Characters and the builder

Characters are yours, not the campaign's. They live in your library (the Characters tile on the home screen) and sit at whichever tables you bring them to. The builder walks the required choices and validates the sheet, which gives the rules engines the information they need for combat.

The six steps

Each step's name sits under its diamond at the top: Hero, Ancestry, Class, Abilities, Spells (or Gear) and Finish.

1. Hero. Start with how you want to play: stand in front, hit hard, cast spells, help your friends, or sneak and solve. Suggestions include classes and backgrounds that suit it. Set the name (or roll one), gender, background, and its bonus languages, tools and skills.
2. Ancestry. A card grid of lineages, grouped by the book each comes from. The setting's recommended ones lead with a star; the content pack adds the expanded set with their ability bumps and languages. A Variant Human picks its feat here. Filters narrow the grid by ability raises, suitable classes, size and book; trait descriptions expand from named buttons.
3. Class. Class, subclass once the level reaches it, class skills, fighting style, expertise, and option picks. Filter by combat role, magic, the core class it plays like, or book. Each card explains its role; suggested choices and easier classes are marked separately from the setting's star. Suggest skills fills the class's outstanding skill picks. Each panel reads "N still to choose" until it is complete. A greyed skill says which trait or background already grants it, and a shut subclass menu says at which level it opens.
4. Abilities. Three methods: throw six sets of 4d6 into a tray and place them on the abilities by tap or drag, take the standard array, or point buy steppers that enforce the budget. The step names the abilities your class relies on and can place scores for you. Roll grades have text labels and used array values are crossed out. A kept roll stays on record with its date. The table chooses whether the first 4d6 pool stands, a low pool may be rerolled, or rerolls are unrestricted; it can also inherit the server's rule.
5. Spells. Spells first for casters: recommended picks and the subclass's free spells, cantrips before levelled spells, search below. A race's cantrips show as "From your race" and do not count against the class. Then the gear: the class's SRD starting equipment with its either-or choices as pills, the background's kit, and the starter pack, priced the same way everywhere. A gear receipt lists every item with its quantity, whether it was free or paid, its price and the coin left, with a line of numbers under each weapon. Classes that do not cast see this step as Gear.
6. Finish. A hero summary with Edit links and derived stats, then portrait, alignment and story. Upload a face or generate one if pictures are configured, then save. The whole backstory reaches the Dungeon Master, however long it runs.

Help me build, on the first step, asks four questions about how you want to play and offers two suggested characters to start from. Fill what's left fills only the picks still empty and reads back what it chose, with Undo, and a card's Pick for me does the same for one choice. A new character's first save opens its hero page: a line about the build, and three things to try on your first turn.

Each step lists its outstanding choices with links to them. A new build is saved as a draft on this device and offered back with Resume or a fresh start. The diamonds can jump to steps whose requirements are met, and an existing character can be saved from any step. A failed save names the missing choice with Show me. When Continue is held, the reason sits beside the button with Show me, which scrolls to the missing pick and lights it. A pick that a later change makes impossible (a background swapped, a subclass changed) is dropped and announced. The server checks the same rules again when a character is created, edited, imported or levelled, so changes and imported characters pass through the same validation.

The sheet

One sheet serves the library and the table. Painted ability tiles, a hit point bar, icon chips for features, spells, feats and gear, with every carried item opening its full card. A Languages and training block lists what the race, background, class and feats grant; feats such as Linguist or Skill Expert grant what their text says. During play the sheet is live: hit points, spell slots, conditions, death saves, inspiration and class resources change as the engines resolve them. You can spend a hit die on a short rest, equip and unequip, and mark attunement. Only one of a kind counts when worn: one cloak, one helmet, one pair of boots, gloves or bracers, and a workshop item says where it is worn. A player spends counters but cannot refill them; the DM seats and the party lead correct them.

The spell book on the sheet keeps cantrips, known and prepared lists to each class's counts, and a prepared caster changes the list on a long rest. At the table, levelling up needs the experience, goes one level at a time, and walks the choices that level brings. In the library, Level up to N opens the build at the next level so you can make those choices. Characters and ready-made heroes seated above level 1 are still owed any improvements they skipped. How hit points grow (the average, a roll the server makes, or the maximum) and whether a character starts with gear or rolled wealth are campaign settings.

Homebrew from a workshop, a ruleset or your own library shows in the same pickers with a flag, and a homebrew weapon or armour is read by the attack and armour class engines like anything from the content pack.

What comes from where

• The content pack supplies the spells, feats, items, subclasses, lineages and monsters beyond the SRD: about 1,800 spells and 2,000 items. Every server release ships it, and the apps carry it. If most spells or subclasses are missing, the server it lives on has no pack (see Content pack and world packs).
• The setting adds its own classes and backgrounds: 36 of each across the seven genres, alongside the 13 bundled base classes. The builder, the level-up dialog and AI companions lead with the campaign's setting, and a library hero from another setting says so before it joins.
• A world pack renames races, classes, spells and monsters to fit a universe. The sheet keeps the canonical names underneath, so a character crosses worlds intact.

Portraits and pictures

A portrait can be uploaded at any time from the sheet. With an image backend, the builder paints one from the description; without one, a painted plate for the lineage and class stands in. The token on the battle map wears the portrait, so it is worth setting.

More than one character

A campaign setting decides how many characters a player fields. One character each is the usual table. Choose Several, all at once to field several characters, each with its own token, initiative and resources, or Several, one at a time to keep the others on the bench and change between encounters. Play as on a character's card in the Party tab chooses which one you act as; in a fight, the character whose turn it is acts, and the Hand, the turn HUD and the board follow it. A workshop can also file pregens, ready-made characters a table can pick from, with a warning if their level does not match the campaign; Quick start offers four.

Export, import, clone

A character exports as one .odm-character.json file with the portrait inside, and imports on any server. A file from an older release comes in owing any picks it never made (feats or a subclass, say), and its library page lists what is still to choose. Characters clone from the library. Deleting your account erases your library characters with it.