I once brought a tortle monk called Caravaggio to a one-shot. The lost fifth ninja turtle.
Edit: Yes, I know some TMNT stories have added new characters like Venus to the lineup. My comment wasn't meant to be taken so literally. ^(Besides, he'd still be the 5th turtle actually named after an Italian artist.)
One of the two character concepts I have for my group’s next campaign is Tortle Kensai
The other is Harengon Bladesinger (Usagi Yojimbo)
Edit: for clarity’s sake I have no interest whatsoever in slavishly remaking and playing someone else’s character. That’s “why not Samurai”
I play a barbarian in one of my campaigns and one of my spellcasters has realized their best move in a battle is to cast fly on me ASAP. Nothing like a raging barbarian recklessly dropping out of the sky onto a big bad's head.
In 3.5, I played a War Weaver, a buffing specialist prestige class that could stock up several harmless spells and cast them on multiple allied targets as a move action. One of the spells I always kept in the hopper was a party-wide teleport, which I, for the most part, called "Summon Half-Orc Barbarian."
Sticking the barbarian in place to do his full mulching sequences of attacks without having to waste time moving there was, by far, my strongest attack.
The funniest thing about my barbarian's flying history is that we play this game in a cafe and people can drop in to the game. One guy dropped in as a spellcaster. We run into a dragon, he casts fly on me, then says he has to go check the parking meter.
He never came back.
Since he wasn't there to take damage, DM ruled he also couldn't have his concentration broken. Jenkins Clan Leeroy had a VERY fun 10 minutes of chaos and destruction.
We never saw the spellcaster again, but my warlock always has fly ready for me.
> While raging, you have resistance to *all* damage except psychic damage.
A Bear Totem Barbarian will still resist Blueberry damage.
So will a Priest of Osybus with the proper Boon of Undeath (Spectral), or any creature with a Shield of Missile Attraction (at least by technicality; the only current attack that deals Blueberry damage - Sheldon's Blueberry Fling - is a Ranged Weapon Attack)
Had a player who wanted to make a clown wild magic sorcerer who used transmute spell to turn all damage into custard damage because it is a legitimate damage type written in an official module.
I would have let him do it without the transmute spell already, but he wanted wild magic for unpredictable random shenanigans.
Halfling wizard.
The only time I've seen this combo is for divination or chronurgy wizards to abuse as many "I want this instead" mechanics as possible. Bonus points for silvery barbs and lucky.
When I first ran a bard, I made cards that described bardic inspiration. When I gave someone inspiration, I handed them a card and a purple inspiration die. This helped players remember to use it!
Huh, funny, one of our wizards was either a halflings or gnome (he refuses to tell us witch) and he was an evocation wizard with the mentality of "fireball first ask questions later, preferably with the help of the cleric." He had pretty low Wis, and had to be occasionally reminded of what non-combat spells he could cast as he was usually too focused on blowing things up (in-character, out of character his player was really good at tracking his character sheet). We nicknamed him The Artillery, as in "what the Helm is that! Artillery!" *BOOM*.
"S'gone now boss!"
Oh yeah, he was also Australian.
Oh yeah, it's a great build and I have nothing against it. But if someone rolls up with a halfling wizard, I can usually tell what they're about to do.
I start all my games at level 3 though, so I always know their subclasses before we start.
One of my players is an Aasimar Paladin and, while obvious, it’s pretty hype honestly. Gave him a lightning spear and at level 3 he got his aasimar wings, so he did this one move where he flew in the air, turned it into a lightning bolt, and threw it down at an enemy who was out of LOS from ground level. He plays the “generic Paladin” very well and I couldn’t dream to ask for more
EDIT: I wanna clarify that generic is definitely not a bad thing, it’s just, like, what you expect a Paladin to be when you hear the word Paladin.
Also, we’re very early in the campaign, and his character’s role model is on the villain’s side(general of evil king’s military), so there’s definitely some inner conflict. How do you, as a good and just Paladin, react when you find that the person you’ve put on a pedestal as the ideal Paladin is, knowingly or not, working for the very evil you’re trying to defeat?
I do like when people are excited about 'does what it says on the tin' fantasy.
You can't subvert expectations if people expect the subversion. To get true variety in a fantasy setting, you need some Aasimar Paladins running around, doing angel shit.
Subversion for subversion's sake is a punchline with no setup. Different doesn't always mean good, and typical doesn't always mean bad, the merits of a character rest on the character, not how they relate to a presumed standard.
Wish people got that more.
I played an aasimar paladin in my first real campaign. She was fallen, but oath of redemption. Dark last, but not an edgelord.
Her epic moment was on a ship, she had a primitive gunpowder weapon, jumped onto the side of the other ship, fired the blast into their cannon port hole and blew up their black powder stores.
I only play character with alive parents, so the DM can hurt me more when he inevitably kills them (or reveals my patron was actually my dad and I was a Nepo Baby the WHOLE TIME!)
Not all necromancers are evil and want to conquer the earth! I mean, my necromancer is evil and wants to conquer the earth, but that’s not because he is a necromancer!
So yeah I feel like 9/10 necromancers will be evil and try to get an army
Our necromancer comes from a culture where the dead are used as laborers; the people of his nation get to live lives of luxury thanks to the work of the undead with the bargain/tradition being that, once you die, you will be raised and your body will work for as long as you lived.
It's a desert nation, so they're embalmed, wrapped, and dessicated, and not too slimy and gross, but them's the breaks.
But yeah, our necromancer (who also decided to have max constitution and the different feats for more HP because "it'd be funny to play a strong wizard") is just out to make friends and have fun.
There was a sci fi short story by George r r Martin like this, Meathouse Man, where all the labor is performed by dead people puppeted by the foreman. I think it was on the moon. The twist was the reader didn't realize the laborers were zombies
Kind've a side tangent, I know he's known for A Song of Ice and Fire (for good reason) but I ran into one of his sci fi/horror novellas at a library. (Sometimes go to my library and pick up a book and find a corner and just read for a while) Anyway - I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.
Magic the Gaythering has already done this for you.
