Character Generation

Let's use this thread to discuss who is going to play what. The world will be a steampunk-y fantasy setting, so I'm open to non-typical classes/races, or if you want to work on a variant, lets talk it out.

Your characters all awake with no memory, so there's no point in coming up with an actual backstory. HOWEVER, I'm a big fan of epic stories, of bands of travelers working together. And we all know, in every epic story group, each character uses a distinct combat style and weapon! So imagine you're a band of amazing, level 20 characters: what would your weapon of choice be (I'm not serious about only distinct weapon types). You'll also notice you should have access to your own subforum (if you don't, it because I've been lazy and not made yours yet). There will be character discussions and notes, specific to your character, in there. There may be specific details to your char gen in there, so be sure to check it out.

I'm thinking about it, and I think I'd like you all to start your characters as Neutral... you're waking up with no idea of who you are, from name to personality to desires, and I'd like to you RP your chosen alignment organically (think about a story... if a character wakes from amnesia, they won't inherently be good or evil, but inclined in a particular direction). In a way, your characters not knowing the world will shape the world. I'm not going with the standard DnD god structure (we may tweak exactly how any divine characters get their magic) or land. I'll be asking you guys to help me make the world, and in exchange, I'll be helping make your characters (mostly because your characters don't know who they are :p).

This is pretty experimental... it's the type of game I've always wanted to run, but my live groups were never willing to go with. I hope you guys will bare with me, join in with some great RP, and really craft a world with me.

I had been thinking of either a rogue or a magic user. Mostly because I think it would be interesting to RP a character who found themselves either incredibly adept at picking locks and stealth maneuvers, or one who just realized they can do magic. A sorcerer would be best for the magic user as they don't have to memorize spells to use them, so even waking up in a dungeon it makes sense they can spout spells. A wizard would be fairly useless without his spellbook.

However the desire to use a non-standard seems fun too. Changelings or shifters from the unearthed arcana articles could bring a fun twist to the story.

Thanks for accepting me! I don't know what I'm playing yet but yeah I'm definitely mining Unearthed Arcana for this!

So any class/race is fair game here?

I have a character concept I've tried to play in two previous games (one game died, the other never got off the ground). I wonder if it would be a good fit for this game?

The concept is a small (or even tiny) automaton which was built to be a wizard or sorcerer's familiar. It would be a custom race combining features from the warforged and either gnome or halfling. What do you think?

Not automatically, but I'm open to hearing things that aren't in the official books.

The concept could work well for my own reasons, and could make some really interesting ideas in a steampunk world.

Any time I do a custom race or class, I always make this stipulation: it automatically becomes open to retcon (in terms of stats/abilities).

I was actually thinking of something similar, but of regular size. The race I was looking at was actually a homebrew of Animated Armor. I was at first thinking Warforged may be better, but I actually think the idea of a magical suit of armor being locked in a dungeon for some reason leads to a very interesting backstory.

But I wonder if it would be too much to have two constructs on the team?

If you wanted to see the homebrew here is the page. If that isn't acceptable I may seek out a Warforged.

Either way I was also looking at the Unearthed Arcana wizard tradition of Artificer. They are potion makers and enchanters. So it's a lot of taking mundane things and making them into useful magical stuff. I think that would kind of fit in between the kind of mechanical nature of a steampunk world as far as tinkering goes, while still making a wizard useful without much inventory. A few levels in I can create my own spell scrolls if I have some time and ink and parchment. Early on I can create a few basic potions if I have a vial of water. So I can try and be useful in a dungeon as long as we run into at least SOME basic supplies.

I think it's a really cool idea, though if we go with it, I'll need to give you a bit of "why" you're a suit of animated armor. I do have some concerns... I wouldn't say the homebrew is overpowered, but it does seem a bit more powerful than standard races. The ability to shift sizes for one. But I guess that's to compensate because you can't put on armor to increase your AC; and would you enchant YOU to get armor enchantments? Also, I'm not sure how powerful immunity to poison and gas effects is (given a steampunk environment, there may be rarer gases that could affect you, where you'd have advantage or something).

