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 - it aims to provide support and help improve your game-play, helping you get to grips with how things work (at an overview level), with links to relevant information too, so you can find things out quickly and spend less time spent researching and more time playing!

One of the first things to do is find out how everything you've done during character creation appears in DDO on your character. The Character sheet is your character's primary source of information about all of their abilities, attributes, statistics and detailed build information:
 * It's the 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 always seek to improve everything they can on it
 * n.b. Spells, Feats, Skills and Enhancements can be dragged from the Character Sheet to a shortcut bar for easy access

Character basics

 * 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 vary 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
 * n.b. Some Class abilities, Feats, Skills and Enhancements are Passive (automatically active), while others are Active (activate when used) or Toggles (need to be activated manually but then stay on)
 * 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
 * But remember:
 * Bonuses to an ability/capability/power generally do not stack if they have the same bonus type, but do stack if the bonus type is different:
 * e.g. An Enhancement bonus to Charisma stacks with an Insight bonus to Charisma, but two Enhancement bonuses on different items do not stack (only the more powerful effect applies)
 * Bonuses from Enhancements with the same name generally do not stack, but matching bonuses from Enhancements with different names generally do
 * There are exceptions to these rules, but these are normally given in the item/enhancement/bonus descriptions
 * For help with starting a character:
 * The Class and Race Newbie Guide provides basic information about each class and race
 * The specific pages for each class and race provide full details of that class/race's abilities
 * The starting guides for each class explain how things work in practice and useful things to consider when generating/levelling characters in that class
 * The Builds for new players page provides some tested, relatively simple builds that work well for new players
 * Don't worry about making mistakes:
 * Characters can replace feats if they pick one that doesn't work for them - Fred in House Jorasco can help
 * All characters get a free +0 Lesser Heart of Wood that lets them undergo Lesser Reincarnation to change all Ability, Skill and Feat choices
 * Enhancement Trees can be reset

Playing the game

 * DDO is based on the Pen-and-Paper version of Dungeons & Dragons, but it is not the same:
 * The list of differences between DDO and PnP covers the main differences that you may need to be aware of
 * The d20 System Reference Document can be very helpful
 * Starting to play:
 * No clue about what to do next in the starter area? Take a look at The Salvation of Korthos flagging guide and quest section
 * Even in Korthos, it can help to join a party. To find and join the right party effortlessly, use the Social panel
 * The Adventure Compendium lists all the quests that a character can take part in and links to the Quest Journal which groups quest by game area and provides details
 * Want to understand in game currencies?
 * For purchasing power, see Currency (Platinum), DDO Point and Astral Shard
 * For earning experience, character and guild benefits, see Experience, Action Point, Favor and Renown
 * For permanent improvements to your character, see Tome
 * For what you can get without paying anything, see Guide to Free to Play and Daily Dice
 * What are gems, collectables and ingredients? Where can a character obtain bags to store them?
 * DDO displays helpful tips for players about how things work on its loading/transition screens
 * They are gathered together on the loading screen tips page
 * Confused about something?
 * If what people saying in general chat, party chat or on the social panel does not make sense, head to the Glossary for common acronyms and slang terminology
 * Not sure how something works or what something means within the game? Take a look at the Game mechanics page
 * Having problems completing a quest, no matter what you try? Check out the individual quest pages for help (although they may contain spoilers for things you haven't yet got to!)
 * Having a problem and want to be able to explain what's up and ask for a advice? Consider taking a Screenshot so you can show others and/or create a post on the official forums

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 - Large packs with expansive/multiple Wilderness Adventure Areas and multiple quest chains
 * 1) * Menace of the Underdark Expansion (Standard)
 * 2) * Shadowfell Conspiracy Expansion (Standard)
 * 3) * Mists of Ravenloft Expansion (Standard)
 * Adventure packs - Smaller packs with a few quests and may or may not contain a Wilderness Adventure Area
 * 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 Characters on the same server
 * VIP Membership provides access to all Adventure packs, but Expansion packs still need to be purchased separately

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