Help with Character Creation?

[Raine_Sage]

My brother wants to run a 3.5 game over roll20 and while I've played 3.5 once before it was with a pregen character so I have no clue about how to set about building one from scratch. If it helps I think I might like to play a bard, maybe dancer-ish I'm not sure. There are just so many bits to 3.5 character creation and I feel like the SRD throws too many options at me all at once. Any help would be appreciated.

[Flickerdart]

There are basically 5 variables, at least at level 1: race, class, ability scores, feats, and skills. As a bard, you'll also have to think about spells. Is there anything specific you want to know about, or just the entire process?

[Raine_Sage]

Just a general outline of how to go about things. I think it's feats in particular that are the most daunting. He's allowing all books except BoED and BoVD I think. Also if someone could explain how favored classes work, that comes up in the race section.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Favored Class: If you have multiple base classes that are more than a level apart (Fighter 3/Cleric 1 for example) you take a penalty to experience gain. Favored class means you ignore that class for this calculation.
A dwarf, which has favored class fighter, with Fighter 3/Cleric 1 would not take penalties. An elf, which has favored class wizard, with Fighter 3/Cleric 1 would.
Prestige classes are never included in these calculations.
Ask your DM if he is using these rules. They are honestly a pain to deal with and many DMs ignore them, if they remember them at all.

[Flickerdart]

Just a general outline of how to go about things. I think it's feats in particular that are the most daunting. He's allowing all books except BoED and BoVD I think. Also if someone could explain how favored classes work, that comes up in the race section.
Haha, fun stuff. Alright, let's try and get through this. What level are we talking about?

There's a few pages in the PHB about how to do this, but the PHB is dumb. What you really want to do is pick capabilities and then work backwards.

You say you want to be a bard or a dancer. There are certainly a whole bunch of cool concepts here. My encyclopedic knowledge of D&D (all those ranks I could have spent on Knowledge: Girls, but alas) brings up you Snowflake Wardance, a feat that lets you add Charisma to attack rolls with slashing weapons. This is usually paired with Dragonfire Inspiration (an alternative song that adds dice of energy damage to attacks) to make really sweet two-weapon fighting builds.

Now you've got goals in life - get the feats Snowflake Wardance, Dragonfire Inspiration, and Two-Weapon Fighting, and make them provide the biggest bonuses. Bard is obviously crucial here, and since you want as many uses of Bardic Music as possible, you'll want to go straight Bard. A single level of Fighter is actually quite useful, to grab Two-Weapon Fighting with the bonus feat, and save your important general feats for stuff like Extra Music. Take a look at the prerequisites for all these feats - many of them are other feats, and you'll need to grab those to fulfill the requirements.

Now you start figuring out what ability scores you'll need. This really depends on the ability score generation method your DM uses. Point buy is very common on these boards and there are calculators (http://tools.digitalightbulb.com/pbcalc.html) that figure it out for you. Because you know what feats you want, you know you'll want a high Charisma and Dexterity. Race frequently figures in here too - make sure to pick one that boosts ability scores you'll need (in your case, CHA or DEX). Human is always a good choice even though it doesn't boost stats - that extra feat goes a long way.

Once you've got your ability scores, you can figure out the derived statistics. A class's table has handy dandy entries for all these things, so just add your relevant modifier to determine the value. You get maximum HP at first level, so your bard will start out with 6 HP plus your CON mod. 6 is not a lot, so you will want a CON of at least 14.

Then there are skills. A bard gets 6 skill points per level. You get 4 times that number at level 1 because the skill cap is your level plus 3. Basically, pick 6 skills and put 4 ranks in each. You almost always want to keep your skills maxed out rather than dabble in many. Keep an eye on your feat prerequisites - Snowflake Wardance needs ranks in Perform (Dance) so make sure you get that.

A bard also gets spells. The class table tells you how many you know, and how many you can cast per day. A high Charisma lets you cast (but not learn) more spells than usual; there's a table for that too. At level 1 all you get are cantrips which you can ignore.

Then you buy items with starting gold (usually just a weapon and cheap armor, it's all you can afford).

Things are a lot easier if you decide to focus on a class's ability rather than a feat, such as barbarian rage, because you don't have to jump through prerequisite hoops and can just pick up things that make your rage better whenever you can.

[Raine_Sage]

Thank you so much! As far as level goes I think we're either starting at level 1 or level 5, I can't remember exactly which but definitely starting no higher than 5. Either point buy or rolled is accepted, I'm pretty sure most of the group will be using point buy though. He hasn't told us starting gold yet. This was definitely helpful, it's a good jumping off point.

[JaminDM]

First: Think about what kind of person you want your character to be.

Look through the classes and decide which one fits your character.

Do the same with the classes.

When you have done this you need to role your ability scores.

Then you need to assign them. I don't know whether you're looking for a good character or good stats but really it comes down to two things: What fits your character and what is important for your class.

The first one is entirely subjective and the second one is given to you in the Player's Handbook.

Add your racial ability modifiers.

For everything else I can only say do whatever looks good/cool. Or just use the starting packages, depending on how creative you are feeling.

Good Luck!