Any nice plots/concepts for urchins?

[Aleister VII]

As the title ask, optimization apart what flavorful stuffs have you done or are thinking in doing with a urchin background character?

So far I've the idea of an urchin who is the daughter of human slave woman and her former Drow slave master so she is a half-elf with drow ancestry, her mother escaped while pregnant but being an ex slave she didn't have money or a home at all so the half drow girl was born and raised on the streets THEN her mother died, I leave the "how she died?" In blank to later fill it with something like "a dragon attacked the city and she was one of the victims", "that winter have no mercy", "a plague wipe most of the citizens" or something else that match with the adventure in which she's gonna be as a hook.
And her class... it also vary but like to go melee with a spellcaster, not the smartest idea but this isn't about optimization, among my favorite builds for her:

•Dex based melee sorcerer, I take elf weapon training to get proficiency with a finesse martial weapon and dragonic origin to boost AC, the elemental boost makes a nice combo with fire cantrips and spells. The flavor of this one is that she survived thanks to the awaken of her dragonic blood after her mother's death.

•Trickster pact of the archfey warlock, pretty simple I just like to use sleep, misty step, charm, superior invisibility and other trickster stuffs along with pact of the blade to be able of go melee. Unlike the flavor of the previous one this don't relies on the deus ex machina of awaken a long ago forgotten dragon bloodline but instead of a chance meeting or the summon of a Fey and make a pact with him/her to get power.

•A pole arm master eldritch Knight, this is actually a little more reliable than the others two and perhaps even optimal build, fighter basic stuffs like all those ASI and multi attacks are just great, add a few spells and cantrips and I can call it a day. The flavor of this one is that the half elf girl was taken by a retired adventurer who trains her as a fighter... not the best background but works for me.

So what kind of urchins do you like?

[Sinon]

Like this, for the most part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0bOH8ABpco

[ImproperJustice]

Aladdin?

Only as a female Wood Elf.....at least that is what my friend created. Not original, but the game was set in Al-Quadim.

Optimization wise?

I used it for a very specific Battlemaster build where I was trying to create a highly skilled Jack of All trades/ warrior build.

Using Xanathar’s guide, I ended up with a Dwarven Forge Cleric who had been orphaned and later taken in and raised by the church.
It was handy to have a forge cleric who valued the act of creation from nearly nothing, and was handy with Thieves tools.

[blueb4sunrise1]

I am very out of practice but here are my thoughts.
An urchin child with a natural aptitude for sneaking and theaving manages to survive on the streets and is taken in by a guild master because he/she/it are impressed with the child's skills (in my story the child pick pockets the guild master but is caught). The child is then raised as a rogue ..... its Dodger and Fagan, lol.
We then have the makings of a rogue class half Drow Elf with an urchin past. The drow elf rogue is perhaps a cliche but you can work on the back story until the character is pretty unique.

[smcmike]

Urchin Druid. Why play Aladdin when you could play Abu?

[Elminster298]

A halfling urchin who's parents died survives on the streets by being in the right place at the right time(inherited his mother's divination wizard abilities and father's lucky feat). Merchants accidentally drop coins when he is near, food gets overlooked on tables, wind blows clothes out of windows etc. A pirate in town for trade notices and offers to take him aboard the ship where he starts his training as the "ship's mage"(diviner 2/lore bard X).

This was my backstory for my ultimate "fate changer" character and was easily one of the most fun characters I have ever played.

[zinycor]

Pretty much anything works for urchin, just remember, It's a hard knock life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0bOH8ABpco)

Barbarian: It's a hard knock life, but you are even harder.
Bard: It's a hard knock life, but you make it bearable for the people around you
Cleric: It's a hard knock life, But with the help of we can make it ahead!
Druid: It's a hard knock life, but one that makes you more in contact with the nature of the city.
Fighter: It's a hard knock life, but with hard work and training, you can survive like me!
Monk: It's a hard knock life, but it teaches you to live without those pesky material posessions.
Paladin: It's a hard knock life and those who live deserve justice and respect!
Ranger: It's a hard knock life until you are an expert at it.
Rogue: It's a hard knock life, but the freedom of it you wouldn't change.
Sorcerer: It's a hard knock life, especially with powerfull magic you can't control.
Warlock: It's a hard knock life, but if you make the right deals with the right [I]"people"... Hey! Nobody is judging you here!!
Wizard: It's a hard knock life, but with a lot of study and effort, you can make the imposible happen!!

[Aleister VII]

Yeah, you're right it can be hard knock life for any class xD

The Aladdin idea is also pretty neat I haven't thought it before, and out course being Abu would be a blast!

[Naanomi]

My Inquisitive Rogue was an Urchin; sort of a ‘ultimate ear on the street’ type. I’ve also had a wild sorcerer that was more of a ‘dangerous homeless guy’ street crazy sort, talking to themselves and that sort of thing.

