Hello, I'm a GM who is pretty new. This question is more for my players than me. I'm having a few new players enter the campaign because I had several openings.
The rest of the party has been playing for about 2 weeks already, so they're all about level 5. Now, I'm pretty familiar with creating characters that are level 1, but it feels unfair to make them have to level grind to play catch up. However, I can't find anything that shows how to make higher level characters. Help me out, please!
By the way, the characters are an Aasimar cavalier and a dwarven druid.
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Table: Character Wealth by Level can also be used to budget gear for characters starting above 1st level, such as a new character created to replace a dead one. Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item. For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items like potions, scrolls, and wands, and 10% on ordinary gear and coins. Different character types might spend their wealth differently than these percentages suggest; for example, arcane casters might spend very little on weapons but a great deal more on other magic items and disposable items.
As GM deciding on the level they start at and how much wealth they have is probably the most important step. Also whether and what limits you will put on the equipment they can start with.
Other than that it's just like building a first level character, just with more stuff.
Say, you are starting as a level 5 fighter (because it's simple). You get all the class abilities of a 5th level fighter (3 combat feats, Bravery and armour training & wepaon training 1), the BAB and base saves of a 5th level fighter and 5d10+(5*con mod) hit points. You also gain your feats for being 5th level and the +1 stat increase you get at 4th level.
I would highly suggest taking GM Rednal's advice, starting by creating level 1 characters and leveling them up from there.
For a very new player, maybe. But the only thing you really need to check is feats. It's a lot quicker to check those than level up one by one.
It is no hardship to ensure you write down the feats in the order you would take them to enable easier checking - still much quicker than building level by level.
It is more time consuming, but it allows somebody that is new to the system to have a deeper understanding of the characters if they see them level up. IMHO anyways.
Yes, we're all pretty new to the game, lol. Even me. I have a lot to learn, but I'm thankful I found this site because it makes everything so much easier!
Dragonhunter, thanks for your imput, but I think I'm going to take Rednal's advice. It'll be good for all of us to go through it step by step.
I'm glad we could help out, and I wish you luck with your game. If you have any more questions don't hesitate to come right back and ask them!
Hey, unrelated question, but can a cavalier not have a mount? My player doesn't want to have an animal companion, but I'm not sure I want to allow it, even if it IS possible...
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Table: Character Wealth by Level can also be used to budget gear for characters starting above 1st level, such as a new character created to replace a dead one. Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item. For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items like potions, scrolls, and wands, and 10% on ordinary gear and coins. Different character types might spend their wealth differently than these percentages suggest; for example, arcane casters might spend very little on weapons but a great deal more on other magic items and disposable items.As GM deciding on the level they start at and how much wealth they have is probably the most important step. Also whether and what limits you will put on the equipment they can start with.
Other than that it's just like building a first level character, just with more stuff.
Say, you are starting as a level 5 fighter (because it's simple). You get all the class abilities of a 5th level fighter (3 combat feats, Bravery and armour training & wepaon training 1), the BAB and base saves of a 5th level fighter and 5d10+(5*con mod) hit points. You also gain your feats for being 5th level and the +1 stat increase you get at 4th level.
While dragonhunterq's advice on how the PCs should distribute their wealth is sound. I would not use the wealth by level table to set the value of their gear. To keep things fair, I would average the value of the other PC's gear and use that number. Especially if they are new, I might give them items in lieu of cash, just as if they had acquired said items through play.
Depending on whether I was running a published adventure or a home brew I would then steer the party's average wealth toward the WBL guidelines, or a value that suited me, respectively.
Being able to ride a mount and attack with it is pretty much the Thing of the Cavalier. A lot of their abilities revolve around it, or at least assume they'll be able to do it.
A very small number of archetypes replace the Mount feature (I think Daring Champion does), but if they genuinely don't want to have any kind of mount or animal companion, they may prefer taking another martial class instead.
(I encourage NOT taking Fighter, by the way. New players might get bored if they find that combat is all they contribute to. A good balance between in-combat and out-of-combat utility would be best.)
I would not discourage fighter. Their skill rolls may be low, but they can still contribute outside of combat through roleplay and ideas. They just have to understand what their limitations would be outside of combat. To ameliorate their limitations, I houserule that fighters get 4 skill points per level.
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GM Rednalls advice is extremely solid.
click me
Scroll down to the bottom and there is a list of archetypes, check out the ones with an X under the mount class feature.
GM Rednalls advice is extremely solid.
click me
Scroll down to the bottom and there is a list of archetypes, check out the ones with an X under the mount class feature.
How nifty! Thanks a bunch; this'll really help a lot!
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I second the starting at level 1.
Without wanting to be harsh, even dragonhunterq made a mistake, in stating hitpoints need to be " 5d10+(5*con mod)." However, you take max HP on your first HD, meaning the correct value would be 10 + 4d10 + (5*Con Mod)+ any HP for Favoured class bonus.
This is not to b!**& at Dragonhunterq, who I think would never make this mistake while building his own characters. It just shows that it is very easy to miss steps if you go straight to level 5 (or higher).
What I usually do is make a table of what a character gets at each level and work through it (especially with archetypes) leveling up if it starts at higher level.
Besides that, I second that Fighter is as easy a class to start with, especially coming in at higher level. Some more intricate classes have too many moving parts which you only get to know by playing with them one by one when they come online, which means you are bound to make mistakes/forget stuff when you start out.
As for a class, I would look at:
- Slayer/Ranger (without Pet) because it is full BAB but has some tricks and can contribute out of combat, without being too complicated.
- Barbarian/Bloodrager is also fairly easy to handle and have some nifty tricks
- I would stay away from full casters, but if your player leans that way try for a spontaneous caster, since dealing with 5 levels worth of spells known in one go is challenging enough as it is, without needing to know all of them.
In general, going for something with mostly combat, some skills seems a good place to start. We had a new player trying to deal with playing a high-ish level cleric and he got bogged down with options. In our new campaign he plays a monk and he is enjoying this way more.
Me on the other hand, I usually played beat-sticks but got bored with it and am now enjoying more freedom playing a caster, compliments of higher system-mastery. (Not to say you cannot enjoy a properly built melee as an experienced player!)
Cavalier and Druid both do come with their respective problems (Mount in dungeons, while druid needs to make some choices on what to focus on), but just take it step-by-step and it'll be fine!