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DnD Players: What are some of the favorite characters you've played?
My Hexblade Warlock is about to embark on a borderline suicidal rescue mission, 50/50 chance I need to roll up a new character in a week. Looking for some inspiration, if I do end up needing to.
One of my favorite one-shots. Stefanos Eirahwen. He was a ranger that, thanks to some stats and special items, had a +20 animal handling, including the unique item "shorts of the crocodile hunter." He lived in the woods making nature documentaries with some magical camera contraptions. When looking for some rare animals, I managed to roll a nat 20 on an animal handling check, resulting in a roll of 40. He's so good at animal handling that if he rolls a nat 20, he can spontaneously conjure entire species into being. And that is how our campaign world ended up with the rarest of all wild creatures...the legendary tree elk! Just full-sized elk that live in the branches of trees!
I played a Drow Creation Bard during a Frostmaiden campaign, his name Gwynan “Silverstring” A'Daravar. For lack of a better comparison I kind of played him like a wild western preacher in combat. Any time I learned a new spell I would come up with something to say that sounded like a quote from a bible but fantasy-like and his god is Eilistraee. An example would be the following, when he casts Dissonant Whispers;
'Liberation 10-7' For you who are destined to bleed, I spare you this whisper for what might happen if I roar.
I believe I went around and borrowed context from the dnd wikis and such, I’m not a poet but everyone really enjoyed when I got a new spell cast, as there would be another made-up quote, lol. Probably the most fun I’ve had in 5e combat.
I did the bullshit holy book quotes with my blue Dragonborn Tempest Cleric, mostly pulling from obscure song lyrics and film quotes. Chaotic neutral, a true agent of chaos; if given a choice he would always chose the path that seemed to have the most interesting consequences. Favourite spell: Call Lightning.
My DM let me use the level 6 Tempest Cleric ability on myself so I could Call Lightning on myself as a bonus action for 10 feet extra movement (rule of cool, and not super overpowered since I took damage every time). Best time I ever had in 5e!
One of my favorite characters was also from a Frostmaiden campaign! I was playing Odd, the Half-Goliath (custom lineage). I described him as "as tall as a Goliath, and as heavy as a Human". Basically, he was a poor, stupid, skinny-but-lithe outcast from one of the local tribes. I based his demeanor (and accent) loosely on Orm from the show Norsemen, but with more of a chaotic good "I won't do what you tell me if it'll hurt other people" bent.
As far as his build went, he was a Crossbow Expert Hand Crossbow Rune Knight Fighter who could pack in absurd amounts of damage compared to the rest of the party, at least at early levels. But then he fell through a rotten floor panel and down a cliff and died. Then he got brought back to life! Then the Frostmaiden killed him again later. Then I made a new character and we faced off against the two former PCs that died to the 'Maiden as minions in the final battle and my new character shapechanged into a T-Rex and swallowed him, so there was no more chance for a burial or revival. Such is life and undeath, I suppose.
As a forever GM all my PC are my favorites. Amongst the top is Ulfgar, a "drawf" who's actually an alien who is strong as he is dumb (buddy's says he reminds him of Inosuke from Demon Slayer but I've never seen the show so I can't say). And then there's always a place in my heart for my first PC; Uhtred the ______, a rouge who filled in the blank with whatever name helped sell the lie.
It would be like choosing between your childrens. All my characters have been so fun to play.
One of my character had no name, he was an exile shapeshifter with no emotion and monotone voice, neutral neutral. However, a few games in I got knock out and an emotionnal young woman appear for a few seconds.
Than she cameback a few games later, this time she stick around for much longer. Her bold and mischievous character clearly clashing with the normal "no name" emotion. She didn't shapeshift and didnt use a different name everyday.
The backstory was that no name couldn't shapeshift when he was younger. He was exile and live as a monster in the eye of society in a big city. He learned magic and tried a ritual to gain the power he was rob of. He kill a young girl to gain that power. However, the ritual had a drawback, she was there with him.
The only way to control her was for him to suppress is emotion. As time pass it was getting harder and harder. Fun part was that part of the party were on one side and some on the other, but they didnt know the backstory.
My favorite character I've ever played was Bilzu Cobbletweak, a Forest Gnome Battle Smith Artificer. Our campaign was basically a mega dungeon set underneath a town and when we were on the cusp of becoming third level my DM had us fight a clockwork dragon. Once we'd defeated it our party wizard used tensors disc to help Bilzu bring the pieces back to the surface to rebuild as his Steel Defender. My DM decided to let him have a fly speed and a fire breath attack, and since I was a gnome I could fly around on his back. I was only able to use the flight a few times since most of the campaign was underground, but it was still very cool. This is the only campaign I've played through to completion without it falling apart for some reason.
