He is a level 1 mountain dwarf fighter. Although he comes from a long line of smiths, he apprenticed with a master brewer, before eventually joining a merchants guild, who helped him to set up his own business and through which he sold his wares.
He worked hard and diligently, climbing the social ladder as he did so, becoming quite well known for his excellent ale and beautiful meads and was doing quite well for himself. His social position seemed secure, and his future was looking bright until one fateful day; when he was summoned before a tribunal to answer for a crime that he did not commit.
Months before, his guild had been robbed by someone who had taken a significant amount of money from the guilds treasury. The culprit had disappeared, seemingly without a trace, but the investigation had continued, and now evidence had been uncovered that seemed to point to one person; Whiskey Brackenweed! Whiskey protested his innocence and offered his alibis and his testimony to the contrary, but it made no difference. The tribunal found him guilty as charged and he lost everything for which he had worked so hard. The tribunal confiscated all of his properties, his reputation lay in tatters, and with his honour besmirched; he lost his social standing, and his clan rejected him.
What pained Whiskey the most, however; was that never again would he walk the halls of his fathers, or look upon the splendours of his ancestors, for henceforth, was he banished from the Kingdom of Thamdarihm, until such time that he had redeemed himself in the eyes of the tribunal.
Penniless and alone, he wandered around the human's kingdoms for a while, taking odd jobs where he could. Eventually, he fell into the life of a soldier for hire, defending the human trade caravans that cross through the wild country. Sometimes he even gets a glimpse of the mountains that mark the border of Thamdarihm and although knowing that he can never get any closer, fills him with sorrow, being this close to the home and the people he loves also fills him with warmth and kindles the flame of hope in his heart.
He hates that work - being a soldier for hire - how far he has fallen from those gilded mountain halls, but his pride will not let him do anything other than his best, and so gives it his all, taking on one job after another, and ever dreaming of the day, when having redeemed himself, he will finally return home.
When he is not working, he likes nothing more than sitting by a roaring fire, sharing with a cup, or two, or three, or 10 of the good stuff with his human friends. Also; despite not being much of a story taller himself, he likes hearing stories of ages past and the great heroes of old. Especially when those heroes are dwarfs or the stories speak of dwarfs in a favourable light.
Although sometimes prideful and arrogant, Whiskey Brackenweed is a dwarf of great honour and integrity, who is courageous and loyal to a fault; he will never abandon those whom he has sworn to protect, and is the kind of person who always does his best, no matter the personal cost. He firmly believes that it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak and he won't stand by while the innocent are falsely accused, or allow those who are guilty to escape justice. However, his own experiences have taught him that those who enforce the law are not always correct and that they can have agendas of their own. These experiences are not enough to make him abandon his beliefs, but they have made him that bit more likely to stand in defence of the accused - especially if all the facts are yet to be known. In short, where once he would have blindly followed the law and stubbornly believed that only the guilty get punished, he is now more of an advocate of the search for the truth.
Nice concept. Giggled a bit when I saw the name. The dex bonus is indeed a bit flexible, depending on if you want higher initiaitve and some non-str ranged weapons or higher skills. Any idea which archetype you want him to be? it can influence your starting stats a bit.
Nice concept. Giggled a bit when I saw the name. The dex bonus is indeed a bit flexible, depending on if you want higher initiaitve and some non-str ranged weapons or higher skills. Any idea which archetype you want him to be? it can influence your starting stats a bit.
he is already a shield dwarf, geared towards defence, and I plan on taking Battle Master at third level, and then adding my 4th level ASI into CON as seen here - https://ddb.ac/characters/11959516/CHUUnV so having at least some DEX would come in handy, although I am going to concentrate on CON and then STR first. That's why I wanted to start off with a +2 in DEX.
The idea is that my character (the fighter) and my fellow players character (the paladin) draws a line in the sand, and creates an impregnable barrier. We are the strongest characters with the most hit points, and so we are supposed to last the longest, locking down the enemy, stopping them from attacking our allies and letting the squishy characters unload their nova attacks in relative safety.
May want to consider getting Sentinel feat at level 4 instead of ASI.
