How much do you plan your characters?

[Imperialus]

The "what kind of character builder are you?" thread got me thinking, how far in advance do people plan out their character? Do you have every skill point you'll get at 20th level spent at first? or are you like me and wake up on gameday realize you forgot to level your character up and spend 5 minutes over breakfast scribbling notes on your character sheet?

 

[Thanee]

If you play with prestige classes, it's basically impossible to get along without at least some planning (feats mostly).

For sorcerers, it's a good idea to plan on what spells to take, at least the major decisions. These decisions can change during the campaign, and often did in my case, but it's still very helpful.

In general, tho, I usually do the thinking when it's time, except for stuff that has dependancies, as with the spells (if I pick this spell now, I will have to pick that spell later and that feat then, otherwise it makes no sense to pick this spell now). I surely do not write down skill points and such, but I usually have a good idea about what classes/feats/spells known I want to pick up during the next couple levels.

Bye
Thanee

 

[diaglo]

i plot out about 20 different paths for my PC at the start.

currently i still have the revenge path in motion. i wanted to take the Monkey Boy feat, which i had been building for for over 2 years, but when i finally took it my DM rejected it.

i also have a few red herrings thrown in to keep the other players on their toes. when i do enact my revenge plot.

 

[Jdvn1]

Depends on the character. Some characters I don't really know what to do with or I only plan to single-class. In that case, I don't plan them ahead of all. If there's a PrC I really like, though, I might plan my character out to 15th or 20th level.

 

[IronWolf]

Things change too quickly for me to plan too far ahead. What may make sense in the very beginning may not make as much sense later. So I rarely plan more than 3 levels ahead or so and even that can change depending on events along the way that shape the character.

 

[Aaron L]

rough plan of 1-20, i kmnow what prcs i want and have a general idea of feats, like if i want to be a finesse fighter or a power attack brute and what feats would be best, but if something comes up duringthe course of play that should alter the characters path ill do my best to go along with a good story and develop the character accordingly.

 

[Henry]

I'll go 1 through 5, roughly. That's a good enough to figure how I want him to "grow as a hero." Past that, I'll let the campaign take me where it wants to, because the DM could have all sorts of things up his sleeve - planar strandings, change of location, massive war, sudden serendipity, etc.

Case in point: Playing a psion who recently had no intention on spending a feat to acquire astral construct. However, we are likely to be trapped in a dimension where summoned creatures are much more useful; therefore, my 6th level feat was spent on Expanded Knowledge to get Astral Construct. It won't be as much use when we leave the dimension, but it's still useful no matter what, so there I went.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I plan it to whatever prestie classes that I intend to take, after that - freeform. If I have no PrC that I want then it stays freeform from level 1.

Mind you, I do a lot more NPCs than PCs these days...

The Auld Grump

 

[The Shaman]

It depends on the character concept first, the events of the campaign second.

 

[Umbran]

I voted "organic" but with a caveat - it isn't "to better fit the story". That implies a sort of metagaming, "The story is gong this way, so I'll make my character go that way too..." Instead, I think of it being like life - people may have life plans, but those plans are almost always modified by the circumstances of what has happened, or by changes in their own outlook and goals.

So, not so much "to better fit the story" as "As a result of the story".