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.

When last we left out intrepid heroes, they were hapless first level scrubs with the barest smidgeon of backstory, the most raggedy of starting equipment, and subnormal randomly-assigned statlines. They still have the random statlines, but now we’re going to check in on them at level 7.

Seven levels into a campaign, characters have seen a fair amount of action. They’ve developed and matured into their roles. Assuming none of them died and ignoble death at the hand of kobolds before level two (not a great bet) they should have come into their own. The spellcasters can cast 4th-level spells. The Fighter can attack multiple times per round. The Rogue has twice the Expertise skills and is dropping Sneak Attack damage like nobody’s business.

The Champion archetype is horribly underrated. For our clumsy Half-Orc buddy here it gets him half his proficiency bonus, rounded up, added to any ability checks he doesn’t already get proficiency bonuses for. That would include initiative. Speaking of which, the Alert feat (selected at 6th level) fixes what is likely a long-standing pet peeve in the Initiative department.

Hoo boy, do Bards get a lot of stuff. Her extra cantrip (Message), access to Invisibility, and Expertise in Stealth lets her pass up the Rogue as the de-facto scout of the party. With spells like Heat Metal and Dimension Door she can be a huge help in overcoming combat and non-combat challenges. And attacking twice per round for more damage than the Fighter isn’t such a bad thing to fall back on. Song of Rest helps everybody in the party recover hit points more quickly during breaks in the action, saving valuable Cure Wounds castings. Jack of All Trades (Jill of All Trades?) is like an improved Remarkable Athlete. With a +7 on initiative rolls, she stands a very good chance to drop a Faerie Fire or Heat Metal on an opponent in time for it to assist the whole group for the whole encounter.

Our Scheming Wizard was originally specified as an Evocation specialist. There are always supposed to be better things for a Wizard to be doing than laying down raw damage, but if you’re running an Evoker and don’t prepare Fireball every day once you’re able to, you’ve been wasting everybody’s time. Shape Spell lets him steer the mayhem away from his allies. Potent Cantrip doesn’t do us a lot of good, as there are only a couple of cantrips that even allow for saving throws. We could pick up Acid Splash or Poison Spray as our fourth cantrip, but I’d rather just write that feature off and pick up Ray of Frost instead. Unlike our Tambourine Bard, the Wizard may have any number of additional spells in his spellbook.

No surprises here, the Rogue is a straight-up killer. He has the hit points to hang with the Fighter up front in a fight, and is sneaky, smart, and athletic enough to deal with a wide variety of challenges. Having another party member with Expertise takes a bit of the shine off of him. Depending on the kinds of magical resources these goons came across during their adventures, the capabilities and responsibilities of each character could shift around dramatically. Picking exactly what would compliment each character best would be cheesy, so I refrained from doing so. It should be fair to assume they’ve got a handful of magical weapons, a few wondrous items, and several single-use potions, scrolls, and such.

This certainly isn’t the set of characters I’d expect the people in my play group to come up with, given the option of a 27-point buy or standard array, but there’s something to be said for skipping past the careful planning and asset management side of character creation and diving headfirst into play. In a high-lethality campaign it’s nearly as important to whip up a new character quickly as it is to produce a highly-effective one. There’s fun to be had during character creation, but far more to be had in playing with the results, right?