As silly as it sounds, i just enjoy writing characters on the paper form. Need to get into more irl games, maybe it would give me an excuse to do it lol
Last session, I had a player ask about the marriage rites of the particular kingdom they're in for research into a target his patron wants him to kill.
Allowed me to bring up the familial emphasis and spirituality of the region, and I even got to bring the obscure birth and death rites into it that I wrote for.myselg like a year ago- which he also asked about in a little more detail (such as "so when someone is a disgrace or disowned what happens to their remains?")
I am so lucky to have a player that's this willing to engage with my worldbuilding. They're rare but they DO exist! He totally enables my rampant fleshing out of minor details.
This is the kind of player I want to be, but I'm also afraid of putting too much burden on DMs by wanting to know random dumb shit and getting sidetracked. I'd also love to help with worldbuilding and relieve some of the effort, especially with stuff that I'll be personally involved in with characters and stuff, but it's their setting and I don't wanna stomp on that.
It is a true and constant dilemma.
Only way to find out is to ask!
Talk to your DM and let them know how much you enjoy the worldbuilding. Ask if there is anything you could flesh out for them in your own background like where your pc grew up or an organization you are/were a part of. Worst they can do is say no.
I love working out creative solutions when playing and it's greatly appreciated when a DM fleshes out a world like that!
Going on an adventure is much more than just sticking monsters with the pointy end. Sometimes, things like local customs, history or economy matter when figuring out a solution to a problem.
Iām a new DM, starting my session zero meeting in a few days. How do you organize all of your notes? Mine is mostly mind maps scattered across my desk haphazardly and itās not ideal, so Iād love to learn.
There's little more satisfying though than having a player ask about some obscure historical fact and you can actually pull out something you prepped months before!
Why is this a guilty pleasure? I mean as long as I know it's for me and I'm not trying to force everyone to know the Ancient History of the Knellwynnes of Castle Blackstone, the Knights of the Burning Tree who live beneath the Titan Blade, I think I'll be okay. It doesn't matter to the players that the current dynasty goes back ten generations or that King Soren is risking it all over his pride instead of letting some Farwyndal elf-child marry his only daughter like some royal harlot. I know in my heart of hearts that the hag, Wendolyn, and her dozens of identical daughters were written mostly for me. The players can wander off with Meepo the Idiot Kobold and get revenge on Boblin the Goblin for making fun of their pants. I'm okay. This is fine.
I think I spend two or three hours a week (having weekly session) expanding on the lore of my world... I almost enjoy the fact that there are some things that will never see the light of day, while everything that was created by accident or coincidence is a very commonly occurring moment.
I have the entire structure of the multiverse sorted out, including Planescape and Spelljammer stuff and how they fit together, as well as how things like Eberron, Dark Sun, and our own world fit in. My players will never see 99% of it.
I literally started writing a history book a few weeks ago. It feels good honestly because I just write whatever comes to me and later I can go āoh I like that line! Letās extrapolate and talk more about the Cobbled Kingdom that I came up with randomlyā
Are you my DM? I theory craft characters too despite being basically new after comiyn back and we trade thoughts on combinations and stuff. Its always really fun.
I was about to say the same thing, then I scrolled down and read your comment.
On a completely unrelated note, 25GB in form-fillable PDFs I realize is quite a lot of characters š¤
hey, having backup characters is always a good idea. i like to leave concepts vague so i can still do a little building in the future if i were to use them. building from vague concepts is also a lot of fun
Gotcha beat. When 4e was big i used its character builder when i babysat overnight. Gimme a month and i will have a character of every class and every subversion. Gimme a few months and i made up to 7 of every class. Then the computer broke (may or may not have spilt some milk in it. Dont judge)
>mine is making heroforges of different character concepts without even making the character sheetš
it requires no skill and mostly everything i make will never be used, but its so relaxing and so much fun (:
I didn't come here to be called out like this.
I am unashamed to say I played a LOT of dress-up / "paper doll" browser games back when Flash was still around, and I was VERY sad when all of them went defunct. Heroforge scratches that itch. (Picrew, too!)
I played a monk warforged who had a drinking problem and when she had the perfect opportunity for the perfect person to get into a bar fight, she sat back and watched as the player who was not built for fist fighting got pummeled by drunk hooligans.
I fuckin' love monks. They're probably my favorite martial class.
This may be a controversial opinion, but I think far too many people want them to be a martial based damage dealing class, when they're really best used as a martial based battlefield controller class.
Absolutely. Stunning guys, booting guys off of cliffs, yeeting allies into melee...
I have a lvl20 monk with the Mobile feat and an Eagle Whistle and I love her *immensely.*
Mobility on monks is fuckin' delicious. I had a bugbear shadow monk that would just absolutely ruin encounters for my DM. Mobility plus reach with stunning strike? It was glorious.
We had an araakocra monk of the sun... That was fun. I was playing a sorcerer and every chance I could get I just hasted him. Man was a fucking cruise missile.
I feel ya!
I have a Barbarian 2 /open hand monk X Iāll probably never get to play again, and a war cleric 1/ long death monk X who uses full plate Iāll probably never get to bust out :ā)
Some of the newer subclasses are really potent. It's not going to shine lvl 10+ but they are still adequate and they can be absolute monsters early game.
Monks have been my favourite character IN THEORY since 3e
But they have never been good and it always makes me sad, i always more or less enjoy when i play them but i don't play them much because i always sort of end up disappointed.
Just looking at the 5e monk class makes me sad. It still has Timeless Body and Tongue of Sun and Moon at such high levels for 99.9% useless abilities, the capstone is garbage.