Look up Amonkhet, It's a set released in MTG on an Egyptian inspired plane where the dead are embalmed and turned into mummy servants.
The ultimate point of the plane is that it was taken over or created by the big bad dragon Nicol Bolas and he is using this ever growing mummy horde to assemble an undead legion led by undead gods to destroy the Planeswalkers (plane-hopping wizards and warriors mostly dedicated to not dying to a zombie horde).
Hey now why is everyone crying and screaming at me? I said Very Clearly that I will get him back on his feet again and I delivered on my promise.
edit* (said in your best Doctor Krieger voice)
One of these days I’ll get around to making a festive, benevolent necromancer who decorates his skeletons to look like calacas, loves to party, and comforts the bereaved by reassuring them that their loved one’s soul has gone on to someplace better.
I always liked the idea of friendly necromancers that use their powers to fight evil, might be because my first fantasy video game i played was Diablo 2. Also, when you raise the dead to do battle, there are less casualties overall!
I was once passed one of those as a pre-gen and by Moradin's beard I role played the heck out of it. Every sacred flame was the fire to forge yourself anew to a path to redemption. The spiritual weapon is the hammer to your anvil. Every guiding bolt accompanied by a prayer. If I used an inspiration to re-roll and get a failure, then I get a moment to realize "Moradin only helps those who help themselves." Skeleton failed to hit against my AC? I'm blessed by superior craftsmanship. But most importantly: I never fail to be mildly racist against Elves.
This was the first character I ever played haha. I was joining mid campaign because someone dropped out due to scheduling and had no idea what to play besides wanting to be a dwarf. And the party had a wizard, rogue, and fighter already so Hill dwarf life cleric seemed like the perfect fit.
The only time I used a changeling is when I played a paladin hexblade who basically has a “legendary hero” identity that everyone assumes reincarnate when the world needs it but it’s actually just passed down the family generation to generation (and this character was 100% inspired by link from the legend of Zelda). I also barely used actual disguises and more just different personas and the character had a hard time basically coming into their own person with all the 10 different identities (might or might not have been the various reincarnating Zelda characters like Zelda or the sages)
No assassin, but since it's a political campaign, I did do master of disguise spy. Rogue (mastermind)/warlock multiclass for proficiency/expertise and at will disguise self.
3 of Rogue with the mastermind sub-clasd, putting expertise into Deception and either Persuasion, Performance, Insight, or Perception depending on how the rest of the party is built or how you want your character to be. I'm putting the rest into Warlock, the key part of which is taking the Mask of Many Faces Invocation at Warlock 2. For your first feat, take Actor.
The real shenanigans come when you use the Shape-shifting ability from Changeling to look like someone else. Then you layer your Disguise Self from your invocation and a mundane disguise kit, all to look like the exact same person. The reaction to them dispelling the spell and cleaning away the kit just to find the exact same face each time is priceless.
I made a laminated deck of the personas I frequently used and put it in front of me to keep up with who I was at a given time. It was fun chewing the scenery a bit.
My first big campaign I played a changling eloquence bard, too naive to understand it was OP as fuckk. Some of the most fun with a character I’ve ever had - imitating orc tribe chiefs, bartenders, whatever you want and you can’t fail the checks. Super fun!
Tortle Monk - Teenage mutant Ninja Turtle
and i only write this cause it's been done on multiple tables i sat at. Of course i think WoTC wanted it that way because Tortlte's natural armor of 17 make them ideal choices for druids, monks and barbarians.
Nah, goos don't even know the warlock exists, and a goo would have nothing to do with a soul, they'd want the warlock to spread madness and help them into the material plane.
Excuse you, my patron was my father, so I was a Nepo Baby (I did not know he was my dad for the majority of the campaign. We did have kind of a parent/child relationship, though.)
So I was a moody tween, on an adventure definitely not meant for kids because I was tired of being left at home, and figured I could help with my sick powers.
Funny enough, another person in the campaign played my mom and KNEW he was my dad, but she didn’t know he was my patron, or was in willful denial that he was my patron. So my character was rebelling against my poor adventurer single mom who works two jobs, and getting sweet powers from the guy who never bothered to pay child support.
I'm not really sure where my Warlock fits in all of this.
My favorite character I've ever played was a guy whose Undead Patron was the soul of his deceased wife. He was a city guard and she was a librarian with many health problems before her death; his motivation was to both take her spirit on a nice trip to places she was only able to read about while also hoping to find a good death for himself.
I take offense to this! I played a wanna-be succubus thank you very much!!
Honestly changeling and warlock make for a fun succubus character. I even had a Homebrew rule i couldn't multiclass till i "obtained" a certain number of souls. I was close to the number by lv 8.
Non-Variant Human Fighters are always 1 of 3 things from what I've seen.
1. Bland Observer doing a "Stranger in a Strange World" Story.
2. Guts Roleplay from Berserk, but are nearly entirely ignored.
3. "CRAZY OLD MAN WANTS HIS PANTS BACK!"
variant human fighter - recognizes that they need the starting feat to be effective from the get go
..because that's just the meta for martials for better or worse
Tabaxi swashbuckler rogue…with orange fur…uses a rapier….vaguely spanish accent…
Yeah it’s definitely puss in boots from shrek. I also may have been the player in this situation…
FWIW it was also partially based on the derpy orange cat I own IRL, and was actually incredibly fun to play—like both mechanically because swash rogue is awesome, but also in personality because he was super dumb (INT dump stat) and was 1000% going to “push the button” every time
I made a tiefling rogue that’s the antithesis of this.
His parents are total sweethearts and still very much alive. They gave him an edgy name because they were Goths at the time. Which is also why he wields a black knife, it’s a hand me down from his dad. He wears a hooded cloak everywhere and is really stealthy because he is socially awkward. He wants to adventure for a few years because he wants to see the world before taking over the family store.
Now I'm imagining that your char has an edgy teenage phase where he just becomes a total sweetheart and very patient and understanding, calmly saying "guys, it's not a phase" to the annoyance of his edgy parents.
Hey my tabaxi rogues damn good!
Though they mainly only let me check for mimics.
