Commoner as a PC?

[Bookworm702]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

UMD, Magical Aptitude, and Skill Focus: UMD

[Flickerdart]

There are a number of Commoner-only builds (Chicken Infested cheese). Don't let him take flaws.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

It will be hard to keep him alive let alone useful. But it could be fun for all if he plays a duck and cover type of PC.

This lucky NPC may give you some ideas.

[Guancyto]

Skill Focus (Handle Animal) and whatever the related skill feat is. Flavor-tastic, and it lets him contribute significantly to the party while still remaining a Commoner.

The CharOp boards have an excellent guide to making the most use of Handle Animal, including a listing of the really good pets to get.

[BloodyAngel]

Leadership, Leadership and MORE leadership. Alas, all your followers are ALSO commoners. PEASANT REVOLT!!!!

But seriously. Get a new sheet ready, he'll die or grow bored with that character REAL quick.

[VestigeArcanist]

I concur, when everyone else is getting their spells and class features and such, he will be a detriment to the group after level 2.

But leadership would be good if they were to lead a peasant revolt. I would suppose this person would be heavy in RP and flavor.

[Bookworm702]

So it looks like if we mesh all these things together, we have a commoner with leadership that would be able to command other commoners, acting as support, information gatherers, and emergency fighters. In combat, he would use handle animal checks to command a few pets as well as use magic device for wands, rods, etc. If we put all these things together, it's starting to look like he might actually be able to moderately contribute to the party. Amazing!

[VestigeArcanist]

If we put all these things together, it's starting to look like he might actually be able to moderately contribute to the party. Amazing!

Mediocrely contribute, not moderately contribute. A single Fighter at the same level will probably be able to slaughter the whole bunch of them.

Also,

one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training.

Actually the ones who fight evil do largely have the benefit pf good combat training because the ones who don't, die very very quickly. What that person is thinking is an ordinary person being pushed into extraordinary circumstances. And they with a lot of luck, they are able to evade and run away from evil, not fight it head to head.

[Tengu_temp]

Can't he be an expert? At least he'd make a decent skill monkey. And, if you ask me, everyone with some level of education/training is at least an expert anyway - commoner is a class meant for children, old and crippled people, beggars, starving dirt-farming peasants and total inepts.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Have him PrC out ASAP. I like Survivor for this, as he can get it at level 2, and it fits for what he did the previous level.

[Devils_Advocate]

Commoner isn't a class for someone who lacks combat training in particular; it's a class for someone who lacks training in general, and also doesn't have all that much in the way of natural talent. You could as easily play a Fighter or Sorcerer or Psion or Barbarian or Rogue or whatever with a natural aptitude for whatever that he has yet to discover. That makes about as much sense as starting a Commoner and then leveling in a PC class.

I think that you can go right into Survivor after one level of Commoner, and that Commoner is the only class that lets you do that. You could also keep leveling in Commoner, but of course that means falling further behind the power curve.

As others have pointed out, if an untrained guy goes off to fight the forces of Evil, his natural story role is to die (thereby illustrating how dangerous the forces of Evil are to ordinary people). Which isn't necessarily a bad role for a PC, so long as the player has a backup character ready.

I'd recommend not trying to force his survival or inclusion in the group. And then if he can manage to do well as a Commoner, hey, great; but if not, time for a new character.

If you want the character to be able to grow into more normal PC, make him an Expert instead of a Commoner, and have him pick class skills from the skill lists of appropriate classes like Rogue, Bard, Ranger, ect. Then let him upgrade his levels to PC class levels later.

[Kosjsjach]

Forgive me if this seems a bit off-track, but I felt it applied.

I remember reading over at The Gaming Den forums that a popular idea was to just remove the Commoner class, and instead use empty levels of humanoid (which can later be replaced with class levels if the need arises).

Empty humanoid differs from Commoner in three main respects:
d8 HD (instead of d4),
one good save (instead of none), and
3/4 BAB (instead of 1/2).
Skill points stay at 2+Int, though there are no class skills listed (I'd suggest using the regular commoner skill list).

