Basically, what's your philosophy in creation? Where do you get your concepts? Mechanics first and then role playing, or vice versa? Or what?
Personally, I have one rule I like to follow. Everything else is mutable, like whether its mechanics or roleplaying first, or what. That rule is as follows:
All of my characters have one unoptimal gimmick, and the rest of the build is optimized as much as possible within this and the character personality.
For example, a barbarian who takes all the hurling rage powers and uses them a lot. Sure, he's got a big hammer too, but his signature is the giant boulders he tosses to open battle. My current character: a cryptic (3rd party psionic class) who uses tons of traps, using the craft skill instead of ranger traps or something like that. Others (off the top of my head) could be a wizard who specializes in mad monkeys, or a druid who wildshapes only into birds, or a fighter who uses starknives for everything all the time.
I find characters like these a lot of fun for a few reasons. First, they're great for roleplaying, because a unique concept helps me get more into the character. Second, they're a ton of fun in combat, to be doing something totally weird and badass. Finally, I find it a fun optimizing challenge to make them viable and not a drain on the party. It's not even really something I do intentionally, but just how all my characters tend to work out.
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Two shots of whiskey and start browsing my 3pp PDFs as well as the PRD.
First, I try to make a wizard and then somebody tricks me into playing something else instead.
So mechanics first, then throw out the mechanics for concept, and then new mechanics.
Barring external stimuli (i.e.:the GM has already said "I'm looking for 'X', or I'm not allowing 'Y'") An idea arrives & I see where it goes. Often even with said stimuli, an idea will arrive & I will see where it goes. Right now I am running with my very first synthesist summoner concept, because a post reminded me of the old XO-Man-O-War Comic Book...
Step 1: figure out a way to deal some damage and stay alive
find a few feats that work together
Step 2: design a character around said feats
Step 3: find a big flaw in the plan (not enough feats, AC too low, AB too low, damage too low, saves too low) and start over again.
One of three ways.
1.) Roll stats, see what kind of character I could make with them, make the character's personality, fix gameplay around personality.
2.) Come up with a personality, roll stats to see if I can get a set that fits well enough, build a character around the personality.
3.) Go "HOLY S+~~ that looks cool I should make a character built around doing that", roll stats, make a personality that fits the playstyle.
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I don't have any set method of creating characters. I just have a few very basic rules. Those rules are:
1. Fit the character into the GM's world as seamlessly as possible.
2. Bring a character that adds to the fun of the overall group instead of creating group conflict issues.
3. Build a comprehensive and believable concept for the character so that he/she is a compelling character to role play.
Everything else is just details and mechanics.
1) Find a psionic class that I think looks interesting and start piece-mealing together a build from what looks cool and what other stuff I can remember off the top of my head. Take a shot.
2) Get told "No" with no chance for appeal because none of the other GMs I play with have ever read psionics and don't want to have to learn a new system, because "people say" it's overpowered, or both. Take two shots.
3) Try a find enough feats that I could maybe build it with a Fighter. Take a shot.
4) Lament that I've played too many Fighters already and don't wanna play another one. Take three shots.
5) Go looking through spellcaster options, since the last one I played the campaign seems to have come to a grinding halt. Take two shots.
6) Come up with a really interesting Dragon Disciple, Arcane Trickster, or Crossblooded Sorcerer build I think looks cool. Take a shot.
7) Get told I'm only allowed to play a Wizard "because it's better". Finish the bottle.
8) Wake up the next morning with a headache and hammer out an Evocation Wizard because no-one else wants to be an arcane caster or a person that fights at ranged.
That's been my method of character creation for the past couple campaigns I've gotten into.
What the OP said. Think up a schtick and try to optimize around it. Of course, my first character in the 3.0 system was a sorcerer, and, not knowing any better I thought "Why don't I try specializing in summon spells?". As it turns out that didn't end up needing much optimization...
In PFS I look for a skill or ability that seems a little too good. Then I try and apply every rule that would make it unfair until I have an ability that is broken. Once I have that I get creative and make that character a person.
For home games I look for a personality quirk I want to explore and then build the abilities and such with that quirk.
Please don't try to start flamewars.
who is starting a flamewar?
Concept, background, class. I also avoid making something similar to what someone else is playing. If our group is melee heavy, I'll go for ranged or a caster. Knowing the region and prominent races also helps, to better inhabit the GM's world.
Please don't try to start flamewars.
Hwat.
I browse around the Internet looking at feats and Pre built charters (thanks RD) until something tickles my fancy. When I saw crane style, for example, I immediately imagined a deadly warrior dueling with a vicious foe in some crumbling ruin.