Mechanically, I’ve wanted to do a Totem Barbarian with Aspect of the Beast (Stag) for the 4x travel speed around town

[Aleister VII]

Yeah their travel speed is an amazing asset in some adventures, in my experience it has been quite useful when in a city, specially if that city is the one in which the urchin grew in.
But I guess that it's nearly useless in a campaign filled with dungeon crawling or in the wilderness or much less in a planar shift adventure x.x

[Naanomi]

much less in a planar shift adventure x.x
Sigil is the ultimate city! Plenty of other planar cities to speed through as well... city of brass, Dis...

[Vogie]

As the title ask, optimization apart what flavorful stuffs have you done or are thinking in doing with a urchin background character?

So far I've the idea of an urchin who is the daughter of human slave woman and her former Drow slave master so she is a half-elf with drow ancestry, her mother escaped while pregnant but being an ex slave she didn't have money or a home at all so the half drow girl was born and raised on the streets THEN her mother died, I leave the "how she died?" In blank to later fill it with something like "a dragon attacked the city and she was one of the victims", "that winter have no mercy", "a plague wipe most of the citizens" or something else that match with the adventure in which she's gonna be as a hook.
And her class... it also vary but like to go melee with a spellcaster

Deep Stalker Ranger / Swords Bard
Jack of all trades with decent spellcasting. You'd be able to pick up 2 fighting styles (likely mariner from ranger, then dueling or TWF from Bard), and the extra attack from Underdark Scout helps hold you over until the normal extra attack from either bard or Ranger. If it's an urban campaign, your DM may have your "Natural Explorer" be set to Urban - otherwise, normal natural explorer would work fine. Having Humanoids as a favored enemy would also be very crunchy with the concept of growing up in the streets - you're good at hurting people, but less so at everything else - and the bardic inspiration is a nod to the fact you're used to running in packs.

Undying Warlock / Swashbuckler Rogue
You can get in and out of combat really easily, and are supernaturally hard to kill. You'd still be Dex based damage, but your charisma to augment your spellcasting would also up your initiative due to Rakish Audacity. The Audacity bonus also works well with the Darkness / Devil's Sight Combo, allowing you to augment your attacks on that isolated target with sneak attack damage on every strike. The addition of Spare the Dying ties in with many of your backstory hooks, and the ability to magically manifest a blade is a total boon for a street rat, and you can even manifest a second weapon with Shadow Blade to activate the TWF rider on Fancy footwork.

Shadow Monk / Death Cleric
This blend gives more of an urban ninja vibe, being able to appear from the darkness and strike with deadly hands, now augmented with Necrotic damage. You also gain the ability to grab any additional Necromancy cantrip, Augmenting your Toll the Dead with Chill touch, which has twice the range and can make sure no healing cheese happens. This will make your character a bit more spiritually focused - the PC would have likely have been taken in by monks, and the death domain exploration is based on their search for answers following their mother's death.

[ZorroGames]

My Urchin F1/Wizard 2 Variant Human used to bounce off the Well roleplayed Dwarf Sorcerer (was there ever a game he did not hit “0” HP? Not that I can remember!) as a foil for gentle little digs at “nobility.” Need to get him back into a game soon. Nobles make such great straight men/women for Urchin background characters...

[Aleister VII]

Sigil is the ultimate city! Plenty of other planar cities to speed through as well... city of brass, Dis...

Oops..! I forget about Sigil, I tend to imagine the other planes as wilderness made of a certain element and completely forget that they actually have cities.

[Naanomi]

Oops..! I forget about Sigil, I tend to imagine the other planes as wilderness made of a certain element and completely forget that they actually have cities.
It can be a fun character backstory... a Gensai Urchin from The City of Brass; or a Tiefling from Sigil... fled through a portal to a Prime (any Prime!) to make a new life for themselves amongst the ‘clueless’; but has to turn to adventuring when they realize life on the Prime isn’t any easier than where they came from

[Aleister VII]

It can be a fun character backstory... a Gensai Urchin from The City of Brass; or a Tiefling from Sigil... fled through a portal to a Prime (any Prime!) to make a new life for themselves amongst the ‘clueless’; but has to turn to adventuring when they realize life on the Prime isn’t any easier than where they came from

That's an amazing backstory! I've never get any nice concept or idea for a Genasai but I'm even tempted to make a character with that backstory xD

[prototype00]

Totem Barbarian / Rogue Urchin - Ilya the Rat Whisperer, who roleplayed the heck out of his pet rat- Mishka (talked to it more than his own party).

His Totem was Rat (basically a refluffed Bear, rats are tough), and he was more than slightly unhinged, but is a blast to play (his fighting style is: Pro Wrestling).

Basically a homage to Minsc from the Baldurs gate series.

