Draft: Character Creation Guide

covaithe

Explorer
This is a draft of a post that, once we're happy with it, will be a sticky at the top of the forum. It will describe how to go about creating a character and submitting it for approval, and will also contain the list of approved characters.

Everything below the line is part of the proposed guide.

[D]----[/D]

Living 4th Edition Character Creation Guide

L4W characters sheets are stored in the L4W Wiki. To create a new character, first go to the Character Sandbox page. Edit the page, and at the bottom of the page, add a new link to your character. If your character's name was Bilbo Baggins and you were making a halfling rogue, the code for your link would look like:
Code:
[[L4W:Bilbo Baggins]], Halfling Rogue 1
Save the page. Now click on your new link, which will take you to a blank page edit screen. Open up the L4W Character Template in another window, and copy the code from the white section marked "Copy from below this line" and paste it into the edit window for your character sheet page. Save the new character sheet, to create a baseline to fall back on in case you mess up, and edit it again to fill in the details of your new character.

L4W characters are created at level 1, using any material from the PHB, and the races from the section at the back of the MM. Ability scores are created using the point buy rules from page 18 of the PHB, except that we use 25 points instead of 22. (TODO: put in a list of sample stat arrays that can be created with this method. Or possibly a link to a 4e point buy calculator, if we can find one.)

You may optionally choose a region for your character from the regions list. Each region provides small benefits to characters originating there.

When you feel that your character sheet is ready for submission, send an email to all the character judges (TODO: insert email addresses of character judges.) with the subject line "L4W character approval for Bilbo Baggins", replacing Bilbo Baggins with your character's name. The judges will review your character sheet as soon as they can, but if you don't hear from them for a week or two, it would be wise to send them a reminder. The judges will edit a section at the bottom of your character sheet, either with details of any changes that are needed, or with a comment indicating approval. In either case, the judges will email you to notify you of the result. The second judge to approve your character will add a link to the approved revision of your character to the official list of approved characters below. You can continue to edit your character sheet after it has been approved, to add notes or details of your current status, but the changes will have no official effect until you level up and submit your character for approval again. DMs should be aware that the approved version of a character sheet is the one linked to from this post, and that there may be later edits.

You can join adventures before you are fully approved, with the DM's permission, but you cannot earn experience without having approval from two judges.

When you gain enough experience to level up, edit your character sheet and email the character judges again. The approval process is the same as for the initial character submission.
 

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garyh

First Post
This looks great to me, covaithe. I agree that sample point buy arrays and/or a calculator would be helpful. Also, this reminds me we need to define regional benefits. I'll start another thread on that.
 


garyh

First Post
Because I'm supposed to be learning more about javascript for work anyways, I threw together a quick and dirty 4e point buy calculator last night. I'll probably tweak it for a while yet, but it's usable now.

That's simple yet effective, covaithe. Thanks!

One minor point - can you swap Dex and Con? The new order (to make clear the defense linkages, I would imagine) is Str/Con/Dex/Int/Wis/Cha.
 

garyh

First Post
(TODO: put in a list of sample stat arrays that can be created with this method.)

Here's a list of sample arrays I came up with. No others came to mind, at least given my assumption that with 25 points to spend you'd want at least one 16.

18 16 10 10 10 8
18 14 13 11 10 8
18 13 13 13 10 8
18 12 12 12 12 9
16 16 15 10 10 8
16 15 15 12 10 8
16 14 14 14 11 8
16 14 14 12 12 10
16 14 13 12 12 12
16 13 13 13 13 12
 

Graf

Explorer
Meant to post but didn't have anything too specific to say. I think this is good, well thought out, etc.

I would change: L4W character approval for Bilbo Baggins to L4W character submission: Bilbo Baggins
(hypothetically the judges are doing the approving, right?)

And I would consider making the address
[[L4W:pC:covaithe:Bilbo Baggins]] or at least
[[L4W:pC:Bilbo Baggins]]
 



Erekose13

Explorer
I think there needs to be a streamlined process for character approval. With a Wiki it should be easier to move characters shouldn't it? (just edit the categories at the bottom of the sheet I think).

A suggestion:
1. When creating a new character or updating one due to leveling, alter the category at the bottom of the page to [[Category:L4W:UnApproved Character]].
2. Email the judges that a character is in need of judging ("Subject: L4W Character Approval" with a link)
3. Judges can review L4W:Unapproved Character category for all characters in there to keep it cleaned up.
4. Judge then edits the character and changes the category to [[Category:L4W:Approved Characters]]

If I understand Wiki stuff (and I just started learning it today, so its entirely possible I don't) then the list of Approved Characters is generated automatically.
 

covaithe

Explorer
I think having the categories is a good idea, particularly the unapproved characters category, but I don't think they suffice for an official list. Remember, anyone can put characters in an out of the categories. I'd like to have at least one step in the process that requires judge priveleges.
 

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