Step by Step Guide to Making Your Character
Creating a Character in D&D 5e
Beginners Guide
Step I: Choosing Your Race
This is the core essence of your character, determining everything from appearance to inherent abilities and talents. Granting special senses, tool proficiencies, skills, even quirks, and much more this is easily the most important decision you make as a creator. Some traits, such as the lightfoot halfling, will make them better suited as a rogue (think Hobbit), while this trait would make it difficult for a halfling to be a barbarian. While it is not necessary to pair your race to your class (eg rogue), new players often find this easier to start with. Playing with a complex character, such as a dwarven assassin, may make the game more interesting, by no means is it necessary to have a good time (that is my job as your GM).
Choosing your race will give you an increase/decrease to your ability score, as well as starting speed, height, weight, age, and languages.
Here we are going to slim down those choices a bit, this will help you as a new player not feel so overwhelmed and me as a GM to get a handle on this world without 70 different race options. Now, this list is going to be limiting what you as a player can choose from, this does not mean that you won't encounter NPCs of other races in this world as you play! That being said this list will most likely update if gameplay continues on! Now let's get into the list, shall we?
Step II: Choosing Your Class
Think of this as your education or your employment. This is where your character has been trained or specialized in a certain discipline. As the previous step used, the rogue is a type of class that can be chosen. This choice will benefit your character in numerous ways, as well as your group! Choosing to be a cleric means the entire party now has a healer, where choosing to be a mage, wizard, sorcerer, etc gives the group a spellcaster. The class also benefits your character through proficiencies. In addition to the abilities given by your race, the class will provide even more abilities, such as expanded weapons, armour, or spells if applicable. This even includes less tangible abilities like lie telling, knowledge of a region's history and much more.
Choosing your class is also what will determine the Hit Dice(HD) and Hit Points(HP) your character has. For example, a Druid has a starting HP equal to the max of a 1d8 die. As they level up, they gain a proportional amount of HP based on the number of dice, ie level 2 is 2d8 HP. In addition to the core stats leveling up, as your character progresses through experience points, they can also gain more skills, spells, and proficiencies in weapons or tools.
Speaking of proficiencies, your class determines the weapons and tools, as previously mentioned, but it also gives something called a "saving throw proficiency" this will come in handy when your character finds themselves in a tight spot. Other proficiency modifiers will be addressed when we get to decide your background.
Step III: Ability Scores
I tossed this term around earlier in Step I, now let's go a bit more in-depth as to what this actually does. There are six main abilities: Strength (Str), Dexterity (Dex), Constitution (Con), Intelligence (Int), Wisdom (Wis), and Charisma (Cha). Each of these abilities is given a corresponding score that is calculated randomly through rolling dice or a character generator. To use dice, roll 4d6 then take the top 3 rolls, add them up and place that into your desired ability. Do this for all 6 categories. You will also notice a "modifier" that is given by your race or class, add this directly to your starting score. For example, a Satyr has a +2 Dex, so if their starting ability was a 10, change this to a 12. There is another modifier that is given by 5e rules, this corresponds directly to the current ability score and is not able to be changed by the player directly, the only way to increase this modifier is to place more points directly into the ability itself as your character levels up. This can mean changing your charisma from a starting 8 to a 7 with a -1 mod, so be aware when placing your ability scores as it can hurt, or benefit, your character later during gameplay! Do not, however, place your modifier directly into your ability score as this will change throughout the game, so keep it separate. Say you want to have a swashbuckling elf that woos every woman that lays eyes upon him, maybe put a higher ability score into your charisma.
Note: The first 6 summed scores you get must be taken as the scores you use, no rerolling allowed unless your score total is less than 8. So if you get an 8,8,8,9,8,9, those are the scores you have to work with for your character but don't let this discourage you! Plenty can still be done to have a fun time! Give your character some fun quirks, perhaps despite being illiterate they are great at picking up trades, or pick a different race or class to maybe boost a few scores! How to adapt your ability scores to your character will be described further in the next step.