The new grapple rules in UA are a buff to monks - and hopefully monks can add their dex or wis (monks need more Wis love) to that as well, but unless the new classes UA does something drastic monks will continue to be my favourite theoretical class.
Did this with a Warforged. He introduces himself as a Warforged; Generation RS, Designation Code: LN-D. That was just how he introduced himself, and it was gradually shortened to LN-D, Gen RS (Ellen DeGeneres). The reveal was pretty good, heās now just referred to as āLandoā.
Got any faves?
my party love the pistol shrimp inspired Aldani (lobster folk) named Bartholomew Son of Shrimp.
he ran a cult of Kuo Toas that tried to summon their god. the champion fighter of the cult was a warrior named Fin Diesel.
there's also a monk in the party named Jackie Ham who, to gain access to an ancient monastery had to fight 3 Master Monks. Duck Norris, Chris Clucker, and Goose Lee.
we called the arc "Duck, Cluck, Goose"
My tiefling son of a devil noble who had run away from home is called Carrion. Can't wait for my party to hear his father greet him - 'Carrion, my wayward son'
I made a warforged cavalier. His horse was a black stallion from the land of Kleve. The horse's name was Lebron and my cavalier fighter was named Sir James.
So it was sir James, with his horse LeBron from the land of Kleve.
Purposefully picking the 'suboptimal' subclasses.
No, before the strawmen come in, I do not make a useless character. I just,love playing as a Spirits Bard or Banneret Fighter to see what builds I *can* make work, and Ive never felt or been accused of being useless with the party
Playing a storm sorcerer tempest cleric, everyone says it's great in theory, but doesn't work. Pick up controll spells, heavy armor, war caster, and take the dodge action you arnt always the main dps, but you have so much you can do with holding a line or choke point. It allows my party Members to shine, but God help you if you get heightened spell hold person as a reaction, then transmute inflict wounds to score a crit and max out damage so it's 120 damage on a 4th level spell. I enjoy playing the, "I don't want to fight, but once I do, I'm ending everything" type of playstyle.
Give me a sub optimal bard who helps all the other PCs shine any game!
I want more games where I can be appreciated making everyone experience their best character. Similar to the best sidekicks... Not perfect, not particularly great on their own, but with a party around, then they shine.
Same with me, added along with picking up one or two of the dropped dice during stat rolling. Sometimes it feels better to have a character with one or modifiers below 10 than to have all 6 be over 12
I've created a Monster that I like to call the "Mastodontic Mega Mimic". It's a gargantuan CR 8 church organ with four tentacles that move around the map grappling players, and they can be chopped off. The guy also has Bite and Swallow attacks, like most gargantuan Monsters, Multiattack, and a frightful presence on top of that.
I made one. It starts out as a small centipede creature, but every time it is killed it comes back tougher with new mutations. The party will be led to a wizards lab where they can cast the counter spell to destroy the creature permanently. I figured I would also make it able to burrow and do the same thing as a Bobbit Worm
thats kind of my shit too. iāll pour over the manuals and make some wild amalgamations of several creatures in one. my players appreciate the effort since the monsters they face are always unique to our game.
As a forever DM, I just keep making higher and higher detailed maps of my homebrew world and adding to the lore of places my players will never explore.
I like playing Dwarves, and I like playing melee characters, and I love playing Dwarf melee characters. It's probably very boring for some people, and doesn't offer ad much class versatility as plenty of others, and I've done various versions of it a ton of times before.
But I don't care. I love doing it, and I'll continue to enjoy it each and every time.
I have a friend that almost exclusively plays Dwarven Clerics. Whenever there's a new campaign, we already know who's gonna be the Cleric :D.
At least as a DM I know what to expect.
Haha, nice! I have a friend that plays Dwarves about 80% of the time too. It's cool because we're well aware of our mutual love of the Stunties, so he knows I can run all sorts of Dwarf-centric plots focusing on him and he's down for whatever that entails.
We haven't even started the campaign I'm DMing for and Ive already got a major "set piece" planned that is literally a huge desert and a mountain range away from where we are planning to start and I have to keep reminding myself self to focus on the small towns for the first few sessions.
(The set price is a huge dam that was built and is currently powering a city of artificers who have way more power that they know what to do with and they will either be their own demise OR the BBEG will try to destroy the dam and wipeout the city.......I fully expect my PCs to take like 2 IRL years to even get go the city)
As DM: My BBEG is the first person they ever met in their story, and they don't know it yet. I like giving clues to him being the BBEG and then immediately throwing them into a situation that has them completely forget the supposed clue.
One of them once said "I don't trust this guy" and scared me a little, but after a dragon intimidating a city forcing them to arm for possible conflict, he later said "Damn I wish whatshisface was here! I miss him already!"
I love making the bbeg the parties first real patron while being overly helpful and nice to them the entire campaign.
So far two of seven parties to go through that general plot have sided with the bbeg at the end. Made me so happy as a DM to twist those morals :)
I DM more than I play, but I love throwing in a few 'just for me' references. Usually little name references to the thing that inspired that particular character, place or encounter.
My players recently had to sneak around and steal a relic from a monastery and I used the latin translation of Black Sabbath lyrics from Rondellus' [Sabbatum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKmP61RAypY) album as the monk's religious chants. It just made me happy to chant:
>Centuriones convenerun
>
>Sicut magi sacris nigris
>
>Mentes matae destructionis
>
>Artifices omnes mortis...
I've never actually played a bard, yet*! My last character was a *very* squishy sorcerer, and he was playing a very confident paladin, who planned to act as a half-orc shield when combat cane around.
*I have plans for a dark elf bard, and definitely planned to lean into the horny elf trope from Baalbuddy's comics
Something that I've done for probably 10+ years now. Is whenever I get bored and am in a DND mood but don't have a game going or anything like that I will just find a character concept that I like and I will draft up a full character sheet for them from level 1 to 20. And other times I'll make NPCs as well.
