So Character-builder makes creating a character a lot easier, so I think we will probably use it rather than fussing with even a reduced number of books. It is a bit buggy, though, and occasionally lets things happen when they shouldn't, so check your rules to make sure it makes sense (for instance, one of my friends was able to use martial versatility to swap out a class feature for an encounter power).
So a quick walk-through of what options everyone will be taking or not taking (there are a few things to ignore).
From [new (Essentials)] [custom] [load], pick custom, or else it restricts you to essentials classes. Then for setting, pick [DnD Home Campaign] - this ain't Dark Sun, you know. Be sure that your character's starting level is 1, obviously.
When you get to character details, don't worry about deities there - I'll explain the deities in this campaign somewhere else, and that should be fairly simple. The Divine Empire worshiped the Five Aspect Deities.
Similarly, do not select a theme or a background - just write your background as part of your character, and themes come... naturally. This prevents a little bit of silly, and means your background and character concept can be whatever you want, free of mechanical constraint.
Lastly, over on the Manage character sheet, don't hit "Dark Sun" "Spell-scarred" or any of those. Those are things that exist in other campaigns.
A note about power-level here: Simply put, the stronger the party is, the stronger monsters I will pit against it. The weaker the party, the weaker the monsters. And as the party levels, you'll be seeing all the monsters anyway. So don't worry about picking all the strongest powers - pick the ones you want, and everything will adjust accordingly.
Expertise and Superior Defenses:
Now there's a few other things - the math of the has been noted to be slightly... incorrect. Monster defenses and attack bonuses go up one per level. It makes things easy for DMs - to shift a monster by a few levels, you add that much to each defense and attack, fix the damage via a chart, lower the HP by a number related to Constitution... and that's it.
On the player end, though, attack bonuses and defense go up by 1/2 per level, plus all the bonuses people can shove onto the characters. Which... generally nearly matches monster defenses and offense.
Nearly.
Unfortunately, the scaling was off, and by Epic level, characters needed to put all their feats and items and stuff into attack bonuses, and monsters could hit them very easily. So what Wizards did was create a series of feats that give a +1 feat bonus to hit for every 10 levels, and a feat that gave a +1 to all defenses for every ten levels. Characters who did not take these feats would slowly fall behind, until they were missing an extra 15% by epic (levels 21-30). Everyone had to take these feats, in some form or another, constituting a "feat tax" - two feats that you were forced to buy.
Anyway, I will be awarding the math fixes of those two feats directly, at the exact appropriate times calculated by some math-happy DnD players. The details of your universal to-hit and defense bonuses will vary by character, and arrive at levels 4-6 depending on plot events (trying to weave it in, you know). As such, don't take any feat that says "expertise" or the feat "Superior Defenses" - you'll be getting their effects for free later on.
Other than that, a few classes are noted to have a few feats that were made to "fix" the class. If you play one of those classes, I'll provide you with the appropriate feat.
Everything else falls into the category of rules on ambiguous cases, and a few changes from Rules as Written to Rules as Intended. And again, mind that the character-builder isn't really a perfect device.
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