"Gee I wonder what I could build with that in mind?"
Tried monk, and on paper looked okay. (this is before I started prowling these forums)
Did some one on ones by myself and it lived a long time but killed even slower.
Revisited it recently and rebuilt it into a lorewarden/moms/deulist. Same day I read the Asmodean demon hunter trait. An entire character backstory unfolded in minutes, along with the epic quest to steal the essence of law and drive it into the abyss to empower Asmodeus.
Just look around!
If I am not the first player to join the campaign, I ask the DM and/or the other players the following questions:
1) What do you already have in the party?
2) (If the character descriptions do not make it obvious) What does this party need?
I then try to come up with an interesting character who fits in well with the party and fills in whatever gap exists in their abilities.
I often find that a few constraints are good for stimulating the imagination.
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I have a few pages in my little black book of gaming positively brimming with character ideas.
Including mechanical ideas (like, details of classes and feat combinations) and also personality ideas, like the grizzled veteran who just wants to save the world so he can get back to his wife and kids (cliche is always the best :P )
Edit: Forgot to mention, i always add to the ideas when i think up new cool stuff i'd like to try.
For the building the character part, i usually jot down the basic details of where i want it to go, and then build the character in hero lab. I then copy it to a pencil and paper character sheet for easy tracking and editing :)
I run down my quick list of comedy character pitches for the GM, then after those all get shot down, I wait until everyone else has a handle on what they're playing, get a handle on the tone, and do my best to fill the gap in the roster.
... of course, every so often they approve one of the joke-pitches, at which point I have to work out a backstory that makes the actual resulting character serious enough to really play it.
Things actually worked out surprisingly well with the over-the-top-self-loathing/atoning monk whose biggest sin was spilling a glass of wine as a child, the half-orc paladin princess, and the merfolk monk. At this point I'm down to just playing an Antipaladin skirting the edge of falling (rising?) in a generally good-aligned party, or I'll just be skipping straight to the role-filling step.
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For me, it's a bit of everything.
Sometimes, a background emerges from the campaign setting presented by the DM, and I build a character appropriate to the setting.
Sometimes, I pull one of my characters from my ongoing fiction and build it.
Sometimes, I just monkey around with a class and notice something that becomes an amazingly unorthodox concept (see my sorcerer innkeeper, Vargas Brenton. He was exactly that.)
Every once in awhile, I try to optimize a build around an aspect or strategy, like summons, or a certain feat or archetype (combat patrol-longspear-polearm master, for example, never acts, just AOO's everything within 60 ft for any conceivable action.)
In the end, I find that having a set rule limits you. It pigeonholes you into a pattern. Be flexible, remain open to inspiration, the party's needs, and new ideas, and you will be amazed at what emerges. is it always optimum? PFFFFT. No, but that's not the point. The point is that your character is MEMORABLE. I will never forget my first ever roleplaying character, because he grew organically, made discoveries about himself, took odd build paths because they felt right, and died more than once. But he will live on in my imagination, and hopefully that of others, for a very long time.
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I like to look through the miniatures I have, and then find one I can build a character around.
I have played so many different class types over the years, I am pretty comfortable playing them all, well except Paladins, I just don't like them so I don't play them.
But yeah, I jsut find a cool looking miniature and then try to decide what sort of "character" he would be and then run with it.
Well, like all good things, it starts with a monkey...
But other than that, I almost always succumb to the overwhelming urge to play the character that fills a need (whether that need is actually there in practice) that my group has.
I'm usually the last to pick my character in a group.
Either that or I just go Monk.
And by 'Monk' I mean "Not Monk".
I start one of 3 ways.
1A] Start with a single thing that I want to see if it can work well. “I really want to try a trip specialist.”, “Can I debuff things to nearly non threatening?”, or “Let’s try a spazdic dude with a really high initiative bonus to always go first.”
1B] What have I never played (or at least not in a long time). “You know no one in our group has tried an inquisitor. It really seems like it should be a lot of fun.”, “I’ve never tried a healbot. Let’s see if I can make it work for me.”
1C] If the rest of the group is already set or I’m joining an existing group I try to see what role have not been adequately filled.
2] Try and figure some rough idea of the background, concept, personality, etc… of the PC.
3] Mechanical build.
4] Finish all the stuff from 2] above (usually completely different).
Things I always keep in mind. It does bug me when others do not keep these in mind when building a character.
A] Must be able to fit in with the rest of the party and the campaign. I am not going to play a pirate in the dwarven undermountain campaign. I am not going to play an undead lord in a group of heroic/holy champions.
