Anybody else have characters based on real world characters?

[Mr.Spastic]

Sometimes I have a player(or see a thread) who wants to play a character based on a character from a game/anime/comic/ect... for a one shot or themed type game. While doing this I have actually had a lot of fun figuring out what options fit the character better. Overtime I have accumulated a few different build that I keep around and occasionally play. My question for you guys is what characters have you adapted into the wonderful world of D&D? I would love to see builds if you have them. I'll give one to start.

Link(not Zelda) Lv. 8 build
Race: Half Elf
Hexblade Warlock 3/ Horizon Walker Ranger 5

Stats: Using point buy
Str-8
Dex-16
Con-14
Int-8
Wis-13
Cha-16

Skills: Medicine, Stealth, Perception, Survival, Insight, Persuasion, Investigation
Tools: Tinker's Tools
Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Primordial, Slyvan
Warlock Stuff:
Spells: Eldritch Blast, Booming Blade, Hex, Shield, Spider Climb, Shadow Blade
Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones
Pact Boon: Pact of the Chain, Sprite Familiar
Ranger Stuff:
Fighting Style: Dueling
Spells: Protection From Evil and Good, Cure Wounds, Longstrider, Misty Step, Healing Spirit, Locate Object.
Edit: Favored Terrain is Forest and Favored Enemy is Monstrosities
Feats: Warcaster

Weapons used were a longsword and a shield and occasionally using a longbow. The fun part about this build is that I think it covers most of the bases.

Melee Weapons and a Bow: Check
Annoying Fairy Sidekick? Check
Crazy Tools? Check
Little Bit of Magic? Check
Sword Beams? Only the best. Check please

One thing I tried really hard to do with this was find a way to not just sit their and cast Eldritch Blast all day and I think I accomplished that. If you use Shadow Blade and Planar Warrior your first attack does 3d8+3 force and the second does 2d8+3 psychic. One of the things I like the most about this build is that it has extreme versatility. It has Healing, Long Range, Close Range, Good Skills, Mobility, Utility, and Invisible Familiar Scouting. All things a good little fairy boy can't live without. The only thing left is to level up one level in warlock for a feat to get skilled for Cook's Utensils, Alchemist's Tools, and Herbalist Kit for potions and bombs. I will say that the main challenge was to find a way to get both sword and shield and bows without spreading to thin. Luckily Hexblade had what I needed and also threw in a fairy.

[Wilko]

I've tried this occasionally, i'm away from my files at the moment but the one I most remember was looking at building Syrio Forel from game of thrones, I started out a fighter build as he doesn't use magic but then i realized he was in D&D terms wise as all hell, particularly the book version where he lectures about seeing what is actually there and reading people. So I did an about face and made him a Kensei Monk, (Weapons - Rapier, and Training Sword (Club))

[MThurston]

I've played my favorite character across game systems.

[Skyblaze]

This is how I go about thinking on characters and how to play them really. Pick fun fictional character I like, take personality/maybe motivations and drop it into a character. One was Malcolm Reynolds from firefly, battlemaster or Samurai fighter, lost in a war for independence and not over it, rag tag crew, does jobs against the "empire" (or whatever large entity the defeated the group he was in) with pleasure.

[Gryndle]

This is how I go about thinking on characters and how to play them really. Pick fun fictional character I like, take personality/maybe motivations and drop it into a character. One was Malcolm Reynolds from firefly, battlemaster or Samurai fighter, lost in a war for independence and not over it, rag tag crew, does jobs against the "empire" (or whatever large entity the defeated the group he was in) with pleasure.

Mal is the inspiration for the character I will be playing in our upcoming Dragon Heist campaign. but I will also be playtesting our house-fix for the ranger class, which I am optimistic about. I am WAY too excited about the prospect of playing in an actual campaign and not being the DM for a change.

[solidork]

I've played a Thor who lost most of his powers (Tempest Cleric) and a character from the webcomic Check Please.

[JackPhoenix]

Wait, you mention real world characters in the thread name, and then talk about fictional characters? That's disappointing.

Here I was hoping that the thread would be about people like La Maupin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_d%27Aubigny), who should be the example for any proper bard.

[Skyblaze]

Wait, you mention real world characters in the thread name, and then talk about fictional characters? That's disappointing.

Here I was hoping that the thread would be about people like La Maupin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_d%27Aubigny), who should be the example for any proper bard.

Never heard of that person before, but that is awesome and very bard-esque.

[Misterwhisper]

I was going to make make a bard tap dancer that was a Minotaur named Hoovian Glover

[GlenSmash!]

Pretty much all my characters are some combination of Aragorn, Conan of Cimerria, and Logen Ninefingers.

[Skyblaze]

Pretty much all my characters are some combination of Aragorn, Conan of Cimerria, and Logen Ninefingers.

Say one thing about GlenSmash!, say he likes his ranger/barbarians.

[GlenSmash!]

