Ninjadeadbeard
2022-09-12, 12:46 AM
Just finished up a nice game of House of Lament online, and my DM is feeling like taking our level 3 characters to the Death House and then Curse of Strahd. He's letting us respec, since we did a dumb and went ALL ROGUES. And while this was hilarious good fun, we've all agreed it wasn't a particularly good idea, and most of us are changing out mechanics while keeping the character concepts handy. In my case, I've got permission to be a bit wilder in my changes and... well. I'm now paralyzed by choice, naturally. :smalltongue:
CONCEPT:
Shelly is a young human girl for whom tragedy is a constant state of affairs. Parents died when she was born. Extended family followed soon after, in more and more unusual or bizarre accidents and incidents. The orphanage that ended up with her eventually sighed in relief when she left... only to instantly get flooded away. In a drought. In a desert. Suffice to say, Shelly is a weird combination of Shaggy levels of petrified with terror at all times, and Velma levels of utter occult fascination. She's not scared of the ghosts around her, since most of them are the screaming dead of people she knows. That's not scary. But... what was that? Oh jeez... was that a stranger g-g-ghost? Or... or A MOUSE!?
Her terror is played for laughs, but through roleplay she's also kinda taken on a more broken, maybe crazy persona, especially once she hit level 3 and became a Phantom Rogue, which was when she started inflicting her haunts and madness on her enemies. The party loved the roleplay, so I'm keeping the fact that she's a bit of a hot mess of anxieties, obsessions, and possibly total madness and horror.
Now, obviously this worked for a Phantom Rogue. But... considering how I've played her as terrified of and simultaneously fascinated by the undead, the spooky, and the occult, I want to keep something of that.
THE BUILD:
To that end, tl;dr, I am debating between respecing my human Phantom Rogue as either a Spirit Bard, or as an Undead Warlock. A Bard gets me a pseudo rogue for skills, while adding a bunch of fun magical options and seance style magic down the line. The Warlock obviously grants her a more powerful upfront ability to transform, and if I went Pact of the Blade, I could also gain easy proficiency with the PISTOL the DM let my character have from House of Lament (with an Invocation, sure, but still).
I'm just not sure which way to go, or if there's some solid multiclassing option or feat selection I'm missing. Stay Rogue but look to multiclass later? Total respec as a Bard? Warlock? Both? I'm the most experienced player of the people who will be playing, and the DM has been relying on me to sort of teach them the ropes and build reliable characters where some of the others make... "fun roleplay decisions" that get us all killed two sessions in, but right now I'm just stuck on which way to go with it. I'm usually stuck DMing forever, so getting to actually play a character is kinda rare for me, and I'd like to get the most bang for my buck, as they say.
Also, as a reference to Scooby Doo and the Werewolf, me and the DM thought it'd be hilarious to have her become a Dhampir between adventures as well. So I'm doing that as opposed to getting a feat or something else at level 1.
Help me, Giantitp... you're my only hope!
CONCEPT:
Shelly is a young human girl for whom tragedy is a constant state of affairs. Parents died when she was born. Extended family followed soon after, in more and more unusual or bizarre accidents and incidents. The orphanage that ended up with her eventually sighed in relief when she left... only to instantly get flooded away. In a drought. In a desert. Suffice to say, Shelly is a weird combination of Shaggy levels of petrified with terror at all times, and Velma levels of utter occult fascination. She's not scared of the ghosts around her, since most of them are the screaming dead of people she knows. That's not scary. But... what was that? Oh jeez... was that a stranger g-g-ghost? Or... or A MOUSE!?
Her terror is played for laughs, but through roleplay she's also kinda taken on a more broken, maybe crazy persona, especially once she hit level 3 and became a Phantom Rogue, which was when she started inflicting her haunts and madness on her enemies. The party loved the roleplay, so I'm keeping the fact that she's a bit of a hot mess of anxieties, obsessions, and possibly total madness and horror.
Now, obviously this worked for a Phantom Rogue. But... considering how I've played her as terrified of and simultaneously fascinated by the undead, the spooky, and the occult, I want to keep something of that.
THE BUILD:
To that end, tl;dr, I am debating between respecing my human Phantom Rogue as either a Spirit Bard, or as an Undead Warlock. A Bard gets me a pseudo rogue for skills, while adding a bunch of fun magical options and seance style magic down the line. The Warlock obviously grants her a more powerful upfront ability to transform, and if I went Pact of the Blade, I could also gain easy proficiency with the PISTOL the DM let my character have from House of Lament (with an Invocation, sure, but still).
I'm just not sure which way to go, or if there's some solid multiclassing option or feat selection I'm missing. Stay Rogue but look to multiclass later? Total respec as a Bard? Warlock? Both? I'm the most experienced player of the people who will be playing, and the DM has been relying on me to sort of teach them the ropes and build reliable characters where some of the others make... "fun roleplay decisions" that get us all killed two sessions in, but right now I'm just stuck on which way to go with it. I'm usually stuck DMing forever, so getting to actually play a character is kinda rare for me, and I'd like to get the most bang for my buck, as they say.
Also, as a reference to Scooby Doo and the Werewolf, me and the DM thought it'd be hilarious to have her become a Dhampir between adventures as well. So I'm doing that as opposed to getting a feat or something else at level 1.
Help me, Giantitp... you're my only hope!