Author Topic: Rules of the House, Character Creation, and Sheets  (Read 2364 times)

Offline Agita

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Rules of the House, Character Creation, and Sheets
« on: August 13, 2017, 03:13:01 PM »
The Premise

You're rookie adventurers currently in the city of Neverwinter when you're hired by a common patron and friend of yours, the dwarf Gundren Rockseeker, to escort a wagon with provisions to the small town of Phandalin. Gundren himself has gone ahead with his own escort, a man named Sildar Hallwinter, to attend to business while you follow with the supplies. Phandalin is a few days' travel to the southeast of Neverwinter, and it's on this trip that the adventure starts.

You may of course have your own motivations, the connection to Gundren serves as a common hook and impetus to tie you all together. You may want to have prior connections to each other as well. You can check out the pregenerated character sheets for some tailor-made character hooks, if you want.

Character Creation

As mentioned in the recruiting thread, we'll be starting at level 1. We'll be using just the basic core material, and no feats (these are technically an optional rule in this edition, and you don't get any at level 1 anyway, unless you're human).

The basic mechanic of D&D 5e should be familiar - you say what you're doing, I tell you to roll an ability check with a related ability and whether any modifiers apply, you roll a d20 and add your ability bonus and any modifiers, if you match or exceed the DC, you succeed. Ability scores work just like in the previous two editions, running from 1 to 20 (this is a cap that can only be circumvented through special means), and grant an ability modifier ranging from -5 to +5 accordingly.

Reposting from the recruitment thread, here are the Player's Basic Rules (pdf version here) and the System Reference Document. If you already have the Player's Handbook, you can of course reference that instead.
There are pregenerated characters here, or you can make your own as I will describe below. They're not optimized, to the extent that's a thing at first level, but they're serviceable - it's difficult in 5e to make a character that's outright useless.

Character creation works like this:

First, pick your race and class. Each race gives some bonus to ability scores and possibly miscellaneous abilities, much like in other editions. No race has a penalty to any scores. You'll notice classes lack anything like a base attack bonus or save progressions, and instead have a proficiency bonus progression (this progression is the same for all classes, but is listed in the class table for convenience anyway). Skills, attacks, and saves all key into this.

Second, assign your ability scores. The standard way of doing this is either an array or point buy. The point buy has you start with 27 points and buy your scores up from 8 each according to the costs found on page 8 of the basic rules. No ability score can go over 15 before racial adjustments. The array is simply a specific and pretty general-purpose arrangement of points - assign 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 in any order you like. The array does pretty well for the majority of characters, but point buy is especially attractive to humans, since they get +1 to every ability score and thus like odd base stats.

Third, choose a background. Where your class is a description of what you do, your background is a general description of where you come from and what training you've had outside of your class. It grants you two skill proficiencies, two tools or languages, some starting gear, and a utility feature that ties into how you interact with the world in some way. The backgrounds in the book cover a lot of ground between them, but they can be tweaked and customized. Note you don't necessarily have to pick a background that obviously goes with your class or anything, you can absolutely be a soldier wizard or a criminal fighter.

Fourth, proficiencies. Proficiencies are what all notions of training with specific skills, tools, weapons, etcetera are collected into in 5e. You may have noted how above, I said you make an ability check when I ask for one, rather than a skill check. This is because the basic format of a check is that you make an ability check, and if you have proficiency in a skill or tool that is applicable to the check, you add your proficiency bonus to the check in addition to your ability modifier. So if your ability is at +3 and you're proficient, you're rolling at +5. Attack rolls in combat and saving throws work like this too but are treated as separate by the system.
You mostly get proficiencies from your class and background. Each class lets you choose a number of proficiencies from a set list, and may come with tools automatically (e.g. rogues are always proficient with thieves' tools), while a background comes with two set skills and two tools or languages. Some races also give skill proficiencies. Your class also gives you proficiency in two saving throws (in 5e, instead of fortitude, reflex, and will saves you have saves based on each of your attributes), and a selection of weapons and armor. You can find a list of skills on page 58 of the basic rules.

Fifth, equipment and all that other stuff. Your class and background give you appropriate starting gear. You'll want to write down your hit points and hit dice (these come into play when resting, and so may actually matter). Finally, a character gets two personality traits, one ideal, one bond, and one flaw as brief descriptors of things they care about. When you play to your personal characteristics, as they're collectively called, you can earn inspiration, which you basically get to trade in for a bonus on an important roll when you want it. Each of the printed backgrounds comes with some tables for generating these randomly if you want, but you can make up your own. You can also leave them blank for now and fill them in after you get a bit of a feel for your character.

This is kind of a wall of text already, so ask questions about anything and everything, like specific options and whatnot. We'll go over specific mechanics as they come up in game, too.
Please send private messages regarding board matters to Forum Staff instead.

Offline ketaro

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Re: Rules of the House, Character Creation, and Sheets
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2017, 07:44:30 AM »
Done. Tell me everything I did wrong  :D

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« Last Edit: August 25, 2017, 02:47:08 AM by ketaro »

Offline Stratovarius

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Re: Rules of the House, Character Creation, and Sheets
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2017, 11:17:31 AM »
Kovoir Darkhand, 1st level Wizard

Medium Mountain Dwarf (Dwarf)
Hit Dice: 1d6+3 (9 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 25 ft. (5 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+1 Dex, +4 armour)
Attack: Quarterstaff 1d6
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Spells
Special Qualities: Darkvision, Dwarven Resilience, Combat Training, Tool Proficiency, Stonecunning
Saves: Intelligence, Wisdom
Abilities: Str 15, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 8
Skills: Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation
Treasure: Scale armour, quarterstaff, arcane focus, scholar’s pack, spellbook, a bottle of black ink, a quill, a small knife, a letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Advancement: By class
Languages: Common, Dwarfish, Undercommon, Primordial

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« Last Edit: August 22, 2017, 03:25:26 PM by Stratovarius »

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Rules of the House, Character Creation, and Sheets
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2017, 08:26:35 PM »
Pieron Uuthrakt

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Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: Rules of the House, Character Creation, and Sheets
« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2017, 12:07:52 PM »
Heylian Espershard, METAL BARD EXTRAORDINAIRE.

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Kami darou ga akuma darou ga, ore no michi ni tateru mono NASHI!!

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