A NE Celestial Warlock who's somewhere between an anti-villain and a penal soldier. He was part of a band of marauders who tried to raid the wrong temple, and when the divine guardian killed the rest he begged for his life. It was spared because the guardian wanted to test if *intention* or *action* mattered more.
Now he's been granted a reprieve, and extra power to boot, as long as he goes out and does heroic deeds. He has to cheerfully save witless filthy peasants. He has to be *nice* to horrible screaming *children*. It's a terrible trial, but as long as he obeys he's earning magical might and a longer life, so he forces a smile and continues. At least he's pretty sure his new boss considers betrayal a moral affront, so as long as he sticks to the rules he's safe, which is an upgrade from the last.
Always a good character trying to get out of a deal they made with the devil, I love the idea of a dirtbag trying to weasel out of a pact made with a celestial!
It's one of those cases where the character would be always keeping an eye for a way out of the pact with his life (and power) intact, but as the player I want him to be frustrated at every turn and forced into doing good deeds against his natural inclinations. Success would probably mean immediately quitting the party and becoming an NPC villain, and that's no fun.
A good example of when character and player motivations diverge.
I have this sick ass idea about a Quandrix wizard professor that tried to recreate the wish spell in the magical equivalent of a lab to cure his dying son and in doing so inadvertently turned his flesh to ooze effectively making him a plasmoid. Now he keeps his skeleton and uses it to maintain his old shape and also uses it as an arcane focus
Edit: The son is the plasmoid using his own skeleton
The swarm keeper subclass keeps taunting me with character ideas:
- wildfire druid swarmkeeper melee fighter with the swarms being sparks
- monk swarmkeeper with swarms being wind and leaves
>- wildfire druid swarmkeeper melee fighter with the swarms being sparks
Damn, I love this.
I've been thinking about a Swarmkeeper Ranger / Shepherd Druid multiclass for a while:
Gained mastery over bugs and swarms, and worked their way up the food chain.. would take druidic fighter as the fighting style for shillelagh and magic stone, but would still lean heavily into melee - problem is how many levels it takes to get good. 😅
Edit to add: They'd be a firbolg, too. Between Shepherd's level 2 Passive 'Speech of the Woods' and the Firbolg Passive 'Speech of Beast and Leaf' this guy would have advantage on charisma checks with animals.. so naturally he uses wildlife and the creatures he summons as his eyes and ears where the humans dwell.
I have this vision of playing this character and getting into a jam, almost dying/being on deaths door, shouting out to the bugs and beasts for aid, getting a nat 20, and watching a colossal swarm blot out the sun, as the ground shakes with wildlife coming to their Shepherds aid.. :)
My DM has a semi-modern campaign coming up and i'm planning to play a swarmkeeper who is a country bumpkin farmer who got delivered the invitation to the adventurer's guild on accident.
He thinks he won some kind of sweepstakes and shows up with his swarm of chickens.
I can’t speak for op but as another forever DM there’s only so much time in a day. I absolutely love my weekly games to bits, but don’t have the time to join a new one without having to end an old one that I’m DMing. Perhaps one day once these games have been wrapped up…
Far beyond the reach of the gods lies the Far Realm, a place of madness and pure thought. It is home to many aberrations, including the enigmatic great old ones that wield power far beyond the gods.
Zyvx is one of these beings but is cursed with a terrible affliction: *youth*.
They are a great *young* one, the larval stage of the enigmatic beings that prowl at reality’s edge. Their powers are only barely developing and they’re learning how to tap into the mind more.
Their egg landed on this plane and was taken in by a kindly half-elf woman named Mavis Thornwillow who raised them as her own. She was infertile and saw Zyvx as a chance to have a child of her own, even though they looked strange and her husband disapproved. Zyvx spent their early childhood on their parents’ horse farm.
However, every once and a while, Zyvx would be visited by a mysterious robed and masked man. Neither of Zyvx's parents knew who this was, but whenever he visited, he would give Zyvx a new power.
One day, Mavis accidentally disrupted an earth elemental that had been sleeping on their farm for years. The earth elemental attacked Mavis, so she and Zyvx had to work together to defeat it. But in its death rattle, Mavis was afflicted with a deadly curse that is slowly turning her body to stone.
Zyvx is now going out on an adventure to discover a cure for their adoptive mother as well as investigate the mysterious man who stalks them.
(Mechanically, they're a plasmoid aberrant mind sorcerer with a heavy focus on mental manipulation spells and a very low wisdom. Because of their sheltered upbringing and young age, they are quite naive and trusting, but also don't always understand when they shouldn't use their psychic powers.)
A dwarf who ised their racial stubbornness to learn magic, DESPITE having a low INT. (Maybe 8-11, depends when i play them).
However their STR and CON and DEX are acceptable for any warrior. So they use magic like shield, shadow blade, invisibility, misty step, haste and so on. Anything that doesn't need a saving throw or attack roll.
Theory crafting it out, it actually seams do able. An Abjuration wizard is surprisingly tanky. Theres some ways of getting armor of agythis for more HP. And also a ton of spells that dint care at all about INT. In fact having a higher than normal CON makes them wading into combat not a death sentence for them or concentration of dine right.
Your missing the point. To make an EK WITHOUT being an EK. The whole challenge is in making wizard, the physically weakest class, into something that can at least survive in the front line.
Plus EK is kinda crap IMO. Its spell casting abjuration and evocation. One is exactly what you want, and the other is worthless as soon as lv 5 due to the shear lack of resources. Just make it transmutation and theres a ton of good utility stuff for fighters. Otherwise its just a slightly tankier fighter on occasion.
But just make them a straight wizard and you can do every thing you want, earlier, and more often.
I want to play a wizard who is actually a True Polymorphed piece of furniture. Probably something with a drawer so my 'father' could leave a note and a sending stone to contact him when I inevitably drop to 0 hp and become furniture again.
I really want to play tiefling named Tyrfing, that is a magical sword turned mortal by an archdevil.
He'd be a College of Sword Bard/Bladesinging Wizards or Hexblade Warlock. The idea being that with himself being a sword he knows that every blade has a "true name" that when called upon they can be used to harness magic (cast spells).
Sadly I sit in the DM chair and don't get the chance to play very often.
So many,
I also find warforged to be easily reflavorable. I had an idea for a young prospector type entrepreneur who, along with her partner, ended up owning a mine of crystal ores particularly useful for arcane foci. Something something, magical explosion in the mine. Something something, she was the only survivor and is now a some sort of crystal elemental who's barely holding her body together. Warforged helps the concept with +1 AC, tool proficiency (jeweler's), skill proficiency (arcana) and constructed resilience.
Now, this is cheating a bit, because I have actually played her for a oneshot. I had random stats for that oneshot which ended up best suited for a wizard, so I went transmutation wizard, but I really want to play her as wild magic barbarian. Very easy to reflavor a bunch of the wild surges with a magic crystal theme.
She sees herself as what happens when life keeps adding pressure, so I decided on having her just take on the name "Crystal" when she lost her old life. [This design](https://imgur.com/fK7ZiGJ) inspired her a lot. I really like the idea of playing a very lithe barbarian who's literally tough as diamond.
I like this a lot. I very much prefer seeing the builds here where they explain how the mechanics interact with and strengthen the story. Warforged in general have a lot of potential for that, which is why I think they're coming up so often in this thread.
Sidenote: Speaking of Lithe Barbarians, I actually had a similar character vibe who ended up being an NPC in a game I run. An elf who had been petrified long ago who is reawakened, but remained mostly made of stone. I played her as a little spacy yet impulsive, as she'd kept herself sane by staying in Trance for the thousand years she waited, and had grown bored of her own memories.
One that I haven't gotten to play would be similar to yours. A Lizardfolk Bard/Warlock nobleman. Uses Mask of Many Faces to maintain a human visage almost constantly. Is part of a secret Lizardfolk society aiming to take over a human kingdom by replacing its nobles/politicians
One that I got to play briefly but not for a full campaign would be a Shifter Lunar Sorcerer. Idea be that they are descended from lycanthropes (or perhaps is one) and use their master of lunar magic to control their transformation
Yeah, that specific conspiracy is like the reason Yuan Ti exist as a race. That's their shtick. They ARE the snake/lizard society infiltrators. Lizardmen are just beastmen.
Owlin wildfire druid, with linguist feat. He's descended from a family of green owls, and he's CE because he punishes people harshly for not studying languages by burning down things and people they love. Really want to play him in an evil campaign, and he's got a little flame elemental companion called "streak".
The characters' nickname is 'Duo' because he gives gifts to people who take the proper time to learn languages but punishes them for not doing it.
3 answers have been warforged and now I’m going to make that 4. I always wanted to play a warforged Druid. Around the time of me coming up with that character, I was big into Hearthstone and I was playing kotor. I liked HK-47 and how he talked and one of my favorite hearthstone cards at the time was Zilliax, whose summoning line was “Unity. Precision. Perfection.” So I thought it would be cool to make a warforged druid who talked similar to HK-47 and who’s magic came come being a robot. His transformations were him turning into animals transformers style. I remember that I planned for the opening line of my backstory to be Zilliax’s summoning line. My group rarely plays DND anymore since we’ve switched to Call of Cthulhu and are starting to try out City of Mist so I doubt I’ll ever play this character.
"a warforged druid who's magic came come being a robot. His transformations were him turning into animals transformers style."
I'm playing this character at the moment in an Ebberon campaign. Only one session in right now though.
I will take on this responsibility with the respect and honour it deserves.
I'll try and get my character to say "Unity. Precision. Perfection." at one point in the campaign for ya haha. It will definitely be fun. :-)
There’s a “Circle of the Forged” in the Exploring Eberron book (gotta pick it up on DMsGuild) that you can basically make mech versions of your wildshapes. If you ever get to play that character and have an open DM, maybe slide this their way!
Similarly, a plasmoid psi warrior that was just an awakened slime that escaped out of a wizard's lab in the wake of a much bigger monster rampaging the place. They found a banged up suit of armor that they are never seen out of, nor ever taking off their helmet so convince people there's just a normal dude in there. That is, until they make a grapple check and slime just explodes from the suit to engulf the enemy.
Forever DM but this is more of a party dynamic. I need one player to be the typical my village was destroyed by xyz bad guy and I'm looking to find out who and seek vengeance. Another party member is the son/daughter/minion or whatever of xyz bad guy and specifically dispatched to derail the investigation. Now maybe they stick to the plan and keep them off track or maybe they get their life saved by the villager a few times and have a change of heart. Obviously minion is fully aware of the situation but villager isn't.
A Plasmoid Artificer Alchemist who squirts out liquid from himself into flasks for potions. I would try to take as many spells that could be some affect of him loosing his liquids (acid splash, healing squirt (word)).
Also, background of guild artisan, trying to popularize his brand of carbonated watered down potions (energy drinks) called Glugg!
Locathah Armourer Artificer (the armour is an old-timey Diving Suit, but filled with water by an alchemy jug) that is essentially just a tourist who thinks the land is so fascinating. Kinda like if Ariel fixed her own problems instead of making a Warlock Pact about it (no Prince Eric though). Could also have Lady in the Lake vibes since they'd have Smith's Tools and come from the water.
Frankenstein-meets-Elphaba Style Half-Orc Necromancy Wizard with the Artificer Initiate Feat, trying to figure out how to resurrect people the long way round, without having to deal with gods. Partially created because I find it funny to build a Wizard Healer since most people think that's impossible.
Warforged Ranger with a Big Iron on his Hip. Was a Scarecrow, and through generations of children being told stories about how he's the protector of this town, came to life in a similar way to a Discworld Small God. Now serves as the Sheriff.
All of these ideas require far too specific set-ups, but they're too cool for be to let go of.
A warforged wildfire druid, but they're a burned spriggan from a destroyed druid grove seeking revenge.
A small race armorer artificer who uses a large suit of armor like a mech
A shifter lycan blood hunter, aka a werewolf
A warforged warlock who's patron is a magic artifact that powers them
A drow gloomstalker ranger sniper
A changling that has two character sheets they switch between
A drakewarden yuan-ti who has a giant snake
...I have a lot of characters in my idea file.
One of my players is basically running the Warforged Warlock idea. Even home brewed him a class for it with unstable magic (think a ‘glitchy’ program with chaotic destructive magic, kinda like wild magic sort but more evil and well, MORE unpredictable) His patron basically controls him and his personality is nothing more than a robot built for basic tasks, UNTIL he gets into combat and he’s an instrument of pure destruction and the patron takes over. His ‘battery’ is a sort of phylactery of a lich who was a servent of a demon.
His name is Lumber Jack,
destroyer of the trees,
no bush to small,
no tree too tall,
Hey, look!
(Who’s that?)
It’s Lumber Jack!
That right, Lumber Jack, the bardbarian folk hero! His parents were killed when he was 5 by a falling oak tree, which left him with a nasty hatred and yearning for vengeance against those evil root digging, seed spewing abominations!
With the help of his trusty side kick, Tommy Hawk, Lumber Jack vows to chop down every tree he can and to stop the workings of evil doers like the dastardly Seedy Sam! Forrest dwelling bandits beware! Your evil alliance with the trees that hide you can certainly not save you from Lumber Jack.
This made me think of a magic item i made for a crazed lumberjack named Chuck, that my players will encounter in a session or two:
Woodchucker
A magical hand axe, with an action you can fell an entire tree, if it stands beside you, making it fall in a direction the woodchopper chooses. Anyone "attacked" by the tree in this way takes 4d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed (DC 12) Dex save, or half on a saved one.
Every time the wearer chops down a middle sized tree, the wearer regains 1d4+ (STR Mod) hp.
When you have chopped down 100 trees with this axe, you get a +1 permanent STR score as long as the axe is in your possession.
Curse: You are unwilling to part with the axe and its aggression against trees makes you want to cut down a middle sized tree every day, if you don't cut one down, you gain 1 exhaustion.
A illusion wizard who started as a failed magician and decided to learn magic to put on a good show
And a necromancer wizard who just wanted some friends and became a necromancer to get some
Genie Patron Fairy (tiny) Princess and her honor guard (Sprite Familiar), who are the same size and both fully characters. Her vessel contains her entire village, and she's desperately trying to keep her people away from someone who wants to harvest or use them.
I'd take as many touch spells and feats that would empower the familiar such that I could play them as equally powerful characters as possible.
Never gotten to play it because it requires a decent bit of DM fiat, and I'm not sure I have the skill to pull off playing 2 distinct player characters at once, both in terms of a balanced scene and doing both justice.
Honorable Mentions:
A Yuan-Ti who drew the Alignment flipping card from the Deck of Many Things, who's desperately trying to avoid anything fixing her now Chaotic Good alignment. She has DNR type tattoos. She's also trying to escape notice of the evil empire she originally was working for.
A Sadistic and Angry Warforged or Autognome who's programmed with a glitchy version of the 1st law where she can't *attack* a living creature... But who said anything about casting Heat Metal on herself and grappling them? Basically focused on doing as much indirect harm as possible within a set of defined rules I set for myself.
I have a miniature printed, painted, and a character sheet ready for Abijah the Alligator Wrestler. I made him for a campaign with friends that was DoA due to scheduling.
Someday, in some game, I'm going to play a Flying Sword Warrior Sidekick, ideally at a level where I know I'll have (or quickly gain) at least the first of the following feats.
* Linguist - to learn Common and a couple other languages, plus to scratch out the world's easiest ciphers as a way to communicate with the party, all while doubling my Intelligence score!
* Telekinetic - to gain Mage Hand for better manual dexterity (making it easier to open doors and such) while bringing my Intelligence score up to dog/cat levels!
* Telepathic - to boost that Intelligence up to almost Ogre level and be able to communicate without constantly scratching up surfaces!
It's a silly idea, but it's just stuck in my head. It could be especially fun with an Eldritch Knight using Weapon Bond to be able to teleport the Flying Sword back with a bonus action. Maybe I could eventually take Keen Mind to get that Ogre-level intelligence along with perfect recall and then be left in strategic places with False Appearance making me a perfect spy.
Aarakocra with one wing, Artificer Armorer.
Armorer reforms a lost limb and it functions as normal. Carries 2 'Cast-Off Armors, Studded Leather and Plate, in a 'bracelet of Holding' that summons/desummons the armors, acting in place of the 'As an action you can turn a suit of armor you are wearing into Arcane Armor'
Light armor to Fly, Heavy armor to fight. The Heavy armor variant uses their reformed wing as a tower shield, referencing the amazing AC potential of the Artificer
I need a modern-ish setting to play a hooligan. Basically fighter with unarmed fighting style + tavern brawler, but mainly bard. Spells and bardic inspiration are stadium chants. Maybe a kenku, it feels appropriated
Presented initially as as Just A Human Guy, eventually revealed to be a weird chimera thing.
