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kirbsys
2008-02-07, 12:21 AM
I'm trying to get some of my friends into DnD but since they're mainly guys that are into video games, I wanted to make their characters for them and slowly teach them the rules. So I wanted to make a generic four man party for them, all first level. More specifically, I wanted to see what YOU guys would make. Preferably I'm looking for a basic Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard combo, however anything that's from the core books is fine. If you just want to make one character that's fine too.

Thanks ahead of time!

Grey Watcher
2008-02-07, 12:25 AM
Well, I think that the book Dungeons and Dragons for dummies has a few generic-y characters (three each of Fighters, Rogues, Clerics, and Sorcerers). They're not fully statted out, but you should be able to figure out full sheets from the thumbnails they give.

That's at least one quick and dirty solution.

Toliudar
2008-02-07, 01:00 AM
If you want a generic party that's easy to learn, but who give some insight into the basics of the games mechanics, I'd suggest something like:

Human sorcerer with magic missile, mage armour and sleep
Halfling rogue with point blank shot
Half-orc or dwarven barbarian with weapon focus
Dwarven cleric - healing and war domains

Sorcerer over wizard to simplify the spell system. If you that going favoured soul over cleric would significantly simplify things further, switch to a human favoured soul.

Aerogoat
2008-02-07, 01:40 AM
If you want a generic party that's easy to learn, but who give some insight into the basics of the games mechanics, I'd suggest something like:

Human sorcerer with magic missile, mage armour and sleep
Halfling rogue with point blank shot
Half-orc or dwarven barbarian with weapon focus
Dwarven cleric - healing and war domains

Sorcerer over wizard to simplify the spell system. If you that going favoured soul over cleric would significantly simplify things further, switch to a human favoured soul. For the most part I agree. I would avoid Dwarves though, because keeping tabs on all of their situational bonuses requires a bit of familiarity. It might be a bit much to track for a group of newbies. (You get a bonus to this check if it relates to stonework, you get a bonus to these checks if they're against Goblins, you get a bonus to your AC if you're fighting Giants, you get these bonuses if you're targeted by spells or poisons.)

Clerics are a little bit complicated (stupid domain spells and Undead Turning), but you'll probably want to demonstrate both types of casters, prepared and spontaneous.

I would probably switch the Rogue's feat to something melee-based, though. (Probably Two-Weapon Fighting or Weapon Focus, maybe trade the race to Human and give him Improved Feint.) Generating ranged Sneak Attacks is hard work for newbies, especially at low levels.

Voyager_I
2008-02-07, 02:08 AM
I'd switch out Magic Missile with Grease. It'll be a bigger favor for the Rogue. Also, it gets them into the mindset of "Evocation isn't T3h Ub0rZ!!!" and "Sneak attacks are your friend, get them wherever possible".

Weapon Focus is a trap. Don't guide your precious newbies into a trap. Power Attack might be a better option, even if they only have one point of BAB.

It might be better to start them at level two or three, while you're at it. They don't get any new spell levels or much other complicated stuff, and they also won't die as easily.

Hyrael
2008-02-07, 02:52 AM
I might actually be leery of making their characters for them. I tried that with my little brother and his friends, and they wound up changing characters every session; probably because they felt no connection to them, since they werent their's

alot of D&D's appeal is the attachment you get to your character.

On the other hand, when I did learn to slacken off and let them make their own characters, I wound up with a CE Half-Vampire Rogue that randomly kills people lestat-style, a Swordsage Dante-Clone with a Katana, and a Emo cloak-wearing Warlock who is not roleplayed at all, but just stands in one place and shoots eldrich blast. then, my brother complains that his character can't do anything besides eldrich blast. when i remind him of his various other invocations, he dismisses them as "stupid."

In a previous eberron game, they all made Longcoat-wearing CE characters, too.

The only decent role-players are the Rogue and a Half-elf druid. the druid, however, is the put-upon doormat of their little circle, and they wind up giving him titty-twisters if he stands up for himself in-game.

the rogue, on the other hand, gets most of his RPG experience from playing Morrowind, and being an assassin at that. plus, he's read Interview with the Vampire, and gets some of his character ideas from that, plus Underworld. He's still a good player, though. he just thinks too...nasty. he cant wrap his mind around the concept of, for example, playing a lawfull or good-aligned character. i dont mind that he doesnt want to, but the very concept seems alien to him.

16 year-olds should be able to do better than this.

sorry, but I had to get that off my chest.

I'd say have them make their own characters, but lead them to making simple choices. describe the class abilities, racial archetypes, and so forth. for example, you could say:
Do you want to cast? you have lots of power, but you'll be squishy. Okay, you'd rather do melee? heavy or light? heavy? okay. for simplicity's sake, I'd go with Fighter or barbarian, but if you want someone with less power but more skill, have a look at ranger. Barbarians are like Mel Gibson or something, but Fighters are like Mad Martigan. Barb? Okay. Your best bet is human or half-orc. half orc will be stronger, but human would let you jump, swim, climb, and scare people. Human? okay, what do you like better, an axe, a sword, or some kind of polearm? maybe a falchion?

and so on. let them form a mental image/concept in their heads, then help them put numbers to the concept. this might work better than just handing them a sheet.