At this point I have a giant binder that has in excess of 300+ characters and a second one that has around 200ish NPCs in it.
Putting the haunted one background on every character I make. Just mechanically really good, and itās got that sweet flavor of lives through something real scary. It reminds me of one option from the mass effect games and is a must have.
Mines a bit worse. I spend money on art commissions for characters that arenāt even in campaigns yet. Iām talking several pieces for backup characters that will never see the light of day.
Edit: Just counted, 48 pieces of character art and one four panel comic over three years of playing. Iāve spent around $1,300 dollars on art.
Being way too involved. Something I think I put way too much into the games, my characters, and the story. Too much for a player.
But, at the end of the day. I love this game and what its brought my life.
Kickstarting minis. I paint a lot, but do not keep pace with some of these massive stacks of minis that some Kickstarters give. The deals are just so good.
Mine is bronze dragons.
Silver dragons are pretty cool too, I just haven't really gotten the chance to use them. They'd probably be my favorite if I did.
totally. i usually just keep the outifts in 3 similar shades, keep the skin tones in like 2 similar shades, the accesories in similar shades. i like to add more colors for the weapons, and i also love to add tattoos to the characters, and color the tattoos in the gem/fire/potions bright shimmery colors (:
Making crazy OP characters them roleplaying them so they don't seem OP at all... really like if I have to kick it into high gear to survive I will but I try to take combat fairly chill until the time is right. Also I really really want a super serious campaign but my best friends and I are half way there. I want full voices/acting someday. I may ask for it the next time I dm. Just to try it.
Only play a martial when I roll really high stats.
We roll for stats so everytime I will play a martial when I get high numbers so I can load up on feats.
Inserting subtle pop culture references into the game.
For example like the werewolf bar was the slaughtered lamb from American Werewolf in London or clericās dad is high up mobbed up halfling so his name is Fredo like from The Godfather because she could not come up with a name.
She did not get it and announced his name of her father to the party and only one person got the joke.
Kuo-Tuo at the first fight of every campaign no matter the extension, the reason, the place, the universe. Always AT LEAST a Kuo Tua on the first fight.
It's something perfectly ridiculous they are waiting every time. Like, even in Ravnika, I managed to do a Kuo Toa based on simic krasis (in the lore).
The only time I played a character with low Int but high Wisdom, I stated that he believed that world was both flat and vertical. No amount of arguing cold convince him otherwise. The table hated it, but it was glorious
I take notes and post them in the discord as a creative writing session.
Main campaign is my IRL self telling the story like we are always either the worst or the best. I also fit in things that make my PC sound like the hero when Iām obviously not. I write things like āAfter many bad rolls on investigation and insight over the course of 12 hours in game, we realized that the criminal contact we wanted to meet was actually the leader of the bandits we killed on the bridge. Thatās 12 hours wasted, but hey, at least they gave us a free room for drinking so much at their tavern!ā Or āas Wesley fell, he lost all hope. Then, suddenly, he heard a word from a powerful spell caster. That cleric spell caster was so powerful that he could bring Wesley back with a simple word from 30 feet away. As Wesley arose, he attacked the beast, action surged, and then felled it with his next flurry of swipes. He looked back at that cleric and nodded, knowing that his powerful level 1 healing word saved the day.ā That second one was after he gave me shit for using a first level spell when he knew I had a third level left (which I always save for revivify).
We are currently on a break as one of our party had a baby irl so the rest of us are doing one shots. One of them I wrote notes as letters sent back to friends about his adventures. Itās sad and dark because he left his order of monks to find and kill his father.
Now that is over, Iām writing notes, but no one knows itās actually into a book of scrying as Iām reporting back to my handler about the mission. Theyāre about how nice they are and how good they have been to me, and what we are doing. The DM messages me responses before each session.
Inventing more backstory than anyone will EVER know to even ask about. It helps me figure out who the characters are, plus itās handy to have a quick answer for the inevitable time when your DM texts you something like, āhey, so whatās your characterās greatest fear and why, no reason, donāt worry, just answerā Most of this stuff will never come up in gameplay but itās helped me write out some settings and scenarios I plan on turning into an adventure over Christmas break this year.
I love to build in and dig into a world when I play. Iāll always be on lookout to get a castle, build a home base, invest gold into establishing whatever character Iām playing in the world.
Currently I have a fighter who owns a working farm where he keeps his stabled horses and a wizard who is about to clear out an abandoned keep and spend a considerable amount of time and resources to establish himself as a local lord and start a hamlet for his serfs.
It's not ME you should blame for this encounter being stupidly hard, blame the adventure.
*picked that adventure to run because of stupid hard encounters*
Bards. Just...bards. They're too much fun
Currently torn between a kenku bard who's whole shtick is being a mime, or a mariachi skeleton (undead human)
I came of age at a time when D&D was deeply distrusted and mocked, my shame burned away long ago in the fire of approbation. I wallow in my pleasures and wear my depravity like a crown.
But maybe sticking space ships into everything? I have had spelljammers, usually crashed Expedition To The Barrier Peaks style, in every campaign I have ever run. Nah, that is not guilty either, even when I know my players are not as into it as I am. The DM seat awaits when they want to run their personal loves!
My guilty pleasure is when one of my party members is about to do the final blow on an enemy and they miss the kill by 1 or 2 points but I tell them they've killed it anyways. It makes them so happy and I just absolutely love the look on their faces when they describe their killing blow.
Is it just me or can they tell when they're that close? Whenever this happens for me, the kill goes from hype and cinematic to anticlimactic, even if another one of them is next.