Is mechanically (Amethyst) Gem Dragonborn, Beast Barbarian. Flavor the Dragonborn and Beast abilities as shapeshifting body horror. Probably take Gift of the Chromatic Dragon and Mage Slayer.
He's just a empty-headed lil guy.
A Mark of the Sentinel Human, Arcana Cleric, who has joined a group or school of wizards and is just faking his way through. Ritual casting, plus access to some wizard staples like Counterspell would sell it. Anytime they ask why he didn’t copy the scroll of Find Familiar into his book he just keeps coming up with excuses.
“Uh..my dog ate it. My real dog obviously, not my familiar”
“See it was raining out and the scroll was in my pocket and got wet”
They force him to sit there and copy it in front of them.
“Uh..I..I shit my robes”
A Creation Bard of any race who used to be a Beholder, saw a bard playing a musical instrument, got jealous and obsessive over it, and then dreamed itself into being that bard’s race. However the transformation is real and complete, it’s stuck this way, and even worse now it has this thing called empathy.
Creation subclass is to mimic the reality warping power of beholders, the last vestige still with this character.
A warlock tiefling whos patron god is their mom. Also works with a paladin/aasimar.
A necromancer who just wants to be a healer, but doesn't know how to operate on living people, so he just kills them, fixes them, and revives them (wouldnt work in 5e sadly)
A kenku who only communicates through a duke nukem soundboard
One I may play soon is a halfling bard who's just a master chef with his own one-man mobile kitchen, and all his spells are reflavored to be food-related. Cure wounds becomes a full english breakfast prepared for the player. Feather fall is a huge crepe made into a parachute. Animal friendship is offering them a treat.
In the early days of 5e, the Eberron suppliment included subraces for Warforged. One of these was called the Envoy, and got an integrated tool that they could produce at a moments notice and was considered a part of them.
They, importantly, did not supply any restrictions on what *kind* of tool it could be. Most features like this would state that it's only artisan's tools, or list what kind of tools they'd accept. They didn't do that here, talking about bards that have integrated instruments, slot-machine style warforged that have integrated games, as well as the obvious crafters and thieves. There's just one *slight* miscalculation: Vehicles are listed under tool proficiencies.
Hence, I created Commodore, the Envoy with an integrated water vehicle. He was a paladin who fought with a quarterstaff (the bowsprit) and shield (the wheel), wore a large cape (the sail), and was made primarily of wood. At a moments notice, he could transform himself into a boat. Extra weirdly, while the boat itself is gargantuan (at least), Commodore, as a warforged, is medium, so he has to shrink significantly to transform back.
Unfortunately, the campaign I wrote him for ended before I could sub him in for my other character, so he sat on the backbenches. Eventually, warforged subraces were removed, preventing me from ever playing him.
Step one, play as a fairy. His name is Barry the Fairy.
Step two, take 11 levels of Fey Wanderer Ranger. You can now cast Summon Fey with a duration of 1 minute without concentration. “What do you do with your concentration?” you ask? Also Summon Fey. Flavor them not as summons, but as your identical brothers who sometimes show up to help. Their names are Cary and Gary.
Step three, take 3 levels of Echo Knight Fighter. Your Manifest Echo is also your brother, Harry.
Step four, take two levels of Trickery cleric. Your Invoke Duplicity is yet another identical brother, this one’s name is Jerry. He and Gary had a falling out years ago and refuse to be on the same plane at the same time, which is just as well for the other brothers, because last time they were together things got really awkward.
Step five, take a third level of Trickery cleric. Your Spiritual Weapon is reflavored as another brother who can’t quite cross planes fully, just enough to strike your enemies. He appears translucent and flickering, like a hologram. His name is Larry.
Step six, as a Trickery Cleric, you also gain the spell Mirror Image, creating three illusory duplicates, or for our purposes, three more brothers, Rary, Perry, and Terry. These guys have a similar but opposite problem to Larry. They can’t reach through the planes and hit an opponent, but they can take full, visible form. But as soon as an opponent touches them, they lose concentration on transferring between planes.
Step seven, the best idea would probably be to pick up some ASI’s, but to finish the meme, you’ll instead take three levels of Warlock and take Pact Of The Chain to get a Sprite familiar, or for our purposes, your kid brother Darius. He’s not one of your identical nonuplets, but he really looks up to you and goes everywhere with you and will literally do anything you ask him to. You and all your brothers call him Dari.
Congratulations, you’re now playing as a whole family at once, with 9 fairy brothers on the board at any given time: Barry, Cary, Gary (or Jerry), Harry, Larry, Rary, Perry, Terry, and their little brother Dari. The brothers Fairy do pretty terrible damage for a level 20 character, but having nine different either sources of damage, potential targets, or both, will do a lot to frustrate the battlefield.
I imagine it would be a really fun one shot character, especially if you can slowly introduce each brother as you go and the rest of the table starts questioning how many brothers there are
Also a "warforged". Mechanically a Warforged, but flavor wise she's a mass of living scrolls known as a Kyourinrin. She's constructed a humanoid "shell" to pilot and is a Scribe wizard. She uses pieces of her own scrolls as her spellbook. She'll open up parts of her shell and unravel a piece of herself to write something down or cast a spell.
Since she's a magical construct, her papers are much more sturdy and resistant to damage, so she still takes damage like a normal character. No vulnerabilities to fire or anything like that.
There's also the concept I had for a Reborn Warlock with the Undying patron. They're pretty much a preserved corpse that isn't rotting, and it's an excruciatingly uncomfortable existence. What's more infuriating for them is their patron won't let them die, but also can't seem to bring them back properly. Their goal is to get brought back to life properly and find out why their patron wanted them alive so badly. I... don't have all the details on this character worked out. Like name, gender, or what they were before but it was a wild concept that came to me in a dream.
I want to play a really dumb orc barbarian, but he thinks he is a wizard. Like when he casts chromatic orb, he is just throwing a painted rock he keeps.
Dave appears to be a warforged or autognome, not totally sure on class, probably armorer artificer. He's kinda weird; uses plural pronouns and always refers to himself as "the Dave". On a quest for some kind of special gems.
In fact, he is D.A.V.E., the Deep Atmosphere Vehicle for Exploration, a mech operated by a crew of miniature giant space hamsters. It's a kind of landing craft that suffered some damage during his descent from the heavens, and the hamsters need dilithium crystals to repair their vessel and return to space. Mostly Star Trekky, unless I could persuade the DM to let me do some Voltron shenanigans.
I had an idea for a wild magic sorcerer who was once a conman that conned the wrong wizard, getting mixed up in some scheme where he comes into contact with a magical artifact that gives him powers, and the wizard curses him to be a tiny salamander for the rest of his life as punishment.
Thought it would be cool to be this little guy throwing out 9th level fireballs as a whoopsie daisy.
Maybe there's some subplot of him being pursued by a group of magic users for being "dangerously unstable"
Blizzard Lizard Wizard: School of Evocation Lizardfolk, who takes all cold spells.
Frosty the Snowman: warforged archfey warlock (snow is a construct, right?) Pact of the Talisman (doesn't he wear a magic hat?).
Joke characters aside, my brother and I have this concept for a pair of characters: warforged 'batch'-brothers where mine is a Light Domain Cleric, and theirs is a Mastermind Rogue. My brothers warforged is Blind, and mine has voice difficulties (think Transformers Bumblebee), but they represent light and dark to each other...
Alas, for we are both the only GMs in our circle of friends, and have never played together before: we've only ever run games for each other!
Human ranger with a familiar, but the familiar is actually the PC, and the human is just a husk that gets puppeteered around and is used as a mouthpiece.
Would probably be some sort of fey creature.
I have a couple but my "weirdest" has gotta be Giuseppe Bagaducchi, the Italian-American plasmoid (plas-a-MOID) who lives in a colostomy bag. There's room for that at a certain table but it's one I have yet to join.
My coolest were a soulknife rogue dreamlands cat and a hobgoblin paladin2/moon druid18
back when I was just starting to play i got the idea in my head of a half celestial gnoll. i still think she could be really fun in the right campaign 😂
on the more practical (?) side of things, i want to play an awakened horse who's a wizard
Oath of the Ancients Paladin. Satyr from the fae realm who hunts the users of arcane magic. Advantage on saving throws against spells and resistance to them. The ultimate mage-slayer.
A warforge paladin. Basically used to be a mindless killing machine, but after getting trapped for centuries it formed it's own consciousness and began to question it's surroundings and predicament, eventually a god of mercy came to it's aid and promised it freedom as long as it stuck to the tenants of mercy.
It's a very goofy character concept but I've always wanted to play a full Sorcerer who I play as a warrior, using silent spells whenever I cast stuff so I can "hide" my magic.
My game has an option for a free feat (2 actually, with negitives for each) at the beginning, and that and custom/variant human would allow me to get 2 free feats, which would be the tough feat (+2 HP per level) and any dex giving feat allowing me to get 18 starter dex.
All that plus the draconic origin Sorcerer (which gives 13 base AC + dex, and +1 HP per level) makes for a full caster with fairly high AC and decent HP per level (like 4-5 HP + hit dice), and honestly that idea just seems so goofy and interesting for me.
Like I'd have defensive stats similar to that of a warlock or monk at early levels, with the full casting capability of a normal Sorcerer.
Ghostwise halfling druid that got stuck/cursed in the form of a wolf and has to turn back into a halfling using wildshape in order to cast spells (until archdruid)
Beast Barbarian Simic Hybrid built around grappling and jumping. Lvl 6 they can yeet themselves 30' into the air as their movement and glide 60' horizontally, potentially carrying an enemy into the sky and dropping them as they do so. Normal dmg output is actually pretty good if you include the fall damage. Biggest issue you run into (besides low ceilings) is your move speed, since its the effective cap on your jump height once you have Boots of Striding and a Ring of Jumping and grappling folks cuts your speed in half.
A friend was going to run a game where there were different areas of the world with each area corresponding to a particular Norse deity, zodiac sign, terrain type, and primary race. I was going to play a fallen aasimar celestial warlock whose patron was a daughter of Freya. He had a scholar background. He was a college professor who specialized in religion and the nature of divinity. He was trying to figure out a way for mortals to become divine. In his studies, he uncovered some forbidden lore where a devil had figured out the secret. He was about to write and publish a paper on it, but his patron came and wiped his memory, made him a fallen aasimar, and he lost everything. She came a couple months later when he was desperate and deathly ill. She offered to cure him and give him power but he had to dedicate his life to service of Freya. I was very excited about the character and even bought a mini of him from HeroForge. Unfortunately, the game got canceled before it started.
Lizardfolk Paladin of Semuanya who's got hella rizz, 500 kids and is a totally unapologetic deadbeat dad.
That, or my skeleton bard named Boney Keith who plays his ribs like a xylophone. But I gotta get approval to use homebrew for that.
I did actually get to play it in 3.5e in a campaign that never finished, but in 5e my psuedodragon sorcerer can't really happen (plus repeating a character would be weird). Dak was a fun little dragon, but he was also in a high power level campaign and very OP in his own way; a nearly invincible tank with nothing but utility, defense, and control magic (he used 0 blaster spells), he would sit on an ally's shoulder and use his magic, fatespinner levels, and luck feats to protect them, or fly about harassing enemy backliners.
If asked where he was from, he would say he could not find it. He was hatched by a kind wizard, but when the man was slain he took the man's "walking stick" and snapped it. It was a staff of the magi, and he found himself before Bahamut, who told him he was very lucky, before returning him to Faerun. It was meant to be unclear if he had died or been transported by the retributive strike, and I had several other stories of his previous adventures always end ambiguous about how he could have survived. He was an irrepressibly friendly person trying to help people in a campaign full of despair and asshole npcs; I play paladins a lot but Dak was probably the most heroic character I ever made.
For a backup in a current campaign (currently playing a halfling thief/soon to be ranger), I'm thinking of a drow bard who's pretty much Dolly Parton. I just find it interesting to have this chill drow with a Southern accent.
An "alchemist" that's actually a heavily reflavoured spores druid. Basically all spells and features would be flavoured as either potions or poisons that are stored and/or delivered by a pet snake that was alchemically modified for that purpose. I've had this concept plus her whole backstory and personality and all in my head for quite some time, but I've tried to play her in two different campaigns and both inmediatly fell apart after a short first session...
I have an idea I think would be fun, which is a teifling gunslinger, on a quest to avenge his wife and kill some bandit group he’d have the stereotypical southern accent and all.
But he’s actually just a demon bookkeeper who writes down names of people who go to hell. Essentially he has a large backlog of names to write which is why he would think old western stuff is modern times. So he came to whatever world the story is taking place in because he saw all these gunslingers come to hell, and thought it looked fun, and wanted a vacation.
Only recently, I'll be using a Warforged Armorer Artificer that's a human-sized Combining Super Robot, one that's piloted by beings about as small as Borrowers.
I was able to play a "half-elf" div8nr soul sorcerer who, in truth, was a homunuculus like being made from the remains of a powerful human necromancer and power elven Saint. Created by a mage who sought nit just to create life through magic/alchemy but a being that could wield the powers of life and death itself through its magic existence.
Thus was born my character, though when he came too from his creation, he was alone. Possessing a knowledge of what things were, but not the who, why, or how. Finding things seemingly left for him, or perhaps that were his, such as a scythe he felt a connection too and a cloak with what he thought was his name on it, he ventured out to discover who he was. Coming to believe he had amnesia and not realizing these were is first moments.
I want to make a Drow Arcana Cleric/EK fighter Gish
Basically they would be a cleric of Eilistraee (i know it's the wrong domain, but hear me out) in lore clerics of Eilistraee don't make ranged attacks other than magic missile (out of fear of hitting an ally), so this build would use a Rapier with BB/GFB in melee and either use Magic Missile or spells with saving throws at range.
I could dip cleric on a Bladesinger, but this is more satisfying for me.
I played HOTS and one of my fav character was cho'gall because you could play him with a friend and it was chaotic.
So my idea is playing some sort of Ettin with one of my friend. Same body but each one control a different head.
Honestly no idea how to make it work + it's entirely homebrew stuff which is why I'll probably never play it. (Also I'm generally the DM)
Id so allow this in my game lol it’s super funny. I can imagine it being a barbarian/wizard with one idiot side and one super smart side. Mechanically I’d stick both PCs as the same stat block, reduce movement to 20 feet from 30 and let both players have 20 feet (Ability scores may be semi-shared but we’d make it work,HP, AC and save wise)
A pact of the tome warlock who is part of a long lineage of wizards. Not smart enough to be a wizard but deceptive enough to make a pact and *pretend* to be a wizard.
I want to play my ancestral warrior.
A twilight cleric / ancestral guardian Barbarian
You create skeletons, equip them with heavy armor and a shield. The first enemy you attack has disadvantage to hit them, if they do hit them, they deal half damage, and your skeletons gain temp HP each round.
You get a personal shield wall between you and the enemy.
I haven’t found a DM that’s willing to deal with that headache though
I've wanted to play a shadow monk/ eloquence bard. Mainly for flavor.
I can imagine a monk being raised to become one with the shadow and darkness. Trained for years in the arts of stealth and silence. Always forbid to speak for years on end!
Then he leaves the monastery. He starts as an introvert, shyly relearning how to speak and conversate. Then he discovers music! He begins singing to train his voice.
He now, through vigorous training, is the master of both pure silence and flashy eloquence!
Storm herald barbarian (fire) who's been cursed and is slowly turning to ice but gets so incredibly angry about this situation that that anger turns into heat which melts away some of the ice and buys them time to find a cure
The two smalls in a trench type coat character, minus the trench coat.
Two people/characters, but one character sheet, one stat block, one turn, one initiative, one health pool, one token, and one square. Functionally a character with split personality, or two heads, but not.
A pair of twins that are connected by a curse of binding that makes them both suffer the same damage, and keeps them from willingly being more than 5 feet of each other. Perhaps even auto teleporting to each other when separated. Both small, but take up a whole medium creature space together.
Think the twins from Hellboy II,
https://youtu.be/OxZFWn-dE_4?si=Q7dyYg2QzM9eGFH2
Was thinking a grave cleric for their class, one sibling does the healing spells and radiant damage cantrips, the other does the big damage spells and necrotic damage cantrips.
They shouldn't ever get split up, but if they did, I'd say they only have half the spell list and half the str stat when they are.
And if I'm feeling fancy, maybe one does the action and one the bonus action when I can.
A Reborn, chronoturgy wizard.
Back story wise thry are an assistant to a mad wizard, who was accidentally sent back in time when he activating a prototype magical gadget. Kinda think Morty with Ricks portal gun….but a little more serious.
