One of my friends is really into Dungeons & Dragons and she passed out character sheets for us to fill out to play,
I've gotten as far as picking a class (Ranger) and a race (Elf) but now I'm kinda completely lost..
When it comes to stats, (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution etc...) do we start out with a certain amount or do we gain those by playing,.?
also; is there any code as to how to create the character ?
IE: Personality traits/ideals/bonds/flaws anything like that?
any advice is greatly appreciated
As far as determining how your stats are assigned there are typically 3 ways a group will pick from. You can roll a bunch of dice (typically d6's) and get an array of stats to assign, You can start with the standard array of (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) and assign them as desired, or you can do point buy (where you have 27 points to spend on stats and a chart determines how much each stat costs). All information on stats is located on pages 12-13 of your Player's Handbook.
Personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws are all guidelines for how to roleplay your character and are completely up to you. However, if you need any suggestions or ideas the backgrounds section has a large set of them to look through based on what you did before you were an adventurer, but feel free to mix and match so long as you can work them all together, or come up with your own. They're located on pages 127- 141.
Different characters will want different stats, and there are different ways of determining stats based on your group. As a Ranger you get a fighting style at level 2 which will give you bonuses based on how you want to fight. This should determine how you stat yourself.
Do you want to primarily be an archer? Pick the Archery fighting style and you'll get a +2 to your attempts to hit someone; you'll also want to have Dexterity as your highest stat since bows rely on it. Do you want to be harder to hurt? Then pick Defense and you'll gain a +1 to AC (the stat that determines how hard you are to hit) while wearing armor. You can pick either strength or dexterity based on what your primary weapon will be. Dexterity for a ranged weapon or melee with the finesse trait, or strength for anything else.
Do you Fight with a weapon in one hand and possibly a shield in the other? Pick Dueling since you'll get a +2 to damage as long as you don't two-hand your weapon or use one in each hand.
Do you want to be a flurry of attacks able to devastate a battlefield? Pick Two-Weapon Fighting and you don't get the normal damage penalty for doing so.
As far as the rest of the stats go: Constitution determines how tough you are, directly affecting your hit points. Take as much of it as you're comfortable with, though for powergaming's sake it's generally considered the second most important stat for any character. Intelligence and charisma are just that, how smart your character is and how strong of a personality they have. As a ranger those'll be your least important stats so just pick what you want between the two. Wisdom is important for a Ranger's spells when you get them. Determining how hard they are to resist and any bonus you get to attacking with them (if any). You generally want to have this or Constitution as your highest stat.
As a fellow D&D player of numerous editions, assign the stats that would best suit your class. So fighter = strength, mage = intelligence/wisdom. For my own person, I picked an Assassin Executioner that enjoyed dabbling in collecting different poisons and wouldn't mind drinking it either, due to his high poison resistance.
But honestly, play however you wish to play it, be creative when you take your turn and just bond with the other players that are joining you.
Put everything into dexterity. Never know when you might need to convince some enemies through... other... methods that involve... a dexterous tongue...
