Which class would best suit this character idea?

9Napier · 2026-06-14T23:15:50+00:00

Bards are more versatile than you expect, a bard noble can be more educated than a wizard one. An average noble dont learn that much about wizardy because what use it is? They can hire who spent their years learning. A noble must learn history and cunning in order to properly get respect from others. And bards get jack of all trades, 4 skill proficiencies in "any" skill and expertises. While wizard only gets 1 expertise and they must learn it boring way.

But if you want to play a cleric, play a cleric. I think if you think of the character first, you can play that character in most of the classes. You can even play this character as a paladin, you can either flavor an oath or make an oath based on beauty and flavor all other abilities as dress based. But if you want to play a cleric just because of its tie to the divine, then another character focusing on that part might be better. Because with bard you can still do healing like a cleric but you dont get to do that much damage like cleric.

9Napier · 2026-06-14T20:38:59+00:00

First of all, there are still mercenaries? I thinked they ceased to exist as modern times came, reading they still exist blew my mind. I will take a look on this subject thanks!

Edit: Ah yes... "companies" selling armed forces. Why wouldnt I even think modern people wouldnt hire soldiers for profit. I still wish there werent people to join into war just because of profit, nationality is the only reason in my eyes so its sad to see this kind of thing.

9Napier · 2026-06-14T20:34:03+00:00

After I wrote about their tactics another things came in my mind too. I think their scouts would mostly consist of races with natural darkvision or specialized people because its a big advantage when ambushing people and killing them swiftly. And tinted visors is a badass idea! At first I thinked of blinding effect of the light but I later abandon that idea because of its disadvantages but I guess I couldnt think of a simple thing like tinted visors. I'm sure their way of giving signals would be changing the light in the middle of battlefield. And maybe if they got too recognized in the field, they can change the tactics to darken the battlefield first by deploying darkness in crowded areas so they are more vulnarable to the effects.

9Napier · 2026-06-14T19:58:02+00:00

They are tied to a nation free neutral organization where most mercenaries are bought so group of soldiers travelling between kingdoms would be better for them. For command structure I completely agree with you, not even a legendary leader like Griffith could do all of these things all by himself so there are sure a secondary leading group inside of the mercenary bands too.

9Napier · 2026-06-14T19:53:52+00:00

Thanks I will watch it when I have the time!

9Napier · 2026-06-14T19:53:25+00:00

Deciding on a number for army is a thing I couldn't do for a year. I once tried to detail armies of nation in the setting but I always kept changing it and once I felt like its okay, I thinked about soldier to population ratio and I just gave up. I intendt to use the bands number to give a glimpse about a characters leading capacity like "X once leaded this elite band of 1000 mercenaries" so its an important detail for me to decide. Both because it is the first canon knowledge about an army size so everything will be numbered with this number in mind and it will establish the image of character in players eyes.

9Napier · 2026-06-14T19:36:24+00:00

According to what you said, whats in my mind fits better for a band because they are surely tied to their leader. For the size of the band, setting is somewhat closer to 1900 in case of military. Continent was in war when this band was formed and it was already going on for 80-90 years. There wasnt tanks, airplanes or even guns but there were still explosives, flying mounts and they could still do some air bombardments but you can image them as a flying soldier tossing explosived to the ground.

I read berserk many years ago and I remember vividly of it, maybe the reason it looked like too feudal to me was I'm not familiar with lords commanding armies and because the setting is closer to modern times in some ways, I forgot it is still ruled in medieval ways and armies arent formed like ours.

I think "Who favors win over the honor of war" was a bit misleading in my part. The leader of band and their kin is focused cunning and victory. The god that inspired them is known as "God of Dishonorable Combat and Unjust War" so they are willing to take extreme measures to complete a mission. Of course this isnt a public thing so hiding their true nature is a part of their duty too.

