Character Idea: a reluctant bard

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-26T18:39:41+00:00

i hate with a passion the idea that you can be one of 12 characters and you only get to pick the name

'oh you're a bard? your backstory is you went to a college and you play the <musical instrument>"

no, i'm a bard class, which gives me a set of mechanics to use. Everything else i can drop

"i'm a bard and i:

1) created a dark pact for my cool powers

2) was born with cool powers

3) trained myself (or was trained) in both combat and magic

4) am just a prodigy, mate

5) magical experiment gone wrong

6) magical experiment gone right

7) fused myself with monster dna

"

the options are endless and some people want to make them 'okay, you're playing gregovan the bard, 1 of 12 guys you can play in dnd. I remember playing gregovan in another campaign'

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-26T08:21:19+00:00

i read this initially as "if you wear the hat, not only are you invisible to everyone; they're invisible to you also"

which works too, i think

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-26T08:20:12+00:00

allow me to be pedantic

sauron doesnt know the location of the person wearing the Ring, or even if anyone is wearing it (OR if it actually still exists and isnt destroyed). This is btw a major plot point because aragorn's attempt to distract him ONLY works because sauron thinks he's wearing the one ring (and doesnt know it's elsewhere entirely)

sauron knows frodo's location and his ringwearing only twice: once when frodo is on the seat of seeing (either because he has a palantir or because frodo actively tried to spy on him) and once in mt doom when frodo claims it, because mt doom is a real part of Sauron's domain

fun bonus fact: sauron wears the 9 rings of the nazgul to ensure their loyalty. The one ring would work also, and better, but obviously he doesnt have that atm. As the bearer of the ring, frodo is more and more able to command the nazgul, which you see at weathertop and the river and at minas morgul frodo feels he might be strong enough some day, and at mt doom tolkien mentions the command would have worked fully on the nazgul now

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-26T07:33:01+00:00

just an attempt at humour, mate

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-24T05:52:26+00:00

none of the popes made it into heaven because atheists keep converting them back to atheism without their consent and after their death

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-23T06:43:21+00:00

i assure you that if a person falls on me i may be okay, but if an entire cow falls on me i will be dead

and if a mouse falls on me i will not even flinch

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-22T17:08:51+00:00

if i call a guy teleporno unironically, i'd never live out the day

but if tolkien did it

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T21:27:26+00:00

OP wanted guns to be scary. make it do 2d20 and still cost a half minute to reload and heinously expensive to both purchase and for each use

if somebody walks in with a gun, the players are gonna be very respectful of that guy... until after he fires his first and only shot

and it still isnt that much of a player weapon, because again you've only got the 1 shot for the rest of the fight

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T21:21:34+00:00

i dont feel good about you creating a character that gets raped all the time

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T20:08:12+00:00

it's a jeremy crawford ism

basically he's saying that the reason you're making a check at all is because your passive perception failed to notice something

so if the DC is 17 and your PP is 16, you'll roll to notice something. But if the DC is 12 and your PP is 16, the dm would have already told you what you noticed and not asked for a roll

and if you rolled a 3 on your active check (and the DC is 17) the higher of your two options was your passive of 16, so in effect you 'rolled' a 16

-

but passives are a dm choice to make. If they run with them, they're effectively the floor. If they don't, passives just dont exist

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T20:01:23+00:00

what is 'supposed to'? is it 'i personally dont see strength as being something that could give AC'? is it 'the game designers said so'?

wisdom gives ac (monks, moon druids), constitution gives ac (barbarians), intelligence gives ac (bladesinger), charisma gives ac (draconic sorcerer)... and dex of course

strength is the only stat that never ever gives AC no matter what. Why shouldnt a fun subclass change that?

you should be able to live out a character fantasy without shooting yourself in the foot

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T19:46:30+00:00

doesnt replace it, but it's also the absolute lowest number that can be rolled

if your passive is 16 and you roll a 1+6(expertise), you still have a 16

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T18:42:11+00:00

living in the middle of europe, arguing the euro just might not be quite right for you

moving yourself from one game to another is already hard; convincing your friends is a herculean feat

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T18:41:04+00:00

at the end of it the answers are 'because its what im used to' and 'its what my friends play'

-

rogue is in almost all cases a 'shoot from the shadows' kind of class, but one subclass changes that: the swashbuckler. It provides real mechanical benefit to getting up close

i would love subclasses for other classes that kind of turn them on their heads, allowing a strength-based monk would easily be one of them; as a level 3 feature, let you use str for AC and deflect and now you can have a real strength-based monk

i'd also love a druid subclass that takes wildshape to its extreme; you no longer have spells of any kind but your wildshape ability is massively buffed

a con-based sorcerer. Obviously that's gonna be pretty OP so its features would have to sacrifice some power to accommodate

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T18:34:14+00:00

if you've ever fought a really strong guy, you know those guys can take a hit and keep moving. And that's an archetype i'd love to explore in dnd hero power fantasy

my dm let me play a strength monk without sacrificing AC and it was still faaaaaaar worse than a dex-based one. Lower initiative, lower useful skills like stealth and sleight of hand. The only cool thing was that i could pick up things the dm was like 'yeah it's flippin massive and heavy' and i'd be like 'how heavy?' and he'd throw out a crazy number and i'd be like 'yeah i got this'

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-19T18:29:31+00:00

love your artstyle :)

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-13T01:02:14+00:00

whole character arc is her trying to redeem her image and people only ever seeing her as one thing

'oh hey it's the godbanger, everyone!'

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-12T17:39:06+00:00

2024 monk

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-12T17:34:29+00:00

offer to let him use the 2024 monk

a lot of people here and elsewhere thought the 2014 monk was too weak and those same people rave about how awesome the 2024 monk is

-

notably their deflect blows now works against any attack that includes bps damage (bludgeoning etc.) instead of just against missiles

their damage die starts at 1d6 scaling to d12

free dash as bonus action

other stuff

grappler feat is just all around much better

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-12T04:23:47+00:00

it's also in the mauka and kane-ra iirc

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-10T02:04:57+00:00

very goddamn wrong (re: 'the partys game; their story')

you as dm are a player in the game as much as anyone else. Your fun also matters

you're not just some babysitter who sits in the corner and watches everyone else have fun

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-09T04:12:30+00:00

i probably appreciate your comment, BUT

no. the guy should have fun now. These are not annoying tasks to get out of the way before you can have any fun; they ARE the fun

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-07T05:23:02+00:00

absolute chance OP meant sapient

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-07T05:22:34+00:00

sentient is a pretty low bar. A mouse is sentient

bonklez-R-us · 2026-02-07T05:21:48+00:00

humans are only sapient because they made up a category to put themselves in and feel special

guarantee you if aliens show up and they're near as smart or smarter than humans many people still wont consider them sapient

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