OK, confession time. Even though this game has been out for a few years, I have not had a chance to play it yet despite purchasing the book when it first came out. When the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Players Handbook was released in 2014 I was playing in a very long-running Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign with a very good Dungeon Master. This game didn’t end until late 2019. While I’ve been looking to get into a D&D 5E game, an opportunity hadn’t come up yet. Then the COVID-19 bleakness hit and while I’ve moved to some online RPGs (which is tolerable, but not preferred) none of them have been for this system. My college-age child has played the 5E game quite a few times with friends and loves it. I was also in a game store a few weeks ago and the owner described how 5E was more simpler and streamlined than the previous edition. While I’ve read through the rules, and they intrigued me, I haven’t had a chance to play. So for the Character Creation Challenge I decided that one of the entries would be for this edition.
I’m going to go with a race and class that I haven’t seen in the earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Morthos will be a Tiefling Warlock who is on a quest for knowledge out in the unkind world he inhabits.
The RAW instruct me to roll 4d6 for each attribute and drop the lowest die. We then assign the scores to each attribute. I like this method because I think it makes for more heroic characters. With the racial modifiers Morthos ended up with STR: 11, DEX: 11, CON: 12, INT: 15, WIS: 15, CHA: 20 (I rolled an 18 and added 2 for being a Tiefling). I also like the fact that the starting hit points at 1st level is the max for the class plus CON modifier. This gave me 9 hit points.
There character sheet had very small fields for equipment and spells. I placed equipment on the 2nd page and the spells would eventually end up on the same page, so I just put them there. I found out after I had completed everything that I was missing a third page. The skill section could have used a little bit more explanation. I also elected to use feats since I was familiar with them from the 3.5 game. I think I got the bulk of the items needed down. Feel free to shoot me a message if I made any major mistakes. Here is the character sheet:
Afterthoughts:
I can see the appeal of 5th edition. It seems a little bit more streamlined. I wonder if the actual gameplay is that way. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to find out soon. I thought it was interesting that humans get +1 to all attributes (usually they don’t as they are the base race). I liked some of the spells. As I mentioned above, the feats and skills could have been explained a little bit better. But I feel like I should be able to pick it up quick.
Additional Notes:
I came across another blog participating in the challenge today and added it to the CCC page. I’m still on the hunt for others. I am very pleased with how many people on the RPG.net message board who are participating in the challenge. I’ve even received a few “thank yous” for suggesting this. I’m glad that others are getting joy out of this.
Coming Up Next:
Mutant Crawl Classics by Goodman Games