Say one thing about GlenSmash!, say he likes his ranger/barbarians.

:smallbiggrin:

I think wilderness warrior will forever interest me more than any other theme.

Fighter Scout is my favorite take on it in 5e so far. If only my current DM allowed UA.

[mucat]

Wait, you mention real world characters in the thread name, and then talk about fictional characters?

If real-world characters are on the agenda, I remember writing a short story as a sort of extended backstory for a character in a Ravenloft campaign. We were supposed to create mid-level characters newly arrived in Ravenloft from some other world (which, for those unfamiliar with the setting, is a Bad Place where people find themselves after vanishing forever in mysterious misty fogbanks.)

The character I had in mind was an academic wizard (or whatever we called wizards way back in 2e) from a world undergoing a sort of arcane version of the Enlightenment, with magic becoming an established science. So I invented a cadre of fellow-researchers based closely on real-life physicists throughout history. There was a Paul Dirac, a Lise Meitner, a Murray Gell-Mann, an Ernest Rutherford, an Emelie du Chatelet. I had changed the names, and filed off the most obvious details, but the personalities were there, and their arcane research echoed their real-life breakthroughs. My own character, and the story's narrator, was a not-quite-as-gifted member of this circle, somewhat in awe of the great minds around him. I had great fun writing their interaction and bickering as one by one they were enticed into a dangerous life-extension research project, by their world's equivalent of Richard Feynman.

Of course, the project Went Horribly Wrong. (They were inadvertently inventing lichdom, which until then hadn't existed in their world.) Which is how my character ended up engulfed in those mysterious Ravenloft mists, with no idea of the fate of any of his colleagues.

The GM liked the characters, and began dropping clues that some of them were also trapped in Ravenloft, though it was unclear how badly damaged their minds or souls might be. Which led to one of the most terrifying villains in any campaign I can remember: the brilliant-but-batsh*t-insane lich of Richard Feynman.

(He wasn't called that, of course, but the GM did a great job of capturing all the characters, especially since I never mentioned who I had modeled any of them from.)

[Joe the Rat]

See, and when "brilliant-but-batsh*t-insane lich of Richard Feynman" comes up as an option, I wouldn't change the name. I'd put it in Title Case.

Real People... I had a Bard based on Tolkien. Young Tolkien, still in his pre-signal corp experiences.

Other Characters: I steal a lot of themes and ideas, but they usually get well-laundered before coming to play. The straightest cuts on fictional characters are Pre-Elipse Guts from Berserk, only as a Halfling, and Kobold Hamlet.

[GlenSmash!]

See, and when "brilliant-but-batsh*t-insane lich of Richard Feynman" comes up as an option, I wouldn't change the name. I'd put it in Title Case.

Real People... I had a Bard based on Tolkien. Young Tolkien, still in his pre-signal corp experiences.

Other Characters: I steal a lot of themes and ideas, but they usually get well-laundered before coming to play. The straightest cuts on fictional characters are Pre-Elipse Guts from Berserk, only as a Halfling, and Kobold Hamlet.

Halfling Guts???

You're crazy!

[dragoeniex]

Not directly, but I've got a necromancer (full class homebrew) whose personality is some combination of Reba Hart from Reba and Stanford Pines from Gravity Falls.

She's a high-IQ, perceptive private eye who wears a trench and other long-sleeved garments to cover up the full-body set of tattoos she's given herself using magical ink. Her body serves as her casting focus, and she gets threads of necromancy knowledge from an unknown entity that definitely won't ever come back to bite her I'm sure. Lab safety is about as good as Ford's.

She's also no-nonsense and snaps in a heavy Southern accent to keep the rest of the investigators moving. Dry, sarcastic humor. Luck is about as good as Reba's; she's got a knack for making the worst rolls, and it's perfect.

Needless to say, charisma is her dump stat.

[Laserlight]

Next time I get a campaign appropriate for me to run the paladinest paladin who ever paladined, I'll read up on Bayard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Terrail,_seigneur_de_Bayard), the knight "without fear and beyond reproach".

[RickAsWritten]

I have a Tortle Death Cleric that is loosely based on the Dry Bones enemies from Mario. https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t34.18173-0/p280x280/29920182_10160091900185234_526120477_n.jpg?_nc_cat =101&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=1449e67320a36c88ecf18dda64122b0a&oe=5C0C3B23

[TheCleverGuy]

It being near Christmas and all, I'd love to run a simple intro campaign for my kid with characters based on classic Christmas stories and TV specials. I can't do it (for one thing, my kid is only 6 years old; for another I don't have the DMG or MM), but if I could characters would be:
- the Nutcracker Soldier (battle master fighter)
- the Grinch (mastermind rogue)
- the Winter Warlock from Santa Claus is Coming to Town (cold dragon sorcerer)
- the Little Drummer Boy (bard)
- Yukon Cornelius (beast master STR-ranger w/dog companion)
- Linus (knowledge cleric)