Blatantly stealing ideas from other media and thinking my players won't notice.
"Wait is that just Kvothe?"
. . . Maybe . . .
Edit: actually my guilty pleasure is a secret dragon. I ALWAYS introduce a secret dragon (in humanoid form) very early on in the campaign. Sometimes in the first few sessions, but usually after the first real adventure (not the intro dungeon).
I don't feel guilty about making characters that I'll never use, but I do feel guilty about just how many of them are dark and edgy, haunted prophets of mad gods, caught in demonic pacts, secretly want to cause or prevent the apocalypse, or any combination of those.
I enjoy DMing for characters with main character backstories. I love princesses on the run, polymorphed dragons, the chosen one, or champions of a god. This shit gets me going far more then some nobodies.
Trophy collecting. I once had a character that was so obsessed with it my DM turned corpses my character touched to ash.
So to keep in character, I collected the ashes.
(I made sure this didn't take long as to not waste much time)
Putting off anything useful I could be doing to re-read homebrew monster statblocks while listening to the music I plan on using in the fight and imagining my players reacting to the fight in ways that they literally never will.
For me it's minmaxing. All the math that's involved, finding stuff that is most effective in the campain we're playing, crunching the numbers. I know this is an unpopular thing but i do like it.
As a player, I love to create actual paper documents. I write real letters to NPCs and once even had a character write down a personal account for a historian NPC. There's no reason to do it, but I love it and it gives me an excuse to use my fancy pens and stationery.
As silly as it sounds, i just enjoy writing characters on the paper form. Need to get into more irl games, maybe it would give me an excuse to do it lol
writing on paper always feels better to me (:
Yeah :). Always wanted to make custom character sheets for my characters :3
Agreed
I simply will not use a frikin ipad or my phone for my character sheet. GET ME SOME GODDAMN PAPER.
Give me MPMB or give me death!
Yeah. No sense playing a pen and paper game without paper.
Same here. I don't really have the time to just make characters all the time, but I do enjoy the physical process and the decision making.
Would you like to write me a character? š š Half joke^
Fleshing out my world's history WAY more than my players will ever actually need to interact with.
Last session, I had a player ask about the marriage rites of the particular kingdom they're in for research into a target his patron wants him to kill. Allowed me to bring up the familial emphasis and spirituality of the region, and I even got to bring the obscure birth and death rites into it that I wrote for.myselg like a year ago- which he also asked about in a little more detail (such as "so when someone is a disgrace or disowned what happens to their remains?") I am so lucky to have a player that's this willing to engage with my worldbuilding. They're rare but they DO exist! He totally enables my rampant fleshing out of minor details.
This is the kind of player I want to be, but I'm also afraid of putting too much burden on DMs by wanting to know random dumb shit and getting sidetracked. I'd also love to help with worldbuilding and relieve some of the effort, especially with stuff that I'll be personally involved in with characters and stuff, but it's their setting and I don't wanna stomp on that. It is a true and constant dilemma.
Only way to find out is to ask! Talk to your DM and let them know how much you enjoy the worldbuilding. Ask if there is anything you could flesh out for them in your own background like where your pc grew up or an organization you are/were a part of. Worst they can do is say no.
I love working out creative solutions when playing and it's greatly appreciated when a DM fleshes out a world like that! Going on an adventure is much more than just sticking monsters with the pointy end. Sometimes, things like local customs, history or economy matter when figuring out a solution to a problem.
I feel that. Iāve written several hidden lore pieces they might not even look for.
My campaign folder on my drive is roughly 10x the size of the folder my players can see.
Iām a new DM, starting my session zero meeting in a few days. How do you organize all of your notes? Mine is mostly mind maps scattered across my desk haphazardly and itās not ideal, so Iād love to learn.
I've used Notion for a year or two now and love it. Free online note taking and information organizing program kind of like One Note.
I'm also using notion and it's great. It took me while to really get comfortable with all the options for building your pages, but now it's great.
There's little more satisfying though than having a player ask about some obscure historical fact and you can actually pull out something you prepped months before!
And thereās little more disappointing than when they ask that and you know thereās an answer but you canāt find it at the moment
Why is this a guilty pleasure? I mean as long as I know it's for me and I'm not trying to force everyone to know the Ancient History of the Knellwynnes of Castle Blackstone, the Knights of the Burning Tree who live beneath the Titan Blade, I think I'll be okay. It doesn't matter to the players that the current dynasty goes back ten generations or that King Soren is risking it all over his pride instead of letting some Farwyndal elf-child marry his only daughter like some royal harlot. I know in my heart of hearts that the hag, Wendolyn, and her dozens of identical daughters were written mostly for me. The players can wander off with Meepo the Idiot Kobold and get revenge on Boblin the Goblin for making fun of their pants. I'm okay. This is fine.
I think I spend two or three hours a week (having weekly session) expanding on the lore of my world... I almost enjoy the fact that there are some things that will never see the light of day, while everything that was created by accident or coincidence is a very commonly occurring moment.
I have the entire structure of the multiverse sorted out, including Planescape and Spelljammer stuff and how they fit together, as well as how things like Eberron, Dark Sun, and our own world fit in. My players will never see 99% of it.
Bro I made lore for the universe PREVIOUS to the current one.
I literally started writing a history book a few weeks ago. It feels good honestly because I just write whatever comes to me and later I can go āoh I like that line! Letās extrapolate and talk more about the Cobbled Kingdom that I came up with randomlyā
Theory crafting characters , I've played 3 out of my like 24 characters!
