Test Drive - D&D 5th Edition III

Welcome back to the short series testing out the D&D 5th edition Player's Handbook.  If you've missed a part, the list is below.

Part I - Reverence, tiefling monk
Part II - Liga Dawnspringer, Kagonesti barbarian

In this series, I want to test some character ideas based on setting.  In Part I, the setting was assumed to be a homebrew where the GM would let anything go.  For the rest, I'll be using the Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms campaign worlds.  The PHB has some info on each of those worlds, enough for a start.  Today's world is Faerun, the setting for The Forgotten Realms.

Test Drive - D&D 5th Edition II

Welcome back to the short series testing out the D&D 5th edition Player's Handbook.  If you've missed a part, the list is below.

Part I - Reverence, tiefling monk

In this series, I want to test some character ideas based on setting.  In Part I, the setting was assumed to be a homebrew where the GM would let anything go.  For the rest, I'll be using the Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms campaign worlds.  The PHB has some info on each of those worlds, enough for a start.  Today's world is Krynn, the setting for Dragonlance.

The Most Excellent Adventure Ends

Rufus, the most excellent cleric, has finished his adventure, with a most triumphant victory over the heinous forces of evil.  Followers of the Lawgiver, the Old Faith, and the Most Excellent One came together under a righteous rhythm to aid the founder of the village and fight the massed armies of evil about to march upon the village.  Artifacts were destroyed, preventing a most bogus end to the villagers of Hommel Lane.

However, the victory came at a cost.  Two of Rufus's fellow adventurers, Silvo and Belfire, were missing at the end of the battle.  No, most excellent friends, they did not fall.  Rufus fully believes that the Most Excellent One called them, based on their bravery and valour as they strove to be excellent to the villagers, to where they are needed most.  The most sainted ones will do well, no matter where they went.

In appreciation for saving the village, the mayor of Hommel Lane granted land to each of the adventurers who most excellently helped.  Rufus shall be opening a temple/tavern, where he'll perform three nights a week and be avavilable for b'nai and b'not mitzvah when he's not tending to the village's spiritual needs.  A room is always available to the most sainted ones, Silvo and Belfire, if and when they return.

So, fellow adventurers, be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!

[Next season of Encounters moves the setting to the Forgotten Realms town of Neverwinter.  The players Silvo and Belfire will keep playing their PCs next season.  I'm going to create a new character, having missed the previous Neverwinter season.  If there's a sequel to this season, Rufus will return.]

A Most Excellent Update!

Going back a bit, I introduced Rufus, my character for this season's D&D Encounters.  I am having a most excellent time playing him.

Rufus has reached second level, and should soon reach third.  In this time, he has helped root out a most heinous conspiracy in Hommel Lane, helped a poor drunken villager find out about his brother's fate (without the flumphs), and got set up in a most bogus trap, all while gaining followers!

The conspiracy in Hommel Lane involves a most heinous ugly evil god, one who hates the excellent people of the land and wishes to enslave them, or worse.  While rooting out the scourge of banditry has helped the excellent village, that was merely a mere scratch into the conspiracy and the bogus cult.

In an oddity of the setting, one that I wasn't aware of when first conceptualizing Rufus, there are two main religions.  First, there's the Old Faith, one that follows the ways of nature.  A benign following, though, like nature, can be a most dangerous foe.  Second, there's the Lawgiver, the new faith, bringing order to an undisciplined land.  Naturally, given the choice, Rufus went for the lasagna.  Rufus follows the Most Excellent One, whose greatest wish is for all peoples to be excellent to each other and to party on, dudes!  However, in Hommel Lane, Rufus is seen as an harmless oddity, even by the constabulary.

A side trip to the Caves of Chaos (a most forboding name if I ever saw one) brought Rufus face to face with the villager's missing brother.  Seeing that the villager was in great peril of becoming another gateway for the most evil and ugly god trying to return to wreak havok across the land, Rufus defeated the zombie that the brother had become and returned the body to the villager for proper last rites, all while telling the villager of the good his brother had done.  And good he had indeed done, for he had located the second artifact needed to open the gateway for the heinous deity.

During the wake, which was only different from an Irish wake because the deceased wasn't propped on a bier with a beer, Rufus and his comrades continued their investigation, trying to find how deep the most heinous cult had installed themselves into the village.  The discovery that the innkeeper was in on the conspiracy came about when he asked the group to go to the party room in the basement.  Fully expecting the betrayal, the party was ready.  It was during the wait that Rufus discovered that one of the party, a dwarf by the name of Belfire Battleheart, had become a follower of the Most Excellent One.  Rufus now needs a proper church, but that can wait until after the heinous conspiracy has been removed.

What's next, you may well wonder.  I wonder, too, for after springing the trap and trouncing the most heinous brigands to attack us, we're taken their bodies and followed a cavern beyond a secret door leading to the Temple of the Lawgiver.  It appears that the Temple has a bogus infestation of cultists that needs to be cleansed.

