I'm planning on characters to play for when our next campaign starts and want to play a someone everyone else is going to hate. My guy/gal will be someone who idolizes others they just meet or think is cool. So when my character meets a new person of a class I have no experience with, he will view that person as someone he wants to be and will take his next level in that class. So, assuming he doesn't die somehow, he will likely have multi-classed in 5 or 6 classes by the end. I was hoping that you could give me some advise on what would be a good race/class to start as. My lowest score is going to be in intelligence because no intelligent person would do this, so what do you see as the dumbest/most likely race that would do something this stupid?
If it matters, I plan to have to character to be very highly open to suggestion from whomever he idolizes at the moment and will be willing to do whatever that person says, even if it's dangerous and will likely end in their death (which I suspect will happen before I reach lvl 8).
Well you are going to need at least a 13 in STR, DEX, WIS, and CHA (INT if you ever want to be wizard) to become most classes, so a race with a lot of ASIs like human or half elf is probably good.
If you're committed to them dying, it hardly matters. If you want a dilettante, with levels in a bunch of classes, you could build a skill monkey and still make yourself useful, just in case you like the character. Start with a 1/2 elf with a sage background and say they're an undeclared major at the university. Then go School of Lore Bard or Knowledge Domain Cleric, or Scout Rogue. If you survive to level 8 you can have all the skills with something like 8 expertises, and a ton of languages. You won't be a franchise player in combat, but you'll own all the scenes between combats.
I'm not committed to them dying, I just expect the other player to hate him and send him in first to take the bulk of the damage or as a decoy. I would love it if they survive through the end of the game, I just don't expect to last that long. I'm pretty much doing this because I think I would be a great character to play one time.
I am also a fairly new player and know that you need Int to be a wizard (even though I've never played one) but could you get a rank as a wizard with a low Int? Wouldn't that just mean that you wouldn't be able to cast any spells? I didn't think Int was a requirement.
There are minimum stats to multiclass out of and into any class. Check the Player's Handbook. To be a level 1 wizard , you don't have to have any particular int. To be a level 1 wizard and a level one monk, you have to have an int of 13 AND a Dex of 13 AND a Wis of 13! So INT needn't be your best stat, but it's not a dump stat either. OTOH, you can get spells with Arcane Trickster Rogue levels, or Eldritch Knight fighter levels, or whatever.
I think for a project like this, your highest stats should be CHA, which can get you levels in Bard, Warlock, and Sorcerer, and DEX, which can get you Fighter and Rogue. Or WIS for Cleric and Druid. If you want to be hated and used as a meat shield AND survive, you should probably start with Moon Druid until at least level 2 or maybe Fighter for heavy armor.
With DEX and WIS of 13, you can take levels in Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, and Rogue.
With STR of 13 and CHA of 13, you can get levels in Barbarian, Bard, Fighter, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Warlock.
If you're intending to have horrible stats and a terrible personality, it looks to me like you outlined that character just fine in your original post.
Otherwise, you could just RP an annoying character without the stat problems.
I saw one character that thinks anything anyone else can do is easy. The character tries to do whatever someone else can do and, because that character simply doesn't have the ability, always fails. The character was originally the only one who wasn't a magic user and tries to ham up the few spells the character has now, of which only two are useful. Annoying, but still entertaining. (Every character in the group has one quality that all the other characters dislike but make up for it by having effective, key abilities that nobody else has - no matter how easy that one thinks it should be to do it.)
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I suggest talking to your DM to see what ideas they have for implementing your idea; they may be willing to homebrew rules or items to facilitate you.
As an example, a couple years ago one of my friends played a half-orc with an Int of 8 who thought he was a wizard. Actually, his official class on his character sheet was Barbarian, and he never cross-classed. However, because the DM really liked this idea, they worked together to create a magic item - a spellbook that actually required the user to have a negative Int modifier (anyone with an Int of 10 or higher who tried to read the spellbook would just see illegible gibberish). This spellbook allowed the "wizard" to attempt to cast a certain number of spells per day, but with a chance of failure, and the higher-level the spell the greater the failure chance. (And if the attempt failed badly enough than some ****ery would happen.)
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
If you use point buy, you can get all the 13s you need (and even a few points left over for CON or some 14s) regardless of race. Using standard array, it is impossible to meet every prerequisite without getting an ASI at level 4 first regardless of what race you are.
That said, I recomend starting as a half-elf rogue or bard and trying to go skill monkey. More skill proficiencies (and expertise) will make up for your low stats for skills. For combat, I recomend trying to fill a support role that does not rely on spell save DCs. Try to give allies advantage even if it means using the help action.
I'm still new to this game so I was not aware that you needed minimum stats to play characters. Thank you for letting me know. Everyone has been very helpful!
