Do you plan out your character's advancement in advance?

[Aeric]

Usually, the only planning-ahead that I do for my characters is making sure I qualify for whatever PrC I have my eye on. Even then, I may deviate from the plan based on events in-game. It's just too hard to predict what will happen to a character. I can't justify maxing out my swim skill if the party spends a year of game time in the desert.

I plotted out all 20 levels of my last character as an experiment, and found myself changing the plan a number of times along the way. And I only made it up to 8th level with that character...I can only imagine what kinds of changes would have been made if the game had lasted longer.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Back in AD&D, no, not at all, but ever since 3.0-, yes, you have to.

(DISCLAIMER: now that I said you have to, I will say you should, because if I make such a broad statement as to say you ALL have to, I will get no end of people yelling that I am speaking for them. To which I say, grow up, you now what I mean )

Anyway, with so many feats, skills, spells and classes out there, you really have to take a look at the bigger picture. When I got back into D&D during 3.0, I didn't give it that much thought, but once I realized that there are way to many options and now requirments, yes, you have to.

If you want whirlwind, you have to plan ahead for that. If you are playing a fighter, you might want weapon focus at first level, but you eventualy want endurance as well, so you take a human feat or a character feat at first level of endurance at first level and you take weapon focus at second level.

If you want to qualify for a prestiege class, you have to plan that out as early as level one.

Personally, even if I never end up playing a character that I make, I map him or her out to level 20. I know what feats I want to take at each level and what classes I will take at each level. I won't break down the skills until I level, but I map the rest out. You really have to, or at least, you should.

 

[Insight]

Depending on my idea for the character, I almost always plan out some sort of path. D20 encourages you to do so, especially if you'd ever like to get into a prestige class.

 

[Wombat]

This depends a lot of the game system.

D&D/D20 is a rather unforgiving system -- you have to work to "maximize" your character. If you don't take Feat A by Level X, you won't be able to take PrC Y. Thus I see a lot of discussion threads on various boards about how to "maximize" your feat and skill choices. People seem to spend a lot of time with D20 figuring out the best path to a specific end.

Now with other games I see far less emphasis on "deciding in advance" and far more on "deciding based on the needs of the campaign and the player". In Ars Magica there tends to be a goodly amount of specialization, but not along a particular set of Feats and Skills; instead the system favours players exploring given lines of enquiry with their magi. GURPS tends towards the immediate uber-build character, with a little thought given to later development; Champions/Heroes exaggerates this trend, probably because advancement is comparatively slow. Paranoia ... don't even worry about character advancement.

These are very broad-strokes views of these systems and there are a lot of variations by specific campaign and group...

 

[Jubilee]

My first GM in the first serious game I joined (As in, a game where the GM actually knew the system and the first time someone explained character creation to me) gave me a chart for planning or recording character progression - class, hp, saves, attack, feats or stat advancements at the appropriate level, skill points, and class abilities. So now I usually plan out at least class levels in advance, although I don't usually fill everything in until I hit a level, and things can (and do) change as play mandates.

 

[Stormborn]

Sometimes. Often not but occasionally, if I am going for a particular prestige class, I do plan out feat/skills as needed. Alot of it depends on the campaign. More often my planning isn't any more than the next 2-3 levels, and mostly related to taking feats. For example, my Battle Sorc took a metamagic feat at his last level so that next time he can take energy substitution.

 

[derelictjay]

Just a little bit. I usually have an Idea and build towards it. This has gotten me in trouble with Prestige classes as I'll forget to take certain prerequisites and must wait a level or two to take the class later.

 

[Greg K]

Rarely to never. And when I do it is only for a level or three. I like the advancement iof the character to reflect what is going on in the campaign.

Same here.

 

[Victim]

I generally have some idea what classes and feats I want, and when I want them. Skills are far more flexible - there are generally some core skills, but other picks can be more open. If a character gets religion, then throwing some skill points for knowledge or whatever and some roleplaying can do a decent job of representing it. Taking cleric levels isn't going to work well for most characters.

I don't see too much room for change once a character is set up. There might be multiple paths of advancement, but changing direction overall can be pretty tough if you want something effective in some way. At that point, it might be better to start looking at retool options to change out old class levels or retirement.

 

[Ealli]

Absolutely. Feats are too rare and precious to be left to last minute decisions. If you intend to go down a feat chain, you need to know that early or you're going to be waiting another 3 levels and the campaign could well be over by that point. Some of the low skill point classes also need to plan out where they're going on skills because when they realize they really need to be invested in a certain skill, it'll take them too long to recover. This then adds up for Prestige Classes which would be a perfect thematic match for your character, but have prereqs that you might not have otherwise considered taking.