ShinyRocks
2020-03-14, 04:41 PM
So my new campaign - second with my group - starts soon. We start at level one. We've had Session Zero. My DM likes us to roll for stats (4d6 drop lowest seven times, drop the lowest total, distribute how you like). I rolled 17, 12, 12, 11, 10, 10, 7. So obviously the 7 goes and I end up with no negatives, great, a nice big number, great, and then some eh numbers.
I asked my DM if I could do any swapping at all - take 2 from somewhere and stick it somewhere else. He said no, which is fine and what I expected, but if you don't ask, you don't get.
I'm playing a half-elf Wizard. Probably Abjuration. I was going to be Theurgy, Life Domain, but someone else is being a Life Cleric and it's my own personal bugbear that I hate duplicating within a party, even a little bit. But I might still do it - Life gets Bless, Cure Wounds, Spiritual Weapon as Domain Spells, among others. I enjoy clerics and Life gets some very iconic Cleric Spells so I'd still have a bit of Cleric flavour. I super love SW, and Wizards don't have a tonne of bonus actions, plus the thought of sending my Familiar across the battlefield to land on somebody and cast Cure Wounds is fun. We'll also have a druid, and it's a party of 5, so I don't really need to be an off-healer, even if it wouldn't hurt. Anyway, it'll probably be Abjuration.
I'm going round and round about where to put my stats and thought I'd turn to the Playground to discuss.
To note: I am not changing from Half-Elf. There's character reasons for it and I'm tied in to another player for back story. So mechanically sure I should be a Svirfneblin or whatever, but I don't want to totally minmax - just do the best within the bounds I've made for this character. Ideally I wanted to have quite high Wis because I'd imagined him as this very observant, alert sort of guy and I wanted to do well with Perception and Insight, but that's probably off the table.
The easiest option is Option A Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18 (17+1), Wis 12 (11+1), Cha 12 (10+2). That would mean I could hit 20 Int at level 4, take War Caster at 8, and then start boosting Dex or Con (or even Wis.) Nice and easy. But starting with all even numbers means that any half-feats like Resilient Con or Elven Accuracy end up with a horrible floating point for ages. And I will only get +1s in everything else for a long time.
Option B is Str 10, Dex 12, Con 13 (12+1), Int 18 (17+1), Wis 11, Cha 12. Take Resilient: Con at 4, then probably max Int at 8, then maybe Observant or EA at 12 to round out the Wisdom. Not necessarily in that order. This would be fine but (and this is partly a hangover from playing a Cleric), going so long with no bonus to Wis will be painful.
Option B2 is the same as above, except start at 13 Wis and 11 Con. Probably still take Res:Con quite early.
Option C is Str 10, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 17, Wis 12, Cha 12. Take Res: Con, and Observant/Linguist/EA for the +1 Int, and have max Int by 12. This is appealing in a way - gets a bit more HP, has a Wis bonus to start. But your Abjurer's Ward calculates from your Int bonus, so I kind of want to start with it as high as possible. (I know a 17 at level one is still high!)
Options B and C don't really leave room for War Caster, but I don't think you need WC and R:C. Especially not if I go Abjuration, as I'll be making Concentration saves less frequently, as my Ward will be taking the damage.
Option D is switch to Point Buy, which the DM said I could do if I was super unhappy. And then probably have, assuming standard array, Str 8, Con 14, Dex 12, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 12. (I think a +1 to Cha and -1 to Str is more fun, and more in keeping with a bookish Wizard, than two flat scores.) Or possibly Dex 14, Wis 12. But as I said, I originally envisaged a decently high Wis score.
I know these scores aren't bad, but they're leaving me feeling a bit lost. Not helped the fact that in our campaign run by another player, which ended up stopping after one session, I rolled 17, 17, 15, 14, 14, 13 before racial bonuses. So I know the heights you can hit!
At least to start with, I'll have Mage Armour up basically the time to trigger the Ward, and I'm taking Shield, so I'm not super worried about having really high Dex.