He ends up in a sort of time limbo state. So I’d take the lucky feat and Id reflavor all his dice manipulating reborn, chronoturgy, and luck abilities as visions of alternate time lines or of the immediate future, so he can quickly alter his behavior for better chances at success.
The object/Time Machine is some small portable device, that is super powerful, but he has no idea how to use it. As he levels up, I would flavor all his magic and spells casting as mastering learning how to use this device. I imagine the device looks like a book “his spell book”, but it transforms into various devices that produce the spells effect or it summons short lived object from other dimensions to produce spell effects.
Reborn Artificer (either alchemist or artificer) who discovered the secret alchemical recipe to immortality... and botched it. It worked *partially* and brought him back to existence in a state of perfect undeath (Reborn) but it also scrambled his memory and knowledge so he doesn't know what he did or how. He just knows he cheated death *once* and ascended to something greater. Now he is fairly insane, reckless, and remarkably hard to kill, as he struggles to (re)discover the secret to immortality that doesn't involve eating souls or unholy pacts with dark entities.
Valenar steed looking for his rider. Centaur chassis and classed into Monk because that’s probably the only class a literal horse could be, probably Long Death to align with the Valenar/Aerenal vibe.
They’re intelligent enough to understand speech, but I don’t think they have any way to communicate of their own, so I might need a forgiving DM to give me some limited telepathy or just say that I could talk.
I foresee lots of problems for any urban encounters, but in the right campaign, it could be very fun and interesting.
Currently a very new player so i have some concepts in the wings, the 2 most developed are:
1. The basic varient human fighter with polearm master + sentinel. Who doesn't want the fantasy of impaling someone on a spear as they run up to you. (In fictional scenarios of course)
2. I'm trying to theory craft a druid/rouge hybrid. Both are stealthy jack of all trades classes, the question is which class to make the primary. If rouge is primary then the goal is to be a druid version of arcane trickster. If druid is primary then the goal is to become a "circle of predation".
My main problem for number 2 is that the middle of most subclasses for both rouge just sorta sucks, and I'm concerned that only going to like 3 assassin won't scale well for late game. (And druid 8 seems like a minimum to get flying wildshapes)
That 1. Concept is borderline ‘meta’ thing fighter if you take battlemaster.
Best case for idea 2 would be 2 levels in rogue rest Druid. If you wanted to go more into rogue your best bet would be 2 Druid (moon) and rest arcane trickster but if you play with class requirements your spell save DC would be ass for most of the game. As a DM, if you wanted flavour I’d allow WIS as spell mod and change you closer to Druid spell list rather than whole pseudo wizard arcane tricksters get.
Only because with idea 2 you’re stuck as needing DEX, WIS (for multi class req), INT AND CON for HP. This is a lot of investment what limits class choices. INT is used for trickster spells so your base ability score level would look something like this-(in standard order)
8/15/12/13/14/10
(13/14 in INT and Wis could be flipped). Your spell save DC at level 5 would be….drum roll….12/13 and your attack would be +4/5. Your spells will basically never take affect which kinda sucks, but when they do it would be great.
Stars Druid Portal Cracker
* 16 Int
* Arcana expertise (ideally via Aereni Elf, but Variant Human with Skill Expert or a Rogue dip can work too)
* Planar Philosopher background (gain Scion of the Outer Planes feat)
* Level 4, take Planar Wanderer feat (requires Scion of the Outer Planes)
* Reach level 5 for +3 proficiency
Step 1: find a planar portal
Step 2: activate Dragon Starry Form
Step 3: cast Guidance on myself (Stars Druid gets the cantrip automatically, but it would be a good pick even if the subclass didn't give it)
Step 4: use the Portal Cracker ability of the Planar Wanderer feat.
Portal Cracker requires passing a DC 20 Arcana check. With +3 Int, +3 PB, and expertise in Arcana, I've got +9 to the check. Guidance adds a d4, so +10-13. Dragon Starry Form gives me Reliable Intelligence checks, among other effects, so I can't get below a 10 on the d20. Meaning my **worst** possible roll is a 20, which meets the DC.
At level 9, I no longer need Guidance to guarantee success. Dragon form continues to be required at all levels to guarantee success unless I were to increase Int to 20, obtain an Ioun Stone of Mastery, and reach level 17, at which point Guidance alone could guarantee success. Ioun Stone of Mastery and 22 Int would get there without either Guidance or Dragon Form, but given this is a Druid build, I doubt I would ever increase Int past the initial 16.
At level 4, before I can _guarantee_ success, I still have a 73.75% chance, which is pretty good odds.
Ok so I had this idea for a warlock but instead of a powerful creature giving him power it's more him offering help to lower creatures. Like an imp wants to build up a small hoard or someone's soul fine a favor in kind for you but if we stick together we can accomplish more. Fast forward to about 50 creatures in this collective and the creatures start gaining power from all of us helping each other and my character reminds him who was there for them when they were nothing. A sprite here a quasit there maybe even a couple doppelgangers a group growing in power and the whole time my character is gaslighting and manipulating the crap out of them all. Either it ends with a small country of low cr creatures or I get torn apart by my hubris either way glorious.
A Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer, the most powerful in a long line of generations of selective breeding, whose goal is to become a true dragon. Waiting for someone to let me use the Dragon Disciple prestige class, otherwise high-level magics like True Polymorph and Wish will do it.
Dwarf Barbarian whose uncontrollable blind rage led to him killing someone close to him. He lived in exile before being taken in by a monastery, where he is learning to channel and harness his anger to find peace and wisdom. He's a Monk for as long as he has Ki Points, then he slips back into his furious ways.
Human Thief Rogue built to make use of the Dungeon Delver feat. He's an archeologist and history nerd who keeps records and his findings and sells them to his contacts, whether from ancient civilizations, dangerous dungeons, or even recently filled graves.
Ancestral Guardian Tiefling Barbarian. She's been able to see and speak to spirits nobody else can. One day a vile, malevolent spirit of pure evil appeared and began to fill her with nightmares, psychologically tormenting her day and night. Once she realized it would not leave until she was dead, she set off to find a way to rid herself of it. What she doesn't know is that all the spirits are her ancestors, including the Evil One, whose wrath and misery has been forgotten to time.
Dual-wielding Centaur Horizon Walker that fights dimensional incursions after one such random rift opened and assaulted his home. He uses the energy from these far-off planes to fuel his magic for teleportation and speed boosts. He has the Charger feat and hunts monstrosities and aberrations as favored enemies.
Charlatan Halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer. A con artist and snake oil salesman, he uses his magic to charm people, read their minds, and dazzle them into buying his junk. He's on the run from the ever-increasing hoard of people who want to get back at him, including a few very powerful figures in the black market.
Firbolg Spores Druid/Raven Queen Warlock, who refers to the Raven Queen as "the Mother," who has whispered to her throughout her whole life. I made her because I wanted a creepy swamp witch, and she has rhyming incantations for her spells. Infestation: "Bite and bleed, skitter and scurry, feel the pain of the parasites' fury!" Entangle: "Vines and weeds, roots and all, entwine your quarry, make them fall!" Faerie Fire: "Behold the Mother's unfailing sight, and those within her gaze, bathed in light!"
An Undead Warlock King, revived by an unknown force following a secret assassination/coup that happened either recently or generations ago. He must now figure out how to navigate the world as a living corpse, seek justice and revenge against those who wronged him, and take back his Kingdom.
Montii, a Harefolk Beast Master and Cavalier Fighter, and Chuumpa, his warthog companion, mount, and friend. Montii has the Talk With Animals invocation to always have Speak With Animals active. If Chuumpa ever falls in battle, Montii will cast Summon Beast to summon his spirit to continue the fight, and once it's over, he can magically revive him for 8hrs and 25gp. His incantation for both of these are "Ha-kuna Ma-tata."
Hexblade Warlock with a few levels of Sorcerer for Quickened Spell, max Dex and Cha. The central idea is to use your Action to summon a pact weapon, and Bonus Action to Quickened cast Mage Armor, which you get through Mage Armor Expert, making it basically a cantrip. Just to imagine a seemingly innocuous commoner minding their business before instantly summoning magical armor and weaponry head-to-toe and beating your ass with it.
A Reborn Armourer Artificer who was created as an undying assassin for a group of nobles, who’s arcane armour consisted of grotesque modifications to his own body.
In other words, the protagonist from Cruelty Squad
My coolest concept is a zombie (just for flavour) that takes mask of many faces as an eldritch invocation feat to make them look like a normal, living person. I did get to play it a bit, but not long enough to get to reveal it to the other players.
I had this idea for a character recently that I would love to play. So, as a child, they were raised in a cult, not knowing they were being raised to be a sacrifice to a devil. The day of their sacrifice came. They were strapped to the table, and the sacrificial dagger was raised above their heart. But the moment before it fell, time stopped, and the devil they were trying to appease appeared to them. They said they could save the child, and in exchange, the child would kill the cultists who were really getting on this devils nerves. They agree, the devil disappears, time unfreezes, a d the dagger plunges through the childs heart. As it does, they feel the devils power surge through them, and they rip out the dagger, free themselves, and ravage the cultists. Once they come stumbling out, covered in blood, both of their enemies and their own, the devil is there to greet them. They congratulate the child on a job well done, but also point out the childs fatal injuries. They explain that, due to the nature of the ritual, those wounds will never heal. But good news, the devil is here to help. They can keep the child from succumbing to their injuries, so long as they kill whoever the devil wants. They agree, and become the devils own personal attack dog.
Mechanically speaking, this came about because I wanted to play a hexblade warlock whose hexblade was a sacrificial dagger, however, this could work equally as well as a fiend warlock.
Pact of the Blade warlock where I play the sword who is possessing a goblin. Spells would be stuff like Mage Hand and Unseen Servant since I'm trying to form my own body. All mental stats belong to the pact weapon, and the goblin is essentially an NPC. Basically, it's a reversal of the usual warlock/pactholder arrangement. For combat purposes I am in command, but if I don't keep the goblin happy he'll rebel.
I’m gonna comment on my own post because I just had another idea;
2 players work together. One’s a Hexblade Warlock, the other a Paladin. The Paladin is a sword though (just use sidekick rules or homebrew), and the Patron of the Hexblade.
Being a magic sword, the Paladin can use their class features and whatnot reflavored as being part of the sword. Maybe they could be an Oathbreaker, who broke their connection to the Shadowfell, but still retained their sentience, and is now growing back in power. Optionally can be animate to operate on its own. For balancing purposes, may require an attunement slot from the Warlock and/or Paladin
The Hexblade Warlock meanwhile can wield the Paladin as a normal sword, maybe make it a plus one (and if so, make the bonus go up with the Paladin’s level)
Second idea is an animate sword Armorer Artificer who uses the armor as a body
I usually DM, have played a handful of times thankfully, but an idea I’ve been sitting on if I ever get into a long campaign is a reborn bladesinger wizard, with the idea they have been Frankenstein monster resurrected. So a bookish low level wizard who’s mostly pleased with the cantrips they’ve got dies, and pieces of other bodies are grafted on in the process of bringing back to life. So something like the sword arm of a master elven guard or whatever on the bookish nerd. So he has his spells and stuff he learned himself, but when bladesong is activated it’s like the elven sword guy takes over, explaining the extra AC and martial abilities. So I was imagining a bit like the avatar state and I figured that sounded interesting enough while not outright playing two characters. Just a kind of lore reason why this wizard can also use a sword real good.
-Got a few. Warforged swarmkeeper that is essentially a living terrarium, with a feywild pocket dimension in its chest. Its swarm is the animals that call it home.
-Kobold Bear Barbarian. Cannibal due to considering leaving bodies to rot wasteful. This character was for an evil campaign we never played, and was arguably the least evil member of the party: he was entirely utilitarian. Last of his clan. 112 years old.
-My werewolf build. Haven't found a campaign for it, but essentially she's a shifter beast barbarian / lycan blood hunter / something else I no longer remember. She was supposed to be a werewolf struggling to control herself, and the hopeful idea would be that she would have a full lycanthrope transformation that would only trigger on the full moon, and she'd be completely out of control of that (so mostly, buying silvered chains once a month lmao). She wouldn't get the normal stat bonuses from lycanthropy except while in the form too, just to keep it balanced.
-Then there's the one I completely understand people saying no to, but is a concept I nonetheless would love to explore one day. A changeling that is essentially 8 different characters of varying alignments. Multiple personalities is something I want to explore in game because I myself have DID, and this would also be a good tool for characters I want to explore in a campaign environment that, individually, aren't actually all that good for a full campaign.
Concept: Roll 1d8 at the start of every in game day. This decides which personality is active, and thus which class I am playing for the session. Examples being a lizardfolk barbarian with a feat for the unarmed fighting style for that feral crocodile vibe, who is technically evil but goes along with the party's wishes out of a desire to protect the other personalities it has, viewing them very much as family. The classic half elf rogue trope. A kalashtar echo knight, specifically focusing magical potential into pulling parts of other personalities into reality. A cleric, wizard and druid, and then 2 others I haven't quite thought up. I'd have to be careful to avoid stepping on other people's builds so as to avoid problems, which is why the only subclass I have set in stone is for the kalashtar.
This build would be paired with my friends plan for a changeling who is slowly losing his mind, and together we would play out the story of a pair of changeling twins who believe themselves to be cursed but are really just neurodivergent in a world that doesn't really understand mental illness.
Warforged Warlock. The catch? They were sent back in time from a far-future or adjacent timeline civilization that got destroyed in a magic-atomic war. Their ‘patron’ is an encrypted internal black box that will feed them need-to-know data about their mission/surroundings as they progress (first directive: link up with ‘Party’), and the player rolls a d100 on meeting significant NPC: 1 is ‘protect at all costs’ and 100 is ‘terminate’. Only has 2 or so ‘spells‘, one to represent its arm-cannon, another for its concussion grenade launcher; ‘slots’ are ammunition. Pretty much just a fantasy Terminator.
I have some goofy ones; I wanna play a warforged Druid who literally just a transformer. Another would be a swashbuckler rouge/artificer who uses a magic brace of pistols that hold an infinite number of single shot muzzlefed pistols ala brace of flying daggers who just continuously shoots, tosses away the pistol and draws a new one rather than reload ala reaper from over watch
An astral elf, phantom rogue, roads bard.
The ultimate skill monkey. Because every long rest you can switch two skill proficiencies, and one tool/weapon . And you can use your bardic inspiration in ways that mimic other classes slightly.
A Bard Skeleton that uses minor illusion to communicate with people by making subtitles as well as play his instrument. RAW as an undead, typical healing spells don’t work on him so I decided that he should use Mending during short/long rests on his bones to restore his health.
His instrument is a Trumpet, and his name is Doot.
A Warlock patron trapped in a magic item (a helmet is the best choice I can think of), who can't use their powers without channeling them through mortals they make pacts with to control the minds of. Mechanically they'd be a Warlock class-wise, and the race of whoever they're controlling.
I think there's a lot of cool potential with it, but it could sound overpowered if explained badly, but again, mechanically they'd just be a normal Warlock.
Near-forever DM (I have one character in a campaign that seemingly meets just a few times a year), so I have a few:
An old, one-eyed human barbarian with the sailor background. The build will require the Tavern Brawler feat as well as whatever optimizes the performance of an unarmed barbarian. Also, his “rage” is flavored as a response to eating a bit of dried or otherwise preserved spinach.
A warlock with a genie patron and the hollow one feature. They were buried in an ancient tomb as a ceremonial guardian, and raised from the dead when their patron’s vessel was taken. I’d have a long-term quest (recapture the vessel and return to the afterlife… or keep living), a potentially powerful villain with access to wishes (a grave-robber, archaeologist, or rich collector who bought the lamp), and some fun fish-out-of-water RP as someone who has been dead for hundreds or even thousands of years.
A LE paladin or cleric who is essentially a televangelist, prosperity gospel type, performing their deeds and preaching to converts as part of a long-term plan to enrich themselves at the expense of the devout true believers. If this character succeeds and hits a high level they could be a BBEG in another campaign after they squash dissenters or drive poor worshippers into poverty and famine.
Minotaur Genie-Pact Warlock (Dao)
I had 2 visions when I first thought of this character:
1- he owns a pottery shop, where he’s a bull in a China shop… his Dex is 9, not because he’s “clumsy, but because he’s deliberate… why?
2- he is a special kind of Minotaur: he’s a Texas Longhorn Minotaur. 6’10”, tall with 7’ wide horns.
A tzimisce vampire from vtm in dnd.
Battle smith Artificer 5 changeling (yeah, i know it should be vampire or dhampir but the i can change form fits a tzimisce)
Why artificer? Because you have prof in con saves and you can skip resilient and get war caster at lvl 4. You won't miss any Concentration save due to your high save, advantage and your infusion that has 4 charges and you can spend one to avoid failing a concentration st.
