Declassified
Seems like Fighter has an instinctive dislike for Warlock. For those of you familiar with our Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comics (or the not-so-secret identity of the blonde chick at the bottom of this page), you might guess why. Of course, given the grievous faux pas in today’s comic, Fighter doesn’t really need an extra excuse to get upset.
If your group always makes characters together, then this situation might not apply. But if you roll ’em up separately, and especially if you like to keep an air of mystery about your dude, then craning necks and wandering eyes can be a major problem. Just think of all those fun rogue masquerading as a wizard type concepts. Or PCs that secretly have the lycanthropy template. Or adorable goblin girls trying to pass for halflings.
You see, when characters are meeting up for the first time, there’s a fleeting opportunity to experience surprise. To watch as unusual fighting styles and mechanics slowly resolve themselves on the battlefield. That opportunity dissolves quickly though: telltale effects, spells, and class features are going to reveal all mysteries after a combat or two. So when you rob your soon-to-be partymates of their secrets, you’re robbing yourself of part of the fun.
The same issue applies to less egregious forms of spoiling than character sheet peeking. Just look at Warlock there, eyeing Mr. Stabby like he’s a sure sign of class identity. The nerve! Next thing you know he’ll be asking Fighter if he’s sure he’s allowed to wear heavy armor. Or why he didn’t prepare booming blade. Of if he really calculated his hp correctly. (Bro! You sure seem to have a lot for a d8 hit die!)
So how about it, guys? Have you ever run into a player trying to glance at your character sheet like a freshman in a trig test? If so, what were you trying to keep secret? Let’s hear all about your own unfortunate class identity reveals down in the comments!
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Not quite as extreme an example, but the last Adventure League character I rolled up got a lot of confused looks when the 8 foot tall Goliath in plate mail who kept hitting people with his ~~club~~ quarterstaff insisted that he was, “The Incipient Wizard, McBoatface.” The action surge and incredible lack of magical spells also threw them off a bit.
…My wife wanted to play a Kenku that latched onto a character and basically lived in his backpack. I wanted to play an abjuration wizard who’s goal was to be neigh-unkillable. Best way to do this was Goliath for the ability to carry a medium sized creature, and so I figured I’d capitalize on my large, tough build via plate mail, but to get proficiency with that I needed to START as a fighter and… yeah. Made for an odd first couple sessions. That’s what we get for starting at level 1!
A bird that lives in an enormous fellow’s backpack…
Were you two trying to play Banjo and Kazooie, or was that just a coincidence?
First name “Boaty” I presume?
While not sheet-peeking, but still on the subject of class identity:
Imagine my surprise when I found out that between fourth and fifth editions of DND, Cavalier had shifted from being a subclass of Paladin to a subclass of Fighter. Now suddenly the class features for riding mounts and the spells for summoning mounts are on totally different progression paths! You’d be forgiven to just toss away cavalier altogether in favor of the mounted combatant feat if you’re trying to build a holy rider. The cavalier even has the fourth edition style marking features from the Paladin-Cavaliers, while fifth edition paladins retain lay on hands. There’s some thematic overlap between the Paladin oath and the cavalier code.
And if you try to multiclass between the two to build your own fourth edition Cavalier in fifth, you’ll run into that old problem of multi attack sources not stacking, rendering at least one class feature unusable. You don’t even get your mount summons and mount features both online until way too late a level for a core part of the character concept.
All that, and your mounts aren’t any better than any other Paladin’s. At least in fourth edition the Cavalier’s mount summons continued to scale with you through all tiers of play.
In fifth edition, mounts are most useful for giving rogues advantage to activate their sneak attacks using mounted combatant, or for creating a floating-point attack origin to make lances usable.
Honestly, I think I’ll just play a paladin with the mounted combatant feat and a lance and just introduce myself as a Cavalier. Nobody who hasn’t gone down the mounted combat logistics wormhole would know the difference, as long as they haven’t studied up on their fighter subclasses.
Reproducing a character concept in a different edition is easy. Reproducing the mechanics much less so. See my spiel on tanking: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/tanking
I’m trying to do this with my lizardman in my Saltmarsh game. I’ve told people how I have 8 skill proficiencies and have ways of getting extra d6s on damage. So far only one person has outright asked if he’s a ranger.
How many sessions have you managed to keep it going?
But perhaps more germane to the day’s conversation: Why are you doing this? What do you gain by concealing your mechanical identity?
