In which we use 3d6-in-order and some anonymous input to start making a 4-player 5th-edition D&D party.

Yesterday on the Traditional Games section of 4chan somebody decided to go old-school and roll up a character by having the board’s random number generator give him eighteen six-sided die rolls. He took the results, in order, and declared he had produced a Half-orc Fighter. A couple of us took up the banner and rolled up some companions for him by the same process. Let’s take a look at the quick-and-dirty results, turn them into proper Type V Dungeons & Dragons characters, and consider how well or how poorly this all turned out.

Hmm. Quite tough, not remarkably strong, incredibly clumsy, not a shining light intellectually or socially. Half-orc sounds just right. This brings his statline to Str 15, Dex 5 Con 17 Int 8 Wis 9 Cha 8. Our anonymous poster wants to go Sword & Board, so we probably shouldn’t select Great Weapon Fighting, Archer, or Two-Weapon Fighting for his Fighting Style class feature. We’ll also want to think about backgrounds. He only has two stats with bonuses, one of which has no skills associated (Constitution), the other has a single skill (Athletics) which is already available to Fighters. The background could be practically anything.  Let’s look at the rest of the party before committing to anything.

Okay, then. Highest-possible Dexterity. Highest Charisma that a point-buy can get you by the rules. Strength isn’t a liability. Dumb as a doorknob. Some kind of smooth-talking Rogue would be an obvious choice, but since we’re working with straight-up randomly-rolled character stats here it looks like a good opportunity to apply a well-rounded class to a lopsided pile of stats. Selecting Half-elf as a race gets us a +2 to Charisma and another +1 to invest elsewhere. Put it into Dexterity for a statline of Str 11 Dex 19 Con 8 Int 6 Wis 8 Cha 17. If we survive to get an attribute bump, we can split it between Dexterity and Charisma to get both of their bonuses up at the same time, capping off Dexterity at level 4.  The poster here has specified a College of Valor Bard. First level is premature for this, but it’s hard to justify a College of Lore selection with such poor Intelligence. The tambourine is a perfect ditzy hippy chick instrument, so I don’t care if it isn’t on the equipment list in the books.  The Entertainer background seems like the obvious choice. She probably met the Half-orc at a nightclub or something.

Really? An intelligent character right after the criticism of how dumb the first two were? As the person that challenged our anonymous interlocutor to roll up a smart character to balance things out, I was suspicious when I saw a 15 Intelligence on the first try. So suspicious that I checked an archive site for deleted attempts. Nope. The dice gods have smiled on our little endeavor.  This character is smart, rather charming, and has low-to-poor stats otherwise. Sounds like good Wizard material. As a Human (let’s assume we use the variant rule and get a free feat) he gets +1 to two attributes of our choice.  Since he’s probably going to be the brains of this operation lets invest those points in Intelligence and Wisdom. Intelligence to be good as wizardry, Wisdom to knock out the penalty to smart-guy skills like Perception and Insight. His statline is Str 10 Dex 9 Con 8 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 13. The way he’s described by this anonymous poster, he’s a bit of a scoundrel, so I’m thinking Criminal, Charlatan, Noble, or Guild Artisan. Leaning toward Guild Artisan. He met the Fighter through the Bard, who he pursued romantically the moment he spotted her at a farmer’s market or some-such.

Frighteningly-good rolls by comparison, with only one properly-bad attribute. With this many good rolls it’s tempting to make a Monk or Paladin, but the poster here has selected Muscle Rogue. I’ve written about Muscle Rogues before, and am fond of this niche archetype.  As a Mountain Dwarf his statline bumps to Str 17 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 12 Wis 14 Cha 7. He’s strong, he’s tough, he’s nimble enough to take full advantage of medium armor, but he’s got a personality like a cheese grater. Definitely not the boss of the party, that job stays with the Wizard, who has both the smarts and the people skills. Since we’ve had a glance at all four members of our little adventuring band, I’m inclined to have our Dwarf have a Soldier background. He knows the Fighter and Wizard from his previous professional career, and the Bard through them.

We’ve got the skeleton of an adventuring crew now. A Fighter, a Bard, a Wizard, and a Rogue. To make them work well together, they’ll need to each be reasonably good at their own jobs, compliment each others’ strengths, and mitigate each others’ shortcomings. The Fighter can do this through his Fighting Style, the Bard and Wizard through their spell selections, the Wizard has a feat selection coming to him, and all of them through their skills. The Fighter was rolled first, so we’ll start with him.

The Rogue and the Fighter are both going to be handy in a melee scrap. The Bard’s excellent Dexterity will make her dangerous with a finesse weapon like the Rapier, but her poor Constitution will leave her pretty fragile. The Wizard is also pretty fragile, and will be leading from the rear when things come to blows. Half of the group is a bit on the wimpy side and we have no dedicated healer-type, so we’ll have our Fighter pick up the Protection Fighting Style.

