My group doesn't use maps or figures, just Theater of the Mind. I like to visualize things though, so I thought about making a cartographer character. That way I can scribble my own maps as we play and we can all have something to look at.
For this to work, I'd have to ask the DM a few questions each time we enter a new room or hallway, but I'd want to minimize the number of questions asked to speed things up. I don't want to waste everyone's time. The minimum info I need is: shape, size, and exits. Though not required, it's also worth asking if there are any notable features, like ledges, columns, holes, etc. So those are my four questions each time: "Shape?", "Size?", "Number of visible exits?", "Any notable features?". Asking 4 questions and getting 4 answers takes what, 20 seconds? My group usually spends anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple hours (if there's a fight) exploring each room we find, so an extra 20 seconds to get a clear visual is worth it IMO. Plus, it's cool to keep records of everything.
As for the character itself, I figured I'd try to pimp out his cartography skills. There are only 4 ways to acquire proficiency in Cartographer's Tools: the Skilled feat, Folk Hero background, Guild Artisan-Cartographer background, and a sneaky way. The sneaky way is from page 125 in the PHB, under Proficiencies: "If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead." For example, Rogues already get proficiency with Thieves' tools, but if they also take the Criminal background, which also gives proficiency in Thieves' tools, you can choose a different tool to gain proficiency in, such as Cartographer's tools. It's worth noting that a few races offer the option to pick proficiency in any skill, but they don't say "tools", so it's not RAW. Also, before you ask, there are a few ways to gain proficiency in Navigator's tools, but that's for mapping the stars and determining your position. It doesn't help with mapping land.
If we want to get double proficiency bonus in the tools, I'm afraid there's no RAW way that I see. I looked up the wording under Expertise for both Rogue and Bard, and unfortunately you can't apply it to tools (except Theives' tools). Knowledge Cleric's Blessings of Knowledge doesn't apply either. Oddly enough, Bard's Jack of All Trades would work to boost it, but only if we're not taking proficiency in it, which we will be.
The Keen Mind feat looks necessary, because we always know which way is north and we memorize everything we see for a month. This actually got me thinking about how I could make use of this, which got me thinking about general playstyle. How would one play a cartographer character? How can I be the most effective for my group? The answer is simple: scouting.
A cartographer can sneak ahead and map out the next room or two, then report back, show the group what's ahead, and form a plan of attack. Rogues and Trickery Clerics would be great at this. Arcane Rogues can Invisible themselves and use Mage Hand to disarm traps. Thief Rogues get Fast Hands and advantage on Stealth checks. Trickery Clerics get Pass Without Trace and Find Traps. Then I got to thinking, and realized that separating from the group is kinda dangerous, so instead of sending me, what if I sent a pet?
Beastmaster Rangers, Pact of the Chain Warlocks, and Wizards with a Familiar can all send their pet to scout and report back without any "big" risk. Awakened pets would be a "big" risk, because if your pet dies, you're out 1000g (casting cost). But Find Familiar? 10g. You'll be sitting on thousands of gold by level 10, so whatever, no biggie if your pet dies and you have to re-summon it. Honestly, this would work for anyone with access to the Find Familiar spell. You can get this spell either from the Magic Initiate feat or the Ritual Caster feat, meaning any class can be a good cartographer with a pet scout. What's the most optimal though? Warlock. Here's why:
First of all, Pact of the Chain gives you Find Familiar as a ritual (without having to take the Ritual Caster feat). Voice of the Chain Master means your pet isn't limited to a 100ft range for you to see/hear/smell through it, and you can speak through it too. They also get access to better pets: Imps, Quasits, Psuedodragons, and Sprites. Imps are ridiculously durable. Damage resistances to all weapons that aren't silvered, damage immunity to fire/poison (common types for traps, so they won't die every time they trigger one), they can fly, polymorph into a good variety of forms (ravens with 60ft fly speed is particularly nice for a scout), they get resistance to saving throws vs magic... Jebus. Quasits are very similar and Psuedodragons can telepathically talk to people (combined with Voice of the Chain Master means you can have some mindfking fun). Sprites...are interesting. They have a higher Stealth (if you don't fly, so don't fly if you don't have to), at-will Invisibility (WHAT?!), and 2HP (oh........). At low levels, I would avoid them because they'll die too often, while your tanky Imp will survive a trap or two. At middle levels, even your Imps are gonna die because their HP doesn't scale, so I'd go with Sprites for their extra sneakiness. At high levels you won't even be using your familiars to scout because you'll have access to Visions of Distant Realms for at-will Arcane Eye. HOLY CRAP. Do you guys even know how good this is? Let me explain:
Arcane Eye lets you summon an invisible, 1-inch eye with access to darkvision that can move 30ft a round in any direction. And the spell lasts an hour... 30ft a round*10 rounds a minute*60 minutes in an hour=18,000ft. EIGHTEEN THOUSAND FEET OF SCOUTING. AT-WILL. That's 3.5 miles or 5.5 kilometers of safe, invisible scouting. And you can go up too and get a layout of the land, before 'zooming' in on a certain area. My god. This is a cartographer's wet dream. He'd probably retire from adventuring and just sit at home while his eye and familiar both scout everything for miles in every direction. You can take a sorcerer dip for Extended spell too lmfao (don't actually do this...).
