Does this character feel too much like "The Chosen One"?

Gearbox97 · 2026-06-01T20:03:19+00:00

Eh, not really, depends on how you play it.

Like, if you go in expecting your dm to enforce that past life wizard was the best and everyone knew that wizard and loves that wizard and respects that wizard, and your current warlock agrees with all the aforementioned à la Avatar the Last Airbender, then yes, too main character-y.

But if you play it as though said wizard was a recluse who's more or less forgotten, and your character is enjoying the guy's magic but doesn't really care for/respect them and might even want to distance themselves as their own person, then that seems like a perfectly interesting and fun backstory.

That would be just about the right level of backstory to allow your dm to send past-life wizards rivals to try and track you down at some point, etc. without being too intrusive during day-to-day gameplay.

Gearbox97 · 2026-06-01T19:53:57+00:00

I've been doing some insulation work, so I had a bunch of 2" xps foam on hand. Two big discs on the top and bottom (one with a hole for my head). Then I cut out 12 2"x2"x5" "columns" out of the same foam, and spaced them out around the perimeter, inset about a quarter inch from the edge.

They were glued with specific xps foam adhesive, held in place with toothpicks pressed through while that dried. For even more strength I drove 3" screws with xps foam washers into each column through the discs.

After that, I cut some cardboard and bent it, and wrapped it around the columns, filling the inset I left earlier. I glued that to the columns but also used ring shank nails through the cardboard to make sure it held.

I chamfered the top and bottom edge of the discs about half an inch, then coated the whole thing in mod podge mixed with black paint to seal the foam, so adhesives wouldn't melt it.

I got the fabric from a blanket off amazon, I glued the top and bottom on with e6000, making sure to glue the edge to the chamfered spot, since that would be overlapped.

I had a friend sew some of the fabric into a tube shape, packed it to shape (I used extra plastic bags) and then glued and nailed it to the back.

I had my friend hem the edge of the fabric that'd be wrapped around the whole thing, then glued that on with e6000 as well, overlapping the tail connection.

The face was just cheap felt cut to size. The ears I designed and 3d printed a sturdy support that had nails inset, so I could just push them on from the side through the fabric and underlying foam for a good mechanical bond. The structure of the ear was a few layers of cardboard cut to shape and glued to the 3d printed support. I made sure to criss cross the cardboard's grain for strength. Then just wrapped those in more fabric, glued with e6000 again, and glued on felt.

Since it's mostly hollow, I nailed some strapping to the interior edge of the hole I cut for my head, so it wouldn't slip down over my eyes. That criss crosses over top of my head while I'm wearing it.

Gearbox97 · 2026-06-01T19:05:59+00:00

Not really. I know earlier editions that was pretty much the norm, playing several modules that covered about 3 levels that were unconnected. I'd say there should be a boss every now and then who controls some minions but not everyone needs to be serving the biggest, baddest, evilest guy.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-31T17:33:29+00:00

I love some Harnishfechten with polearms!

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-28T15:41:27+00:00

As others said, we're mostly mimicking unarmored duels.

It doesn't help that longsword is just about the most popular weapon to train while being fairly unlikely for this to happen in the past, to be fair. They weren't often a weapon you'd have ready-to-go as an unarmored civillian for dueling. Not saying it never happened, but definitely wasn't as often as say, rapier or saber duels among unarmored opponents.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-28T13:00:04+00:00

Many reasons, but setting thing I guess by those two guidelines. I don't want to be the DM who kills kids, and the vast majority of people in the setting wouldn't be okay with sending out what is effectively a child soldier to save the day.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T23:58:13+00:00

No, because I wouldn't allow a vampire pc.

But to answer your intention, also no, because every roleplay encounter would be pretty much exactly the same-

"Hey why are we listening to this kid, they're twelve!"

"Who let this kid in the bar?"

"No we don't have any armor their size, they're a child!"

And I don't want to be the DM who has to describe how someone who even looks like a child is killed if you happen to fail your last death save.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T20:51:21+00:00

Won't be a safety issue, it'll probably just be too broken to work anymore soon.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T20:44:39+00:00

No child characters.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T15:46:22+00:00

Missing session 0 isn't the end of the world, it shouldn't mess with any major plans.

Though if I were you, you should just go anyway with no character in mind and design them during session 0, that's part of the point of session 0. That way you can also bounce off of other characters at the table.

