D&D Character creation

[lolico]

Hello all. I'm hoping to start up D&D with a friend soon and I really wanna create a character before-hand. I'm sure it will be fine for me to create a character and then go along to a game as long as I don't make him seem over-powered.

I'm going for a Rogue Dark Elf named Sileo Damnavi, so I'm going want high dexterity, but I'd still like help going through the entire creation process from anybody who knows the 4E rules.

I've been using this character sheet



I've got some values down for basic stats, but no modifiers for race and class yet. I did 4D6, removing the lowest value for these as I was told you were supposed to do but the person who told me that wasn't really majorly willing to go much further with it. I'll happily start over.D&D Character creation

[lolico]

Hello all. I'm hoping to start up D&D with a friend soon and I really wanna create a character before-hand. I'm sure it will be fine for me to create a character and then go along to a game as long as I don't make him seem over-powered.

I'm going for a Rogue Dark Elf named Sileo Damnavi, so I'm going want high dexterity, but I'd still like help going through the entire creation process from anybody who knows the 4E rules.

I've been using this character sheet



I've got some values down for basic stats, but no modifiers for race and class yet. I did 4D6, removing the lowest value for these as I was told you were supposed to do but the person who told me that wasn't really majorly willing to go much further with it. I'll happily start over.D&D Character creation

thanks in advance for any help

[JNAProductions]

{Scrubbed}

[Anymage]

Two important questions. What books do you have handy (both allowed at the table, and personally), and have you talked with the other people you'll be playing with? For the latter, given the minis combat focus of 4e, having a team that synergizes well is a lot more important than letting everybody bring their cool character concept and seeing how it all plays out at the table.

[dgnslyr]

Hello all. I'm hoping to start up D&D with a friend soon and I really wanna create a character before-hand. I'm sure it will be fine for me to create a character and then go along to a game as long as I don't make him seem over-powered.

I'm going for a Rogue Dark Elf named Sileo Damnavi, so I'm going want high dexterity, but I'd still like help going through the entire creation process from anybody who knows the 4E rules.

I've been using this character sheet



I've got some values down for basic stats, but no modifiers for race and class yet. I did 4D6, removing the lowest value for these as I was told you were supposed to do but the person who told me that wasn't really majorly willing to go much further with it. I'll happily start over.D&D Character creation

Not sure if it's an issue on my end but I don't see a character sheet posted at all. Rogue fortunately is pretty straightforwardly good at its job without much effort, so it's hard to go wrong as long as you put your biggest number in DEX, and your second-biggest number in CHA, which lines up nicely with Drow's racial ability bonuses; you can pick a rogue subclass too and Artful Dodger is one of the better ones for general purpose.

I'm assuming you're starting at level 1, in which case all your choices for encounter powers, dailies, and at-wills are pretty on-par, but as standouts I'd probably name Sly Flourish for an at-will, Dazing Strike for an encounter power, and Handspring Assault as a daily. For your feat, I'd recommend Light Blade Expertise, or Nimble Blade if you're getting an Expertise feat for free, and for equipment make sure to wield a dagger, since the extra accuracy bonus is typically worth a lot, lot more than the marginal extra damage you'd get from, say, a rapier. Plus, it doubles as both a melee and ranged weapon, and even returns once it's enchanted with anything.

Rogue is considered the silver-standard for Striker classes, since they very readily get the job done, while rarely over- or underperforming. Tactically, you should expect to have CA every turn for every attack, and don't be afraid to provoke OAs to get into flanking position, especially against someone your defender has marked, since the monster will be attacking at a huge penalty and your defender will likely get a free attack off the mark punish.

Are stuff like backgrounds or themes allowed? That adds a nice layer of extra choice at level 1, so you're not making at-will attacks for three turns in a row, but it depends on your DM.

[LibraryOgre]

Not sure if it's an issue on my end but I don't see a character sheet posted at all.

The Mod Ogre: That poster has less than 10 posts, so can't post a link to it. Carry on.

[Jaeda]

Chapter 2 of the PHB has a relatively straightforward guide to building a character. You pick your race (drow), then your class (rogue) and class options (ex: artful dodger), then your ability scores, skills (stealth, thievery, and four others for rogues), feat, and powers (2 at-will, 1 encounter, and 1 daily power at level 1). Note that for 4e, the standard is to do point-buy rather than rolling for ability scores.

You'll want to put your highest score into Dex and then your next highest into Cha, followed by either Str (for certain power's abilities) or Wis (to enhance certain class skills). I definitely second Sly Flourish as one of your two at-will powers. Deft Strike and Piercing Strike are both decent options for the other depending on whether you want mobility or accuracy (Piercing Strike target Reflex instead of AC which is usually lower). Blinding Barrage is a reasonable daily power, hitting multiple enemies and blinding them for a turn.

There is a character builder floating around which can guide you through the process of building a character.

