My first character

Character concepts, never have two words caused such dread amongst DMs since, plot and adventure or Dungeons and Dragons, so what is the problem?

Whilst is it very hard to create something totally unusable, there is a big difference between random picks and building towards an end.

I want to show you a few tricks, they are not optimisation as is understood today, what they are is a series of ways you can keep the concept without being significantly weaker than others or even worse a liability.

Whilst it may seem like as a player, you show up and roll dice and that’s about it, there are a few extremes to avoid, the first is can I break DnD, yes you can, not hard, don’t the point of DnD is to have fun, and breaking the game means at least one of you, the DM is not, the second which is almost as bad is the liability. You charge the death knight in what amounts to a lion cloth and a twig. Good for you, the rest of your group is not having fun.

On the other hand Bob the underwhelming who proudly boasts he has never been beaten in a swordfight is going to have a disconnect between background and the reality at the table, so now you are not having fun.

So with that in mind, let’s stop some of the liabilities:

I am amazing at everything:

No fix. A fundamental conceit of the game and why you are a group is that you cannot be amazing at everything, you can be marginally useful at most things, true, but often you are coving deficits you don’t really cover all that well and often at the expense of what you do want to be good at. So either decide being second best at most things is your bag or yes specialise.

Think in roles rather than specifics.

Like it or not some concepts cannot be modelled very well. Not a problem, hulk is a rage machine so a Goliath barbarian is not perfect but it gives off the same idea of oppressive physical presence. Give them tavern brawler and yes you can slap people around with similar effect as people with weapons. So if you are struggling with a concept what is it about the concept you like? The inspired speech guy, musician feat, does it make a lick of sense he is a one man orchestra? Nope, but it lets you do the inspired speeches. The goal is not to reproduce the source exactly. The goal is for somebody looking at your character in play to say 'oh, that's clearly what you were going for” not that it is a carbon copy.

What am I supposed to be good at?

Let’s put down some markers, only 1 level. +5 is I can compete with the best, +4 is good, +3 is not bad, +2 is competent and +1 is a hobby. So when you build try and get +5 where it matters, if you can’t no lower than +4. Social games are funny things and if someone is regularly hitting more doing more damage and that’s what you should be doing, well fun can be hard to come by.

What can be cut?

Okay let me just strap you down and bite down on the leather strap, or what is it you really care about. Sometimes you place so many restrictions on the concept (like the “be good at everything” idea) that the game just can’t get there, so decide what is non-negotiable and what can be tweaked out of alignment, do you really need to be an elf, and do you really need to be a social butterfly? You might say yes, of course, but try not to say yes to everything, will a +3 do or must it be +5? +5 is a serious investment, +3 normally can be reached with far, far less.

Wizard with a Greatsword! Axe! Halberd!

Magic initiate covers a lot of ground, the cantrips and 1 level choices allow you go solve many intractable issues, so for our wizard if he takes true strike then whatever weapon can be with a +3, not earth shattering but not bad. Others to think about, friends can let you turn on charm, guidance, lets you get a slightly higher skill bonus, good berry lets you survive almost anywhere.

Solving the problem elsewhere.

Sometimes your concept has no class equivalent or sadly god like attributes was not on the menu today, no matter, at first level you have background, cantrips and 1 level spells-through magic initiate, skills and equipment to still make it happen. Now don’t get hung up on the labels, the only person you have to convince about your character being a noble is the DM, not having noble background on your sheet. Need to be athletic but no easy way to get it? Use spells, use an origin feat or a background to get it, re-flavour the background and you have done it. 

Human to the rescue:

If you have a difficult concept, decide if species really matters, if not, human buys another origin feat and another skill and that oh boy gives you a huge margin to build in other things, so our odd weapon and class combo can now pick up true strike without being forced to take sage. That Archaeologist with a hat and whip (totally original concept mind) can be a rogue with history or arcana without too much effort.

I want to be <insert Marvel or DC Character here>

Many superheroes are physical types with some super human buffs and are charismatic. For most of these builds I favour Warlock and pact of blade. The spells tend to be buffs so we get better speed, enhanced abilities and the blade pact means we are physical types without the full outlay of attributes elsewhere.

17 vs 16

Some builds you end up having a 16 in the attribute that matters however be aware if you do that then at 4 level ASI is going to be attractive, whereas if you get to 17 off the bat then feats which add other abilities whilst getting you to 18 are available or you can wait until level 8. This tends to be a little forgotten in optimisations but you clearly would like to be good at all levels and your other players would not like to carry you for three levels.

Weapon builds:

Like or not you are going to have to understand a fair bit and the differences soon add up, so masteries, fighting styles, the unbelievably complicated two weapon fighting rules all layers on top of each other. Now there are guides to most of this out there, so go look and be aware they are optimised around that idea, now good news, chances are so is your concept but decide if its core to the concept, so okay at weapon build might get you home, the guides tend to concentrate on how to be the best, which means a mastery might do, not masteries, styles, and background all pointing in the same way.

Does this need to have mechanics?

You would not consider a lisp to require character decisions beyond your own thoughts right? Well does flower arranging really need nature skill, or poetry performance? These things can be glossed over, they can remain important to your ideas, but they don’t need to be modelled.

I hope that you found this useful, don't feel like you have to play some 'net copy of a super character, play what you want but not to the detriment of others and have fun. Oh and if you get it wrong don't worry, we all have done that.