As any CRPG fan will tell you, deep character creation is the backbone of a quality roleplaying experience. This is doubly true when Dungeons and Dragons rules are involved, since people not only expect something complex, but also want it to be faithful to the source material. Though n-space’s Sword Coast Legends promises to be the D&D game hardcore fans have wanted since 2003’s Temple of Elemental Evil, they haven’t shown much of the actual character creation. That changes now, with a video recently uploaded to the game’s official youtube channel.

First, you’ll notice the hair/face interface looks remarkably like Neverwinter Nights 2, with a large supply of options available for creating a unique leader to your party. As for the actual mathematical section of character creation, the game uses a standard point-buy system that seems to be popular now that developers realize we’ll re-roll dice until getting the maximum amount.

The real news for most would be the skill tree explanation, which starts at 13:07. Though the character in the video is a dual-wielding ranger, they do talk about how the system is flexible enough to allow for unique class/specialization combos such as giving a Wizard a strength-based skill and allowing them to use greatswords. Which is wonderful news for those of us who loved playing Bladesingers.

Most of the details in the character creation system do look considerably similar to Neverwinter Nights 2, with the ability to write in a small bio for the character and the whole race/sub-race selection method. Of course, if you’re going to copy something, you might as well go with one of the best.

Sword Coast Legends will launch this September 29th, so we won’t have much time to wait until we get to revisit the world of Faerun again.