Pretty much what the title says. A lot of folks on the board plan their builds all the way out to 20th level (or 11th level, for PFS players). But, I wonder, do any of you just pick a character concept, draw up the 1st-level sheet, maybe have some idea where you'd go barring unknown campaign-specific influences, but otherwise just play it by ear with no further planning?
Yes.
Or (using more words), it varies, but I'll generally know what kind of concept I'm driving towards, with a rough idea of how to get there in terms of feats, skills, class abilities, etc. On some concepts, I'm much more fine "winging it" and rolling with whatever fun ideas the DM throws at me.
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Personally, I would suggest a little bit of both.
Plan it all the way to 20, giving you a good start in the right direction, but wing it if the campaign will not reach that level. It's safer to assume you will stop at level 15. Continue along the same lines of the plan, but adapt as needed. It also depends on whether optimization is needed at some point, or not.
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Pretty much what the title says. A lot of folks on the board plan their builds all the way out to 20th level (or 11th level, for PFS players). But, I wonder, do any of you just pick a character concept, draw up the 1st-level sheet, maybe have some idea where you'd go barring unknown campaign-specific influences, but otherwise just play it by ear with no further planning?
Almost always. What my characters decide to learn over their career tends to be directly influenced by the events that happen to them. Usually that means taking whatever options will be the most useful to them right now, in the kind of situations they're getting into right now. That, plus some influence from their personal interests outside of adventuring.
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Nope pretty much always plan at least up to 4-5 feats in advance. I dont really plan to level 20 since we dont like high level play. I top out my builds at about 16 for AP campaigns. I tend to plan without gear though my groups tend to be on the stingy side of following WBL. A few of the GMs make finding things a major PITA too. So even though I plan the build I dont assume any magic items.
I'm a newcomer to Pathfinder after a looooong hiatus (20+ years) from gaming. Having last played 1st Edition AD&D in the early 1990's, the whole notion of "building" a PC is a new concept for me so I don't plan my PC's at all.
And that's the way I like it dagummit!
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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It depends very heavily on the concept.
If I'm going for something simple like "archer" or "blasty sorcerer", then I have the basics figured out (take the archery feats/take a damage-boosting bloodline) and the rest can be figured out as I go.
If I'm going for, say, an Eldritch Knight? That's much harder to make work in a way that's still fun to play without a significant degree of planning.
If I'm trying for something a little nontraditional that nothing directly supports, then I basically have to map out a complicated machine in great detail just to even be able to realize my concept.
So like I said, it depends. The more your concept fits something that an existing class is designed to represent, the more you can just "coast" on your class features and a feat or two without needing to worry about the "big picture". But the more original your concept is, the harder you have to work for it, which means more detailed planning.
I usually have several plans and most of them good. But i always. end up changing them several times on the way. One character startet out as Inv barbar/ monk/ unbreakable figther, retrained to blackblade magus and is now a diviner with less than ideal wizard stats. But he have a great story behind him and in front i hope:)
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Generally, I keep a list of feats/abilities/etc I want, but don't map out when to pick them up. I may also get something different if it seems more natural based on what's happening in the campaign.
I might be more inclined to plan it out in more detail if I played PFS, but as I don't and no intention to...
Usually plan to 9th, yes. I don't feel like I have a really good handle on a character unless I know what they're going to do, and it has the added benefit of making me suck less (because I invariably suck all of the ass when I just wing it) and be able to level up faster since I'm just like "And I will take this Feat and un-gray it, add an extra +1 to these skill ranks, and VOILA!".
Some of my characters are less planned than others (most of my casters, beyond "I'm specialized in this school"), but all are planned in some fashion.
Thanks for the posts!
This came up as I reflected that every one of the PCs I've made for Pathfinder end up deviating from any particular plan within two or three levels from the plan being made. So I wondered, what if I simply stopped planning? Some prestige classes would be . . . difficult to enter, I suppose. But then again, retraining is a thing now, and we tend to be relaxed with the whole "must have a trainer that has the feat/whatever" clause, so decisions aren't as final as they could be.
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I have played fighters enough that I just need a fresh look at the feats and I can wing it. Other classes I may need to map out just to make sure I get the angle I am going for.
