In which we continue our task, undertaken previously, to flesh out four 5th-edition Dungeons & Dragons characters whose stats were generated by a straight 3d6-in-order die roll in a public forum.

Today we’ll assign our party members some backgrounds, assign personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws. The goal here is to create playable characters that will work well together.

Sword & Board Fighter

Half-orc Fighter 1 Background TBD Alignment TBD Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 15 +2 +4 Dex 5 -3 -3 Con 17 +3 +5 Int 8 -1 -1 Wis 9 -1 -1 Cha 8 -1 -1 Skills: Intimidation, 4 TBD Languages: Common, Orcish Hit Points: 13 Armor Class: 18 (Chain Hauberk + Shield) Initiative: -3 Speed: 30 Weapons: Longsword (+4 to attack, 1d8+2 damage), Handaxe (+4 to attack, 1d6+2) Other notable features: Darkvision, Relentless Endurance, Savage Attacks, Protection Fighting Style, Second Wind (1d10+1), several large bruises from bumping into things Notable Equipment: Chain Hauberk, Longsword, Shield, 2 Handaxes, Explorer’s Pack

Pretty straightforward. We’ll want to pick up a background that compliments everybody else, plus two skills from the Fighter list. He’s proficient in Intimidation by dint of being a badass Half-orc. Rawr.

Tambourine Bard

Half-elf Bard 1 Entertainer Background Chaotic Ditzy Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 11 +0 +0 Dex 19 +4 +6 Con 8 -1 -1 Int 6 -2 -2 Wis 8 -1 -1 Cha 17 +3 +5 Skills: Acrobatics, Performance, 5 TBD, Disguise kit, 4 instruments Languages: Common, Elven, Spanish Hit Points: 7 Armor Class: 15 (Leather plus Dexterity) Initiative: +4 Speed: 30ft Weapons: Rapier (+6 to attack, 1d8+4 damage) Spell DC: 13 Spells Prepared: 4 Cantrips: Minor Illusion, Vicious Mockery 1st: Charm Person, Cure Wounds, Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire Other notable features: Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, Spellcasting, Ritual Casting, Spellcasting Focus, Bardic Inspiration (1d6, 3 per Long Rest), Dozens of Gentleman Admirers Notable Equipment: Rapier, Diplomat’s Pack, Tambourine, Leather Armor, Dagger

Plenty of skills to pick. Three from Bard, two from Half-elf, none of those restricted to a list. With four musical instruments to choose from, I think it would be prudent to pick something small, something big, something high-class, and something a little down to earth. Drums, Dulcimer, Flute, Lute, and Viol all look good from the PHB’s list of tools, but we can do better. We’ll stick with Drums (applying this to the Tambourine), switch out the Dulcimer with the Harp, replace the Flute with the Clarinet, the Lute with the Guitar, and the Viol with the Cello. Who doesn’t like a classy Half-elf lady rocking a cello? Nobody I want to game with, that’s who.

Scheming Wizard

Human Wizard 1 Guild Merchant Background Neutral Manipulative Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 10 +0 +0 Dex 9 -1 -1 Con 8 -1 -1 Int 16 +3 +5 Wis 10 0 +2 Cha 13 +1 +1 Skills:Insight, Persuasion, 3 TBD Languages: Common, Elven, Orcish, Dwarvish Hit Points: 5 Armor Class: 9 (12 with Mage Armor) Initiative: -1 Speed: 30ft Weapons: Quarterstaff (+2 to attack, 1d8 damage) Spell DC: 13 Spells Prepared: 4 Cantrips: Fire Bolt, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation 1st: Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Grease, Identify, Mage Armor, Thunderwave Other notable features: 1 feat TBD, Spellcasting, Ritual Caster, Arcane Recovery, Perfect teeth Notable Equipment: Quarterstaff, Component Pouch, Scholar’s Pack, Spellbook, Cart & Mule

Wizards aren’t exactly your classic skillmonkey. They get their way by book-reading and bending the rules of reality. I shifted him from Guild Artisan to Guild Merchant because a Wizard on a Cart travelling from town to town peddling his murderhobo friends’ ill-gotten gains strikes a chord with me. Much more so than having his sweating away in some workshop all day.

