How to stream line character creation

[Johnmakuta]

You have 50 minutes to help 5 new players that donut even know what a magic missile is make a character and understand how to use it.

[heavyfuel]

One alternative is to ask, roughly, what they want, and build the characters yourself. If you or them don't like this idea, here's how you do it.


Races: Any they find cool.

Ability Scores: Use an Array like Elite array instead of rolled dice or point buy. It's really fast.

Classes: Avoid prepared casters, or hell, just let them cast spontaneously. No new player is going to break your game with spells. Even if the Fighter goes WF line, he's not going to be that behind the Barbarian that will probably avoid Raging because of fatigue.

Skills: Tell them what they need. Wizards get Spellcraft and Concentratrion, Rogues get Search, Disable Device, Hide and MS. Everything else leave up to them.

Feats: Tell them what is good for them. Fighters that get Weapon Specialization are fine in really low OP.

Combat: Explain Attack vs AC and DC vs Saving Throws to them. Tell them each can make one movement and one Standard Action, which most things are.

[BWR]

Use a game other than 3.5.
Or just hand them pregens.

[ILM]

Pregen characters, cards for abilities (and spells - and give them sorcerers, not wizards). Give them a quick rundown of skill checks and actions in combat but keep the complicated stuff like grappling and disarming for your NPCs until you get a chance to demonstrate how it works.

[Flickerdart]

Race: Go with something that feels good. Human? Lame, no stat boosts! Grab some tried and true fantasy staples like Elves and Dwarves and don't get too hung up on the random saves VS poison bonuses until they come up.

Class: Stay away from spellcasters and 1/day abilities in general. "You're a sweet barbarian axe guy" becomes a lot less cool when they find out that you're only awesome for 1 combat a day. Warlocks are great - a laser beam that rarely misses and a cool power? Sold! Rogues are good, players should already know what to expect since it's a super common archetype in all kinds of media. Focus on active at-will abilities.

Conditional bonuses are also right out. Unless it applies constantly, it will be forgotten.

Ability scores: Arrays are fine, but Elite Array sucks. Give them big numbers, big numbers are fun.

Feats: Weapon Focus is fine. Dodge is not (see conditional bonuses above). Unlike with conventional optimization, you want to avoid feats that grant new abilities, because they are confusing. However, you should be focusing on abilities that make your players better at active things, because hitting frequently is more fun than taking more hits before you go down.

Combat: If you did everything right, every character you have in the party does exactly one thing. "You can move and then make an attack" is simple to understand. Rolling a d20 and adding your attack bonus is easy to understand.

[Kelb_Panthera]

50 minutes? Spend it trying to find time in our busy schedules to sit down and properly go over the basic rules, maybe in one-on-one sit-downs if necessary. 1st level characters can be generated fairly quickly but, frankly, I seriously dislike 1st level both as a player and a DM and teaching the combat mechanics could take an hour all by itself.

I honestly don't think 50 minutes is long enough to teach one, much less 5.

[ericgrau]

Pregens seconded. Have more pregens than players, preferably a 2:1 ratio, so they can pick what they like. Briefly explain their abilities to them so they have a rough idea, saying that you'll get into more detail as they play.

It would be cool if someone made a simple spreadsheet for character generation. I've found a spreadsheet before, but it's insanely complicated so it can let you do anything. I mean more video game style, so you auto-roll stats, click on gear to buy, and can't increase anything past its limit. Use buttons + macros, or dropdown menus for example.

Or if the playground made a pregen library, that would be cool too.