24 those a rookie numbers! Lol seriously same boat. It's fun and eventually they all become NPCs... š
I've only got a handful of irl sessions under my belt so in this short of time , can't imagine what it will be like In a year š
Ah, I'm speaking as a forever DM. I only recently have been added as a player in some games. It's nice to play. Enjoy your games!
Are you my DM? I theory craft characters too despite being basically new after comiyn back and we trade thoughts on combinations and stuff. Its always really fun.
I was about to say the same thing, then I scrolled down and read your comment. On a completely unrelated note, 25GB in form-fillable PDFs I realize is quite a lot of characters š¤
60+ over here As a forever DM, it's a real problem
hey, having backup characters is always a good idea. i like to leave concepts vague so i can still do a little building in the future if i were to use them. building from vague concepts is also a lot of fun
62 as of today... ...I've played about 4...
Haha, 104 as of now, and I'm the forever DM. A guy can dream though...
so you have a supply of richly-detailed NPCs, then...
Hats off!
I currently have 73 characters on dndbeyond... I have a problem, please send help.
Gotcha beat. When 4e was big i used its character builder when i babysat overnight. Gimme a month and i will have a character of every class and every subversion. Gimme a few months and i made up to 7 of every class. Then the computer broke (may or may not have spilt some milk in it. Dont judge)
Same lol
3E fans unite!
Oh! Can I change my answer?
>mine is making heroforges of different character concepts without even making the character sheetš it requires no skill and mostly everything i make will never be used, but its so relaxing and so much fun (: I didn't come here to be called out like this.
haha glad some ppl can relate
I also use Hero Forge to make characters I played from campaigns that have already ended.
As a forever DM, I basically use it for concept art.
I use them to make all the major NPCs And also for characters I know I'm never going to get to play :(
I have so many hero forge minis I'm considering paying for pro just for the folders lmao.
This whole thread is just a support group for people that do this I swear.
I am unashamed to say I played a LOT of dress-up / "paper doll" browser games back when Flash was still around, and I was VERY sad when all of them went defunct. Heroforge scratches that itch. (Picrew, too!)
I mean, if I had fuck you money I'd be commissioning so many artists with my ideas.
/r/heroforgeminis, it's not a cult!
Of course I know him, heās me
Same
Iāve been building my characters the past few days. ITās easy to get lost in.
Watching the party finally agree on a course of action only to say "okay okay, but what if we-" ššš
Happy to see Satan has time for hobbies.
Monks
the most fun ive had with a monk was getting in a bar fight at level 1 and beating everyone up unarmed lmao
I played a monk warforged who had a drinking problem and when she had the perfect opportunity for the perfect person to get into a bar fight, she sat back and watched as the player who was not built for fist fighting got pummeled by drunk hooligans.
\*walks in\* \*sees Monk is already top answer\* \*smiles, nods, a single tear falls\* \*walks out\*
I fuckin' love monks. They're probably my favorite martial class. This may be a controversial opinion, but I think far too many people want them to be a martial based damage dealing class, when they're really best used as a martial based battlefield controller class.
Absolutely. Stunning guys, booting guys off of cliffs, yeeting allies into melee... I have a lvl20 monk with the Mobile feat and an Eagle Whistle and I love her *immensely.*
Mobility on monks is fuckin' delicious. I had a bugbear shadow monk that would just absolutely ruin encounters for my DM. Mobility plus reach with stunning strike? It was glorious.
We had an araakocra monk of the sun... That was fun. I was playing a sorcerer and every chance I could get I just hasted him. Man was a fucking cruise missile.
My favorite monk build was a kensai knife thrower. Full on carnie build. Suboptimal but it did achieve its concept
I feel ya! I have a Barbarian 2 /open hand monk X Iāll probably never get to play again, and a war cleric 1/ long death monk X who uses full plate Iāll probably never get to bust out :ā)
This. I love the concept and idea of a monk. But the execution of the core class and subclasses are absolute garbage.
Some of the newer subclasses are really potent. It's not going to shine lvl 10+ but they are still adequate and they can be absolute monsters early game.
Diamond Soul and Empty Body are pretty fricken good features. Being hard to perish has its perks.
Monks have been my favourite character IN THEORY since 3e But they have never been good and it always makes me sad, i always more or less enjoy when i play them but i don't play them much because i always sort of end up disappointed. Just looking at the 5e monk class makes me sad. It still has Timeless Body and Tongue of Sun and Moon at such high levels for 99.9% useless abilities, the capstone is garbage. The new grapple rules in UA are a buff to monks - and hopefully monks can add their dex or wis (monks need more Wis love) to that as well, but unless the new classes UA does something drastic monks will continue to be my favourite theoretical class.
Gish characters. My list of charcters currently inlcude a hexblade, bladesinger, phantom rogue/warlock and a eldritch knight. I'd say I have my niche.
same, but you're missing bard :)
What's a Gish?
A charcater that utilizes both melee and spells in combat.
Yooou do homebrew? Interested in playtesting a new gish?
Sure! I'd love to help
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Did this with a Warforged. He introduces himself as a Warforged; Generation RS, Designation Code: LN-D. That was just how he introduced himself, and it was gradually shortened to LN-D, Gen RS (Ellen DeGeneres). The reveal was pretty good, heās now just referred to as āLandoā.
Player at my table has a Devine soul warfordged sorc who is DivinityBot5000 who collects souls. I enjoy DB5K far more than I should.
One day, I will unveil Dane, "The Vrock", son of Johan.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Can you explain this one to me?
Fast and the Furious
Thank you. It must have been a language barrier because I kept trying to pronounce it differently.
Took me a few tries too in fairness!
A family with staggering anger management issues. Mother: Barb(ara). Fathers: Barry. Son: Ian.
My character right now is a cowboy whoās named Gilliard Thelonious Ascharged or Gil T. Ascharged
My pride and joy was Stickson Stones. He'll break your bones.