Any of the other more experienced DnD5 players have thoughts?
I've been a fan of artificers in other versions of DnD, so I'm open to this. I don't know that the UA artificer is like; I remember I had the issue of feeling like I wasn't useful UNLESS I had stuff around me. If we do go with artificer, I'll look for ways to provide you with the material you need without being over powered.

I thought the shift was a little OP at first too, but as you said you can't actually wear armor so I can't just put new stuff on. It also is a process that takes 12 hours in game. Which I doubt in a dangerous dungeon getting 12 uninterrupted hours seems a bit much. I would not assume I would be able to enchant myself because you can only enchant mundane armors and weapons into improved versions. I would already be magical armor.

It might make sense for the class because I would be using small bits of the magic that binds me to power my enchantments. Thus it would be pointless anyway to imbue myself since I would just be cycling my magic into myself which does nothing really.

I assume the "why" will be provided by you either way, armor or no. Plus I think that would lend you a lot of room for an interesting back story. :)

I would gladly forgo the immunity for either resistance or just advantage on saves against. I would imagine there are some gasses that could still easily corrode the metal of the armor, or affect the magic that holds the armor together.

Doing some quick searching, is the Artificer a Wizard tradition or a separate class?

Wizard Tradition. It was in the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article.

I would think that the immunity to poison and gas, on top of resistance to charm and psychic damage is a bit much.

Being that you have a mind, I would remove the resistance to psychic, keep advantage on saves vs charm, and maybe have resistance (or advantage vs) to poison and gas.

That sounds like a good compromise of abilities. I was looking over the warforged and they only have immunity to disease, which makes more sense than immunity to gas.

Resistance or immunity to poison seems possible considering poisons act on the systems of living creatures. Of course that's more from the standpoint of RP than stats and balance.

If too much to balance I could always just use the stats for the Warforged instead and change to more of a construct than a magical armor.

I was thinking of being some sort of rogue or fighter type. Depends on what the party is lacking, really. Race is still up in the air, gonna have to look through some homebrews later :)

For my official races, I have a couple that I'm thinking of

Dragonborn
Goliath
One of the Genasi, probably either Fire or Earth

I have a couple of different homebrew races I'm looking into:

Anthrolupe
Lionfolk
Tigerfolk

So far, I'm seeing a Wizard - Artificer and a rogue or fighter type. Do we want to start by talking about classes/concepts? Which race you pick often is keyed onto the archtype you're interest in playing.

Unless you like going against the grain. My favorite D&D character is still my half-orc bard. He is built like a fighter, but is a bard. He is the most flawed character I have, but he is interesting to play.

I like to play interesting instead of smart.

But did you decide to pick playing a half-orc and took him against the grain? Or choose to play a bard and decided to see what would make an interesting bard?

I'll often give things a try, but I tend to pick the class, which gives me a direction, then race.

I don't mean to say we should start with class... just wanted to see if we wanted to pick a direction.

I guess with that one I just wanted a strange combo. I picked the half-orc because I had never made a half-orc and decided to put him in an odd role. So I guess you are right, I probably took the half-orc first, and put him in the role of a bard. I was decided early on that I would stat him like an orc no matter the role he was to be in as well. So I think I probably did bank on that pretty heavily.

Didn't even think of that at the time. :)

I guess if I was to go that direction I would probably do a Gnome. Gnome's can have the tinkering capabilities by default, and the Artificer sounds like a magical tinkerer. I like the idea of a magical McGuiver in a dungeon.

Aha, it may seem but a vial and some water to you, well presto-chango! It is now a climbing potion! Haha!

I could definitely see this person being a rock gnome. I feel like I always fall into the rock gnomes for any magical user I make.

Wait wait wait! I wasn't suggesting going in a standard direction! I love the idea of a suit of living armor that crafts potions!

Ah, I thought you suggested going the other way, my bad. Good, because Warforged or Armor, I like the idea too. :)

I was thinking of being a ranger or Druid (may already have too many magic users) but not sure how they would fit into a steampunk setting.