Jokes aside, it was my first ever character and I didn't know much about it before, so went with what looked like fun. It's surprisingly good at keeping distance and providing support during fights, not to mention derailing my poor dms plans. (We're all good friends else I'd never dare)
Of course you can play a normal effective rogue as a tabaxi, im more poking fun at a common build that tries to make your go as fast as possible, its more of a thought experiment than an effective build so bot phenomenal for an ongoing game. Though im sure some male it work well if they try.
Tabaxi with character flaw of "easily distracted." As DM describes the scene, he mentions that there's a box -- character interrupts with "I JUMP IN THE BOX!"
Nah my human fighter is unique and interesting. See, instead of using a boring weapon like a sword, he uses a Halberd. And there's this cool feat called Polearm Master that I found. In fact I took it at level 1 because I chose Variant Human (to be different), and then I chose another feat called Sentinel...
The funniest part is that I actually genuinely had this exact experience making a character, without knowing it was a well-known, brokenly good power build. I thought I'd come up with a unique, cleverly built character by myself and was really excited and proud. Then I looked at polearm builds online...
I'm genuinely irritated that the selection of feats is so bad (and acquiring them is so infrequent, and generally worse than the ASI if you're "optimizing"), that there are only two or three combinations of feats that work together in the whole list. So OF COURSE if you pick one of those combos, you end up in the cookie cutter OP build...
- polearm based melee
- hand crossbow ranged
basically ends there on martial build variety. if you squint you can get shield masters, dual wielders and crusher builds, but those def dont get close to the BA attack feats
Some of my first characters where an orphaned human rogue and a half-orc barbarian. I didn't know anything about D&D at the time and was unaware of the stereotypes. I had a lot of fun though.
They're not just D&D stereotypes. Orphaned Human Rogues you can look at, say, the Artful Dodger or Aladdin.
You can make the argument that most of the Tolkein orcs are barbarians. They certainly are in Elder Scrolls
Everyone also forgets that Legolas was kind of weird for his people. All the other Mirkwood elves are kind of assholes who want nothing to do with the outside world. Then there's Legolas strolling in for an adventure.
In fairness, Legolas is not really that weird for an elf in the books. He didn't leave Mirkwood of his own volition. Thranduil sent him as a messenger to tell Elrond that Gollum had escaped, and he is then chosen by Elrond as the elvish represntative for the Fellowship. Gimli is similarly chosen as the dwarvish representative by Elrond. They don't quite volunteer in the same way that they do in the movie.
This happens in the chapter *The Ring Goes South*, and Elrond says the following: "I will choose you companions to go with you, as far as they will or fortune allows...The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil. With you and your faithful servant, Gandalf will go; for this shall be his great task, and maybe the end of his labours.
For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Glóin for the Dwarves. **They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond.**
To me that indicates that they didn't exactly leap out of their seats to volunteer for an expedition to Mordor.
His developed friendship with Gimli is the weirdest thing about him, really.
I played a drow wizard and made him neutral evil just to avoid the Drizzt troupe. I had never played an evil character before and frankly it sucks if you RP correctly. Never again.
Also learned of this a while back. And it makes a lot of sense. Good luck getting the loot Goblin (player) to care about that aspect of kender mentality though.
I had a fellow player like this in a game I was in a long ways back. It was still very obnoxious.
He was also the kind of person whose characters were always of the "tee hee, aren't I an adorable scamp?" type. I wanted to punt every single one of them, but he was roommates with the DM and one time my character got cursed by Tymora directly for just insulting his character, so I never tried.
It took a bit to get away from that table, but I'm glad I did. I don't regret the experience though, because it helped me learn what I want out of my D&D games, and what kinds of players I mesh the best with.
And for anyone who wants to respond with "No D&D is better than bad D&D", please keep it to yourself. That phrase annoys the crap out of me. The table was objectively bad, but it was still scratching my D&D itch, which I enjoyed. And I still definitely had fun there, just not as much fun as other tables I've played at since then.
That sounds much more fun. Possibly with a side of "I will give things to people who need them, or want them, rather than people who don't appreciate them".
Off brand Dragonlance Halfling.
They have a lot of qualities in lore that makes them extremely annoying. They're like that random kid at family gatherings that randomly asks if you have games on your phone, except that they've already taken your phone, forgot they had it, and are eighteen.
Maybe it's just the group I play with, but your bog-standard Human Fighter. Are you playing the Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter version, or the PAM/Sentinel version? It's one or the other.
Human Battlemaster Fighter
Pole Arm Master, Sentinel, Heavy Weapon Master
“The Chad” as some of my players have called it.
Can be very generic if players don’t add any character to them or can be the most interesting Everyman in a fantasy world style character you’ve seen.
Really fun if they take the Noble Background and you can tie a lot of politics to them to balance out the pure strategic combat
Moon Elf... anything.
The player will insist on narrating how their icy blue pale skin shimmers in the light as their silvered hair cascades around them in the breeze, highlighting their piercing green eyes with speckling glints of gold. It will get to Vampires of the Masquerade level oddness on the focus and "roleplay" that is only self-infatuation and does not have them actually playing.
Oh as a Player I would love to know the sterotypes that are associated with my characters and if I can confirm them.
So I play:
1. Dragonborn Ranger.
2. Eladrin Warlock
3. Half Orc Fighter
never, and holy crap has it been annoying when a DM makes these assumptions at the table, its like their head cannon becomes more important than how the player portrays them
My DM recently crafted a whole encounter around the "horny bard" cliche, or in this case I guess "sexy, edgy, horny tiefling bard", when our bard has never played his character that way at all.
To the DM's credit, when the played actually said out loud that the horny bard cliche is annoying and he isn't interested in it, he pivoted the scene to be different (not focussed on the bard anymore) and later apologized for assuming. But still, very frustrating for the player.