Muscle Rogue

Mountain Dwarf Rogue 1 Background TBD Alignment TBD Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 17 +3 +3 Dex 14 +2 +4 Con 16 +3 +3 Int 12 +1 +3 Wis 14 +2 +2 Cha 7 -2 -2 Skills: Intimidation, 6 TBD, Mason’s Tools, Thieves’ Tools Languages: Common, Dwarvish Hit Points: 11 Armor Class: 13 (Leather plus Dexterity) Initiative: +2 Speed: 25ft Weapons: Shortsword (+5 to attack, 1d6+3 damage) plus Shortsword (+5 to attack, 1d6 damage) or Shortbow (+4 to attack, 1d6+2 damage) Other notable features: Darkvision, Dwarven Resilience, Dwarven Combat Training, Dwarven Armor Training, Stonecutting, Expertise (TBD and TBD), Sneak Attack (1d6), Bad Facial Scars Notable Equipment: Rapier, Shortbow, Theives’ Cant, Dungeoneer’s Pack, Leather Armor, 2 Daggers, Thieves’ Tools

Six skills, a set of tools to pick from being a Dwarf, two skills to have Expertise in… A lot of wiggle-room here. I went ahead and picked Mason’s Tools just to stay in stereotypical Dwarf territory. Let’s put the pieces together.

We’ve got an Entertainer and a Merchant. Clearly they should be able to handle the “face” duties between them. The Wizard already has the essential Insight and Persuasion skills. Round this out with Deception (using his pick-anything Human skill) and he’s got the makings of a proper con artist. From the Wizard list he gets intellectual with Arcana and Investigation, two Intelligence-based skills one rightly expects the party Wizard to keep on lockdown. As the token smart guy in the group, he opts to spend his feat on Skilled, picking up History, Nature, and Religion.

Our Bard has Acrobatics and Performance. Though she is quite charismatic, her poor Wisdom makes her somewhat of a liability diplomatically. Others are likely to pull one over on her, so they’ll try to let the party Wizard take care of that stuff. Leaning on her strengths, we’ll select Stealth and Sleight of Hand. This will help her tag along with the Muscle Rogue for scouting purposes. Speaking of which if she’s going to be sticking her neck out, proficiency with Survival and Perception will help cover for her poor Wisdom. A little, at least. That leaves one skill to assign. You never know when the DM is going to rule that Acrobatics isn’t the right tool for the job, so we give her Athletics to round things off.

The Fighter historically hasn’t had a lot to add to the mix, but it need not always be so. He only has one attribute that has a bonus and a skill associated with it. Athletics. We’ll want that. Several backgrounds offer this as a skill, but at this point I’m looking at the Fighter’s poor-but-not-terrible Wisdom score and thinking he may be able to cover gaps there, too. We select the Folk Hero background, picking up Animal Handling and Survival proficiency. The Wizard’s got a mule but isn’t particularly good with it. Now we have two characters that are kind-of-sort-of good with the beast of burden. For the Fighter skills we pick up Athletics and Perception. The Bard is already proficient with Perception, but having multiple players rolling is kind of like automatically having advantage just by keeping the party together.

With only eighteen skills in the system we’ve got a pretty good variety of skills covered by the time we get to the Rogue. He has four skills from an exhaustive Rogue skill list and two more from a background. Several of the backgrounds grant skills that overlap with the Rogue skill list. With the Wizard covering the party “face” and general smarty-pants duties, the Rogue is going to be overlapping what the Fighter and the Bard have already select. Athletics is important to the Muscle Rogue’s operation, he’ll take it and select it as one of his Expertise skills. For scouting purposes Stealth and Perception are vital. Investigation will help provide the all-important second pair of eyes on a conundrum. Each of these is on the Rogue skill list, so no need to pin ourselves down to a background just yet. How about Acolyte? This picks up Insight and Religion, and gives us some opportunities to have a more socially-adjusted Rogue than one might normally expect.

On to more intangible matters. Personality traits. Ideals. Bonds. Flaws. Background features.

Our Folk Hero Half-orc should have a defining event. We can roll randomly, but I love the idea of a clumsy-ass lunk rescuing people during a natural disaster. He nearly drowned himself saving a family from a flooded river. He benefits from Rustic Hospitality wherever he goes. For a Personality Trait we select “I misuse long works in an attempt to sound smarter.” It’s very important to give the right kind of impersonation, you see. For an Ideal, we select Respect: “People Deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.” For a Bond we select “I protect those who cannot protect themselves.” This ties in entirely too cleanly with his fighting style. I’m simple like that. His flaw will be “I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially hard drink.” Drunken Fighters are the best Fighters.