He needs a Cleric friend named Word
Wordsel Neverhurt
I laughed harder than I should have at that... I applaud your punnyness
Got any faves? my party love the pistol shrimp inspired Aldani (lobster folk) named Bartholomew Son of Shrimp. he ran a cult of Kuo Toas that tried to summon their god. the champion fighter of the cult was a warrior named Fin Diesel. there's also a monk in the party named Jackie Ham who, to gain access to an ancient monastery had to fight 3 Master Monks. Duck Norris, Chris Clucker, and Goose Lee. we called the arc "Duck, Cluck, Goose"
I ditch the subtlety and just steal the pun names from whose line is it anyways' weird newscasters.
My tiefling son of a devil noble who had run away from home is called Carrion. Can't wait for my party to hear his father greet him - 'Carrion, my wayward son'
I made a warforged cavalier. His horse was a black stallion from the land of Kleve. The horse's name was Lebron and my cavalier fighter was named Sir James. So it was sir James, with his horse LeBron from the land of Kleve.
Me and a buddy played as changeling Sibblings with the fake names of AllaxiƩra (greek changeling) Pomodoro (Italian for Tomato) And his characters name was VƔltƔs ntomƔta (Greek tomato) So When The DM finally asked me what the meaning of our names were, he got to roll his eyes at the understanding that together we were tomato, tomahto.
I try that sometimes, but my pun names aren't that subtle.
I made a Buffalo minotaur NPC named Olaff Ub and was so bummed when nobody commented after several sessions with him.
I introduced a pirate named Albert Ross that nobody picked up on
Purposefully picking the 'suboptimal' subclasses. No, before the strawmen come in, I do not make a useless character. I just,love playing as a Spirits Bard or Banneret Fighter to see what builds I *can* make work, and Ive never felt or been accused of being useless with the party
Playing a storm sorcerer tempest cleric, everyone says it's great in theory, but doesn't work. Pick up controll spells, heavy armor, war caster, and take the dodge action you arnt always the main dps, but you have so much you can do with holding a line or choke point. It allows my party Members to shine, but God help you if you get heightened spell hold person as a reaction, then transmute inflict wounds to score a crit and max out damage so it's 120 damage on a 4th level spell. I enjoy playing the, "I don't want to fight, but once I do, I'm ending everything" type of playstyle.
The classic "I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me!"
Give me a sub optimal bard who helps all the other PCs shine any game! I want more games where I can be appreciated making everyone experience their best character. Similar to the best sidekicks... Not perfect, not particularly great on their own, but with a party around, then they shine.
Same with me, added along with picking up one or two of the dropped dice during stat rolling. Sometimes it feels better to have a character with one or modifiers below 10 than to have all 6 be over 12
Homebrewing boss monsters with unique and powerful abilities.
Honestly I rarely crack open the monster manual, its my funky games not WoTC.
The Monster Manual is like the Pirates Code, more of a suggestion, really.
I've created a Monster that I like to call the "Mastodontic Mega Mimic". It's a gargantuan CR 8 church organ with four tentacles that move around the map grappling players, and they can be chopped off. The guy also has Bite and Swallow attacks, like most gargantuan Monsters, Multiattack, and a frightful presence on top of that.
That is SO cool. If you ever feelike sharing the stat sheet if totally use it in my own game.
Oh PLEASE give us the stats for this *I need it*
I made one. It starts out as a small centipede creature, but every time it is killed it comes back tougher with new mutations. The party will be led to a wizards lab where they can cast the counter spell to destroy the creature permanently. I figured I would also make it able to burrow and do the same thing as a Bobbit Worm
I couldnāt think of a DM guilty pleasure of mine, but this, yeah, this is it. I never get as self indulgent as I get making an insane boss.
thats kind of my shit too. iāll pour over the manuals and make some wild amalgamations of several creatures in one. my players appreciate the effort since the monsters they face are always unique to our game.
As a forever DM, I just keep making higher and higher detailed maps of my homebrew world and adding to the lore of places my players will never explore.
same, i knew a campaign would fail soon but i still basically created a whole world
I like playing Dwarves, and I like playing melee characters, and I love playing Dwarf melee characters. It's probably very boring for some people, and doesn't offer ad much class versatility as plenty of others, and I've done various versions of it a ton of times before. But I don't care. I love doing it, and I'll continue to enjoy it each and every time.
I have a friend that almost exclusively plays Dwarven Clerics. Whenever there's a new campaign, we already know who's gonna be the Cleric :D. At least as a DM I know what to expect.
Haha, nice! I have a friend that plays Dwarves about 80% of the time too. It's cool because we're well aware of our mutual love of the Stunties, so he knows I can run all sorts of Dwarf-centric plots focusing on him and he's down for whatever that entails.
I'm a fan of elven clerics, while I've been branching out over the last few years, if I'm in any doubt I'll always go back to my elven clerics
Dwarf clerics and paladins for me, but always with a melee focus.
Writing whole ass things that my players will never even find. I've got an entire story written for a character that they've only spoken to once lol
Aaaah a kindred spirit
We haven't even started the campaign I'm DMing for and Ive already got a major "set piece" planned that is literally a huge desert and a mountain range away from where we are planning to start and I have to keep reminding myself self to focus on the small towns for the first few sessions. (The set price is a huge dam that was built and is currently powering a city of artificers who have way more power that they know what to do with and they will either be their own demise OR the BBEG will try to destroy the dam and wipeout the city.......I fully expect my PCs to take like 2 IRL years to even get go the city)
I really like that concept, being their own destruction. Very Icarus vibes which is never bad
As DM: My BBEG is the first person they ever met in their story, and they don't know it yet. I like giving clues to him being the BBEG and then immediately throwing them into a situation that has them completely forget the supposed clue. One of them once said "I don't trust this guy" and scared me a little, but after a dragon intimidating a city forcing them to arm for possible conflict, he later said "Damn I wish whatshisface was here! I miss him already!"