The Rangers favoured enemy could be tricky with amnesia, although I could have a sudden unexplained dislike of a race Or could find my favoured enemy in the races we encounter.

If neither of those work I might be a monk

I will probably go Barbarian, to be honest with you, especially if I go with one of the cat races.

I had contemplated a ranger because I thought it would be interesting to get your 'pet' in the dungeon. It would have to be one of the things you would find in a dungeon. :)

Really though you could actually change the Ranger to more of a combat inventor. Maybe your pet is a steamwork creation of a normal creature from the corebooks.

Some things really just need a cosmetic change to achieve the effect of a different world.

Oh, I forgot, I had seen this before, if you were interested in a more magical Ranger, someone made this homebrew.

Arcane Archer

Don't fret about the amnesia working into your class or race mechanics; you'll find it resolved. If you do magic, you won't be missing your magic. If you have some ability that your would have learned, you can use it. I'll ask you not suddenly wake up and go "Oh, spell, lemme cast!". The first chapter will be you waking up, and I'm going to give you plenty of opportunity to RP your skills coming back to you. You may not understand WHY you can cast magic missile, but you get into a heated moment and suddenly a spell spills out of your fingers. You may not know how you can fire an arrow with pinpoint accuracy, but when you notice a door trigger out of reach, you'll be able to do it.

A note about magic. As I said, I'm going to be molding a new world around you. In this game, arcane magic is based on reshaping reality, where divine magic is based on faith. It may or may not be a direct connection to a god (more will be explained on that later), but rather a cleric has faith in tenants, and that faith shapes their abilities. From a mechanics point, this won't have an affect on the vast majority of spells, except for some higher level cleric ones as far as I can tell, and I have stuff for that.

Also, if someone does want to go with a ranger, I won't be allowing a steampunk companion. It'll have to be a normal creature.

They just released new feats in Unearthed Arcana, if anyone is interested. Link here

New Unearthed Arcana day has become one of my favorites. :)

I really like it, but I'm not a huge fan of their reviews on DMsguild content. Seems like a waste of a month to me

If possible I would like to play as a Wolffolk

Thought it might work well with the ranger

Sounds like all of us are going to use non-standard races. That's kind of awesome, actually

Well, only 3 of you have really mentioned chars out of 6 people :p

I hope we have at least a human somewhere, heh. I don't mind non-standard, but bare in mind, a wolf walking into a standard city probably won't go over all that well... specially if its a wolf, a tiger, and a suit of armor.

Sounds like a start to a good joke... A wolf, a tiger, and a suit of armor walk into a city...

How badly would a Genasi or a Goliath stand out?

What is a goliath's size? Large? I'd say that any of these combinations would stand out anywhere... in a larger city, you'd probably be ok, though (for example) a group of 2+ animals with no standard races would have a harder time finding a room, and at a fair price, than a recognizable face. In a smaller town, the more your group could be recognized, the easier a time you'd have. After all, if you go to a dwarven village, as an example, and you have no dwarves with you, that'd certainly count against you a bit, as to be expected. But if you didn't have any humans or elves, or something the dwarves knew to be "normal", you'd have an even harder time.

Goliaths are actually medium creatures, though they're on the verge of large

I don't mind playing a human or an elf, if that would work?

Over all, I look at it like this: the stranger the group, the more it stands out, the more trouble you'll have with mundane things in certain situations. On the other hand, it can help out too. It'll be a balance.

As for the animated armor, if one of you is a humanoid kid with a metal arm and leg...

Man... now I'm tempted to be a human Eldritch Knight!

Heck, I'll do it if you allow me to have the metal limbs :)

This is true. As animated armor I could be "worn" into a city. But that brings up a whole ethical and moral dilemma.

For anyone who doesn't get that reference, it's from an anime called Fullmetal Alchemist. It's a show about brothers, one of whom has a metal arm and leg, and one who's soul was bonded to a suit of armor.

As so far we've had 3 players give thoughts, let's also hear what the remaining 3 are in, so everyone can get in their thought about what they'd like to play without someone having "dibs" on a role.

