D&D 5E Character concepts you've always wanted to play, but haven't

[doctorbadwolf]

An arcane archer. It sucks because 5e’s ranger does a good one, especially if you add some tinker\alchemist arrow fun, but I haven’t gotten a chance to play an archer ranger in 5e!

A Swordmage. I don’t just mean the 4e class, I mean a character who plays like that. Where all of my abilities are basically weapons based spells. 5e is at a point where I could prolly actually get there with a few different builds, but my only current gish character was built to mostly use magic for utility, and he will never have higher than 2nd level spells.

I wanna throw my sword into a group, have it explode in lightning and shrapnel, then reform in my hand. I want to mark a target, and when they trigger the mark I want to pull them to my blade with lightning, or teleport to them to slash them with a frozen blade that slows their movements.

I want sword magic as my primary thing.

 

[cbwjm]

I've got a character concept floating around of a fey-bard archer. Originally it would have been an elf with a longbow but it got upgraded to eladrin when they were released. The rest is an archfey warlock with the entertainer background, starts with a shortbow until I hit 3rd and can pick up pact weapon and improved pact weapon. No eldritch blast, instead I use cantrips and invocations for abilities you might expect of the fey such as illusions and charms, the ability to speak with animals as well as focusing on the pact weapon invocations.

 

[Salthorae]

I've got a character concept floating around of a fey-bard archer. Originally it would have been an elf with a longbow but it got upgraded to eladrin when they were released. The rest is an archfey warlock with the entertainer background, starts with a shortbow until I hit 3rd and can pick up pact weapon and improved pact weapon. No eldritch blast, instead I use cantrips and invocations for abilities you might expect of the fey such as illusions and charms, the ability to speak with animals as well as focusing on the pact weapon invocations.

Sounds super fun as well

 

[Sacrosanct]

I've got one I've been thinking about for a while:

Brewmaster Frohzek! A dwarven fighter or maybe cleric that was a brewer before becoming an adventure. He'd have a table I'd roll on before the start of each adventure:
1-sober
2-tipsy
3-sad drunk
4-angry drunk

But of course, no matter his state, he would insist "don't you know dwarves can't get drunk?"

Even have a mini painted for him, so maybe one of these days I'll get to him:

Lol, I recently painted the same mini for a player who was playing a dwarven druid, but was always drunk

 

[Lanefan]

Lol, I recently painted the same mini for a player who was playing a dwarven druid, but was always drunk
View attachment 117174

What manufacturer/model/etc. is this mini? And is it plastic or metal? (can't tell from the photos)

My character, who is a Dwarven Cleric to the God of Beer and whose image is my avatar here, wants one right now.

 

[Sacrosanct]

What manufacturer/model/etc. is this mini? And is it plastic or metal? (can't tell from the photos)

My character, who is a Dwarven Cleric to the God of Beer and whose image is my avatar here, wants one right now.

It was a Reaper Bones mini

Reaper Miniatures :: bones plastic+male+dwarf latest/77461

www.reapermini.com

 

[Ogre Mage]

An outcast divine soul sorcerer or cleric lamia who has been blessed by Sune. She rejects the bloodthirsty ways of her kind and believes the always attractive lamias are specially blessed by Sune and should embrace a more artistic and humane way of living.

A rakshasa hiding in plain sight in a big city, trying to build a power base.

 

[ccs]

I've got an evil sorceress/warlock (maybe MC?) type floating around in my head who's awaiting a game.

She's a true believer & one of the last full members of a secret Tiamat cult believed to be wiped out. The cults aim is to have Tiamat born into the world via 5 hosts. To that end she is literally infused with the essence of one of the chromatic aspects of Tiamat herself. As she gains lvs her arcane/draconic powers will increase & she'll slowly transform into a true dragon, directly descended from the goddess. Upon reaching 20th lv & final transformation she'll fly off to merge Power Ranger zord style with her sisters & become Tiamat in this world.
And then the true Tyranny of Dragons will begin.

Well, at least that's what she & the insane cult that she was raised in, trained by, & empowered by, believes.

And those fools over in the Cult of the Dragon with all their plundering & stupid ritual a few years back? That drew all kinds of heroic interventions and ended in crazy failure?
They sure are useful in drawing fire & distracting the heroic types from the real plot that's quietly growing & adventuring amongst them.