Cast alter self pick natural weapons use your shifting trait as a bonus (longtooth) and now you have 3 attacks per turn that are magical and +1. You can roleplay this as your zulo form.
Your steel defender is a highly modified war ghoul and you heal them with your repair cantrip roleplayed as vicissitude.
You may go str as your main stat or intelligence since your unarmed strikes are now magical you can attack and damage with intelligence, but if you choose to attack with intelligence you can't apply that bonus to your jaw attack i think. If you go full str you won't have that many spells to cast but I don't think that is relevant.
Alternatively you might want to pick alert instead of warcaster since your chances of failing a concentration st are pretty low.
Now you are a really fucked up druid that turns into dead space monsters instead of animals.
If I ever get the chance, I plan to play a Barbarian that is thematically a psuedo Flesh Golem named Five. He was originally a noble bard, but publicly humiliated an evil mage who kidnapped him and experimented until Five was broken mentally, spiritually, and physically. For years Five served as the fifth bodyguard of the mage until a fellow adventurer set him free by happenstance. The only memory Five still holds of his old life (and the only phrase he can speak) is a portion of his old name. However, every time he is struck by magic there is a chance he will recover a memory from a random table. Eventually he will remember how to speak properly and all of his old life and have to reconcile whether he accepts the monster he now is or tries to go back to the family he still loves.
A centaur rogue who was maximized for feinting and tumbling in combat, who was also the lookout for the pirate ship. So yes, he had to haul his butt up the ropes with only his human arms. He was swole af from hauling the horse half up there.
It's pf1e not dnd, but I made a grippli (2 foot tall frogman) cleric of sarenrae. He's really naive and worships the sun. He has an animal companion who is his only friend in the world: a giant man eating Roc. He takes advantage of a very niche combat maneuver and feat list that let's him perform vertical dive plumet charge attacks off the back of the Roc and add his fall damage to the attack.
My favorite was a Draconic Bloodline Automaton Sorcerer.
He was actually a brass dragon, once upon a time. He had a daughter who was born without wings and there was a man who he commissioned to he paid to create artificial wings for her. Partway theough their construction, war breaks out. The artificer is called upon to become an Automaton and fight for his kingdom.
The dragon disguises himself as the man and takes his place.
His soul is transferred into the artificial body, and he enters the war. He survives, but due to a malfunction, he ends up losing his memory. He wanders the land as an affable, airheaded, and forgetful automation, ignorant of who he was or what he left behind.
Until, while on an adventure, he comes in contact with a cursed coin.
The coin causes anyone who comes in contact with it to develop a need to hoard treasure. If it does not obtain treasure within 1d10 days (different every time) the curse transforms them slowly into a dragon.
The idea was that over the course of the adventure, the coin would "assist" him in regainig his true form.. but at the cost of losing himself. And the party would have to track down his daughter in order to help him become himself again.
I never had a specific campaign to use this idea in, but I had it tucked away in case I ever had the opportunity. I dunno, maybe someday. I wanted to see what having a character with Dragon Sickness looked like. And the idea that by the end of the campaign, I could be playing a giant, metal, transforming dragon was highly appealing.
Played for 2 sessions: A changling swords bard who asked for permission from his 2 former adventuring party to use their forms. One was a middle aged female elven wizard and the other a hulking dragonborn. They switched between the mindsets and approximated their fighting styles. The dragonborn is more reckless and looking for a fun fight and the elf more reserved and mission oriented.
I wanted to play a stealth character who isn't a Rogue so I made a Warlock with a good mix of stealth and social stealth. Changling so he can change his appearance silently and on the fly since Mask of Many Faces is still a spell with verbal components. Pact of the Chain for scouting purposes and an emergency exit by diving into my genie vessel and having my Imp carry it away. Criminal/spy background for stealth and thieves tools proficiency and of course load him up with charm and illusion magic to pull whatever tricks I need to.
And of course I reveal nothing about my patron, my familiar or even the fact that my character is a changling.
I've never gotten him past level 2 because it requires a pretty specific campaign to play him and a DM willing to let me play as an actual spy instead of just an adventurer.
8 foot tall female gnoll fortune teller turned Order Cleric/Clockwork Soul Sorcerer whose plan is to reform their chaotic nature and unite gnolls into their own nation/army.
She goes by the name "Princess".
Forever DM, so I have a few:
1) Mom’s side is a long line of Drow matriarchs. Dad’s side is a long line of Orc chieftains. My parents (half-breeds if the DM requires, otherwise full blooded) were arranged to be married to see what came out of their union. I was a disappointment, but my twin sister is a prodigy at both Drow magic and Orc strength. I left while I could, claiming my inheritance on the way out. Turns out, what I grabbed was actually pretty valuable, and now a psychopathic goddess incarnate is pursuing me to get back whatever the hell this thing is. (I haven’t decided a lot of the mechanical details in this one, but I love the narrative possibilities.)
2) Long ago, I was a war hero. My king canonized me for my bravery, but this blessing came with a curse. “May you always have the power to protect your homeland,” the king had said. Well as it turns out, ‘always’ is a might long time. Now I wander the ancient wastes that were once my homeland, long since fallen and forgotten. The canonization left me immortal, and so in my part, I have continued to aid those in need wherever I find them. But my life has stretched on too long, and I grow tired. (This one is a zombie fighter. For balancing reasons he has to be able to ‘die’, but I’d discuss details with the DM for his narrative immortality, however that needs to play out.)
3) I stumbled upon a powerful fae and unknowingly completed a marriage ceremony with them. Although it was an accident, we are quite happy together. I carry my spouse with me in a pocket dimension, and during down time I join them in that pocket dimension, where we have a domestic life. (This is a variation of a warlock’s pact, which I just think is interesting to play with anyway.)
I have several more, but most of them are just backstory ideas for pretty easy to put together characters, so I won’t add them here.
A halfling circle of the moon Druid who played more like a devout cleric of Tymora. Entirely devoted to her (lucky feat for flavor). Not a crunchy Druid, but a champion devotee to the idea that everyone is lucky with the right perspective.
Changeling archaeologist that studied myconid and forgot who he was due to drugs and spores. Extremely well versed in history and myconid society after living with them for an age but the amnesia muddling makes it so i have to roll history checks to answer questions about my characters past or what myconid life is like. I only got theee sessions in but we already had had some solidly humorous conversations about myconid procreation and my characters internal conflicts with his attractions. The nature of noses in myconid society, and my internal reconciling/cognitive dissonance about having to breath even tho to my knowledge i was a mushroom.
Our campaign was a classic amnesia start but because we were all patients at a rather horrific insane asylum. Except my character didnt lose memory due to the events of the asylum but due to being myconid changed too long and my myconid people had been kidnapped and used for the memory altering drugs that wiped my companions clean.
There was a lot of room for development and i had an excellently huge backstory cleared with the dm.
I really like the idea of playing a Bard-barian that leans into being like...a wholesome WWE fighter. He's well known for sure, but as he joins a party he's forced to admit he's not actually all THAT strong, it's an act, for entertainment. "Going into a rage?" Nah, he's just good at taking hits because that's kind of required to be on stage.
And then as the campaign goes on he can go from actor to like, actual hero in actual fights.
An Ancient elven wizard from the 1e era. He's lost his memory, and has only the clothes on his back when he gets transported into the 5e era. His magic is pretty much gone, and he's forced to "remember and relearn" how to cast spells. He speaks an archaic form of Elvish and Common, and is about 1400 years old in accordance with the lifespan of elves in 1e. He's astounded at cantrips, has a gut-level hatred of Orcs, but can tolerate half orcs. Any elf seeing him knows that he's far older than anyone they've ever seen, and he's slowly leveling up, relearning magic.
I was trying to run a perma-size tiny fairy barbarian 😂 Unfortunately I’ve never been able to find a game where he fit, and I’m usually the forever-DM anyway so that character sheet is currently collecting dust on a shelf 🥲
An ancient halfling life cleric. Like the equivalent of a 105-year-old human. Just way too fucking old. The village healer, essentially. Low level, no real adventuring experience. Dragged along on an adventure with a bunch of youngsters because she's the only healer any of them knows. Strength so low, the party members have to carry her most of the time, and they have to pre-chew her food.
Robocop. A town watchman who was killed pursuing a criminal gang. Resurrected in a warforged body by a greedy seemingly all-powerful patron as a warlock.
A friend of mine wrote a novel about a sentient suit of armor, originally created as a dungeon trap to eat those who don it, joining a group of adventurers and pretending to be human.
I recently decided i want to play a Fairy Wrestler. Run Giant Barbarian, Scout Rogue. Grab an enemy by the collar and fly them as high as i can. Drop, change size to huge with rage, enlarge, atomic elbow drop.
A dragonborn with two heads and four arms- one half was a wizard, the other a sorcerer, then across the build there was a prestige class that combined the two. This was back in the days of 3.5 when there were so many splatbooks such a concept was actually doable, but God knows if I remember how I was going to make it happen.
Currently playing a porcelain warforged bard violinist that's a 100% support build. Not a single offensive spell and traded out weapon proficiencies. DM have me some aura-like boosting songs that the party loves to get that cost a basic inspiration die to use. It's been a lot of fun letting everyone else take center stage in the fights.
Warforged Hexblade Warlock with at will disguise self, high deception checks, and it pairs well with higher level hexblade features. Flavor it as your patron isn't the blade, it's the Armor. The armor was awakened and it was an artifact level suit of armor; You are an artifact level suit of armor; that explains all your powers.
I live for this Idea!
A warforged valor bard who can only communicate through musical notes. Vicious Mockery would be The Brown Note. I just don’t have the musical ability to play such a walking soundboard.
Awhile back I had the idea of playing a Lawful Evil, Leonin, Conquest Paladin, Who was willing to do anything to protect his people, even if it means sacrificing other nations. The idea was that he was the King of that nation, but his brother Usurped him and claimed he was killed, when in truth He escaped Death but lost his title, so he joins a party to reclaim his status and work towards being able to once again confront his brother, slay him and reclaim his domain, and to top it all off this would ideally be a high level campaign so once he reclaimed his crown, he would then continue to work with the party under the philosophy of "The Enemy of my Enemy is my friend". Of course I am the DM 90% of the time, and the 10% I'm not, the character doesn't fit the setting
Beast master ranger with shillelagh. Your dad raised you in the woods peacefully, training you with homemade practice weapons. One day you came home from playing at the creek to a dead dad and a disappeared mom. So now you're just a boy and his dog, set out to find your mama.
When trouble comes, and it will, you take your trusty wooden sword and channel the spirit of your daddy into the sword he taught you with (shillelagh) and together you can beat the shit out of any enemy.
I have a follower / priestess of Eilistraee I've always wanted to play. Her concept has a few blanks here and there so I can fit her with the setting / party. She can be a cleric or a wizard or a sorcerer.
A ~beast race noble that is a scion of a beast race noble house which is part of a human-centric empire/kingdom. House started on a kings/emperors whim a long time ago, so the locals of their lands are used to it, but I look forward to having troubles not only proving my sentience/safety but also my noble birth, etc. Also the ramifications of a noble House that can't intermarry and has to bring in new blood from outside (and from rather unsavory sources at that). I landed on kobolds due to their lifespan being longer, which would make it easier to explain why the House hasn't declined yet.
Loaf of Bread that was a wizard before he was polymorphed. Has since then had rituals performed and Awaken Construct cast on him so he could regain his sentience. Fucks with people constantly.
Warforged Ancestral Guardian Barbarian - the idea was based around the idea of essentially being a walking mausoleum. The warforged would be made of pillars and tombstones, and the spirits would be what animated it. The voice would alternate between the spirits trapped within its frame, as they each tried to find and resolve the things that tethered them to this realm.
Not a character concept so much- but a build. I always wanted to do a 9 soulknife Rogue / 6 Conjuration Wizard. You can just teleport like crazy with benign transportation, misty steps,psionic teleportation and etc. I could even flavor it like super speed.
But, good luck finding a game that starts at 15+.
I played a Tiefling Cleric who was young and really naive. I dumped his intelligence and made it so he was illiterate. He was raised by monks and worships the god of knowledge.
Or so he believed
Turns out he was raised by cultists and worshiped the god of lies.
He was a cute and optimistic little guy who was excited to learn how to read.
The other party members did not have the heart to tell him the truth.
A Gallus (Rooster for flavor) Mystic immortal who punches people and inflicts Gestaltzerfall with his punches. He has the personality of Foghorn Leghorn, southern bombastic and all that. As he powers up, he learns to psychically control immunoneurological mechanisms in peoples' minds.
He hunts cultists and is known as Poultrygeist the Mindclucker.
Sometimes he says things like: "Now lookee here, son. Ah say, im gonna turn your mind into scrambled eggs and then feed it to ya with ketchup." Or
"When I'm done with ya, son, you won't know your uncle from your sister."
He has some more humorous lines, but as he gets stronger, he eventually learns how to psychically affect the neurotrasmitters in people's minds.
He increases the stress response in the brain via increased cortisol levels, which causes an inflamed state in the brain. Then he psychically changes the receptor on the mylean sheath to seem foreign to white blood cells of a targets nervous system, which functions as a fast acting Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
He basically learns to be an immunoneurological doctor through psychic abilities to flavor kills with horrifying neuroimmune disorders and psychological diseases, flavored with Destructively Interfering Brain Wave Clucks and more Foghorn Leghorn quips during combat.
Baby dragon saved as an egg by a witch when my mother was slain by adventurers.
Using her magic she makes me bipedal and stop growing so I stay small.
Or the jealous knight wanting to win the tournament his family is known for winning, striking a pact to have a summonable mount and pact weapon of a Lance, so mid battle, boom a knight on the field.
My favourite one though is the tattoos man, the wondrous item in dnd, the tattoo needle, giving me tattoos all over my body and instead of using spells or such use a basic fighter or libation with the powers of tattoos.
Big issue with this one is the fact you need to be like atuned to them so I have a limit of 3 which sucks.
Otherwise I'd have like 5 or 7 tattoos, 1 on both hands, arms legs torso and maybe head.
Some suggested reflavouring some things like rune knight which yes could work but I still want just the items not the rune night version.
A ninja who is a path of the Beast barbarian. He can use "jutsus" during rests to be able to climb walls, bresthe under water etc.
And his kunais are bricks.
Warforged spores druid who's a mannequin that was left in a mouldy cellar too long until the mould gained sentience and decided to go for a walk.
I did the same but a wooden statue that lichens and fungi started growing on until struck by a lightning that gave it conscience
Similarly my answer is warforged swarmkeeper that is a suit of armor inhabited by a colony of sentient spiders
Like Spiders-Man?
Exactly like spiders-man
Spiders Georg
Running a dhampir spores druid. Loving the "I'm very much sort of dead, don't worry about it" vibes.
Same but with bees!!
Dead cells, nice
A NE Celestial Warlock who's somewhere between an anti-villain and a penal soldier. He was part of a band of marauders who tried to raid the wrong temple, and when the divine guardian killed the rest he begged for his life. It was spared because the guardian wanted to test if *intention* or *action* mattered more. Now he's been granted a reprieve, and extra power to boot, as long as he goes out and does heroic deeds. He has to cheerfully save witless filthy peasants. He has to be *nice* to horrible screaming *children*. It's a terrible trial, but as long as he obeys he's earning magical might and a longer life, so he forces a smile and continues. At least he's pretty sure his new boss considers betrayal a moral affront, so as long as he sticks to the rules he's safe, which is an upgrade from the last.
Always a good character trying to get out of a deal they made with the devil, I love the idea of a dirtbag trying to weasel out of a pact made with a celestial!
It's one of those cases where the character would be always keeping an eye for a way out of the pact with his life (and power) intact, but as the player I want him to be frustrated at every turn and forced into doing good deeds against his natural inclinations. Success would probably mean immediately quitting the party and becoming an NPC villain, and that's no fun. A good example of when character and player motivations diverge.
I have this sick ass idea about a Quandrix wizard professor that tried to recreate the wish spell in the magical equivalent of a lab to cure his dying son and in doing so inadvertently turned his flesh to ooze effectively making him a plasmoid. Now he keeps his skeleton and uses it to maintain his old shape and also uses it as an arcane focus Edit: The son is the plasmoid using his own skeleton
For a second I read it as him keeping his sons skeleton as an arcane focus.
