Competition: Generic Adventuring Man

[strangebloke]

Homebrew Class: Adventurer.

Hit Dice: d8
Proficiences: light armor, simple weapons, 2 skills.
Class features: You get an ASI at every level.

What's the best character you can make with this?

[Scripten]

Point buy, I'm assuming? Also, Multiclassing is obviously out, but would you allow feats?

[CTurbo]

Half-Elf Adventurer

11 Str, 16 Dex, 14 Con, 12 int, 12 Wis, 12 Cha to start
Skills: Acrobatics, Survival, Perception, Stealth
Saves: Wis, Cha

20 ASIs/feats in no particular order

1. +2 Dex
2. +1 Dex, +1 Con
3. Moderately Armored(+1 Dex)
4. Res(Con) +1 Con
5. Alert
6. Lucky
7. Skilled(Insight, Persuasion, Deception)
8. Ritual Caster (Wizard)
9. Magic Initiate(Cleric: Guidance, Toll The Dead, Bless)
10. Spell Sniper(Booming Blade)
11. +2 Wis
12. Mobile
13. Sentinel
14. Weapon Master(Rapier, Whip, Heavy Crossbow, Hand Crossbow)(+1 Str)
15. Crossbow Expert
16. Sharpshooter
17. +2 Cha
18. Inspiring Leader
19. Warcaster
20. Healer



Final stats

12 Str, 20 Dex, 16 Con, 12 Int, 14 Wis, 14 Cha
150hp
19 AC with Half-Plate or Studded Leather (with shield)

[CheddarChampion]

I'm assuming you can get feats here:
Vuman: Moderately Armored
16/10/16/10/13/10
ASI's in order:
1 Heavily armored
2 Magic Initiate (Shield, Booming Blade, Light)
3 War Caster
4 Polearm Master (use a spear)
5 Weapon Master (Glaive + 2 others)
6 Spell Sniper (Green Flame Blade)

Level 6 is where the build comes together.
BB/GFB on your turn at 10' range, BB out of turn. Does pretty good damage when used twice a round and scales with level.
PAM requires strength so heavy armor is needed.
From there boost strength and maybe get GWM.

Other builds include
1 High charisma + Magic Initiate (Hex + Eldritch Blast)
2 High dex + Magic Initiate (Booming Blade) + Mobile

For any build, everyone will eventually want Ritual Caster for the access to high level spells.

[CTurbo]

Mountain Dwarf Adventurer

16 Str, 12 Dex, 16 Con, 11 int, 12 Wis, 12 Cha to start
Skills: Athletics, Perception
Saves: Con, Cha

20 ASIs/feats in no particular order

1. +2 Str
2. Polearm Master
3. Heavily Armored(+1 Str)
4. Res(Wis) +1 Wis
5. Alert
6. Lucky
7. Skilled(Insight, Persuasion, Survival)
8. Ritual Caster (Wizard)
9. Magic Initiate(Cleric: Guidance, Toll The Dead, Bless)
10. Spell Sniper(Booming Blade)
11. Observant(+1 Wis)
12. Tough
13. Sentinel
14. Weapon Master(Glaive, Longsword, heavy crossbow, Halberd)(+1 Str)
15. Linguist (+1 Int)
16. Great Weapon Master
17. +2 Cha
18. Inspiring Leader
19. Warcaster
20. Healer



Final stats

20 Str, 12 Dex, 16 Con, 12 Int, 14 Wis, 14 Cha
170hp
18 AC in Plate

[CTurbo]

Everybody will want to get something useful to do with their bonus actions and reactions. Everybody will want Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster because it's the only way to get spells other than Spell Sniper. Other than that, the generic good-for-everybody spells like Alert, Lucky, Mobile, Tough, Skilled, and Resilient should be really popular.

[Unoriginal]

Generic Adventurer gets the smallest HD available to PCs? Or is that typo?

[Man_Over_Game]

Generic Adventurer gets the smallest HD available to PCs? Or is that typo?

That's probably intentional, due to the fact that you can easily max out your Constitution (meaning about a +4 HP per level growth from 13 to 20), and you can grab the Tough feat (meaning a +2 HP per level from Growth).

Heck, the Tough Feat by itself makes the 1d6 jump to the same value as a 1d10, which is normally reserved to Fighters and Rangers.