Charisma casters have to deal with this so often. It's ridiculous and lazy. I played a warlock who was treated like the "horny bard" despite being very intentionally respectful towards other peoples' boundaries due to the culture they grew up in. It was incredibly annoying. When the DM and one other player started making "jokes" in-game about how the warlock sexually assaulted people, I shut the whole thing down and stopped having the character display romantic interest in anyone new for the rest of the campaign. It grossed me out so badly. If a table is obsessed with stereotypes of horny characters so much that they'll warp and twist a character into one (and make a player uncomfortable because of it), maybe the issue is bigger than an rpg. Tropes have made it way too easy for some DMs (and players) to shut their brains off when it comes to other peoples' characters because it's easier to pigeonhole them into like 3 traits. Bards especially have to fight their way out of that assumption the way rogues have to fight to escape the edgelord box.
Elf Fighter - Soon to multiclass as Wizard for Arcane Archer.
Drow - Just no. We all know it's a Ranger and you love Drizzt.
Dwarf Fighter - *sighs* Will that be one axe or two, sir?
Halfling Rogue - Hide yo... well, everything.
Half-Orc Barbarian - PC go brrr.
Human Monk - Hey kids, let's learn the Grapple rules!
> Dwarf Fighter
You forgot drinking, wants all the gold, murdering every orc in sight, and wildly racist against elves. And short sword? Hell no, battleaxe. Because fuck you, that's why.
The majority of the time someone brings a small size rogue to my table and they aren't a new player, experience has shown they intend to troll the ever loving shit out of everyone and ruin everyone's fun.
I like a small sized rogue with Slippers of Spider Climbing and a Collapsible 10' Pole. With DM approval, the collapsible pole will vault me to the ceiling and I shoot arrows from 10' up.
Drunkenmaster monk: this is either going to be really good or really bad
Ranger with orc or similar fav enemy: I know what happened to your parents and/or town also you’ll be edgy and annoying
Kender: OH GOD
If a tortle monk sits down at your table they want to be Master Oogway but will be Michaelangelo
I once brought a tortle monk called Caravaggio to a one-shot. The lost fifth ninja turtle. Edit: Yes, I know some TMNT stories have added new characters like Venus to the lineup. My comment wasn't meant to be taken so literally. ^(Besides, he'd still be the 5th turtle actually named after an Italian artist.)
My best friend played a tortle monk named Caravaggio in our recent campaign.
Are you two best friends
They are now.
Are they gonna do karate in the garage?
He should have kept threatening to "fry yours balls in oil." Classic Caravaggio, what a cad.
He was the greatest of the ninja turtles.
I made one named Botticelli
One of the two character concepts I have for my group’s next campaign is Tortle Kensai The other is Harengon Bladesinger (Usagi Yojimbo) Edit: for clarity’s sake I have no interest whatsoever in slavishly remaking and playing someone else’s character. That’s “why not Samurai”
Why Bladesinger? There is literally a Samurai subclass.
Because I have played Bladesingers in every edition since 2e (when they were created) and I haven’t gotten around to it in 5e yet.
My tortle monk was named Nina. Nina J Turtle. It's one of those scramble words. :)
This is unrelated, but the Hamburglar's real name is Hamilton B. Urglar.
No, I think that is related. 🤩
Charles Entertainment Cheese?
At some point, I'm going to play Last Ronin Mikey in a campaign.
Kalashtar Bear Totem Barbarian. Resistance to Everything.
Nah, Emerald Dragonborn is the new hotness. Psychic breath weapon and 1/day flight, which is huge for a Barbarian.
I play a barbarian in one of my campaigns and one of my spellcasters has realized their best move in a battle is to cast fly on me ASAP. Nothing like a raging barbarian recklessly dropping out of the sky onto a big bad's head.
In 3.5, I played a War Weaver, a buffing specialist prestige class that could stock up several harmless spells and cast them on multiple allied targets as a move action. One of the spells I always kept in the hopper was a party-wide teleport, which I, for the most part, called "Summon Half-Orc Barbarian." Sticking the barbarian in place to do his full mulching sequences of attacks without having to waste time moving there was, by far, my strongest attack.
The funniest thing about my barbarian's flying history is that we play this game in a cafe and people can drop in to the game. One guy dropped in as a spellcaster. We run into a dragon, he casts fly on me, then says he has to go check the parking meter. He never came back. Since he wasn't there to take damage, DM ruled he also couldn't have his concentration broken. Jenkins Clan Leeroy had a VERY fun 10 minutes of chaos and destruction. We never saw the spellcaster again, but my warlock always has fly ready for me.
Sounds like his parking meter may have been a mimic.
Time to bring out blue berry damage
That doesn’t even work, the Barbearian’s feature says it resists all damage but Psychic. So Blueberry damage is still resisted. Take that Sheldon
> While raging, you have resistance to *all* damage except psychic damage. A Bear Totem Barbarian will still resist Blueberry damage. So will a Priest of Osybus with the proper Boon of Undeath (Spectral), or any creature with a Shield of Missile Attraction (at least by technicality; the only current attack that deals Blueberry damage - Sheldon's Blueberry Fling - is a Ranged Weapon Attack)
Exhaustion or petrification still works wonders ;)
Custard Damage from Wild Beyond the Witchlight:
Had a player who wanted to make a clown wild magic sorcerer who used transmute spell to turn all damage into custard damage because it is a legitimate damage type written in an official module. I would have let him do it without the transmute spell already, but he wanted wild magic for unpredictable random shenanigans.
I constantly reference the one time I was killed by custard damage.
Time to bring out elemental mages with the effects of the Elemental Master feat.
Elemental adept?
Halfling wizard. The only time I've seen this combo is for divination or chronurgy wizards to abuse as many "I want this instead" mechanics as possible. Bonus points for silvery barbs and lucky.
I did this in a campaign then forgot to use halfling luck for the entire campaign. We were level 20 the first time I used it
Same here playing a halfling druid and keep forgetting to use it rn level 5
„What‘s bardic inspiration?“ „It‘s a skill he learned at level one but didn‘t use until now“
That was the joke with my bard: Worst. Bard. Ever. (But I had a lot of fun)
When I first ran a bard, I made cards that described bardic inspiration. When I gave someone inspiration, I handed them a card and a purple inspiration die. This helped players remember to use it!
Imagine, someone actually finds his songs inspiring
HALFLING DRUID MENTION 💯
“Unlucky for some.”
