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

[Nail]

I'm unsure which direction they'll eventually take. Does merely knowing all of one's options count as planned?

Yup. That's how I'm interpreting the question, anyway.

 

[Nail]

.... As long as the new choice fits the general character concept, I don't mind, and it stops players from having to worry about dotting all their "i"s and crossing their "t"s in a fixed order to get to something. Everybody wins.

Anyone else do that?

Sometimes, depending on what they want to "trade out". If they want to "trade out" a feat they've used prominantly in the campaign so far, I'd encourage them to keep it.

FWIW, of my 6 players, 2 plan their PCs out to 20th level. That said, we all expect changes in the plan as the PCs advance. It's only natural.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I didn't vote, but the fact that this kind of advance planning is rewarded by the system is one of the things that put me off 3e for a while. I like my characters to grow organically in play, but if that's going to be punished by decreased effectiveness in crunch time, then there's a strong incentive for me to map out every feat etc. I'm going to take from first level.

I would be happier if that incentive were removed somehow. One way to cut down on it at least is to stick to core and perhaps gameworld-specific, race/culture restricted feats.

what system do you feel does not give benefits for planning?

Possibly d&ds problem is because some feats are good and some suck, so some choices really are better then others. Other games like gurps or m&m requires planning just to play in my opinion as its all point based, although i don't know m&m well enough to know whats optimum yet and if some choices are better then others.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I've allowed near-total rebuilds and handwaved it in game (No, Rex couldn't possibly have thrown fireballs last week- he's been a fighter as long as you can remember).

That sounds a little extreme, might as well retire the old character and make a new one at that point rather than smash suspension of disbelief into tiny pieces.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

Wow, this has been incredibly useful.

I've even been able to form a better question: How much of what happens to your character during a campaign affects the initial class, feat, and skill choices you made before play?

...

It is also a rather longer question.

First of all: Welcome to ENWorld!

Welcome!

Thanks

It's really nice to be able to try something out, say "No, that's not quite what I was looking for," and later sub it out for something else that interests you more. It lets you adapt your character to the world they're in and the plots that surround them.

This is even more important when dealing with players who are less familiar with the game.

It comes from a personal bugbear of mine from a time when I had a serious powergamer in my group. He would create a character and stat him out for an entire 20th level progression before play even began. He would stick to that regardless of what twists and turns occured during the game, and it seriously irked me.

Nothing wrong with that; I just wish he gave more thought into making his PC a part of the campaign world instead of just waiting to roll dice and levelling up.

Strange, for me it's an owlbear 0_o

I have also been bothered by the fact that so much play seems to occur outside of actual play. I don't mind the planning, just the unwillingness to change that plan based on what has occurred during play.

Thing is, it appears that many class/level based systems just don't give you a realistic option of adapting your concept based on events in play, at least not without potentially making your character less effective than those who did plan things out. At times it seems that one wrong class selection can permanently screw your character up both conceptually and in capability.

Something I'm seeing in a lot of the "I plan ahead" answers is the comment that without planning ahead one can't get into PrCs or pick up feats higher on a feat tree.

Indeed...

• 
  [*]"Heck, I remember taking ranger because a PrC I would like *IF* I happened to find the secret organization it was part of and get invited to join, because it required Favored Enemy. How silly. (Harper Paragon in the FR.)"
  
  
  [*]"Usually, the only planning-ahead that I do for my characters is making sure I qualify for whatever PrC I have my eye on."
  
  
  [*]"If you want to qualify for a prestiege class, you have to plan that out as early as level one."
  
  
  [*]"D20 encourages you to do so, especially if you'd ever like to get into a prestige class."
  
  
  [*]"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."
  
  
  [*]"Often not but occasionally, if I am going for a particular prestige class, I do plan out feat/skills as needed."
  
  
  [*]"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."
  
  
  [*]"I don't see too much room for change once a character is set up."
  
  
  [*]"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."
  
  
  [*]"There's nothing like getting to where you can take a prestige class and finding out that, no, you can't."
  
  
  [*]"Always for PrC prerequisites and/or feat chains (especially I'm always looking ahead feat masteries in IH)."
  
  
  [*]"This is one of the reasons I don't like PrCs -- having to decide levels ahead of time what to put my skill points and what feats to pick just doesn't appeal to me."
  
  
  [*]"The only time I've found it desireable (actually it was necessary) to plan out a characters advancement was with psionics where failure to plan for obtaining specifically desired powers, what with all the prerequisite power structures, would mean you'd NEVER get them."
  
  
  [*]"I will plan until I achieve the prestige class I am working towards (if any) and worry about the rest if I make it that far in the campaign."

I just wish that all this planning could be somehow integrated into the campaign itself. If the GM knows a PC plans to become a certain PrC, then why not make sure the campaign supports that journey/transformation?

Class selection is like a reverse lifepath. Instead of mapping out who the character was in the past, you're planning for what they will become in the future. But if you're doing that, you might as well play in a campaign that reflects that.

Ever since then, i haven't been able to revert back to organically growing characters (much less developing them) level by level but i voted 'Often' to avoid myself from sounding that it was something i enjoyed doing.

To be honest, I've never been able to let my characters grow 'organically' in class/level based games either.

The one time I did, I found that I was having a lot less fun; I found that I became fixated on mechanics ("what was I gonna get next?") instead of roleplaying. That wasn't as enjoyable for me.

You know, I have the same problem. I kept comming up with cool concepts for Shadowrun, but the rules were so involved that that was all I could think about. Same with Masterbook. My own native rule tweakery instincts just bubbled up from the void, and it usually ended up dissolving the character concept entirely.