My second favorite character I've played was named Cryvrovim (pronounced Kriv-row-vim, Vim for short). He is a level 17 Scourge Aasimar, Hexblade Warlock 3/College of Swords Bard 14. He was for a high level one-shot so I didn't write an extensive backstory for him, but the general idea is a deity of music is his warlock patron and she urged him to use his musical talents to help others. Many levels of Bard later and he's potentially ready to take on world ending threats, albeit begrudgingly at this point. At some point in his adventures his patron would have either provided him with, or directed him to, an Animated Shield and a Dancing Sword (both flavored as dancing to Vim's music. I also used magical secrets to pick up Animated Objects, so he was able to unroll a knife bag and cause daggers to join the performance. He would probably be my favorite character if I'd played him longer.
Lastly, the character I've built that I'm most excited to eventually play is an Earth Genasi of Dwarven heritage named Spinel. He's a Dao Genie Warlock whose patron is a distant relative. I haven't made a backstory for him because I'd need to work with the DM, but a few details for him are that his Eldritch Blast is flavored as him pulling loose stones from his beard (where they grow) and using them in a sling, and he also carries a square stone club inscribed with runes. I'm also hoping my DM will let me use a Dust Mephit as a familiar whom I will name Sneeze.
One shot, necromancer detective. I'd raise the dead but only get a few grunts and moans as a clue, but fun nevertheless
My latest character is an Battlesmith Artificer. He is exploring Chult, so he's got Teddy Roosevelt on Safari vibes. Complete with an Elephant Gun, and a hunting robopuppy/BB-8 that is perpetually 6 months old.
I had an absolute blast playing a Battle Smith Artificer in my last game! I wrote about him in this thread. Which infusions are you using and what is your character's name?
He's only 5th level, so he doesn't have all the bells and whistles yet.
Hagley Palmer and his ever faithful Igor were there names. He used repeating shot with his Elephant gun (2d10 per hit made it in par with Eldritch Blast at this level), the alchemy jug (we used a gallon of mayo to great effect), and the bag of holding.
Probably going to take sharpshooter and ask the DM to let me legacy weapon the gun.
Gotchya, our game finished up at level 8, I also used Repeating Shot for my crossbow and I used the Spell-Refueling Ring and Mind Sharpener. My DM was generous with feats, I had 5 by the end of the game. I had Magic Initiate, Artificer Initiate, Medium Armor Master, Eldritch Adept, and a homebrew feat Point Blank Shot which negates disadvantage on ranged attacks in melee, and I got advantage on other attacks within 30ft as long as the enemy didn't have cover.
I managed to convince my DM that since Repeating Shot made the weapon magic, the gun is unbreakable by normal means. It was also canonically a wooden stocked gun. So I would Sheleilegh the stock of my gun, and it let me attack with INT with no disadvantage at close range. AND it scaled with level.
Post Tasha's bladesinger. The tasha rework means you actually get to sling spells in melee and not be horribly inefficient. At higher levels, it's still more optimal to sit back, enjoy your AC, and cast spells, but hey, the delta isn't as high between that and melee and it's actually pretty good to attack things between levels 6 and 11. Just straight bladesinger - it gives you everything you'd need.
Artificer dip Wizard is always good, if a little overdone. Probably the best single class selection in 5e, in particular if you pick Chronurgy as your school (the infamous Artichron build).
After Tasha's, there's a lot of cool and very effective summon builds now. Necromancer Wizard with Summon Undead is really pretty absurd, at higher levels because the summon scales so well you are doing optimized fighter levels of reliable damage while STILL being a wizard, with wizard versatility.
Eloquence bard is always fun for the sheer reliability of charisma checks. Having a minroll of 23 on Persuasion and Deception really opens up a lot of possibilities.
I just finished a campaign where I played bladesinger. It is my favorite class out of the ones I've played so far. I started out playing a storm sorcerer but my GM kindly allowed me to re-spec since bladesinger basically did all the gish stuff I wanted to do with storm sorc but better. I just ended up taking all the storm related spells I could to keep in line with my character's original concept. We ended the campaign at level 10 so I'm not sure how things would have worked out at higher levels but like you said, at the levels we played at I felt effective attacking in melee while casting spells for utility and movement.
My favorite character concept was a teenage Tortle Grappler I named Grecko. For the most part he was even tempered but when there was a crowd he got fired up. I busted out my best impression of macho man and he went full showman. He'd jump off of buildings into elbows and leg drops, etc.
My favorite was a fallen Paladin named Rikas. My DM set him up great and I got to tell some heart breaking stories with him.