Step IV: Describing Your Character
This is the fun part you've probably been waiting for! Here is where you flesh out the background of your character, see how their abilities affect their personality, and overall is where you get all the fun quirks of your character, perhaps they are terrified of running water, or they cannot leave a tavern without getting drunk, get creative! Don't shy away from anything "basic", there is no such thing as "basic" in DnD, after all this is a fantasy game that is created as we go along! So what you decide your character is afraid of the dark, some might say this is too basic to make a fun character, but maybe its because they come from the north, where the sun never sets, so it isn't that they are afraid of the dark, they have just never seen the dark, so every night they surround themselves in candles. Now this "basic" characteristic has a flare, a reason, and something fun to explore as you play!
Here you also will choose your character's alignment, this is how good or evil they are, in addition to a scale of how frequently they are good or evil. There are nine combinations of alignments.
This will guide the way your character behaves in situations, what decisions they make etc. Information as to what each alignment means in terms of behavior will be linked. Everyone has a different way to determine the chaotic decisions they make, for example, every time you decide something, roll a die. If you are a chaotic evil alignment, you will do the bad thing say 75% of the time (this percentage is up to you as the player). Other players merely choose to just play it as they see fit.
I mentioned a "background" earlier, while this is not only an origin story you create for your character, there are backgrounds you should choose from to give your character further abilities. They work in tandem and are not mutually exclusive but rather encouraged to use a prescribed background to give your character abilities in addition to an origin story you create for that added flair and personality. This background that can be chosen is going to be your character's previous "employment" or what they did before they arrived with your crew. For example, choosing to be a Diplomat will give your character connections as they travel along that can benefit the party, in addition to skills, languages, and tool proficiencies.
Your abilities determined in Step III will also come into play here. Using the swashbuckling charmer example from earlier, now you knew you wanted this character ahead of time so you tried your best to give your ability scores in a way that reflected that. Say you didn't already have a personality in mind for your character and decide to let the dice tell you. This is where you can come in and see you have low intelligence, but high dexterity. Maybe you have a character that was trained from a young age to be a gymnast or fencer, but as a result of only learning physical abilities, they never learned to read.
Step V: Equipment
This section is determined by your character's class and chosen background, including your starting weapons, armour, and other gear or items. Let's start with your Armour Class (AC), this is how well your character is defended in battle. Items that factor in include what you are wearing, shields, and your dexterity modifier (remember when I said not to include this value directly to your ability score? This is why). Pay attention to certain limitations given by your chosen race or class though, for example, a Druid will come with leather armour, and a Satyr will never wear anything made of metal. Your base AC is 10+Dex mod, anything extra from your armour etc is calculated additively. Additionally, if your character is not proficient in their given armour, determined by their class, this will create a drawback. Some spells will also factor into the AC.
Weaponry! Some of your basic weapon abilities will be given by your class, additionally, some races will inherently have a melee weapon, such as the ramming of horns for a Satyr. Typically, the weapons given to your character is based on the level they are at. Starting classes can include specifications, such as a Druid is allowed either a wooden shield or a simple weapon, in addition to a scimitar or a simple melee weapon.
Step VI: Combining
Interweave your character to your other party members! This will happen during a Session 0, or a prelude if you will to the actual adventure. Here you can chat with the GM about certain quirks you have, desire to explore and create an even more in-depth backstory. Maybe another member and you decide that you grew up together, but after a war, you haven't seen each other since. This step will add a lot more depth and interest to the game for everyone involved, and doesn't need to start or stop with Session 0! Create more side plots, backstories, events etc for your character as you play and get more ideas. This step will be woven throughout your entire campaign and will always make the experience better and more immersive as a player!
Remember, have fun! This game is meant to give you a break from the stress of your life. Don't feel pressured to do a fun voice or have a fully developed character at the start. If you are lost, plenty of materials are available, most of which will be linked here, and ask your GM. It is their job to keep the players, however new, from being lost, frustrated or confused. Don't let being new to this game discourage you from playing, play how you want, don't worry about not fitting into a certain "RP style". This game is fun because no one plays it the same way, so don't feel like you are doing it wrong because you aren't doing a specific voice and are super theatrical, you literally can't do this game wrong!
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Alignment Table
| Lawful Good | Neutral Good | Chaotic Good |
| Lawful Neutral | Neutral | Chaotic Neutral |
| Lawful Evil* | Neutral Evil* | Chaotic Evil* |
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