Classes and Characters: Faces to the Features

Sometimes we forget that our characters shouldn’t feel like only numbers on a page. I learned this thanks to my favorite character that I have created and worked with over the years.

Zero to Hero

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons back in 2013 starting in 3.5 and I was “stuck” with being the DM. It has always been more in my nature thanks to my acting and creative writing background that I would be more inclined to be a player and not DM. That didn’t stop me from drawing the short straw. The original plan was after my campaign in our homebrew setting I would trade off with one of the other two guys who were to DM and the story cycles would move around so someone always had a break from running the game. Well, that didn’t go as planned. I eventually became the permanent DM for our group of friends. To my delight it has given me the time to refine the art of Dungeon Mastering. Though this original set up required me to make my own player character to be introduced at the same time. I am the type of DM to tend to utilize a DMPC (that is a discussion for another time) and this habit was formed from this initial campaign. So, I had to make a character to play for when we switched over. I quickly decided I would make a character who was a Swashbuckler/Rogue and Swordsage. Those that remember Swordsage are screaming at me that I should have made a Warblade instead, yes, you’re right. I chose his race as Elf, and provided his backstory.

Thus, Daedhelon Dawntracker was born. I had an explanation for the name “Daedhelon”, he was the son of the Master of the Nine, and a powerful artificer, and aspired to be a great hero like his father, but had no intention of using his father’s influence and power to help him achieve it. My best friend played his half elf brother that added in extra story and fluff and it was a great time. Daedhelon was killed in the changeover period between myself as DM and the next guy to take over thanks to a couple of player’s bad decisions.

The next DM resurrected Daedhelon as a reluctant servant of Olidammara, and was tasked with becoming a pirate and to forsake the whole Swordsage progression. So Daedhelon began taking levels in Scarlet Corsair from Stormwrack. Though I found my thoughts and feelings, as so many of us players do, intersecting with Daedhelon’s. These thoughts tended to lean towards dissatisfaction with his character build. To help you picture it, I always imagine Daedhelon being voiced by Doctor Who’s Matt Smith, “Well, here I am, the son of the greatest swordsman in the world. My mother an accomplished artificer, and here I am, swinging a sword about on a boat. Why don’t I have special powers?!” Through the various edition adjustments from 3.5 to Pathfinder, and now to 5e. The setting, story, and Daedhelon Dawntracker (now Daerthalion after a “renaming arc” in a side story) have had reboots and facelifts to match. Though my/our feelings of inadequacy remained until recently.

Holding Out for a Hero

Often times when we create characters, they create themselves, so to speak. We often make characters from the ground up, picking a class, and then building the character around that. It tends to be top down building that results in us having to homebrew something. In Daerthalion’s case, I experimented with plenty of builds, and concepts but each one left me, and bleeding into the game and his perceptions, with the same feeling that what I had chosen wasn’t quite right. Our setting of Tylvein has always reminded me of Hyrule from Legend of Zelda. There have been numerous versions, with changes to characters and themes, but the core lore and themes have stayed the same.

So it hasn’t bothered me that I have had so many tries at creating the “perfect Daerthalion.” The most recent iteration before this new campaign in yet another parallel telling, he was a Swashbuckler/Battle Master/ Bladesinger, which was a mess but powerful. At his best while hasted and under Bladesong he was working with a functional AC of 26. In that instance he fended off two level 20 villains with class levels and their two subordinates who were both level 15 while he was only level 10. That bothered me. It was too good. His story had always been about aspiring to be strong. It had dawned on me, what if that was his theme, to be always striving to be more powerful when really at best he had luck (Lucky feat and sheer dice rolls) on his side and eventually he learned to use that in tandem with his sword play (Stroke of Luck and Master Duelist). So, within our newest update to Tylvein (the setting) we see Daerthalion being an aspiring pirate on a boat, with only levels in Rogue with the Swashbuckler archetype. After three years, I realized that was the point of the character I created. He doesn’t have powerful magic, he has to rely on magic items and his own skill. Outside of that he is just another wannabe hero and that will eventually bring him to the same status as his father. That is the story that is fun and interesting to tell.

Everyone’s a Hero (In Their Own Way)

You might be thinking, “Yeah, sure, whatever, Derek, your character sounds whatever. What does that mean for me?” We often perceive our characters as only the features that sum up the things the game says they can do. This will usually result in forgetting that your character is not defined solely by the numbers and features that appear on his/her character sheet. As one of my favorite bloggers says, the numbers and abilities are merely representative of the character’s abilities. It is how you use those abilities in the game, and the choices you make in the roleplaying aspect that truly define the character. So, before you destroy yourself trying to come up with the perfect way to realize a character’s abilities, remember that in 5e there is a much narrower span of character progress in terms of level. There is only twenty levels for you to achieve, after that there are only epic boons. There is a lot to be made, and fortunately there are resources like Middle Finger of Vecna and r/Unearthed Arcana to help realize these concepts. Though do not forget, what is key here is not the character, but the story and experience as a whole. If you let the story guide your character creation, you and the rest of the table will have a more interesting experience.