But ladies who-cannot-figure-out D&D!  I think you're looking at the forests instead of the trees!  Let me see if I can help!<br/><br/>First, the daunting task of making a character shouldn't be so daunting at'all.  After all, your character is half made.  "But Phantom, how is my character half made when I am still looking at just a scratch?"  Ah, my fair maidens, tis' not but a scratch sheet that you're looking at!  For on the very top, you will notice that you are playing human sorceresses!  :o  Half the battle is done, now it's all about pruning the tree.<br/><br/>So, a human looks like this:<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Human Traits</span><br/>+2 to One Ability Score (more on ability scores below);<br/>Medium Size (not very important for beginning players);<br/>Normal Speed (not very important in a game without a map);<br/>Bonus Feat:  (more on feats later!);<br/>Skilled:  (Humans gain an additional skill rank; more on skills later!);<br/>Languages:  (Humans begin speaking the common language;  in Ravenloft, the main language is Mortandesh or something like that).<br/><br/>ON TOP OF THIS, you ladies are sorceresses.  A LVL 1 Sorceress looks like this:<br/><br/>Skills:  2 + INT<br/>Base Attack Bonus:  +0<br/>Fort:  +0<br/>Ref:  +0<br/>Will:  +2<br/>HP:  6<br/>Special:  Bloodline Power, Cantrips, Eschew Materials*<br/>Spells Per Day:  3 First Level Spells<br/><br/><strong>Attributes</strong><br/><br/>You're probably looking at that information and thinking to yourself, 'but how do I fit into that?'  And it's all very simply explained that the rules are all derived from the six primary abilities.  While I have heard of other abilities being house-ruled or used in campaign settings (comeliness, for example), the main six abilities in Ravenloft (and most of all D&D for that matter) are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma.<br/><br/>Strength is gauges your ability to lift items, swing a weapon and deal damage;  Dexterity gauges how quickly you can move out of the way of impending danger and how easily you move about a battlefield;  Constitution is your physical endurance, durability and resilience to pain;  Wisdom gauges your capability to understand your surroundings, know truth from fiction and overcome your fears;  and Charisma is the social ability that gauges beauty and the influence you have on others.<br/><br/>The average ability score on any of these is 10.  An individual with 12 strength lifts weights on a regular basis, a 14 strength is probably a light-weight professional boxer or amateur wrestler, a 16 is a football player, an 18 is an olympic athlete that focuses on weightlifting and finally a 20 represents the peak of physical strength that the race could possibly ever possess.<br/><br/>Since the GM is so kind, we have been given 42 points to mess around with.  This means that you can buy your ability attributes using the following table.<br/><br/>10/0<br/>11/1<br/>12/2<br/>13/3<br/>14/5<br/>15/7<br/>16/10<br/>17/13<br/>18/17<br/><br/>Notice how you cannot buy a 20!  The only way to start off with a twenty is to have a racial background bonus, which is applied after you've added your points.<br/><br/>Say that Risa wants a sorceress that has amazing charisma (as they tend to have), she would elect to have an 18 in Charisma.  That's worth 17 points, and that would mean that she has 25 points left to spend.  Say that she also wants to be intelligent, but doesn't want to spend that much pointwise because she's concerned about putting points into other stats, she would pay 10 points for a 16 attribute.<br/><br/>Currently, her character looks like:  STR ?? DEX ?? CON ?? WIS ?? INT 16 CHA 18.<br/><br/>Risa might decide that she wants her character to be somewhat nible, so with the fifteen points left, she decides to purchase 14 dexterity at 5.  That leaves her with ten points.<br/><br/>So:  STR ?? DEX 14 CON ?? WIS ?? INT 16 CHA 18.<br/><br/>She might not think her noble sorceress to be that tough or strong, so she might put the remainder of her points (10) into Wisdom.  So her character looks like:<br/><br/>STR 10  DEX 14  CON 10  WIS 14 INT 16  CHA 18.<br/><br/>On top of that, Risa might decide to add a +2 to CHA because she wants her character to be the most beautiful woman anyone had ever laid eyes on.  So, the CHA becomes a 20.