I want to see how long I can keep it going so the other players don’t make assumptions about what my character can do. As an immersion thing, it’s part of the sheer otherness of the lizardfolk mindset.
Similarly, most people in-universe probably don’t really know the differences between the main classes. An archer could be a ranger, fighter, paladin, urban barbarian, or zen archer monk. Likewise that mage over there could be a wizard, sorcerer, witch, arcanist, or maybe just a talented kineticist.
It’s interesting to think about what “classes” look like in-game. Would the people of Golarion differentiate between a multiclassed sorcerer/paladin and a celestial bloodrager? How would you know?
Probably the same way they distinguish between a bard and a fighter/rogue/sorcerer: Who makes more overly-complex plans, and who tries to solve all their problems by
singingsmashing?Okay, it’s not a perfect analogy, but still.
While not mechanics-related, this still relates to character sheets, and people attempting to peak. I had the pleasure of running a one-shot for a mostly newbie group of players, among them being a ranger. During character introductions, he introduced his pet lion as being named Bruno (or at least something along those lines). However, when asked his own name, he remained silent; as a result of events of his past, and isolation, he never used is name anymore. A nearby players peered out various snacks and tabletop figures, and peeked a look at the ranger’s character sheet; at the top, in the character name section, the ranger simply had, ” – “.
Referring to him simply as “Scary ranger guy”, they went off on their adventure, fighting villains and rescuing the damsel. However, while most of the party was distracted by an argument, the ranger and warlock snuck off with the horses and rescued kidnapee, returning to town and claiming the entire reward for themselves. Making their way back to town on foot, the rest of the party tracked down and killed the warlock, reclaiming the loot and distributing it among them. Going to find the ranger, they were instead greeted by a messenger boy, who had been paid a gold piece to give the party a note. It read that the rangers village had been destroyed years ago, and that he was finally able to return with enough gold to rebuild it and help his people. And at the end, it was signed,
” – “
Lesson learned. If you’re going to be a nefarious warlock, hire a messenger boy, pay him a gold piece, and lie your ass off in the “apology” note. 😛
For some reason, my mind went straight to Irish mythology, which has two characters (I’m aware of) who don’t share their names (albeit because their fathers were violent men who someone might want revenge on, not because of past trauma).
One was Fionn MacCumhail, whose name isn’t Fionn—that means something like “pale-haired,” which people started calling him during that “I can’t tell anyone I’m Cumhail’s son” phase. They either called him that because his hair was supernaturally pale, or because “Blondie” is as good a thing to call that blonde kid who won’t tell us his name.
The other was Cú Chuhlainn’s son. Connla. Not telling anyone his name works fine for a while, but before someone can give him a hair-based nickname, he runs into his dad. It should probably be noted that Connla was born to what, for simplicity’s sake, I’ll just call a one-night stand. To cut another fairly long story short, Cú meets Connla, is angry due to Connla being kinda rude even before he wouldn’t tell anyone his name, and the two end up fighting. Cú Chuhlainn wins, and only realizes who he murdered after it’s too late. So um, it ends less well than Blondie’s story.
Learning is fun!
Not yet, but soon… my character for an upcoming game started his career as a fighter, but came to realise the inherent superiority of wizardly, and so has taken the magic initiate feat and will eventually multiclass into wizard. Reading the character sheet will therefore lead players further astray; for while it reads “Fighter” on the sheet, he fights purely with wizardly magics and wields no weapon aside from a hefty spellbook.
Would you consider yourself a rules lawyer? And more importantly, what kind of damage does a book deal as a thrown object?
One of my most recent characters in 5e is a variant human rogue (with Sage background), masquerading as a demonologist/exorcist. They carry around a Cookbook entitled “Enchanting Recipes”, which they use to store rituals learned from the Ritual Caster feat (his rituals are things like Detect Magic, Identify, and Find Familiar; you know useful utilitarian ones that could also help lend himself to keeping up with the façade). When asked why he doesn’t use spells like fireball or magic missile, his response is usually something along the lines of “why waste slots on spells, when crossbow bolts work just fine” or “I was trained in demonology and exorcism, not in war magic”.
How long have you kept up the charade? Do your sneak attack dice give you away?
In my particular case, all the other PLAYERS know what my character’s class is; but IC’ly none of the other party members know that he isn’t really who he says he is, not that it really matters. Even if the character is limited in how they can contribute magically, it doesnt really matter all that much.
