Day 26th: Jameir, D&D 5e

 January 26th, the end is drawing very near! Looking at my plans for this week, it was mostly repeat game from earlier in the month, so I'm actually thinking of subbing in some games I haven't done yet! We'll see what I'm going to do, one of the game I was planning was Black Star and that's always so quick to do that I may yet keep it in instead of showcasing something new. Hmm. For today though, I was excited to create this character, even though it's D&D 5e and I've made clear that I don't enjoy it too much, the character creation being especially a weak spot. So what's the story here? Well, it's true that D&D 5e is pretty weak in character options, but there's another way, if you stray from the narrow path of Wizard of the Coast and go party with the third party creators. Specifically, I'm talking about KibblesTasty who made my favorite contents for D&D 5e. Just ultra flavorful stuff with feature dense classes and subclasses, lots of player choices, lots of feelgood mechanic! The Inventor class is my favorite class in any system I've played or read, the breadth of concept it allows while remaining true to the core Fantasy is fantastic, every option is so tempting that I always wish I had more pick! The biggest failing of the Inventor class is that when playing a game that doesn't allow it, every thing is that much blender and Paizo failed me personally when they made their inventor a weird pseudo-barbarian instead of anything close to the gameplay I'd want from it.

 Art by Void-Static on Toyhouse

 But this isn't about the inventor this time! It's not even from the same book! No, instead I made a Spellblade, a class that sounds like it would be super fun to play! It's basically a Magus from Pathfinder in the way it mixes spells and swordplay or I guess you could say it's to the Wizard what Ranger is to Druid and Paladin to Cleric, except with access to cantrip. I know I'm gushing about KibblesTasty design a lot already, but reading the Spellblade and just glancing at some of the spells makes me excited for D&D in a way I haven't been since maybe early 5e or maybe even as far as since the release of Tome of Battle for D&D 3.5. It's even got a subclass of the Spellblade to do some Wuxia non-sense with flying sword like we're playing a Thunderbolt Fantasy guy! The level 7 subclass feature is straight up using your sword like a one-person flying broom!

 Art by Dante DX

So, I had to make one, obviously! Now, there's a slight issue with the Spellblade where once the Flying Sword subclass goes online, your to-hit and damage keys off Intelligence, but before hand it uses Strength or Dexterity depending on the weapon used. Now, I don't blame KibblesTasty too much for that design as it's also just a fact of life in D&D 5e, but it's usually those fool playing pure non-caster that pay that price! To cleverly bypass the problem and not imagine my blorbo waving a rapier around, I decided to start him all the way up at level 7 so he could fly around on his sword, then realized level 8 gave nothing but ability score improvement, so that where I ended up. Cracking open the player handbook, I was surprised to discover that the default method for stat generation was in fact rolling 4d6 drop low and arrange as desire! I absolutely thought that the default was the standard array and the only other option was Point Buy where max stats are 15! Granted, 4d6 drop low is also given with absolutely no guideline, unlike in 3rd edition where they tell you to reroll if you end up with nothing above 13 or less than +1 if you add up all the modifiers together! Thankfully, that wasn't the case for me, rolled just slightly better than the Standard Array with 8, 10, 13, 14, 14, 16. I knew I wanted to make a human and I of course picked the Variant Human, because +1 to all stats is just not worth it, especially with almost all even score!

 I already knew what this guy, Jameir yn Jassan al Khalir, deal was, so choosing a background was just a matter of finding one that made sense with his story. As he's the son of a great merchant house in Tethyr at the southern end of the Sword Coast from Forgotten Realm, I picked Courtier. His story is that he was kidnapped by pirates as a teen while working on one of his family's boat and was saved by adventurers, starting his obsession with mixing swordplay with spellslinging. Now, any D&D 5e player will tell you that he fucked up and should have become a Bladesinger Wizard, carrying a sword as a joke while having more AC than the armoriest paladin, but frankly that subclass sucks shit. Not that it's weak, but that it's just so much better to disregard the fantasy it sells you and play as a normal wizard but better. At least the Hexblade has the decency of still making the intended playstyle decent! Plus, wizards gotta waste spell slot or money to ride around on a sword, so point Flying Blade Spellblade! Picking my skill proficiency, I am once again reminded of one big weakness of D&D 5e. We just don't get enough of it, outside of Bard and Rogue! I have a measly 2 from my class, 2 that are dictated by the Background (So are the first two, really, if you make your character any more complex than just the basic of a mechanical Background) then one extra one from Variant Human. Add to that the fact that you will never get better at the thing you're bad at and you better hope the few you pick comes up! I pick Investigation with the Variant Human bonus as it keys off his big intelligence, but realistically the DM is going to ask for Perception check and nothing else. The feat I chose is also from KibblesTasty, in the same book as the Spellblade, Kibble's Compendium of Legends and Legacies, it's Versatile Master, giving me special stance Jameir can enter when he's wielding a Versatile weapon and no other weapon or shield.

 I basically skipped the starting equipment section I now realize, with the starting wealth for character above level 1 being a bit of a joke. It's way less than what any published adventure and most DM would reward players with, any spellcasters even a wizard would be good, so would be a Barbarian or a dexterity focused non-caster, but a fighter or paladin having made the mistake to specc in strength wouldn't be able to afford a full plate or even a half-plate. Whatever, I just took the guideline of one uncommon and one common magic item to give him a Gleaming Half-Plate and a +1 Longsword. Gleaming is an enchantment on armor that just auto cleans it, perfect for a show-off like Jameir and as a story beat, I'm saying his longsword was a Vengeance Blade, but he managed to exorcise the vengeful spirit and lift the curse from the sword during a previous adventure. It would have been fun to go through list of magic items to pick ones with goofy effect and invent little adventure where he got them, but oh well. This is running long anyway. Imagine he has an explorer's pack, a light crossbow with some bolts and an orb to ponder noted down somewhere on the sheet.

After noting down all the feature I get, it's time to close up the sheep by selecting spell! Aside from the old classic Prestidigitation, I gave him all new KibblesTasty's spells to cast by swinging his sword into people! I pretty much entirely took damaging spell in various element to work out with his feature, but he can also use a cantrip to preserve foods longer and he has a fun trick where he created illusory blade to feint and trick people with. It's not all pure damage though, he has some small control options too!

A very cool character, I would be excited to play him! The first two levels could be a little painful until he really gets into his class fantasy, though. Not so much so that he would be inefficient or anything like that, though!