The Tambourine Bard is our only source of magical healing, so we want he to pick Cure Wounds as one of her first four spells. Healing Word is tempting, at the risk of becoming overly-focused. We’ll grab Faerie Fire for general combat support, instead. Dissonant Whispers is a great spell to use on a bad-guy within reach of our Muscle Rogue friend, making for a potential extra Sneak Attack. Round things out with perennial favorite Charm Person and let’s grab two cantrips. Minor Illusion and Viscious Mockery are both great go-to spells that anybody would be glad to have on-hand.

Our Scheming Boss-man Wizard has a lot of decisions to make. He knows three cantrips and six first-level spells. Eventually he’s going to be an Evoker, but that doesn’t burden his spell selection. It just speaks to his mindset. Any arcanist is well-served by knowing Detect Magic and Identify. Normally a Wizard would be happy to let his Bard companion take care of deciphering ancient runes and such, but our Half-elf friend isn’t intellectually gifted. We’ll pick up Comprehend Languages. His friends are already quite good at hurting individual opponents one at a time, so something like Burning Hands or Thunderwave would be a nice addition as crowd control. We could go with Sleep or Color Spray, both of which are file spells, but this guy’s going to be an Evoker some day, so let’s get off on the right foot. Thunderwave it is. Fragile fellow that he is, Mage Armor would be prudent. For our final first-level spell, we pick up Grease, which may have a dozen good uses in and out of combat. For cantrips we select Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, and Fire Bolt.

In our next installment, we’ll select backgrounds, personality traits, ideals, bonds, flaws, skills, and equipment.

In which we attempt to make a Druid whose focus is on archery for Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons

Let’s delve into a spellcasting class and do something a little different with it, shall we? Let’s take our favorite pointy-eared friends with Longbow proficiency and a bonus to Wisdom, the Wood Elf, and see if we can’t come up with a bow-wielding Druid that works reasonably well.

Racial selection is pretty simple. Wood Elves are thematically appropriate, they bring proficiency with the best ranged weapon to the table, they get a +2 bonus to Dexterity (nice for the bow) and a +1 bonus to Wisdom (nice for Druid spellcasting). For stats we use the standard Heroic array and place the 15 in Wisdom, 14 in Dexterity, 13 in Constitution, 10 in Strength, 8 in Charisma. After our racial modifiers we get a statline of Str 10 Dex 16 Con 13 Wis 16 Cha 8.

For a background let’s take Hermit. This isn’t a charismatic elf, so a solitary life surrounded by nature seems about right. This grants proficiency in Nature and Religion and a bevy of story-driving background hooks. As a Wood Elf we’re already proficient in Perception, so for our last two skills we select Animal Handling and Survival from the Druid list.

At first level we gain the Druidic language. Hooray. More importantly we gain spellcasting. We know two cantrips and can prepare four spells at a time. Cantrip selection is important. Guidance can make our ranged attacks more successful, so we definitely pick that up. Mending lets you get all your arrows back at the end of a fight and can be generally useful for fixing other things. Interesting 1st level Druid spells for an archer include Entangle, Jump, Longstrider, and most particularly Faerie Fire. Cast Faerie fire on a group of enemies and watch your allies fall in love with you.

At second level we gain Wild Shape and Druid Circle as class features. Wild Shape has a fair amount of utility, but we won’t be using it in combat. Bears don’t shoot bows, last I checked. They prefer to use polearms. Selection of a Druid Circle is fairly straightforward. The Circle of the Moon offers better combat-capable Wild Shape use. But we don’t care about Wild Shape in combat, so we select Circle of the Land. We get initiated in the Grasslands for reasons of spell selection and because archers thrive on the open steppes. Ask the Parthians. Or the Huns. Or the Mongols. This level the Circle of the Land grants us a Wizard-like ability to recover some of our spell slots as part of a short rest. It also grants us a third known cantrip. At this point we should know Druidcraft, Guidance, and Mending. Not a game-breaker, but nice.

At third level we gain access to 2nd level spells. As a Grassland Druid, we gain Invisibility and Pass Without Trace on our spell list, always treated as prepared, and available to cast normally. How handy Invisibility might be to an archer should be self-evident. Other 2nd level spells on your list include Enhance Ability (which doesn’t actually improve your ability score, but grants advantage), Heat Metal, and Spike Growth. You also gain a fourth cantrip. Let’s take Thorn Whip.

The fourth level we get our first feat or ability score bump. Sharpshooter is extremely tempting here. To avoid range and cover penalties we pick it up. With only a +5 to attack with a bow, taking a -5 to hit for a +10 to damage is something that would rarely be worthwhile at this point, but the option is there. We also get an improvement to Wild Shape, being able to take CR 1/2 forms, including those with swim speeds. Potentially very useful.