In one of our Pathfinder campaigns, I was surprised how many fellow players had no idea that my character was a rogue, despite my never trying to hide it and depending heavily on sneak attack dice in combat.
“He doesn’t seem like a rogue. I never gave it much thought; just figured you were getting sneak attack dice from somewhere. There are a lot of archetypes out there.”
Is is subtitled “How to Serve Demons?”
Five adventures and ten levels from now, one fateful evening, while the party is busy being diplomatic in front of the whole Archdemon council, an Imp will rush into the room, book in hands, yelling “it’s a cookbook!”
that was my first thought as well, lol
It actually did have a subtitle, but it has been scratched out and badly painted over with our game’s setting equivalent of “Necronomicon”.
Fun fact, I actually made and kept a campaign journal while it was running (we are currently on pause due to the pandemic). For each entry, I printed off a random recipe from the internet onto cardstock, dyed it using coffee grounds, and then used a combination of artist chalk and ink to write over the page; once a page was complete, I spray painted over it with clear matte so that the chalk art wouldn’t smudge.
One of our players likes to keep a lot of story stuff hidden or discreet from the party, sometimes going as far as class/archetypes. The rest of us less so.
As a result, said player’s plotline tend to come outta nowhere.
This is absolutely the counterpoint. It’s the “rich inner life problem” we talked about way back in “Origin Stories: The Heroes.”
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/origin-stories-the-heroes
Secrets are great. But if you wait too long to pull the trigger, the rest of table is long past the point of caring about your super-interesting backstory.
Funny how you mention ‘adorable Goblins trying to pass as Halflings’ in the same comic you mention the Gnomish Monk, who had a mysterious change of color since his debut…
Hey now. He’s always been a gnome. It’s just that no one remembers the “pastel colors” line in the race description.
Chameleon heritage gnome obvs.
I think sometimes it is just painfully obvious who or what a persons class is from just appearance alone, but I try to play up the idea that people can’t be identified by their class just on a look, and mostly it works. It kind of depends on the group of people you are playing with.
I personally think the most silly thing people try to hide from each other is their basic stats. I know it might be fun to have the mystery of how strong your wizard is, or how intelligent your fighter is, but when someone at the table is asking “who is the strongest one here?” when the puzzle is about strength, that is not the time to secretly giggle and keep it to yourself.
Backstory about how you killed your father and escaped into the woods, appropriate secret. Keeping your spell list hoarded, so no one knows exactly what you are capable of, kind of jerk move.
I can just picture Muscle Wizard looking around like, “Who? Me? These guns are just for show!”
Played a melee Draconic Sorcerer a while back. He IC didn’t know enough about magic to understand where his powers came from, so nobody knew what he was for, like, five sessions. They thought he was a hexblade warlock.
What was the big reveal? And did you manage to restrain yourselves from straight-up asking?
I have a level 7 campaign on the side where I play a Barbarian 5/Wizard 2. I’m seeing how long I can go with him refraining from using a certain combat method he’s somewhat ashamed of…
Rage?
Yeah, he thinks it’s unbecoming of a master of the arcane.
…Nerd rage is very unbecoming…
Fine, i accept the challenge. Elric of Melnibone is a Ranger and it’s quite clearly write as that on the books. If you have read them you can’t have any doubt. Deal with it 😀
Oh, and I suppose you think that Aragorn is a ranger too? They’re clearly using the colloquial.
Isn’t Aragorn like the model in which Gygax based Rangers on the first place? Vance, Niven and Tolkien are the ones that made D&D on the first place. Gygax just adapted lots of things from them. And yes, Elric of Melnibone is a ranger too. He presents as one and he has that panther animal companion. He is a ranger o_O
Aragorn is obviously a fighter / cleric.
Rangers the both of them i say.
Deal with it 😀
“especially if you like to keep an air of mystery about your dude, then craning necks and wandering eyes can be a major problem. ”
Hoo boy. That hit close. I was a perpetual GM for a long time, and over the years, one of the players took more and more interest in GMing. He wasn’t the best with the rules, but he always asked questions after sessions “did you make up that rule?” “Was that planned?” “Is there a secret to improvising npc dialogue?”. Often my reply was “read more books”, but I also ran him through my prep and at times, if it didn’t hold up play, would even explain something as the session was going. Eventually, after four years, it was time.