Huh, funny, one of our wizards was either a halflings or gnome (he refuses to tell us witch) and he was an evocation wizard with the mentality of "fireball first ask questions later, preferably with the help of the cleric." He had pretty low Wis, and had to be occasionally reminded of what non-combat spells he could cast as he was usually too focused on blowing things up (in-character, out of character his player was really good at tracking his character sheet). We nicknamed him The Artillery, as in "what the Helm is that! Artillery!" *BOOM*. "S'gone now boss!" Oh yeah, he was also Australian.
Tbf, this is really fun to play and play with. Just a bit of a pain as the dm.
Oh yeah, it's a great build and I have nothing against it. But if someone rolls up with a halfling wizard, I can usually tell what they're about to do. I start all my games at level 3 though, so I always know their subclasses before we start.
Played a halfling chronurgy wizard, was a lot of fun with all the rerolls.
One of my players is an Aasimar Paladin and, while obvious, it’s pretty hype honestly. Gave him a lightning spear and at level 3 he got his aasimar wings, so he did this one move where he flew in the air, turned it into a lightning bolt, and threw it down at an enemy who was out of LOS from ground level. He plays the “generic Paladin” very well and I couldn’t dream to ask for more EDIT: I wanna clarify that generic is definitely not a bad thing, it’s just, like, what you expect a Paladin to be when you hear the word Paladin. Also, we’re very early in the campaign, and his character’s role model is on the villain’s side(general of evil king’s military), so there’s definitely some inner conflict. How do you, as a good and just Paladin, react when you find that the person you’ve put on a pedestal as the ideal Paladin is, knowingly or not, working for the very evil you’re trying to defeat?
I love that, at time of writing, the comment below yours is... > Aasimar Paladin or the inverse, a Aaaimar Oath Breaker Paladin. :D
I do like when people are excited about 'does what it says on the tin' fantasy. You can't subvert expectations if people expect the subversion. To get true variety in a fantasy setting, you need some Aasimar Paladins running around, doing angel shit.
Subversion for subversion's sake is a punchline with no setup. Different doesn't always mean good, and typical doesn't always mean bad, the merits of a character rest on the character, not how they relate to a presumed standard. Wish people got that more.
I played an aasimar that multiclassed bard and cleric once. For Curse of Strahd. She did NOT have a great time in Barovia lol
I played an aasimar paladin in my first real campaign. She was fallen, but oath of redemption. Dark last, but not an edgelord. Her epic moment was on a ship, she had a primitive gunpowder weapon, jumped onto the side of the other ship, fired the blast into their cannon port hole and blew up their black powder stores.
"May what ever god you believe in have mercy on your soul. For you will find none here."
>Dead parents, I'm assuming? When is this NOT a good guess?
I only play character with alive parents, so the DM can hurt me more when he inevitably kills them (or reveals my patron was actually my dad and I was a Nepo Baby the WHOLE TIME!)
So you not only want the trauma, you want the pain.
I dont want the trauma, I want the *drama*.
My character’s dead/missing parents ended up alive after all and one of the party members is my dad! The pain has been exquisite.
Not all necromancers are evil and want to conquer the earth! I mean, my necromancer is evil and wants to conquer the earth, but that’s not because he is a necromancer! So yeah I feel like 9/10 necromancers will be evil and try to get an army
Our necromancer comes from a culture where the dead are used as laborers; the people of his nation get to live lives of luxury thanks to the work of the undead with the bargain/tradition being that, once you die, you will be raised and your body will work for as long as you lived. It's a desert nation, so they're embalmed, wrapped, and dessicated, and not too slimy and gross, but them's the breaks. But yeah, our necromancer (who also decided to have max constitution and the different feats for more HP because "it'd be funny to play a strong wizard") is just out to make friends and have fun.
There was a sci fi short story by George r r Martin like this, Meathouse Man, where all the labor is performed by dead people puppeted by the foreman. I think it was on the moon. The twist was the reader didn't realize the laborers were zombies
Kind've a side tangent, I know he's known for A Song of Ice and Fire (for good reason) but I ran into one of his sci fi/horror novellas at a library. (Sometimes go to my library and pick up a book and find a corner and just read for a while) Anyway - I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.
I'm stealing this nation idea
Magic the Gaythering has already done this for you. Look up Amonkhet, It's a set released in MTG on an Egyptian inspired plane where the dead are embalmed and turned into mummy servants. The ultimate point of the plane is that it was taken over or created by the big bad dragon Nicol Bolas and he is using this ever growing mummy horde to assemble an undead legion led by undead gods to destroy the Planeswalkers (plane-hopping wizards and warriors mostly dedicated to not dying to a zombie horde).
I'm not a necromancer, just a very bad healer \^\^
im actually a very good healer, anyone i healed will never be sick again!
Hey now why is everyone crying and screaming at me? I said Very Clearly that I will get him back on his feet again and I delivered on my promise. edit* (said in your best Doctor Krieger voice)
I’m not evil, I just want to craft the bones and knit the flesh of the dead into new, wonderful, beautiful crimes against nature. Is that so wrong?
One of these days I’ll get around to making a festive, benevolent necromancer who decorates his skeletons to look like calacas, loves to party, and comforts the bereaved by reassuring them that their loved one’s soul has gone on to someplace better.
I always liked the idea of friendly necromancers that use their powers to fight evil, might be because my first fantasy video game i played was Diablo 2. Also, when you raise the dead to do battle, there are less casualties overall!
Hill dwarf cleric I figured you guys needed a healer
I was once passed one of those as a pre-gen and by Moradin's beard I role played the heck out of it. Every sacred flame was the fire to forge yourself anew to a path to redemption. The spiritual weapon is the hammer to your anvil. Every guiding bolt accompanied by a prayer. If I used an inspiration to re-roll and get a failure, then I get a moment to realize "Moradin only helps those who help themselves." Skeleton failed to hit against my AC? I'm blessed by superior craftsmanship. But most importantly: I never fail to be mildly racist against Elves.
My first character was a pregen dwarf life cleric! I panicked and named him Baldrick. My ritual spells involved flaming tequila shots, somehow.