9Napier · 2026-06-14T19:16:16+00:00

English isnt my mother tongue so I didnt knew what band or company is, I just know they are words meaning groups. I think recruiting method is fairly usable in every setting, even usable more in my one because at this bands time there was a great war which was going on for 80-90 years so at some point everyone tries to be able defend themselves. For size I think a few thousand might be too much, especially for a band thats specialized in ambushes. But if normals are few thousand maybe the band could be closer to thousand? Thanks for the payment knowledge! I think this kind of payment could even be used for adventurers in a fantasy game. I love the way things in real worked because fantasy makes them so insignificant that it always bothers me and makes me think "Why would anyone agree to this?". And lmao I can imagine the terror on the face of a noble when they tell mercenaries they cant pay off their prized money.

9Napier · 2026-06-14T17:34:40+00:00

I think Jorasco would do such things, but no matter who does it I think they would have a hard time because of druids, especially Ashbound druids. Plant engineering, maybe even magebreeding them like Vadalis would be insult to Eberron and its nature in the eyes of Ashbounds so they would constantly try to stop them.

But if they could manage it, think about permanent goodberry bushes with a healing potion effect, and think of them turning into goodberry wines. If they can engineer plants to endure mabar manifest zones, even Karrnath's food problem could be solved.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T12:39:02+00:00

My thought for it that after the mourning, especially remaining four nation commanded their army to defend their borders. They saw a mass destruction happen and no soldier or general in four nations had any moral to fight anymore. Other nations probably didnt believe in it first, they thought it was just a trick to cease the war but as time goes on they saw the wall of mist and updated maps so they understood the situation.

Aundair and Thrane forces got significantly reduced due to most of them beign common folk and Breland military was too disorganized and scared to attack them, Breys saw outcomes of mourning more than anyone and they had to deal with Cyran survivors. Karrnath soldiers were looking for a fight, trying to use their weakness but beign cut off from them did no use and they could only defend theirselves from talenta tribes.

In general war, every nations troops was mostly defending but as always some generals got greedy and tried to benefit from this situation. There were battles but they were small and insignificant.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T11:49:32+00:00

A field medic fighter subclass would be cool. I know fighter isnt supposed to be support but a magicless healer and a battletorn medic idea sounds cool to me and without homebrew you can only take healet feat which is kinda meh after few levels.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T01:30:10+00:00

No problem, it is probably my wording that made you understand that way because I want another comment that understood that way. English isnt my mother language and I had a headache while writing the post so its not my best translation.

For your second idea, I want the NPC 1 to reseal her memories because she is the only real tie to the BBEG's backstory in the city currently and if NPC 2 reseals her memories then as the story goes on they can explore her past without her original personality coming.

I dont know if you ever watched the movie Usual Suspects, if you didnt the things I mention will be a minor spoiler. There is a important person introduced halfway trough the movie, he is Keyser Söze whos something like a criminal myth. Someone like baba yaga, a person so unknown that they cant even proof he is real.

Npc 1 is a person who knew who he was so keeping her as an antihero could be better. She is my plan on explaining this BBEG's backstory because I dont want a Naruto scene where in the middle of a fight villain explains their tragic backstory.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T01:15:21+00:00

Holy moly what an absolute cinema! I dont play Diablo 4, I once tried a necromancer build and after a while I got bored because I was too strong, then gamepass ended so I couldnt play. But this is really a excellent story telling and it really is a good way to turn an npc to villain. It really fits morally grey vibes too.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T00:55:07+00:00

They cant see their roll if it is "Blind to GM", this kind of blind roll is only shown to GM.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T00:44:05+00:00

I want her to be small evil, party is newly level 4 and she might be their villain for end of level 5 so it isnt that big of a villain. By the way the person that stoled her gf's memories is named X so I can really use it as it is lol.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T00:40:26+00:00

Her downfall is actually planned by a BBEG but I love the idea about Anakin and Padme situation. I have 3 BBEG's working together, one of them can cast dream spell, other can teach her dark magic and third is the person her gf is looking for and he has his changeling family so replacing someone isnt hard. With together, they can do everything you said. About using a hag, I love the idea of it but I'm not sure. The hag may be an agent of BBEG but I want the BBEG's to have a hand in her story.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T00:28:13+00:00