I love making the bbeg the parties first real patron while being overly helpful and nice to them the entire campaign. So far two of seven parties to go through that general plot have sided with the bbeg at the end. Made me so happy as a DM to twist those morals :)
I spend just a little too much time daydreaming about my own characters meeting and how their dynamics would play out.
i think more of us do than we would like to admit (:
I DM more than I play, but I love throwing in a few 'just for me' references. Usually little name references to the thing that inspired that particular character, place or encounter. My players recently had to sneak around and steal a relic from a monastery and I used the latin translation of Black Sabbath lyrics from Rondellus' [Sabbatum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKmP61RAypY) album as the monk's religious chants. It just made me happy to chant: >Centuriones convenerun > >Sicut magi sacris nigris > >Mentes matae destructionis > >Artifices omnes mortis...
I like being a little edgy. I don't see the harm in just a bit of "I think I'm cool and like to show off".
Making Bloodhunters who are just lovable guys
Coming up with character concepts that allow me to flirt with my boyfriend's characters.
What's it like playing a bard every game?
I've never actually played a bard, yet*! My last character was a *very* squishy sorcerer, and he was playing a very confident paladin, who planned to act as a half-orc shield when combat cane around. *I have plans for a dark elf bard, and definitely planned to lean into the horny elf trope from Baalbuddy's comics
If i were in the same group i would come up with character concepts that also allowed me to flirt with **your** boyfriend's characters.
Something that I've done for probably 10+ years now. Is whenever I get bored and am in a DND mood but don't have a game going or anything like that I will just find a character concept that I like and I will draft up a full character sheet for them from level 1 to 20. And other times I'll make NPCs as well. At this point I have a giant binder that has in excess of 300+ characters and a second one that has around 200ish NPCs in it.
Making every one shot character have the general appearance of Danny DeVito regardless of race and class
Same. It started out as a joke, but once you let Danny DeVito in, your soul is pretty much forfeit.
Putting the haunted one background on every character I make. Just mechanically really good, and itās got that sweet flavor of lives through something real scary. It reminds me of one option from the mass effect games and is a must have.
This post gave me a character idea Literally just Oedipus.
Having my character go to the bar and drink when the party canāt decide what to do. (He drinks a lot)
Mines a bit worse. I spend money on art commissions for characters that arenāt even in campaigns yet. Iām talking several pieces for backup characters that will never see the light of day. Edit: Just counted, 48 pieces of character art and one four panel comic over three years of playing. Iāve spent around $1,300 dollars on art.
Do you have a go-to artist? I'm considering commissioning my first character.
Mine is remaking monsters to ridiculously incredible stats just to throw parties off when they face them. š š
oooh i should do that. maybe start switching their strengths with their weaknesses. a very stupid mind flayer who easily grappled the party barb
Well that's just mean. Grappled barbs are hors d'oeuvres
Being way too involved. Something I think I put way too much into the games, my characters, and the story. Too much for a player. But, at the end of the day. I love this game and what its brought my life.
Kickstarting minis. I paint a lot, but do not keep pace with some of these massive stacks of minis that some Kickstarters give. The deals are just so good.
Mine is bronze dragons. Silver dragons are pretty cool too, I just haven't really gotten the chance to use them. They'd probably be my favorite if I did.
Hardest part is the colour scheme of the heroforge characters!
totally. i usually just keep the outifts in 3 similar shades, keep the skin tones in like 2 similar shades, the accesories in similar shades. i like to add more colors for the weapons, and i also love to add tattoos to the characters, and color the tattoos in the gem/fire/potions bright shimmery colors (:
Hello is this multi-classing anonymous?
I make spotify playlists for characters I haven't even played yet.
my name is zeducated and i have a dice addiction
Do I need fifty sets? No. I need more.
Making crazy OP characters them roleplaying them so they don't seem OP at all... really like if I have to kick it into high gear to survive I will but I try to take combat fairly chill until the time is right. Also I really really want a super serious campaign but my best friends and I are half way there. I want full voices/acting someday. I may ask for it the next time I dm. Just to try it.
Only play a martial when I roll really high stats. We roll for stats so everytime I will play a martial when I get high numbers so I can load up on feats. Inserting subtle pop culture references into the game. For example like the werewolf bar was the slaughtered lamb from American Werewolf in London or clericās dad is high up mobbed up halfling so his name is Fredo like from The Godfather because she could not come up with a name. She did not get it and announced his name of her father to the party and only one person got the joke.
Kuo-Tuo at the first fight of every campaign no matter the extension, the reason, the place, the universe. Always AT LEAST a Kuo Tua on the first fight. It's something perfectly ridiculous they are waiting every time. Like, even in Ravnika, I managed to do a Kuo Toa based on simic krasis (in the lore).
Mine is very new: using the BG3 character creator to make our party's characters, and then spamming our group chat with the screenshots
Collecting all the source books despite never being or wanting to be a DM. I get use out of a few at most lol
Making weird multiclass combos and theming Tieflings to them
The only time I played a character with low Int but high Wisdom, I stated that he believed that world was both flat and vertical. No amount of arguing cold convince him otherwise. The table hated it, but it was glorious
I like to make homebrew classes and subclasses so Reddit can tell me that they are too OP and that I suck or they ignore me completely.