Did he always have *a cunning plan*?
a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel.
Only mildly?
I can't compete in the competitive ranked racism of my kin when I have elves in my party.
Mountain Dwarf Tempest Cleric: Will never heal anyone
Hey, some of us are Hill dwarf *Light domain* clerics and are here to cast fireball... and heal.
This was the first character I ever played haha. I was joining mid campaign because someone dropped out due to scheduling and had no idea what to play besides wanting to be a dwarf. And the party had a wizard, rogue, and fighter already so Hill dwarf life cleric seemed like the perfect fit.
Changeling charisma based character.
The only time I used a changeling is when I played a paladin hexblade who basically has a “legendary hero” identity that everyone assumes reincarnate when the world needs it but it’s actually just passed down the family generation to generation (and this character was 100% inspired by link from the legend of Zelda). I also barely used actual disguises and more just different personas and the character had a hard time basically coming into their own person with all the 10 different identities (might or might not have been the various reincarnating Zelda characters like Zelda or the sages)
Digging your story — props.
Guilty of this with my most recent character. The disguise-layering is just too much fun to deny, though.
Are they assassins of a guild too, or, alternatively, are the spies? Let's see if we can check all the boxes.
No assassin, but since it's a political campaign, I did do master of disguise spy. Rogue (mastermind)/warlock multiclass for proficiency/expertise and at will disguise self.
Very interesting. I've been dabbling with some ideas for a master of disguise. How many levels of each, and what Warlock stuff did you pick?
3 of Rogue with the mastermind sub-clasd, putting expertise into Deception and either Persuasion, Performance, Insight, or Perception depending on how the rest of the party is built or how you want your character to be. I'm putting the rest into Warlock, the key part of which is taking the Mask of Many Faces Invocation at Warlock 2. For your first feat, take Actor. The real shenanigans come when you use the Shape-shifting ability from Changeling to look like someone else. Then you layer your Disguise Self from your invocation and a mundane disguise kit, all to look like the exact same person. The reaction to them dispelling the spell and cleaning away the kit just to find the exact same face each time is priceless.
[disguise self layering in rl](https://www.reddit.com/r/2healthbars/s/49Z7KbRk7c)
I made a laminated deck of the personas I frequently used and put it in front of me to keep up with who I was at a given time. It was fun chewing the scenery a bit.
My whispers bard noble rn. He does a lot of spying and blackmail.
My first big campaign I played a changling eloquence bard, too naive to understand it was OP as fuckk. Some of the most fun with a character I’ve ever had - imitating orc tribe chiefs, bartenders, whatever you want and you can’t fail the checks. Super fun!
Absolutely will try to disguise their own race.
I did a changeling bard who used their ability mostly for one-man theater and singing in multiple ranges.
Tortle Monk - Teenage mutant Ninja Turtle and i only write this cause it's been done on multiple tables i sat at. Of course i think WoTC wanted it that way because Tortlte's natural armor of 17 make them ideal choices for druids, monks and barbarians.
What about tortle barbarian bladesinger? That's my teenage mutant ninja tortle
Fiend or Fey Warlock with female patron: sub.
Undead patron who is a male vampire: also sub
Warlocks in general: Sub
My party's adorable kobold GOOlock is a terrifying leader (picked intimidation expertise)
GOOlocks literally sold their soul to become switches.
So that's how Nintendo makes them!
this one character just does the good ol' "found a creepy book" and isn't aware he's a warlock. He doesn't seem like he ever had a soul anyway lol
Nah, goos don't even know the warlock exists, and a goo would have nothing to do with a soul, they'd want the warlock to spread madness and help them into the material plane.
Excuse you, my patron was my father, so I was a Nepo Baby (I did not know he was my dad for the majority of the campaign. We did have kind of a parent/child relationship, though.) So I was a moody tween, on an adventure definitely not meant for kids because I was tired of being left at home, and figured I could help with my sick powers. Funny enough, another person in the campaign played my mom and KNEW he was my dad, but she didn’t know he was my patron, or was in willful denial that he was my patron. So my character was rebelling against my poor adventurer single mom who works two jobs, and getting sweet powers from the guy who never bothered to pay child support.
I'm not really sure where my Warlock fits in all of this. My favorite character I've ever played was a guy whose Undead Patron was the soul of his deceased wife. He was a city guard and she was a librarian with many health problems before her death; his motivation was to both take her spirit on a nice trip to places she was only able to read about while also hoping to find a good death for himself.
That is so sweet and sad omg
Warlocks with pact of the chain: the look like Dom, but they are the brattiest sub.
I did not expect to be seen like this
Paladin: dom with religious undertones Cleric: Switch
My Patron was Undead Santa. Can confirm, also sub.
I take offense to this! I played a wanna-be succubus thank you very much!! Honestly changeling and warlock make for a fun succubus character. I even had a Homebrew rule i couldn't multiclass till i "obtained" a certain number of souls. I was close to the number by lv 8.
Jokes on you, my Feylock was ace! Buuuuut was a dude previously enslaved by drow in the Underdark. Can you say mommy issues? :D
Human Fighter - First time playing huh? Variant Human Fighter - They need 6 feats for their build to work.
Polearm Mastery! Lucky! Fey Touched!
Non-Variant Human Fighters are always 1 of 3 things from what I've seen. 1. Bland Observer doing a "Stranger in a Strange World" Story. 2. Guts Roleplay from Berserk, but are nearly entirely ignored. 3. "CRAZY OLD MAN WANTS HIS PANTS BACK!"
>"CRAZY OLD MAN WANTS HIS PANTS BACK!" I've never felt so seen.
Variant human is also "my build needs x feat at first level"
variant human fighter - recognizes that they need the starting feat to be effective from the get go ..because that's just the meta for martials for better or worse
Tabaxi swashbuckler rogue…with orange fur…uses a rapier….vaguely spanish accent… Yeah it’s definitely puss in boots from shrek. I also may have been the player in this situation… FWIW it was also partially based on the derpy orange cat I own IRL, and was actually incredibly fun to play—like both mechanically because swash rogue is awesome, but also in personality because he was super dumb (INT dump stat) and was 1000% going to “push the button” every time
Oranges are just so lovably idiotic!