The downsides here are the fact that you don't get a pet until level 3 as Warlock (vs level 1 as a Wizard or someone with the Ritual Caster/Magic Initiate feat) and your Visions of Distant Realms is pretty high level too (level 15). If you really can't wait 2 levels, then you can either take one of those feats (Ritual Caster would be more optimal) as a Variant Human at level 1 or start with a Wizard multiclass dip. A level in Wizard would get you extra first level slots to play with (unfortunately, you don't also benefit from the recharging slots, because you already have that as a Warlock). 2 levels would get you things like Hypnotic Gaze (ask your DM if it works through your familiar!) or Portent. Multiclassing means you miss out on Eldritch Master and potentially an ASI, as well as delaying your Warlock levels. I don't think any of these is worth it, except maybe Ritual Caster. Ritual Caster can give you things like Identify, Detect Magic, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Rary's Telepathic Bond (can bond your Familiar with your party, kinda cool), and Drawmij's Instant Summons.
If we decide to take Wizard 1 for Find Familiar, we get extra spell slots and we also get extra spells! Our casting mod for these spells is INT, so I wouldn't take attack spells. For the 3 cantrips: Friends (doesn't need INT, no save, great for Intimidation because they're hostile afterward anyway), Light (if you don't have Darkvision), Mage Hand, Mending, Message, or Prestidigitation (instead of Minor Illusion, because no INT save). For 1st level prepared spells (we will have at least 2 with 1 level in Wizard+13 INT minimum for the multiclassing): Alarm (Ritual), Comprehend Languages (R), Detect Magic (R), Disguise Self, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Identify (R), Shield (a really good one!), etc... You get the idea. A lot of these are Rituals too, which Wizards get Ritual Casting for!
Okay, so let's build our character. The best race for this is Variant Human, because they can take Keen Mind right at level 1 (or Ritual Caster if you want to go with the above idea). Minotaurs are the second best because they get a ghetto version of Keen Mind as one of their racials. Aarakocra can fly, so that's nice for flying high to see for miles, but you'll still be a feat behind and your pets can fly anyway. Wood Elves have the highest ground speed for scouting, but if you're using your pet then this is useless.
Rather than rely on taking the Skilled feat, let's take one of the backgrounds that give proficiency Cartographer's tools. Guild Artisan-Cartographer gets better skills than Folk Hero, and you can always sell your maps once you're back in town for gold on the side.
Conclusion, tl;dr
Cartographers play like a scouts, mapping out the next room then returning to your allies to make a plan of attack. The safest way to do this is to use a Familiar instead of scouting yourself.
Variant Human, Guild Artisan-Cartographer background, Keen Mind feat
The 3 best options for classes:
1) Warlock 20, Pact of the Chain, Voice of the Chain Master, Visions of Distant Realms - Can't use a familiar until level 3 with this build, but we get Keen Mind right at level 1.
2) Warlock 20, same as above but take Ritual Caster(Wizard) at level 1 (push Keen Mind to level 4, no biggie) for Find Familiar - the Find Familiar is redundant, because you'd get it anyway at level 3, but now we can Find Familiar for scouting right at level 1. This build lets us learn new Rituals, some of which are pretty good.
3) Wizard 1/Warlock 19, same as above but instead of taking Ritual Caster, we just dip into Wizard at level 1 for Find Familiar - Redundant because you'd get Find Familiar at level 3, but again, this lets us scout right from level 1. This build gives us 2 extra 1st level Spell Slots to use each Short/Long rest too (Warlock will refresh them!), so that's nice. Wizard spells will use INT mod though, so stick to spells like Shield.
