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. :)