Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi guys, I am applying to a PbP campaign, and the DM has asked our characters are created at 10th level. I am unsure of how to do this. How many skill pints do I get? Attributes?
FYI, it's an evil campaign, and I've decided to play an assassin (prestige class). Where can I find info on how to do this? The player's manual isn't very clear on how to start a high level character.

DZ,

There are two ways to do this:
1) Organically. I.e. Make your character as if you were levelling each level from 1 to 10
2) Whole cloth at 10. Figure out how much of everything you get and do it all at once.

If this is your first time, I recommend #2. You may want a more experienced player to help you.

This basically means you need to do the following:
1) Figure out what classes you want to play and what levels they are available:
Ex: Rogue 7/Assassin 3
2) Assign all of your Ability Scores and level increases
3) Assign all of your skill points. (Each class gets a starting set of skill points + a set number (X+Int) at each level. Just put them in a big pool and assign them as if you got them all at 10th level is easiest)
4) Assign all your feats
5) Pick all your gear
etc so on.

If you tell us what you are trying to do, character wise, I imagine we can help you out with the mechanics.

Any limitations on books?

Yeah, what kind of campaign? Hardcore optimization, fun story driven, standard kick down the door?

The actual assassin class isn't terribly impressive from an optimization standpoint, iirc.

Agreeing with pretre, the assassin class itself is pretty bleh. If you wanted to stick to the concept though, there are a few other classes/prestige classes that can make decent assassins.

Knowing what books you're allowed to use, as well as what game type it is beyond "evil" would be a big help. If you're limited to the core books with no splat books, for instance, you're going to have a much more rigid design frame than if you're allowed to use any of the splats.

I must admit, while I usually favor more "heroic" games over "evil" games, some of the more memorable gaming moments I can think of came from a single "evil" game...

Core books, as far as the DM has said. He also explained that he would allow any non-setting specific books as well.

DoctorZombie wrote:Core books, as far as the DM has said. He also explained that he would allow any non-setting specific books as well.

What kind of game other than evil? Kick in the door and kill, high intrigue, etc so on?

Tome of Battle is not setting specific...

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

pretre wrote:

DoctorZombie wrote:Core books, as far as the DM has said. He also explained that he would allow any non-setting specific books as well.

What kind of game other than evil? Kick in the door and kill, high intrigue, etc so on?

The DM has been pretty vague so far.

That's tough then. You don't want to go in with the uper optimized character and find out it is a fluffy campaign.

I would go with midrange then. Simple Rogue / daggermaster or some such. Been a while.

Ahtman wrote:Tome of Battle is not setting specific...

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Spoiler:

One of the current DM's will let us use anything but that

It's honestly a smart move. It's defiantly one of the better put together supplements of the edition. It's also nice the the classes are functional throughout the whole level range without having to break out a ton of op-fu, unlike the Ranger/Paladin/Fighter/Monk which are collectively just kind of piles of fail. Unless a player really has a command of the system it's going to be hard to create diverse interesting challenges that don't leave those classes feeling left out, past about 5th level.

Against my better judgement, I usually leave the caster classes intact. If only because I can generally trust my players to either not know the system well enough, or be more sensible than to use the power of those classes to make the campaign a pain in the butt.


EDIT: ON that note, to the op. If you can probably pick up a Swordsage (Tome of Battle) and pick the most ninja-y looking powers there are and get a working "Assassin" type character right out of the box. Getting the Assassin PrC to do much of anything interesting would really probably require more work than is sensible for you to put in.

A good and easy way but a bit pricey is to subscribe to an D&D insider on the WotC site and you will gain acces to the Character builder with ALL the options, CLasses, items, Races etc, that as ever been released in all the books and Dragon magasins on the site, and everything up to date.

Here is a video tour of the CHARBuilder.




You also get acces to the compendium, wich is D&D database, wich allow you for fast research with some search criteria's.

Its really helpfull, the bugger is that it cost 9$ a month, maybe you can ask someone you know that is a D&D insider to use his account.

The old character builder for 4th was better, but that is still pretty nifty. Of course it won't help here t all since it is not the right edition of the game.

Ahtman wrote:The old character builder for 4th was better, but that is still pretty nifty. Of course it won't help here t all since it is not the right edition of the game.

Ooh right...there is still this weird Edition wars mumbo jumbo going on...

Slayer le boucher wrote:

Ahtman wrote:The old character builder for 4th was better, but that is still pretty nifty. Of course it won't help here t all since it is not the right edition of the game.

Ooh right...there is still this weird Edition wars mumbo jumbo going on...

No, read the thread title. He's playing 3.5. The DDI builder is for the wrong edition of the game.

I'll second the Swordsage mentioned earlier. The Ninja of Nine Suns in Tome of Battle seems interesting as well.

I'll see what I can dig up on it.

Tome of Battle is one of the few 3.5 books I'm unfamiliar with. My group generally disallowed it out of hand, saying it was grossly unbalanced and yada yada yada. Never read it myself, but as we played in Caster Forgotten Realms, I can't imagine it would break the game that much.

Why the snark about Forgotten Realms?

Forgotten Realms is my favorite setting!

The joke is that it's an extremely magic heavy setting, with often game breaking spells and yet they're worried about the fighter types getting "game breaking abilities".

Tome of Battle was great. Really gave you non-casters on par with casting classes, which was an achievement in 3rd edition.

streamdragon wrote:Forgotten Realms is my favorite setting!

The joke is that it's an extremely magic heavy setting, with often game breaking spells and yet they're worried about the fighter types getting "game breaking abilities".

I really don't like magic heavy classes in D&D. Why I picked Assassin to create at 10th level, because it doesn't require a hundred spells to assign.

So is the concept of being a stealthy guy, use poisons and kill from afar? Or the concept is more of a brutal assassin type?

The Tome of Battle IS grossly OP (having played it ) but it is reaaaaally fun!

Having only glanced at Tome of Battle, myself, what about it is 'grossly OP'?

The ninja in Complete Adventurer is in my opinion a step up from your standard Rogue/Assassin combo. Gets the same abilities and then some, and the book itself is a good source of equipment and feats for that kind of character. Haven't looked at Tome of Battle yet...