[Aquillion]

Regarding people's Magic Initiate choices, I would strongly suggest Minor Illusion (it's on a bunch of lists, so you can get it with Warlock or Wizard.) It just gives you much more versatile out-of-combat utility, which this build will sorely lack - stuff like Light and Guidance can be provided elsewhere in the party, whereas Minor Illusion gets better when multiple people have it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You've got one of three build strategies, as I see it:

Tank: Start Tortle for pseudo-heavy armor, then grab Weapon Master, Tough, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, and Sentinel, in that order.
Archer: Start Drow for proficiencies, then grab Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, and Tough
Skirmisher: Start High Elf for proficiencies, take Booming Blade as your racial cantrip, then grab Mobile, Tough, and Defensive Duelist.

The Tank probably winds up the strongest, but also takes the longest to bloom. Regardless, I think the problem is that you hit peak power around level 4, and rapidly decline thereafter-- not so much because you run out of good feats, but because even combos like GWM/PAM/Sentinel have a flat power level, and become less and less impressive compared to actual class features as you go.

[CheddarChampion]

You've got one of three build strategies, as I see it:

Tank: Start Tortle for pseudo-heavy armor, then grab Weapon Master, Tough, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, and Sentinel, in that order.
Archer: Start Drow for proficiencies, then grab Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, and Tough
Skirmisher: Start High Elf for proficiencies, take Booming Blade as your racial cantrip, then grab Mobile, Tough, and Defensive Duelist.


Dang, simple and elegant. These put mine to shame.

[Misterwhisper]

If UA is allowed I would run with this all day long, due to the skill feats all being half feats that give expertise and a little ability.

Assuming no UA though:

Envoy Warforged: That handles your armor issues permanently. Not having to breathe, eat, or drink is amazing.
Background: Whatever
Stats: counting first level ASI

Str: 9
Dex: 18
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 14
Cha: 14

Weapon: A spear is a perfectly fine simple weapon
Built in armor is all good thanks to war forged.
Skills: Hit the basics - Stealth, Perception, Persuasion and athletics.

ASI:

1: 2 Dex
2: Medium Armor training boost Str to 10 just in case and carry a shield, now you have permanent good AC.
3: Magic Initiate Wizard: Booming Blade, Minor Illusion and Fog Cloud
4: Ritual caster Wizard: All that lovely utility
From then on just boost stats and defenses.

Looks pretty solid to me.

[8wGremlin]

Warforged (envoy) - basic Eldritch blaster.
take Magic Initiate (wizard, booming blade, prestidigitation, shield), Spell sniper (eldritch blast), Moderately Armoured, Ritual Caster (wizard, find familiar) Shield master, Medium armour master, Charisma boosts. crossbow mastery

Your AC is linked to your proficiency and can get to AC 24 with no magic item, you have shield to help with that.
You attack with Booming blade or Eldritch blast which you get 4 bolts eventually tied to your Charisma.
You get all the cool and useful Wizard rituals, and you have a familiar.
You get your shield bonus to dex saves vs single target spells.
Crossbow-mastery; to shoot point black EBs.
You have Advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
You are immune to Disease.
You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe.
You don't need to sleep and don't suffer the effects of exhaustion due to lack of rest, and magic can't put you to sleep.

[8wGremlin]

lol - @Misterwhisper nearly the same build at the same time!

[strangebloke]

Point buy, I'm assuming? Also, Multiclassing is obviously out, but would you allow feats?
yes feats, yes point buy, no multiclassing.

Half-Elf Adventurer

11 Str, 16 Dex, 14 Con, 12 int, 12 Wis, 12 Cha to start
Skills: Acrobatics, Survival, Perception, Stealth
Saves: Wis, Cha

20 ASIs/feats in no particular order

I think giving the feats 'in no particular order' makes the discussion less interesting. Because in reality the goal here is get your character into a good position by level 5 or so since that's when most of the other classes come online.

Generic Adventurer gets the smallest HD available to PCs? Or is that typo?
Yeah, I wiffled between that and d8. Ultimately I figured it was more interesting to force people to choose whether to buff their HP/AC or not.


That's probably intentional, due to the fact that you can easily max out your Constitution (meaning about a +4 HP per level growth from 13 to 20), and you can grab the Tough feat (meaning a +2 HP per level from Growth).