I built a Grappler type character, but unfortunately the game fizzled out before I got to play him for long. I think we had 3 sessions. But his name was Grom and he's a Half-Orc Totem Barbarian with a background as a sailor. He became an adventurer because his old captain was a dick and he wanted to make enough money to buy his own ship. The DM gave us a starting feat so I grabbed fighting Initiate and the Unarmed Fighting style. I was able to find a magical tattoo shop and he got an Eldritch Claw Tattoo on his fist/forearm in the shape of an octopus. He also had a Cloak of the Manta Ray and a collapsible fishing pole.
Well you already did warlock, so trying something new might be more your style.
I made myself a dao genie warlock. So my power came from an earth elemental genie. Besides the flying you get with the class I tried to make sure all my spells were earth themed for flavour and I’ve been having a great time with the character this last while.
Kind of playing him like a gun slinger type character.
I have a very similar character concept I've built that I'm waiting for the right game to use him in. He's an earth genasi of dwarven heritage named Spinel. I plan on flavoring eldritch blast as him pulling magical stones out of his beard (where they grow, his beard also naturally produces small amounts of dirt) and launching them with a sling. I'm planning on him being a Pact of the Chain warlock and hoping my DM will let me use a Dust Mephit as a familiar. His name will be Sneeze because he's allergic to his own dust.
I was a player in a brief campaign for Strahd. The character was the grandnephew of Simon Belmont. I played him as a barbarian path of the storm herald. The plan was, with DM assistance, that he was going to have a warhammer and whip, both made through adventuring. We only got through 4 or 5 sessions before it fell apart.
I'm playing in a Curse of Strahd game currently as a Goliath Rune Knight Fighter! We've only just started recently so here's to hoping mine doesn't fall apart as well. My character's name is Kazamith "Mountainleaper" Nalakavi and he's from a small mountain village where he is praised as a folk hero and he dabbles as a cook. His cooking isn't terrible, but not amazing either, but the villagers love him so much they pretend to love it. He's equipped with a modified version of the Alchemy Jug and the Heward's Handy Spice Pouch, as well as Boots of Springing and Striding. The boots along with the Athlete feat allow him to run 5ft and then do a 51ft long jump if he uses his action to dash, or an 18ft high jump. Plus as a Rune Knight I can grow to Large size. Basically, imagine a 14ft(ish) tall Goliath just launching themselves through the air while swinging a Greataxe! His personality is outgoing and cheerful, he loves making people laugh with jokes and making silly faces.
I love all of this.
The Alchemy Jug is modified so that all the inedible options of the original are replaced with edible options. Downside means I don't get poison, upside is I get "Dragon's Spit" hot sauce. I'm very much looking forward to trying to get Strahd to eat some thinking it's blood!
Ive been playing about 10 years now, and I'm very unoriginal when it comes to characters. I typically just steal a celebrity's name and do a caricature of what I feel they're like. My best ever was a bard I had, brought him from lvl 3 to lvl 8. I hate the stereotypical horny bard idea, so this bard's whole deal was he wanted to make as many friends as he could, as friendship and kindness is what he values most. I picked Kenny G as the character, and just played him as incredibly intense with kindness and it ruled. He had a hard time dealing with combat and enemies, and would try to befriend absolutely anyone. Most people in the ingame world were understandably put off by him, but would eventually end up his friend for life.
The first time he was downed and revived from a lucky 20 roll on a 0-2 deathsave from some insane mindflayer combat, Kenny saw glimpses of the horrors in the afterlife as the mindflayer infiltrated his last potential thoughts. He then would very start lashing out at people who were unkind and unfriendly, and became enraged with madness when people would take advantage of or attack his friends.
Ended up with so much cool loot and stories because of his friends wanting to protect him at all costs, and playing him helped change my party's ideas about being murder hobos, and how to embrace a character that has his own ideas on how the world should work.
We have our own perma-world we play campaigns in, so our own world changes through time and history as we do more campaigns. And Kenny G is still alive and out there somewhere, making friends at every stop until we see him again.
Honestly in a game so prone to characters with tragic backstories, your character does feel unique. And you don't always have to have a full character personality built in your head before you start playing, sometimes it's fun to build their personality as you play and interact with the world. One of my current characters is kind of similar to yours, he's good natured, like to make people laugh, and he's friendly with everyone, but we're in Curse of Stradh so I expect his mood will dour somewhat as we progess in the campaign.
I put together a Paladin a while back that worshiped Tempus, the war god. His faith was universalizing and exclusive, so he believed that everything was war in one form or another and thus considered all race mixing (half elves, half-dwarves, etc) to be crimes against his faith.
He also had a profound contempt for peaceful folk, and would frequently comment that you could have his sword when you pried it from his cold, dead hands.
