Character creation

Character creation
The character creation process is a step-by-step procedure of selection various options to customize your character as much or as little as you wish. At any time, you may go back to previous steps and refine your choices.

Step 1
There are no restrictions on what class you may choose depending on your choice of race, although some combinations may be more effective than others.

Name
In the upper-right you can type in your desired name for your character. The surname field is optional and has no effect other than cosmetics. There cannot be more than one person with the same first name on a single server regardless of whether you would've had different surnames.

Alignment
Below the names, you have a little drop-down box listing the various alignments you can choose from. Only good and neutral alignments are available in DDO, no evil alignments. Some classes are restricted to certain alignments.
 * Lawful Good
 * Neutral Good
 * Chaotic Good
 * Lawful Neutral
 * Neutral
 * Chaotic Neutral

Race
On the left-side of the first page you can choose your race. Male options on the upper-half and female options on the lower half. Choice of gender has no bearing on your character other than cosmetic.
 * Elf
 * +2 Dex, -2 Con; sleep Immunity; +2 saves vs enhantment; +2 search, spot, listen; Proficient with shortbows, longbows, longswords, and rapiers


 * Dwarf
 * +2 Con, -2 Cha; +2 saves vs poison and spells; +2 search, +4 balance; Proficient with dwarven waraxes


 * Halfling
 * +2 Dex, -2 Str; +2 all saving throws, +2 saves vs fear; +1 attack roll, AC; +2 Jump, move silently, listen, +4 hide


 * Human
 * +1 starting feat, +4 skill points at level 1, +1 skill point each level up


 * Warforged
 * +2 Con, -2 Wis, -2 Cha; +3 saves vs energy drain, exhaustion, nausea, paralysis, poison and sleep; 25% chance to resist critical hits and sneak attacks; Use different armor system, built-in light armor with +2 AC and 5% arcane spell failure. Can be adjusted with feats.

Class
On the lower-right of the page are the class choices. Click on the links for individual information on the various classes.
 * Barbarian
 * Bard
 * Cleric
 * Fighter
 * Paladin
 * Ranger
 * Rogue
 * Sorcerer
 * Wizard

Step 2
Here you're given the option to customize how your character will look in the game world. You can alter your hairstyle, facial hair, eyebrow style, hair color, eye geometry, eye pupil color, nose geometry, lip geometry, facial details (scars mainly, a few race specific uniques like halfling glasses), and skin tone.

Step 3
This is a page showing your character with the default reccomended selections for your class. You can choose to just play that character or to further customize exactly how you would like your character's stats, skills, feats, and spells to be.

Step 4
DDO uses a 28 point-buy system for selecting your stats. The stats reflect the changes, if any, your choice of race may have altered but as racial stat modifiers are applied after point-buy, do not be confused on how many points it should cost to reach how much of a stat.

You start with 8 points in each of the six stats, strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma further modified by your race. To raise a stat, it costs 1 point per first 4 raises in a stat, and then 2 points per for the next 2, 3 points per for the next two, and finally 4 points per for the last two. You can only start with a maximum of 18 in a stat (20 with a racial mod). Every even multiple of 2 higher or lower, correspondingly raises or lowers your bonus from that stat by 1. These bonuses add (or subtract) actions which are related to the stat. For example, your dexterity bonus will affect your character's reflexes and dodging ability among other things.

Step 5
Here you can select with skills your character will start with. You can spend a maximum of 4 points into a single skill, but skills that aren't class skills only raise +0.5 ranks per skill point spent. Don't forget that skills are modified by your stat bonuses. Generally it's better to keep a few skills high, then to spread your skill points out and be mediocre in many skills. Exceptions would be if you're just adding to a skill for a synergy bonus.

As you level up, the max ranks you can have in a skill is (character level + 3) for class skills and half that for cross class skills.

Step 6
Here you'll be selecting 1-3 feats depending upon your race and class. Most classes only get a few feats over their entire life, so you should really consider which feat(s) you want your character to have the most. Especially if you're working to get a feat that has other feats as prerequisite. Look over the list, taking note of which feats sound the most interesting to you. If they're greyed out, you don't meet the prerequisites for it. It should list what they are, so you can figure out if it's possible (and/or worth it) to get that feat.

Normal classes get one feat at level 1, and then one feat every 3 levels. So for DDO and it's current maximum level of 10, you get 4 feats. Exceptions are the fighter which chooses an extra combat feat every even level, and the wizard which chooses an extra metamagic feat every 5 levels. Some classes also automatically gain feats for free at certain levels.

Step 7
Bards, sorcerers, and wizards get a final page to select what spells they start with. As of current, Bards and sorcerers do not have spell swapping upon level-up so you should really think about what spell you want to be stuck with until (if ever), spell swapping is implemented.

As for a wizard, you should probably select at least one damage spell and then whatever you want. Even if you don't want to be a damage dealing wizard in the long run, a damage spell will greatly get you through those early quests/levels where a wizard's fairly weak. Since you can scribe spells into your spellbook whenever you have the scroll and required spell component, it's not really a big deal if you choose some spells at start which you end up deciding you don't like.

Step 8
You're done. Now you can enter the world!