Kvothe the Bloodless. Kvothe the Arcane. Kvothe Six-String. The protagonist of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicles has earned many names and titles, making his background an interesting and complex one. Born to a runaway noble and the leader of a troupe of transient Edema Ruh entertainers. Apprentice to a travelling arcanist and tinker. Street urchin in Tarbean, student at the University, Talented musician at the Eolian, Adem-trained swordsman, and (pen?)ultimately a tavern keeper. There’s a good amount of material here to work into a player character.
Class
Some class options suggest themselves. Kvothe plays a seven stringed lute (or six strings, or five) and has a quick wit, which screams Bard. He’s training at the University with a focus on Sympathy (Wizard), artificing (Artificer), and Naming (perhaps Wizard again?). The Sympathy he’s able to perform is not “high magic”, mostly cantrip or 1st level spells. It’s also described as being much more a science than true magic. Naming, much more powerful and magical, would lend itself to a more magical class as well were it a larger part of Kvothe’s character. The Adem’s fighting style is arguably more Monk-ish, with focus on the philosophy of Lethani.
Kvothe is a performer first, so we have to choose Bard as the primary class. A distinction can be drawn between a simple performer who can play an instrument and a Bard who has found the magic in music, and Kvothe has certainly crossed that line. Throughout the adventure, he likely took a level or three in Monk and/or Artificer to account for his training in Adem and at the University.
What do you think? I've gotten a lot of feedback that CG isn't the right alignment. I had different ideas too but if you follow the link that's what Rothfuss suggested so I went with that. Also remember that this is Kvothe at the end of Name of the Wind, before A Wise Man's Fear and far before the frame story of Kote the innkeeper.
I’m pretty sure that Rothfuss is a rogue, probably multiclassed, when he plays as Viari (based on Kvothe) with Aquisitions Incorporated. Granted I never could find a copy of his character sheet online.
I just started playing Dnd for the first time and really wanted to make a character based on Kvothe because i love the books so much. Im having some trouble thinking of what to build off of the bard starting class. Clearly from the books Kvothe thought of himself first and foremost as Edema Ruh. but what do you think comes after that. Do you think his early training with Ben would give being a arcanist precedent or are his years in Tarbeen are more central to who he is?
I think the bard, college of lore, is the obvious choice for a kvothe build.
1. Limit your spells to those you can explain their effects using sympathy. Some of my favorites are: Sleep - Have Kvothe ingest a strong sleeping agent and then use his blood and a binding to push the sleeping spell onto others. Heat Metal - This one is pretty obvious but use a piece of metal and a heat source to overheat the bad guys sword or breast plate. Hold Person - Use a makeshift simulacrum to bind the bad guy.
2. Take the Telekinetic feat from Tasha's. Use it's invisible mage hand as basic sympathy as needed.
3. When you take magical secrets choose spells that Kvothe learns a true name for. So at 6th level Kvothe "learns the name of the wind" and can now cast wind wall and Fly (I also like him learning the word for time and casting haste and slow). Then at 10th level Kvothe "learns the name of fire" and can cast flame wall and flame strike.
4. Give him the urchin background, because Kvothe was an Urchin before he started his story.
5. Get proficiency in tinker's tools (Better yet work with your DM to create artificer tools (or even guilder's tools)) So that you can work on creating items in your free time. Even with tinker's tools you can make lots of different bombs, as a DM I would even work with you to make an arrow catch.
6. I guess you can take a level of monk at some point if you want, but honestly even after Kvothe trained in adem he still feels more like a bard who sometimes likes to get beat up then an actaul monk who fights well. If it was me i would probably just take a dip in rogue and equip a rapier instead, it will hit the flavor and help you feel less MAD.