B] No one trick ponies. Yes, I want to trip things but he has to be able to contribute against things that can’t be tripped.
C] At least some social skills or capabilities. Yes he fights, but a lot of game time is also non-fighting interactions. I hate not being able to contribute for large portions of the game. So he has to at least be able to intimidate, sense motive, cast zone of truth, etc…
Let's see, step one is find out if we're gonna be running gestalt or not... the answer is often no, but sometimes in a low-member group the GM decides it'll be OK.
[If the answer is no.]
At this point, I usually fall back on my Standard Builds:
*rogue/wizard(conjuror)
*rogue(poisoner)/fighter
So it always starts out with a level of Rogue.
I spend time arguing with myself over stats (most of my groups use point-buy) and figuring out which skills I want to emphasize. Unless the ARG is in play, I'll be a human, because extra feats and skill points are yummy.
WHILE this sorting process is going on, I'll be thinking about the background, possible history, etc. Since I don't vary much or often from the Standard Builds (I know what I like), THIS is where things can get interesting. Am I cheerful? Bold? Antisocial or gregarious? Etc., ad. infin.
And the ideas I have about the personality and roots of the character alter what skills (and sometimes stats) I emphasize in creation. I tend to have at least 1 craft, 1 profession, and linguistics, just to inform my background and let me talk to people I encounter in the course of my adventuring. (Craft/Shipwright and Profession/Sailor, or Craft/Bookbinding and Profession/Scribe, etc.)
[If the answer is sure, play gestalt.]
THIS opens up a can of worms. I'm FAR more likely to play a nonhuman with a gestalt to run. Though it's usually Gnome or Half-Orc, so there is a certain amount of conservative routine running through the worm-can, lol.
Being a gestalt means I'm likely to play a Cleric or Oracle (of Bones), since I'll have other class abilities without losing levels of Channeling (Commanding Undead). The other side of the gestalt varies a LOT, really depending on the campaign and the other PCs' choices.
And the personality/history of a gestalt character depends much more on the class/es I'm fusing, since explaining a simultaneous progression across two classes can take some doing, if you want it to be believable and consistent.
OK, let the badwrongfun shouting commence. :)
I roll up stats and see if I can build a character I am currently writing or have written.
Or I play a Monk.
Or (and this is actually usually it) I try to go item crafter.
I usually try to remember what class I haven't played yet, choose several of them, and then try to come up with the weirdest characters (not builds) possible. The rest is determined by the rest of the group. I take what niche hasn't been filled.
cnetarian, if you kept a pack of emergency characters filling the roles of healing and buffing you wouldn't have to roll one up in five minutes.
Not that rolling one up in five minutes is much of a challenge...
cnetarian, if you kept a pack of emergency characters filling the roles of healing and buffing you wouldn't have to roll one up in five minutes.
Not that rolling one up in five minutes is much of a challenge...
FOUR MINUTE ABS
I usually start with some kind of inspiration.......for example, just this afternoon my 9yr old watched The Mummy for the first time. So Ive been playing with the SRD trying to decide how I would build Rick O'Connell.
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I just take a common, vanilla class and then make them a small race everyone hates.
I normally talk to the other people of the group and we build our party to work together.
I usually play the Martial Frontliner.
If I plan on playing in a party without knowing the rest of the group...
I normally build multiple characters to fill any potential gaps.
Though I usually draw from my 200+ list of concepts. All of which come from Myths, Movies, Literature, etc.
I tend to have anywhere from 3 to 5 basic character ideas roaming around in the back of my head at any one point. For example:
Thug Rogue - str based human who intimidates first and stabs 1/4 of a second later
Thunder & Fang Shoanti (human) Barbarian - self explanatory
Kitsune Enchanter - uses still & silent spell along with greater invisibility & silent charm person to out face any other party face.
Natural Weapons Ranger / Druid - lives on the outskirts of society, etc.
However, the guy running our next campaign settled on Skulls & Shackles and I immediately thought "Hmm, what would make the best "Sage" for this AP... 10 seconds later, it hit me and I will, beyond a shadow of a doubt, be playing a Female Storm Druid of Gozreh.
But if I'm joining a campaign mid way, I'll play whatever best first the campaign/what the party is missing mechanically and then build an interesting personality that makes for good role play.
I usually start with a personality or a concept for a character's goals or background in mind, and take it from there. I like to play characters with a pretty complete identity; I just can't get into a game if I don't know who I'm playing.
After that, I tend to think about role and some sort of angle for making the character effective in that role.
In general, I enjoy taking a supportive role and helping other people shine; I hate stepping on other people's toes, or taking the spotlight from someone else. I'm often the last one at the table to choose a concept, as I like to work with what other people want.