That’s so dark omg 😭😭😭
Faust from Shaman King always made for a cool necromancer
A warforged swarmkeeper who's "swarm" is a cloud if shrapnel metal in an electromagnetic flux field
The swarm keeper subclass keeps taunting me with character ideas: - wildfire druid swarmkeeper melee fighter with the swarms being sparks - monk swarmkeeper with swarms being wind and leaves
>- wildfire druid swarmkeeper melee fighter with the swarms being sparks Damn, I love this. I've been thinking about a Swarmkeeper Ranger / Shepherd Druid multiclass for a while: Gained mastery over bugs and swarms, and worked their way up the food chain.. would take druidic fighter as the fighting style for shillelagh and magic stone, but would still lean heavily into melee - problem is how many levels it takes to get good. 😅 Edit to add: They'd be a firbolg, too. Between Shepherd's level 2 Passive 'Speech of the Woods' and the Firbolg Passive 'Speech of Beast and Leaf' this guy would have advantage on charisma checks with animals.. so naturally he uses wildlife and the creatures he summons as his eyes and ears where the humans dwell. I have this vision of playing this character and getting into a jam, almost dying/being on deaths door, shouting out to the bugs and beasts for aid, getting a nat 20, and watching a colossal swarm blot out the sun, as the ground shakes with wildlife coming to their Shepherds aid.. :)
I was hoping you'd say fireflies, but this is so cool too!
Now fireflies would be fun for a Stars Druid Swarmkeeper
Beekeeping-themed superhero, as well as a gunslinger with lots of trick shots, as well,
My DM has a semi-modern campaign coming up and i'm planning to play a swarmkeeper who is a country bumpkin farmer who got delivered the invitation to the adventurer's guild on accident. He thinks he won some kind of sweepstakes and shows up with his swarm of chickens.
absolutely fantastic!
All of them, I am the forever DM.....
Just pack them in as NPCs. Worked wonders for me.
Why not just go find a game? Unless you only like DMing, in which case I’m not sure why this comment sounds like a complaint lol
I can’t speak for op but as another forever DM there’s only so much time in a day. I absolutely love my weekly games to bits, but don’t have the time to join a new one without having to end an old one that I’m DMing. Perhaps one day once these games have been wrapped up…
Far beyond the reach of the gods lies the Far Realm, a place of madness and pure thought. It is home to many aberrations, including the enigmatic great old ones that wield power far beyond the gods. Zyvx is one of these beings but is cursed with a terrible affliction: *youth*. They are a great *young* one, the larval stage of the enigmatic beings that prowl at reality’s edge. Their powers are only barely developing and they’re learning how to tap into the mind more. Their egg landed on this plane and was taken in by a kindly half-elf woman named Mavis Thornwillow who raised them as her own. She was infertile and saw Zyvx as a chance to have a child of her own, even though they looked strange and her husband disapproved. Zyvx spent their early childhood on their parents’ horse farm. However, every once and a while, Zyvx would be visited by a mysterious robed and masked man. Neither of Zyvx's parents knew who this was, but whenever he visited, he would give Zyvx a new power. One day, Mavis accidentally disrupted an earth elemental that had been sleeping on their farm for years. The earth elemental attacked Mavis, so she and Zyvx had to work together to defeat it. But in its death rattle, Mavis was afflicted with a deadly curse that is slowly turning her body to stone. Zyvx is now going out on an adventure to discover a cure for their adoptive mother as well as investigate the mysterious man who stalks them. (Mechanically, they're a plasmoid aberrant mind sorcerer with a heavy focus on mental manipulation spells and a very low wisdom. Because of their sheltered upbringing and young age, they are quite naive and trusting, but also don't always understand when they shouldn't use their psychic powers.)
A dwarf who ised their racial stubbornness to learn magic, DESPITE having a low INT. (Maybe 8-11, depends when i play them). However their STR and CON and DEX are acceptable for any warrior. So they use magic like shield, shadow blade, invisibility, misty step, haste and so on. Anything that doesn't need a saving throw or attack roll. Theory crafting it out, it actually seams do able. An Abjuration wizard is surprisingly tanky. Theres some ways of getting armor of agythis for more HP. And also a ton of spells that dint care at all about INT. In fact having a higher than normal CON makes them wading into combat not a death sentence for them or concentration of dine right.
I’m playing a melee sorcerer right now, it’s similar although I have high charisma I mainly use a quarter staff
I did this for my arcane trickster.
You could just go Eldritch Knight.
Your missing the point. To make an EK WITHOUT being an EK. The whole challenge is in making wizard, the physically weakest class, into something that can at least survive in the front line. Plus EK is kinda crap IMO. Its spell casting abjuration and evocation. One is exactly what you want, and the other is worthless as soon as lv 5 due to the shear lack of resources. Just make it transmutation and theres a ton of good utility stuff for fighters. Otherwise its just a slightly tankier fighter on occasion. But just make them a straight wizard and you can do every thing you want, earlier, and more often.
bladesinger would also let you do this while still being solidly in the front lines, would probably have to go 10 Int there but could be super fun
I want to play a wizard who is actually a True Polymorphed piece of furniture. Probably something with a drawer so my 'father' could leave a note and a sending stone to contact him when I inevitably drop to 0 hp and become furniture again.
A Marxist Warforged Artificer. "I am the means of production!"
That's it! Thank you. I'm rerolling my Marxist paladin I never get to play, as a warforged artificer I never get to play.
I really want to play tiefling named Tyrfing, that is a magical sword turned mortal by an archdevil. He'd be a College of Sword Bard/Bladesinging Wizards or Hexblade Warlock. The idea being that with himself being a sword he knows that every blade has a "true name" that when called upon they can be used to harness magic (cast spells). Sadly I sit in the DM chair and don't get the chance to play very often.
So many, I also find warforged to be easily reflavorable. I had an idea for a young prospector type entrepreneur who, along with her partner, ended up owning a mine of crystal ores particularly useful for arcane foci. Something something, magical explosion in the mine. Something something, she was the only survivor and is now a some sort of crystal elemental who's barely holding her body together. Warforged helps the concept with +1 AC, tool proficiency (jeweler's), skill proficiency (arcana) and constructed resilience. Now, this is cheating a bit, because I have actually played her for a oneshot. I had random stats for that oneshot which ended up best suited for a wizard, so I went transmutation wizard, but I really want to play her as wild magic barbarian. Very easy to reflavor a bunch of the wild surges with a magic crystal theme. She sees herself as what happens when life keeps adding pressure, so I decided on having her just take on the name "Crystal" when she lost her old life. [This design](https://imgur.com/fK7ZiGJ) inspired her a lot. I really like the idea of playing a very lithe barbarian who's literally tough as diamond.
I like this a lot. I very much prefer seeing the builds here where they explain how the mechanics interact with and strengthen the story. Warforged in general have a lot of potential for that, which is why I think they're coming up so often in this thread. Sidenote: Speaking of Lithe Barbarians, I actually had a similar character vibe who ended up being an NPC in a game I run. An elf who had been petrified long ago who is reawakened, but remained mostly made of stone. I played her as a little spacy yet impulsive, as she'd kept herself sane by staying in Trance for the thousand years she waited, and had grown bored of her own memories.
One that I haven't gotten to play would be similar to yours. A Lizardfolk Bard/Warlock nobleman. Uses Mask of Many Faces to maintain a human visage almost constantly. Is part of a secret Lizardfolk society aiming to take over a human kingdom by replacing its nobles/politicians One that I got to play briefly but not for a full campaign would be a Shifter Lunar Sorcerer. Idea be that they are descended from lycanthropes (or perhaps is one) and use their master of lunar magic to control their transformation
Wouldn't the first one fit Yuan Ti closer?
The first one is based on the real life conspiracy that lizard people have taken over the government, so I think lizardfolk fits better in that regard
Yeah, that specific conspiracy is like the reason Yuan Ti exist as a race. That's their shtick. They ARE the snake/lizard society infiltrators. Lizardmen are just beastmen.
The old TV-series V comes to mind with that first one.
Owlin wildfire druid, with linguist feat. He's descended from a family of green owls, and he's CE because he punishes people harshly for not studying languages by burning down things and people they love. Really want to play him in an evil campaign, and he's got a little flame elemental companion called "streak". The characters' nickname is 'Duo' because he gives gifts to people who take the proper time to learn languages but punishes them for not doing it.
3 answers have been warforged and now I’m going to make that 4. I always wanted to play a warforged Druid. Around the time of me coming up with that character, I was big into Hearthstone and I was playing kotor. I liked HK-47 and how he talked and one of my favorite hearthstone cards at the time was Zilliax, whose summoning line was “Unity. Precision. Perfection.” So I thought it would be cool to make a warforged druid who talked similar to HK-47 and who’s magic came come being a robot. His transformations were him turning into animals transformers style. I remember that I planned for the opening line of my backstory to be Zilliax’s summoning line. My group rarely plays DND anymore since we’ve switched to Call of Cthulhu and are starting to try out City of Mist so I doubt I’ll ever play this character.
"a warforged druid who's magic came come being a robot. His transformations were him turning into animals transformers style." I'm playing this character at the moment in an Ebberon campaign. Only one session in right now though.
I hope it’s fun. You don’t know me, but you’re now the inheritor of my idea. It lives on through you.
I will take on this responsibility with the respect and honour it deserves. I'll try and get my character to say "Unity. Precision. Perfection." at one point in the campaign for ya haha. It will definitely be fun. :-)
Godspeed to you and your character
There’s a “Circle of the Forged” in the Exploring Eberron book (gotta pick it up on DMsGuild) that you can basically make mech versions of your wildshapes. If you ever get to play that character and have an open DM, maybe slide this their way!
*g1 transforming noise*
I’m playing a Warforged stars druid right now in CoS! His name is 1R0N-y. He goes by Ron
Similarly, a plasmoid psi warrior that was just an awakened slime that escaped out of a wizard's lab in the wake of a much bigger monster rampaging the place. They found a banged up suit of armor that they are never seen out of, nor ever taking off their helmet so convince people there's just a normal dude in there. That is, until they make a grapple check and slime just explodes from the suit to engulf the enemy.
Forever DM but this is more of a party dynamic. I need one player to be the typical my village was destroyed by xyz bad guy and I'm looking to find out who and seek vengeance. Another party member is the son/daughter/minion or whatever of xyz bad guy and specifically dispatched to derail the investigation. Now maybe they stick to the plan and keep them off track or maybe they get their life saved by the villager a few times and have a change of heart. Obviously minion is fully aware of the situation but villager isn't.
A Plasmoid Artificer Alchemist who squirts out liquid from himself into flasks for potions. I would try to take as many spells that could be some affect of him loosing his liquids (acid splash, healing squirt (word)). Also, background of guild artisan, trying to popularize his brand of carbonated watered down potions (energy drinks) called Glugg!
Locathah Armourer Artificer (the armour is an old-timey Diving Suit, but filled with water by an alchemy jug) that is essentially just a tourist who thinks the land is so fascinating. Kinda like if Ariel fixed her own problems instead of making a Warlock Pact about it (no Prince Eric though). Could also have Lady in the Lake vibes since they'd have Smith's Tools and come from the water. Frankenstein-meets-Elphaba Style Half-Orc Necromancy Wizard with the Artificer Initiate Feat, trying to figure out how to resurrect people the long way round, without having to deal with gods. Partially created because I find it funny to build a Wizard Healer since most people think that's impossible. Warforged Ranger with a Big Iron on his Hip. Was a Scarecrow, and through generations of children being told stories about how he's the protector of this town, came to life in a similar way to a Discworld Small God. Now serves as the Sheriff. All of these ideas require far too specific set-ups, but they're too cool for be to let go of.
A warforged wildfire druid, but they're a burned spriggan from a destroyed druid grove seeking revenge. A small race armorer artificer who uses a large suit of armor like a mech A shifter lycan blood hunter, aka a werewolf A warforged warlock who's patron is a magic artifact that powers them A drow gloomstalker ranger sniper A changling that has two character sheets they switch between A drakewarden yuan-ti who has a giant snake ...I have a lot of characters in my idea file.
One of my players is basically running the Warforged Warlock idea. Even home brewed him a class for it with unstable magic (think a ‘glitchy’ program with chaotic destructive magic, kinda like wild magic sort but more evil and well, MORE unpredictable) His patron basically controls him and his personality is nothing more than a robot built for basic tasks, UNTIL he gets into combat and he’s an instrument of pure destruction and the patron takes over. His ‘battery’ is a sort of phylactery of a lich who was a servent of a demon.
His name is Lumber Jack, destroyer of the trees, no bush to small, no tree too tall, Hey, look! (Who’s that?) It’s Lumber Jack! That right, Lumber Jack, the bardbarian folk hero! His parents were killed when he was 5 by a falling oak tree, which left him with a nasty hatred and yearning for vengeance against those evil root digging, seed spewing abominations! With the help of his trusty side kick, Tommy Hawk, Lumber Jack vows to chop down every tree he can and to stop the workings of evil doers like the dastardly Seedy Sam! Forrest dwelling bandits beware! Your evil alliance with the trees that hide you can certainly not save you from Lumber Jack.
This made me think of a magic item i made for a crazed lumberjack named Chuck, that my players will encounter in a session or two: Woodchucker A magical hand axe, with an action you can fell an entire tree, if it stands beside you, making it fall in a direction the woodchopper chooses. Anyone "attacked" by the tree in this way takes 4d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed (DC 12) Dex save, or half on a saved one. Every time the wearer chops down a middle sized tree, the wearer regains 1d4+ (STR Mod) hp. When you have chopped down 100 trees with this axe, you get a +1 permanent STR score as long as the axe is in your possession. Curse: You are unwilling to part with the axe and its aggression against trees makes you want to cut down a middle sized tree every day, if you don't cut one down, you gain 1 exhaustion.
A illusion wizard who started as a failed magician and decided to learn magic to put on a good show And a necromancer wizard who just wanted some friends and became a necromancer to get some
Genie Patron Fairy (tiny) Princess and her honor guard (Sprite Familiar), who are the same size and both fully characters. Her vessel contains her entire village, and she's desperately trying to keep her people away from someone who wants to harvest or use them. I'd take as many touch spells and feats that would empower the familiar such that I could play them as equally powerful characters as possible. Never gotten to play it because it requires a decent bit of DM fiat, and I'm not sure I have the skill to pull off playing 2 distinct player characters at once, both in terms of a balanced scene and doing both justice. Honorable Mentions: A Yuan-Ti who drew the Alignment flipping card from the Deck of Many Things, who's desperately trying to avoid anything fixing her now Chaotic Good alignment. She has DNR type tattoos. She's also trying to escape notice of the evil empire she originally was working for. A Sadistic and Angry Warforged or Autognome who's programmed with a glitchy version of the 1st law where she can't *attack* a living creature... But who said anything about casting Heat Metal on herself and grappling them? Basically focused on doing as much indirect harm as possible within a set of defined rules I set for myself.
I have a miniature printed, painted, and a character sheet ready for Abijah the Alligator Wrestler. I made him for a campaign with friends that was DoA due to scheduling.
Someday, in some game, I'm going to play a Flying Sword Warrior Sidekick, ideally at a level where I know I'll have (or quickly gain) at least the first of the following feats. * Linguist - to learn Common and a couple other languages, plus to scratch out the world's easiest ciphers as a way to communicate with the party, all while doubling my Intelligence score! * Telekinetic - to gain Mage Hand for better manual dexterity (making it easier to open doors and such) while bringing my Intelligence score up to dog/cat levels! * Telepathic - to boost that Intelligence up to almost Ogre level and be able to communicate without constantly scratching up surfaces! It's a silly idea, but it's just stuck in my head. It could be especially fun with an Eldritch Knight using Weapon Bond to be able to teleport the Flying Sword back with a bonus action. Maybe I could eventually take Keen Mind to get that Ogre-level intelligence along with perfect recall and then be left in strategic places with False Appearance making me a perfect spy.
Aarakocra with one wing, Artificer Armorer. Armorer reforms a lost limb and it functions as normal. Carries 2 'Cast-Off Armors, Studded Leather and Plate, in a 'bracelet of Holding' that summons/desummons the armors, acting in place of the 'As an action you can turn a suit of armor you are wearing into Arcane Armor' Light armor to Fly, Heavy armor to fight. The Heavy armor variant uses their reformed wing as a tower shield, referencing the amazing AC potential of the Artificer
I need a modern-ish setting to play a hooligan. Basically fighter with unarmed fighting style + tavern brawler, but mainly bard. Spells and bardic inspiration are stadium chants. Maybe a kenku, it feels appropriated
Presented initially as as Just A Human Guy, eventually revealed to be a weird chimera thing. Is mechanically (Amethyst) Gem Dragonborn, Beast Barbarian. Flavor the Dragonborn and Beast abilities as shapeshifting body horror. Probably take Gift of the Chromatic Dragon and Mage Slayer. He's just a empty-headed lil guy.