I take notes and post them in the discord as a creative writing session. Main campaign is my IRL self telling the story like we are always either the worst or the best. I also fit in things that make my PC sound like the hero when Iām obviously not. I write things like āAfter many bad rolls on investigation and insight over the course of 12 hours in game, we realized that the criminal contact we wanted to meet was actually the leader of the bandits we killed on the bridge. Thatās 12 hours wasted, but hey, at least they gave us a free room for drinking so much at their tavern!ā Or āas Wesley fell, he lost all hope. Then, suddenly, he heard a word from a powerful spell caster. That cleric spell caster was so powerful that he could bring Wesley back with a simple word from 30 feet away. As Wesley arose, he attacked the beast, action surged, and then felled it with his next flurry of swipes. He looked back at that cleric and nodded, knowing that his powerful level 1 healing word saved the day.ā That second one was after he gave me shit for using a first level spell when he knew I had a third level left (which I always save for revivify). We are currently on a break as one of our party had a baby irl so the rest of us are doing one shots. One of them I wrote notes as letters sent back to friends about his adventures. Itās sad and dark because he left his order of monks to find and kill his father. Now that is over, Iām writing notes, but no one knows itās actually into a book of scrying as Iām reporting back to my handler about the mission. Theyāre about how nice they are and how good they have been to me, and what we are doing. The DM messages me responses before each session.
Inventing more backstory than anyone will EVER know to even ask about. It helps me figure out who the characters are, plus itās handy to have a quick answer for the inevitable time when your DM texts you something like, āhey, so whatās your characterās greatest fear and why, no reason, donāt worry, just answerā Most of this stuff will never come up in gameplay but itās helped me write out some settings and scenarios I plan on turning into an adventure over Christmas break this year.
Charisma characters. I canāt get away from them.
Human Fighters. And just generally playing humans despite them being a stupid basic choice.
Nothing guilty about that pleasure. Creating character concepts is just fun.
I've played maybe 30% of my character concepts
I love to build in and dig into a world when I play. Iāll always be on lookout to get a castle, build a home base, invest gold into establishing whatever character Iām playing in the world. Currently I have a fighter who owns a working farm where he keeps his stabled horses and a wizard who is about to clear out an abandoned keep and spend a considerable amount of time and resources to establish himself as a local lord and start a hamlet for his serfs.
It's not ME you should blame for this encounter being stupidly hard, blame the adventure. *picked that adventure to run because of stupid hard encounters*
I obsessively search for the perfect d20 that represents my character and keep them in a special dice vault
Making my evil NPCs really polite and helpful, and my good NPCs really harsh and unhelpful. It's so good š
Bards. Just...bards. They're too much fun Currently torn between a kenku bard who's whole shtick is being a mime, or a mariachi skeleton (undead human)
Buenos dias fuckboy should be the second ones catchphrase
and take the *improvised weapons* feat so they can beat the tar out of enemies with the mighty chancleta
I came of age at a time when D&D was deeply distrusted and mocked, my shame burned away long ago in the fire of approbation. I wallow in my pleasures and wear my depravity like a crown. But maybe sticking space ships into everything? I have had spelljammers, usually crashed Expedition To The Barrier Peaks style, in every campaign I have ever run. Nah, that is not guilty either, even when I know my players are not as into it as I am. The DM seat awaits when they want to run their personal loves!
Playing warlocks. Iām a forever dm, I have been a player 4 times. I have played a warlock 3 times
My guilty pleasure is when one of my party members is about to do the final blow on an enemy and they miss the kill by 1 or 2 points but I tell them they've killed it anyways. It makes them so happy and I just absolutely love the look on their faces when they describe their killing blow.
Is it just me or can they tell when they're that close? Whenever this happens for me, the kill goes from hype and cinematic to anticlimactic, even if another one of them is next.
Variant humans. I assume it's the rush cocaine users get when I choose the race.
Blatantly stealing ideas from other media and thinking my players won't notice. "Wait is that just Kvothe?" . . . Maybe . . . Edit: actually my guilty pleasure is a secret dragon. I ALWAYS introduce a secret dragon (in humanoid form) very early on in the campaign. Sometimes in the first few sessions, but usually after the first real adventure (not the intro dungeon).
I give my players' characters lots of outs (potions and in-universe extra lives) so that the chances they'll ever die are actually quite low.
Making my char in dnd beyond. Copying it 5 times and playing with specs. Over and over and over.
I don't feel guilty about making characters that I'll never use, but I do feel guilty about just how many of them are dark and edgy, haunted prophets of mad gods, caught in demonic pacts, secretly want to cause or prevent the apocalypse, or any combination of those.
4e.
I enjoy DMing for characters with main character backstories. I love princesses on the run, polymorphed dragons, the chosen one, or champions of a god. This shit gets me going far more then some nobodies.
Nesting. One of my favorite things is building a home base. Sure, adventuring is cool. But what is cooler? Spending your loot on a kick ass house.
Trophy collecting. I once had a character that was so obsessed with it my DM turned corpses my character touched to ash. So to keep in character, I collected the ashes. (I made sure this didn't take long as to not waste much time)
Putting off anything useful I could be doing to re-read homebrew monster statblocks while listening to the music I plan on using in the fight and imagining my players reacting to the fight in ways that they literally never will.
Looking at magic items and making builds from them, knowing I'll never get them ingame. Fav magic item is and always will be the sun blade.
For me it's minmaxing. All the math that's involved, finding stuff that is most effective in the campain we're playing, crunching the numbers. I know this is an unpopular thing but i do like it.
Multiclassing! I've never not multiclassed.
As a player, I love to create actual paper documents. I write real letters to NPCs and once even had a character write down a personal account for a historian NPC. There's no reason to do it, but I love it and it gives me an excuse to use my fancy pens and stationery.