I cannot express my joy at, after 4 years with this group, I got to play a PC for the first time since I was 8 and my dad was teaching me and my brother with a red box. We played pathfinder, which has an unusually high capacity for Inter-class hijinx. So I talked to him about my character, and he loved it. We agreed I wouldn’t tell anyone what my class actually was. See where this is going? You saw from the original quote, didn’t you? You’re a smart cookie. Now hush, story time.
I made a barbarian, who was not a barbarian on the sheet. I wrote nothing in the class box, I wrote “human?” In the race. I filled everything else out faithfully. I was a sorcerer, you see, but was playing him as a barbar. I also was playing him more warlock-like than a sorcerer to begin with, and was going for a very “made a dark pact” kind of flavor. My backstory had to do with My barbaric tribe, but I was never as strong or tough as my tribe. I made the pact to change that, and it came with more than I wanted. Classic. I introduced myself as a hulking 6’4, muscular man. “Think of the classic djinn look,” I said, “but with normal dark skin.” I had a red sash, and loose pants like a martial artist. My hulking form looked straight outta street fighter.
We started with a sort of “clear the rats from the cellar” quest, but the rats were large fire breathing lizard-dragon-things. It was a pretty cool homebrew monster, I gave the new gm props. When my turn rolled around, I threw myself at the nearest one, describing in detail how I rolled around its snout to avoid its bite as I gave my very best right hook, followed by a left jab. The creature attacked back on its turn, doing a respectable amount of damage. I followed up in kind, and even though it was dead, I knew my companions had the only other one still up, so finished off my turn by describing myself laying into it, beating it over and over with my fists until blood covered my bare chest and the creature’s skull caved in. They were very convinced as to what I was. I never filled in barbar on my sheet, they could only assume. That is, until my neighbor looked at my health. He was the cleric, just doing his duty trying to see how everyone was. If he had asked, I would have told him I had a nasty gash across my arm, but wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down soon.
Instead, he saw that I was at a measly 2 hp. He gasped, looking at my MAX hp now. The inevitable question followed: “what class are you?”
I explained that i was a sorcerer, but was going to act as the party barbarian. I had permission from the GM to flavor my spells differently, but had relinquished to him that they would still be spells mechanically, explaining it as “pact magic”.
They were all blown away by how veraatile the rules were to allow such a thing, which boosted my ego, but that need to explain myself was still a sting.
TL;DR
I made a barbarian with the sorcerer class. Didn’t write my class down, but our page-peeking cleric saw my current/max hp which gave me away.
Going for dragon disciple eventually?
But yeah, it’s a bummer to have meta knowledge screw up the big reveal. I’m curious though: what would the ideal reveal have looked like? When were they supposed to find out that you were really a sorcerer?
Since you mentioned it, I had an idea for a rogue posing as a wizard recently. It’s probably been done to death and I just don’t know better, though. Basically, a stage magician passing himself off as a spellcaster. Stage magicians are all about misdirection and sleight of hand. They’re basically rogues without the robbery. I haven’t figured out why something like that would exist in a world where magic is real, maybe he’s just a con artist or something, I just like the idea.
Even if there’s actually magic, there’ll still be a market for people who can pretend to be more magical than they are for the purpose of entertaining people. On one hand, the standards will be higher; nobody’s going to be impressed by a trick any wizard’s apprentice can do if you get them drunk enough. On the other, you have access to magic to power your stage magic.
I mean, it is a trope:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo-rogue-archetypes/counterfeit-mage/
But then again, so is “rogue” and “wizard.” Nothing wrong with going for one of the classic character concepts!
True, true. Can’t always find a new take on everything.
At one point I pitched my Kensei Monk as “Samurai Jack if he was a Boros Goblin”. When the DM was telling another player what the class makeup of the party was going to be, and he mistakenly listed me as a Samurai Fighter. As a result that player rolled up a Rogue to improve party-balance. I had a stealth-buddy.
I played in a one-shot with a “Wizard” who never cast anything but cantrips. “What do you mean you don’t have [incredibly common spell]?!” “I wanna save my slots, so I’ll just cast Firebolt.” In the final battle they tore off their robe and initiated a Rage because they were actually a Barbarian with Magic Initiate.
Was that barbarian reveal worth the hassle of obfuscation?
I literally laughed out loud at it.
Is it intentional that Archfey Warlock looks like a much hotter version of Wild-magic Sorcerer?
Nobody likes to be mistaken for a warlock.