[Powerdork]

Yes, the standard is to use points to set your ability scores to a regular baseline level (with rolled ability scores being presented as a mere 'alternative' in the core rules), but some Dungeon Masters like to give players more points than usual, so you should be going about this in two ways: First, finding out the point value of what you rolled, and if it's impossible to recreate with 22 points (there are guidelines on pages 17-18 of the Player's Handbook), then note down how many points your rolls are worth (because there's nothing illegal about using them as inspiration), note down what the net total is of all six ability modifiers (the book suggests +4 to +8 as being 'within bounds', so to speak), and try crafting something comparable with 22 point buy, as per the guidelines.
If your DM does give you the option of rolling, or using a point buy value high enough to use your rolled stats, then you may be pleasantly surprised.

Take a while, since you have this preparation time, to familiarize yourself with all the skills the rogue class can choose from, and determine which four you think you want most. They automatically get Stealth and Thievery, so the other skills that they have the option of taking are Acrobatics (for cool movement), Athletics (for hard work), Bluff (to trick people for a combat advantage or a diversion allowing them to get out of sight, though it's generally not repeatable, or to get what they want outside of combat), Dungeoneering (for knowing what you're going to face in underground environments, like dungeons), Insight (to let you see through the lies of others, or emotionally understand people), Intimidate (for when you don't care about what they want in an exchange, and want them to know it), Perception (to identify hidden things), and Streetwise (for making your way in and around places that people live, even if those people aren't known or even comprehensible to you).

There's a guideline in Player's Handbook 2 about something called Backgrounds, which generally give you a freebie bonus for expressing your character's backstory. If there's a skill you really want but can't select as a rogue (namely: Arcana, Diplomacy, Endurance, Heal, History, Nature, or Religion), and you have a really convincing story about why your character is an expert in it (but isn't another class like a ranger), a Background can add the skill to your class's skills list, allowing you to choose it as one of the four skills you get alongside Stealth and Thievery. If you instead think your character deserves to be the best rogue that ever rogued, then you might instead choose to get a +2 bonus to a skill of your choice, using your Background to justify it.
If your Dungeon Master is telling you that you're playing in a particular campaign setting, and giving you access to campaign setting books like Eberron Player's Guide or Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, then sometimes those will have regional background you can use as inspiration for your own.
Of course, be ready to erase whatever benefit you pick, if your Dungeon Master decides they're not playing with the Backgrounds rule in the first place.


One major thought about this: Talk to your Dungeon Master, no matter what. If you don't have a line of communication to them, then it's safe to assume you aren't really good friends (yet), which means you need to spend some time with them outside of the session setting up expectations about what's going to happen and what you need to give them, and what you can expect in exchange.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Chapter 2 of the PHB has a relatively straightforward guide to building a character. You pick your race (drow), then your class (rogue) and class options (ex: artful dodger), then your ability scores, skills (stealth, thievery, and four others for rogues), feat, and powers (2 at-will, 1 encounter, and 1 daily power at level 1). Note that for 4e, the standard is to do point-buy rather than rolling for ability scores.

You'll want to put your highest score into Dex and then your next highest into Cha, followed by either Str (for certain power's abilities) or Wis (to enhance certain class skills). I definitely second Sly Flourish as one of your two at-will powers. Deft Strike and Piercing Strike are both decent options for the other depending on whether you want mobility or accuracy (Piercing Strike target Reflex instead of AC which is usually lower). Blinding Barrage is a reasonable daily power, hitting multiple enemies and blinding them for a turn.

There is a character builder floating around which can guide you through the process of building a character.

This is key; the flow of character creation is in my experience very straightforward, to the point where I could still do it after not having played for years, which I think is the only edition I can do that with.

The other nice thing is that you can't really go that wrong in character creation; even if you don't fully optimize, your options are pretty robust, so you can roll up with a character idea and build to it pretty readily.

[LibraryOgre]

The other nice thing is that you can't really go that wrong in character creation; even if you don't fully optimize, your options are pretty robust, so you can roll up with a character idea and build to it pretty readily.

In 4e, you pretty much have to ignore the advice in the class to make a bad character. You won't necessarily be the most optimized thing in the world is you make a halfling fighter, but unless you decide you want to have an 8 strength, you're probably gonna be OK.

[Just to Browse]

I've got the opposite experience from Carpe & LibraryOgre. By paragon tier, the power differences between people who planned their builds and people who didn't become pretty stark. The 4e retraining rules can make replacing weak feats & powers painfully slow, so it's useful to make forward-thinking choices in Heroic tier.

It sounds like you don't have a lot planned out just yet. I recommend using these as a quick default loadout at level 1.

• Feat: Backstabber (easy bonus damage, gets it out of the way now so you don't have to remember to take it later)
• Encounter: dazing strike
• At-Will: piercing strike if you want to go in melee, or deft strike if you want to fight at range (plus whatever second at-will you think is cool)
• Daily: trick strike

[Kurald Galain]

By paragon tier, the power differences between people who planned their builds and people who didn't become pretty stark.

Yes, that's my experience as well.

For rogues, my personal favorite is the at-will Riposte Strike, which is basically two attacks for the price of one; as well as Deft Strike because mobility is good. And a solid first-level daily is Duelist's Prowess (although Blinding Barrage is also good). HTH.