Introducing Rufus

Back a bit, I gushed over D&D Next's ability to allow swashbucklers right out of the box.  I even figured out three different ways to create a swashbuckler.  With the new season of D&D Encounters, I decided to put one into action.

Meet Rufus.  Rufus takes the cleric build I mentioned in the previous entry.  Jester background, cleric of a trickster god, with a switch up on the specialty to add a bit more healing oomph.  But the mechanics are just one part of any player character, a minor part at that.  This is where Rufus goes beyond the race-class combo.  You see, Rufus is loosely based on his namesake in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Some of the idea comes from being a jester.  A benefit of the background is to land performing jobs at taverns and inns in return for room and meal.  "Performing" covers a wide area, from song and dance to instrumentals to comedy.  Stand-up comedy.  Got me to thinking.  What would be the best prank to pull on an audience in a tavern that doesn't involve spiking the ale?  What if a cleric could give a sermon and not have anyone realize it yet still spread the message of his deity until the reveal at the end?

Rufus owes a lot to George Carlin, not only for the name, but for the approach to sermonizing.  Carlin knew the best way to get people thinking is to get them laughing.  That's the approach my Rufus is taking.  His message, representing his deity's, is "Be excellent to each other."  A simple, yet powerful message, meant to crossover societal levels.  To introduce it to the masses as a stand-up routine?  Best prank ever.

The world this season of Encounters is in isn't as fleshed out as Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms.  The gods are so-far unnamed, with a lawful/chaos dichotomy going.  Trickster gods tend to slide to the chaotic side of the chart.  The town guard trends towards lawful.  There will be a bit of conflict there, though Rufus is set to talk himself out of trouble if needed.  However, as part of an adventuring party, his role will be to tend to the wounded.  He just happens to be able to tend to the morale of the party, too.

So, I am looking forward to seeing how Rufus as a PC does when he encounters the plot.  D&D Encounters tended to focus on combat encounters, but that was a product of D&D 4th Edition[link].  D&D Next feels more organic, less designed for set pieces.  This season of Encounters was designed for both versions (locally, there'll be at least one table of each version).

I'll end this by letting Rufus get the last words.  "Three things to remember.  First, tip your waitress.  Really, they work hard getting you ale.  Second, be excellent to each other.  And, third, party on, dudes!"

D&D Next Reactions

For the past few months, I've been involved in a D&D Next playtest campaign.  I am honestly impressed with character creation.  Sure, the classic classes are there, but they're flexible, capable of containing a multitude of ideas.  My first PC in the campaign was a Halfling archaeologist.  "But wait," you may be thinking, "there's no 'Archaeologist' class in D&D."  And you'd be right!  However, D&D Next comes with optional backgrounds and specialties, and these I do so love.  If used, every character can have one of each, and they really don't affect game balance.  Used well, and you add depth to a character with a quick stroke.

So how does one play a Halfling archaeologist?  First, take the Rogue class; you want access to skills like Open Lock and Remove Trap.  Next, take the Sage background.  Ta-daa, your rogue now knows all sorts of lore, just perfect for being an archaeologist.  Finally, I took the Ambusher specialty, but others may work just as well.  For flavour, I bought the PC a whip, because what sort of adventuring archaeologist doesn't have one?

Sadly, he was eaten by a ghoul while being the meat shield for the party's wizard.  (Rogues aren't good in that role.)  My next character took me all of twenty minutes to create, from scratch, including figuring out the concept.  That's twenty minutes to create a Human monk PC who is one part Friar Tuck and one part Ryu from Street Fighter.

Now, considering that there's no such thing as script immunity, I do have another idea in the back of my mind for a new PC, which I could also use for the next season of D&D Encounters - a swashbuckler.  Swashbucklers are common enough in historical fantasy; the lightly armoured dandy with a rapier and keen wit.  Can D&D Next handle the concept?

Well, yes, in three different classes.  Once again, backgrounds and specialties come to the rescue.  There is a Swashbuckler specialty.  Most of the work is already done.  For backgrounds, check out Minstrel and Noble.  Do you want the bard-ish swashbuckler (Elan, Order of the Stick) or the foppish dandy (Giogi Wyvernspur, from the Finder's Stone trilogy set in the Forgotten Realms).  Lastly, class.  The obvious two are Fighter and Rogue.  Fighter has the Duelist option, which out and out suggests Swashbuckler as a specialty.  Rogue has the Rake.  Most of the work is already done for me.  Sweet!

That's two.  What's the third?  Cleric.  It's not as bizarre as it seems at first.  The latest documents include sample deity types and what benefits they grant.  One of the types is the Trickster.  Keep the Swashbuckler specialty.  Take a look at the Jester background.  Not your typical swashbuckler, but you now have a memorable cleric who is capable in a duel.

Overall, this just makes me happy.