If you build it they will come

[Kobold Stew]

The latest playtest allows for all sorts of customization – Do It Yourself
Styles (for fighters), Schemes (for Rogues), Specialties, and Backgrounds.

So many ways to customize! So tell me what it is you want to build!

* What custom sequence of maneuvers gives you the fighter or rogue you want? (are they all based off the same stat, or is there diversity?)

* What skill cluster gives you the character that you want to play (as a background or a rogue)?

* How will you avoid skill redundancy (so that you don’t get the same skills in your background and your rogue scheme)?

* What feat-sequence in a custom specialty gives you the ideal progression for the PC you want to play? (Here’s my lumberjack specialty feat-sequence: Find Familiar, Bushwhacker’s Tactics, Durable, Master Detective).

We’ve all asked the question in our heads: the playtest packet is giving us choice here. How do you customize your background, and do you try to break the game?

Or have you had other ideas?

 

[Li Shenron]

* How will you avoid skill redundancy (so that you don’t get the same skills in your background and your rogue scheme)?

Just a note here, that the rules already take this into account and explicitly allow to swap a background skill with something else if you already have it from another source (scheme or race).

 

[Kobold Stew]

I understand that -- what skill are you going to swap in?

Is anyone building custom characters, either for optimization or to recreate a specific feel or effect?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just a note here, that the rules already take this into account and explicitly allow to swap a background skill with something else if you already have it from another source (scheme or race).

Yes, and that is a rule, which would have been really needed in 4e too. I am so glad, they included it in next.

In 4e often best matches were discouraged by the fact that overlapping skills didn't synergize!

 

[Grimmjow]

im playing a human fighter with the spy background. Its a lot of fun

 

[Kobold Stew]

Really? No one's begun designing yet? I would have thought others would be doing it as you were reading through the packet on a first pass.

Is it that you like the options you've been given? Is there no need for the absolute-free-for-all to design they've given us?

 

[Keeblrkid]

I built a Kickass pirate, but I can't find the sheet, so I will talk about it at another time.