So, Playgrounders. Do any of these options strike you as clearly the best one? Is there another path I'm missing? I'll end up happy with whatever I play, I think, but as it's still abstract at the moment, I want to make it 'best'.
I asked my DM if I could do any swapping at all - take 2 from somewhere and stick it somewhere else. He said no, which is fine and what I expected, but if you don't ask, you don't get.
I'm playing a half-elf Wizard. Probably Abjuration. I was going to be Theurgy, Life Domain, but someone else is being a Life Cleric and it's my own personal bugbear that I hate duplicating within a party, even a little bit. But I might still do it - Life gets Bless, Cure Wounds, Spiritual Weapon as Domain Spells, among others. I enjoy clerics and Life gets some very iconic Cleric Spells so I'd still have a bit of Cleric flavour. I super love SW, and Wizards don't have a tonne of bonus actions, plus the thought of sending my Familiar across the battlefield to land on somebody and cast Cure Wounds is fun. We'll also have a druid, and it's a party of 5, so I don't really need to be an off-healer, even if it wouldn't hurt. Anyway, it'll probably be Abjuration.
I'm going round and round about where to put my stats and thought I'd turn to the Playground to discuss.
To note: I am not changing from Half-Elf. There's character reasons for it and I'm tied in to another player for back story. So mechanically sure I should be a Svirfneblin or whatever, but I don't want to totally minmax - just do the best within the bounds I've made for this character. Ideally I wanted to have quite high Wis because I'd imagined him as this very observant, alert sort of guy and I wanted to do well with Perception and Insight, but that's probably off the table.
The easiest option is Option A Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18 (17+1), Wis 12 (11+1), Cha 12 (10+2). That would mean I could hit 20 Int at level 4, take War Caster at 8, and then start boosting Dex or Con (or even Wis.) Nice and easy. But starting with all even numbers means that any half-feats like Resilient Con or Elven Accuracy end up with a horrible floating point for ages. And I will only get +1s in everything else for a long time.
Option B is Str 10, Dex 12, Con 13 (12+1), Int 18 (17+1), Wis 11, Cha 12. Take Resilient: Con at 4, then probably max Int at 8, then maybe Observant or EA at 12 to round out the Wisdom. Not necessarily in that order. This would be fine but (and this is partly a hangover from playing a Cleric), going so long with no bonus to Wis will be painful.
Option B2 is the same as above, except start at 13 Wis and 11 Con. Probably still take Res:Con quite early.
Option C is Str 10, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 17, Wis 12, Cha 12. Take Res: Con, and Observant/Linguist/EA for the +1 Int, and have max Int by 12. This is appealing in a way - gets a bit more HP, has a Wis bonus to start. But your Abjurer's Ward calculates from your Int bonus, so I kind of want to start with it as high as possible. (I know a 17 at level one is still high!)
Options B and C don't really leave room for War Caster, but I don't think you need WC and R:C. Especially not if I go Abjuration, as I'll be making Concentration saves less frequently, as my Ward will be taking the damage.
Option D is switch to Point Buy, which the DM said I could do if I was super unhappy. And then probably have, assuming standard array, Str 8, Con 14, Dex 12, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 12. (I think a +1 to Cha and -1 to Str is more fun, and more in keeping with a bookish Wizard, than two flat scores.) Or possibly Dex 14, Wis 12. But as I said, I originally envisaged a decently high Wis score.
I know these scores aren't bad, but they're leaving me feeling a bit lost. Not helped the fact that in our campaign run by another player, which ended up stopping after one session, I rolled 17, 17, 15, 14, 14, 13 before racial bonuses. So I know the heights you can hit!
At least to start with, I'll have Mage Armour up basically the time to trigger the Ward, and I'm taking Shield, so I'm not super worried about having really high Dex.
So, Playgrounders. Do any of these options strike you as clearly the best one? Is there another path I'm missing? I'll end up happy with whatever I play, I think, but as it's still abstract at the moment, I want to make it 'best'.