Our Entertainer Bard gets one to three Routines. Since she’s so dexterous, it makes sense that she would have excelled as a Dancer, Juggler, or Tumbler. Taking all three seems a bit excessive, so we’ll take her performance-related skills (other than Performance) and tie them in. Acrobatics matches with Tumbler, her various musical instrument proficiencies match with Instrumentalist, and Sleight of Hand goes well with… Fire-eater. What’s Fire-eater doing on that table? How can you possibly expect me to not select that? She gains the By Popular Demand feature. Everybody loves a fire-eating gymnast that plays the guitar. For a Personality Trait we select “I get bitter if I’m not the center of attention.” This should provide some good intra-party drama. For an Ideal we select Creativity: “the world is in need of new ideas and bold action.” That’s the kind of ideal that leads to a life of adventure. For her Bond we select “I idolize a hero of the old tales and measure my deeds against that person’s.” Watching a player develop the story of her ancient hero strikes me as Good Stuff. For a Flaw we play up her poor Intelligence and Wisdom with “I have trouble keeping my true feelings hidden. My sharp tongue lands me in trouble.”

Our Merchant Wizard needs to have a core competency, business-wise. Presumably as a merchant, not an artisan, this would just be the business he’s most familiar with, not the sole commodity he’s working with. With proficiency in Arcana and Investigation, it seems he’s be keen on calligraphers, scribes, scriveners, cartographers, surveyors, and chart-makers. Yes, that’s two selections from the list. File your complaint at the Guild Hall. Ask for Steve. He gains the Guild Membership feature. I assume that means he gets medical, dental, vision, a solid pension, and a lawyer if anything comes up in the commission of his guild job. For a Personality Trait we’ll pick “I always want to know how things work and what makes people tick.” He’s outgoing like that. For an ideal we select Generosity: “My talents were given to me so that I could use them to benefit the world.” If he’s calling the shots, it will be in the DM’s interest to have him at least think of himself as the good-guy. For a Bond we take “I owe my guild a great debt for forging me into the person I am today.” Again, this is mostly throwing the DM a bone. If the guild needs something, this guy’s going to want to do right by them. For a Flaw we select “I’m quick to assume that someone is trying to cheat me.” Paranoid players are good players.

Finally our Acolyte Muscle Rogue gains the Shelter of the Faithful feature. For a Personality Trait it’ll be “I see omens in every event and action. The gods try to speak to us, we just need to listen.” For an Ideal we’ll take Faith: “I trust that my deity will guide my actions. I have faith that if I work hard, things will go well.” For a Bond we select “I would die to recover an ancient relic of my faith that was lost long ago.” We want him motivated to work with these crazy people. For a Flaw, “I am suspicious of strangers and expect the worst of them.” This should lead to a fair amount of violence, if your D&D group is anything like mine.

Where we stand:

Sword & Board Fighter

Half-orc Fighter 1 Folk Hero Background Clumsy Good Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 15 +2 +4 Dex 5 -3 -3 Con 17 +3 +5 Int 8 -1 -1 Wis 9 -1 -1 Cha 8 -1 -1 Skills: Animal Handling (+1), Athletics (+4), Intimidation (+1), Perception (+1), Survival (+1) Languages: Common, Orcish Hit Points: 13 Armor Class: 18 (Chain Hauberk + Shield) Initiative: -3 Speed: 30 Weapons: Longsword (+4 to attack, 1d8+2 damage), Handaxe (+4 to attack, 1d6+2 damage) Other notable features: Rustic Hospitality, Darkvision, Relentless Endurance, Savage Attacks, Protection Fighting Style, Second Wind (1d10+1), several large bruises from bumping into things Notable Equipment: Chain Hauberk, Longsword, Shield, 2 Handaxes, Explorer’s Pack, One set of woodworking tools, a shovel, an iron pot, a set of common clothes, a belt pouch, 10gp

Our Fighter’s not much good at his skills, and will be getting by mostly on his ability to take a hit. Heavy armor is a big plus here, as it ignores what would otherwise be a big hit to his Armor Class from his lack of Dexterity.