Man now I just wanna make FMA characters.

Heh, that could be an interesting RPG, in a more generic system (maybe a supers system?), but do you have thoughts on what sort of thing you'd like to play in this game?

How is magic in your world? Is there a lot of it, or is this a world where magic is scarce?

No different than a standard DnD world. Functionally, this world won't be different, though it may change mechanically. Wizards will still wiz, druids will still dru. Why or how might be different, but that's it.

So are we talking about an Eberron-ish world here? Never having played in that particular setting I gotta say I've always been curious about the world but never really had a desire to play an artificer or alchemist or any of that stuff. As for the automaton spellcaster concept I mentioned before, my mind just automatically went there when Keleth said "steampunk" and "homebrew welcome" but to be honest I'm not entirely sure this concept would be fun to play at all.

I apologize, as I'm not always clear when I'm starting things out:

From a chargen perspective, I would treat this a a regular dnd world, eg, not steampunk. I guess I was hesitant to say that before, as I kind of wanted it to be part of a reveal, but I can trust you all to RP properly. When you wake up, your characters find themselves in a world with technology you don't recognize (well, you have amnesia, so you don't recognize anything really, but some things will be more familiar than others).

Some of the ideas presented so far, like automatons were interesting, as they actually play into the storyline I'm building. I'm not saying you have to play them, just saying that if this was a regular DnD world, and you decided to play an automaton, that'd be fine; I'd be providing you details on your automaton-ness.

I'm going to go with the Human Fighter for sure (metal arm and leg optional)

Yes, I'm all for the adjusted Animated Armor and a Wizard with the Artificer Tradition.

I would like to play a spellcaster. Perhaps wizard.

I'm not opposed to two wizards in the party, though if there are, I'd prefer them to be relatively unique... two fireballing blasters without some tie in to why they're similar wouldn't work well.

My eldritch knight will obviously have wizard spells, but I'm thinking more of the self-enhancing and support type of spells on my end.

How should we roll up our characters? Rolling, point buy, array?

So am I right in thinking we currently have the following

Human fighter (metal arm and/or leg)
Animated armour wizard
Wizard (currently no race)
Wolfren or Elf Ranger or Druid (depending on the needs of the party

Point buy, but you have 30 points instead of the standard 27. You will be able to buy a starting 16 for 12 points, but only one stat to 16.

I think we just have one person who hasn't yet given input on what they'd like to play; I'll already PMed them. In fairness to the rest of you, I'm going to give them till the weekend, then I'll prob drop them and continue on with 5.

Hmm well I wouldn't mind playing something else. I've been wanting to try a barbarian for a while too.

Which (if any) of the optional Combat Options from the DMG are you implementing, Keleth?
*Climb onto a bigger creature
*Disarm
*Mark
*Overrun
*Shove aside
*Cleaving through creatures
*Tumble

I may have forgotten a couple of other things.

I am equally ok with all, some, or none of the above being in play. It's your game. I just want to know how you intend to run things. In the past I made the mistake of creating a character based on a certain concept and it got approved but in the end the character felt blah because of having been limited by the rules (which I hadn't thought to ask about in the beginning) he couldn't do many of the things I had envisioned him doing.

I have to look up the specifics for each of these, but honestly, they all sound find from the broad strokes.

Reading through them all, seems like they're all rules I would have made up if someone had asked to do one of those things. And generally, when fighting hordes or minor minions, You'll kill more than one based on how well you roll anyway.

So if you have a character concept that would utilize one of those, I'm open to hearing it.

Should we even pick a background from the PHB? If not, what should we do about the extra skills it grants? And do we start with all of the listed equipment?

I forgot about backgrounds. Go ahead and pick one as appropriate. You'll end up RPing it as an inherent part of yourself... A charlatan is, by personality, a con artist, not by profession.

You don't start with any items at all.