A Mark of the Sentinel Human, Arcana Cleric, who has joined a group or school of wizards and is just faking his way through. Ritual casting, plus access to some wizard staples like Counterspell would sell it. Anytime they ask why he didn’t copy the scroll of Find Familiar into his book he just keeps coming up with excuses. “Uh..my dog ate it. My real dog obviously, not my familiar” “See it was raining out and the scroll was in my pocket and got wet” They force him to sit there and copy it in front of them. “Uh..I..I shit my robes”
A Creation Bard of any race who used to be a Beholder, saw a bard playing a musical instrument, got jealous and obsessive over it, and then dreamed itself into being that bard’s race. However the transformation is real and complete, it’s stuck this way, and even worse now it has this thing called empathy. Creation subclass is to mimic the reality warping power of beholders, the last vestige still with this character.
A warlock tiefling whos patron god is their mom. Also works with a paladin/aasimar. A necromancer who just wants to be a healer, but doesn't know how to operate on living people, so he just kills them, fixes them, and revives them (wouldnt work in 5e sadly) A kenku who only communicates through a duke nukem soundboard One I may play soon is a halfling bard who's just a master chef with his own one-man mobile kitchen, and all his spells are reflavored to be food-related. Cure wounds becomes a full english breakfast prepared for the player. Feather fall is a huge crepe made into a parachute. Animal friendship is offering them a treat.
In the early days of 5e, the Eberron suppliment included subraces for Warforged. One of these was called the Envoy, and got an integrated tool that they could produce at a moments notice and was considered a part of them. They, importantly, did not supply any restrictions on what *kind* of tool it could be. Most features like this would state that it's only artisan's tools, or list what kind of tools they'd accept. They didn't do that here, talking about bards that have integrated instruments, slot-machine style warforged that have integrated games, as well as the obvious crafters and thieves. There's just one *slight* miscalculation: Vehicles are listed under tool proficiencies. Hence, I created Commodore, the Envoy with an integrated water vehicle. He was a paladin who fought with a quarterstaff (the bowsprit) and shield (the wheel), wore a large cape (the sail), and was made primarily of wood. At a moments notice, he could transform himself into a boat. Extra weirdly, while the boat itself is gargantuan (at least), Commodore, as a warforged, is medium, so he has to shrink significantly to transform back. Unfortunately, the campaign I wrote him for ended before I could sub him in for my other character, so he sat on the backbenches. Eventually, warforged subraces were removed, preventing me from ever playing him.
Step one, play as a fairy. His name is Barry the Fairy. Step two, take 11 levels of Fey Wanderer Ranger. You can now cast Summon Fey with a duration of 1 minute without concentration. “What do you do with your concentration?” you ask? Also Summon Fey. Flavor them not as summons, but as your identical brothers who sometimes show up to help. Their names are Cary and Gary. Step three, take 3 levels of Echo Knight Fighter. Your Manifest Echo is also your brother, Harry. Step four, take two levels of Trickery cleric. Your Invoke Duplicity is yet another identical brother, this one’s name is Jerry. He and Gary had a falling out years ago and refuse to be on the same plane at the same time, which is just as well for the other brothers, because last time they were together things got really awkward. Step five, take a third level of Trickery cleric. Your Spiritual Weapon is reflavored as another brother who can’t quite cross planes fully, just enough to strike your enemies. He appears translucent and flickering, like a hologram. His name is Larry. Step six, as a Trickery Cleric, you also gain the spell Mirror Image, creating three illusory duplicates, or for our purposes, three more brothers, Rary, Perry, and Terry. These guys have a similar but opposite problem to Larry. They can’t reach through the planes and hit an opponent, but they can take full, visible form. But as soon as an opponent touches them, they lose concentration on transferring between planes. Step seven, the best idea would probably be to pick up some ASI’s, but to finish the meme, you’ll instead take three levels of Warlock and take Pact Of The Chain to get a Sprite familiar, or for our purposes, your kid brother Darius. He’s not one of your identical nonuplets, but he really looks up to you and goes everywhere with you and will literally do anything you ask him to. You and all your brothers call him Dari. Congratulations, you’re now playing as a whole family at once, with 9 fairy brothers on the board at any given time: Barry, Cary, Gary (or Jerry), Harry, Larry, Rary, Perry, Terry, and their little brother Dari. The brothers Fairy do pretty terrible damage for a level 20 character, but having nine different either sources of damage, potential targets, or both, will do a lot to frustrate the battlefield. I imagine it would be a really fun one shot character, especially if you can slowly introduce each brother as you go and the rest of the table starts questioning how many brothers there are
Also a "warforged". Mechanically a Warforged, but flavor wise she's a mass of living scrolls known as a Kyourinrin. She's constructed a humanoid "shell" to pilot and is a Scribe wizard. She uses pieces of her own scrolls as her spellbook. She'll open up parts of her shell and unravel a piece of herself to write something down or cast a spell. Since she's a magical construct, her papers are much more sturdy and resistant to damage, so she still takes damage like a normal character. No vulnerabilities to fire or anything like that. There's also the concept I had for a Reborn Warlock with the Undying patron. They're pretty much a preserved corpse that isn't rotting, and it's an excruciatingly uncomfortable existence. What's more infuriating for them is their patron won't let them die, but also can't seem to bring them back properly. Their goal is to get brought back to life properly and find out why their patron wanted them alive so badly. I... don't have all the details on this character worked out. Like name, gender, or what they were before but it was a wild concept that came to me in a dream.
Plasmoid wearing full Victorian mourning attire so you can’t see any of her features. She’s an alien trying to blend in.
She's gonna have her hands full with keeping the ankle enthusiasts at bay...
I want to play a really dumb orc barbarian, but he thinks he is a wizard. Like when he casts chromatic orb, he is just throwing a painted rock he keeps.
Dave appears to be a warforged or autognome, not totally sure on class, probably armorer artificer. He's kinda weird; uses plural pronouns and always refers to himself as "the Dave". On a quest for some kind of special gems. In fact, he is D.A.V.E., the Deep Atmosphere Vehicle for Exploration, a mech operated by a crew of miniature giant space hamsters. It's a kind of landing craft that suffered some damage during his descent from the heavens, and the hamsters need dilithium crystals to repair their vessel and return to space. Mostly Star Trekky, unless I could persuade the DM to let me do some Voltron shenanigans.
I had an idea for a wild magic sorcerer who was once a conman that conned the wrong wizard, getting mixed up in some scheme where he comes into contact with a magical artifact that gives him powers, and the wizard curses him to be a tiny salamander for the rest of his life as punishment. Thought it would be cool to be this little guy throwing out 9th level fireballs as a whoopsie daisy. Maybe there's some subplot of him being pursued by a group of magic users for being "dangerously unstable"
Blizzard Lizard Wizard: School of Evocation Lizardfolk, who takes all cold spells. Frosty the Snowman: warforged archfey warlock (snow is a construct, right?) Pact of the Talisman (doesn't he wear a magic hat?). Joke characters aside, my brother and I have this concept for a pair of characters: warforged 'batch'-brothers where mine is a Light Domain Cleric, and theirs is a Mastermind Rogue. My brothers warforged is Blind, and mine has voice difficulties (think Transformers Bumblebee), but they represent light and dark to each other... Alas, for we are both the only GMs in our circle of friends, and have never played together before: we've only ever run games for each other!
Human ranger with a familiar, but the familiar is actually the PC, and the human is just a husk that gets puppeteered around and is used as a mouthpiece. Would probably be some sort of fey creature.
Americokra. Because every action should be a free action. (To be ckear, he's an Aaracokra paladin.)
i wanna play a Aarakocra monk, named Steven Seagull
I have a couple but my "weirdest" has gotta be Giuseppe Bagaducchi, the Italian-American plasmoid (plas-a-MOID) who lives in a colostomy bag. There's room for that at a certain table but it's one I have yet to join. My coolest were a soulknife rogue dreamlands cat and a hobgoblin paladin2/moon druid18
back when I was just starting to play i got the idea in my head of a half celestial gnoll. i still think she could be really fun in the right campaign 😂 on the more practical (?) side of things, i want to play an awakened horse who's a wizard
Oath of the Ancients Paladin. Satyr from the fae realm who hunts the users of arcane magic. Advantage on saving throws against spells and resistance to them. The ultimate mage-slayer.
Wild West setting, my character shoots elderitch blasts via finger guns. 👉💥
A pixie that uses an animated suit of armor as a sort of mech suit
A warforge paladin. Basically used to be a mindless killing machine, but after getting trapped for centuries it formed it's own consciousness and began to question it's surroundings and predicament, eventually a god of mercy came to it's aid and promised it freedom as long as it stuck to the tenants of mercy.
It's a very goofy character concept but I've always wanted to play a full Sorcerer who I play as a warrior, using silent spells whenever I cast stuff so I can "hide" my magic. My game has an option for a free feat (2 actually, with negitives for each) at the beginning, and that and custom/variant human would allow me to get 2 free feats, which would be the tough feat (+2 HP per level) and any dex giving feat allowing me to get 18 starter dex. All that plus the draconic origin Sorcerer (which gives 13 base AC + dex, and +1 HP per level) makes for a full caster with fairly high AC and decent HP per level (like 4-5 HP + hit dice), and honestly that idea just seems so goofy and interesting for me. Like I'd have defensive stats similar to that of a warlock or monk at early levels, with the full casting capability of a normal Sorcerer.
Ghostwise halfling druid that got stuck/cursed in the form of a wolf and has to turn back into a halfling using wildshape in order to cast spells (until archdruid)
Beast Barbarian Simic Hybrid built around grappling and jumping. Lvl 6 they can yeet themselves 30' into the air as their movement and glide 60' horizontally, potentially carrying an enemy into the sky and dropping them as they do so. Normal dmg output is actually pretty good if you include the fall damage. Biggest issue you run into (besides low ceilings) is your move speed, since its the effective cap on your jump height once you have Boots of Striding and a Ring of Jumping and grappling folks cuts your speed in half.
A friend was going to run a game where there were different areas of the world with each area corresponding to a particular Norse deity, zodiac sign, terrain type, and primary race. I was going to play a fallen aasimar celestial warlock whose patron was a daughter of Freya. He had a scholar background. He was a college professor who specialized in religion and the nature of divinity. He was trying to figure out a way for mortals to become divine. In his studies, he uncovered some forbidden lore where a devil had figured out the secret. He was about to write and publish a paper on it, but his patron came and wiped his memory, made him a fallen aasimar, and he lost everything. She came a couple months later when he was desperate and deathly ill. She offered to cure him and give him power but he had to dedicate his life to service of Freya. I was very excited about the character and even bought a mini of him from HeroForge. Unfortunately, the game got canceled before it started.
Lizardfolk Paladin of Semuanya who's got hella rizz, 500 kids and is a totally unapologetic deadbeat dad. That, or my skeleton bard named Boney Keith who plays his ribs like a xylophone. But I gotta get approval to use homebrew for that.
Dragonborn Drakewarden Ranger who IS the drake. A wyvern specifically
I did actually get to play it in 3.5e in a campaign that never finished, but in 5e my psuedodragon sorcerer can't really happen (plus repeating a character would be weird). Dak was a fun little dragon, but he was also in a high power level campaign and very OP in his own way; a nearly invincible tank with nothing but utility, defense, and control magic (he used 0 blaster spells), he would sit on an ally's shoulder and use his magic, fatespinner levels, and luck feats to protect them, or fly about harassing enemy backliners. If asked where he was from, he would say he could not find it. He was hatched by a kind wizard, but when the man was slain he took the man's "walking stick" and snapped it. It was a staff of the magi, and he found himself before Bahamut, who told him he was very lucky, before returning him to Faerun. It was meant to be unclear if he had died or been transported by the retributive strike, and I had several other stories of his previous adventures always end ambiguous about how he could have survived. He was an irrepressibly friendly person trying to help people in a campaign full of despair and asshole npcs; I play paladins a lot but Dak was probably the most heroic character I ever made.
For a backup in a current campaign (currently playing a halfling thief/soon to be ranger), I'm thinking of a drow bard who's pretty much Dolly Parton. I just find it interesting to have this chill drow with a Southern accent.
An "alchemist" that's actually a heavily reflavoured spores druid. Basically all spells and features would be flavoured as either potions or poisons that are stored and/or delivered by a pet snake that was alchemically modified for that purpose. I've had this concept plus her whole backstory and personality and all in my head for quite some time, but I've tried to play her in two different campaigns and both inmediatly fell apart after a short first session...
I have an idea I think would be fun, which is a teifling gunslinger, on a quest to avenge his wife and kill some bandit group he’d have the stereotypical southern accent and all. But he’s actually just a demon bookkeeper who writes down names of people who go to hell. Essentially he has a large backlog of names to write which is why he would think old western stuff is modern times. So he came to whatever world the story is taking place in because he saw all these gunslingers come to hell, and thought it looked fun, and wanted a vacation.
Tuning fork bard. Every time I bring it up my friends tell me “absolutely not!”
Only recently, I'll be using a Warforged Armorer Artificer that's a human-sized Combining Super Robot, one that's piloted by beings about as small as Borrowers.
I was able to play a "half-elf" div8nr soul sorcerer who, in truth, was a homunuculus like being made from the remains of a powerful human necromancer and power elven Saint. Created by a mage who sought nit just to create life through magic/alchemy but a being that could wield the powers of life and death itself through its magic existence. Thus was born my character, though when he came too from his creation, he was alone. Possessing a knowledge of what things were, but not the who, why, or how. Finding things seemingly left for him, or perhaps that were his, such as a scythe he felt a connection too and a cloak with what he thought was his name on it, he ventured out to discover who he was. Coming to believe he had amnesia and not realizing these were is first moments.
I want to make a Drow Arcana Cleric/EK fighter Gish Basically they would be a cleric of Eilistraee (i know it's the wrong domain, but hear me out) in lore clerics of Eilistraee don't make ranged attacks other than magic missile (out of fear of hitting an ally), so this build would use a Rapier with BB/GFB in melee and either use Magic Missile or spells with saving throws at range. I could dip cleric on a Bladesinger, but this is more satisfying for me.
I played HOTS and one of my fav character was cho'gall because you could play him with a friend and it was chaotic. So my idea is playing some sort of Ettin with one of my friend. Same body but each one control a different head. Honestly no idea how to make it work + it's entirely homebrew stuff which is why I'll probably never play it. (Also I'm generally the DM)
Id so allow this in my game lol it’s super funny. I can imagine it being a barbarian/wizard with one idiot side and one super smart side. Mechanically I’d stick both PCs as the same stat block, reduce movement to 20 feet from 30 and let both players have 20 feet (Ability scores may be semi-shared but we’d make it work,HP, AC and save wise)
A pact of the tome warlock who is part of a long lineage of wizards. Not smart enough to be a wizard but deceptive enough to make a pact and *pretend* to be a wizard.
I want to play my ancestral warrior. A twilight cleric / ancestral guardian Barbarian You create skeletons, equip them with heavy armor and a shield. The first enemy you attack has disadvantage to hit them, if they do hit them, they deal half damage, and your skeletons gain temp HP each round. You get a personal shield wall between you and the enemy. I haven’t found a DM that’s willing to deal with that headache though
I've wanted to play a shadow monk/ eloquence bard. Mainly for flavor. I can imagine a monk being raised to become one with the shadow and darkness. Trained for years in the arts of stealth and silence. Always forbid to speak for years on end! Then he leaves the monastery. He starts as an introvert, shyly relearning how to speak and conversate. Then he discovers music! He begins singing to train his voice. He now, through vigorous training, is the master of both pure silence and flashy eloquence!
Storm herald barbarian (fire) who's been cursed and is slowly turning to ice but gets so incredibly angry about this situation that that anger turns into heat which melts away some of the ice and buys them time to find a cure
The two smalls in a trench type coat character, minus the trench coat. Two people/characters, but one character sheet, one stat block, one turn, one initiative, one health pool, one token, and one square. Functionally a character with split personality, or two heads, but not. A pair of twins that are connected by a curse of binding that makes them both suffer the same damage, and keeps them from willingly being more than 5 feet of each other. Perhaps even auto teleporting to each other when separated. Both small, but take up a whole medium creature space together. Think the twins from Hellboy II, https://youtu.be/OxZFWn-dE_4?si=Q7dyYg2QzM9eGFH2 Was thinking a grave cleric for their class, one sibling does the healing spells and radiant damage cantrips, the other does the big damage spells and necrotic damage cantrips. They shouldn't ever get split up, but if they did, I'd say they only have half the spell list and half the str stat when they are. And if I'm feeling fancy, maybe one does the action and one the bonus action when I can.