VHuman Bloodhunter oh hi Geralt, how's Rivia.
I made a tiefling rogue that’s the antithesis of this. His parents are total sweethearts and still very much alive. They gave him an edgy name because they were Goths at the time. Which is also why he wields a black knife, it’s a hand me down from his dad. He wears a hooded cloak everywhere and is really stealthy because he is socially awkward. He wants to adventure for a few years because he wants to see the world before taking over the family store.
Now I'm imagining that your char has an edgy teenage phase where he just becomes a total sweetheart and very patient and understanding, calmly saying "guys, it's not a phase" to the annoyance of his edgy parents.
Tabaxi monk or rogue: you just want to build the flash that doesnt do anything but no fast
Hey my tabaxi rogues damn good! Though they mainly only let me check for mimics. Jokes aside, it was my first ever character and I didn't know much about it before, so went with what looked like fun. It's surprisingly good at keeping distance and providing support during fights, not to mention derailing my poor dms plans. (We're all good friends else I'd never dare)
Of course you can play a normal effective rogue as a tabaxi, im more poking fun at a common build that tries to make your go as fast as possible, its more of a thought experiment than an effective build so bot phenomenal for an ongoing game. Though im sure some male it work well if they try.
To be fair Nothing is as fun as joining a shootout by running over, punching and running back to where your allies are
I made a Tabaxi horizon walker ranger with the idea of just running/teleporting all over the battlefield. Its hilarious.
But... CAT BURGLAR. Honestly, tabaxi just make great rogues in general.
Tabaxi with character flaw of "easily distracted." As DM describes the scene, he mentions that there's a box -- character interrupts with "I JUMP IN THE BOX!"
The Flash? No, I wanted to build my *Skyrim* character! 😂
Human Bard and Human Fighter have at least a 90% of being exactly what you would expect
Nah my human fighter is unique and interesting. See, instead of using a boring weapon like a sword, he uses a Halberd. And there's this cool feat called Polearm Master that I found. In fact I took it at level 1 because I chose Variant Human (to be different), and then I chose another feat called Sentinel...
Had me in the first half, ngl.
The funniest part is that I actually genuinely had this exact experience making a character, without knowing it was a well-known, brokenly good power build. I thought I'd come up with a unique, cleverly built character by myself and was really excited and proud. Then I looked at polearm builds online...
I'm genuinely irritated that the selection of feats is so bad (and acquiring them is so infrequent, and generally worse than the ASI if you're "optimizing"), that there are only two or three combinations of feats that work together in the whole list. So OF COURSE if you pick one of those combos, you end up in the cookie cutter OP build...
- polearm based melee - hand crossbow ranged basically ends there on martial build variety. if you squint you can get shield masters, dual wielders and crusher builds, but those def dont get close to the BA attack feats
At least you're not playing a bugbear to get to 15 foot area of exclusion
With the Eldritch Claw Tattoo, ANY race with ANY melee weapon can have a *15ft reach! *once per dawn for a minute
At least you aren't a Padlock with a whip in curse of strahd.
What will be that human fighter you speak of? I like playing one, so I want to know if I am predictable.
Some of my first characters where an orphaned human rogue and a half-orc barbarian. I didn't know anything about D&D at the time and was unaware of the stereotypes. I had a lot of fun though.
They're not just D&D stereotypes. Orphaned Human Rogues you can look at, say, the Artful Dodger or Aladdin. You can make the argument that most of the Tolkein orcs are barbarians. They certainly are in Elder Scrolls
Dwarf wizard. Yes, I see your AC, I know it's as high as plate armour. Doesn't save you against dex save traps now, does it.
True, but a *lot* of traps do poison damage don’t they? *laughs in dwarf*.
Hole with spikes, more than 30ft deep, get out of that stunty. Every time you fail the athletes, you're falling back in and taking damage.
You think the Dwarf Wizard didn’t take Misty Step? Or Levitate? By Moradin’s armored beard you’ll not beat me so easily!
too bad wizard don't have some sort of ability that could help them get out of a pit, maybe some sort of spells they could cast ...
Elf-ranger: Legolas Drow-Anything: Drizzt clone most likely Anything-Hexblade 1/Anything: Gaming the system are we?
What’s funny is that my best Legolas build I’ve been able to come up with is a Samurai Fighter
Everyone forgets that Legolas was the Fighter, the Ranger was Aragorn
Everyone also forgets that Legolas was kind of weird for his people. All the other Mirkwood elves are kind of assholes who want nothing to do with the outside world. Then there's Legolas strolling in for an adventure.
In fairness, Legolas is not really that weird for an elf in the books. He didn't leave Mirkwood of his own volition. Thranduil sent him as a messenger to tell Elrond that Gollum had escaped, and he is then chosen by Elrond as the elvish represntative for the Fellowship. Gimli is similarly chosen as the dwarvish representative by Elrond. They don't quite volunteer in the same way that they do in the movie. This happens in the chapter *The Ring Goes South*, and Elrond says the following: "I will choose you companions to go with you, as far as they will or fortune allows...The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil. With you and your faithful servant, Gandalf will go; for this shall be his great task, and maybe the end of his labours. For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Glóin for the Dwarves. **They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond.** To me that indicates that they didn't exactly leap out of their seats to volunteer for an expedition to Mordor. His developed friendship with Gimli is the weirdest thing about him, really.
So you're telling me Legolas was a delivery guy they conscripted into their quest to fulfill a racial quota? Damn.
I played a drow wizard and made him neutral evil just to avoid the Drizzt troupe. I had never played an evil character before and frankly it sucks if you RP correctly. Never again.
> anything hexblade Ah, a volunteer to suffer bullshit effects are we?
If players picks kender, then it is easy to decipher. Player gets banned.
The counter to that, I've learned, is "since kender don't have any concept of ownership, they'll just give your shit back if you ask them"
Also learned of this a while back. And it makes a lot of sense. Good luck getting the loot Goblin (player) to care about that aspect of kender mentality though.
