DnD Character Creation, Advice, and Help

Hey guys! Scarlet mentioned on TMS today that we should have a thread for character creation and help. So what ideas for characters do you guys have knocking around? Is there anything about the rules that confuse you? Not sure if your character will fit in? Let us help you!

Just dropping this in as a resource, if you have OpenOffice then [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is a fun character builder tool.

It seemed a little daunting at first, and there are obviously some factors that will be determined by the DM of whatever campaigns we all wind up in, but after having tried rolling a few characters in it, I've got to say it's fairly intuitive and helped me wrap my head around some of the stuff about 5e that I was a little confused by. It even puts together a nice spell list for you if you're playing a caster.

So anyone who's more familiar with 5e... Am I correct in understanding Rangers now only get an animal companion if they are taking the Beast Master Archetype, which honestly looks terrible to me especially compared to some of the stuff the Hunter Archetype gets.

It seems like it, yeah. From what I've read, 5e seems to take the simplification and 'power up' of 4e and blend it into 3.5e's more in-depth systems. So each class has a choice that locks off some of its features and enables others.

One thing I'm wondering, (and I'm guessing it'll depend on each DM) is how we'll handle feats. Because there seems to be the option of choosing to boost two stats, or going with a feat.

That... but... they're Rangers! Rangers and animal companions have gone together for as long as I can remember. Now I'm stuck losing said companion if I want a better than average melee fighter. -.-

On the bright side, you won't have to keep track of your animal companion?