[Bohandas]

vagrant or echinoderm?

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Well urchins are quite spiky so you can throw yourself at people to step on you... Oh you didn't mean sea urchins, though they would make a cool pet for a sea elf rogue. In actuality i would normally suggest rogue but in this case i would go with sorcerer. I think that you could make a interesting addition to your backstory by adding the magic.

[Voldking]

I played an urchin ranger with forest specialization.
As a kid, he was kicked out of his home after the death of his parents at the hand goblinoid ambushers.
He got picked up by the local Thieves Guild and 'paid' off their 'protection' by stealing.
Eventually he became a late teen with the knowledge of the streets and had enough of their rough treatment.
So he bailed. Made for the nearest forest with a knife in hand and a holed-up backpack. Being a quick learner, playing i favor for him observing nature, just like he did the streets.
A teen became a man, armed and specialized in hunting man and goblinoids alike, getting revenge for the ills done to him. His party taught him kindness and companionship.
He died in a horde of orcish raiders, defending his best buddy, a halfling bard and their party.
GGWB.

[strangebloke]

I love the 'hard knock life' approach

Seriously though, Urchin is one of those backgrounds that writes its own backstory.

"I was orphaned in the gutter, with nothing to my name but what I took, and no one to love me but those friends who I made on the way. Then [mentor figure] took me in and showed me how to [do thing associated with class]."

To get a bit unconventional, I've seen the following urchins:

-A spoiled rich kid who engaged in petty vandalism and theft for a cheap thrill.
-A warlock who had made his way through the wizard academy by stealing notes from other wizards

[Unoriginal]

Personally, I think that the moment where an urchin who "made it big", ie got rich/famous/respected after a few adventures, comes back to where they grew up is just brusting with story potential.

[Crgaston]

As the title ask, optimization apart what flavorful stuffs have you done or are thinking in doing with a urchin background character?

So far I've the idea of an urchin who is the daughter of human slave woman and her former Drow slave master so she is a half-elf with drow ancestry, her mother escaped while pregnant but being an ex slave she didn't have money or a home at all so the half drow girl was born and raised on the streets THEN her mother died, I leave the "how she died?" In blank to later fill it with something like "a dragon attacked the city and she was one of the victims", "that winter have no mercy", "a plague wipe most of the citizens" or something else that match with the adventure in which she's gonna be as a hook.
And her class... it also vary but like to go melee with a spellcaster, not the smartest idea but this isn't about optimization, among my favorite builds for her:

•Dex based melee sorcerer, I take elf weapon training to get proficiency with a finesse martial weapon and dragonic origin to boost AC, the elemental boost makes a nice combo with fire cantrips and spells. The flavor of this one is that she survived thanks to the awaken of her dragonic blood after her mother's death.

•Trickster pact of the archfey warlock, pretty simple I just like to use sleep, misty step, charm, superior invisibility and other trickster stuffs along with pact of the blade to be able of go melee. Unlike the flavor of the previous one this don't relies on the deus ex machina of awaken a long ago forgotten dragon bloodline but instead of a chance meeting or the summon of a Fey and make a pact with him/her to get power.

•A pole arm master eldritch Knight, this is actually a little more reliable than the others two and perhaps even optimal build, fighter basic stuffs like all those ASI and multi attacks are just great, add a few spells and cantrips and I can call it a day. The flavor of this one is that the half elf girl was taken by a retired adventurer who trains her as a fighter... not the best background but works for me.

So what kind of urchins do you like?

Here's a second vote for Gloom Stalker. Because of her half-drow ancestry, she is most comfortable in the dark alleys and sewers of her hometown... or any town, really. Because her mother tended to work in the evenings after she escaped, your character was largely unsupervised during her formative years and spent a lot of evenings out of the house and on or under the streets. Scavenging, evading bullies and the Watch and trying to stay out of the influence of criminal organizations. Maybe one of her mother's friends was a Ranger who visited town occasionally and who recognized the potential in her?

With Point Buy you could even start with 8/16/14/10/14/14 and take a level of Dragon Sorcerer for some utility cantrips and better AC if you wanted to include that aspect of your backstory. Maybe her Dragon blood manifested itself at a particularly stressful time and some people ended up injured or dead and that's why she had to leave town?

There are also lots of good non-stat-dependent first level Sorcerer spells... Absorb Elements, Detect Magic, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Fog Cloud, Jump, Magic Missile, Shield, and Sleep are some examples.

[Detective]

I can't speak much for "build optimization" (really, build what you want while modeling the background so that it can make sense).

If I may put my own spin on the background, instead of the usual "lived and survived along the streets" that is common with the background, why not have the character be born and raised in an orphanage?