Tambourine Bard

Half-elf Bard 1 Entertainer Background Chaotic Ditzy Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 11 +0 +0 Dex 19 +4 +6 Con 8 -1 -1 Int 6 -2 -2 Wis 8 -1 -1 Cha 17 +3 +5 Skills: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2), Perception (+1), Performance (+5), Stealth (+6), Sleight of Hand (+6), Survival (+1), Disguise kit, Cello, Clarinet, Drums, Harp Languages: Common, Elven, Orcish Hit Points: 7 Armor Class: 15 (Leather plus Dexterity) Initiative: +4 Speed: 30ft Weapons: Rapier (+6 to attack, 1d8+4 damage), Dagger (+6 to attack, 1d4+4 damage) Spell DC: 13 Spells Prepared: 4 Cantrips: Minor Illusion, Vicious Mockery 1st: Charm Person, Cure Wounds, Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire Other notable features: Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, Spellcasting, Ritual Casting, Spellcasting Focus, Bardic Inspiration (1d6, 3 per Long Rest), Dozens of Gentleman Admirers Notable Equipment: Rapier, Diplomat’s Pack, Tambourine, Leather Armor, Dagger, Clarinet, trinket from an admirer, a costume, a belt pouch, 15gp

Oddly, her dismal Intelligence isn’t terribly likely to be a huge problem for our Bard, provided she’s got the Rogue or Wizard anywhere nearby to help out. She’ll be able to sneak around with the Rogue, is capable of dishing out damage in melee combat, and can provide solid spell support.

Scheming Wizard

Human Wizard 1 Guild Merchant Background Neutral Manipulative Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 10 +0 +0 Dex 9 -1 -1 Con 8 -1 -1 Int 16 +3 +5 Wis 10 0 +2 Cha 13 +1 +1 Skills: Arcana (+5), Deception (+3), History (+5) Insight (+4), Investigation (+5), Nature (+5), Persuasion (+3), Religion (+5) Languages: Common, Dwarvish, Elven, Orcish Hit Points: 5 Armor Class: 9 (12 with Mage Armor) Initiative: -1 Speed: 30ft Weapons: Quarterstaff (+2 to attack, 1d8 damage) Spell DC: 13 Spells Prepared: 4 Cantrips: Fire Bolt, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation 1st: Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Grease, Identify, Mage Armor, Thunderwave Other notable features: Skilled, Spellcasting, Ritual Caster, Arcane Recovery, Perfect teeth Notable Equipment: Quarterstaff, Component Pouch, Scholar’s Pack, Spellbook, Cart & Mule, Guild Letter of Introduction, a set of Traveler’s Clothes, a belt pouch, 15gp

Party face and mob boss. Owns their transportation. Can lay down a variety of spells useful in and out of combat. If he weren’t so fragile he’d hardly need the rest of the group.

Muscle Rogue

Mountain Dwarf Rogue 1 Acolyte Background Lawful Murderous Attribute Value Bonus Save Str 17 +3 +3 Dex 14 +2 +4 Con 16 +3 +3 Int 12 +1 +3 Wis 14 +2 +2 Cha 7 -2 -2 Skills: *Athletics (+7), Insight (+4), Investigation (+3), *Perception (+6), Religion (+4), Stealth (+4), Mason’s Tools, Thieves’ Tools Languages: Common, Dwarvish, Elvish, Orcish Hit Points: 11 Armor Class: 13 (Leather plus Dexterity) Initiative: +2 Speed: 25ft Weapons: Shortsword (+5 to attack, 1d6+3 damage) plus Shortsword (+5 to attack, 1d6 damage) or Shortbow (+4 to attack, 1d6+2 damage) Other notable features: Darkvision, Dwarven Resilience, Dwarven Combat Training, Dwarven Armor Training, Stonecutting, Expertise (Athletics and Perception), Sneak Attack (1d6), Theives’ Cant, Bad Facial Scars Notable Equipment: Rapier, Shortbow, Dungeoneer’s Pack, Leather Armor, 2 Daggers, Thieves’ Tools, Holy Symbol, Prayer Book, 5 sticks of incense, vestments, a set of common clothes, belt pouch, 15gp

Get this Dwarf into some medium armor and you’re in business. He can take a hit nearly as well as the party Fighter and just needs a little more Armor Class than the starting equipment for his class provides. He provides most of the skills the Wizard needs to get your typical dungeon-delving job done with a little security and support from the Fighter and Bard.

In our final installment we’ll jump forward a few levels and see what these goons may look like once they’ve got a full complement of class features.