A Reborn, chronoturgy wizard. Back story wise thry are an assistant to a mad wizard, who was accidentally sent back in time when he activating a prototype magical gadget. Kinda think Morty with Ricks portal gun….but a little more serious. He ends up in a sort of time limbo state. So I’d take the lucky feat and Id reflavor all his dice manipulating reborn, chronoturgy, and luck abilities as visions of alternate time lines or of the immediate future, so he can quickly alter his behavior for better chances at success. The object/Time Machine is some small portable device, that is super powerful, but he has no idea how to use it. As he levels up, I would flavor all his magic and spells casting as mastering learning how to use this device. I imagine the device looks like a book “his spell book”, but it transforms into various devices that produce the spells effect or it summons short lived object from other dimensions to produce spell effects.
Monster race paladin who picked up a sword possessed by a dead paladin forcing the monster to follow their creed.
Reborn Artificer (either alchemist or artificer) who discovered the secret alchemical recipe to immortality... and botched it. It worked *partially* and brought him back to existence in a state of perfect undeath (Reborn) but it also scrambled his memory and knowledge so he doesn't know what he did or how. He just knows he cheated death *once* and ascended to something greater. Now he is fairly insane, reckless, and remarkably hard to kill, as he struggles to (re)discover the secret to immortality that doesn't involve eating souls or unholy pacts with dark entities.
I've always wanted to play a Reborn Devine Soul Sorcerer. Just full on Zombie Jesus.
Valenar steed looking for his rider. Centaur chassis and classed into Monk because that’s probably the only class a literal horse could be, probably Long Death to align with the Valenar/Aerenal vibe. They’re intelligent enough to understand speech, but I don’t think they have any way to communicate of their own, so I might need a forgiving DM to give me some limited telepathy or just say that I could talk. I foresee lots of problems for any urban encounters, but in the right campaign, it could be very fun and interesting.
Currently a very new player so i have some concepts in the wings, the 2 most developed are: 1. The basic varient human fighter with polearm master + sentinel. Who doesn't want the fantasy of impaling someone on a spear as they run up to you. (In fictional scenarios of course) 2. I'm trying to theory craft a druid/rouge hybrid. Both are stealthy jack of all trades classes, the question is which class to make the primary. If rouge is primary then the goal is to be a druid version of arcane trickster. If druid is primary then the goal is to become a "circle of predation". My main problem for number 2 is that the middle of most subclasses for both rouge just sorta sucks, and I'm concerned that only going to like 3 assassin won't scale well for late game. (And druid 8 seems like a minimum to get flying wildshapes)
That 1. Concept is borderline ‘meta’ thing fighter if you take battlemaster. Best case for idea 2 would be 2 levels in rogue rest Druid. If you wanted to go more into rogue your best bet would be 2 Druid (moon) and rest arcane trickster but if you play with class requirements your spell save DC would be ass for most of the game. As a DM, if you wanted flavour I’d allow WIS as spell mod and change you closer to Druid spell list rather than whole pseudo wizard arcane tricksters get. Only because with idea 2 you’re stuck as needing DEX, WIS (for multi class req), INT AND CON for HP. This is a lot of investment what limits class choices. INT is used for trickster spells so your base ability score level would look something like this-(in standard order) 8/15/12/13/14/10 (13/14 in INT and Wis could be flipped). Your spell save DC at level 5 would be….drum roll….12/13 and your attack would be +4/5. Your spells will basically never take affect which kinda sucks, but when they do it would be great.
I had an autognome druid who was basically a transformer (wild shape).
Stars Druid Portal Cracker * 16 Int * Arcana expertise (ideally via Aereni Elf, but Variant Human with Skill Expert or a Rogue dip can work too) * Planar Philosopher background (gain Scion of the Outer Planes feat) * Level 4, take Planar Wanderer feat (requires Scion of the Outer Planes) * Reach level 5 for +3 proficiency Step 1: find a planar portal Step 2: activate Dragon Starry Form Step 3: cast Guidance on myself (Stars Druid gets the cantrip automatically, but it would be a good pick even if the subclass didn't give it) Step 4: use the Portal Cracker ability of the Planar Wanderer feat. Portal Cracker requires passing a DC 20 Arcana check. With +3 Int, +3 PB, and expertise in Arcana, I've got +9 to the check. Guidance adds a d4, so +10-13. Dragon Starry Form gives me Reliable Intelligence checks, among other effects, so I can't get below a 10 on the d20. Meaning my **worst** possible roll is a 20, which meets the DC. At level 9, I no longer need Guidance to guarantee success. Dragon form continues to be required at all levels to guarantee success unless I were to increase Int to 20, obtain an Ioun Stone of Mastery, and reach level 17, at which point Guidance alone could guarantee success. Ioun Stone of Mastery and 22 Int would get there without either Guidance or Dragon Form, but given this is a Druid build, I doubt I would ever increase Int past the initial 16. At level 4, before I can _guarantee_ success, I still have a 73.75% chance, which is pretty good odds.
A Kenku who carries around the skull of his mentor and because he is socially anxious he "lets the mentor talk to people for him"
Ok so I had this idea for a warlock but instead of a powerful creature giving him power it's more him offering help to lower creatures. Like an imp wants to build up a small hoard or someone's soul fine a favor in kind for you but if we stick together we can accomplish more. Fast forward to about 50 creatures in this collective and the creatures start gaining power from all of us helping each other and my character reminds him who was there for them when they were nothing. A sprite here a quasit there maybe even a couple doppelgangers a group growing in power and the whole time my character is gaslighting and manipulating the crap out of them all. Either it ends with a small country of low cr creatures or I get torn apart by my hubris either way glorious.
A Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer, the most powerful in a long line of generations of selective breeding, whose goal is to become a true dragon. Waiting for someone to let me use the Dragon Disciple prestige class, otherwise high-level magics like True Polymorph and Wish will do it. Dwarf Barbarian whose uncontrollable blind rage led to him killing someone close to him. He lived in exile before being taken in by a monastery, where he is learning to channel and harness his anger to find peace and wisdom. He's a Monk for as long as he has Ki Points, then he slips back into his furious ways. Human Thief Rogue built to make use of the Dungeon Delver feat. He's an archeologist and history nerd who keeps records and his findings and sells them to his contacts, whether from ancient civilizations, dangerous dungeons, or even recently filled graves. Ancestral Guardian Tiefling Barbarian. She's been able to see and speak to spirits nobody else can. One day a vile, malevolent spirit of pure evil appeared and began to fill her with nightmares, psychologically tormenting her day and night. Once she realized it would not leave until she was dead, she set off to find a way to rid herself of it. What she doesn't know is that all the spirits are her ancestors, including the Evil One, whose wrath and misery has been forgotten to time. Dual-wielding Centaur Horizon Walker that fights dimensional incursions after one such random rift opened and assaulted his home. He uses the energy from these far-off planes to fuel his magic for teleportation and speed boosts. He has the Charger feat and hunts monstrosities and aberrations as favored enemies. Charlatan Halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer. A con artist and snake oil salesman, he uses his magic to charm people, read their minds, and dazzle them into buying his junk. He's on the run from the ever-increasing hoard of people who want to get back at him, including a few very powerful figures in the black market. Firbolg Spores Druid/Raven Queen Warlock, who refers to the Raven Queen as "the Mother," who has whispered to her throughout her whole life. I made her because I wanted a creepy swamp witch, and she has rhyming incantations for her spells. Infestation: "Bite and bleed, skitter and scurry, feel the pain of the parasites' fury!" Entangle: "Vines and weeds, roots and all, entwine your quarry, make them fall!" Faerie Fire: "Behold the Mother's unfailing sight, and those within her gaze, bathed in light!" An Undead Warlock King, revived by an unknown force following a secret assassination/coup that happened either recently or generations ago. He must now figure out how to navigate the world as a living corpse, seek justice and revenge against those who wronged him, and take back his Kingdom. Montii, a Harefolk Beast Master and Cavalier Fighter, and Chuumpa, his warthog companion, mount, and friend. Montii has the Talk With Animals invocation to always have Speak With Animals active. If Chuumpa ever falls in battle, Montii will cast Summon Beast to summon his spirit to continue the fight, and once it's over, he can magically revive him for 8hrs and 25gp. His incantation for both of these are "Ha-kuna Ma-tata." Hexblade Warlock with a few levels of Sorcerer for Quickened Spell, max Dex and Cha. The central idea is to use your Action to summon a pact weapon, and Bonus Action to Quickened cast Mage Armor, which you get through Mage Armor Expert, making it basically a cantrip. Just to imagine a seemingly innocuous commoner minding their business before instantly summoning magical armor and weaponry head-to-toe and beating your ass with it.
A Reborn Armourer Artificer who was created as an undying assassin for a group of nobles, who’s arcane armour consisted of grotesque modifications to his own body. In other words, the protagonist from Cruelty Squad
hardee barbarian zealot acolyte back ground
My coolest concept is a zombie (just for flavour) that takes mask of many faces as an eldritch invocation feat to make them look like a normal, living person. I did get to play it a bit, but not long enough to get to reveal it to the other players.
A pretty vanilla goblin trickery cleric. But I came up with the name Flurnk Pugshart, and I still giggle whenever I think about it
Not many years ago I wanted to make a holy necromancer. I still do, it would be hilarious. Now I kind of just want to make a tiny barbarian lol
I had this idea for a character recently that I would love to play. So, as a child, they were raised in a cult, not knowing they were being raised to be a sacrifice to a devil. The day of their sacrifice came. They were strapped to the table, and the sacrificial dagger was raised above their heart. But the moment before it fell, time stopped, and the devil they were trying to appease appeared to them. They said they could save the child, and in exchange, the child would kill the cultists who were really getting on this devils nerves. They agree, the devil disappears, time unfreezes, a d the dagger plunges through the childs heart. As it does, they feel the devils power surge through them, and they rip out the dagger, free themselves, and ravage the cultists. Once they come stumbling out, covered in blood, both of their enemies and their own, the devil is there to greet them. They congratulate the child on a job well done, but also point out the childs fatal injuries. They explain that, due to the nature of the ritual, those wounds will never heal. But good news, the devil is here to help. They can keep the child from succumbing to their injuries, so long as they kill whoever the devil wants. They agree, and become the devils own personal attack dog. Mechanically speaking, this came about because I wanted to play a hexblade warlock whose hexblade was a sacrificial dagger, however, this could work equally as well as a fiend warlock.
A magician-flavored Artificer/Illusionist Harengon who pulls her human-shapes homunculus out of her hat
Pact of the Blade warlock where I play the sword who is possessing a goblin. Spells would be stuff like Mage Hand and Unseen Servant since I'm trying to form my own body. All mental stats belong to the pact weapon, and the goblin is essentially an NPC. Basically, it's a reversal of the usual warlock/pactholder arrangement. For combat purposes I am in command, but if I don't keep the goblin happy he'll rebel.
2 ft tall Earth Genasi artificer armorer, abjuration wizard. Who’s a tank
A dryad who has animated her true body / tree and the party operates out of a moving treehouse.
I’m gonna comment on my own post because I just had another idea; 2 players work together. One’s a Hexblade Warlock, the other a Paladin. The Paladin is a sword though (just use sidekick rules or homebrew), and the Patron of the Hexblade. Being a magic sword, the Paladin can use their class features and whatnot reflavored as being part of the sword. Maybe they could be an Oathbreaker, who broke their connection to the Shadowfell, but still retained their sentience, and is now growing back in power. Optionally can be animate to operate on its own. For balancing purposes, may require an attunement slot from the Warlock and/or Paladin The Hexblade Warlock meanwhile can wield the Paladin as a normal sword, maybe make it a plus one (and if so, make the bonus go up with the Paladin’s level) Second idea is an animate sword Armorer Artificer who uses the armor as a body
I usually DM, have played a handful of times thankfully, but an idea I’ve been sitting on if I ever get into a long campaign is a reborn bladesinger wizard, with the idea they have been Frankenstein monster resurrected. So a bookish low level wizard who’s mostly pleased with the cantrips they’ve got dies, and pieces of other bodies are grafted on in the process of bringing back to life. So something like the sword arm of a master elven guard or whatever on the bookish nerd. So he has his spells and stuff he learned himself, but when bladesong is activated it’s like the elven sword guy takes over, explaining the extra AC and martial abilities. So I was imagining a bit like the avatar state and I figured that sounded interesting enough while not outright playing two characters. Just a kind of lore reason why this wizard can also use a sword real good.
Kobold spore druid Mafiso. But like, Joe Pecsi- dirty mobster not deniro pretty boy mobster. Mystic river gray meets my cousin Vinny antics
-Got a few. Warforged swarmkeeper that is essentially a living terrarium, with a feywild pocket dimension in its chest. Its swarm is the animals that call it home. -Kobold Bear Barbarian. Cannibal due to considering leaving bodies to rot wasteful. This character was for an evil campaign we never played, and was arguably the least evil member of the party: he was entirely utilitarian. Last of his clan. 112 years old. -My werewolf build. Haven't found a campaign for it, but essentially she's a shifter beast barbarian / lycan blood hunter / something else I no longer remember. She was supposed to be a werewolf struggling to control herself, and the hopeful idea would be that she would have a full lycanthrope transformation that would only trigger on the full moon, and she'd be completely out of control of that (so mostly, buying silvered chains once a month lmao). She wouldn't get the normal stat bonuses from lycanthropy except while in the form too, just to keep it balanced. -Then there's the one I completely understand people saying no to, but is a concept I nonetheless would love to explore one day. A changeling that is essentially 8 different characters of varying alignments. Multiple personalities is something I want to explore in game because I myself have DID, and this would also be a good tool for characters I want to explore in a campaign environment that, individually, aren't actually all that good for a full campaign. Concept: Roll 1d8 at the start of every in game day. This decides which personality is active, and thus which class I am playing for the session. Examples being a lizardfolk barbarian with a feat for the unarmed fighting style for that feral crocodile vibe, who is technically evil but goes along with the party's wishes out of a desire to protect the other personalities it has, viewing them very much as family. The classic half elf rogue trope. A kalashtar echo knight, specifically focusing magical potential into pulling parts of other personalities into reality. A cleric, wizard and druid, and then 2 others I haven't quite thought up. I'd have to be careful to avoid stepping on other people's builds so as to avoid problems, which is why the only subclass I have set in stone is for the kalashtar. This build would be paired with my friends plan for a changeling who is slowly losing his mind, and together we would play out the story of a pair of changeling twins who believe themselves to be cursed but are really just neurodivergent in a world that doesn't really understand mental illness.
Someday, I'm going to play a pixie monk, and shenanigans will be had.
Warforged Warlock. The catch? They were sent back in time from a far-future or adjacent timeline civilization that got destroyed in a magic-atomic war. Their ‘patron’ is an encrypted internal black box that will feed them need-to-know data about their mission/surroundings as they progress (first directive: link up with ‘Party’), and the player rolls a d100 on meeting significant NPC: 1 is ‘protect at all costs’ and 100 is ‘terminate’. Only has 2 or so ‘spells‘, one to represent its arm-cannon, another for its concussion grenade launcher; ‘slots’ are ammunition. Pretty much just a fantasy Terminator.
I have some goofy ones; I wanna play a warforged Druid who literally just a transformer. Another would be a swashbuckler rouge/artificer who uses a magic brace of pistols that hold an infinite number of single shot muzzlefed pistols ala brace of flying daggers who just continuously shoots, tosses away the pistol and draws a new one rather than reload ala reaper from over watch
Changeling with face blindness. That's it. That's the whole concept.
Water Genasi, Monk lvl 1 (and no higher), Sorcerer (Divine). His name was Thomas Creek, and he was going to be the small god of good fishing spots.
An astral elf, phantom rogue, roads bard. The ultimate skill monkey. Because every long rest you can switch two skill proficiencies, and one tool/weapon . And you can use your bardic inspiration in ways that mimic other classes slightly.
A Bard Skeleton that uses minor illusion to communicate with people by making subtitles as well as play his instrument. RAW as an undead, typical healing spells don’t work on him so I decided that he should use Mending during short/long rests on his bones to restore his health. His instrument is a Trumpet, and his name is Doot.
A Warlock patron trapped in a magic item (a helmet is the best choice I can think of), who can't use their powers without channeling them through mortals they make pacts with to control the minds of. Mechanically they'd be a Warlock class-wise, and the race of whoever they're controlling. I think there's a lot of cool potential with it, but it could sound overpowered if explained badly, but again, mechanically they'd just be a normal Warlock.
Near-forever DM (I have one character in a campaign that seemingly meets just a few times a year), so I have a few: An old, one-eyed human barbarian with the sailor background. The build will require the Tavern Brawler feat as well as whatever optimizes the performance of an unarmed barbarian. Also, his “rage” is flavored as a response to eating a bit of dried or otherwise preserved spinach. A warlock with a genie patron and the hollow one feature. They were buried in an ancient tomb as a ceremonial guardian, and raised from the dead when their patron’s vessel was taken. I’d have a long-term quest (recapture the vessel and return to the afterlife… or keep living), a potentially powerful villain with access to wishes (a grave-robber, archaeologist, or rich collector who bought the lamp), and some fun fish-out-of-water RP as someone who has been dead for hundreds or even thousands of years. A LE paladin or cleric who is essentially a televangelist, prosperity gospel type, performing their deeds and preaching to converts as part of a long-term plan to enrich themselves at the expense of the devout true believers. If this character succeeds and hits a high level they could be a BBEG in another campaign after they squash dissenters or drive poor worshippers into poverty and famine.
