So I've no idea what to do...

[Lord of the Enarkae]

I followed someone here once ages ago and thought "if i ever try to play that game I'll remember to look here."

OK, so I've looked into this character business:

Enarkae the Dwarf Fighter (always liked Dwarves since the Chronicles of Narnia)

Did all the rolling and adding/taking away and got 12/8/17/16/18/11

I went for this but I could be making a mistake:
STR - 17 +3
DEX - 16 +3
CON - 18 (20) +5
INT - 12 +1
WIS - 11 +0
CHA - 8 (6) -2

With that charisma score I must have some sort of body odour problem.

 

[Samothdm]

Enarkae the Dwarf Fighter (always liked Dwarves since the Chronicles of Narnia)

Did all the rolling and adding/taking away and got 12/8/17/16/18/11

I went for this but I could be making a mistake:
STR - 17 +3
DEX - 16 +3
CON - 18 (20) +5
INT - 12 +1
WIS - 11 +0
CHA - 8 (6) -2

With that charisma score I must have some sort of body odour problem.

Nope - you're not "making a mistake". You can arrange them however you want.

There are tons of different theories. Do you have a "character concept" in mind? Meaning, what type of dwarf fighting do you want to play? If you're thinking of playing the standard heavily armored, warhammer or battle axe-wielding dwarf fighter in full plate armor, then you might (I said might) want to consider swapping your Dex and Int scores.

Heavy armor (splint, banded, half-plate, full plate) only allows a Maximum +1 Dexterity bonus. So, 2 points of your bonus will be "wasted" toward your AC.
Of course, it will help your other stuff, like certain skills, your ranged attacked, and your Reflex saves.

Speaking of skills... Fighters only get 2 per level. If you want to play a "skilled dwarf", putting a higher score in INT will give you more skill points.

However, maybe you want to play a ranged-weapon specialist fighter. In that case, a high dex will be good.

Just some thoughts - the options are literally only as limited as your imagination.

 

[Lord of the Enarkae]

I was thinking of a skilled Dwarf so maybe you're right.

 

[Kabol]

With that charisma score I must have some sort of body odour problem.

Hahahaha - i laughed out loud at that one, Hes definatly got the flair for DnD

 

[Three_Haligonians]

I was thinking of a skilled Dwarf so maybe you're right.

Righto, so you've got your race picked, the next bit (and perhaps most fun) is figuring out what class you want to play. You mentioned skills, well rogues and bards have the most amount of skills. If your looking for someone who is a hard hitter in battle, go fighter or barbarian. If you want to be a spellcaster, sorcerer or wizard. Then there is also clerics (healing magic), druids (earth magic), rangers (who choose their favorite enemy and get bonuses to fighting that enemy), monks (martial art fighters), paladins (kind of a fighter/cleric mix).

These are, of course, really broad guidlines. But hopefully they'll help you boil down your choices to a few classes that you can look at in depth. Remember, muliclassing (so, say, being a wizard/rogue) is very easy to do now, it wasn't always, so picking two classes isn't a bad idea.

Weee! This is so much fun! We'll keep an eye on your posts, so if you have any more questions, feel free!

T from Three Haligonians

 

[Lord of the Enarkae]

Well I'm leaning towards a fighter.

But this is getting way too complicated for this late at night. Thanks again and see you tommorrow.

 

[Nightfall]

Darn. I was hoping for a rogue dwarf.

 

[Lord of the Enarkae]

Okay so at Level 1 my skill points as a fighter = (2 + 3) x4 = 20.

So I spend these on skills and I can't carry any points onto the next level and it's a max of 4 per skill like this? :

Climb - 4
Craft - 4
Handle Animal - 4
Jump - 4
Ride - 2
Swim - 2

Something like that since I gather Dwarves don't like horses or swimming?

 

[Henry]

Okay so at Level 1 my skill points as a fighter = (2 + 3) x4 = 20.

So I spend these on skills and I can't carry any points onto the next level and it's a max of 4 per skill like this? :

Climb - 4
Craft - 4
Handle Animal - 4
Jump - 4
Ride - 2
Swim - 2

Something like that since I gather Dwarves don't like horses or swimming?

Enarke, that looks good, and the dwarf "stereotype" about not liking horses or water is spot-on. You don't have to be, but it's a neat piece of flavorful characterization.

The only thing left to the skills is to add any sorts of bonuses to them. Almost every skill (all the ones you picked) has an ability score tied to it; you get that bonus to your skill rolls, in addition to what ranks adds.

So, you would have:

Climb 4 ranks + 3 strength = +7 to any climb check rolls
Craft 4 ranks + 3 intelligence = +7 to one craft
Handle Animal 4 ranks - 2 charisma = +2 to any handle animal checks
Jump 4 ranks + 3 strength = +7 to any jump checks
Ride 2 ranks + 1 dexterity = +3 to any ride checks.
Swim 2 ranks + 3 strength = +5 to any swim checks.

Now, craft is a little different from other skills. You have to pick one craft that this applies to; every craft is a separate skill. So you could choose things like stonemasonry, blacksmithing, armorsmithing, weaponsmithing, leatherworking, etc. You can take all 4 ranks and be quite skilled in one thing, or spread the ranks around and be mediocre in many things. If I were you, I'd pick one craft (like blacksmith or weaponsmith) and just be good at that thing.

Depending on what armor you are wearing, there may be a penalty on your climbing, jumping, and swimming. If you are wearing, let's say scale mail, there's something called an armor check penalty. You take a -4 penalty to climbing, swimming, and jumping as long as you are wearing that armor - all that metal weighs you down! It can be as low as 0 (for just clothing or leather armor) or as high as -6 or -7!!! (For those big, thick suits of full plate mail and such).

Hope that wasn't too convoluted for advice. And again, welcome!

 

[Rel]

Okay so at Level 1 my skill points as a fighter = (2 + 3) x4 = 20.

So I spend these on skills and I can't carry any points onto the next level and it's a max of 4 per skill like this? :

Climb - 4
Craft - 4
Handle Animal - 4
Jump - 4
Ride - 2
Swim - 2

Something like that since I gather Dwarves don't like horses or swimming?

Unless I'm missing something, your skill points should be 2+(Intelligence Bonus of 1) = 3 x 4 = 12. Not a big deal but I figured I should point it out.

Welcome to the hobby. We hope you enjoy your stay.