Open character creation menu.

Make a person. Pull from the nebulous human consciousness an accumulation of past experiences: tragedies, accomplishments, contentness, agitation, elation, sorrow, wisdom, innocence... You don't need to plot them out. Just let them enter your mind. Draw from stories, from movies and books and plays. Draw from life, your acquaintances, your family, and yourself. Don't think too hard about them, just let them enter your mind. Dedicate this person. Bind this person to their world for real reasons, no matter how fantastic their abode. Take a glance towards their life, as it should be, as it was, as it may become. Nod and consider it carefully, but don't crush it with too much thought. Let it blossom steadily into a story, into a history, into a mindful being. Roll this ball of nebular precipitation about in your palms, kneading it with your fingers like warm clay. Don't worry too much about what you're going to do with it, just appreciate it, hope it the best. Set it down and let it unfold into what it is going to be, and say, "Okay, this is good. I can work with it."

Now you can-

Oh yeah... Chose alignment, class, skills and feats and stuff.

Now you can begin roleplaying. Enter EfU with your new character.

Open character creation menu.

Make a person.

First, decide the gender: It says Females can -excel- at anything, so go with female. You're a man? That's okay.

Next, choose a race. Humans get a bonus feat and one extra skill point per level, so go with human.

Portrait. Pick an elven portrait. If anybody points out that you're human and the pointed ears don't match, report them to the DMs for metagaming.

Pick a class. Sorry, I mean, pick a deity for your Cleric. Mask is good, Ilmater is good, Torm is good, and Lurue is good.

Alignment should be one step away from your deity, to show you're a real rebel. Where should that step be? Why, towards neutral, of course.

Abilities. You have exactly 30 points, so practice with how you can best use them. Whatever's left after Wisdom, Strength, Constitution, and Dex, can go in Intelligence. Ignore Charisma; you are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can't bring you down.

Skills should include Concentration, Spellcraft, and Lore. If, on a quest, you come across an item you can't identify with Lore, it is clearly a powerful artifact. Horde it away from your friends, no matter who your deity is. Ilmater clearly loves you the most so he wants you to have it.

Exotic Weapon Proficiency has a BAB requirement, so you'll have to wait until level 3 for that Bastard Sword. In the meantime, why not try Toughness?

Appearance: Since you're a human female, go with head model 01 (that's the second one, just after the ponytail). Make your hair black, or, if you're feeling particularly azn today (^_________^), how about some sky blue to match your kawaii me (that's your cute eyes lol). If you worship Mask, choose the hood model. If anybody emotes about your face, report them for metagaming. It's so hard to play evil when you're neutral.

Innocent Idealist is a good voiceset, but you can also choose the one with the "cold chuckle". Sometimes it can be fun to just say "cold chuckle" and make people wonder if their sound isn't working.

When it comes to your description, don't forget to remind everybody that they're on an RP server and therefore should stop to chat with your character just to learn the details of their features. This is important especially as a cleric of Mask, because those metagamers would just love to know what hair colour you have under your hood which CLEARLY COVERS EVERY SINGLE HAIR ON YOUR HEAD LOOK AT THE MODEL KOTENKU OKAY GOD

Now, this is very important: Don't hit reset. Hit the one to the left of it.

When you get in game, go to the Underdark portal for bonus XPs. Talk to the insane duergar for a free potion, then go into town and do the quest for the slave girl. Rufus' DC is lowest for the bluff check, so use that. Mask clerics should use their trickery domain ability for this because it's important.

And there you go; you're halfway to level 3 already. Good luck, and always remember: people who won't kill bats with you are metagaming your alignment, so you should FD them in total silence the first chance you get.

(Thank you Secutor, I think what you wrote is an excellent inspiration for a guy like me, who really does think like I wrote above. Kudos.)

I lol'd so hard.

First, decide the gender: It says Females can -excel- at anything, so go with female. You're a man? That's okay.

You would.

I love you LTS.

There is nothing but <3 for <3thesuit.

As for the topic though, a good post Secs. I think it is definitely a good way to go about it.

Despite the silly side-tracked posts, it really is good to put some thought into your characters prior to making them. As a DM, it is usually pretty obvious to see from the client who just decided they wanted to play 'Chaotic Evil smashbot #34232 that lusts for PvP', and who put the time into deciding why said evil chaotic evil person is a twisted maniac. The same holds true for one dimensional clerics, paladins, druids, etc, of course. All in all, do our gameworld, your peers, and the DM's a favor, and put some time into making a unique PC that is not one dimensional and boring. Search for your inner awesome, it is there!

Nice post Secutor.

lts, you forgot heal in your skill selection.

For clarity, this post was a response to the new multitudinous wave of threads analyzing critically the classes we're forced to shuffle our characters into.

Interesting post Secutor, and the lolz go to LTS.

You can do interesting things with any class, I think. The key to making an interesting character is to try and think of who your character is rather than what they can do. While it can be interesting to have this reflected in your characters skill and feat selection, the difficulty of the server is such that some optimization is required.

We have archtypes for the classes in our minds. I think the most interesting sorts of characters will find ways to utilize the classes that provide the most freedom in terms of alignment and make them accomplish things. Why I say this is because it is easy to imagine a paladin fighting evil cultists and demons, or a druid attacking someone who kills a rothe. It's weird when you encounter stuff like a rogue with some ethics, or a reserved bard, and as this goes against the ideas you already have in your head about behavior for these classes, you become interested and ask questions to try and figure out how this came to be.

