The Menagerie

[KyleG]

Can you help me give some ideas to the kids for their next characters. They want to play there favourite animals so we are going to end up with a Tortle, Loxodon, and a Tabaxi. Ill probably pad it out with a Kenku, possibly a Warlock depending on what classes they would be. Im only really ruling out Wizard. They will struggle with that i think. Curious how you think they would have wound up together too.

[Ventruenox]

Since this is for kids, I'll skip over the Illithid experimentation idea. Perhaps a Rakshasha, Fey, or Beholder wanted a zoo? They meet while trapped in cages in a transport caravan of slavers.

[Unoriginal]

They could all be Monks, and you could do an "Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting" campaign.

They could travel together to learn secret techniques (represented by Boons) from different masters and places.

[Rukelnikov]

They were the pets of some wizard who got jumped, and with his final spell turned them into their current forms, pets to the rescue!

[DrKerosene]

If the Kenku is an NPC ally, maybe you’d enjoy a Giff “Commander”. Or an awakened Baboon.

Reflavoring the animal for a totem Barbarian seems in-theme. Rogues and Monks seem like you can easily reflavor them as being “beastperson abilities”.

Bard songbirds seem novel, but I like the idea of a screaming alley-cat Bard.

[KyleG]

im thinking Bard, Barbarian and Rogue perhaps?

[Mercurias]

I could see a Dragonborn as a Warlock if you wanted to fluff the Fiend as a full dragon.

If going straight for the Tortle, Loxodon, and Tabaxi, I would say the Tortle and Loxodon could probably be equally great at Barbarian, Bard, or Cleric. For the Tabaxi, you could pretty easily run as a Rogue or Monk, depending.

I kind of love the idea of a cowardly Tortle Cleric hiding in its shell while maintaining Spirit Guardians.

This seems like a really cute idea! If you remember later, would you please let us know how it turns out?

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

One of my D&D groups called ourselves the Fighting Menagerie. We were a Tabaxi, Kenku, Dragonborn, Half-Orc, and a token Human.

Maybe just have a normal human, but they're a Moon Druid, so a bunch of animals in one.

[nickl_2000]

I also did homebrew some awakened animals if you want to be even more silly

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yEFIw2jlo35h9aEdKerlsuj4rOLwAzIIsKIn_1miUto/edit?usp=sharing

[Rukelnikov]

If the Kenku is an NPC ally, maybe you’d enjoy a Giff “Commander”. Or an awakened Baboon.

Reflavoring the animal for a totem Barbarian seems in-theme. Rogues and Monks seem like you can easily reflavor them as being “beastperson abilities”.

Bard songbirds seem novel, but I like the idea of a screaming alley-cat Bard.

Giff sounds perfect for a DMPC.

Minotaur and Lizardfolk could also fit the theme.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

Might be fun to give them a minor shapechange ability to turn into the animal that they represent. My niece is really into the whole animal thing right now, but struggled with the druid prepared stuff, so we reflavored a Divine Soul Sorcerer with Druid spells instead of Cleric and gave it the Druid's shapechange instead of rerolls and she loves it.

If someone is into Werebeasts, Shifters or Order of the Lycan Bloodhunters could be up their alley, too.

[Grog Logs]

Can you help me give some ideas to the kids for their next characters. They want to play there favourite animals so we are going to end up with a Tortle, Loxodon, and a Tabaxi. Ill probably pad it out with a Kenku, possibly a Warlock depending on what classes they would be. Im only really ruling out Wizard. They will struggle with that i think. Curious how you think they would have wound up together too.

Based on my experience with building one-shot characters as an adult, I view Bards and Warlocks as the two hardest classes to keep track of. Seriously, try building a level 6 character, putting away the character sheet for a month, and then jumping into a one-shot. It's a little tough.

I'd say that the easiest to play are probably the Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Barbarian (if you go easy on Sneak Attack conditions). So, basically, the martial characters. While Paladins have spells, they can easily be used only for Smites and healing, which makes it easier than a Battle Master Fighter to manage.

If anyone wants a Beastmaster Ranger, you may want to go the UA route. The UA Beastmaster is more intuitive than the PHB Beastmaster. The PBB one does approximately the expected damage (as represented by numerous posts on this forum) but it does not make intuitive sense, which might throw off kids even more. Or, just give everyone a free CR 2 or lower pet of their choice, and treat it as a magic item in terms of balance. Kids in cartoons often have pet companions that help in batter. There was a recent UA on Companions or Helpers or Sidekicks that you could adapt for them. Or, just print out the page for Wolf, Panther, etc. You can refluff a snake- or lizard-type creature for a turtle companion.

I'm curious why banning the Wizard but not the Sorcerer. With a Wizard, you do not HAVE to change your spells with a long rest. But, with a Sorcerer, you are STUCK with your spells forever (except leveling up) per RAW. Of course, you could bend RAW easily if a spell is not needed. Oh, never mind. Looking at the tables, I see that a Wizard always has more prepared spells than a Sorcerer knows. Bummer.


They could all be Monks, and you could do an "Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting" campaign.

They could travel together to learn secret techniques (represented by Boons) from different masters and places.

While I would consider the Monk a medium-difficulty class, I could see this going over really well if everyone was a Monk. That way, they could remind each other about their general class abilities and to use their ki points. I think that the Monk has enough variation between the subclasses to make every PC feel unique (while also having a commonality) as long as you enforce that the Dojo only allows one student at a time to master a subclass.

On another note, I've been toying around with the idea that you can keep 5e more simple by keeping character levels low (levels 2-6) but doling out extra magic items to keep the feeling of growing more powerful over time.