Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Master Thinker

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted bend their mental energies towards coming up with a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character capable of outthinking, outwitting and out-and-out outclassing others in mental matters. Strength, Dexterity, Consitution: A Master Thinker craves not these things. For this 5E D&D character it’s all about Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Let’s get into it.

Behind the CBG — Master Thinker

Every CBG we create considers the journey as much as the final outcome. We aim to present a guide suitable for any level of 5E D&D play whether you’re pursuing an epic campaign from start to finish, starting beyond 1st level or choosing a character for a one shot. Then we take those concepts and develop an NPC or creature version of the character build for DMs to incorporate into their games. All of this gets packaged up and laid out in a PDF you can find over at Dungeon Master’s Guild. We’ve got dozens of pay what you want products at DMG, many of them best sellers so if you want to check those out start with the Master Thinker here.

All about the character story

Each CBG starts with a character concept sticking to a particular schtick, from the Mind Breaker’s psyche crushing smites to the Master Thinker’s practical approach for first hand experience. Sometimes puns and pop culture references instigate the creation of a CBG too. At every step of the way we considered options for expanding upon the variety of wellness enhancing skills, abilities and features.

For us it’s important to consider who these characters are as individuals and why they follow these particular paths. One special thing to note with this CBG is while we always aim to make the journey to 20th level as practical as possible — none of these characters “come online” after an awkward slog through many levels — the Master Thinker reaches the primary goal at the nucleus of this character concept at 5th level. From there on out until 20th level they focus on the secondary goal of mastering as many skills as possible.

The Master Thinker in lots of ways shares similarity with the Know It All CBG we put together a while back. Nerdarchist Ted loves him some highly skilled characters whether it’s 5E D&D or any other RPG! There is a caveat to these types of characters though, which was discussed in the video for the Know It All and the accompanying post. I’ll copy it here though.

“The Know It All’s variety of other features and traits makes them rather versatile but by far their focus lies in skills. In the video they point out a very important consideration and it’s very much worth reiterating here. This character might very well be the ultimate skill expert but this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great fit for an adventuring party. You might very well unquestionably be the optimal person to make every check when it comes to skills but this can quickly become frustrating for the other players in the group. I’ll add to this caveat the most basic procedure for playing 5E D&D does not mean your Know It All character would even get to use all their skills all the time unless you really step on everyone’s toes. Skill checks arise when players describe their actions and the DM follows up by asking for a skill check if applicable.”

Itinerant Researcher NPC for 5E D&D

Full disclosure — the NPCs and creatures we make in CBGs are some of my favorite bits of 5E D&D content to create. We step back and look at the character build to find the standout features that feel like signature abilities. The juice! From there we consider what sort of person or people would possess or gain these abilities and build a stat block around them. More often than not the section of a CBG For Dungeon Masters presents a generic creature.

This one was really tough for a couple of related reasons. For starters a highly skilled NPC doesn’t make for the most exciting stat block. Let’s face it — how often does a DM make an Intelligence (History) check for an NPC? (In my experience: never.) This leaves the Itinerant Researcher basically on the same page as the Know It All NPC. Without a strong focus on martial or magical combat capability these NPCs amount to very low challenge rating creatures with lots of skill proficiencies. The Itinerant Researcher’s got proficiency in Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saving throws going for it at least. Maybe my design skills weren’t up to the challenge this time around but mechanically it’s admittedly boring and narratively…also boring. If a DM wants an NPC to know something then they simply know it — no skill check required. Careful readers might notice the Know It All and Itinerant Researcher share a trait on the stat block if they weren’t already close enough!

All that being said I’ll put this over to the readers and see what kind of feedback I get. When the idea for a “mental heavy character” first floated into Nerdarchy the Slack my take was less about skills and more about a character who uses the ol’ thinking cap more like a logician. Not for nothing but we’ve done a CBG somewhat along these lines too! (There’s nearly five dozen at this point.) The Quick Strike CBG is sort of Sherlock Holmes-ish the way he’s portrayed in the movies with Robert Downey, Jr. But whereas that character focuses on physical combat with a primary goal of getting the highest possible bonus on initiative checks I’m of a mind to be more of a buffer and crowd control specialist as a Master Thinker.

In fact the choice to go with vedalken as the race came up as part of my pitch for the character build, which took a vastly different approach to multiclassing as a Clockwork Soul sorcerer and Mastermind rogue mash-up. The comic book fan in me already began scheming for a bonus stat block to represent the Master Thinker’s Awesome Construct too, for all you Fantastic Four Vol. 1 No. 15 enthusiasts out there.

So how about it? Would you like to see a CBG based on this concept? Let us know!

Aloof Observer. As the name suggests an itinerant researcher travelers far and wide to conduct fieldwork related to their studies. Such an individual can become a valuable source of information — if the seeker can track them down. These anthropologists don’t stay in one place for too long and many an adventurer in search of obscure knowledge arrives where a researcher ought to be only to discover they’ve moved onto their next research site.

“Intellectual. The itinerant researcher’s proficiency bonus is doubled whenever they make a skill check (included in statistics).”

If your next 5E D&D game needs a character with big brain energy — whether you’re the DM or a player — check out the Master Thinker Character Build Guide here.

*Featured image — Le Penseur (The Thinker) in the garden of Musée Rodin, Paris. (cropped) [Original photograph of CrisNYCa, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons]

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