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Hi,
I'm planning on characters to play for when our next campaign starts and want to play a someone everyone else is going to hate. My guy/gal will be someone who idolizes others they just meet or think is cool. So when my character meets a new person of a class I have no experience with, he will view that person as someone he wants to be and will take his next level in that class. So, assuming he doesn't die somehow, he will likely have multi-classed in 5 or 6 classes by the end. I was hoping that you could give me some advise on what would be a good race/class to start as. My lowest score is going to be in intelligence because no intelligent person would do this, so what do you see as the dumbest/most likely race that would do something this stupid?
If it matters, I plan to have to character to be very highly open to suggestion from whomever he idolizes at the moment and will be willing to do whatever that person says, even if it's dangerous and will likely end in their death (which I suspect will happen before I reach lvl 8).
Thank you
Well you are going to need at least a 13 in STR, DEX, WIS, and CHA (INT if you ever want to be wizard) to become most classes, so a race with a lot of ASIs like human or half elf is probably good.
If you're committed to them dying, it hardly matters. If you want a dilettante, with levels in a bunch of classes, you could build a skill monkey and still make yourself useful, just in case you like the character. Start with a 1/2 elf with a sage background and say they're an undeclared major at the university. Then go School of Lore Bard or Knowledge Domain Cleric, or Scout Rogue. If you survive to level 8 you can have all the skills with something like 8 expertises, and a ton of languages. You won't be a franchise player in combat, but you'll own all the scenes between combats.
I'm not committed to them dying, I just expect the other player to hate him and send him in first to take the bulk of the damage or as a decoy. I would love it if they survive through the end of the game, I just don't expect to last that long. I'm pretty much doing this because I think I would be a great character to play one time.
I am also a fairly new player and know that you need Int to be a wizard (even though I've never played one) but could you get a rank as a wizard with a low Int? Wouldn't that just mean that you wouldn't be able to cast any spells? I didn't think Int was a requirement.
Maybe a barbarian as starting class. That would give you a ton of hitpoints.
There are minimum stats to multiclass out of and into any class. Check the Player's Handbook. To be a level 1 wizard , you don't have to have any particular int. To be a level 1 wizard and a level one monk, you have to have an int of 13 AND a Dex of 13 AND a Wis of 13! So INT needn't be your best stat, but it's not a dump stat either. OTOH, you can get spells with Arcane Trickster Rogue levels, or Eldritch Knight fighter levels, or whatever.
I think for a project like this, your highest stats should be CHA, which can get you levels in Bard, Warlock, and Sorcerer, and DEX, which can get you Fighter and Rogue. Or WIS for Cleric and Druid. If you want to be hated and used as a meat shield AND survive, you should probably start with Moon Druid until at least level 2 or maybe Fighter for heavy armor.
With DEX and WIS of 13, you can take levels in Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, and Rogue.
With STR of 13 and CHA of 13, you can get levels in Barbarian, Bard, Fighter, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Warlock.
If you're intending to have horrible stats and a terrible personality, it looks to me like you outlined that character just fine in your original post.
Otherwise, you could just RP an annoying character without the stat problems.
I saw one character that thinks anything anyone else can do is easy. The character tries to do whatever someone else can do and, because that character simply doesn't have the ability, always fails. The character was originally the only one who wasn't a magic user and tries to ham up the few spells the character has now, of which only two are useful. Annoying, but still entertaining. (Every character in the group has one quality that all the other characters dislike but make up for it by having effective, key abilities that nobody else has - no matter how easy that one thinks it should be to do it.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I suggest talking to your DM to see what ideas they have for implementing your idea; they may be willing to homebrew rules or items to facilitate you.
As an example, a couple years ago one of my friends played a half-orc with an Int of 8 who thought he was a wizard. Actually, his official class on his character sheet was Barbarian, and he never cross-classed. However, because the DM really liked this idea, they worked together to create a magic item - a spellbook that actually required the user to have a negative Int modifier (anyone with an Int of 10 or higher who tried to read the spellbook would just see illegible gibberish). This spellbook allowed the "wizard" to attempt to cast a certain number of spells per day, but with a chance of failure, and the higher-level the spell the greater the failure chance. (And if the attempt failed badly enough than some ****ery would happen.)
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
If you use point buy, you can get all the 13s you need (and even a few points left over for CON or some 14s) regardless of race. Using standard array, it is impossible to meet every prerequisite without getting an ASI at level 4 first regardless of what race you are.
That said, I recomend starting as a half-elf rogue or bard and trying to go skill monkey. More skill proficiencies (and expertise) will make up for your low stats for skills. For combat, I recomend trying to fill a support role that does not rely on spell save DCs. Try to give allies advantage even if it means using the help action.
Kenku wins as most annoying race.
Thinking he was a wizard is awesome. I would have loved to see that.
I'm still new to this game so I was not aware that you needed minimum stats to play characters. Thank you for letting me know. Everyone has been very helpful!