I'm feeling like I don't want to play any kind of spellcaster so I'm probably abandoning the idea I mentioned before. Riffing off of the amnesia angle I'm feeling like a warrior who vaguely remembers he has an oath to fulfill but can't remember what it is. Not necessarily a paladin, but a sworn warrior for sure. Not decided on race yet. If I come across an interesting homebrew race I'll run it by Keleth. :-)

When you say, warrior with an oath, my mind immediately jumped to ninjas or samurai, so I looked up some stuff. Not too happy with what I've found in terms of Ninja, and if something like that is appealing, I'd be open to actually creating a rogue archetype, but here are some interesting links:

Ninja Archetype
Samurai Archetype

This isn't really related, but I thought was just neat (kind of in line with what you're interested in Naatkinson):
Arcane Warrior

So far I'm seeing kinda honed in:

Animated armor wizard artificer (PhantomNimbus)
Human fighter (Naatkinson)

Wolfren or Elf Ranger or Druid (depending on the needs of the party, Scotash)
Barbarian (fernymerk)
Oathed warrior (Jabes.plays.RPG)

I ended up dropping our last and bringing in CancerMan. Again, not forcing anyone in any direction, but not seeing much in the way of divine magic or stealth/skirmish. Scotash will end up filling one of those two roles it seems though.

I would try one of those roles, but I'm already playing a cleric and a rogue in different campaigns so I wanna try something different :)

Like I said, no pressure at all! A barbarian character is fine. I'll be perfectly honest... if you have an idea you want to try that isn't in the main books, and you can't find a great archetype for, I'll work with you to design/find one.

I'll go with the Elf Druid. Not sure what circle to take yet and being a Wolfen that can turn into a wolf seems odd.

Can we choose spells from Elemental Evil?

Those links are interesting (I particularly like the Samurai stances), but to make a samurai I would actually just create a Paladin or a Battle Master and just RP it.

I download every Unearthed Arcana pdf that WoTC releases but somehow I didn't come across Gothic Heroes til yesterday. In that article is presented the Revenant subrace. How about if my samurai was a human revenant?!! He would be consumed by a need to fulfill an oath and complete an unfinished task before he can finally rest. The problem is, he can't remember what the oath was! Now he must figure it out. Obviously I'll have to work with Keleth so my character gradually remembers or discovers his mission. What do you think? :-)

A revenant doesn't have to be evil, does it? And is it undead for the purpose of game mechanics?

Of course, it would be just as fun to play this as an automaton: An warforged fighter was given a Prime Directive or mission when it was created. But something has happened and it can't remember what its Prime Directive is. So it tries to piece its memory back together.

Up to what level can we expect to play?

Not sure about odd, but definitely sounds weird :p
I'd need to approve the spell, but yes.
I like the concept of the revenant, a passionate oath, but the subrace it wouldn't work great with the story in mind. Congrads, you've found one of the few races I don't think would work :p
This sounds more workable than the revenant.
I will run this as long as you guys (either all or some of you) want to keep playing. After the first two quests, if someone drops out, we can get replacements, but the main story will be less interesting for new players (or based on how the story goes, maybe I can find new ways to introduce them). The main story has 2 key points to discover, I expect you'll learn the first one after 2 quests, and you'll learn the second one two after. So probably be about lvl 5 when you learn the big reveal? Maybe? Then you actually have to resolve the reveal :D

The Spells that I am considering are Absorb Elements and Ice Knife. Both 1st level spells

As I don't have the book, can you just broad strokes tell me what they do?

Absorb elements is a reaction spell. It gives the user resistance to lightning, fire, cold, acid, thunder (maybe a few more) if they are hit with a typed attack. Then on the users next turn, if they make a meter attack the attack does an extra 1d6 of that type of damage

I've knife: The user throws a shard of ice at an enemy. If it hits it does 1d6 of cold damage. If it hits or misses it then explodes and deals damage to all creatures within 5ft of the original target. Maybe the target as well

I'm on my phone so don't have the pdf's in front of me but that is basically what they do

Official link to Elemental Evil Player's Companion (PDF)

Through all this discussion, I wanna say one thing: just cuz I'm allowing weird races/classes, don't fall into the trap and think you have to :p

Looking over the spells, they look kinda powerful, but as official WotC stuff, I'm gonna assume it's balanced and say sure.

