Welcome to the Character Creation Challenge!

I'm a dungeon master. I've always been a game master; within my first year of tabletop RPGs I found myself behind the screen.

While I enjoy being a GM, it robs me of the chance to partake of one of my favorite RPG activities - character creation and advancement. This has resulted in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of characters created over the last two decades that have never seen the light of day.

With the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I believe I have stumbled upon a unique opportunity. There are a LOT of critical choices to be made during character creation and with every single level up; with just one year under its belt the number of choices available is. Furthermore, magic item selection has become much more interesting; players are often encouraged to create "wish lists" of items they'd like to pursue. In many campaigns, players can even purchase most of these items with ease (DM's discretion, naturally). Therefore, one could feasibly map out a character's entire lifespan and have a good time… without even bringing him to the table.

So…why a blog, if I’m doing this solely for my own amusement? Well, this is where the “challenge” part comes in...

I’m no min-maxer, and I don’t think I’ll ever come up with a build I’d consider 100% optimal. I can practically guarantee that there will be something in these builds, somewhere, that you feel could use some improvement. As such, I’d love to get feedback from other 4E fans out there on how they’d change the current character. My objective is to generate an ongoing discussion about the character until it retires from the blog at level 30 and a new character begins.


I plan to focus on one character at a time, and to advance that character one level at a time, five times a week (one entry every day, Wed-Sun). To keep things interesting, the race and class of each character will be randomly selected…otherwise, I think I’d be too tempted to avoid the trickier combos (although I won't accept a result that repeats a race or class used within the last few builds). I don’t plan to do much research, either. While I can see the value in consulting the role-playing community for a character you’ll be playing for months or years, the characters here will almost certainly never see use. Character creation is the game on this blog, in and of itself; there’s not much point to this if I end up letting other people do my work for me.

In addition to selecting new feats and powers, I'll be picking up a new magic item with every level as well. Just like the race/class combo, the list I have to choose from will be randomized. The first roll will determine the slot, and the second will determine the level (based on the item levels available to the character according to the treasure parcels in the Dungeon Master's Guide). If you'd like to tell us what you'd equip the character with, please try to stick to the same level/slot.

Finally - while I recognize the importance of the "other" side of RPGs (you know, the actual role playing?), that's not what this blog is about...at least, not at this time. Everyone is welcome to post "fluff" for the character in the comments, and if we can throw some of that material together into something cool, perhaps I'll spend a day writing him up before retiring him. If you see a character you like, feel free to swipe it and come up with your own fluff...just be sure to come back and let us know how the character is doing at the table. If you post in a retired character's comments, I'll make sure to draw attention to it.

That’s it! I hope you enjoy the blog. Don’t be shy – comment as much as you like. All I ask is that you be respectful of others, stick to the ground rules in this post, and keep your discussion limited to the current character (making suggestions for future levels is fine).

Thanks for visiting!