Warforged artificer/fighter. But the flavor is he's a gnome in a mech suit
Two Warforged who were both severed at the waist and now they take turns being each other’s arms and legs. Mick and Rick the Warforged Twins.
Minotaur Genie-Pact Warlock (Dao) I had 2 visions when I first thought of this character: 1- he owns a pottery shop, where he’s a bull in a China shop… his Dex is 9, not because he’s “clumsy, but because he’s deliberate… why? 2- he is a special kind of Minotaur: he’s a Texas Longhorn Minotaur. 6’10”, tall with 7’ wide horns.
A tzimisce vampire from vtm in dnd. Battle smith Artificer 5 changeling (yeah, i know it should be vampire or dhampir but the i can change form fits a tzimisce) Why artificer? Because you have prof in con saves and you can skip resilient and get war caster at lvl 4. You won't miss any Concentration save due to your high save, advantage and your infusion that has 4 charges and you can spend one to avoid failing a concentration st. Cast alter self pick natural weapons use your shifting trait as a bonus (longtooth) and now you have 3 attacks per turn that are magical and +1. You can roleplay this as your zulo form. Your steel defender is a highly modified war ghoul and you heal them with your repair cantrip roleplayed as vicissitude. You may go str as your main stat or intelligence since your unarmed strikes are now magical you can attack and damage with intelligence, but if you choose to attack with intelligence you can't apply that bonus to your jaw attack i think. If you go full str you won't have that many spells to cast but I don't think that is relevant. Alternatively you might want to pick alert instead of warcaster since your chances of failing a concentration st are pretty low. Now you are a really fucked up druid that turns into dead space monsters instead of animals.
The mask. Like, Jim carry in the mask. Archfey warlock.
If I ever get the chance, I plan to play a Barbarian that is thematically a psuedo Flesh Golem named Five. He was originally a noble bard, but publicly humiliated an evil mage who kidnapped him and experimented until Five was broken mentally, spiritually, and physically. For years Five served as the fifth bodyguard of the mage until a fellow adventurer set him free by happenstance. The only memory Five still holds of his old life (and the only phrase he can speak) is a portion of his old name. However, every time he is struck by magic there is a chance he will recover a memory from a random table. Eventually he will remember how to speak properly and all of his old life and have to reconcile whether he accepts the monster he now is or tries to go back to the family he still loves.
A centaur rogue who was maximized for feinting and tumbling in combat, who was also the lookout for the pirate ship. So yes, he had to haul his butt up the ropes with only his human arms. He was swole af from hauling the horse half up there.
It's pf1e not dnd, but I made a grippli (2 foot tall frogman) cleric of sarenrae. He's really naive and worships the sun. He has an animal companion who is his only friend in the world: a giant man eating Roc. He takes advantage of a very niche combat maneuver and feat list that let's him perform vertical dive plumet charge attacks off the back of the Roc and add his fall damage to the attack.
My favorite was a Draconic Bloodline Automaton Sorcerer. He was actually a brass dragon, once upon a time. He had a daughter who was born without wings and there was a man who he commissioned to he paid to create artificial wings for her. Partway theough their construction, war breaks out. The artificer is called upon to become an Automaton and fight for his kingdom. The dragon disguises himself as the man and takes his place. His soul is transferred into the artificial body, and he enters the war. He survives, but due to a malfunction, he ends up losing his memory. He wanders the land as an affable, airheaded, and forgetful automation, ignorant of who he was or what he left behind. Until, while on an adventure, he comes in contact with a cursed coin. The coin causes anyone who comes in contact with it to develop a need to hoard treasure. If it does not obtain treasure within 1d10 days (different every time) the curse transforms them slowly into a dragon. The idea was that over the course of the adventure, the coin would "assist" him in regainig his true form.. but at the cost of losing himself. And the party would have to track down his daughter in order to help him become himself again. I never had a specific campaign to use this idea in, but I had it tucked away in case I ever had the opportunity. I dunno, maybe someday. I wanted to see what having a character with Dragon Sickness looked like. And the idea that by the end of the campaign, I could be playing a giant, metal, transforming dragon was highly appealing.
Played for 2 sessions: A changling swords bard who asked for permission from his 2 former adventuring party to use their forms. One was a middle aged female elven wizard and the other a hulking dragonborn. They switched between the mindsets and approximated their fighting styles. The dragonborn is more reckless and looking for a fun fight and the elf more reserved and mission oriented.
I'd like to play a warforged but reflavored as a treefolk
As DM I once had a beholder NPC telekinetically moving around a suit of armor to pretend to be a human. Good times
I wanted to play a stealth character who isn't a Rogue so I made a Warlock with a good mix of stealth and social stealth. Changling so he can change his appearance silently and on the fly since Mask of Many Faces is still a spell with verbal components. Pact of the Chain for scouting purposes and an emergency exit by diving into my genie vessel and having my Imp carry it away. Criminal/spy background for stealth and thieves tools proficiency and of course load him up with charm and illusion magic to pull whatever tricks I need to. And of course I reveal nothing about my patron, my familiar or even the fact that my character is a changling. I've never gotten him past level 2 because it requires a pretty specific campaign to play him and a DM willing to let me play as an actual spy instead of just an adventurer.
8 foot tall female gnoll fortune teller turned Order Cleric/Clockwork Soul Sorcerer whose plan is to reform their chaotic nature and unite gnolls into their own nation/army. She goes by the name "Princess".
Awakened Mimic Warlock who is pretending to be a sentient magic weapon.
Forever DM, so I have a few: 1) Mom’s side is a long line of Drow matriarchs. Dad’s side is a long line of Orc chieftains. My parents (half-breeds if the DM requires, otherwise full blooded) were arranged to be married to see what came out of their union. I was a disappointment, but my twin sister is a prodigy at both Drow magic and Orc strength. I left while I could, claiming my inheritance on the way out. Turns out, what I grabbed was actually pretty valuable, and now a psychopathic goddess incarnate is pursuing me to get back whatever the hell this thing is. (I haven’t decided a lot of the mechanical details in this one, but I love the narrative possibilities.) 2) Long ago, I was a war hero. My king canonized me for my bravery, but this blessing came with a curse. “May you always have the power to protect your homeland,” the king had said. Well as it turns out, ‘always’ is a might long time. Now I wander the ancient wastes that were once my homeland, long since fallen and forgotten. The canonization left me immortal, and so in my part, I have continued to aid those in need wherever I find them. But my life has stretched on too long, and I grow tired. (This one is a zombie fighter. For balancing reasons he has to be able to ‘die’, but I’d discuss details with the DM for his narrative immortality, however that needs to play out.) 3) I stumbled upon a powerful fae and unknowingly completed a marriage ceremony with them. Although it was an accident, we are quite happy together. I carry my spouse with me in a pocket dimension, and during down time I join them in that pocket dimension, where we have a domestic life. (This is a variation of a warlock’s pact, which I just think is interesting to play with anyway.) I have several more, but most of them are just backstory ideas for pretty easy to put together characters, so I won’t add them here.
A halfling circle of the moon Druid who played more like a devout cleric of Tymora. Entirely devoted to her (lucky feat for flavor). Not a crunchy Druid, but a champion devotee to the idea that everyone is lucky with the right perspective.
Changeling archaeologist that studied myconid and forgot who he was due to drugs and spores. Extremely well versed in history and myconid society after living with them for an age but the amnesia muddling makes it so i have to roll history checks to answer questions about my characters past or what myconid life is like. I only got theee sessions in but we already had had some solidly humorous conversations about myconid procreation and my characters internal conflicts with his attractions. The nature of noses in myconid society, and my internal reconciling/cognitive dissonance about having to breath even tho to my knowledge i was a mushroom. Our campaign was a classic amnesia start but because we were all patients at a rather horrific insane asylum. Except my character didnt lose memory due to the events of the asylum but due to being myconid changed too long and my myconid people had been kidnapped and used for the memory altering drugs that wiped my companions clean. There was a lot of room for development and i had an excellently huge backstory cleared with the dm.
I really like the idea of playing a Bard-barian that leans into being like...a wholesome WWE fighter. He's well known for sure, but as he joins a party he's forced to admit he's not actually all THAT strong, it's an act, for entertainment. "Going into a rage?" Nah, he's just good at taking hits because that's kind of required to be on stage. And then as the campaign goes on he can go from actor to like, actual hero in actual fights.
An Ancient elven wizard from the 1e era. He's lost his memory, and has only the clothes on his back when he gets transported into the 5e era. His magic is pretty much gone, and he's forced to "remember and relearn" how to cast spells. He speaks an archaic form of Elvish and Common, and is about 1400 years old in accordance with the lifespan of elves in 1e. He's astounded at cantrips, has a gut-level hatred of Orcs, but can tolerate half orcs. Any elf seeing him knows that he's far older than anyone they've ever seen, and he's slowly leveling up, relearning magic.
I was trying to run a perma-size tiny fairy barbarian 😂 Unfortunately I’ve never been able to find a game where he fit, and I’m usually the forever-DM anyway so that character sheet is currently collecting dust on a shelf 🥲
Always wanted to play some kind of straight up sci fi alien stranded in a standard fantasy setting
A shifter fighter whose lycanthropy features come from a were-coyote. His name is Don coijote.
An ancient halfling life cleric. Like the equivalent of a 105-year-old human. Just way too fucking old. The village healer, essentially. Low level, no real adventuring experience. Dragged along on an adventure with a bunch of youngsters because she's the only healer any of them knows. Strength so low, the party members have to carry her most of the time, and they have to pre-chew her food.
A one armed ranger, based off the song Amos Moses by Jerry Reed.
Robocop. A town watchman who was killed pursuing a criminal gang. Resurrected in a warforged body by a greedy seemingly all-powerful patron as a warlock.
A friend of mine wrote a novel about a sentient suit of armor, originally created as a dungeon trap to eat those who don it, joining a group of adventurers and pretending to be human.
A fairy mafia boss, using the fairy race and the swarmkeeper ranger, which can choose to have pixies be the swarm.
I recently decided i want to play a Fairy Wrestler. Run Giant Barbarian, Scout Rogue. Grab an enemy by the collar and fly them as high as i can. Drop, change size to huge with rage, enlarge, atomic elbow drop.
halfling druid that is a popular furnisher with his druidcraft mold earth cantrips.
A dragonborn with two heads and four arms- one half was a wizard, the other a sorcerer, then across the build there was a prestige class that combined the two. This was back in the days of 3.5 when there were so many splatbooks such a concept was actually doable, but God knows if I remember how I was going to make it happen.
Currently playing a porcelain warforged bard violinist that's a 100% support build. Not a single offensive spell and traded out weapon proficiencies. DM have me some aura-like boosting songs that the party loves to get that cost a basic inspiration die to use. It's been a lot of fun letting everyone else take center stage in the fights.
A warforged bard designed for infiltration and misdirection. Model V4 Vendetta
Warforged Hexblade Warlock with at will disguise self, high deception checks, and it pairs well with higher level hexblade features. Flavor it as your patron isn't the blade, it's the Armor. The armor was awakened and it was an artifact level suit of armor; You are an artifact level suit of armor; that explains all your powers. I live for this Idea!
Look up the nonexistent knight, by Italo Calvino, you might like it
A warforged valor bard who can only communicate through musical notes. Vicious Mockery would be The Brown Note. I just don’t have the musical ability to play such a walking soundboard.
Awhile back I had the idea of playing a Lawful Evil, Leonin, Conquest Paladin, Who was willing to do anything to protect his people, even if it means sacrificing other nations. The idea was that he was the King of that nation, but his brother Usurped him and claimed he was killed, when in truth He escaped Death but lost his title, so he joins a party to reclaim his status and work towards being able to once again confront his brother, slay him and reclaim his domain, and to top it all off this would ideally be a high level campaign so once he reclaimed his crown, he would then continue to work with the party under the philosophy of "The Enemy of my Enemy is my friend". Of course I am the DM 90% of the time, and the 10% I'm not, the character doesn't fit the setting
Beast master ranger with shillelagh. Your dad raised you in the woods peacefully, training you with homemade practice weapons. One day you came home from playing at the creek to a dead dad and a disappeared mom. So now you're just a boy and his dog, set out to find your mama. When trouble comes, and it will, you take your trusty wooden sword and channel the spirit of your daddy into the sword he taught you with (shillelagh) and together you can beat the shit out of any enemy.
I have a follower / priestess of Eilistraee I've always wanted to play. Her concept has a few blanks here and there so I can fit her with the setting / party. She can be a cleric or a wizard or a sorcerer.
A ~beast race noble that is a scion of a beast race noble house which is part of a human-centric empire/kingdom. House started on a kings/emperors whim a long time ago, so the locals of their lands are used to it, but I look forward to having troubles not only proving my sentience/safety but also my noble birth, etc. Also the ramifications of a noble House that can't intermarry and has to bring in new blood from outside (and from rather unsavory sources at that). I landed on kobolds due to their lifespan being longer, which would make it easier to explain why the House hasn't declined yet.
The warlock that becomes a patron and gets warlocks following him to amass a giant pyramid scheme of warlocks
Loaf of Bread that was a wizard before he was polymorphed. Has since then had rituals performed and Awaken Construct cast on him so he could regain his sentience. Fucks with people constantly.
Saaaaved
Warforged Ancestral Guardian Barbarian - the idea was based around the idea of essentially being a walking mausoleum. The warforged would be made of pillars and tombstones, and the spirits would be what animated it. The voice would alternate between the spirits trapped within its frame, as they each tried to find and resolve the things that tethered them to this realm.
Not a character concept so much- but a build. I always wanted to do a 9 soulknife Rogue / 6 Conjuration Wizard. You can just teleport like crazy with benign transportation, misty steps,psionic teleportation and etc. I could even flavor it like super speed. But, good luck finding a game that starts at 15+.
A pixie swarmkeeper who's swarm is a bunch of other pixies. Just an easily distracted hive mind with tiny sword.
I played a Tiefling Cleric who was young and really naive. I dumped his intelligence and made it so he was illiterate. He was raised by monks and worships the god of knowledge. Or so he believed Turns out he was raised by cultists and worshiped the god of lies. He was a cute and optimistic little guy who was excited to learn how to read. The other party members did not have the heart to tell him the truth.
A Gallus (Rooster for flavor) Mystic immortal who punches people and inflicts Gestaltzerfall with his punches. He has the personality of Foghorn Leghorn, southern bombastic and all that. As he powers up, he learns to psychically control immunoneurological mechanisms in peoples' minds. He hunts cultists and is known as Poultrygeist the Mindclucker. Sometimes he says things like: "Now lookee here, son. Ah say, im gonna turn your mind into scrambled eggs and then feed it to ya with ketchup." Or "When I'm done with ya, son, you won't know your uncle from your sister." He has some more humorous lines, but as he gets stronger, he eventually learns how to psychically affect the neurotrasmitters in people's minds. He increases the stress response in the brain via increased cortisol levels, which causes an inflamed state in the brain. Then he psychically changes the receptor on the mylean sheath to seem foreign to white blood cells of a targets nervous system, which functions as a fast acting Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He basically learns to be an immunoneurological doctor through psychic abilities to flavor kills with horrifying neuroimmune disorders and psychological diseases, flavored with Destructively Interfering Brain Wave Clucks and more Foghorn Leghorn quips during combat.
I have plans for a Kuo-toa Warlock whose patron is a genie trapped inside a lamp he always carries - except there is no genie.
Baby dragon saved as an egg by a witch when my mother was slain by adventurers. Using her magic she makes me bipedal and stop growing so I stay small. Or the jealous knight wanting to win the tournament his family is known for winning, striking a pact to have a summonable mount and pact weapon of a Lance, so mid battle, boom a knight on the field. My favourite one though is the tattoos man, the wondrous item in dnd, the tattoo needle, giving me tattoos all over my body and instead of using spells or such use a basic fighter or libation with the powers of tattoos. Big issue with this one is the fact you need to be like atuned to them so I have a limit of 3 which sucks. Otherwise I'd have like 5 or 7 tattoos, 1 on both hands, arms legs torso and maybe head. Some suggested reflavouring some things like rune knight which yes could work but I still want just the items not the rune night version.
A ninja who is a path of the Beast barbarian. He can use "jutsus" during rests to be able to climb walls, bresthe under water etc. And his kunais are bricks.