Part 2 of 2
This post is a continuation from here. If you are entirely new to the series, start here.
Welcome back! Let’s get our characters finished and ready to roll!
4. Giving Your Character Some Character
This is the part of character creation that I find to be the most fun. We are no longer dealing with the statistics of our characters, we are developing their personalities. This will inform how the characters interact with the world, and how the world will respond to them.
Choosing a Background
A background is the origin story for your character. The nice thing about choosing a simple background from the options provided in the rules? Your character gets some skills and items or money. It also gives you some ideas into just who is your character.
I am going to choose Sage for my wizard. I like the idea that she has researched and studied for an extensive period and must now go adventuring to acquire some missing knowledge or to solve a mystery. See how easy it is to take that one idea and start to make your character more than just a bunch of numbers?
Record the background that sounds the most interesting, or will fit your character class the best, in the box at the top right of your character sheet.
With your class selection, you should also have a list of skills, proficiencies, and items that your character gets. For my character, I get two more skills with proficiency, two more languages, a feature, and some supplies. Record whatever your character receives, in the same places you did when recording your racial and class information.
Something that commonly happens at this point is that your character will already have one of the skills listed in your background at proficiency. How I like to handle this with my players is to let them pick a different skill to gain proficiency. As long as the skill makes sense for their character. For example, my wizard already had arcana with proficiency, so I chose insight instead. While insight is wisdom based, it makes sense for the type of character I want to make. Using this method ensures your player characters have a balance of things they are good at, and not someone winding up with a character that can only do one or two things well. While the challenge may be fun for some, not all kids appreciate it when trying something new.
Personality Traits, Flaws, Bonds, and Ideals
We are given four tables in our chosen background to help us add a little more depth to our character’s personality. While these are not set in stone, they can be helpful, especially when trying to help a group of kids make their characters have character. Feel free to riff off of the suggestions, use them as is, or come up with your own unique sets. I usually start with what is written, and let the kids either use them as is, or work with them to come up with ones that make sense for them. Remember, you as the dungeon master have the final say in what is acceptable for your game.
Once you have decided what works for your character, either through selection or random roll, you will record your results in the four boxes on the right hand side of the first page of your sheet. Don’t forget that you can choose two personality traits for your character!
5. Equipping Your Character
Now that you are getting an idea who your character is, it is time to give them the tools they will need to adventure. There are a few ways to do this. My preferred method is to use the starting supplies provided with the character class and background. I find that it streamlines the process of selecting weapons, armor and tools. The other method is to roll for starting money using the table on page 45. This can be a really fun method, especially when dealing with a group that has some experience playing D&D already. I don’t recommend it for beginners. I think it adds a layer of difficulty the kids may not be ready for. Let’s say that you have a fighter, but you rolled very poorly on the starting money table. How do you choose the best balance of weapons and armor, when you don’t really understand how they all work? If you as the D.M. are also new, it can really slow down the process. For the purpose of introducing this hobby, I think simpler is better.
You probably have your equipment and proficiencies already recorded on your character sheet. If an item is listed under equipment, your character possesses it. If the items are listed under proficiencies, your character does not posses it, but is proficient with its use. This means you get to add your proficiency bonus to its use.
As a side note, if your character winds up with two of the same item because of its class and background, or if it happens to one of your players, you get to decide what to do! I like to either let the character have two of the item, or make an exchange that is more or less equal to the original item, in cost, damage, or protection. If I can’t find a suitable substitute, I give the character a ‘refund’, using the equipment tables for the price of whatever I am refunding.
Let’s start with the things in your character’s possession. My wizard, for example, has a dagger in her possession. I am going to write that in the box labeled Attacks and Spellcasting, in the center of the first page of my character sheet. See the little shadowed boxes at the top? This is where we can put our weapons. The next box over is attack bonus. This is where we will add our bonus for attacking. Attack bonus is calculated using two things, proficiency bonus, and either strength or dexterity bonus. There is a table on page 48 that gives us the stats for weapons. So my attack bonus with a dagger is +3. That means when I roll to attack, I get to add 3 to my dice roll. The box next to attack bonus is labeled damage/type. This is where to record the information from the damage column on the weapons table. Since I am using my strength stat to wield the dagger, I also get to add my +1 bonus to the damage roll. A dagger does 1d4 damage. The ‘d’ is the type of die used, in this case a four-sided die, a ‘d4’. The number before the ‘d’ tells us the number of dice to roll, for a dagger, it is one d4. So on my sheet I will write my damage as 1d4+1 piercing. Piercing is the type of damage done. There are other types like bludgeoning and slashing. This will be important when your players are fighting certain types of monsters. I will discuss this in more detail in later posts. There is one more thing to note, some weapons will have information in the ‘properties’ block. This usually has to do with what stat you can use to wield it, how far you can throw/shoot it, and weight. Record the information on your sheet. The box is too small for all of the info, so find a place on your sheet that works for you. I like to us either the blank space below the shadow boxes, or on the second page of the character sheet in the Additional Features box. Follow the same process for any other weapons your character has.
The next item to record is armor. Much like weapons, there is a table on page 46 that gives us the descriptions for different armors. Note that shields are included as armor, only when you have them equipped. If you are using a weapon with two hands, you can’t also hold a shield. Wizards don’t wear armor, so my sample character will not need to record any. The important stat to record is listed in the armor class column. Take that number and add the appropriate stat, and record it in the little shield labeled armor class on the front page of your character sheet. I like to use a slash and record my second armor class if using a shield there as well.
Does your character have some extra gold jingling in their pouch? You can use it to buy more supplies, weapons, and armor. There are multiple tables with prices to help you out. I won’t go into detail, as it is pretty self-explanatory at this point.
6. The Last Little Bits
There are only a few little details left to fill in then our characters will be complete!
There is a box below the skills box and above the other proficiencies and languages box, called passive wisdom (perception). The way to calculate the number here is to add your wisdom modifier to a base stat of 10. So for my wizard, her score is 12. I like to think of passive perception as how your character notices things as they go about a normal day. The rules on page 63 describe it as a chance for your character to see something that is attempting to hide. While that is totally fine, I like to give my players a chance to use it a little more often, in fun ways that add a little variety to the ordinary. It could be something silly like you see a squirrel running away from the bakery with a fresh scone in its mouth, or you notice something sparkling in the branches of a tree.
The next box to fill is the initiative box, next to armor class. I really don’t make anyone fill this in, unless they find it helpful. Initiative is how quickly you respond in a combat situation. You roll a d20 and add your dexterity modifier to determine your initiative, the monsters you are fighting do the same. Higher rolls go first. You could write your modifier in the box if it helps you remember to add it. It is also useful for remembering any additional modifiers to your initiative from spells, or items, although those are usually temporary.
The final box to fill out is the Character Name. This is entirely up to you. Get creative!
Character Complete!
I hope you have found my walk-through of character creation helpful! The basic rules have an excellent step-by-step guide as well. I would love to know what type of character you made! Leave a comment below!