INTRODUCTION
Creating a Dungeons & Dragons® character is a process of evolution.
INTRODUCTION The D&D® game is a game about heroes. Through imagination, storytelling and fellowship, you can explore what it means to be a hero. One of the most exciting and rewarding parts of the game is listening to the quiet voice of your inner hero, allowing some part of your own special potential to rise to the surface and reveal itself. Your character is more than just a collection of statistics, random numbers, and equipment lists. He or she is a mirror that can reveal the bright spark within you. Do not be content to simply copy an image from a movie or a book. Don’t feel constrained to follow the easy formulaic heroes found in dozens of novels and any number of trite movies. Give your character a part of your own heroic potential. The reward will certainly be worth the effort.
WHAT’S INSIDE The Hero Builder’s Guidebook provides something extra during each step of the character generation process. In short, you’ll develop everything that happened to your character before his or her first adventure. You’ll have a better handle on how you view the world — and what the world thinks of you. And you’ll know what goals you’re working toward.
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We’ll start where all D&D characters traditionally start: with six numbers between 3 and 18 written on scratch paper. The Rolling Your Ability Scores chapter helps you make those difficult choices. You’ll learn just what the odds are on rolling that 18, what to do if you get unusually low scores, and suggestions on how to roleplay a character whose abilities are much different than your own. At the heart of the character generation process is the Choosing Your Race and Class chapter. After all, when most people are asked what kind of D&D character they have, they reply “I’m an elven thief” or “I’m a human barbarian.” This chapter discusses each of the race/class combinations available to 1st-level characters, providing tips for maximizing your character’s potential, tips for roleplaying them, and some unusual variants for each race and class. The Creating Your Personal History chapter delves into your character’s pre-adventurer past. You’ll decide what your family is like, where you grew up, and what friends and enemies you made along the way. More than two dozen tables guide you through your character’s childhood and adolescence, and you can either choose the results you like or let the dice decide. Your characters alignment functions as a moral and ethical compass. and the Selecting an Alignment chapter helps you figure out which way the needle is pointing. There’s a quiz you can take to help decide the alignment that’s right for you, and suggestions for meshing your alignment