I also like to try to choose oddball archetypes, feats, or builds, and try to make them work - or at least make the best of them - just for the sake of it. I won't play something truly crippled but I find that the super-optimal "easy mode" builds get boring really quickly.
Part of that involves challenging my own dislikes and biases. If there's a race or a class that I feel I'm neglecting because I'm just not into them, I often force myself to find a build or concept that I actually *do* like, and play it. I find this is the best way to really get your money's worth out of a game.
I frequently start with the question, "What will make the GM (and other players) *TWITCH* the most?"
But sometimes I have better ideas, and sometimes that backfires. Sharkey, the Goblin Druid (Shark Shaman), with the feat that gives Goblins a decent bite attack, is a command performance for our upcoming Skull & Shackles game. Something tells me druids are gonna rock that AP!
Sharkey came about by looking for interesting Race/Class combinations. As did my Asimar Cleric, all types of nice synergy there. He also came from the character building trope of trying to be more iconic than iconic. And the other Character building trope I enjoy is playing against type. I have a polite rogue in mind that typifies that trope. But you could have fun with a sensitive fighter or a forlorn cleric. (I don't know why I bother healing you, you're all gonna die anyway.)
And I use all the other stuff people have said. Occasionally I'm inspired by feat or trait combos. Occasionally I like to optimize one or two skills, but I always try to remain useful to the party.
I have a suicidal emo Merciful Healer. Funniest Cleric in the world.
"I don't know why I even bother healing you all. You will just go get hurt again. My life is useless."
Eeyore class confirmed.
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First, I pick my race. To me, this is the most important mechanical aspect of my character. I base a lot of other factors of character creation directly on my racial choice.
Second, I pick my class. Usually, I pick a class that goes right along with my racial stat bonuses. I pick a class that will benefit the most from that racial choice. Sometimes, however, I pick the opposite of what I should for any given race, just because it makes people crazy. Like my Dhampir paladin. I got stuff thrown at me for that one.
Third, I make all the other mechanical decisions that can be made at 1st level. I choose feats, skills, spells, etc. I don't base this on any accepted "normal" idea, or by what I am "supposed" to do. I've never really gone in for building conventions. I don't like being told "If you're gonna play this race/class, you have to do it this way, and with these feats/skills/spells, or you're doing it wrong". I don't believe in a "wrong" or "right" way to build a character. Just build what's fun for you. The hell with anyone who tells you that you're "wrong" for doing it.
Fourth, I create my background, personal history, and personality profile. This is the part of character that I put the most work into. I often end up disappointed, because this is the part of my character that typically see the least amount of use. Especially in PFS. In my home games, it depends entirely on who's running. Some of my friends absolutely love bringing character backgrounds/histories into the campaign. I also have one or two that despise character backgrounds and get mad at people for even coming up with one. It's a diverse group. In PFS, it's a different story. In PFS, I usually don't even bother with a background or history because it will never get used in any way, at all, ever. That's only a minor complaint, mainly because I understand that organized play just works that way. I wish it were different, but I know why it isn't, so I can deal.
Finally, I then proceed to make some decisions about the characters development in advance. I don't plan the entire character from 1-20 or anything like that, but I do at least look ahead a few levels for stuff that might make for a good direction for the character to go. I very rarely plan out definite development in advance though. I may look around at stuff, but I don't want to lock myself in to a specific path. I like to keep my options open, I simply do enough research to know what the options even are.
That's the way I do it. Thank you for starting this thread, actually. It definitely gives an insight into the mentality of the whole thing. It's all quite interesting.
Have a nice day.
I just have ideas and concepts I want to try...
I like skills and to be versatile.
My next character will be a strength based half-orc monk, of an organization we put in our campaign called 'Black Sun', I spear you further details... :D
Also I have in mind a Halfling Ranger.
I like to try unusual builds and to make good character out of normally considered crap choices. Building powera and maximized character is overrated and boring, I like concepts and challenges.
I have a TWW and Archer pair that the only reasons I choose are in the group of 3 they will be used in we each chose to make 2 characters and they have to be on total opposite ends of the same general purpose in some way
I chose those Archetypes as they are something I wanted to try out and I had a concept they would be perfect for.
The Caster player chose to build an Elf Wizard/Rogue/Arcane Trickster and a Inquisitor/Magus/Mystic Theurge.
The Skills player chose to build a Rogue who focused on adventuring skills and scouting skills and a Bard focused on being the Face of the group.
We all designed these characters tarting with Story/Class first then filled in the rest.
This is normal for us when we want to create entirely new characters.