Building Characters!

This Veterans Day we had scheduled some serious game playing time, and the way things worked out that meant me playing D&D. Which is awesome.

A couple of weeks ago I killed off my Dragonborn Warlord just so I could ruminate over a new character, and ruminate I did. Hours and hours spread across many days formulating character after character, and imagining the fantastic adventures they would go on (well, mostly the awesome amounts of damage they would do). Some of my favorite ideas were:

• Elven Samurai (two-sword ranger re-flavored to just be really speedy with one sword)


• Half-Orc Whip Fighter (dragging flail + whip training + a rogue in the party means lots of easy targets!)


• Minotaur Warden/Ranger (discarded when I realized twin strike uses dex when you use heavy thrown weapons. Might try building a fighter/ranger with Cleave and Deft Hurler Style later to see how close that is to what I was wanting)


• Human Fighter with HUGE Hammer

I had a couple restrictions, in that the party (Paladin, Rogue, Sorceror) needed either another defender or a leader. With that in mind I wanted to either go BIG damage or lots of attacks. I think I would have a great time playing any of those concepts, but I ended up choosing a different direction; Gnoll

Cleric of Melora.

I figured she'd be a blast to roleplay (though we don't really do to much of that) and gnolls look really cool. Also, I managed to fill a need (leader) while still managing to do good damage (battle cleric with proficiency in the waraxe).

I got to get some good play in with her, and got to pull off a couple Turn Undeads and a Ferocious Charge or two. That can do insane damage if you're bloodied. I like the built in encouragement to be bold when you're hurt.

Anyway, lessons learned from being a player again for a bit.

• Missing on encounters SUCKS. Like nothing else. I'll try to nudge my players into making sure they have combat advantage (or some attack bonus) before they try them in my game.


• You can't tell when the DM makes stuff up! I love that...


• A stunned PC is very unfun. Whatever else I do, I'll try to stay away from depriving PCs of their precious standard actions. Penalties, OK.

I probably learned some other stuff but I've already forgotten it, so does that even count? I'd guess no. I guess that means most of school doesn't count either.