I do not believe a huge, detailed backstory is relevant to making a great character. It can certainly help you get a picture of the person you are making, and if anyone insists on grilling you for the background info, you can provide it so it is not obvious you are Character #4562414. Rather, I think it is more interesting to dwell on how your character developed from the events of their life. Your goal should be to change, "I didn't like being a slave," into something along the lines of, "During those years with the Duergar, I knew no joy. I could find no reason why I was forced to suffer as I did, and as such, every moment of freedom should be savored. We live only for ourselves in this world, because all others, including the gods, care for us not."

Nice posts, both of you.

But LTS, we all know that the extra gold from starting in upper is far better than the xps from starting in the underdark. Then you can almost have enough to get your Mur fullplate and tower shield, because we all dont care if we get our goods from slavers!

But seriously, in leu of all the powergaming discussions going on recently its good to remember that the best times had on here dont come from watching your min-maxed half-orc brainlessly chug through quests, but from the incredible people you can interact with while in what really is the most dynamic setting in all NWN. Few (ie. none) of the most memorable characters on here got that way at level 1.

But we all know lvl 1 is the most important, take luck of heroes everytime, and if you plan to multiclass (why wouldnt you?) be sure to have your higher skill level class first for the x4 bonus! Seriously, RP people- its fun even if you really suck at it. Like me.

I'm pretty new to the server, but I have noticed one thing that might be worth considering during character creation: it's usually a good idea to think up some reason why your character would go on quests with other PCs, or interact with them in some way. Soloing isn't much fun.

I messed up on this point when creating my druid, who is really antisocial and so far has really only bothered to collect brineweed and kill rats in Lower. The only quests I've been able to justify going on with other PCs were those involving a "hunt" (he's druid of Malar).

My other characters have a much easier time joining parties: Renald is a natural helper, Dantian wants to laugh at people and say "I told you so" when they die, and Hart is an explorer, all these traits make it very easy to join up with adventuring bands.

By the way, nice posts in this thread. They highlight a lot of the problems that min-maxers like myself have when creating characters.

When creating a character, be sure to have an entire history relevant to your class, like who taught you how to fight, where you were taught for wizarding, when you gained your sorceror powers, etc...

For example: Noirin Waken was born and raised in the Mithril kingdom city of Illthrazer, even from a young age, he was reputed to be among the brightest dwarves out there. So it was until he was asked to come out of his library for the first time in 10 years and join in an expedition ....Rest is spoiler.

Your a cleric? Where did you learn about your deity and when did you first begin to receive his powers?

Your a rogue? Did you learn on your own or did someone teach you?

Druid? Why did you wish to become a druid?

I am just saying: make sure your background fits your alignment, deity, class, and so on.

Thomas_Not_very_wise When creating a character, be sure to have an entire history relevant to your class, like who taught you how to fight, where you were taught for wizarding, when you gained your sorceror powers, etc...

Have to disagree Thomas. Having a fully detailed background is not always necessary.

If this helps you understand your character... great. But There are other methods of character development. The key thing to remember is that you are playing the 'character' not the background. Perhaps more important than that though... have an open mind.

This is a live improv performance with multiple actors. Anything can and will happen. Allow yourself to be surprised by your own character. Work from generalities. Take what happens to and around your character and go nuts with it. Nothing is wrong. Everything is right. In the end, you decide what and who your character will be... but let the events unfolding around you have an effect in that development. Let your character be molded by the hands of everyone they come in contact with. The end result will probably be far from any picture you might paint for your character before creation... and this is fine. It gives them life.

For instance. Not long ago a character of mine was faced with the task of destroying a banshee. This banshee was created when a woman's husband brutally murdered her. The body was carried to the crypts, whereupon it let forth a horrific scream that killed one of the people handling the body. It was finally put to rest in a sealed tomb where it thrashed and raged in it's attempt to free itself...

Well, upon hearing this story many people might not give a damn. In fact I was warned repeatedly not to risk my life to lay this banshee to rest... But the story touched a chord with the character. She felt the pain deeply of such a brutal and hatefilled death. I decided this was as a result of some past incident. Something similar in her own life... without going into details. Maybe her mother died the same way? Maybe a friend? Maybe she had a deep fear of something like that happening to her... I honestly don't know why my character decided to go back down to face that banshee. But it touched her deeply and she had to act. When it was done, she nearly broke down mourning the poor woman who had suffered so.

If she had been pressed for details as to why she reacted so? She'd have told the person bluntly that she didn't want to discuss it. The details were irrelevant, but in that moment the character came very much to life for me.

Honestly, I would have to say having a very detailed and extensive background would hold me back from bringing my characters life. Obviously this isn't true of everyone, but for me... Leaving that open canvas just invites my mind to play with the possibilities... whereas painting over most of that canvas before I even start... Just makes me focus on the background and tends to make the character very flat and one dimensional. I pigeon hole the character into the confines of a picture that is already painted, instead of bringing them to the canvas and allowing them to paint.

Summary: Generalize your character, go with the flow.

I like the idea of having a detailed character background because it makes it a lot easier to figure out how your character should react to any given thing that happens. What's worked before? People draw on past experiences when making important decisions, and most of the decisions characters in a dangerous setting like the Underdark have to make are important (at least to them). Knowing where your character has come from, who has helped them or hurt them in the past, etc. makes your RP faster when those kind of questions come up. You don't have to worry as much about getting lost when six or seven people are talking and someone asks you quick question ... you shouldn't skip a beat here. This might be more important to me, though, because I'm a slow typer.