We just started a Curse of Strahd campaign. It is run by one of my players, and we play an episode (1-3 sessions) or so in between the chapters of our 5e Age of Worms game (starting chapter 10 Wednesday!). He had us set up character trees, and I made 3 characters, the de Rolo siblings:
* Lindsey, Human Bard (Modeled after Lindsey Stirling)
* Banner, Human Barbarian (using half-orc ability bonuses, modeled after Bruce Banner)
* Percival, Human Warlock (modeled after Percival de Rolo from Critical Role)
Lindsey could be played as a regular bard who fought with her music. Percival and Banner required various amounts of reskinning for character concepts.
In Critical Role, Percival is a gunslinger with a dark Patron. I changed this to a Warlock that cast directional spells with his gun (wand). He spins the revolver to different chambers for different spells (regular for hex, one with a diamond for chromatic orb, a blank chamber that does nothing for interrogations, etc.). That did not require a mechanical change, but the DM signed off on it.
Banner required the most changing, he comes from a noble family, but the parent's were murdered by (something), the sight of which caused Lindsey to become an extreme introvert and transfused magic energy into Banner before continuing its rampage. The servants evacuated the children, and they grew up in a new town with the rest of the PCs. He has been continually haunted by another presence in his mind. The other one is prone to violence, and the loss of concentration from the mental strain of keeping it in have caused him to fall behind in his studies and lose his weapon training. He has turned to meditation to try to keep the other one contained, and in his mental journeys, he has come across a bear that speaks to him and attempts to guide him.
The reskin is mostly cosmetic, and it could have been entirely cosmetic, but I asked the DM if I could lose all weapon proficiencies and instead give him the monks unarmed strike and proficiency in thrown improvised objects (like rocks). So he does 1d4+3(or +5) while raging to unarmed strikes and 1d4+3 with rocks. He can wield a weapon, but he does not have proficiency. At 6th level, his unarmed strikes will be considered as magical weapons while raging.
So these work into my philosophy as a DM to allow reskinning and changes to classes as long as they are no better than the default. Percival cannot really cast spells yet as he has not finished building his gun. Banner is a barbarian that does 1d4+3 damage per hit. One of my players plays a half-gnoll, we based it off the gnoll in the monster manual, but it gets less racial goodies than any of the PHB races.
To tie it back into the original post, Banner is a noble that uses the Barbarian class but is definitely not a "barbarian." He is more of a barbarian "because magic."
* Lindsey, Human Bard (Modeled after Lindsey Stirling)
* Banner, Human Barbarian (using half-orc ability bonuses, modeled after Bruce Banner)
* Percival, Human Warlock (modeled after Percival de Rolo from Critical Role)
Lindsey could be played as a regular bard who fought with her music. Percival and Banner required various amounts of reskinning for character concepts.
In Critical Role, Percival is a gunslinger with a dark Patron. I changed this to a Warlock that cast directional spells with his gun (wand). He spins the revolver to different chambers for different spells (regular for hex, one with a diamond for chromatic orb, a blank chamber that does nothing for interrogations, etc.). That did not require a mechanical change, but the DM signed off on it.
Banner required the most changing, he comes from a noble family, but the parent's were murdered by (something), the sight of which caused Lindsey to become an extreme introvert and transfused magic energy into Banner before continuing its rampage. The servants evacuated the children, and they grew up in a new town with the rest of the PCs. He has been continually haunted by another presence in his mind. The other one is prone to violence, and the loss of concentration from the mental strain of keeping it in have caused him to fall behind in his studies and lose his weapon training. He has turned to meditation to try to keep the other one contained, and in his mental journeys, he has come across a bear that speaks to him and attempts to guide him.
The reskin is mostly cosmetic, and it could have been entirely cosmetic, but I asked the DM if I could lose all weapon proficiencies and instead give him the monks unarmed strike and proficiency in thrown improvised objects (like rocks). So he does 1d4+3(or +5) while raging to unarmed strikes and 1d4+3 with rocks. He can wield a weapon, but he does not have proficiency. At 6th level, his unarmed strikes will be considered as magical weapons while raging.
So these work into my philosophy as a DM to allow reskinning and changes to classes as long as they are no better than the default. Percival cannot really cast spells yet as he has not finished building his gun. Banner is a barbarian that does 1d4+3 damage per hit. One of my players plays a half-gnoll, we based it off the gnoll in the monster manual, but it gets less racial goodies than any of the PHB races.
To tie it back into the original post, Banner is a noble that uses the Barbarian class but is definitely not a "barbarian." He is more of a barbarian "because magic."