As a template for a background, it gives you a couple options to consider, for example:

a) What kind of orphanage is it? Is it related to a church or even part of the church, an orphanage that is paid for by the city, or any other possibilities.

b) How were the children treated? like proper children or like slaves? Were they forced to do less than savory acts by the ones in charge, or to just survive?

c) Who are the people(or person) running the church? Are they just a good/bad person that is nice/cruel with the kids? Are they secretly a part of some sort of criminal organization, if not even the leader? Maybe they are even secretly some sort of evil warlock, that each time he claims a kid has "left off to a new home", they actually sacrificed the children?

d) Who are/were the children, and how well did you get along with them?


Generally, the urchin fits better to the more stereotypical "evil orphanages" trope, but it can also work for an orphanage that is run by good people, if for example the orphange's main means of self-sustaining themselves is by stealing food/money, just so that they can have something to eat on the table (Which fits a chaotic good/neutral character to a T)

So, for quick examples of classes that can fit:

The good old rogue, that can work well with just about any orphanage where the character had to do actions that were "against the law", either to help his orphanage survive, or because he had to do by the ones in charge.

In a church/religious-based orphanage, a cleric/paladin can work as well: In an orphanage that treats the children badly for example, it could be a way for the god of the church to "give hope" and help out an innocent child, all the better if the child actually embodies the virtues the god honors most- Compared to the way the people in the orphanage (and possibly even the rest of the church) use his name.
In an orphanage that treats its children well(Even if it has financial issues), it can be in how the child embodies the god's virtues- Willingness to share his own food even if it means he'll go hungry, or even steal food/money(preferably from those who can "spare" a couple coins without much issue) to help everyone else in the orphanage.
(A note here: The possibility of cleric/paladin depends on what gods are avaliable in the settings, and if their preferences/wants would fit in how the character acts)

Now to go a bit "Edgelord" (and one that sadly I don't know exactly how to make it fit), lets have some fun with the warlock.
Back to the "person behind the orphanage is secretly a warlock", maybe that person has found your character to be "special", or at least has potential to serve his patron- Or at least, work with him, so he filled you in on the details and, knowing that you will die if you said no(or kill the people you most care about), was forced to help him in whatever crazy shenanigans he has put on you. Eventually your character managed to escape- Maybe the person has forced you to make on act that went too far, or maybe you just had it with working with him? Whatever the cause, now you'll have three things to worry about: What will happen to the orphanage, and the remaining children within it? What are you going to do with the deeds of the past on your shoulders? And most important of all?

What will you do with the patron that still speaks to you? Maybe he is offering you power for a cost? Promising to give you the means of getting revenge, or even saving whatever would remain of the church if you'll serve him?
Each patron can his own mysterious, even if possibly wicked, ways...

If you don't like the idea of your character helping the work of an evil warlock however, one possibilty is that when it came your turn to be sacrificed, the patron has actually taken an interest in you and helped you escape.
Here sadly the "how" and "why", are questions that I can't think of a good answer at the moment of writing this, sadly.


I think this should be enough typing for today, so let me just say this: Again, you can pick just about any class you like if you can make the background work for it. The only one that I personally think would be a bit problematic, is something like the wizard (Who, has to a) somehow get a highly valuable, possibly expensive, education in magic. and b)Besides having to gain access to a spellbook, usually has to buy his own spells [Though that can potentially be remedied with something like "I stole a spellbook from a certain wizard])

It is still possible I believe, though it should make at least "just" a bit of sense :wink: (DnD is basically fantasy roleplay after all, which means it is a world where something that could be "unrealistic", can still happen and fit just as well)

[Eramanth]

I actually have a decent concept for a Tiefling Urchin.

Currently playing a rogue using this, so this is tailored towards Rogue, and Assassin specifically, but that's besides the point:

Asmodei was born as the first in 8 generations of his family to exhibit the Tiefling traits of the deal made with a devil long before he was born, and he lived with his human parents up until his fifth name day, hiding these traits as best as he could. One night, his father had had enough, and stole him from his childhood home, abandoning him to die alone on the streets. Too afraid to return home, he grew up on the streets, fending for himself, stealing what he needed to survive. One day, he tried to steal from the wrong person, and was caught. This individual was Sylris Nightblade, one of the current leaders of The Onyx Hand, a band of assassins. He had seen the boy around, and had taken a liking to him, so instead of reporting him to the guards, Sylris presented him with an offer: a family, a home, more gold than he could ever possibly need, and never going hungry again. Asmodei quickly agreed, and was taken in as a ward of the guild, learning their ways and quickly becoming a natural at the art of stealth and murder. Fast forward 20 years, and Asmodei is now one of the seasoned members of the guild, a far cry from his street rat days of stealing paltry amounts of bread and cheese just to eat for the night.

(No, it's no relation to Asmodeus, he's a Glasya Tiefling.)

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Thread necromancy is prohibited here.