Forked Thread: How difficult are 3.xE characters to create?

[Starbuck_II]

After class, PRC and feat choices the biggest time sink I found was always choosing gear.

If you were starting at higher level, especially if you were a caster with crafting feats and even more so if you were making custom stuff gear choice could take ages.

This I agree with: add in spell choices if a caster.

I took a week to make a high level one once (before magic items).

 

[ExploderWizard]

Even running 3.5 mostly core only, creation of mid level characters was kind of time consuming largely due to gear shopping. As a DM creating NPC's was a timesink too, assigning skills, feats, gear, ect. 3.5, 4E are both games that I will play, but not run.

 

[Shades of Green]

Yes, my rule for the club game is "Generally PHB only, but if there's something you want from a splatbook that (a) fits the setting and (b) is no more powerful than the PHB classes, I'll allow it". (b) Deters most powergamers, especially as I reserve the right to nerf anything that does later turn out to be more powerful than the PHB stuff. So far only 1 non-PHB PC out of around 16 PCs; a Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine (I believe), who seems roughly on par with a PHB Cleric.

I like that approach: less books to thumb through at the creation session, and no over/under-powered feats/classes/spells since anything except for the PHB is subject to specific DM approval.

By the way, how difficult is character generation and even character design with the PHB alone (and maybe a small handful of PrCs)? And how balanced are choices using the PHB alone (I recall many of the early splat-books having many under- and over-powered feats, for example)?

 

[jadrax]

By the way, how difficult is character generation and even character design with the PHB alone (and maybe a small handful of PrCs)?

I "Played" in a club game about half a year ago, where we where asked to make 5th level characters from the Core, with stand cash to be spent on Gear. I made mine in around 15min, I then went to a two hour meeting with my tutor and returned to discover the other charicters where not yet done, and indeed it took them anotehr four hours to complete the process.

I actually think it is sometimes faster with Splat books, as meeting the requirements to go into a prestige class mandates a large amount of your options.

 

[Protagonist]

And how balanced are choices using the PHB alone (I recall many of the early splat-books having many under- and over-powered feats, for example)?

well a PHP only druid built in 15 mins is way "stronger"* than most single-classed fighters you can create within 15 hours using multiple splat books**.
And even some single feat choices within the same class (i.e. playing a sword-and-board human fighter 1 with toughness, doge and improved shield bash vs. a 2-handed weapon fighter 1 with power attack etc) will result in crass differences in "power".




*This does not mean that I think that this will ruin the fun for players of both characters in the same campaign, but shows that core has plenty of over- and under-powered feats as well

** Slight hyperbole, some CO folks will probably whip up a fighter overshadowing the core druid anyway *g*

 

[S'mon]

I like that approach: less books to thumb through at the creation session, and no over/under-powered feats/classes/spells since anything except for the PHB is subject to specific DM approval.

By the way, how difficult is character generation and even character design with the PHB alone (and maybe a small handful of PrCs)? And how balanced are choices using the PHB alone (I recall many of the early splat-books having many under- and over-powered feats, for example)?

Well like I said, a 1st level PC takes 10-15 minutes to make something playable. I discourage players from tailoring their PC to a PrC at 1st level when the PC wouldn't know the PrC existed; I'd rather be flexible on the PrC requirements or maybe let the PC swap out stuff later (if eg a PrC requires Toughness).

A player unfamiliar with 3e is very likely to pick weak feats at chargen by their name alone - "Endurance" and "Toughness" are good examples - and miss important stuff like Power Attack for 2hw fighters. My players who know the rules seem to have no difficulty completing their PCs in a few minutes, though.

Edit: Gear - this hasn't come up yet, but for magic items for new higher level PCs I'll probably have to assign at least some of them. The area has a gp limit of 3,000 gp anyway so anything over that must be assigned.

 

[Runestar]

The ironic thing is that I kinda enjoyed the intellectual challenge of slowly tuning and refining a character build until it is somewhat optimized. Time consuming yeah, but it was a good kind of tired. The material in the PHB only goes so far in letting you create the custom PC you want, and dipping into other splatbooks is really inevitable, IMO.

Thinking that core only is balanced is probably one of the biggest fallacies in dnd, since spellcasters clearly rule over the non-casters. In the very least, at least allow ToB to replace melee classes. Warblades are still weaker than wizards, but at least they are more fun in that they get additional options beyond move+attack, and don't have to worry about constantly falling prey to will-save based effects.

 

[AllisterH]

It depends on the class actually.

Since there were pretty much only the Planar Shepherd that was "better" for druids, it was pretty simple to create one.

Really, I'm somewhat surprised it took people so long to create characters in 3.x (and I'm a big 4e fan...This is one thing I never saw as a problem in 3.x)

15 minutes top and I was done when creating a druid. Magic items weren't even that hard since really the only thing I needed was a WIS booster.

That said, I can see where a fighter might take longer. Ironic that the fighter, the so-called newbie class, was actually the hardest one to build properly.

 

[Obryn]

My main question is, "Do I have access to HeroForge/SpellForge, and PDFs of the splatbooks I'm going to use?"

If so, I can rip out a mid-level non-caster within about 15-20 minutes, and most other casters within an hour or so. I never found buying gear all that time-consuming. About a third to half is spent on the main weapon, then the remainder on stat boosters, armor, and protection/natural armor.

If I do not have HeroForge, it's a long and time-consuming process.

-O

 

[S'mon]

Thinking that core only is balanced is probably one of the biggest fallacies in dnd, since spellcasters clearly rule over the non-casters.

Depends on level of play - certainly true at high level, but not necessarily in low level play. In the 5 1st-2nd level games I've run July-September, the arcane caster PCs have been noticeably the weakest PCs. Currently the continuing PCs (2nd-3rd level) are 3 Fighters, a Spirit Shaman, a Barbarian-Cleric, a Ranger, and a Rogue should be coming back in November. The Fighter players seem happy and not noticeably overshadowed by the arcane casters. I expect to run this campaign to ca 9th level and if the non-casters are overshadowed it should only be for the last few levels, ca 7-9.