Welcome to the guide on building a Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition character. This guide requires the Player's Handbook, or PHB, to look up much of the specific info that can't be posted in a public forum.
A good first step for any character is to brainstorm a background. The bounds of your imagination and the guidelines set down by your DM are the only constraint. Your background can provide your DM with ideas to draw you and your character into the story. Also, as most DMs choose their players on the strength of the history written for the character it is crucial you spend the time to make it memorable. Click the button below to see an example.
A: Character Background.
Your background can be as long or as short as you wish it to be. Here is a sample background for Elliot:
B: Personality, Mannerisms, and Appearance.
You should also add a few details about your character to make him stand out from other characters. Here is an example cooked up for Elliot:
Another way to build a character is to start with a character concept, and build a character off of that concept, and then shape your background to fit that concept. Click the buttons below to see a step by step guide on the basics of building a character. It is broken into sections for easy reference.
A: Decide on a role.
Which of the four roles will your character fill? Here we have decided to make a Defender. Defenders are categorized by their higher than normal hit points and physical defenses. This allows them to stand toe to toe with even the most viscous monster and live to tell the tale. They also have the ability to mark enemies, forcing them to focus their attacks upon the defender and keeping other members of the party safe.
B: Choose a Race and Gender.
Depending on how you build your character and what class you choose, virtually any race in the PHB will make a good defender. For today's example we will keep things relatively simple and choose Human as the character's race. Humans fill the role of jack of all trades and master of none. They are good choice for every class in the game and have some bonuses that make them a good choice for both beginning and advanced players. As for gender we will have this character be male.
C: Choose a Class and Build.
The PHB has two different defenders players can choose from. The Paladin and the Fighter. We feel like making a paladin at this time. Paladin's are holy warriors that use both the strength of their arms and faith in combination to strike down their foes.
There are two different paladin builds presented in the PHB. We will choose the protecting paladin for this character as we see him as a protector more than an avenger.
D: Deity, Alignment, and Language choices:
While it is not requisite that a character choose a deity in 4e religion will play heavily into this character's ideology. The god Bahamut strikes us as good choice for a protector. Since Bahamut is Lawful Good we think our paladin will also follow that alignment. Humans also get a choice of a bonus language. Since our character follows the Bahamut we think draconic will be a good choice of language.
E: Name.
A name is important. It sets the tone of your character and informs other players and your Dungeon Master, or DM, on how to address your character in-game. The name Elliot Hammersmythe seems like a good name for a paladin.
F: Physical description.
Elliot is tall (6'3" tall) and muscular (230lbs). He has dark hair and blue eyes. He is young (22 years old), but has seen much.
While a description is good a picture is usually better. A quick sketch or an image found online that fits your character concept can help breathe life into your character.
A: Ability scores.
In 4e the six main attributes for every character (Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma) are determined using the point buy system. This system is explained in detail on page 17 of the PHB. For our character we will just be using the standard array (16,14,13,12,11,10). Since many paladin powers use Charisma we will stick the 16 in Charisma. The 14 goes into the protecting paladins secondary stat Wisdom. Since high hit points are desirable for defenders we will place the 13 in Constitution. The 12 will be for Strength to help out when we need to hit something with our weapon. Finally the 11 and 10 get placed in Dexterity and Intelligence to finish off the character.
B: Racial Bonuses to Abilities.
Most races in 4e get a racial bonus to two separate abilities. These bonuses get added after you finish assigning the values you got using the point buy system. Unlike other races Humans only get a racial bonus to one ability of their choice. We will add the racial mod to Charisma since that is the ability we will be using the most.
C: Calculate Defenses.
At this point we have enough information to calculate your Non-Armor Class Defenses or NADs as they are sometimes called. These defenses are labeled Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. These defenses represent your character's ability to resist attack that your armor can't protect you from. The formula for calculating these values is as follows: 10 + 1/2 your level + The appropriate ability modifier (Str or Con for Fort, Dex or Int for Ref, and Wis or Cha for Will) + any racial, class, or feat bonuses you may have. Elliot has the following stats at this time: Fort = 13 [10+0+1(Con)+1(Race)+1(Class)], Ref = 12 [10+0+0(Dex)+1(Race)+1(Class)], and Will = 16 [10+0+4(Cha)+1(Race)+1(Class)].
D: Calculate Hit Points and Healing Surges.
Hit points represent how much damage a character can sustain before he or she falls unconscious. Every class in the game has a set amount of hit points or HPs that they add to their Constitution score (not modifier). Elliot has a Constitution score of 13 which he then adds to his class's starting hp amount to get his first level HP of 28.
Once we have our maximum HP total we can calculate a few other values on our sheet. The first of these is our Bloodied total. This is always half the maximum HP, rounded down. Elliot has 28 maximum HP so his bloodied value is 14. Now that we know our bloodied value we can figure out our Healing Surge value. This number represents the amount of HP our character recovers whenever a power allows you to spend a healing surge. The healing surge value is always 1/4 your total HP, or half your bloodied value (again rounded down). As for the total number of Healing Surges, or HSs, you get a day, that is also calculated at this time. Every class has a number that we add to our constitution modifier (not score) to determine this number. Elliot has 11 HS we can spend each day.