Heck, the Tough Feat by itself makes the 1d6 jump to the same value as a 1d10, which is normally reserved to Fighters and Rangers.
Yeah, I mean, tough plus having +5 CON means you'll have awesome HP at pretty much every level.

You've got one of three build strategies, as I see it:

Tank: Start Tortle for pseudo-heavy armor, then grab Weapon Master, Tough, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, and Sentinel, in that order.
Archer: Start Drow for proficiencies, then grab Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, and Tough
Skirmisher: Start High Elf for proficiencies, take Booming Blade as your racial cantrip, then grab Mobile, Tough, and Defensive Duelist.

The Tank probably winds up the strongest, but also takes the longest to bloom. Regardless, I think the problem is that you hit peak power around level 4, and rapidly decline thereafter-- not so much because you run out of good feats, but because even combos like GWM/PAM/Sentinel have a flat power level, and become less and less impressive compared to actual class features as you go.

Oh yeah, 5th level is a major downer.

I actually do think that, within each tier you begin to catch up. At level 1 you'll basically be a wizard without spells, but by level four you'll have a built in strategy that works pretty well... and then by level 9 you'll have maxed CON and maxed main stat in exchange for being a little bit behind in damage output.

And that's really the kicker. I think that you could sorta keep up with the bards and clerics in that you could be a total powerhouse of a support character. Healer, ritual caster, inspiring leader... but your damage will lag, and will lag by a wide margin, particularly in the later levels once you and everyone else maxed out their main stats.

So yeah, I like your builds, except that for the skirmisher I'd go wood elf. Magic Initiate is a great pick for a skirmisher type build, since you can get mage armor 1/day as well as booming blade... and then you can get wood elf magic and maybe skulker which altogether would make you really stealthy and fast. For your 'tank' I'd probably just go for mountain dwarf so that I could skip taking weapon master and start with a better statline.

I'd also add a 'pure support' build, which probably would be effective but not very fun to play. Half-Elf, Inspiring Leader (to increase early HP by a massive amount) -> Magic Initiate (for guidance, bless, and sacred flame) -> ritual caster, healer, etc. etc.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yeah, I wiffled between that and d8. Ultimately I figured it was more interesting to force people to choose whether to buff their HP/AC or not.
I'd come down in the other direction, personally-- the d8 is the hit die for classes that fall into the "I do okay, but I need something extra if I want to survive in the frontline," which this really seems to be.


Oh yeah, 5th level is a major downer.

I actually do think that, within each tier you begin to catch up. At level 1 you'll basically be a wizard without spells, but by level four you'll have a built in strategy that works pretty well... and then by level 9 you'll have maxed CON and maxed main stat in exchange for being a little bit behind in damage output.

And that's really the kicker. I think that you could sorta keep up with the bards and clerics in that you could be a total powerhouse of a support character. Healer, ritual caster, inspiring leader... but your damage will lag, and will lag by a wide margin, particularly in the later levels once you and everyone else maxed out their main stats.
Mmm... disagree, on a couple levels.. You won't have any kind of stat advantage at first, as you need to throw all your ASIs at feats to make up for your lack of class features. By the time you've fleshed out your combat and non-combat contributions, normal characters are also hitting their stat caps. And when monster difficulty spikes at levels 5 and 11, you're not going to find any way to keep up-- feats just don't scale that well.

If you wanted this to be a more serious options, I'd suggest making some class-exclusive feats with level requirements. Pick up Extra Attack or a 1/day casting of a 3rd level spell (requiring level 5), that sort of thing.

[Unoriginal]

Honestly I've been trying to come up with builds, but they seem more on the level of the Sidekick classes from the UA at best.

[Luccan]

Interesting idea for a generic class, I think bumping to a d8 makes sense, as Grod said. I'd also be tempted to say light armor and shields, but perhaps that would be less generic.

[Misterwhisper]

Honestly I've been trying to come up with builds, but they seem more on the level of the Sidekick classes from the UA at best.

I liked that UA for the wrong reasons, we just used it to replace rogues with expert and replaced warlock with spellcaster.

So far things have been much better. Expert is absolutely amazing and far better than base rogue.

[Unoriginal]

I don't suppose UA feats are allowed?

[Misterwhisper]

I don't suppose UA feats are allowed?

If so, skill feats and lots of them.

