number of shots fired per burst, and damage with energy weapons.

Personal Data
The final step is determining the character's personal data, including the gender, name, age (anywhere from 16 to 99 years), religion (irreligious, atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Indigenous, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, or Sikh), nationality (American, Chinese, Mexican, Native American, or Russian), and the favourite brand of cigarettes (Bones, Coffin Nails, Nico-Pops, Red Rooster, Styx, or none at all). Wasteland 2 also allows for writing a short biography, though without the possibility to break it down into paragraphs.

The final step is determining the character's 3D appearance. The player can select between different skin tones, types of hair and head gear, face textures, as well as torso, leg, and backpack models. The final touch is the portrait, which can be one of the pre-made ones, a screenshot of the 3D model or a custom one.

Wasteland 2 also permits exporting characters for later use.

Custom Portrait
Custom portrait is a feature allowing the player to upload their own portrait for use by Rangers in the game. Consult this article for more information or ranger field manual (p. 35-36).

Deployment
Once accepted, the character is added into the party. Their initial loadout will greatly depend on their skills.