—SPoD, Giant in the Playground forums
Sadly, my group’s campaigns usually don’t have a lot of room for that kind of fun disguise-what-we’re-playing nonsense. It has, broadly speaking, two types of players—those who stick to simple character ideas, and those who like to talk about their character ideas.
That said, we once had a character who was secretly replaced by a doppelganger before the campaign started. That campaign also had a haughty pyromanceress (?) who fell from the sky, a little girl raised by bears who can also turn into a bear, and a centaur who replaced that character’s first idea (a corgi warlock with a pixie familiar using him as a steed). Also a couple of other characters I’ve forgotten, who weren’t quite as off-the-wall. Sadly, that campaign didn’t last past its first session…which we suspected might happen, which is why none of us were taking our character ideas seriously.
To my way of thinking, a warlock is essentially the same thing as a cleric… both drawing power from their relationship with a greater being, rather than wielding innate power like a sorcerer, or commanding the secrets of reality like a wizard.
Being a Warlock often takes commitment and sacrifice. It’s perfectly respectable.
Being a Sorcerer requires nothing of you. Sorcerers are not respectable.
Ain’t nothing wrong with that. And honestly, the secret-keeping business can get old if you let it, feeling more like PVP at points than a fun reveal. That’s why I the, “You’re a what!?” scene should come in the second or third session rather than sandbagging it for months and months of play.
Playing online means other players can’t peek at your sheets – and as a GM who wants to get the PCs to act as a team instead of a set of uncoordinated individuals, I have to take some action to make sure the PCs’ sheets are posted where the other players can see them.
It’s always a tradeoff, isn’t it? You lose out on the possibility of surprise hijinks, but you gain a opportunity for cooperative builds.
Playing longer campaigns as I do, cooperative builds can be awesome over and over again, while surprise hijinks – if they work out at all (they usually haven’t in the games I’ve played) – surprise and then are done.
It’s a good point about campaign length. Maybe the secrets business is better for one-shots and short, less-than-ten-session type campaigns.
PF2e is great for decoupling class from character as you can easily make a character that never takes any of their class feats; I think the very modular way you build your character in PF2 encourages you to think of your character as more than their class.
I’ve never kept my character class a secret but I do have a holy-warrior type in mind that could be mistaken for a champion of good as they’ll be fairly religious and have Lay on Hands focus spell: They’ll be a spirit instinct barbarian with the blessed one archetype; they’re effective at destroying undead, can provide some healing and will eventually be able to damage enemies by throwing ghosts at them.
That holy warrior Barbarian is a cool idea!
I do really like how absurdly modular Pathfinder 2e is, especially now that it has a few books out. Doctor Rogues and magic crossbow snipers and Paladins that turn into leopards abound!
I’ve still only ever played an intro adventure in 2e. That was a Dragon Con 2019 I believe.
I really need to make time for a proper learning campaign at this point. Everything I’m hearing makes it sound like a solid edition.
I’ve played through an AP book and a half in 2e, and made several characters.
It’s a good system, but it’s not 1e 2.0 (as weird as it sounds). It’s a different type of game that requires a different mindset, allowing it to complement 1e and D&D 5e rather than replace them. The most important thing, I think, is that the focus has shifted from simulationism to high-quality gameplay. The numbers are kept a LOT tighter, so balancing is much easier. Fear not, power gamers! This just means that your actions IN combat are way more important – intimidation, feinting, tripping and even raising a shield all make a big difference, much more than a +1 or +2 implies. It also makes much weirder builds roughly as viable as hyper-optimized ones – you have to be trying pretty hard to make a build inadequate for level-appropriate challenges, and taking a weird but flavorful feat doesn’t really set you behind a combat-oriented one.
Music to my ears.
Obviously, the thing to do here is to play an Oracle/Paladin/Bloodrager/Swashbuckler/Ranger as I once did, and then they’ll never guess your class, because you barely know yourself!
Generally, I’m not big on hiding this sort of mechanical information from fellow players, for the same reason that as a GM I’m willing to give players information about an enemy’s HP situation without a skill check. The tactical grid part of D&D/Pathfinder is (or should be) hard enough as it is that I don’t think players should be putting up additional barriers, especially since class =/= flavor. (If you’ve secretly picked up a level of “Cleric of Asmodeus”, I can understand keeping that subtle.) If we know your character has Sneak Attack, we’ll take steps to help you do it. Though I suppose I tend to know everyone’s mechanics stuff anyways, because I’m usually the one in the group with the most mechanics knowledge, so I can usually help the party more if I know their details (assuming I didn’t help them build the character in the first place).