Since I mainly do pfs (only have 1 ap that I am playing), I mainly only build to lvl 12. Some of my main PCs that may see action post pfs retirement are built to the lvl 17/18 range.
Only occasionally do I literally BUILD ahead, although I often have an idea of what combos of classes/types of abilities I want.
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It depends very heavily on the concept.
If I'm going for something simple like "archer" or "blasty sorcerer", then I have the basics figured out (take the archery feats/take a damage-boosting bloodline) and the rest can be figured out as I go.
If I'm going for, say, an Eldritch Knight? That's much harder to make work in a way that's still fun to play without a significant degree of planning.
If I'm trying for something a little nontraditional that nothing directly supports, then I basically have to map out a complicated machine in great detail just to even be able to realize my concept.
So like I said, it depends. The more your concept fits something that an existing class is designed to represent, the more you can just "coast" on your class features and a feat or two without needing to worry about the "big picture". But the more original your concept is, the harder you have to work for it, which means more detailed planning.
Pretty much exactly what Jiggy said. Some concepts write themselves, others take a lot of planning. I find I also plan a lot more for pfs than for home games. With home play I like to change things up depending on what happens, and what cool items I find. For pfs, its all purchased, nothings up to chance.
There is always a plan. Whether or not the plan gets followed is a different issue (can you say "rolled 1,2,1 for HPs for levels 2-4 so toughness became mandatory and I switched to archery") but there is always a plan.
So glad my table plays "roll for health" or take "PFS average rolls".
Your deli-ma there gave me the shivers.
I usually plan out my build, but in doing so there usually winds up being a lot of wiggle room. Some feats will be vital to the build, while others will be more flexible, and it helps to gauge the feel of the campaign, the GM, and the other players before deciding whether it's better to take Combat Reflexes or safer to pick up Toughness with a spare feat, etc.
Likewise with spell and skill point selection.
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Plan, but with a couple of caveats:
1. I don't consider the plan to be set in stone. It will change to adjust to the campaign, I do not demand the GM adjust the campaign to my planned build.
2. My plan doesn't include items beyond mundane weapons or armor. If I get magical stiff, that's great, but I refuse to be the whiny b%*&* complaining that I need X, not Y.
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I like to have a idea of a end goal but I dont plan it out. Just because I want a AOE wizard if the DM puts us in tight quaters were those kinds of spells hurt the party too then I flex and change. Kinda like real life(Although if i was a wizard in real life I would be having so much more fun lol)
Plan, but with a couple of caveats:
1. I don't consider the plan to be set in stone. It will change to adjust to the campaign, I do not demand the GM adjust the campaign to my planned build.
2. My plan doesn't include items beyond mundane weapons or armor. If I get magical stiff, that's great, but I refuse to be the whiny b!+!* complaining that I need X, not Y.
This is pretty much how I do it too. I have a bunch of 1 - 20 build sheets for ease in leveling and because I like toying around with the moving parts from multiple classes. Even with all that done though, I'm not afraid to dump/adjust the plan as the game goes on.
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I usually have some broad-stroke, back-of-the-envelope ideas for character advancement, but I like to let the circumstances of the campaign influence character advancement.
For example, there was one game back in the 3.5 days where my ranger PC had an encounter with a god, and switched classes to become a cleric of that god. It was completely unplanned and rather sub-optimal, yet completely appropriate for the character.
Likewise, I've had characters take sub-optimal feats, ranks in non-class skills, and spontaneous casters make odd spell selection choices due to in-game circumstances or events.
Basically, I like my character development to be organic and tied to the plotline of the campaign.
OTOH, the campaigns I play in tend to be heavily plot-focused with a larger emphasis on interpersonal roleplaying than combat. (We can go three or four sessions without any weapons being drawn.) If I were playing in a combat-focused and/or episodic campaign (like, say, in PFS), I probably would take a much more planned approach to character advancement.
Tipically I make a plan, but then I adapt it to the type of GM and campaign I'm going to play. For example I decide wether to take craft feats or not depending on the timing of the campaing. If I see that the action doesn't give the PCs a reasonable time to rest and to make downtime activities, I drop the whole feat chain.
