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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 6562726" data-attributes="member: 6786839">Your experience differs from mine. My 5th level character is Bard/Lore 3 + Druid (Moon) 2, with Sage background.Just at that level of resolution... how many different sets of abilities are possible, for a 5th level character, depending on which class levels you take, and which specializations of those classes, plus a background? This PC is a half-elf, giving me several choices about which language proficiencies and skill proficiencies. If it were a Variant Human, it would have a feat instead. (Or any character who's 5/0 or 4/1 can have a feat.)That said, the real individuality is NOT in the "build", it's in the character. Dexter the sage wants to ALWAYS LEARN MORE. As a half-elf and lore bard, she's able to learn several proficiences (plus two Expertise), and they are ALL about information and scouting:Expertise in Stealth (to get into position to observe things) plus Perception (of course)Proficient in Insight, and all the Intelligence checks: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Religion (the last two also essential for Druidism).Another player also runs a half-elf bard PC in the same party. When the PCs were third level, his character and mine were identical "builds": Bard 3 (Lore). But no one ever had trouble telling them apart, because his character, Hannibal, with the same "build", had a different personality and passions. He's the "face" character, with expertise in Persuasion, and more CHA than DEX. Where my character will sneak up and observe, his character will jump in, introduce himself, and just ask questions, as many questions as he can get in edgewise, to as many people as will answer. Oh, and his background is artisan, specifically heraldry, so he also asks people about their ancestry if there's ANY plausible chance they could have a family coat of arms.Some of us are not. You sometimes meet those players at conventions. Sad, but true. Those who are smart enough, have added "lose DEX bonuses to AC, stat checks and saving throws," to the conditions Restrained and Incapacitated (and therefore to paralysed, petrified, stunned and unconscious, which subsume Incapacitated). Bam, problem solved!I rather like the idea of an ability allowing a second Concentration. Maybe built in just by having class levels; maybe as a Feat; maybe conditional on stat checks, so the second Concentration is less stable.Just add those rules to PHB p. 317!That's a DM decision, not a 5E decision. The published Expeditions adventures hand out potions and scrolls as early as one's first session, and permanent items at a reasonable pace.Again, DM choices. I was in a small party, 3-4 PCs, which breezed through the hatchery. My PC has *only once* taken any HP damage. Of course, I favor hit-and-run tactics, and high mobility + ranged fire works wonders, if you have the patience to "chip".If the way to survive an impossible fight, was to RP instead of to min-max, then hurray!If that's a hand-waved "because I paid for it" ability, then bribe the DM with pizza.If the rule represents the fighter wielding a blade on the end of a long stick, and when anyone runs up to the fighter,  then the fighter uses the stick to put the blade directly in the attacker's path... ...then you have a categorical guideline for when the fighter gets AoO. Teleportation and popping up out of water don't involve stepping through the area in which the fighter generally interposes the Popsicle of Edged Steel.</blockquote>

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