Character creation

Note that there are three human languages that might be useful in the region: Keolish (primary language in Hochoch and the rest of the kingdom), Marchian (primary language of the various March countries), and Imperial (the language of the ancient conquerors, still understood by most people). If there is a common language throughout the world, it's Imperial. But for the starting town of Hochoch, they'll speak Keolish as primary language, Imperial and non-human race languages secondary, and will understand Marchian and speak it in heavy accents.

So is the equivelant to Common is Keolish or Imperial?

Either. Native tongue is Keolish, but all know Imperial. Think of it this way: if you're a local, it'd be Keolish. If you're from outside Keoland, it'd be Imperial.

Half-elf Mystic is fine; I'm interested in it, too. It took me a while to respond, because I hadn't seen the article until you'd mentioned it here and I had to read it. Here's the Unearthed Arcana with psionics (so other people can read it).

Are you thinking Awakened, or Immortal?

Sorry, should have provided a link. I'm going with Awakend Mind. While I like both, I like the storytelling options that an Awakened Mind provides. Immortal is to combat focused.

Another question, they left starting gold out of the article. So what should I do for that? The average for the twelve base classes is 4d4x10...sound good?

Psionics! That's cool, I really should keep up with Unearthed Arcana.

What are your thoughts on trying out the alternate ranger in UA?

Rangers have often caught my eye, but I often find myself then immediately drawn to Fighter or Druid depending on why Ranger caught my eye in the first place. This approach to ranger seems to offer something properly different from both.

I would love for you to play the UA ranger variant!

Done!

I love that new ranger variant! I play one in another game here. He hasn't seen much action yet but I'm really looking forward to it! :-)

For myself, in my 30+ years of gaming I've never played a full caster (more accurately, I hadn't until I joined GP - I now play a 13th Age Chaos Mage and a 5e Warlock but neither have seen too much action) so I'm considering playing a blue dragonborn sorcerer here. Draconic Bloodline or Stormborn. It looks like Wild Magic might be fun but doesn't fit my concept. Draconic bloodline fits perfectly but some features seem wasted because of redundancy with racial traits (duh). Stormborn seems nice and fits thematically, which is always my primary consideration. We'll see.

The concept is this: PC is a victim of racism - dragonborn were forcibly conscripted into a conquering army as slave soldiers / cannon fodder. Except that with his magical powers he along with similar others were turned into walking cannons themselves. Ultimately this army lost in another war and the slaves freed. But by then there was no going back to previous lives. Home was destroyed or lost (on another plane, maybe). I'm still deciding. PC is either trying to get home (motivated by love), or just a wanderer motivated by curiosity, a sense of adventure, or greed.

I'm trying to come up with a good background for this guy. Soldier as it is in the PHB doesn't work for me. Any suggestions given the concept I've described?

Sara Stone is submitted! Now to come up with a backstory..

@Jabes: What about Folk Hero? Maybe your character was part of a squad and you fought for your freedom alongside some locals. Unable to return to the home you knew, you followed your comrades here and are making a go at this Dungeon Buster gig until you have the means to head home. Or Outlander makes sense as well, the story could be the same, but you play up your exotic origins rather than the heroic deed. Just some thoughts.

I like foolsmask's suggestions. In addition, you might consider rolling a random background (1d13) to determine what you were BEFORE being enslaved, and use that for your personality, ideal, and bond, while using one of the flaws from the soldier list. That would represent that your base self was determined by your life before the war, but that the war and slavery scarred you, naturally. Sometimes I find that my character concept works better if I pick personality, ideal, bond, and flaw from different backgrounds.

As a slight tweak on that idea, you could consider a bond with regards to another character in the party; perhaps that person has helped you in some way, given that you can't return home and are probably pretty lost in this region/on this plane.

If you're going really alien, perhaps the dragonborn culture of origin doesn't recognize the method of your freedom, and you're looking to complete a period of indentured servitude for one of the other PCs (who naturally doesn't understand), or to complete the ritualistic nature of a societally normal period of the slavery. Perhaps, for these alien dragonborn, a period of servitude and battle is part of a passage to adulthood, and to complete it, you need someone who has been witness to your good service to return with you to your plane and give ritual testimony. Service is a period of everyone's life, back home, but out here on the material plane, you have been the butt of abuse and racism, which is bewildering as well as terrible.

Finally, you could always come up with your own flaws. For instance, here's a suggested list of some things that might be on a flaw table, for someone who's been a slave to a brutal, conquering army:
1 - I have a strong fear/hatred for the race of my former "owners" and/or the enemies during the war.
2 - I find it hard not to obey anyone of the class or race of my former "master."
3 - I've come to believe that the only value I have is as a rampaging engine of destruction.
4 - I'll do anything to curry favor and avoid anticipated punishment.
5 - I react violently in any situation that reminds me of the war.
6 - I have developed a crippling empathy to anyone downtrodden.

If anyone wants to latch onto my Dwarven Monk as a background hook before joining DB, feel free. I deliberately left some wandering time between exile and adventure for that purpose. My character would gladly sacrifice his time and comfort in order to help someone else, particularly if they're in need.

I'd also like to have some sort of link to another player if someone has any ideas. Previous links make it a bit easier to justify staying together :)

I like these ideas a lot! I might take you up on your offer, CancerMan. From what you've written about Aanbo and his quest for inner peace it sounds like he would be the perfect conpanion for a war-scarred former slave in search of a new purpose.

Thanks for the input, everyone! It's a working weekend for me as usual but 'll try to flesh the character out before Monday.

I plan to plug away over the weekend on backstory, but I too like linking up to other characters. It'd be nice to have a bond with one character, and to have met one other character before.

So far, for Sara, I'm thinking she's had a rather quiet life (for a forest paladin). Being half-elven, she wasn't really well treated as she grew up by peers or the folk in her town. Spent a lot of time in the woods by herself 'pretending to be a hero' and saving squirrels and other harmless creatures from 'certain doom!". Something happened to make her alone (parents died in a bandit raid on the town?), and she felt 'called' to the forest. She took what she could carry from her home, and started her life in the woods. She lived many years happily caring for the forest, learning from it, and becoming one with the natural world. Then something called her to leave. Perhaps it was an event (a natural disaster like a forest fire), or maybe it was just a strong feeling (and an act of faith).

I love these discussions, and working on making connections. To assist that, I like to periodically recap what has come before.

So far, we have:
* Sara Stone, the half-elf forest ranger (UA variant) outlander (Candi)
* Aanbo, the dwarven monk hermit (CancerMan)
* Ogbar, the human barbarian outlander (Naatkinson)
* possibly:a dragonborn sorceror (Jabes.plays.RPG)
* possibly: a mystic of the Awakened Mind (UA class) (foolsmask)
* possibly: a paladin (falryx)
* (Biscuitfiend)

Starting money is provided with the character background, not the class. What background were you thinking of playing?

Here goes:
13 14 11 14 7 17

Hill dwarf Tempest Cleric, Acolyte background:
Str13 dex14 con16 int11 wis18 cha7

Oh...I see. In the past there was starting gold. Now it is consumed by the Background and Class starting equipment. I was thrown off by the presence of the table on page 143 of the PHB that lists starting gold by class like old additions used to use. I guess the other games I've played either made the same assumption or were just generous.

I am going with the Entertainer background. So I am all set. My bad.