For this to work, I'd have to ask the DM a few questions each time we enter a new room or hallway, but I'd want to minimize the number of questions asked to speed things up. I don't want to waste everyone's time. The minimum info I need is: shape, size, and exits. Though not required, it's also worth asking if there are any notable features, like ledges, columns, holes, etc. So those are my four questions each time: "Shape?", "Size?", "Number of visible exits?", "Any notable features?". Asking 4 questions and getting 4 answers takes what, 20 seconds? My group usually spends anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple hours (if there's a fight) exploring each room we find, so an extra 20 seconds to get a clear visual is worth it IMO. Plus, it's cool to keep records of everything.
As for the character itself, I figured I'd try to pimp out his cartography skills. There are only 4 ways to acquire proficiency in Cartographer's Tools: the Skilled feat, Folk Hero background, Guild Artisan-Cartographer background, and a sneaky way. The sneaky way is from page 125 in the PHB, under Proficiencies: "If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead." For example, Rogues already get proficiency with Thieves' tools, but if they also take the Criminal background, which also gives proficiency in Thieves' tools, you can choose a different tool to gain proficiency in, such as Cartographer's tools. It's worth noting that a few races offer the option to pick proficiency in any skill, but they don't say "tools", so it's not RAW. Also, before you ask, there are a few ways to gain proficiency in Navigator's tools, but that's for mapping the stars and determining your position. It doesn't help with mapping land.
If we want to get double proficiency bonus in the tools, I'm afraid there's no RAW way that I see. I looked up the wording under Expertise for both Rogue and Bard, and unfortunately you can't apply it to tools (except Theives' tools). Knowledge Cleric's Blessings of Knowledge doesn't apply either. Oddly enough, Bard's Jack of All Trades would work to boost it, but only if we're not taking proficiency in it, which we will be.
The Keen Mind feat looks necessary, because we always know which way is north and we memorize everything we see for a month. This actually got me thinking about how I could make use of this, which got me thinking about general playstyle. How would one play a cartographer character? How can I be the most effective for my group? The answer is simple: scouting.
A cartographer can sneak ahead and map out the next room or two, then report back, show the group what's ahead, and form a plan of attack. Rogues and Trickery Clerics would be great at this. Arcane Rogues can Invisible themselves and use Mage Hand to disarm traps. Thief Rogues get Fast Hands and advantage on Stealth checks. Trickery Clerics get Pass Without Trace and Find Traps. Then I got to thinking, and realized that separating from the group is kinda dangerous, so instead of sending me, what if I sent a pet?
Beastmaster Rangers, Pact of the Chain Warlocks, and Wizards with a Familiar can all send their pet to scout and report back without any "big" risk. Awakened pets would be a "big" risk, because if your pet dies, you're out 1000g (casting cost). But Find Familiar? 10g. You'll be sitting on thousands of gold by level 10, so whatever, no biggie if your pet dies and you have to re-summon it. Honestly, this would work for anyone with access to the Find Familiar spell. You can get this spell either from the Magic Initiate feat or the Ritual Caster feat, meaning any class can be a good cartographer with a pet scout. What's the most optimal though? Warlock. Here's why:
First of all, Pact of the Chain gives you Find Familiar as a ritual (without having to take the Ritual Caster feat). Voice of the Chain Master means your pet isn't limited to a 100ft range for you to see/hear/smell through it, and you can speak through it too. They also get access to better pets: Imps, Quasits, Psuedodragons, and Sprites. Imps are ridiculously durable. Damage resistances to all weapons that aren't silvered, damage immunity to fire/poison (common types for traps, so they won't die every time they trigger one), they can fly, polymorph into a good variety of forms (ravens with 60ft fly speed is particularly nice for a scout), they get resistance to saving throws vs magic... Jebus. Quasits are very similar and Psuedodragons can telepathically talk to people (combined with Voice of the Chain Master means you can have some mindfking fun). Sprites...are interesting. They have a higher Stealth (if you don't fly, so don't fly if you don't have to), at-will Invisibility (WHAT?!), and 2HP (oh........). At low levels, I would avoid them because they'll die too often, while your tanky Imp will survive a trap or two. At middle levels, even your Imps are gonna die because their HP doesn't scale, so I'd go with Sprites for their extra sneakiness. At high levels you won't even be using your familiars to scout because you'll have access to Visions of Distant Realms for at-will Arcane Eye. HOLY CRAP. Do you guys even know how good this is? Let me explain:
Arcane Eye lets you summon an invisible, 1-inch eye with access to darkvision that can move 30ft a round in any direction. And the spell lasts an hour... 30ft a round*10 rounds a minute*60 minutes in an hour=18,000ft. EIGHTEEN THOUSAND FEET OF SCOUTING. AT-WILL. That's 3.5 miles or 5.5 kilometers of safe, invisible scouting. And you can go up too and get a layout of the land, before 'zooming' in on a certain area. My god. This is a cartographer's wet dream. He'd probably retire from adventuring and just sit at home while his eye and familiar both scout everything for miles in every direction. You can take a sorcerer dip for Extended spell too lmfao (don't actually do this...).
