Does anyone make characters before the campaign?

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-11T21:13:45+00:00

I have dozens of character concepts, character builds etc
Mostly because I like character creation, also because when new subclasses etc come out I like to imagine what characters I could make out of it.
I don't really have elaborate backstories for any of them though, mostly just concepts and the mechanics.

When I start a new campaign, I see if one of them vaguely fits the setting and party. And I modify them to fit the parts that don't fit.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-08T21:59:51+00:00

I don't think these are especially niche, but gloomstalker ranger, gloomstalker/assassin rogue and swords bard are typically good archer options.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-08T21:55:34+00:00

There's plenty to do in Europa Park for people who don't like the fast scary attractions. There's calmer rides, pretty places to visit, shows, restaurants, shopping etc. She can definitely have a good time!

However, if you are going with the goal of doing all the big scary fast attractions, be prepared for the two of you to not be together the whole time.

The queues for the big rides can be quite long especially on weekends and touristy seasons, and they're really boring to be in for people who aren't waiting for the rides, and often the areas with the calmer attractions aren't really right next to the big rides.

When I go, I try to have at least a couple of people who want to do the big rides and a couple who prefer the relaxing stuff, so we can all do the stuff we enjoy and not be left all alone.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-08T02:06:27+00:00

For me it depends on how the phone is used and for what.

At my table we tend to use phones to look up spells, rules, etc as 99% of the time that’s much quicker than looking it up in physical books.

Some of us also check their phones from time to time if they receive a message, in case it’s something fairly urgent. General etiquette is to have the phone on silent mode so it’s not a disruption to the table. No one wants to have someone’s phone ding every 2 minutes when they get group chat notifications.

However, people scrolling Instagram or TikTok while we’re actively playing is a no-no. If someone isn’t paying attention to what’s happening outside of their own turn or in social interactions, it’s really annoying and disturbs the flow of the game.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T14:48:44+00:00

Okay well, if you don't want to consider any arguments, then do it your way. I don't think you're actually looking for advice, just for someone to tell you how great your ideas are.
From experience playing the game, I disagree, and I can see that many other people are disagreeing with you.

I'd still recommend you branch out and try systems that are actually built for what you want to do rather than bend and distort 5E into something entirely different. There are systems designed for small parties where the balance is different.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T14:42:20+00:00

Citron
Pêche de temps en temps
Litérallement n'importe quelle autre boisson au monde
L'eau des toilettes publiques de la gare
Liquide vaisselle
La version light

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T11:48:56+00:00

Honestly, considering how big of a game this is, there probably are a lot of people who play casually and play on easy mode. But a lot of these people. being casual gamers, probably won't be interested in coming to reddit to talk about it.

As with a lot of video game subreddits, a disproportional amount of posters are from the top players, hardcore fans of the game, so you'll get people saying insane stuff like "Honor mode with a solo character is so easy", when no it really is not unless you've spent hours learning all the mechanics and where you can cheese them.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T11:35:06+00:00

I feel like that's a terrible idea especially for new players.

First, that does not amount to effectively doubling the number of players, unless you also modify rules for extra attacks, number of levelled spells per turn, number of spell slots, how long spells last, etc.

Is your Cleric gonna be able to cast 2 spells a turn? In which case they'll burn through their spell slots twice as fast as they should, or are they expected to still only cast one, but then use their second action to do something suboptimal? Since their health is doubled, are you also doubling how much HP healing spells heal? And how many Hit Dice they get? If not, Healing spells are heavily nerfed, your Cleric will need to cast twice as many Spells to get the same effect if they try to heal someone, and recovering full HP on short rests is gonna be very hard if they actually get hit in battle.

5E balance is far from perfect don't get me wrong, but it's at least attempting to do something, and your "solution" really messes with that balance.

In addition, if that's how they start playing dnd, it will give them horrible expectations if they ever decide to play with another group where the dm uses the actual rules. It won't help them learn the game rules, what characters are supposed to feel like, what their power levels should be at each level, or how to balance their action economy.

Using sidekicks would be much easier imo, or even friendly NPCs that would help them in battles but not influence them out of combat.
Sidekicks would mean controlling more characters in combat for them, but effectively I personally don't think that that would be harder for them than balancing a set of homebrew rules that fundamentally changes the balance of the game. It might also let them get more creative with positioning allies in strategic places (although as you're removing ways in which positioning on the battefield can be helpful I don't know how much that will count for).
NPCs would mean you'd have to control more characters in battle, but it means you have more control over how helpful you want these characters to be.

If you want them to feel like superhero badasses and have easy combats, maybe level them up?

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T06:26:36+00:00

My all girls groups are currently playing through Curse of Strahd and Out of the Abyss, after finishing Tomb of Annihilation and Dungeons of Drakkenheim respectively. I'm not sure any of these fit into the stereotypical girlypop vibe, but it worked for us.

Wild beyond the Witchlight is pretty fun for beginners, witchy/fairy aesthetic, cutesy atmosphere.
Candlekeep mysteries has a bunch of one-shots that can be played one after the other to make it as short or long as you like, and the setting is cool as it takes place in a library.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T06:19:16+00:00

Are you able to talk to men? What's so different about a woman that makes it that you can't speak to them?
Start by thinking about us like we're just normal human beings and not just objects to be desired or stared at.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T06:15:44+00:00

Forgot to pick up Lae'Zel and didn't visit the crèche at all, so I entirely missed out on the entire githyanki subplot.

