Character creation as playing D&D

[am181d]

Or..............your could have ignore char op forums, picked a pally build, took the recomended choices, tinkers for a few mins............ending up with quick useful, probably fun Paladin. Saved yourself needless hours, but do 20.31416 HP of damage less per encounter. And n a role-playing sense they both would be extactly as much fun to play. SORRY no one forced you be read & study char op forums, you chose to do so. That will be that EXACT same in whatever system you choose to play.

Absolutely. Equipment for a higher level character might take some time, but otherwise? Roll your ability scores, roll your hit points, take the same skills every level. You get 3 or 4 feats, 2 ability raises, and some spells. Stick to the PHB and you can do it all in about 10 minutes.

 

[Rhenny]

I've played and DMd every edition since basic, and I also look back fondly at the times when we had to roll for character abilities.

This may sound contradictory and slightly weird, but, when players roll for abilities and don't plan for them, I think players feel more like the PC has a life of its own. In life, everyone is dealt a hand of cards. Some have brains, brawn and good looks, others not so much. The trick is to make due with what you have.

When I had a character who had average or below average stats, one of the driving goals was to improve my stats in some way. I know that is not possible in 4e, but in prior editions, and with DM granted boons, it could be part of character motivation.

If we all used random character generation, we could perhaps get away from Min/max for a while and just roleplay. Of course, with the randomness sometimes balance will go out the window, but I think I might be ok with that as long as something is gained (be it personality and roleplay potential or other boons the DM might give to compensate a clearly inferior PC).

 

[KesselZero]

Or..............your could have ignore char op forums, picked a pally build, took the recomended choices, tinkers for a few mins............ending up with quick useful, probably fun Paladin. Saved yourself needless hours, but do 20.31416 HP of damage less per encounter. And n a role-playing sense they both would be extactly as much fun to play. SORRY no one forced you be read & study char op forums, you chose to do so. That will be that EXACT same in whatever system you choose to play.

Understood, but the fact of the matter is that the vast percentage of most 4e games is combat. The vast percentage of powers are combat powers, feats are combat feats, encounters are combat encounters, time at the table is combat time, etc. etc. Based on what the rules support and lean towards, 4e is a tactical combat game first and foremost. If I were to build a quick character as you suggest, he'd be well behind the rest of the party in combat, and that wouldn't be very much fun for me-- spending most of the game missing more, doing less damage, and getting hit more than everybody else. Obviously YMMV if you play a different style of game, but in my experience 4e isn't really great for other styles of game.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Understood, but the fact of the matter is that the vast percentage of most 4e games is combat. The vast percentage of powers are combat powers, feats are combat feats, encounters are combat encounters, time at the table is combat time, etc. etc. Based on what the rules support and lean towards, 4e is a tactical combat game first and foremost. If I were to build a quick character as you suggest, he'd be well behind the rest of the party in combat, and that wouldn't be very much fun for me-- spending most of the game missing more, doing less damage, and getting hit more than everybody else. Obviously YMMV if you play a different style of game, but in my experience 4e isn't really great for other styles of game.

It all depends on your gaming group, my Thurs night 4E LFR game only Two of the guys use Char-Ops. They may do a small bit more damage, but none of the other guys seem to mind. Often as we play the not 'char-op' ask questions about different powers and feats.

You must be in an arms race with the other char-op guys, if you worry about being "well behind" the rest. 4E can indeed be a tactical game it DOES NOT require you to be Char-Opt'd. Char'd is a mind set not a requirement to play 4e.

Would you be so behind if you had One less to hit than everyone else? I think not.

 

[kevtar]

Absolutely agree! But that doesn't mean you couldn't, say, pick your class as part of the first adventure.

Doesn't one of the recent starter boxes have a solo adventure like this? If you want to fight the guards, you're a fighter; if you want to hide, you're a rogue; etc?

Level advancement would be trickier, but there might be some way to blend this approach with a good multi-classing system.

But, to reiterate my last post, very off track from what 5e is trying to be.

IRC, the 1st edition module "treasure hunt" had the PCs start unequipped, shanghaied, and effectively "0" level, and I think you could choose your class once the adventure kicked in... I think, it's been a while

 

[kevtar]

While I certainly agree that character creation is part of the game, I don't fully agree with your post.

I see rolling dice and point buy as two different methods with different tradeoffs.

With rolling dice, you are essentially gambling as part of your character statistic allocation.

With point buy, you receive predictable characteristic allocation points.

Both types of characters can be optimized. You can use point buy with AD&D 1e. You can roll dice with 4e.

Personally I prefer point buy, because it elminates characters with multiple 18's and it eliminates people killing off a character to reroll the stats, or petitioning the gm for a stat reroll.

It's funny because I'm reading your response and I don't see anything that disagrees with the OP. Point buy and rolling exist as method of character creation in all editions of the game. However, 1st AD&D the basic assumption was that players would roll stats and in 4e the basic assumption is players would use an array, then the next option was point buy, and the final option listed was rolling - and, they paragraph of text on rolling was not very supportive, lol. But we both agree that each methods has pros/cons and a purpose.