I have a plan for the first part of their career, if they survive to double digit levels then I start winging it. I also don't assume I'm gonna get any specific magical items unless I put an appropriate craft feat in there.
I usually like to know in advance what the next feat will be, those kinds of things but farther than 1-2 levels I never plan because you never know if your character will get there.
Usually I more or less plan it out fairly detailed for at least the next several levels. But I may not follow the plan to closely depending upon what we find happening in the campaign.
Occasionally in very relaxed groups that don't optimize much if at all I will just wing it. But that is rare for me.
I usually only plan up to level 5, 7 at most. Anything after that is pure winging it.
I usually draw up a mental list of feats I'll need, and some must have spells if I'm playing a caster. Other than that I wing it, feels much more organic of a process that way. Also, every time I level up it feels like I'm opening a present!
As the player of a spontaneous caster in a campaign that could end at any point, I determined that there were certain things I needed to be able to do at certain points -- for example, before I make my summoner Large at 18th level when he gets Greater Aspect, I need to ensure that he has learned the Transmogrify spell so that he can reverse it without gaining a level if he needs to. Little things like that have forced me to plan out his spell acquisition for his remaining levels -- and they would change only if something comes up in game that would make him rethink his plans.
I have already changed things up a few times -- for example, when we had most of the action occurring in and around a large underground sea, my plans included making my summoner and eidolon both permantenly amphibious. Now that we have moved on to an area that is mostly dry land, those plans have been abandoned.
In our current game, Second Darkness, I decided to play a Monk. The very first time I played Pathfinder I played a Paladin and things didn't work out so I wanted to write things down. So I did. However at the start we only had access to the CRB and APG. The GM was really pushing for me to play the Drunken Master archetype and I had already decided on the 4 Winds Archetype. At the very start I was going to go for Whirlwind, because it looked cool in Never Winter Nights (PC game)
As the levels went by, I got discouraged and stopped the idea of Whirlwind even though I had picked up three of the feats.
Later on one of the group got the Ultimate Combat book and I got into the Marid Style. I was feeling like the Monk sucked and eventually got the GM to let me remove the Drunken Master. He agreed because it was his idea.
We are almost at the end of the AP. I now realize that if I had all the books I would have built the character differently and I would have built it all the way to 20th level.
The next game I am making a Magus and I am building that all the way to 20th level.
Plan a level or 2 ahead at a time, Wing and Retrain if DM dissalows that option or negates it. a lot of my best characters were wing it builds built organically. they weren't useless. but Wing it builds help when you have a group that doesn't usually plan.
I plan. Building character is fun for me, so I have several folders of concepts fleshed out for every level. They're fun thought exercises to work on, but I don't expect to ever use them. At least, I don't expect to use them all the way. I can start a campaign at level 8 by pulling one of my pre-prepared level 8 characters, but I can never know how that ideal build will work once it hits the campaign. Maybe I won't get that magic item I need in order to be able to do that cool trick. Maybe we'll need a healer and I'll draw the short straw. Maybe I won't have plot-reasonable access to the trainer I need to multiclass. Planning is a good jumping-off point, but you can't plan for the campaign unless you're the GM.
On a related not, this is why I never play below 5th level. If I need to dip a level or two in order to make my character concept work, it's better to do that before the campaign starts. If I don't it might be impossible to fit in during the campaign. I dislike the idea of a character being one class the whole game and then suddenly becoming a wizard out of the blue even though the party is in the middle of the jungle with no books to research.
Pretty much what the title says. A lot of folks on the board plan their builds all the way out to 20th level (or 11th level, for PFS players). But, I wonder, do any of you just pick a character concept, draw up the 1st-level sheet, maybe have some idea where you'd go barring unknown campaign-specific influences, but otherwise just play it by ear with no further planning?
I plan builds but they are never set in stone. Often I have optional feats written in. It makes leveling up a lot faster for me also.
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I plan things out, though that's partly just because I enjoy drawing up plans for characters and it's a fun way to figure out how a particular new class/archetype might work out.
That said, in an actual campaign I tend to adjust that plan a fair bit depending on circumstances. If my character starts having problems in any given area, I'll work to address said problem rather than stubbornly sticking to the plan.