Cool. May only have 1 of them as have a list of 1st level spells that I'm trying to decide on

Ok, I'll definitely do the warforged fighter. :-)

So I think this is the potential list?

Animated armor wizard artificer (PhantomNimbus)
Human fighter (Naatkinson)
Wolfren Druid (depending on the needs of the party, Scotash)
Barbarian (fernymerk)
Oathed warrior (Jabes.plays.RPG)

Pretty fighter oriented, but if you guys and make it work, I'm good with it :D

Last person left is CancerMan.

I've made an Elf Druid

I am thinking of doubling-up on the divine and creating a cleric, an acolyte of the Ambered Moon Temple and Distillery; keepers of the sacred blend strong enough to allow you see the gods themselves (before you go blind). If the variant human rules are allowed, I'll go with that.

Thanks for having me!

Sounds good, though given the amnesia thing, you won't really have a following to start. We'll work that out.

Ok, so everyone seems to have a char concept they like? I know in DnD 3.5, the lack of a ranger or rogue could be problematic. I hope it's not the same in 5e :p

Ok, the second part of this chargen is this: imagine your character is level 20, having been through many epic adventures, well known for good or bad, having achieved many a goal. I'd like for you to describe to me your character, including what their weapon of choice would be, what class path they take, their style of combat, their personality, what you envision them to look like (any distinctive items/features). None of this is binding! I just want to get an idea of where your character will go.

I'm going to be setting up your private forums shortly, and feel free to start building your characters and submitting them. Once I get your descriptions, we'll start up the opening scene.

Do you want us to post the descriptions here or in the private forums as I can't seem to post in mine.

I'll have to figure out why you can't create a thread. Feel free to post here; I don't see why any of it should be private.

EDIT: Weird, I see Jabes was able to post a thread, and he has the same permissions to his forum that you do to yours. Unless there is something fundamentally wrong with the permissions code, I'm confused... Can anyone else create a thread in their forums?

Also, another test:

I can see the ones to me. It may be as looking on my phone. Will check computer when I get home

[Note to GM]

So as I'm writing out this game, I'm trying to figure out, how can I give you guys traps without killing you, with no stealthy/disarmy character (I play rogues a lot, so I think in rogue terms). From my understanding of 5e, traps are no longer just the rogue's realm, right?

Anyone can do traps now. As long as someone has thieve's tools you can attempt to disarm a trap. Magical traps are also disarmed with the Arcana skill, if that makes a difference.

I mean we should all be able to disarm and find traps with the proper perception rolls. We may just not have a very high probability of doing it. Depends on the mechanisms working the trap. Sleight of Hand as a skill has sort of become the skill for most rogueish stuff, lockpicking, pick pocketing, disabling traps. But I think it depends on how you want to build a trap.

Since perception and investigation could be used to find traps anyone could be good or bad at that.

Also, Keleth, that little thing showing the notes being passed is going to be a godsend, thank you thank you thank you. Makes it feel more like a tabletop game with hidden notes being passed around.

I've edited that code so many times, I think I've forgotten how it works. It shows you that a note has been passed but not it's content, right? Because I'm thinking of adding secret notes as well. Or a secret flag on the regular notes. And if it works the opposite way right now, add in visible notes.

Basically, I don't know how this site works anymore.

Yeah it shows the passed not but not the contents. That is the best. I've been hoping for that because I always have to add a note, especially if that is my only post or else everyone wonders why I'm posting empty posts. A secret flag, or secret not would be cool too, but I like that change.

Honestly, I don't remember making the change... I knew I thought a lot about it a while back, and I figured I should add it, but don't remember doing the work, specially because there was the debate about whether that should or shouldn't work like that. Now I'm a little scared what other work I've done and added but don't remember :p

Did you do a recent push? I don't remember seeing that even just a week or two ago.

Okay, let me know if this works for the final resistances and immunities for Animated Armor.