The downsides here are the fact that you don't get a pet until level 3 as Warlock (vs level 1 as a Wizard or someone with the Ritual Caster/Magic Initiate feat) and your Visions of Distant Realms is pretty high level too (level 15). If you really can't wait 2 levels, then you can either take one of those feats (Ritual Caster would be more optimal) as a Variant Human at level 1 or start with a Wizard multiclass dip. A level in Wizard would get you extra first level slots to play with (unfortunately, you don't also benefit from the recharging slots, because you already have that as a Warlock). 2 levels would get you things like Hypnotic Gaze (ask your DM if it works through your familiar!) or Portent. Multiclassing means you miss out on Eldritch Master and potentially an ASI, as well as delaying your Warlock levels. I don't think any of these is worth it, except maybe Ritual Caster. Ritual Caster can give you things like Identify, Detect Magic, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Rary's Telepathic Bond (can bond your Familiar with your party, kinda cool), and Drawmij's Instant Summons.
If we decide to take Wizard 1 for Find Familiar, we get extra spell slots and we also get extra spells! Our casting mod for these spells is INT, so I wouldn't take attack spells. For the 3 cantrips: Friends (doesn't need INT, no save, great for Intimidation because they're hostile afterward anyway), Light (if you don't have Darkvision), Mage Hand, Mending, Message, or Prestidigitation (instead of Minor Illusion, because no INT save). For 1st level prepared spells (we will have at least 2 with 1 level in Wizard+13 INT minimum for the multiclassing): Alarm (Ritual), Comprehend Languages (R), Detect Magic (R), Disguise Self, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Identify (R), Shield (a really good one!), etc... You get the idea. A lot of these are Rituals too, which Wizards get Ritual Casting for!
Okay, so let's build our character. The best race for this is Variant Human, because they can take Keen Mind right at level 1 (or Ritual Caster if you want to go with the above idea). Minotaurs are the second best because they get a ghetto version of Keen Mind as one of their racials. Aarakocra can fly, so that's nice for flying high to see for miles, but you'll still be a feat behind and your pets can fly anyway. Wood Elves have the highest ground speed for scouting, but if you're using your pet then this is useless.
Rather than rely on taking the Skilled feat, let's take one of the backgrounds that give proficiency Cartographer's tools. Guild Artisan-Cartographer gets better skills than Folk Hero, and you can always sell your maps once you're back in town for gold on the side.
Conclusion, tl;dr
Cartographers play like a scouts, mapping out the next room then returning to your allies to make a plan of attack. The safest way to do this is to use a Familiar instead of scouting yourself.
Variant Human, Guild Artisan-Cartographer background, Keen Mind feat
The 3 best options for classes:
1) Warlock 20, Pact of the Chain, Voice of the Chain Master, Visions of Distant Realms - Can't use a familiar until level 3 with this build, but we get Keen Mind right at level 1.
2) Warlock 20, same as above but take Ritual Caster(Wizard) at level 1 (push Keen Mind to level 4, no biggie) for Find Familiar - the Find Familiar is redundant, because you'd get it anyway at level 3, but now we can Find Familiar for scouting right at level 1. This build lets us learn new Rituals, some of which are pretty good.
3) Wizard 1/Warlock 19, same as above but instead of taking Ritual Caster, we just dip into Wizard at level 1 for Find Familiar - Redundant because you'd get Find Familiar at level 3, but again, this lets us scout right from level 1. This build gives us 2 extra 1st level Spell Slots to use each Short/Long rest too (Warlock will refresh them!), so that's nice. Wizard spells will use INT mod though, so stick to spells like Shield.