Just checked out that feat and it's pretty interesting. Being able to stop an enemy in their tracks every time they provoke an attack of opportunity, is pretty powerful. Add to that more chanes to get an attack of opportunity in the first place and an additional attack against enemies who attack my allies (under certain circumstances) and it makes for one crazy defense feat, worth sacrificing an ASI for.
Thanks for pointing it out.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Have you considered moving points from DEX & INT to WIS & CHA?
With the merchant history and all 4 of your skill proficiencies being in WIS or CHA skills, it seems like you're missing out by not actually being capable in either of those areas - mightn't it be more fun to protect the party from scoundrels & profiteers with your savvy business skills? ^_^
E.g. 16 STR | 10 DEX | 16 CON | 10 INT | 13 WIS | 12 CHA
I was thinking 13 in WIS as the more likely ability to be bumped up by a feat (either Resilient or Observant) - in the long run, I'd also suggest Shield Master over DEX ASI; boosts your saves and provides a very handy bonus action option.
Also; one little thing that bugs me about the Guild Merchant background, which perhaps you can negotiate with your DM - as a disgraced & exiled former member the Guild Membership feature will be immediately defunct, meaning you basically have no background feature what-so-ever. Would your DM possibly let you swap it for Mercenary Life?
Also; one little thing that bugs me about the Guild Merchant background, which perhaps you can negotiate with your DM - as a disgraced & exiled former member the Guild Membership feature will be immediately defunct, meaning you basically have no background feature what-so-ever. Would your DM possibly let you swap it for Mercenary Life?
That also bugged me as well, especially since I have to keep paying 5G per month for a background feature that I am unable to use. Though I suppose that this could be spun as the Guild slowly recovering the stolen funds, but then you could rightly ask - why is he paying it back if he didn't take it. I am not doing anything weird with this character, like saying that he has been telling lies all time or anything like that - I am pretty straight up with him, he was genuinely falsely accused.
Regardless, I still have a useless background feature that is costing my character gold.
With the merchant history and all 4 of your skill proficiencies being in WIS or CHA skills, it seems like you're missing out by not actually being capable in either of those areas - mightn't it be more fun to protect the party from scoundrels & profiteers with your savvy business skills? ^_^
I will admit that being a fighter is somewhat at odds with his background and experiences as a brewer and a guild merchant. Though in the world that my DM has created, all the guilds communicate with each other, even across kingdoms. So I was playing this as; the only work he was able to get was odd jobs that mostly consisted of manual labour. However; being a manual labourer isn't very conducive to becoming an adventurer, so I had him become a mercenary soldier. A job he was able to do because the mercenary guilds don't much care for your past, due to the low life expectancy of mercenaries in my DMs world, the mercenary guilds will hire anybody as long as you prove yourself as capable.
Just in case you are thinking that being in a mercenary guild solves the guild problem, mercenary guilds don't provide any benefits other than finding you work. They are the employment agencies of my DMs world - they find work for you and take a cut of your salary, but don't give you any other benefits. They don't even work together for the most part.
I had at first; thought about making him a Rogue, and giving him the Mastermind archetype as I felt that being a Mastermind Rogue fit better with his background as a guild merchant and former business owner and also with his backstory as well. However; when I built that character, it didn't seem like there would be all that much that I could do with it. While the rest of my party was killing beasties, I would be on the sidelines, scheming and plotting, and with precious few hit points and no real way to increase them, I wouldn't be much good in a fight either. Besides, I didn't want to be the guy who ran away screaming, every time something big and hairy showed up.
Also, the whole scheming and plotting thing went against his Lawful Good alignment and his fair, honest and just nature.
Sadly though, there are not many skills that use STR, and none that benefit from CON. Also, the background that I have chosen gives me two useless social skill proficiencies that don't make sense for a fighter. I realise that I could have switched out my two class proficiencies at least, as shown here ddb.ac/characters/11977613/xG6tuD but that's still a waste of skill proficiencies.
Also, an acrobatic dwarf seems more like a comical character, who tumbles all over the place. A circus clown perhaps!
All in all, his proficiencies don't make any sense, no matter what I do, but when you think about it - he has changed career and lifestyle, so it makes sense that he would have skills from his former life, which don't fit into his current one. Though I do wish that I could have his proficiencies benefiting more from his stats, instead of trying to fight them - no pun intended.
