How D&D Beyond Revealed the Elegance of a Classic D&D Fighter
It’s no secret how big a fan I am of D&D Beyond, the digital toolset from Curse. All the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons content from Wizards of the Coast is in one place with amazing connectivity. One of the most exciting facets of DDB is the Campaign feature. Dungeon Masters can organize players and adventuring material together in one place. There’s some really cool stuff DMs can do with the Campaign tools already, but I’ll get more into the DM side of things in a later installment, using a certain Space Pirate-fighting bounty hunter’s adventures as an example. For now, I want to talk about being a player in a DDB campaign.
Roll for Mischief logo, a You Tube channel where I’ll be playing a D&D campaign.
DDB powered D&D
On alternating Sundays at 1 p.m. eastern I’ll be playing in a D&D campaign on the Roll for Mischief YouTube channel. The premise of the campaign finds all characters as member of the City Watch of Strawgoh. Our DM Joshua Brickley wants to try a sort of “buddy-cop” game so all of the characters must have City Watch as a background. Beyond this one guideline we had freedom to create characters of any race or class.
Since the campaign is organized through DDB, and both DM Joshua and I have Legendary Bundles, and the Tortle Package, the options are vast. Content sharing in a DDB campaign means any of the players and DM can access the unlocked content of everyone else.
This incredibly useful feature came as a welcome surprise to players in my home game too. Many of them are new or casual players, unaware of potential options even with content from the Player’s Handbook. Drop down menus, tooltips and links make it super easy to find, discover and learn.
How a goblin warlock became a human fighter in D&D
When it comes to creating a new character for D&D or any roleplaying game, I go through a lot of possibilities before settling on something. In the case of this game the first idea was a goblin warlock. What I wound up with is a human fighter. But I didn’t even have to wear a hole in a character sheet erasing and rearranging things dozens of times. Making changes and even completely overhauling a character is very easy and keeps everything clear and organized. DDB plans to improve the character sheet in the near future too, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
Making a character – and especially tweaking and adjusting a character – is incredibly easy with DDB. At the very least, real-time calculations help when you’re as indecisive as me when it comes to character creation. Being able to see skill proficiency modifiers and everything else change whenever a factor gets tweaked is nice. Floating tooltips for quick reference to skills, abilities, spells and the like is super convenient, and if you want to know more about anything in particular the resources are right there. Even the DDB site search has extra layers of functionality to filter results, which are shown with their source and link directly to the material in the official rules.
Incidentally, did you know human fighters are the No. 1 most often created character on DDB? In the D&D Beyond Live Developer FAQ with product lead Adam Bradford he shared some analytics about DDB revealing the classic human fighter at the top of the character builder charts. A recent article on FiveThirtyEight explored what this data shows about player preferences too.
An illustration I found to represent Rolf Eusis, human fighter and member of the City Watch of Strawgoh.
Rolf Eusis the human fighter emerged in a roundabout way, progressing from warlock to druid to rogue and ultimately landing on fighter. Usually I like to play characters with lots of options like spellcasters (wizards especially) and almost always nonhuman. But after discussing the kind of game we aimed to play, a simple sword-and-board fighter felt like the right choice. The city setting for the game is an extremely diverse crossroads, which influenced the decision to create a human character.
Rolf’s partner on the City Watch is a human wizard played by Drew Murray, another Nerdarchy writer. Drew is also the Game Master for a Star Trek Adventures campaign on the Roll for Mischief channel.
The nuts and bolts of character creation with DDB are the same as doing it with pencil and paper. But what I find pulls me in further is step four: description. This is where you select background, alignment, ideals, bonds, flaws and other character traits. There’s also space for a character’s faith and lifestyle, and areas for organizations, allies, enemies, backstory and notes.
Because the campaign we planned takes place primarily within a city where the player characters have an actual job as city watch, these areas of the DDB character creation process prompted me to really stop and think about Rolf. What lifestyle did he lead? What is his home life when he goes home after work? Does he have any allies or friends in the neighborhood, or has he run afoul of anyone since moving to the big city? (Rolf is a country boy of sorts.)
DDB helps flex your D&D imagination
I don’t want to spoil any of the fun quirks and details of Rolf’s life in Strawgoh (you’ll have to watch the game to find out) but it’s been tremendous fun talking with the DM and adding my own contributions to the setting. Hmmm…maybe the DM read about getting players to help with RPG creation?
Despite, or perhaps because of the D&D fighter’s elegantly simple framework, I found a lot of room to stretch when it came to choices about skill proficiencies, languages and even ability scores. In a lot of ways I feel like fighters can be some of the most diverse D&D characters. You put a high ability score in Strength or Dexterity, depending on what kind of warrior you want to play, and Constitution for the hit points. The remaining four ability scores are not directly tied to any fighter abilities (except Intelligence for an Eldritch Knight) so you’re free to use them to develop a personality.
In Rolf’s case, Strength is his high ability score. He’s a classic sword-and-board fighter with a longsword, chainmail and shield (plus a couple of handaxes for the occasional ranged attack). And he’s heavy on Intelligence and has the Keen Mind feat. Why? Because he wants to be a detective. He’s an avid reader and takes meticulous notes, often getting lost in his own thoughts. He wound up with quite a few languages too and I figure he’d have to be pretty smart to learn them all. Keeping this in mind, Rolf is a disciplined athlete too. He applies his Intelligence to exercise routines and approaches combat from an analytical perspective.
Overall, the Rolf Eusis, human fighter who emerged through tinkering around with DDB is very refreshing to me as a player. He doesn’t have spells, ki, rage or any other resources to manage and he’s not a hyper-specialized warrior. Taking a step back and trying something different showed me a new dimension to a classic fighter.
I’m really looking forward to this campaign, and the Roll for Mischief crew hopes you’ll come hang out while we walk the beat as the City Watch of Strawgoh. Behind the scenes, I’m super excited to use the DDB campaign features as a player while I continue to work on my own campaigns as a DM.
What has your DDB experience been like so far? I’m discovering new, cool facets to this amazing service everyday and the community there is wonderfully helpful. Let me know in the comments below what you thought of Tales from the City Watch and until next time, stay nerdy!
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