Custom or pre-designed path

[loudshirt]

So my quick question is should I go custom or follow one of the pre designed paths for any class?

[Uska]

always custom even more so if you have 32pt builds as the presets dont use the 32pts

[Lorien_the_First_One]

So my quick question is should I go custom or follow one of the pre designed paths for any class?

Predesigned paths are suboptimal in most case. Some downright suck. They also don't let you learn since they level for you so you never figure out how to build characters right.

My recommendation is to look at the builds in the forums to get some ideas on better builds to follow. There are so good solid beginner builds on the bottom of this page of the wiki http://ddowiki.com/page/Newbie_guide

[Jakarr]

First char?

Dont know anything about DnD?

New to MMOs?


If ya answered yes to 2 of these then go the Pre-designed path then at about lvl 10 when you are starting to understand the game you will prob reroll.....so

Custom is always the best course if you know what kind of toon you are building/playing and have a build(can find one around the forums easy enough) rdy. True be told the Pre-designed paths are pretty gimpy.

[Dawnsfire]

The premade paths are pretty bad. Tihocan has done a really good job of updating them here in the forums. Try here (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=232660) if you want updated path builds.

[Sahtep]

Well, I beg to differ. the D&D ruleset is not really a lightweight one...
For the first one or two characters it should be sufficient to use predefined ways. When leveling up you have the chance to take a look into the "what".
While playing and having fun you can take some time slices and have a look into the compendium or in some wikis and guides.

Well, should be sufficient at least for the first char...

When you got a feeling for the game I would say it is time to decide what you want to play. Then it could be a good advise to either use one of the revisited pathes mentioned above or to use a good guide.

And then, somewhen, I would advise to try to build a character on your own. And when doing this I would highly reccommend to use a character generator. As the leveling is somehow slow (compared to other MMORPGs) its very frustrating to regard the drawbacks of your own character somewhere at level 10...

On the other hand. If you know the D&D P&P RPG maybe you can plunge in. But otherwise I think it could be pretty frustrating.

Just my 2c,
Sahtep