Newbie guide

Welcome to the game!
Now that you've built your character and logged in, you'll want to know everything about the game. This page is a great starting point! The first thing you may want to do is find out how everything you've performed during character creation appears in DDO on your character - head over to the Character sheet page to find a central point of information about all your character's attributes.

The Character sheet will always be your primary source of information about all of your character's abilities, attributes, statistics and detailed build information. It's your go to place as you progress through acquiring everything in DDO, from Ability tomes through how your saves are calculated. All players visit it constantly, study it and seek to always improve everything they can on it. This guide looks to support you on exactly where to find all detailed information in one central place, help improve your game-play, and lessen the time spent researching.

Essential & helpful information

 * Characters benefit from their:
 * Class abilities gained as they gain levels in the class
 * Feats which provide fixed benefits, gained at Level 1, 3 and every 3 levels thereafter (some classes and races provide additional feat options)
 * Skills which provide scaling benefits, that can be improved as you level up (points per level very with class; Intelligence bonus provides additional skill points)
 * Race and Class Enhancement Trees, that they can spend points in as they level up (4 points gained per level) to customise their abilities
 * In addition:
 * Equipment can be worn to provide and improve defences and abilities/capabilities. Some items have a minimum level, below which they cannot be used
 * Spells, Melee weapons and Ranged weapons can be used to damage opponents; Spell Power, Melee Power and Ranged Power increase the damage in the relevant category and can be improved with equipment, feats, skills and enhancement tree options
 * When a character gets hit by a spell or a weapon they take damage: Magical Resistance Rating or MRR reduces the amount of damage taken from Spells; Physical Resistance Rating or PRR reduces the amount of damage taken from weapons. Equipment, feats and enhancement tree options can improve your MRR and PRR
 * Need help to start your character? In addition to the class and race newbie guide and the specific page for each class and race, there are starting guides for each class.
 * Create a build for your class: Builds for new players.
 * No clue what you are supposed to do next in the starter area? Take a look at The Salvation of Korthos flagging guide and quest section.
 * You want to understand in game currencies? See DDO Point, Currency (Platinum), Favor, Astral Shard, Daily Dice, Experience, Renown, Action Point, Tome, and Guide to Free to Play.
 * Even in Korthos, it helps to find and join a party. To find and join the right party effortlessly, use the Social panel.
 * No idea what they are saying in party chat or on the social panel? Try the Glossary for Acronyms and Slang Terminology.
 * If you know about the Pen-and-Paper version of D&D, you may want to check this list of differences between DDO and PnP. Also, the d20 System Reference Document can be very helpful.
 * Looking for a list of tips displayed on the game's loading screen? Check out loading screen tips.
 * What are gems, collectables, and ingredients? And where do you find the bags to store them?

Shopping advice

 * If you have the patience to wait a bit, always try to take advantage of DDO sales! You can often save from 10-25%, and sometimes more (rarely as much as 75%!) off the listed price!
 * Expansion packs
 * 1) * Shadowfell Conspiracy Expansion (Standard)
 * 2) * Menace of the Underdark Expansion (Standard)
 * Adventure packs
 * 1) * The Vale of Twilight (995 DP)
 * 2) * Ruins of Gianthold (950 DP)
 * 3) * Vault of Night (750 DP)
 * 4) * Litany of the Dead Part 2 (350 DP)
 * 5) * Litany of the Dead Part 4 (850 DP)
 * 6) * Delera's Tomb (850 DP)
 * 7) * Demon Sands (950 DP)
 * 8) * Red Fens (450 DP)
 * 9) * The Devils of Shavarath (550 DP)
 * 10) * Tangleroot Gorge (550 DP)
 * 11) * Shadow Under Thunderholme (550 DP)
 * 12) * Against the Slave Lords (595 DP)
 * 13) Shared Bank (1495 DP) — Great for multiple toons on a server.

DDO official game guide

 * Although this may not be 100% up-to-date, a PDF format game manual is available.

DDO official forums
Make sure to visit the official newbie forum. There are plenty of helpful players and lots of advice on hand - be sure to check the stickied threads at the top of the forum!
 * New Player Advice & Guidance

DDO Compendium
As of May 2013 the DDO Compendium was discontinued. Its official guides were migrated to the Game Guides. 

Here is some more information about the DDO Compendium.

DDOwiki newbie guides category
Here are some other less crunchy articles created or archived by DDOwiki contributors. Newbie guides