It would seem legit for the armor to be immune to disease and poison. Those are both things that act on living systems. You need a vascular system to be able to move around disease and poison in your body.

I would remove the immunity to gas, since as stated there could easily be corrosive gasses that would work just as well on metal.

I would probably keep a resistance to charm, but lose the resistance to psychic damage as I still have some form of consciousness in this suit of armor. So all in all it would look like this:

Immunities: Disease and Poison
Resistance: Charm

I would even remove resistance to charm fairly easily as I am an arcane servant by nature, it would be fairly easy to be magically charmed I feel.

I ironically just posted in your thread, but I'm actually leaning to:

Immunities to disease and poison
Resistance to psychic and some gasses

I could do that if you think it is good. I also imagine I'll start the game as a medium suit of armor. Nothing super heavy. Since it's a 12 hour process to change my base armor type I doubt I'll be doing it any time in the adventure start.

I'm torn at this point now... I'm basing my character off of Edward from Fullmetal Alchemist. He doesn't wear armor, and he uses more finesse than strength for his attacks.

Eldritch Knight was my first thought, but that means I have to wear armor for good AC (or use Mage Armor all the time) and I have to use strength for my attacks. It does, however, fit better from a magical standpoint, because he does have some powers at his disposal.

Monk, on the other hand, fits the physical aspects better (finesse, no armor), but doesn't have much in the way of magical abilities.

Thoughts?

What about Arcane Trickster for the Rogue? Finesse, arcane, plus sneak attack for battle prowess.

If you'd to go for a more dex based character and are concerned on the armor side, we can come to an arrangement, a la Sado from Bleach or Greed from FMA. Of course, if you're interested in Monk but are interested in the Eldrich Knight archetype, I'd love to work on creating a monk mage archetype.

Maybe an arcane trickster? Edward was a good mix of hand to hand combat, as well as "magic".

Way of the Four Elements is a bit Mage-ish, but not to the extent that Edward is (too supernatural, rather than Edward's style).

I'd be agreeable to making either an Archetype, or perhaps creating a Fighting Style on the fighter side that would allow this character to work.

A few things I want to accomplish

1. Spear as finesse (he always used the spear)

2. Wearing no armor (I don't have to have the best AC, just needs to be usable.

3. An intermediate magic user.

So you're interested in an Eldritch Knight archetype for monk? I think that's reasonable.

What about borrowing from the sorcerer class? Doesn't the dragon touched one get an unarmoured bonus?

Sounds good to me. I'll take a look and see what I can come up with as well for this purpose.

3rd level is easy for the transition. Just keep spellcasting and weapon bond as they are, problem solved there. Then I need a feature for levels 6, 11, and 17

This is going to be a heck of a balancing act. I need good Dex for AC and damage, good con for HP, good Wis for AC and monk stuff, and good int for casting :)

I'm MAD* about this!**



* Multiple Attribute Dependent
** Pun totally intended

Should the schools of magic I'm allowed to have be changed? Possibly Conjuration and Transmutation?

Evocation and Conjuration? I can reskin a lot of evocation to go along with my ideas of his casting style.

I think evocation makes a lot of sense, specially being a fighter. What from conjuration appeals to you? Some of it could work, others don't really make sense. Likewise, transmutation is some sensible, some not. What sort of spellwork are you thinking of?

Conjuration and Transmutation popped into my head immediately because they'd be the most similar to Alchemy in FMA. Looking Conjuration over, it seems less than useful, though. I'd pretty much limit my spell selection to anything I could justify in the rules of FMA Alchemy***.

*** This really limits my spell choices already!

Given we're going for a custom thing (though I may codify this into an actual achetype), I may be ok with letting you pick from the full spells, though you'll have to run them by me. Evocation and transmutation may be the most viable?

So basically, every spell I pick would have to be possible under my self-imposed restrictions and have DM approval? Sounds fair to me, if that's the case

Yah, I'm ok with not imposing the school restriction for you. You and I can discuss your exact spell/combat style in your private forum so I know what you're going for and can approve/disapprove of spells as you pick them. We can probably work out your higher level abilities as we get started.