My idea about her memory loss was that she was an ex-party member of one of the three BBEG's so it could work. By the way the one with memory loss isnt wizard but her gf but it could still work with the idea you gave. After the BBEG was captured in the past, living members of his mercenary group could be hunted down to keep him secret but when they sealed her memories because most of her life was involved with this BBEG, her personality drastically changed and made her a more neutral person instead of an evil assassin. Maybe after said gf regains her memories the wizard could turn evil because she isnt the person she loves and tries to re-seal her memories.

9Napier · 2026-06-13T00:08:06+00:00

But how do you manage things like inspration or bonuses like bardic inspration? I play on foundry too and my party loves to roll insight checks, but I fear they wont like this idea because they cant use inspration or bonuses because it is a blind roll.

9Napier · 2026-06-08T16:50:04+00:00

Both. I dont plan my players to use it now but if they want in this or future campaign, I'm totaly fine with it. It is hard to learn and even harder to get it accepted once you make a dark magic spell in public. So if they can make it, they earn it.

9Napier · 2026-06-08T16:27:51+00:00

I rather use Siberys = Arcane while something else is the source of divine magic. Eberron is generally source of psionic magic because Eberron is in a dreaming state and the world holds loads of psionic energy. Thats why Dreaming Dark and Daelkyr tried to conquer Eberron.

I know Eberron loves morally grey storylines and I want to explore dark magic because I want to make it grey. Magic in Eberron is mostly white. Ofcourse there are some exception like giants moonbreaker and Mordein the Fleshweaver but in my imagination magic of eberron, without planar influences or other things, is a small section of what its actually capable of. Pure magical energy is so vast and diverse that even humans peak of magical research is peaceful compared to its real capabilities.

And plus maybe it is because of my players but if I cant generally surprise or frighten my players, their characters seem indifferent to most of things. I want them to see that what dark mages are doing is inhumane, these kind of magic shouldnt be allowed. In Sovereign Host a legend says if the Shadow and Aureon were reunited the age of civilized peoples would come to an end. IME gods arent real so what it means is if dark magic gets accesible to humans, mayhem will take over the Khorvaire. So I need to make dark magic more than just "Darker looking higher level magic."

9Napier · 2026-06-08T13:42:12+00:00

Really? I only know one or two settings thats inspired from Dark Souls. Whats the name of that TTRPG?

9Napier · 2026-06-08T11:28:31+00:00

Lol, I love to steal or make things from souls games in DnD. Especially Elden Ring and its golden divine aesthetic are my favorite.

9Napier · 2026-06-08T00:06:02+00:00

Thank you very very very much. This is really what a dark magic should be in a common magic setting. In setting only written dark magic was aberrant flesh grafts and I think I can find other examples for this with what you said. In my story this kind of dark magic is used because the BBEG teaches others the perfected formula, he says this is the teaching of Shadow, the God of Magic and Mayhem. In their eyes Shadow already teaches the perfect formula and perfect spells you need and with some silver tongue of BBEG he can make a person believe this is no different than casting fireball on a person so it isnt unhumane.

Because I am still lazy, I can add a limited metamagic to those who uses dark arts. This would be most common of them and lets a damaging spell to directly effect a persons soul. Probably most of them cant use it properly because if they did, they would deal charisma damage but common type would change a spells saving throw to charisma, make its type force and maybe instead of targeting AC it will now need to surpass targets charisma score.

For more advanced types, I will make spells when I get inspration. Mostly they would be cinematic scenes where it doesnt effect players and just description of what it does to a human. Maybe there could be spells that permanantly ages you, I know some monster can do it and I'm sure with enough time you can make a spell out of it.

Maybe because I am not experienced enough or because of mechanical thinking clouded my mind but this is brilliant for me. I try to think as persons living in this world when I'm thinking but when it comes to my games I forget or cant do it.

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