I will try the stat block you suggest and see what he looks like with those numbers and then get back to you on that.
Whiskey Brackenweed: https://ddb.ac/characters/11867152/gEf0nn
STR: 16. | DEX: 14. | CON: 16. | INT: 12. | WIS: 10. | CHA: 8
He is a level 1 mountain dwarf fighter. Although he comes from a long line of smiths, he apprenticed with a master brewer, before eventually joining a merchants guild, who helped him to set up his own business and through which he sold his wares.
He worked hard and diligently, climbing the social ladder as he did so, becoming quite well known for his excellent ale and beautiful meads and was doing quite well for himself. His social position seemed secure, and his future was looking bright until one fateful day; when he was summoned before a tribunal to answer for a crime that he did not commit.
Months before, his guild had been robbed by someone who had taken a significant amount of money from the guilds treasury. The culprit had disappeared, seemingly without a trace, but the investigation had continued, and now evidence had been uncovered that seemed to point to one person; Whiskey Brackenweed! Whiskey protested his innocence and offered his alibis and his testimony to the contrary, but it made no difference. The tribunal found him guilty as charged and he lost everything for which he had worked so hard. The tribunal confiscated all of his properties, his reputation lay in tatters, and with his honour besmirched; he lost his social standing, and his clan rejected him.
What pained Whiskey the most, however; was that never again would he walk the halls of his fathers, or look upon the splendours of his ancestors, for henceforth, was he banished from the Kingdom of Thamdarihm, until such time that he had redeemed himself in the eyes of the tribunal.
Penniless and alone, he wandered around the human's kingdoms for a while, taking odd jobs where he could. Eventually, he fell into the life of a soldier for hire, defending the human trade caravans that cross through the wild country. Sometimes he even gets a glimpse of the mountains that mark the border of Thamdarihm and although knowing that he can never get any closer, fills him with sorrow, being this close to the home and the people he loves also fills him with warmth and kindles the flame of hope in his heart.
He hates that work - being a soldier for hire - how far he has fallen from those gilded mountain halls, but his pride will not let him do anything other than his best, and so gives it his all, taking on one job after another, and ever dreaming of the day, when having redeemed himself, he will finally return home.
When he is not working, he likes nothing more than sitting by a roaring fire, sharing with a cup, or two, or three, or 10 of the good stuff with his human friends. Also; despite not being much of a story taller himself, he likes hearing stories of ages past and the great heroes of old. Especially when those heroes are dwarfs or the stories speak of dwarfs in a favourable light.
Although sometimes prideful and arrogant, Whiskey Brackenweed is a dwarf of great honour and integrity, who is courageous and loyal to a fault; he will never abandon those whom he has sworn to protect, and is the kind of person who always does his best, no matter the personal cost. He firmly believes that it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak and he won't stand by while the innocent are falsely accused, or allow those who are guilty to escape justice. However, his own experiences have taught him that those who enforce the law are not always correct and that they can have agendas of their own. These experiences are not enough to make him abandon his beliefs, but they have made him that bit more likely to stand in defence of the accused - especially if all the facts are yet to be known. In short, where once he would have blindly followed the law and stubbornly believed that only the guilty get punished, he is now more of an advocate of the search for the truth.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Yeah looks good. You can move that +2 DEX around (dont need it for attacks or AC) depending on what the party comp needs.
I like the concept immensely!
Nice concept. Giggled a bit when I saw the name. The dex bonus is indeed a bit flexible, depending on if you want higher initiaitve and some non-str ranged weapons or higher skills.
Any idea which archetype you want him to be? it can influence your starting stats a bit.
he is already a shield dwarf, geared towards defence, and I plan on taking Battle Master at third level, and then adding my 4th level ASI into CON as seen here - https://ddb.ac/characters/11959516/CHUUnV so having at least some DEX would come in handy, although I am going to concentrate on CON and then STR first. That's why I wanted to start off with a +2 in DEX.