Now that I think about it, I guess I’ve actually been keeping a secret my class in the newest campaign I am in. That’s mostly because of story reasons I’ve worked out with the GM (I’m just a half-elf with a hammer at the start, but find an artifact that meshes me with a powerful psychopomp early on), but also because I’m a Bloodrager/Alchemist/Master Chymist who lacks 90% of the Alchemist’s signature stuff, so I think telling the two players who just jumped from 5e to Pathfinder any of that will confuse them more than anything. I’m also doing a special thing where I hold back a lot of my abilities until dramatically appropriate times (“We’re in trouble! Oh? I can boost my STR for 6 rounds a day? Sweet! Hammer time!”), so that’s an additional reason to keep my long list of self-buffing (and shapeshifting) abilities a secret.
Personally, I think that having a working knowledge of the pieces on the board is more important for my enjoyment than someone else’s “big surprise” moment. Of course, some players get their jollies by playing with secret knowledge, so *shrug*. Different strokes and all that.
alrighty, story time:
a friend of mine ran a character in a living campaign. but they seemed to switch characters every level or so, as if bored with their previous character and trying something else. each character would have a name, a quirk, and be a different class – there was an elderly human ranger with a metal hand, a half-orc barbarian with an uncanny ability to locate seedy watering holes, a quiet but friendly rogue (unknown race) that kept to themselves, etc.
By about level 10, some people were starting to get suspicious. it turns out he wasn’t starting over – he would take a new class and go from there. started as a rogue, and maxed out bluff and disguise(eventually went chameleon prestige class when it got released) – the GMs looked at what he’d done and realized he’d basically made one before the class existed.
In another campaign, he played a “Paladin of Rasmir” (for those not it the know; a human wizard, not a deity), using a combination of bard and cavalier to simulate lay on hands and smite, respectively.
I’ve enjoyed the concept myself, playing a lore oracle that thinks they’re a wizard (they explain the spell level discrepancy by their years spent black-smithing to pay for an arcane collage), taking mostly spells that appeared on both lists (blindness / deafness, hold person, daylight, etc). heck, the deaf curse for oracle let him cast spells silently, so I would “substitute” the spell name that they thought they were casting (“Accelerated Infernal healing” for cure light wounds, and “Deafness, 15′ radius” for silence.)
Played a Changeling Rogue once that actually had a decoy character sheet for this purpose. Her name that she invented for herself (her backstory was all kinds of “who am I when I can be anyone?”) was Fox. She was built with the old 3.5 Racial Substitution for changeling rogue that made them super good at diguise, gather info and social but took away Trapfinding. So I had a version of my sheet that listed “Alyssa” as her name, listed her as human, and had most of the correct modifiers. The GM knew that if i used the Bluff skill, the DC was 32 because Changeling Rogue allowed her to take 10. But I would still toss a die and pretend I was rolling.
Most fun about that character was when I would roll a die and declare “There’s a trap here!” Then describe some crazy thing we had to do to bypass the trap like edging around the center of the room. Funny thing was occasionally I would do it, and the GM would give me a funny look cause I had actually guessed right. I played her as being a bit of a prankster anyway, so the rest of the party just assumed I was getting my jollies.
It wasn’t till everything went to pot and half the party had died and Alyssa had abandoned them to their fates ( In her defense, our cleric went down first and we were stuck in a fish in a barrel scenario. Running was the sensible choice. Too bad she’s the only one who made that choice.) and the GM turned to me after everyone else had dropped. “What does Alyssa do?” I gave him a dirty plan that involved shifting my face and everyone suddenly got it. That was fun. Replayed her again in a later campaign, save that her secret was that she’d also made a deal with a demon and had taken levels of Warlock. Got a rod crafted with Nystul’s Magic Aura and claimed Eldritch Blast was a magic item effect.
So I was going to make a Synthesist Summoner and play it like a Vigilante, but the more I looked at it… there’s some serious abuse potential there. The double HD progression alone is tough on a GM.
So I asked my fellow players what they’d like to see me play, and a couple of them said they were curious about my very first DnD character, a martial cleric of Lathander from a family of werewolf hunters. I gave it some thought, did a lot of reading… And YOU KNOW, Shelyn really is VERY CLOSE to Lathander.
So I’m making a Warpriest of Shelyn and everybody knows ‘the plan,’ but it has some twists and turns. Should be fun. 😀