D&D 5 Character Generation

I have yet to play D&D 5th edition.

Thus, to experience what a majority of modern roleplayers have experienced already, I’m going to walk through my creation of a D&D 5e character.

Making a Character

Concept

In a D&D 4e mini-campaign I played a Tiefling Warlord¹. 5th doesn’t have warlords, so I decided on a paladin instead, because a Tiefling Paladin struck me as funny and because Charisma is a secondary Paladin characteristic.

Note that I am not using alignment.

Assigning Attributes

Rather than roll dice I decided to use the standard array:

Racial Features

According to the PHB, all Tieflings have the following features:

• Size: Medium
• Speed: 30'
• Attribute Modifiers: see above
• Special Abilities:
  • Darkvision: see in darkness as if it were dimly lit up to 60'
  • Hellish Resistance: resistant to fire damage.
  • Infernal Legacy: the Thaumaturgy cantrip plus other spells at higher level.
• Languages: Common, Infernal.

Background

Ignoring the book’s advice, I’m giving Oriana 2.0 (5.0?) the background of Acolyte.

This version of Oriana doesn’t remember her parents. She was left at a temple to Pelor² and raised to become a cloistered nun.

According to the book, Acolytes receive the following:

• Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Religion
• Languages: two of my choice. (Let’s say Dwarfish and Elvish)
• Feature: Shelter of the Faithful: I can always find room and board at a temple of Pelor, or call upon the priests of my home temple (who raised me).
• Equipment:
  • holy symbol
  • prayer book
  • 5 sticks of incense
  • religious vestments
  • common clothes
  • a purse with 15 gp

I also rolled up the following traits:

• Personality Trait: Nothing can shake my optimistic attitude.
• Ideal: Aspiration. I seek to prove myself worthy of Pelor’s favor by matching my actions against his teachings.
• Bond: I owe my life to the priests who took me in and raised me.
• Flaw: I am inflexible in my thinking.

Class Features

Oriana’s restless and arguably violent nature rebelled against being shut up in a temple. She decided to become a paladin of Pelor instead.

According to the PHB, Paladins have the following benefits:

• Hit Die: d10
• Starting Hit Points: 10 + Con modifier (11)
• Skill Proficiencies: Two from a list, from which I’ll pick Athletics and Persuasion.
• Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: All armor, shields, simple weapons, martial weapons.
• Saving Throw Proficiencies: Wisdom and Charisma.
• Proficiency Bonus: +2 (1st level)
• Abilities (1st level)
  • Divine Sense: sense celestials, fiends, and undead within 60'.
  • Lay on Hands: heal others’ wounds from a pool of points equal to level × 5, or cure disease and poisons for 5 points apiece.

Of the equipment offered me, I’ll take:

• a longsword (damage: 1d8 1h/1d10 2h)
• a shield (+2 AC)
• chain mail armor (16 AC, disadvantage on Stealth)
• dagger (damage: 1d4)
• explorer’s pack
• another holy symbol (maybe sewn onto Oriana’s tabard)

Oriana

Attributes

Abilities

• Divine Sense [Paladin, PHB, p. 85]
• Hellish Resistance [Tiefling, PHB p. 43, 197]
• Infernal Legacy [Tiefling, PHB p. 43]
  • Thaumaturgy [PHB 282]
• Lay on Hands [Paladin, PHB p. 85]
  • 5 HP
• Shelter of the Faithful [Acolyte, PHB p. 127]

Languages

Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Infernal

Proficiencies

Proficiency Bonus: +2

Skills

Saving Throws

Weapons

Equipment

• a longsword
• a shield
• chain mail armor
• dagger
• explorer’s pack
• holy symbol
• another holy symbol (maybe sewn onto Oriana’s tabard)
• prayer book
• 5 sticks of incense
• religious vestments
• common clothes
• a pouch with 15 total gp

The Five Queens

Oriana recently joined a group of adventurers registered with the City’s³ Adventurers’ Guild⁴. Their official name is the “Five Queens”, named after cards in a tarock deck:

• Queen of Swords is Kelestia (1st Level Half-Elf Fighter), the unofficial leader of the group. Despite being a deadly archer, she aspires to become a noted duelist … but her raw talent with the rapier can’t match the skill of a trained master.

• Queen of Staves is Lanica (1st Level Human Monk), who despite her Monk training looks, dresses, talks, and acts like a City tough … because she is. Beyond travels with her “master”⁵ she’s never left the City. The name comes from the quarterstaff she always keeps near her, even during a bare-fisted brawl.

• Queen of Cups is Oriana. She gained that designation for being the most pleasant and approachable of the five. Curiously she never touches alcohol.

• Queen of Coins is Vistra, a Hill Dwarf Cleric of the Silver Flame⁶ specialized in the Light Domain. She seems to have a dim opinion of everyone and everything, although she and Oriana get along. Her name comes from her supposed obsession with money, being a Dwarf. She did once ask a Guild member to pay her for healing.

• “Queen of Fools”⁷ is “Arlecchina” (1st level Human Rogue), a mysterious underworld figure just making a name for herself. She always appears masked in “public”, i.e. in gatherings of the Queens or meetings with Guild officials. Some say she’s a noblewoman slumming, others a street acrobat whose greasepaint and fool’s motley rotted her brain. Rumors persist that she’s a madwoman from the sewers, or a con artist with a thousand identities who’s recently taken to second story work.

(I created the other four in D&D 5, also based on characters from earlier games. Arlecchina comes from a 7th Sea game I played years ago, as an amalgam of Harley Quinn and Catwoman with a bit of the traditional Harlequin. Kelestia was originally based on Evandra from the YouTube series 1 For All. Lanica comes from an Asunder game, a Shadow of the Demon Lord game that never started, and a Numenera game that is about to start. Vistra is wholly new.)