At fifth level all our Ranger and Fighter buddies just got their second attack. We’re super jealous, but our Druid Circle selection gets us Daylight and Haste. Why might we be interested in getting Haste? Hmm. A mystery.   Other 3rd level spells we may find interesting include Dispel Magic and Wind Wall.

At sixth level we gain Land’s Stride, allowing easier movement through non-magical rough terrain. This may be good for getting into an advantageous position.

At seventh level we gain access to fourth level spells, including Divination and Freedom of Movement. Other fourth level spells we may find interesting are Grasping Vine and Stone Shape.

At eighth level we finally get off our butts and improve that Dexterity score to 20. We attack once per round at +7 for 1d8+4 damage with a longbow, various means of assuring advantage on our attacks, pinning opponents in place, deterring them from closing into melee with us, and otherwise supporting our allies. We may also use Wild Shape to take CR 1 forms, including those that can fly.

At ninth level we get fifth level spells and our last round of Circle Spells in the form of Dream and Insect Plague. Neither of these are particularly on-theme for our bow-wielding Druid. Other fifth level spells of interest are Contagion, which is insanely good and should be house-ruled or tamed by errata of some sore, and Scrying. Our proficiency bonus bumps up to +4, and we are now at a point where using Sharpshooter for extra damage is frequently a reasonable choice.

At tenth level we gain a fifth cantrip. Considering how hard some things hit at these levels, Resistance can be a life-saver. We also gain immunity to poison and disease. We’re also immune to charm and fear from fey creatures, which I suppose is good for some campaigns.

At eleventh level we gain access to sixth level spells, and most D&D campaigns are winding down or rapidly approaching climax.  Take a look at Conjure Fey. Then look through the Monster Manual at what some of the creatures you can summon are capable of doing. Then scratch your head and wonder why you wouldn’t want a little of that in your life.

At twelfth level we bump Wisdom up to 18. Will we ever top off an attribute at twenty? Odds are we’ll never see level 16, so no. The DC to resist our spells stands at 18. We attack with our Longbow at +8 for 1d8+4 damage twice per round with Haste (which we can cast 3 times per day at 3rd level, nine times tops). We may optionally attack at +3 for 1d8+14 due to Sharpshooter. We have several ways to gain advantage for ourselves.

By way of comparison, a Battle Master Archer attacks three times per round, all day every day, with a 15% higher chance to hit and a hair more damage, with a few handy tricks for making those shots have tactical effects. She can’t, however, turn into a flying venomous serpent twice a day.

Please feel free to use in your own adventures, with or without attribution or even remembering where you got the idea. Games are made to be played.

In which we create a trick-shot artist that takes advantage of the Battle Master archetype’s lack of melee-only restrictions.

From a look at the D&D NEXT playtest material, one of the features I most looked forward to were the combat maneuvers. They had tinkered around with various ways of using martial dice with various classes to various effect. In the finished rules the martial dice are gone, replaced by “superiority dice” that are the purview of one Fighter archetype, the Battle Master.

The Battle Master strikes me as a nod to how Fighters and Warlords played in 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. They can do tricky stuff that makes their allies more effective and their enemies somewhat useless, they can take a beating, they can hit hard. An excellent addition to any team. In 4th edition the Fighter and Warlord classes were heavily invested in being right up in the thick of it, scrapping toe-to-toe with the bad guys. You could use a polearm or whip to keep a little distance, but most of their features required an up-close-and-personal approach.

Which of course makes me want to fiddle with the 5th Edition D&D Battle Master as a ranged specialist, hanging back with the squishy spellcasters and such. Let the Blade Pact Warlock get his hands dirty, the Archery Master likes to phone it in from afar.

To start things out, we select a race. Ideally we want something that is dexterous and charismatic. This is neatly filled by the Drow and the Lightfoot Halfling, but light sensitivity is a serious drag and small creatures are no good with heavy weapons like the Longbow. That leaves us with High Elf or Wood Elf to get the full +2 to Dexterity, or Half-elf or Human to get a simple +1. Let’s hold our noses and take Half-elf. From the standard heroic spread we put the 15 into Dexterity, 14 into Constitution, 10 into Strength, 12 into Wisdom, 13 into Charisma, 8 into Intelligence. We get a +2 racial bonus to Charisma and +1 to each of two others, so we end up with a statline of Str 10 Dex 16 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 12 Cha 14. We select Perception and Medicine as our racial skills.

