Characters creation thread

True, Tamara's chalk is also good for that considering a person can hide in a portable hole for ten minutes before running out of air, although the prospect of hiding in one seems pretty scary and claustrophobic. Between the two of you there wouldn't be anywhere we couldn't sneak into as a party.

Perhaps Tamara will want to repick her uncommon permanent item, in any case.

Perhaps, but portable holes are incredibly convenient for hoarding away large amounts of loot very quickly, and where it can't be snatched very easily.

What languages will Erasma know? Primordial and Deep Speech, the language of beholders and mind flayers, seem like thematic picks. If Theo takes the "outer planes" languages(infernal, abyssal, and celestial), Erasma takes deep speech and primordial, Tamara takes sylvan and draconic, we'll have pretty much every "exotic" language covered.

Currently I have Common, Undercommon, Elven, and Dwarvish. The most common languages she'll need to speak verbally. Erasma has awakened mind, so she can communicate telepathically with any creature that understands a language, as long as she can get close enough.

No, I meant the brooch of disguise. If you're taking mask of many faces and you'll have the arcane focus, you can just share that ability with us and the brooch will be made redundant. Though the brooch is permanent and the focus is temporary and limited in uses. Tough call.

Don't forget, though, that she can only use it 5 times per long rest. And that you won't get long rests that often.
I guess you mean "Undercommon" ;)

I did mean undercommon. Whoops.
I don't see Erasma sharing her invocations very often, as they are mostly personal use invocations, but I could see situations where it would come in handy.

There's some disagreement on the internet about whether awakened mind permits two way communication, and whether someone other than the warlock can initiate a telepathic message. Can we get a DM ruling on that?

So Ornux, you mentioned wanting a more durable connection between Erasma and the rest of the party. Could you give some examples of what that might be?

I think I will stick with the broach as there will be time she maybe on her own and need to use it. It also fits her character concept well.
Now I just need which potions she needs.

I see no reason to misunderstand the intended rule here. Yes, the original rule (the one in my books) can be read both ways. But they have explained the intent in 2015:
And apparently, the wording of the GOO warlock's Awakened Mind feature was changed in the latest printing (though it's not noted in the errata) from "You can communicate telepathically with any creature" to "You can telepathically speak to any creature".

So in short: it's a one way only communication. And people don't know where it comes from, which can lead to... interesting situations.

Hmmm, I'm both disappointed and intrigued by this development.. Very well. I'll give up Elven and Dwarven for Primordial and Deep Speech if Ornux will allow it.

Being friends seems like a decently durable connection. My main interrogation at the moment is the one I asked two pages ago :

Why is that?
Sure if you want to. Just remember that those are languages you most likely will never encounter, while Elven and Dwarven are very common.

Disappointed because I thought it was two-way communication, but intrigued because there is still quite a bit of mischief I can get up to with it. I think I'll stick with Elven and Dwarven, simply because it would have been easier for her to learn those languages without drawing suspicion.
I think it would be exceptional for all three of us to work together. Erasma could easily work by herself. She could just as easily work with Tamara on something requiring stealth, or with Theo on something involving occult or arcane pursuits. I think working with all three would be more political in nature that involves both of their houses. Or even just one of the houses, since their such good friends.

It's not exactly how common they are that's a useful metric. It's how often will they be useful. How often will we run into a dwarf or elf that doesn't also speak common? Pretty much never. The things that speak deep speech or primordial or unlikely to speak anything else, however.
I think language picks should ideally say something about a character or fit into their story somehow. Like how Tamara's understanding Sylvan represents her curiosity about the elven half of her lineage, and draconic probably because she was a spy during Vikaastea's war with the lizardfolk tribes and knowing the enemy's language is useful for spy work. Theo speaks the languages of the outer planes because he's obsessed with the notion of retrieving his mother's soul from beyond the veil. Erasma could have fallen into her coma and then awakened understanding ancient languages that she's never actually heard spoken aloud before. No risk of suspicion unless she starts holding black mass in the market square while spouting unholy scriptures in deep speech.

I had swapped out the physical conditioning discovery that grants an extra point of hp per scholar level for your new and improved medical genius discovery but I forgot to lower my hp on the character sheet. I just fixed it.

There's also the fact that she spies on people, and, even if people who speak elven and dwarven also speak common, they're more likely to share their secrets that others don't know. I think I'd be willing to give up dwarven for Primordial, but Deep Speech won't be useful unless we go DEEP into the underdark, and even then, the things that'd be willing to speak with us likely speak undercommon or have telepathy.
And if I'm switching my language, I might switch out some Invocations because I forgot about the ones in Xanathar's guide.

All good points, although I'd say dwarven would see more use in Vikaastea specifically. The Tridanarr of the Oaken Shield looks like a dwarf in his picture and even the ruler of the city is half-dwarven. Vikaastea seems lousy with dwarves and gnomes, and from a party optimization standpoint, Tamara has no choice but to take elven being that she's a half-elf so we seem to have that covered.

And it's absolutely true that deep speech will likely only come up in ad hoc scenarios engineered to require it solely because you took it, but I'm not sure if Ornux is the type of DM to purposely play to the party's strengths like that. I just thought it'd be a cool, thematic pick for a Great Old One warlock specifically given its description as "the oldest language" and "the language of aberrations originating in The Far Realm". It struck me as the language that a Great Old One would use, if it used any.