Help for Character Creation

[Dark_ice17 (Galvatron)]

Sometimes using the books by yourself can be a bit confusing, and filling out the character sheet can be a drag the first time. We are here to help! Please post here if you have any question at all regarding character creation. If this is your first time, and you are super confused, let us know! We will be as helpful as we can and would rather you ask then not know what your doing, and maybe miss something vital that could make things difficult for you in the long run. We will not be starting the game until everyone is done their character sheets and such.

If this is your first time playing, I encourage you to post here, or PM myself or Steve with any questions you have.

[Arrise]

I am creating a human for the first time, for class level and career level are they 1? what are deity options? what are touched or flatfoot? thanks in advance sorry I'm so new.

[Dark_ice17 (Galvatron)]

Sept 6, 2012 19:40:19 GMT -4 Arrise said:

I am creating a human for the first time, for class level and career level are they 1? what are deity options? what are touched or flatfoot? thanks in advance sorry I'm so new.

No worries Arrise, this is what this thread is for!

Q: 'For class level and career level are they 1?'

A: Your character has two types of levels, a 'character' level, and a 'class' level. You will be starting at leved 1, so you will have a character level of 1, and a class level of 1. Unless you multi-class or ascend into a Paragon class, your player level and class level should be the same. Because this can be a bit confusing, I am including some examples.

- Example 1: Arrise is a Level 5 Human Figher. Figher is his only class, so his 'character' level is 5, and his class level is 5.
- Example 2: Arrise is a Level 7 Human Figher / Rogue. He has 5 levels in Figher, and 2 levels in Rogue, but his 'character' level is 7.

Q: 'What are deity options?'

A: Any deity you think suits your character is available. You can make your own deity to worship if you would like, but keep in mind that a deity needs a signifigant ammount of worshipers to remain a deity. If you decide to make your own deity, it is up to you to provide us with the backstory and worship groups.

Q: what are touched or flatfoot?

A: Touch and Flatfooted are both in regards to the AC, or 'armor class' of your character. AC is what determines whether or not an enemy hits you or misses you. Any given character has a base AC of 10 + Bonuses from armor worn + Dexterity modifier + any Miscellaneous AC modifiers given from items or Feats.

Example = Feringar is a level 5 Warmage with a Dexterity of 12. This gives him a Dexterity modifier of 1. He is also wearing a Chain Shirt which gives +4 to AC. So his AC is 10 + 4 + 1, so 15. This means enemies trying to attack need to meet or exceed 15 on their hit rolls (including their bonuses) to hit him.

Flatfooted AC comes in to play when an enemy is able to attack you before you are aware of them / are prepared for them to attack this is gets rid of the Dexterity modifier in the AC calculation.

If we take a look at Feringar, the warmage listed above, his Flatfooted AC would be 14. This may not be much of a difference in this case, but for a high-dexterity character, this can be considerably different.

Touch AC is calculated without the bonus from the armor you are wearing, this comes into play with some things such as spells like scorching ray (ranged touch attack) and Shocking Grasp (close-range touch attack). These are attacks that negate armor when the AC is calculated.

If we look once again at Feringar, his Touch AC would be 11. In most cases, a characters touch AC is noticeably lower than the regular AC.

I certainly hope my answers have what your looking for, and feel free to ask any more questions you may have.

[Arrise]

Thanks for the fast response, I've decided on a character and picked a deity listed on the DnD wiki (Delleb) also I've discovered my player handbook is 3.5 so thats good.

[Dark_ice17 (Galvatron)]

Awesome, if it is a hard copy, those are much more manageable than reading an online PDF. I've modified my above post answering your questions about Touch AC and Flatfooted AC. Hopefully I explained it clearly ;D

[Arrise]

I've Decided to go with a Cleric, it was my dads favourite class and its interesting to me. My starting equipment includes a crossbow with 10 bolts and a mace, On the attacks section of the character sheet what would i put for those? Also would my spells be listed there? or jsut in the spell section? thanks in advance.

[Dark_ice17 (Galvatron)]

Sept 8, 2012 13:11:36 GMT -4 Arrise said:

I've Decided to go with a Cleric, it was my dads favourite class and its interesting to me. My starting equipment includes a crossbow with 10 bolts and a mace, On the attacks section of the character sheet what would i put for those? Also would my spells be listed there? or jsut in the spell section? thanks in advance.

The 'Attacks' section of the character sheet is where you list your weapons. You would list your crossbow and your mace, and include information like how many dice each attack is, the threat range (aka critical hit range) and other information, like if it is piercing, slashing or bludgeoning. Your spells you can either list in the 'spells' section on the character sheet (it is too small so personally I don't use it), or write them out on a separate piece of paper. Or, alternatively, you can save yourself the time of writing down a million spells and just refer to the PHB spells section.

In my own opinion, Cleric is an underrated class, most people don't choose to make one their first time, I respect that. They are surprisingly fun, but a lot of people think they are just a 'healer' class, and that is just not right, they are much more versatile than they seem.

Note: You can get more than 10 crossbow bolts if you wish, keep in mind that any projectile like that has a 50% chance of being destroyed upon impact, so if you plan on using the crossbow a lot, I would grab a few more, you don't need a crazy amount. Alternatively, if you plan to utilize your mace more, or spells, 10 may be a suitable amount of bolts.

[Arrise]

Thanks for the reply, I felt like the Cleric was the right choice for me, and thanks so much for the compliment.

I've finished my sheet now and everything looks good, Thanks for the advice on the Spells as well your right, far too small. Also I was wondering what it ment by "prepare spells in advance" do some spells require this? or all? thanks.

[Dark_ice17 (Galvatron)]

Sorry about the delayed reply, I haven't been able to access the forums as much as I would like to as of late. What it means by 'preparing spells' is something your character would have to do every morning. You don't have to prepare every single spell every day, just the ones you plan on using, but you can prepare more than neccicary just in case. This is something that doesn't take much time out of your characters day, so it's usually assumed spellcasters prepare their spells while the rest of the party is getting up in the morning. It's also nice to note that you need 8 hours sleep to prepare spells, so ensuring enough sleep time can be more important to spellcasters than other classes.