She is greedy, deceitful, and willing to do anything & everything "good" adventurers already do in pursuit of wealth & power. Except die.
Though "Human", mechanically I think she'll be a 1/2elf - stat boosts, & pointy ears + dark vision to represent the slight changes she's already undergone when she starts play. Unless something better comes along or discussion with the DM. Also depends upon edition.
I haven't decided what "color" she represents. Maybe I'll just paint up 5 different versions of the same mini & let the group decide wich one I should use (without mentioning why).


There's a bit more though!

Spoiler

Wichever of my groups I get to run her in, I've got a more interesting way of revealing parts of her backstory than just telling them. I'll show them. I'll DM them 3 one shot adventures, spaced out over the course of around 9 lvs/or maybe every few months. I'll set it up with the DM to occasionally give them a break for the evening.
#1: Raiders vs a village. Low lv.
Likely more of a miniatures war game than RPG. half the group runs the raiders, half the defenders. The Raiders win condition is to abduct as many children as possible & get off the board/back to the boats. The younger the child, the more bonus pts. And at least one child must be female.
The leader of the raiders is a mage. The children/villagers will be mounted on removable colored bases (red/blue/green/black/white) Play this several times (Ideally 5), each time changing the base color used.
#2: High lv. A group of adventurers is hired to help an NPC Mage with a research project. He's trying to collect the essence of a long dead dragon said to be a direct offspring of Tiamat herself. This'll be dangerous. All they have to do is buy him enough time. In exchange? They can keep as much of the loot as they can grab.
The mage will be the same one as in #1. Just an older looking model but painted up the same. The color of the dragon is determined by drawing one of the previous adventures colored bases from a bag.
#3: An upper mid-lv adventure. All characters must be good. Must be the heroic types.
An evil cult dedicated to Tiamat has been found. They're attempting to perform some foul sacrificial ritual to summon the Queen of Dragons! Go into that cliche looking evil castle & put a stop to it!
Expected play = PCs fight their way through stiffening resistance until they interrupt the ritual, put the dragon worshipers to the sword & rescue the sacrificial victims/damsels in distress. Yay, team hero!
Except this is a setup*.
The cult leaked them the details. They wanted to be found, wiped out, and have the "victims" rescued.
The ritual that's interrupted? It was staged. The real ritual has already taken place before the PCs ever arrived.
WHY? Because how many heroes ever think twice about this stuff? Get there in the nick of time, slay the cultists, prevent the evil plot, save the fair maidens. Loot the bodies, happily ever after/on to the next.
But what if that maiden you just "saved" wasn't actually so fair....
The cult leader? Is yet an older version of the same wizard mini & the victims are color coded (SW Slave Leia minis with each skirt painted one of the 5 colors)
*There will be clues to the deception throughout the adventure, if the PCs pay attention. But I know how my groups tend to think.

 

[Undrave]

In my current campaign I had planned on retiring my previous character at a certain time but his untimely dath made me pick a new character where it wouldn't have made sense for my next concept to show up yet so I went a different direction.

I had this idea for a Dwarf Mastermind. In the process of the adventure the group was rebuilding an old dwarven forteress and accepting basically any random Dwarf refugee to join, which had resulted in a group of assasin sisters (or at least, clearly criminals) to join alongside their father. I wanted to play the father as a Mastermind Rogue with a crossbow! Mostly going around using the Help Action for the party's Barbarian and Paladin every turn maybe throw in a Commander Strike in there with a feat, or maybe get Healer for more support. That sort of thing.

I also had this character in AL that I only played for maybe one session or two that I would like to revisit. He was a Paladin of The Dagda (Oath of the Ancient)! His shield was adorned by an overflowing cauldron and he came from an order that made feeding the hungry a major part of its duty. Like, their estate was mostly farmland boosted by magic (like he 8 hour versions of Plant Growth). As part of the passing rite of the order he had to climb a sacred mountain and recover something that had been struck by lightening and he had found a piece of metallic ore and had it fashion into a crude-looking flail! It was basically a chunk of rock at the end of a chain. Good guy, good cook, simple but fun concept.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Idea 1: A gender fluid wild mage who gender changed every time a wild-magic surge occurs. I'm sure I can find a table of d30 genders lying around somewhere.

Idea 2: A montebank conjurer who does everything he can to avoid combat and direct conflict.

Idea 3: Female warforged fighter whose primary goal is getting pregnant and having a baby.

Idea 3 might result in some terrifying silent hill stuff. I like that.

Language, please.