I am currently playing through this style of bard in a campaign and finding it a lot of fun. I feel like it puts a lot of well needed limitations on the bard as a whole which helps him feel less OP and pushed for the casual playgroup I am in.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Kvothe the Bloodless. Kvothe the Arcane. Kvothe Six-String. The protagonist of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicles has earned many names and titles, making his background an interesting and complex one. Born to a runaway noble and the leader of a troupe of transient Edema Ruh entertainers. Apprentice to a travelling arcanist and tinker. Street urchin in Tarbean, student at the University, Talented musician at the Eolian, Adem-trained swordsman, and (pen?)ultimately a tavern keeper. There’s a good amount of material here to work into a player character.
Class
Some class options suggest themselves. Kvothe plays a seven stringed lute (or six strings, or five) and has a quick wit, which screams Bard. He’s training at the University with a focus on Sympathy (Wizard), artificing (Artificer), and Naming (perhaps Wizard again?). The Sympathy he’s able to perform is not “high magic”, mostly cantrip or 1st level spells. It’s also described as being much more a science than true magic. Naming, much more powerful and magical, would lend itself to a more magical class as well were it a larger part of Kvothe’s character. The Adem’s fighting style is arguably more Monk-ish, with focus on the philosophy of Lethani.
Kvothe is a performer first, so we have to choose Bard as the primary class. A distinction can be drawn between a simple performer who can play an instrument and a Bard who has found the magic in music, and Kvothe has certainly crossed that line. Throughout the adventure, he likely took a level or three in Monk and/or Artificer to account for his training in Adem and at the University.
For more, including the Background and a stat block, visit the full article on my blog.
What do you think? I've gotten a lot of feedback that CG isn't the right alignment. I had different ideas too but if you follow the link that's what Rothfuss suggested so I went with that. Also remember that this is Kvothe at the end of Name of the Wind, before A Wise Man's Fear and far before the frame story of Kote the innkeeper.
I think he's a tricky character to create and would require you go beyond the regularly character building rules.
Ahhh, I really enjoy those books
I’m pretty sure that Rothfuss is a rogue, probably multiclassed, when he plays as Viari (based on Kvothe) with Aquisitions Incorporated. Granted I never could find a copy of his character sheet online.
PC: Brozznan Kane - Undead in Skyraker |
DM:
Popular Stream Character Sheets
I just started playing Dnd for the first time and really wanted to make a character based on Kvothe because i love the books so much. Im having some trouble thinking of what to build off of the bard starting class. Clearly from the books Kvothe thought of himself first and foremost as Edema Ruh. but what do you think comes after that. Do you think his early training with Ben would give being a arcanist precedent or are his years in Tarbeen are more central to who he is?
I think the bard, college of lore, is the obvious choice for a kvothe build.
1. Limit your spells to those you can explain their effects using sympathy. Some of my favorites are: Sleep - Have Kvothe ingest a strong sleeping agent and then use his blood and a binding to push the sleeping spell onto others. Heat Metal - This one is pretty obvious but use a piece of metal and a heat source to overheat the bad guys sword or breast plate. Hold Person - Use a makeshift simulacrum to bind the bad guy.
2. Take the Telekinetic feat from Tasha's. Use it's invisible mage hand as basic sympathy as needed.
3. When you take magical secrets choose spells that Kvothe learns a true name for. So at 6th level Kvothe "learns the name of the wind" and can now cast wind wall and Fly (I also like him learning the word for time and casting haste and slow). Then at 10th level Kvothe "learns the name of fire" and can cast flame wall and flame strike.
4. Give him the urchin background, because Kvothe was an Urchin before he started his story.
5. Get proficiency in tinker's tools (Better yet work with your DM to create artificer tools (or even guilder's tools)) So that you can work on creating items in your free time. Even with tinker's tools you can make lots of different bombs, as a DM I would even work with you to make an arrow catch.
6. I guess you can take a level of monk at some point if you want, but honestly even after Kvothe trained in adem he still feels more like a bard who sometimes likes to get beat up then an actaul monk who fights well. If it was me i would probably just take a dip in rogue and equip a rapier instead, it will hit the flavor and help you feel less MAD.
I am currently playing through this style of bard in a campaign and finding it a lot of fun. I feel like it puts a lot of well needed limitations on the bard as a whole which helps him feel less OP and pushed for the casual playgroup I am in.