D&D 5E I'm *GASP* Actually Going to Be Playing 5e in a Few Weeks -- What are the Character Creation Pitfalls to Avoid?

[bid]

Gosh, I just hope he survives character creation long enough to experience his first encounter.

Please don't go into frenzy, you'll be too tired for the rest of the argument. Being a bogey won't kill your character.

 

[Downlowd]

1. Think of a character concept you think is cool.
2. Peruse the PHB to find the class that is closest to your concept.
3. Play it.
4. Have fun.

Shocking how often this has to be explained on these forums.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm more worried about the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel options that you shouldn't ever use, more especially the ones that maybe seem cool in writing but in play end up being a waste.

Berserk Barbarian (Totem Barbarian, on the other hand, is very cool)
Beastmaster Ranger (Hunter Ranger is solid if unspectacular; if you want a woodsy archer simply build a Fighter with the Outlander background)
Four Elements Monk (any other way to build a mobile striker with spells is better)

Sorcerer is... inflexible. If you want a straight-forward Blaster (think lobbing Fireballs) go for it (choose Draconic Sorcerer), but any other kind of caster needs Wizard.
Edit: The simple advice is "don't play Wild Mage Sorcerer". To maximize that subclass' potential, you need lots more info on 5E and your DM's campaign. So... don't choose it now.

Warlock is... difficult. If you want a straight-forward Blaster (think shooting Eldritch Blasts) go for it (choose Chain Warlock), but any other kind of Warlock requires considerable system mastery.

There's lots of Charisma classes. Watch out if you want to be the party Face, so your party doesn't get three characters vying for the same social space. (The first one to switch away is the winner!)

There's lots of Darkvision-enabled races. Watch out so you're not the odd man out. Being in an all-darkvision party is awesome, and it would suck to be the one holding the torch.

There's lots of Dexterity-based builds. Basing your fightery character on Dex is arguably stronger than Str in this edition. However, being the sole Strength-based character has its benefits, especially if you play published modules: the loot hasn't kept up and so there will be items that you and you alone can use well.

Spellcasters used to be an expected part of heroic parties. Previous edition adventures could expect you to cast a certain high-level spell, and simply ignore the possibility that your party did not have one! All of this is gone from 5th Edition. Don't feel pressured into playing a Wizard or Cleric. None is needed.

Combat healing is MUCH less important in this edition. It's way easier to survive with no primary healer in the party. Use feats such as Healer and Inspiring Leader to compensate. Having at least one secondary healer (such as a Paladin or Bard) is still useful, though. (After combat, having a Cleric able to cast spells such as Raise Dead and Greater Restoration is welcome, of course.)

 

[CapnZapp]

Unless, of course, you want to play a berserker who occasionally goes into a rage so intense he turns into a killing machine.

Sounds awesome, but in reality you won't do that much more damage.

In contrast you don't have the double hit points vs fireballs that a Bear Totem guy gets.

And you'll spend much more time weakly panting along than "intensely" fighting, thanks to completely unreasonably hard exhaustion-recovery rules.

 

[kalil]

If you play a caster don't select too many spells that requires concentration.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Sounds awesome, but in reality you won't do that much more damage.

The berserker in my Rappan Athuk campaign doesn't match the reality you speak of.

In contrast you don't have the double hit points vs fireballs that a Bear Totem guy gets.

...which only matters if you are frequently getting blasted by fireballs.

And you'll spend much more time weakly panting along than "intensely" fighting, thanks to completely unreasonably hard exhaustion-recovery rules.

Oddly enough, the berserker in my Rappan Athuk campaign hasn't experienced any problems with the first 2 levels of exhaustion, since the practical effect of disadvantage on ability checks has been to let another party member use the crowbar to pry open stuck doors and to once not have advantage on a strength check made against an enemy while in combat, and lower initiative which hasn't had a huge impact, and the practical effect of having halved speed has been that the enemies come to the barbarian (oh, wait, that's not actually different).

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Sounds awesome, but in reality you won't do that much more damage.

"That much more," huh? Well, I'll have to disagree. I've seen two berzerkers in play. Both were quite frightening Cuisinarts when berzerk. I'll take practical, play experience over white-room theory-crafting any day.

In contrast you don't have the double hit points vs fireballs that a Bear Totem guy gets.

In order for that to matter, significantly enough to force someone's choice, one would have to think only bear totem barbarians survive fireballs.

Also, are you intentionally trying to downplay all the bludgeoning/slashing/piercing damage rampant in the game*? You know, the bulk of damage in 5e that is equally resisted by all barbarians, not just bear totems?

Finally, are you further saying that you think all barbarians should just take bear totem at 3rd level?

And you'll spend much more time weakly panting along than "intensely" fighting, thanks to completely unreasonably hard exhaustion-recovery rules.

You greatly overplay exhaustion. We use it. The first few levels are impactful, to be sure, but not death sentence. Heck, we've had a couple characters get up to 4 levels in it at one time. Was that a bit rough? Of course it was. It made the session(s) tense and even a bit touch-and-go. But guess what happened to them? They survived and eventually were fine. Crazy, right?



(*I'm basing that on my ~2 years experience playing a great deal of 5e. But YMMV, one supposes.)

 

[Gradine]

Sure, me too. We've had some monsters inflict it on us. I don't find it very fun, that's all. I'd rather see the berzerking be 1/SR or something similar.

I rather like that, as it currently stands, it's a tactical choice with some trade off. It's a way of placing a soft limit on the use of an ability as opposed to the hard limit you suggest. Both have the same likely outcome (player will wait until last encounter before they expect to be able to rest to use); but the soft limit gives the player way more choices; they can choose to take on the penalty.

In addition, you don't have to worry about balancing any potential growth in "# of times per rest" to tack on to the feature; the game does this already by providing more powerful characters more and better ways to mitigate or entirely remove fatigue levels.

I strongly prefer this style of game design to a style that rests solely on hard caps.

 

[Ahglock]

Sounds awesome, but in reality you won't do that much more damage.

In contrast you don't have the double hit points vs fireballs that a Bear Totem guy gets.

And you'll spend much more time weakly panting along than "intensely" fighting, thanks to completely unreasonably hard exhaustion-recovery rules.

That's been my experience I pretty much just stopped using frenzy. The cost was larger than the benefit. Still won't play the totem barbarian though. I like berserker not tribal barbarian. If I want a totem I'll play shadowrun. Still it's about a 30% boost in damage IME. On paper it looks like 50% per frenzy but you lose some from exhaustion or having other bonus actions. If exhaustion which is stupid hard to fix is worth that to someone more power to them. It's fairly campaign dependent. If you don't have many encounters per day you can use it in a higher % of encounters. And if you are going two weapon style it's actually a pointless feature as your bonus action is already being used.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Ninja'ed!

Oddly enough, the berserker in my Rappan Athuk campaign hasn't experienced any problems with the first 2 levels of exhaustion, since the practical effect of disadvantage on ability checks has been to let another party member use the crowbar to pry open stuck doors and to once not have advantage on a strength check made against an enemy while in combat, and lower initiative which hasn't had a huge impact, and the practical effect of having halved speed has been that the enemies come to the barbarian (oh, wait, that's not actually different).

This has been our experience at my table as well. And once again, IMO, the difference between actually playing it and just theorizing about it.