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Building a 5E D&D Character

I must admit I’ve only played in two sessions of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons so far, but I’m really digging it. Two sessions, two different characters two under lining themes, dwarves and sub-optimal builds. My first character for D&D 5E is a dwarven wizard.

This character was a blast to build as well as play.

Here is what I really love about this character and making characters in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, it has to be the flavor.

I’ve got a wizard that is able to wear light and medium armor, wield axes and hammers, and sling spells. In our first session I was able to be effective from a far with my spells as well as get up and personal with the bad guys.

This character is completely fighter flavored through and through. Unthen-Gar also has two stats higher than his primary stat Intelligence. Both strength and constitution are one and two points higher. I was more concerned with how this character felt than how optimal he was. I wanted him to feel like a grizzled dwarven warrior while being an effective spell caster. I think I was able to accomplish this quite nicely.

Level two I’m taking my first level of fighter with plans to sprinkling two more levels of fighter into the mix over the course of his career. At 4th level I’ll trade my ability increases for two feats- heavy armor proficiency and warcaster.

Yes, I know starting as a 1st level fighter would of been far more optimal than taking it at 2nd level, but I wanted to build a wizard that fights not a fighter that casts spells. So what did I get for multi-classing into fighter- shield proficiency, larger hit die, proficiency in the rest of the martial weapons, and a fighting style. I’m going duelist which allows me to grab a +2 to damage while still being able to use a shield.

My axes damage die will go down because I’ll be wielding it one handed instead two, but the +2 to damage from duelist and the increase in armor class from using a shield  will more than make up for it.

As I progress I plan to take my next two levels in wizard and my 5th level in fighter. Not sure when I’ll pick up the last level of fighter, but when I do I’m going champion for my archetype for the improved critical chance.

In a nut shell that’s the mechanics behind my dwarven wizard. Want to see his full character sheet complete with back story- Unthen-Gar of clan BlackIron

This brings me to D&D character number two who I just played my first session with prior to writing this blog post. A half-orc cleric that was raised by dwarves and chosen by the dwarven god of battle and drunkenness to be his divine agent. So another spell caster who can also function as a front line fighter. Again I kind of went sub-optimal on this build as well. I put my highest stats in strength and constitution both 16’s.

Those stats, combined with the war domain, plus the perks of being a half-orc mainly relentless endurance and savage attacks abilities make him a decent combatant. In fact relentless endurance most likely saved his life in the first session.

I put a 14 in wisdom, a 12 in charisma, and sacked out both dexterity and intelligence at 8’s. My orc doesn’t speak orc. My DM allowed me to swap it out for dwarf since it fit with my back story. Thorin BlackForge I plan to stay cleric all the way. I haven’t planned this character out like my dwarf, but I do hope I get to play him again. The session was  supposed to be a one shotter, but perhaps the DM will be convinced to continue the campaign.

See Thorin BlackForge’s full character sheet- Thorin BlackForge

D&D 5E really helps to flesh out your characters with it’s modular design.

Race, class, and backgrounds all work towards helping a player make a complete D&D character even for players that may struggle in this area. In each of those sections there are choices all of which help make your D&D character just a little different than the next guys even if you are playing similar characters. Especially in the background section where you are forced to fill in the blanks that will help flesh out some back story.

I’ve had tons of players struggle in this area of the game. Now 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons makes it integral to character design as well as tying the inspiration mechanic to it.

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