D&D 5E Is character creation at higher levels quick/easy or slow/complex?

[MatthewJHanson]

It depends on what class is being picked and what the player's mastery of the system is.

I was going to say that, plus through in what sort of tools you are using to help make the character (books and pencil vs. D&D Beyond)

Sorry, I should have specified that I was asking about creating a character, NOT using automated generators or charactermancers that do the work for you.

This sentence reads odd to me since I defiantly consider using Roll20's Charactermancer or D&D beyond to be "creating a character." It sounds like you saying, "I'm talking about creating a character, not creating a character."

Are you saying for the purposes of this poll you're interested in making characters without electronic aides, just paper and pencil?

For me creating a character is about making the decisions, not what tools you use to make them.

 

[Quickleaf]

I was going to say that, plus through in what sort of tools you are using to help make the character (books and pencil vs. D&D Beyond)

This sentence reads odd to me since I defiantly consider using Roll20's Charactermancer or D&D beyond to be "creating a character." It sounds like you saying, "I'm talking about creating a character, not creating a character."

Are you saying for the purposes of this poll you're interested in making characters without electronic aides, just paper and pencil?

For me creating a character is about making the decisions, not what tools you use to make them.

I am unfamiliar with the charactermancer on Roll20 specifically, but I just meant that – regardless of what tools are being used (digital or physical) – that it's still like creating a character, and not relying on a script or AI to fill in most of the options for you. IOW, not something that's closer to selecting a pregen than it is to actually creating a character. Hope that clarifies.

 

[Tonguez]

With digital tools its relatively quick compared to earlier editions. DnD in general isnt quick though

 

[J-H]

Much faster than 3.5, especially when using D&D Beyond. When making NPC statblocks that use PC abilities, it's faster for me to use DNDB to generate all the base numbers, then type them into the MM format than it is to calculate from scratch.

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

Sorry, I should have specified that I was asking about creating a character, NOT using automated generators or charactermancers that do the work for you.

Sounds like you're saying about 1 hour, give or take, to make a 6th level character in 5e?

I'll rephrase and expand for clarification.

Towards the end of 3.5 E, it could take four to five hours hours to build a 6th level melee, non-caster character if you were allowed the use off all the official Wizards content (which my group did). Using a site and/or program to help consolidate all the relevant options did shave off about an hour.

In 5E, for the same amount of time, I can build multiple 20th level melee, non-caster characters. This is due to 5E having a fraction of the books available with options and the majority of melee, non-casters requiring a Prestige Class in order to pretend to be keeping up with the full casters.

If I were to use Roll20's charactermancer, I could build those same level 20 characters from 5E in about half the time of me manually making them.

 

[TwoSix]

I am unfamiliar with the charactermancer on Roll20 specifically, but I just meant that – regardless of what tools are being used (digital or physical) – that it's still like creating a character, and not relying on a script or AI to fill in most of the options for you. IOW, not something that's closer to selecting a pregen than it is to actually creating a character. Hope that clarifies.

It is kind of an important distinction. Most of the time in making characters, I've found, is in copying down the details (equipment, how various features function, etc). The actual decision making process only takes a few minutes.

 

[overgeeked]

WotC D&D character creation is slow and complex compared to most other games. The higher the level, the more complicated it gets.

 

[Autumnal]

For non-casters, it’s fine. Doesn’t feel like a burden to me even when it can take a while: choices are mostly very straightforward. High-level casters…just shoot me now. It’s not as hard as 3.x - I did stat blocks for a 3rd-party supplement full of high-level casters and it was altogether miserable. But any kind of fundamentally Gygaxian caster just does take more time and has harder choices.

I don’t know how much that might be improved using casting like in Shadowdark and DCC. Probably it’d help significantly but not fundamentally change things.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I voted “like it that way” but “I don’t think they could make it easier without a major downside” is more accurate

 

[JoeyD473]

Idon't know why you all thought 3x was hard. I had no problemmaking high and epic level characters quickly in 3x.