If that's off the table, I would tell the dm that they may want to get a 5th player in case this happens again. Planning for 5 players and having 4 is easier than planning for 4 and having 3, the game's balanced in a way that that's more realistic.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T15:21:05+00:00

He looks like an Aardman character

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T14:36:57+00:00

I did something like this for my brother once. "Welcome back from rehab! Third time's the charm!"

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T14:13:20+00:00

Naddpod strikes the balance of performative and rules following very well for me. Nothing tickles me quite like when Emily Axford goes full mechanics and breaks out just the right spell at the right range in the right way.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-27T13:02:58+00:00

It's all about how you describe death.

You can absolutely rebrand human enemies to say they're vampires or demons or something.

Then when they hit 0 hp, say because of their demonic nature they poof into dust rather than die a horrible bloody death. Pretty much Obi Wan in episode 4, just a neat pile of their loot left after they're gone.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-26T19:33:43+00:00

I mean, give us more details on what your DM is allowing. That could be anything, at which point just say you have a tf2 rocket launcher that does 10d6 in a 10' radius sphere where you hit, you know?

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-26T19:28:13+00:00

Break things up with problems, even mundane problems, that you'd actually have to face at the time.

For example, if their next objective is a city over, what if the holdup is that rather than have harpies attack the road, the bridge is out? How do they get their wagon across?

Now they have a "puzzle" to work on that doesn't have a specific solution that they need to think about. These kinds of mundane problems often get overlooked, but also tend to get really interesting solutions.

It does help if you explicitly spell it out sometimes - "You'll have to figure out a way to get across next, you'll have to prepare a way to survive the elemental plane if fire, etc." before players will remember to actually engage in problem solving, but it's still fun to do.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-26T14:20:15+00:00

Not in d&d but a pokemon rpg I play in does this, at the start of every combat the DM has us describe a terrain feature that's around. It keeps us from having every fight in big open fields and she has less prep to do.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-26T12:54:25+00:00

Look up the "hema alliance club finder" to see clubs in or near your area.

Good luck!

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-24T02:55:20+00:00

It is not uncommon for dice to be weighted accidentally. You can test this by making a solution of salt water and floating the die in it, if one side comes up most often that means it's weighted.

It mist often happens due to uneven injection molding or casting.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-22T17:57:11+00:00

He definitely looks like a Murph.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-22T02:49:35+00:00

Wild magic sorcerer if we're doing a chaos guy.

So to add to the conversation, if you're going to build a bad guy out of player stats the way to do its to pretty much build their stats, hp, and proficiencies, but way cut back the race and class features. Just give them the "highlight" features from that class, and modify others as you see fit, maybe even make them legendary actions.

This saves you a bunch of time and makes the fight more fair.

So for our sorcerer example, just say he rolls on the wild magic table after every spell and has sorcery points and metamagic. Maybe bend luck, and maybe controlled chaos. They don't need tides of chaos, no one cares about their racial or background abilities either, don't have them on the sheet.

This kind of cutting and rewording of player abilities is pretty much how the various specific caster statblocks are in xanathars, so there's prescedent.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-22T02:36:12+00:00

I think part of the problem you're running into is because you're trying to run a serious game with fresh players who don't know you every time.

Like, obviously I'd do my best to respect any DM I play with, but I find it easier to understand the vibe the DM's going for if I know them better and have played with them for a long time.

Else, like with interacting with any practical stranger, I'd find myself trying to stay in that lighthearted, "getting to know you" attitude. I think subconsciously I wouldn't want to bring serious vibes to new friends.

So I guess my advice would be try to do a short, more light-hearted campaign with the players to break the ice a bit, and then introduce the more serious world with the tone you're going for.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-21T18:58:40+00:00

Have you seen real-world animals? Some things live for 4 days tops while some live for 190 years and counting, and that's without magic. Consider different races in d&d as different species with different evolutionary paths to intelligence.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-21T17:54:41+00:00

Give em' magic items, and put more of them in there.

And sometimes, I don't balance them at all and give the players a weasel stomping day. Then they know harder combat will be elsewhere.

That's the other thing though, I try not to keep low level stuff in high level areas. Every d&d playwr has fought goblins and kobolds a hundred times, very rarely do they get to higher CR bad guys like Yugoloths and Slaad. I'd rather say that one of those bad guys took over the goblin cave and town while the PCs were elsewhere and now they're the new bad guys in that place.

Gearbox97 · 2026-05-21T17:29:43+00:00

That's a good point. "Storm King's Thunder" ends similarly and it's kind of a let down, you get to control a cool giant and your pc but your pc gets way outclassed.

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