The idea is that my character (the fighter) and my fellow players character (the paladin) draws a line in the sand, and creates an impregnable barrier. We are the strongest characters with the most hit points, and so we are supposed to last the longest, locking down the enemy, stopping them from attacking our allies and letting the squishy characters unload their nova attacks in relative safety.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
May want to consider getting Sentinel feat at level 4 instead of ASI.
Just checked out that feat and it's pretty interesting. Being able to stop an enemy in their tracks every time they provoke an attack of opportunity, is pretty powerful. Add to that more chanes to get an attack of opportunity in the first place and an additional attack against enemies who attack my allies (under certain circumstances) and it makes for one crazy defense feat, worth sacrificing an ASI for.
Thanks for pointing it out.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Have you considered moving points from DEX & INT to WIS & CHA?
With the merchant history and all 4 of your skill proficiencies being in WIS or CHA skills, it seems like you're missing out by not actually being capable in either of those areas - mightn't it be more fun to protect the party from scoundrels & profiteers with your savvy business skills? ^_^
E.g. 16 STR | 10 DEX | 16 CON | 10 INT | 13 WIS | 12 CHA
I was thinking 13 in WIS as the more likely ability to be bumped up by a feat (either Resilient or Observant) - in the long run, I'd also suggest Shield Master over DEX ASI; boosts your saves and provides a very handy bonus action option.
Also; one little thing that bugs me about the Guild Merchant background, which perhaps you can negotiate with your DM - as a disgraced & exiled former member the Guild Membership feature will be immediately defunct, meaning you basically have no background feature what-so-ever. Would your DM possibly let you swap it for Mercenary Life?
That also bugged me as well, especially since I have to keep paying 5G per month for a background feature that I am unable to use. Though I suppose that this could be spun as the Guild slowly recovering the stolen funds, but then you could rightly ask - why is he paying it back if he didn't take it. I am not doing anything weird with this character, like saying that he has been telling lies all time or anything like that - I am pretty straight up with him, he was genuinely falsely accused.
Regardless, I still have a useless background feature that is costing my character gold.
I will admit that being a fighter is somewhat at odds with his background and experiences as a brewer and a guild merchant. Though in the world that my DM has created, all the guilds communicate with each other, even across kingdoms. So I was playing this as; the only work he was able to get was odd jobs that mostly consisted of manual labour. However; being a manual labourer isn't very conducive to becoming an adventurer, so I had him become a mercenary soldier. A job he was able to do because the mercenary guilds don't much care for your past, due to the low life expectancy of mercenaries in my DMs world, the mercenary guilds will hire anybody as long as you prove yourself as capable.
Just in case you are thinking that being in a mercenary guild solves the guild problem, mercenary guilds don't provide any benefits other than finding you work. They are the employment agencies of my DMs world - they find work for you and take a cut of your salary, but don't give you any other benefits. They don't even work together for the most part.
I had at first; thought about making him a Rogue, and giving him the Mastermind archetype as I felt that being a Mastermind Rogue fit better with his background as a guild merchant and former business owner and also with his backstory as well. However; when I built that character, it didn't seem like there would be all that much that I could do with it. While the rest of my party was killing beasties, I would be on the sidelines, scheming and plotting, and with precious few hit points and no real way to increase them, I wouldn't be much good in a fight either. Besides, I didn't want to be the guy who ran away screaming, every time something big and hairy showed up.
Also, the whole scheming and plotting thing went against his Lawful Good alignment and his fair, honest and just nature.
Sadly though, there are not many skills that use STR, and none that benefit from CON. Also, the background that I have chosen gives me two useless social skill proficiencies that don't make sense for a fighter. I realise that I could have switched out my two class proficiencies at least, as shown here ddb.ac/characters/11977613/xG6tuD but that's still a waste of skill proficiencies.
Also, an acrobatic dwarf seems more like a comical character, who tumbles all over the place. A circus clown perhaps!
All in all, his proficiencies don't make any sense, no matter what I do, but when you think about it - he has changed career and lifestyle, so it makes sense that he would have skills from his former life, which don't fit into his current one. Though I do wish that I could have his proficiencies benefiting more from his stats, instead of trying to fight them - no pun intended.
I will try the stat block you suggest and see what he looks like with those numbers and then get back to you on that.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.