[strangebloke]

I'd come down in the other direction, personally-- the d8 is the hit die for classes that fall into the "I do okay, but I need something extra if I want to survive in the frontline," which this really seems to be.

Mmm... disagree, on a couple levels.. You won't have any kind of stat advantage at first, as you need to throw all your ASIs at feats to make up for your lack of class features. By the time you've fleshed out your combat and non-combat contributions, normal characters are also hitting their stat caps. And when monster difficulty spikes at levels 5 and 11, you're not going to find any way to keep up-- feats just don't scale that well.

If you wanted this to be a more serious options, I'd suggest making some class-exclusive feats with level requirements. Pick up Extra Attack or a 1/day casting of a 3rd level spell (requiring level 5), that sort of thing.
Well YMMV. You're probably right, and in any case you're so far behind by level 11 or so that you're basically hopeless. The only thing to say is that you will be able to become highly specialized really early on. So this might be a good system for making a really potent, quick NPC specialist, if such a thing were needed. (something that is arguable at best.)

Honestly I think this would be a pretty terrible option in a real game. Even if the proficiencies and HP were returned to were it worked, picking from a generic list of perks is a lame way to make things work in 5e. If you really wanted to do this, you'd need feat tree dependencies and all that rot.


Honestly I've been trying to come up with builds, but they seem more on the level of the Sidekick classes from the UA at best.
I mean, I dont' think its good, especially past level 5.

Interesting idea for a generic class, I think bumping to a d8 makes sense, as Grod said. I'd also be tempted to say light armor and shields, but perhaps that would be less generic.
d8 is good. I'll make that change.

I don't suppose UA feats are allowed?
Eh, with some reservations (diplomat) I'd say no.

[Bjarkmundur]

I liked that UA for the wrong reasons, we just used it to replace rogues with expert and replaced warlock with spellcaster.

So far things have been much better. Expert is absolutely amazing and far better than base rogue.

Tell me more! I love the sidekicks. Isn't it bad not having sneak attack or a fighting style? Why did ya switch out the warlock?

[Aquillion]

Honestly I think this would be a pretty terrible option in a real game. Even if the proficiencies and HP were returned to were it worked, picking from a generic list of perks is a lame way to make things work in 5e. If you really wanted to do this, you'd need feat tree dependencies and all that rot.I'd say that if you really wanted to make this work, the trick would be to give it some generic class features. Getting a second attack at level 5 or 6 wouldn't violate the genericness constraint, say. Maybe offer them some common class features as feats, like...

Instead of an ASI, you can pick one of the following, provided you're at or above the listed level minimum. The first time you pick something that grants a spell or cantrip, choose Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom for your casting stat.

Second Attack. (Min level 5.)

Cantrips. Choose and learn any two cantrips. You may take this option repeatedly.

Spell. Choose one spell of up to half your level (round up); you can cast it once per long rest. You may take this option repeatedly.

...you could limit the spell option a bit more if you're concerned about high-level silliness, but I don't think it's a huge issue. Though really at this point you're just a weirdly-designed Warlock.

[djreynolds]

Homebrew Class: Adventurer.

Hit Dice: d8
Proficiences: light armor, simple weapons, 2 skills.
Class features: You get an ASI at every level.

What's the best character you can make with this?

This is actually an awesome and really cool idea. Really AWESOME.

It makes you feel like it's you in the game, well done

[Misterwhisper]

Tell me more! I love the sidekicks. Isn't it bad not having sneak attack or a fighting style? Why did ya switch out the warlock?

Rogues with sneak attack but has to use certain weapons vs someone with a second attack and an option for a bonus action attack of some sort is great.

Expert gets:
more skills
More attacks
More expertise
More options for cunning action
One extra ASI so same number as fighter
Same hit die
Same reliable talent
A form of bardic skills
Inspiring help is like a more subtle guidance
They don’t have to care about finesse so are much better at strength builds

The only thing it lacks is a second save to be good at and a subclass and it is just plain better than rogues.


The caster replaced warlock because literally every character but one had at least one level in hexblade simply because it is so much better than any other first level for a caster.

[Spectrulus]

I played with the latest damage calc and made a simple graphic. It might be a bit weak in combat, but not useless.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/545047948271157248/564239087595159586/AdventurerTest.png

I like the idea, my friends are chatting about it. Thanks strangebloke!