My GM informed me that I was not allowed to play my MAGA Paladin, so I never got around to much more than a sketch outline but it would have been hilarious.
Internal monologue: Oh man, this is a brilliant play on so much of the modern conflict and strife in the world today!
Internal monologue: Ah, yep, that's it. Well played.
I had a cha warlock that pretended to be a bard. They would convince people he was a famous bard under a curse to make him unrecognizable and to make all of his music sound awful. This allowed him to suck at actually doing bard stuff. If anyone tried to magically investigate, most would believe he was cursed because that was part of his pact with his patron; his pact should resemble a curse under casual inspection. Honestly, it wouldn't be incorrect to call the pact a true curse anyway. He basically went around helping people who had been wronged by others as part of his revenge against the murder of his love, who was a famous bard. He carried her lute everywhere and cared for it more than his own life, which only further sold the deception.
It was humorous to have all the players thinking "you're obviously not a bard... Right? Like this can't be a thing. Can it?" Eventually I started casting warlock spells and told them, no, I'm a multi class, I made the pact to help me lift the curse.
It was a fun ride until I died trying to save two of my teammates. They both made it through, and it was nice that one of them opted to carry my lute in honor of me.
Not D&D, but in a Savage Worlds fantasy steampunk setting I had a dwarven artificer named Prof. Archibald Sphinctus, Artificer Extraordinaire, M.D. He was an older, pompous, loud-mouthed, hard of hearing dwarf who I could play up as a sort of celebrity in his own head. "But of course you already know who I am, I'm quite well known throughout the realm. Here... my autograph should more than suffice as payment." He eventually took on an apprentice/groupie, a goblin bard named Tammie Tinnitus, whom he brought on specifically to sing his praises and pen his obviously illustrious autobiography. He was just alot of fun to play since he's actually quite a bit different from my own personality.
We played that campaign over the course of whatever like 5-10 years and only ended it after we had switched from live play to Roll20 during the pandemic.
Did you end it as in the adventure concluded and was resolved, or ended as in the game fell apart? You should try to get the gang back together either way, 5-10 years is solid commitment from a group!
It ended naturally, surprisingly enough. The GM for that one was pretty committed to seeing it through, which actually is a bit of a rarity for our group. We all trade off on GMing duties between all the players and we each run our own stuff. Most campaigns just sort of fizzle out for one reason or another, usually it's the GM for that game just gets distracted or life happens or there was never a clear ending in mind and then it just sort of falls apart. When I GM I tend to just try for one-shot adventures specifically because I don't want to fall into that habit, and I usually want a bit of a tighter experience vs trying to run some sort of epic neverending campaign.
For most of that time though, we were probably only playing 1x or 2x a month, pre-COVID we were on a really loose schedule, because it was always such a hassle getting everyone together in one place. When COVID hit, we moved to Roll20 and we've been on a weekly gaming schedule ever since, so we're actually playing more now than we ever did in the decade prior, that's one of the good things to come out of the whole thing. So we probably made as much progress in the first half of the campaign as we did in the last half after we switched over to digital.
Excellent! Our group does the same thing, we have 4 people in our group with three of us currently rotating DM duty. Our most experienced DM runs a game every other week, then me and another guy alternate in the weeks between those sessions so the two of us have a month to prepare. I'm doing a homebrew pirate game and the other two are running Spelljammer and Curse of Strahd.
My favorite character was Ulrich Von Lichtenstein. It was supposed to be a fake in character name to give people a nod that most of what this guy says is bullshit. He pretended to be a paladin - he was a fighter. He pretended to be a handsome man, but in reality looked like Ratcliffe from Rocky Horror Picture Show. He had a follower named Jeffrey Chaucer who followed him around and proclaimed everything is good because of him, and he had Jeff go around and pay towns to install plaques praising how great and powerful he was, as well as his friends (The adventuring party). He accepted plaques as partial payment on behalf of the party, he tried to get free rooms, drinks and food at every inn for any reason he could think of. I told the party the truth after a few sessions when they weren't picking up the hints that me and the DM were throwing out that something wasn't correct with Ulrich. He was under the influence of evil dragons, was mind controlled by a few different dragons and feverently believed in the power of goodness.
He ultimately died to a frost wyrm, needing a 20 DC to pass, I rolled a natural 20 but had -1 modifier and ended up splat on the ground. We've been taking a break from that campaign for around a year or so now, but we're going to be starting it back up (We rotate campaigns around with a couple of the DMs so that no one gets fatigued of creating and also so everyone can experience DMing and playing)
You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.
I'm running my first dwarf in a strahd campaign right now. I'm having fun with the accent...and pidlewick is my bro. Little dude chills on my shoulder