A: Skills
There are 17 different skills that your character can use. These skills represent how good our character is at certain things. From feats of physical strength and agility to our knowledge on certain subjects and everything in between there is most likely a skill that covers what you want to do. Depending on our character class and, in some cases, our background we have a certain number of skills we can be trained in. Some class also have skills which are automatically trained. As a human paladin Elliot is trained in Religion and gets his choice of four other skills. We decided to go with Diplomacy, History, Heal, and Insight as Elliot's skills. With his high Charisma Elliot would make a great "Face" for the party and these skills compliment that role.
B: Feats.
Feats are improvements to something our character can already do. Some deal with the martial prowess of our character. Such things include giving our character access to more complex weapons or heavier armor, or improving our skill with a weapon we are already familiar with. Other feats can improve our character in a certain skill, make a power more deadly, or any number of other useful things. As a first level human character Elliot gets his choice of two feats. We've decided to go with Toughness which gives Elliot additional HPs and Action Surge which makes Elliot deadlier when he spends an Action Points or AP give you an additional Standard Action on your turn.Action Point.
C: Powers.
Every character has a selection of powers he or she can use each turn to effect the world around them. They can be as simple as being able to move without provoking an attack from your foes, or as complex as summoning a fiery guardian to do battle in your place. As a first level human paladin Elliot has four powers that every Paladin gets. He has two Channel Divinity powers, of which he can use one an encounter, a power called Lay on Hands, which allows him to heal himself or his allies, and Divine challenge, which lets him mark nearby enemies. He also gets his choice of five other powers. Three of these powers are called At-Wills. They can be used throughout the day as many times as they need to be. For his At-Wills Elliot has chosen; Bolstering Strike, Enfeebling Strike and Valiant Strike. These powers give him a nice selection of things he can do each turn to hurt his foes and help his allies. The second type of power Elliot gets to choose is an Encounter Power. These powers can only be used once every encounter, but they are much stronger than your At-Wills. For his Encounter power Elliot chooses Shielding Smite. Lastly Elliot gets to choose one Daily power. Daily powers are extremely potent and can turn the tide in a battle. These powers can only be used once per day and only can be used again after your character takes an extended rest. For his Daily Elliot chooses On Pain of Death.
D: Equipment.
Now that we've chosen our feats, skills, and powers we can equip our character. Every character needs a collection of sundry items to be even a novice adventurer. Every character gets 100 gold pieces, or gp, to spend on starting equipment. The first item on every new character's shopping list should be an Includes a backpack, a belt pouch, flint and steel, 2 sunrods, a bedroll, 50ft of rope, a waterskin, and some food for the trail.Adventurer's Kit, this will make sure that you are prepared to do some traveling at a moments notice. After Elliot purchases this he needs to look at some armor and a weapon to make sure he can survive battle. Because we want Elliot to be a steel wall that the party can hide behind we're going to choose full plate armor. We also choose to have him wield a heavy shield. Now that Elliot has all this heavy steel wrapped around him we can finalize both his defenses and his skill modifiers. We'll finalize his defenses first. AC is the first defense we will deal with. We calculate our AC thusly 10+1/2 your level+your equipment bonus to AC. For Elliot it looks like this: 10 + 0 + 8 (Plate Armor) + 2 (Heavy shield) = 20. Next we have to tweak our Reflex Defense slightly. Because Elliot has a shield he gets to add that bonus to his Reflex Defense as well, making it 14 instead of 12. All this hefty armor has a drawback though. Elliot sacrifices mobility for all his protection. For wearing heavy armor his speed is reduced by one, he also has to apply a pretty hefty penalty to certain physical skills.
Now that we have chosen our armor, our final purchases will be Elliot's weapons. The background we have in mind for Elliot has a very nice thematic reason for him to choose a certain class of weapons. Because of this we will have Elliot pick up a Battle axe for his main weapon and he will also buy a holy symbol so that he can use any powers with the implement keyword. We can now do our final calculations for our character sheet. We need to calculate Elliot's attack bonus using different weapons, implements, and abilities. The formula is as follows: Ability score + 1/2 your level + weapon proficiency bonus + any feat, item enhancement, or class/racial bonuses. If Elliot is using his battle axe with a charisma power, his attack bonus would be 4 (Cha mod) + 0 (1/2 level rounded down) + 2 (weap. prof. bonus) = 6.
When you are done:
Once we've fleshed out our character and are happy with him, save them to an online character sheet. Here is Elliot's.
Remember to turn on public permission if you want others to be able to see it.
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My apologies to all I game with, going through some challenging times with RL at the moment but I am still here and will persavere. TY for your Patience.
Addendum- the above character might do not have associated artwork/imagery with them. Should you decide you want to provide artwork to accompany any character based posts you have on site, do make sure you have the permission of the artist. Thanks.