Tempest Fennac
2008-02-07, 05:06 AM
I agree with the idea of using a Sorcerer rather then a Wizard in order to demonstrate to 2 types of spellcasting, but it may be a good idea to use a ranged Rogue due to how it would help the players to get used to ranged sneak attacks. I'd say using Humans would be a good idea due to how simple they are. Also, regarding Sorcerer spells, I'd use Colour Spray and Mage Armour at 1st level before getting Grease at level 2 (CS could help you to teach the players about area effect spells). If you want to encourage them to RP, tell them they get bonus Exp for doing so.

d-dave
2008-02-07, 06:46 AM
If I were doing it over again, I'd have a character generation party. Just get the PCs to bring their own d6s and go at it. Use the online SRD stuff if you have access to computers or even a projector (or HDTV with RGB input so everyone could see) might be a good idea to allow them to see the rules in place and work from there.

Explain how the game works as a d20 system, how the classes funtion in a group not only in combat, but in dungeons and in towns. Just go one step at a time. I would do it Scores, Races, Classes, background (the MOST important step to establishing a good RP group), then skills, feats, equipement and spells.

If you want to print out the heavily used pages like equipement and stat bonuses. Or if you are really hardcore, then important stuff like racial mods, class abilities in a spreadsheet, preprinted for each person.

Miraqariftsky
2008-02-07, 07:03 AM
I'm trying to get some of my friends into DnD but since they're mainly guys that are into video games, I wanted to make their characters for them and slowly teach them the rules. So I wanted to make a generic four man party for them, all first level. More specifically, I wanted to see what YOU guys would make. Preferably I'm looking for a basic Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard combo, however anything that's from the core books is fine. If you just want to make one character that's fine too.

Thanks ahead of time!

Basics, eh?

Human Fighter
Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Weapon Focus (either greatsword or longsword)
Armament: either greatsword or longsword. Some javelins, a shortsword and a suit of scale mail aughta round it out.

Elf Rogue
Feat: Improved Initiative
Weapons: longsword, longbow, dagger

Dwarf Cleric
Feat: either Purify Spell or Improved Turning
Domains: Law and Good


(sorry. Haven't done many arcanists)

Tempest Fennac
2008-02-07, 07:09 AM
Would Law and Good be that useful? I'd say Augment Healing is a good choice of feat for a Cleric (it requires 4 ranks in heal, but it adds 2 HPs/spell level to every cure-type spell the Cleric uses. If the Cleric follows a diety with the War domain who has a martial weapon as their signiture weapon, that would be a good domain choice.

Kioran
2008-02-07, 07:15 AM
I actually did this - twice, with my current group, and generally got good reactions. The key to this is building characters you would play yourselves - nothing gimped, but also to head of CoDzilla or batman by choosing some good, but not optimal feats and spells. If you want, I can give you my 10 characters, as built, or a few of them, though they use 36 PB, several Splatbooks (Complete Adventurer, Warrior, Divine and Arcane, PHB 2 and the SRD) and, in case of the Fighter, have minor houserules:

The distribution is 2 Frontliners/2 Skillmonkey/2 Divine Casters/2 Arcane Casters/2 something elses.

Nikolaj Ivanov, Human Fighter (concept: being extra tough, Shield + axe)
Arlind Tarn, Human Hexblade (concept: good saves and high damage, moderate physical defense)

Uriel Valin, Aasimar Expert (to go into Bard or Rogue later on, as fitting - LA +1 races get to play as NPC-classes at first lvl and retrain into PC-classes at ECL 2, from thereon shouldering their LA)
Eirel Araihn, Half-Elf Ninja (Acrobat+Trapmonkey. Kills stuff as well).

Hars Gaddek, Half-Orc Cleric (classical war-cleric, punching people)
Takamichi Yuuma, Human Shugenja (Heal-bot, also has some knowledge skills)

Siarlahn Iridiel Tal, Elven Elementalist (essentially a modified Wu-Jen with 2 additional skill-points/lvl to compensate for weaker casting)
Thul, Goblin Sorceror (works only because Goblins get a free +2 to any stat with me, since they´d be too weak otherwise. Necromancer.)

Kathleen Thurvald, Human Ranger (has a Greatbow. Sneaks around and shoots stuff)
Yol, Human Duskblade (veeery powerful class, needs little twinkage. Swings a heavy Poleaxe(CWar) and blasts stuff).

You could also build your own, but I always find it amusing to build more characters than players and let them drawe randomly, so there´s some uncertainty involved. If they do not, under any circumstances, want to play that character, let them draw a new one, but my Players actually took well to theirs, with one exception.

Tempest Fennac
2008-02-07, 07:21 AM
My logic behind picking the most powerful abilities is that they are new players, so they may need to be as powerful as possible in order to minimise the chanses of their inexperience killing them (also, I see taking the most powerful options as being more realistic).

DementedFellow
2008-02-07, 05:16 PM
My logic behind picking the most powerful abilities is that they are new players, so they may need to be as powerful as possible in order to minimise the chanses of their inexperience killing them (also, I see taking the most powerful options as being more realistic).