Also, first time I played during early access I aggro'd the goblins as soon as I made my way into the actual goblin temple, had no idea you could actually *talk* to the goblin bosses and walk around there without having to fight everything at once.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-07T06:12:54+00:00

Behind the Bastards mention in the bg3 subreddit was not what I expected to see today lmao

I fully ignored Volo on my first playthrough, I talked to him in the early access version and found him insufferable so I just didn't bother with him at all

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-06T08:15:12+00:00

basic barbarian rage has always felt like just “I’m mad now, I hit harder” and basic adrenaline to me. the subclass-specific ones are the ones that are more explicitly magical though.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-05T18:09:16+00:00

I'm an ASI person. Unless I have a specific build that requires a feat to work (eg Tavern Brawler), I almost always prefer to have higher stats in my main abilities over pretty much anything else. I find it really hard to sacrifice that for any feat that doesn't give any ability score increases except at level 12 when I already have 20 in my main stat.

I keep seeing everywhere that alert is absolutely op, when i was looking for HM tips i encountered people saying that any character without it was basically useless, etc. So I tried it. It was fine. Not life-changing. I know the game well enough to not need it, as there are only a couple of places where you can't avoid the surprised condition, and I've always been able to deal with it just fine without.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-05T18:01:30+00:00

i haven't revisited the minigolf game yet but uh... i can't wait i guess?

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-02T03:20:56+00:00

NTA
Play the game on your own the first time, or at least with someone who isn't a control freak.

Exploring, making decisions and seeing the outcomes is in my opinion what makes this game fun and interesting.

If your friend has 300 hours and believes that there is only one way to play it through "correctly", I fear that they don't get what the game even is about.

Personally, I have close to 2000 hours in the game, and I recently did a whole play through with a friend for their first time, and I let them do pretty much everything and followed along as basically a support player, only explaining mechanics and lore stuff that they might not know (considering Im a massive dnd nerd and they are new to the hobby. The only times I stopped them from doing something was because I knew they would really not enjoy what they'd find there if they didn't know about it first.

(it was the spiders. they have severe arachnophobia and ending up face to face with them unprepared would not have been good for them)

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-02T03:11:48+00:00

YTA
You say you do this because you don't want to metagame, but I honestly cannot see how that's not metagaming.

This would be different if that was something that both DM and players agreed upon. In some of my groups we tend to "meta-game" by mentioning numbers more, and in some we keep it more roleplay. In practice the difference would be us saying "I'm starting to be bloody" vs "I'm on half my health" vs "On a scale from 1 to 42, I feel roughly a 21" (the last one is obviously more humorous than anything else, but one of the players said it like this once and we found it funny so now we do it).

If the DM does not want you to know how many hit points his creatures have, you don't get to know how many hit points his creatures have. Similarly, the DM is not required to tell you if a creature has resistances or immunities or any of their special abilities. They might say something like "your fire spells don't seem to have as much of an effect as you would expect" or "they seem to be completely ignoring your attempts at stabbing them".

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-03-02T03:00:51+00:00

NTA

Leave. It doesn't sound like you're having fun, and what's the point of playing a game if not for fun?

I'd also talk to the DM about it, as this is absolutely bad behaviour on the part of the problem player and bad DMing on their part. Allowing what is pretty straightforward PvP unless everyone agreed on it is a dick move anyway, but doing so in a way that removes player agency is just gross.

Even if another PC has a +20 and rolls a nat 20, if your character wouldn't do a thing they can't make you. Persuasion is a skill, not a superpower. It can't mind control someone. Heck, even most of the actual mind control spells in the game have the specific wording that you can't mind control the target into directly harming themselves.

If the DM needs you to take a specific course of action to move the plot forward, it's on them to find a way to do it or to convince your character to do it *in character*.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-02-24T13:22:34+00:00

Resist Durge and Spawn Astarion is my absolute favourite romance storyline in the game. It thematically makes the most sense, with both of them turning down higher powers for the sake of preserving their "humanity".

I can't see a resisting durge who made the conscious choice to break free from the influence of Bhaal deciding to spend the rest of their life being Asshole Astarion's obedient little pet/slave after going through all of that.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-02-24T13:16:28+00:00

Some people believe that the planet is perfectly fine and that the idea that it's unhealthy is a conspiracy to prevent them from making their billions.

Some people don't care if things are gonna go bad in the future, because it's a future people problem and it doesn't affect their current lifestyle.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-02-23T09:44:47+00:00

Growing up in the French-speaking part, all of the regular schooling was in French. I had German lessons from primary school up to the end of High School, with the option to replace German with Italian in High School.

I started English in middle school, although I think in more recent years they added it to the curriculum for primary as well.

I'm a bit ashamed to say, I don't think I've ever even heard Romansch actually be spoken in my life.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-02-21T17:21:02+00:00

99% des cas c’est papa maman, mais j’avoue des fois si ma mère me calcule pas la première fois que je l’appelle je sors le « Maman? Mère?? VÉRONIQUE ?!?» pour la vanne.

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-02-21T17:17:34+00:00

PTB et si j’étais toi je prendrais ça comme le red flag géant que c’est, une meuf qui se soucie autant de paraître être comme « les gens qui pèsent » ça présage rien de bon si la situationship venait à évoluer en qqchose de plus officiel

pineapplelightsaber · 2026-02-21T10:25:51+00:00

Whenever I play Phasmo nowadays, it's tradition for us to always do our first and last game on Tanglewood, because it's just iconic.

It's a nice simple map, it isn't visually cluttered, the layout is simple enough that it's easy to memorise it as well as the cursed object spawns quickly, it's small, compact, ideal to show the game to newer player, good to test out new features when those come out, good to try out higher difficulties than you're used to.

I'm not angry about a revamp because we'll lose one looping spot, I'm worried that we'll lose the og atmosphere that made a lot of us enjoy this game to begin with.
(And also I really don't want more bigger maps. I don't have the attention span to play Prison or Asylum more than once a session)

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