So some people have started submitting characters, but everyone's put up a thread about their characters. I just need a few more char level 20 descs with the details above, and we can start. I don't need everyone's character to start, but I do need your level 20 ideas for the opening scene.

I have to admit, while I've often thought about what skills or spells I'd take in my progression from 1st to 20th, I've never really thought about what my character would have done in that time. This was certainly a new and interesting thought experiment for me.

I'll get mine done today.

With stats in place for armor I can submit the character later today. I'm trying to imagine my character at 20. It's strange to think of how a character would progress that far ahead. I'll try to get that up today too.

Yah, thinking about level 20 is weird, but it's also why I'm not expecting you to stat/item out your character. Just, who do you see your character being? What kind of person do they become? What kind of things are they likely to have done or been known for? Basically, what do you plan on playing, extended and expounded.

Alright, updated the character with level 20 stuff. For actual character creation can we do standard array, or should we roll stats?

Awesome. Thanks.

Alright, I've got what I need from 4 of you guys now! Just need to finish up with Naatkinson and fenrymerk and we'll start up the game. You'll have time to finish up your character; I expect the first few pages to just be RP.

One quick question on the magical stuff. I assume we start with nothing, but a Wizard needs a spellbook to ready his spells and stuff, so without it I would basically have no access to level 1 spells...which I'm cool with narratively however we want to work that.

For Cantrips are those something we can always do without that book of spells? By the description it sounds like Cantrips are spells we are so familiar with we can cast them at will without much effort.

I'm mostly looking to get a take on how you would like to rule that kind of stuff in game.

For your character, I'm going to allow cantrips without needing a spellbok. I actually have a (hopefully) neat idea for you and your spells for your spellbook.

I'm always open to new narrative ideas on that concept. :)

Just speaking rules-as-written (and the way it was laid out in Out of the Abyss):

1. You don't need your spellbook for cantrips, ever. They're locked into your mind.

2. You only need your spellbook to CHANGE your prepared spells after they're prepared. Technically, this means that if you don't ever change your prepared spells, your don't even need a spellbook. So you have whatever spells prepared that you did before you lost your spellbook.

DM mileage may vary!

Nice to know that clarification, I don't have Out of the Abyss so I was just trying to extrapolate from the base PHB.

Likewise, thanks for the info! Specially for PhantomNimbus's char, basic spells locked into his mind makes sense. I do have a spellbook alternative for him though.

If it is etched into my armor, we may have had the same thought process. :)

It's in the PHB as written, but it's not easy to see:

Spellbook
At 1st level, you have a spellbook containing six 1st- level wizard spells of your choice. Your spellbook is the repository of the wizard spells you know, except your cantrips, which are fixed in your mind.

Preparing and Casting Spells
1. You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast. To do so, choose a number of wizard spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

2. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.

3. You can CHANGE your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of wizard spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

That's how you extrapolate!

Aaaaand now my idea's ruined, great, no more spells for you.

Just kidding of course. I did consider that, but then I thought, every wizard needs to have his spellbook stolen at one point or another; how do people steal pieces of your armor without you losing you? :p

I submitted my character sheet. I'm going to add my familiar to it. I've listed out the 1st level spells I have, and the prepared ones. As I'm sure we start empty handed I have the cantrips and the prepared spells I assume. So I can only use those until I can find my spellbook to change them. At least that is what I'm guessing.

Will I have the same issue with spells as I'm meant to have a Druidic focus?

I guess mine also depends on the presence of a focus. Though without it I can still cast if I can find components.

In a sense. I was in another game where we started with no equipment, spell foci included. All that means is that clerics and druids can't cast any spells that require material components, but it doesn't restrict you from preparing a spell that only needs verbal and somatic.

And the resourceful can find some components if they look hard enough. :)

Hi folks, I'm going to be playing a (Forest) Gnome Rogue, small & stealthy!

Sounds good to me. Any questions about chargen?

I've setup your forum; when you're read, create a thread with the details I've asked for.

Welcome to the party!

Yeah, good to have you here