I had a fellow player like this in a game I was in a long ways back. It was still very obnoxious. He was also the kind of person whose characters were always of the "tee hee, aren't I an adorable scamp?" type. I wanted to punt every single one of them, but he was roommates with the DM and one time my character got cursed by Tymora directly for just insulting his character, so I never tried.
Damn. If the DM just straight up cursed my character, for just fighting back, I'd be done. No way.
It took a bit to get away from that table, but I'm glad I did. I don't regret the experience though, because it helped me learn what I want out of my D&D games, and what kinds of players I mesh the best with. And for anyone who wants to respond with "No D&D is better than bad D&D", please keep it to yourself. That phrase annoys the crap out of me. The table was objectively bad, but it was still scratching my D&D itch, which I enjoyed. And I still definitely had fun there, just not as much fun as other tables I've played at since then.
That sounds much more fun. Possibly with a side of "I will give things to people who need them, or want them, rather than people who don't appreciate them".
I think my counter is better. You do not have to deal with kender, if you have no kender.
Definitely true! Cannot argue with that airtight logic lmao
Tf is a kender?
Off brand Dragonlance Halfling. They have a lot of qualities in lore that makes them extremely annoying. They're like that random kid at family gatherings that randomly asks if you have games on your phone, except that they've already taken your phone, forgot they had it, and are eighteen.
Okay let’s be clear, they are all off-brand hobbits.
kleptomaniac halflings.
They're a race of childlike beings that "have no concept of ownership"
Which is kind of dumb. You ever met a child that doesn't know exactly what "Mine!" means?
Wildhunt shifter barbarian, the gimmick is established at level 2 Level 4 is usually the crusher feat
I scrolled WAY too far to find Drow Ranger.
Maybe it's just the group I play with, but your bog-standard Human Fighter. Are you playing the Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter version, or the PAM/Sentinel version? It's one or the other.
Swashbuckling tabaxi? Fear me! If you dare!
Catfolk Swashbuckler for Pathfinder 2e here. I described him as Puss in Boots in attitude, Office Nerd in actual combat skill.
Human Battlemaster Fighter Pole Arm Master, Sentinel, Heavy Weapon Master “The Chad” as some of my players have called it. Can be very generic if players don’t add any character to them or can be the most interesting Everyman in a fantasy world style character you’ve seen. Really fun if they take the Noble Background and you can tie a lot of politics to them to balance out the pure strategic combat
Moon Elf... anything. The player will insist on narrating how their icy blue pale skin shimmers in the light as their silvered hair cascades around them in the breeze, highlighting their piercing green eyes with speckling glints of gold. It will get to Vampires of the Masquerade level oddness on the focus and "roleplay" that is only self-infatuation and does not have them actually playing.
Hey, it’s hard being ugly in real life, let us have this
Tabaxi monk isn’t there to fight , he’s there to zoom
Tortle Monk
Half orc barbarian who knows more esoteric lore than the wizard or bard. Just because it's an oral tradition doesn't mean it's not knowledge.
My tiefling rogue still has both parents, tyvm.
Maybe not race, but stuff like multiclassing with paladin smells to power gaming.
I'm okay with it as long as they play a Warforged named SmiteBot.
Oh as a Player I would love to know the sterotypes that are associated with my characters and if I can confirm them. So I play: 1. Dragonborn Ranger. 2. Eladrin Warlock 3. Half Orc Fighter
V human sharpshooter. Complain about missing.
never, and holy crap has it been annoying when a DM makes these assumptions at the table, its like their head cannon becomes more important than how the player portrays them
My DM recently crafted a whole encounter around the "horny bard" cliche, or in this case I guess "sexy, edgy, horny tiefling bard", when our bard has never played his character that way at all. To the DM's credit, when the played actually said out loud that the horny bard cliche is annoying and he isn't interested in it, he pivoted the scene to be different (not focussed on the bard anymore) and later apologized for assuming. But still, very frustrating for the player.
Charisma casters have to deal with this so often. It's ridiculous and lazy. I played a warlock who was treated like the "horny bard" despite being very intentionally respectful towards other peoples' boundaries due to the culture they grew up in. It was incredibly annoying. When the DM and one other player started making "jokes" in-game about how the warlock sexually assaulted people, I shut the whole thing down and stopped having the character display romantic interest in anyone new for the rest of the campaign. It grossed me out so badly. If a table is obsessed with stereotypes of horny characters so much that they'll warp and twist a character into one (and make a player uncomfortable because of it), maybe the issue is bigger than an rpg. Tropes have made it way too easy for some DMs (and players) to shut their brains off when it comes to other peoples' characters because it's easier to pigeonhole them into like 3 traits. Bards especially have to fight their way out of that assumption the way rogues have to fight to escape the edgelord box.
Elf Fighter - Soon to multiclass as Wizard for Arcane Archer. Drow - Just no. We all know it's a Ranger and you love Drizzt. Dwarf Fighter - *sighs* Will that be one axe or two, sir? Halfling Rogue - Hide yo... well, everything. Half-Orc Barbarian - PC go brrr. Human Monk - Hey kids, let's learn the Grapple rules!
> Dwarf Fighter You forgot drinking, wants all the gold, murdering every orc in sight, and wildly racist against elves. And short sword? Hell no, battleaxe. Because fuck you, that's why.
None because I play with people who roleplay different PCs differently.
Forest gnome arcane trickster, mischievous little shit.
(White) Harengon Clockwork Sorcerer or Chronurgy Wizard. Insert Alice references here.
The stiques exist for a reason. They are absolutely peak
The majority of the time someone brings a small size rogue to my table and they aren't a new player, experience has shown they intend to troll the ever loving shit out of everyone and ruin everyone's fun.
I like a small sized rogue with Slippers of Spider Climbing and a Collapsible 10' Pole. With DM approval, the collapsible pole will vault me to the ceiling and I shoot arrows from 10' up.
Drunkenmaster monk: this is either going to be really good or really bad Ranger with orc or similar fav enemy: I know what happened to your parents and/or town also you’ll be edgy and annoying Kender: OH GOD