Sheleph
Full Member
-Readon
*raises hand*
I do this too.
Okay, it gets revised, as gameplay (well, roleplay) changes the slant or direction somewhat, but I do tend to map out where a character's going from the word go.
Why?
Mostly it's fun. It lets me get wrapped up in the character, get a feel for how it'll grow and develop, get enthused 'bout what it'll be like, what it can do, how it'll work in the party. Ah it may die and never get to that level, it's fun to plan the potential.
Partly it's practical. If you want to play a mage who, someday, will be an Archmage, you need to plan early. It requires that you to have specific Feats and 5 high level spells from 5 different schools of magic. An Archmage class can be advanced for 5 levels, so if 20th level is the maximum (and it is, in effect, until Epic Level rules are out this Summer) you need to get 5 levels of Archmage in before level 20. The earliest a Sorcerer can be elligible for the Archmage presitige class (PrC) is at level 14, when she first gets 7th level spells. At that time she has 6 spells of 5th level or higher . . . she needed to start committing spells to the right school of magic from 10th level, 11th level at the latest.
If she decided at 12th level that, by 20th level, she'd like to be an Archmage she could have chosen spells that would preclude her from entering this PrC. At 13th level it's almost certain she couldn't progress as an Archmage PrC in later levels, if not planned for. Also, 3 Feats are required . . . and given that you've only had 5 Feats to choose by 14th level, to have chosen 3 of the pre-requisites for Archmage (when none of them are Metamagic feats) is unlikely to happen by chance.
My point : if you don't plan out your character, your direction at mid/high level will be limited by choices you made in earlier levels.
This is particularly bad for Fighters, since in order to get certain combinations of Feats needs certain pre-requisites, so needs to plan these.
In addition to this metagame thinking, planning your character development around how the rules allow you to, it's also good roleplay. Rather than suddenly thinking, "Oooh, Archmages are snacky, I'll become one of those!" it's more credible for a character to know from day one that they hope and dream, some day, to be an Archmage, and be able to talk about this and advance towards it throughout their adventuring career.
It's important for most characters wanting to take a PrC as they all have pre-requisites you will need to plan for, but in general I think it makes for a more rounded character if choices are made with a purpose, and thought through, rather than just randomly decided on the fly at some arbitary time when XP rolls over to blah and you level up.
I just wanted to point out that Cuthrose isn't the only one to plan character progression, and that it can be seen as a sensible and desirable thing to do