Our Archery Master isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed academically, but is wise, charming, nimble, and hale. Let’s select the Outlander background. This gets us the Athletics and Survival skill proficiencies, which would already have been ours to take as a Fighter, but we also get the opportunity to dispense pithy proverbs and back-woods wisdom to our civilized allies. For our first level we select Fighter and take the Archer fighting style. We select Acrobatics and Insight for our class skill proficiencies. We have 12 hit points, have an AC of 15 with leather armor, and attack at a +7 for 1d8+3 damage with a Longbow or at +5 for 1d8+3 damage with a Rapier. As a bonus action we may get a second wind, recovering 1d10+1 hit points once per short rest.

We continue with the Fighter class at second level, gaining the Action Surge feature.

At 3rd level we select Battle Master as our Fighter Archetype. This confers a few benefits. We gain three maneuvers from a list, four 1d8 superiority dice, and proficiency with an artisan’s tool. As an archer, woodcarver’s tools seem appropriate. Some maneuvers provoke saving throws, the difficulty for which is 8 + Proficiency Bonus + Dexterity Bonus, or 13 for us at the moment. For the moment we’ll select the following maneuvers:

• Commander’s Strike – spend a superiority die to let an ally take an attack out of turn. This can be used without engaging the target in melee, and can be used to allow the party Rogue to gain additional Sneak Attack chances. Note that Sneak Attack is limited to once per turn, not once per round. It isn’t the Rogue’s turn any more when this is used.
• Rally – spend a superiority die to grant temporary hit points to an ally. The number of hit points granted benefits from Charisma, hence the prioritization of Charisma earlier.
• Trip Attack – spend a superiority die to force your target to make a Strength save or be knocked prone. Depending on the target, this is better than a normal shove-to-trip attempt in melee. You also do your normal attack’s damage plus a little extra.

At 4th level we face a tough choice. Attribute improvement or feat? We bite the bullet and bump Dexterity up to 18, gaining a +1 to initiative, attack, and damage rolls, and improving Dexterity saves and checks. We currently attack at +8 for 1d8+4 damage with the Longbow, +7 for 1d8+4 with the Rapier. Saves against our Trip Attack are at DC 14.

At 5th level we gain an extra attack and our proficiency bonus goes up to three. At 6th we finally take the Sharpshooter feat. This lets us choose to attack at +9 for 1d8+4 damage or at +4 for 1d8+14 damage. We also ignore cover, can fire into melee or at extreme range without disadvantage. This allows us to support our close-combat allies more effectively.

At 7th level we gain the Know your Enemy feature, which is handy outside of combat. What, a Fighter that can do something useful outside of a fight? I know, right? We gain a fifth superiority die. We also get two more maneuvers and can swap out an old one. We drop Rally, as everybody we roll with should have a few hit dice on them finally, and grab three new ones.

• Commander’s Strike – spend a superiority die to let an ally take an attack out of turn. This can be used without engaging the target in melee, and can be used to allow the party Rogue to gain additional Sneak Attack chances. Note that Sneak Attack is limited to once per turn, not once per round. It isn’t the Rogue’s turn any more when this is used.
• Disarming Attack – spend a superiority die to force your target to make a Strength save or drop an object he’s holding. Shield? Weapon? Spellcasting focus? A double-scoop ice cream cone? On the ground you go. Particularly useful if you already know that one of your allies will get a turn between the disarm attempt and the target. No need to let the evil wizard pick his staff back up, right?
• Menacing Attack – spend a superiority die to force your target to make a Wisdom save or get frightened. This serves to keep enemies away from us personally and forces disadvantage to attacks and ability checks, improving our allies’ survivability.
• Pushing Attack – spend a superiority die to force your target to make a Strength save or get pushed fifteen feet away. Good to brush an opponent off an ally or nudge somebody into a spell effect or other hazard.
• Trip Attack – spend a superiority die to force your target to make a Strength save or be knocked prone. Depending on the target, this is better than a normal shove-to-trip attempt in melee. You also do your normal attack’s damage plus a little extra.

At 8th level we get another feat or attribute bump. We top off Dexterity because that’s the kind of thing you do. We now attack twice at +9 for 1d8+5 damage or +5 for 1d8+15 damage with the Longbow or at +7 for 1d8+5 damage with the Rapier. Our maneuvers have a DC 16 to resist.

At 9th level we get Indomitable. We get to re-roll a failed saving throw once per day. Also our proficiency bonus bumps up again.

At 10th level our superiority dice goes from 1d8 each to 1d10. We also get two more maneuvers. This is where the Battle Master model of character progression comes apart a bit. We already the five maneuvers we think are the most useful for us. So we get to pick up two of the also-rans. We choose Maneuvering Attack and Precision Attack because those are useful from time to time.

At 11th level we get our cherished third attack per round.

Please feel free to use in your own adventures, with or without attribution or even remembering where you got the idea. Games are made to be played.