Some of the best roleplaying experiences are done outside of battle, so if you want to get someone hooked on D&D, find a good scenario, with memorable/funny characters or situations.

I would rather have a group of people who would rather think through a situation rather than using muscle. It encourages some actual roleplay. Charging in with brute force is best for characters like :thog: .

That said, a barbarian class would certainly be a good suggestion in my book.

I guess my ideal four person first level party would be...

Bard - good way to introduce roleplay and he can use some of his bard abilities with a max rank in perform at first level. Also, they are just fun to play.

Sorcerer - for the reasons mentioned above.

Barbarian - because the idea of a conan-esque badass will always appeal to someone in the party

Rogue - Good for finding traps and helping the new players learn just how important a high dex is.

There isn't really a reason to give you the races along with the classes, certain races fit well with certain classes and to repeat which goes best with what is kinda superfluous.

Devils_Advocate
2008-02-07, 05:19 PM
kirbsys, do you want to limit the number of different rules in use so that there isn't too much for them to learn? Or would you rather present a wide variety of material so that they can familiarize themselves with all of the available options as soon as possible and move on to creating their own characters?

In the first case, you might create an all-human group of a wizard, a cleric, a rogue, and a fighter. In the second, you might choose a wild elf sorcerer, a human cleric, a halfling rogue, and a dwarf barbarian. The wizard and the cleric are both prepared spellcasters, and neither humans nor fighters have any special features to keep track of. So, do you want to immediately introduce them to both prepared and spontaneous spellcasting, and barbarian rage, and the stats, not to mention the flavor, of the nonhuman races? Or would you rather keep it simple to start with?

The "flavor" aspect is worth considering, too. The first group lends itself more to premise that the characters all grew up in the same town, and after years of generic experience of studying magic, fighting in the army, stealing stuff, and religious indoctrination, they are now ready to set off on some grand adventure. The second group will probably involve a more diverse set of backgrounds, and you'll need to give a fair amount of detail up front about what each of the demihuman races even are, since your friends will actually be playing them, whereas with the first option those details can come out in gameplay.

In fact, gradually introducing stuff by having the characters encounter it might be a more interesting option. The can group start out in an small, isolated human town and doesn't know what sorcerers, druids, kobolds, and lots of other things even are, or much of anything outside their little village. (None of them are trained in Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Nobility and royalty), or Knowledge (Geography). :smallwink:) Not only does this minimize the amount of information you need to dump on the players to start with, it allows them to empathize with the characters' increasing knowledge and understanding of, and resulting involvement in, the world as they grow in experience and power. After all, you can always run a game where the PCs are inexperienced, enthusiastic youths who set out on adventure to discover more about the world, but if you want to surprise your players along with their characters, the players themselves have to be unfamiliar with the elements you'll be introducing. So if you want to be able to run a game like that for this group, you had better do it now while you have the chance. There will be time for other types of campaigns later.

The J Pizzel
2008-02-07, 05:30 PM
I'd say have them make their own characters, but lead them to making simple choices. describe the class abilities, racial archetypes, and so forth. for example, you could say:
Do you want to cast? you have lots of power, but you'll be squishy. Okay, you'd rather do melee? heavy or light? heavy? okay. for simplicity's sake, I'd go with Fighter or barbarian, but if you want someone with less power but more skill, have a look at ranger. Barbarians are like Mel Gibson or something, but Fighters are like Mad Martigan. Barb? Okay. Your best bet is human or half-orc. half orc will be stronger, but human would let you jump, swim, climb, and scare people. Human? okay, what do you like better, an axe, a sword, or some kind of polearm? maybe a falchion?

and so on. let them form a mental image/concept in their heads, then help them put numbers to the concept. this might work better than just handing them a sheet.

This is how I introduce all my new players (I seem to be getting a lot lately) and it works best for me. Who do you like in popular sci-fi fantasy? Gimli, dwarven fighter it is. What, you wanna dabble in magic too? OK, how about a dwarven duskblade or warblade. Try that on.

Tempest Fennac
2008-02-08, 02:37 AM
I know what you mean about RP being important, DementedFellow, but isn't it possible to do that and RP? (EG: Rogues make good party faces due to their class skills, so whoever plays the Rogue would need to RP a charming person who knows that negotiation is often a better idea then using brute force). I still think a Cleric would be better then a Bad due to how Bads only really function well in large parties due to their support/jack-of-all-trades roll, and a Cleric would demonstrae Vancian casting. One think you could do to introduce the new players to the rules is have a few stand-alone scenarios where they need to solve problems or beat enemies in order to learn he rules (eg: one scenario could involve some weak enemies in order to teach them the combat system, and another one could involve making a few skill checks, and possibly disarming a trap). It would still be necessary to remind them of a few things once the actual game gets started, but it would probably help.

kirbsys
2008-02-08, 11:54 AM
Thanks to everyone! I've got four characters made; a human fighter, an elven wizard, a halfling rogue, and a human cleric. I think that in addition to having these on hand I'm going to ue the suggestion of having a character genereation party and walk them through step by step. Once again, thanks!