 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy and I've made and helped make a lot of characters in D&D to the point where I eventually got so tired of doing it over and over again that I made a handy little YouTube channel to help answer all the burning questions that I didn't have to. But something I've missed in my efforts to cover everything that D&D has to offer is the most basic of things. How do you make a character for the first time if you've never done it before? Well, slip on that tabletop because we're gonna be going over how to make a character from a mechanical point of view. And if you want a video talking about how to craft a story for your character then I recommend watching my backstory guide right after this video. And real quick, I want to give a shout out to my new patrons this month. David Martenskyu, the spread prism, Senpai Gotzuma, Jesse Powell, Zachary Cheney, Andrew Dion Villafana, Kobe Gordon, Mr. Mann, the man in the pinstripe suit. And Julie, thank you so much for continuing to give me money even in these trying times. Know that the next time that you see me at a convention buying an overpriced board game, that was you. But wait, there is another name that must be called. Another challenger that approaches the early video announcements of CHAP. Why? It's Stibbles Codex of Companions. That's right, your favorite advertisement is back to tell you that you are not alone. Isolation is not eternal. There is another way with Stibbles Codex of Companions. You're one stop shop to filling your D&D worlds and that hole in your heart with a full menagerie of animalistic creatures that will protect you, defend you, respect you, and befriend you. And that's not all. When you buy Stibbles Codex of Companions, you gain access to new spells, feats, and companion loyalty mechanics tailored to fit in with your new battle buddy. And for those of you fashion is the end game purists out there, Stibbles Codex of Companions comes with its own personality generators for your little fluff so that you can get the role playing experience that you deserve. So click that link down in the description below and pledge yourself to the Kickstarter for Stibbles Codex of Companions. Big gnome, tiny shorts. But without a way, let's begin. So making a character in D&D comes down to three fundamental features. Your race, your class, and your background. Your race dictates what kind of boning happened to make you and may influence the way that you're treated within the D&D world. Your class represents your character's main lot in life and defines just how much ass you kick on a daily basis and in what way. And your background is a largely story based choice that gives minor perks to show off the sort of upbringing that your character found themselves in. Making a character usually goes in that order. Race, class, and background just for simplicity's sake. Picking your race is probably the easiest thing. You just pick whatever you think is the sexiest and then you write down their traits. These include their age and alignment, which don't matter. Their ability score improvement, which you'll want to make note of and save for later. Their size and speed, which is almost exclusively going to be medium and 30 feet. And then a few features that represent what your character is capable of within the game. You might also have your choice of sub-race, which will give you more features. But as long as you keep your features in mind, it's very rare that your race will give you anything throughout the game. So for all intents and purposes, you're good on your race. Now when choosing your class, you've got 12 main choices. Plus one if you buy an expansion book. And they can be split up into magic and non-magic. You'll find that most classes start out with magic, and even those that don't start with it can usually get it later on. So don't feel too pressured to be a wizard just so that you can shoot out Missile Dicks. Once you've picked your class based on who has the best character artwork, the next thing you're going to want to fill out are your ability scores. You've got six of them to represent your overall skill at doing things. And if you look at your class's quick build section, it'll tell you which stat your class specializes in. When in doubt, dexterity and constitution help you not get hit and then survive longer when you do get hit. So these are always the best choices after your main stat. Now there are a lot of ways to assign points to each stat. And every DM does it differently, so I won't confuse you by throwing out how I do it. You should just ask your DM and they'll be sure to tell you. Just remember to add those ability score bonuses that your race gives and you'll be fine and dandy. Next, you're going to want to look at this table. As daunting as it looks, this table isn't that bad. It just tells you what your character gets and at what level. You've got your proficiency bonus, which you'll add to your rolls whenever you roll something that your character knows how to use, your features, which we'll get into in a bit, and your spells if your character happens to have them. If your character does use spells, then you should have been given another piece of paper that looks like this. If not, ask your DM and we can go over spells at the end of this video. The table might also have some other things that are specific to that class's abilities, but for now, you don't have to worry about that. Just make note of it on your sheet, probably here, and move on for now. The table is just a quick reference that'll make more sense once you read your features. The next thing you're going to want to look at are hit points, proficiencies, and equipment. Hit points are easy. Just follow the hit points at first level and move on. For proficiencies, you just want to write down what your character knows how to use right here and make sure that you make a note of saving throws and choose the skills that you think you'd enjoy having your character know. Being proficient in all these things means that your character understands how to use them properly and so you'll add your proficiency bonus whenever you make roles involving these things. Finally, you want to select your equipment. Now, what people don't realize right away is that this section is really just asking you what kind of fighter you want to be. Do you want a weapon and a shield or two weapons? Do you want a bow and arrow? Sounds good. Just pick what you like because there aren't really any wrong answers here, but just make sure to write down your weapon attacks so that you don't forget them. Also, all of the packs are filled with like a million different starter items grouped together in a theme. Technically, you should care about them, but I've never had a problem with just buying things that I might want in a store so you can really just write down your pack and make a note to check what's inside of it later. Finally, the last thing that every character needs to worry about are their features. Just like racial features, these class features are additional abilities that your class has that make them stand out from all the other classes. Every feature is different and you should write them down to remember them because they're almost always important to keep in mind. As you gain levels, you'll get more features that just further differentiate you from the other classes, and once you get your archetype at first, second or third level, that archetype will also give you more exclusive features that only your archetype gets. There are so many features, and all of them do different things, so I'll trust you to remember them. If you're starting at level one, this shouldn't be that hard, but if you're starting at a different level, just keep the book with you. Once you have all those features written down, you're done filling out your class, and that's most of your sheet done. The last thing that you have to do is pick out a background by comparing how tragic of a backstory it gives you, and then writing down the proficiencies and equipment that it provides. It might also come with a language, but beyond that, there isn't really anything more to do with a background. If you're not playing a spellcaster, you can just pick a name for your new character by smacking your lips together and writing down the sound that comes out, and then go plunder some dungeons. But if you are a spellcaster, then you've just got one more step. Like I said before, you should have gotten this additional handy piece of paper that makes you better than everybody else, and they'll all be jealous at you for having more paper than them. With this, you've gotta write down a few things. If you flip to the spellcasting section of your class or your subclass, then it should tell you what your spellcasting ability score is, how to calculate your spell save DC and your spell attack mod, and it should also tell you how many spells you can prepare, and possibly of what school of magic. If it doesn't tell you any of this, then you can just check the handy-dandy reference chart, which will tell you instead, and that chart will also tell you how many spell slots your character has to cast. Keep that number in mind because that's how you can do all of your cool shit, and that is the end of making a character. I hope you enjoyed this video. Be sure to give a like, comment, subscribe, ring the bell, let me know what other mechanical explanations you want me to go over in the future, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can one day teach an entire world to revolve around D&D. But yeah, Dabby out.