In the end, this "empty" version makes commoners more durable, but just as blank. It also just makes sense.

Please forgive my tangent.

[Chronos]

I homebrewed a new class for this a while back. It's still not quite up to snuff, but it's a heck of a lot better than the NPC class.

[Hat-Trick]

I like that Humanoid idea, go with that. It seems like a good idea to me, keeps the feel with better survivability.

[Saph]

I remember reading a link a while back to a thread on the WotC boards where someone actually played a commoner in a solo campaign. I think he was called Joe.

He dealt with threats such as wandering monsters (a fox) calming an enraged runaway beast (a horse) and trying to make enough silver pieces to stay alive.

It actually made for a brilliant campaign journal. I wonder where it was . . .

- Saph

[Curmudgeon]

You don't want a Commoner. That's someone who's ill-suited to adventuring. If you want someone without class training, but with a chance of surviving, try a racial paragon instead.

[SilverClawShift]

He dealt with threats such as wandering monsters (a fox) calming an enraged runaway beast (a horse) and trying to make enough silver pieces to stay alive.

My group did a campaign like that a few years back, in our earlier gaming careers. Our DM wanted us to do it to help divorce our roleplaying from the mechanics of the game itself (he wanted to make us get into our characters and get creative).
It was a resounding sucess. An aristocrat, a warrior, and two experts. We wound up capturing an escaped dire tiger that was cornered in a mansion and stuff like that. The highlight of the campaign being when we squared off against a dread necromancer with an army of skeletons and WON with geurilla tactics and taking advantage of the skeletons mindlessness.

I think it's good to avoid getting roped up in "What are my characters class features compared to others?" in favor of "What can my character actually DO here?".
That said, I'll still play a sorcerer over a commoner any day of the week

[Gaiyamato]

If the campaign is a little location static then he could be a merchant running a business using the rules from the DMG II. Combined with leadership he would provide a lot fo extra gold and followers to the group. He could give out low interest loans to the other PCs so they could buff even more.
No good in a fight, but a really useful guy to know.

But then that is filling the roll of an NPC more and a PC less. At higher levels he probably won't even bother to go adventuring.
I would have him multi-class into the generic PC Expert class later on to reflect his gorwing expertise and the extra feats would be really useful.

His leadership npcs could also be useful as commoners, he could run some factories or farms. Gradually arm some as militia. At level 9 with the landlord feat he could build a town.

:)

I've run all commoner games before. Works much better if you allow them to use the re-training rules.

[Draz74]

I remember reading a link a while back to a thread on the WotC boards where someone actually played a commoner in a solo campaign. I think he was called Joe.

He dealt with threats such as wandering monsters (a fox) calming an enraged runaway beast (a horse) and trying to make enough silver pieces to stay alive.

It actually made for a brilliant campaign journal. I wonder where it was . . .

- Saph

You wouldn't be thinking of this, would you? (Still going, too.)

[Saph]

You wouldn't be thinking of this, would you? (Still going, too.)

That's it! Cool, it's still going? I think I'm going to go catch up.

- Saph

[bosssmiley]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

Commoner is not a real class. It is a bad idea that the editors didn't stamp on hard enough.

Have the player roll up three or four commoner characters. Rightfully, they will die like flies and need replacing rapidly. He will learn the hard way why it is that people with PC classes are adventurers, whereas commoners are not.

@v: I have read it. It's a good self-imposed challenge, c'est ne pas D&D.

[Saph]

Commoner is not a real class. It is a bad idea that the editors didn't stamp on hard enough.

Clearly, you haven't read the adventures of Joe Wood, Commoner. Go and be amazed.

(Yes, seriously. It's a commoner campaign, has been running for more than fifty sessions, and has a devoted Internet following.)

- Saph

[Quietus]

That's it! Cool, it's still going? I think I'm going to go catch up.

- Saph

I, too, sunk a couple hours into updating myself with regard to the tale of Joe Wood. It pleases me to see that it's still going.

[TheOOB]

Once you start adventuring, you stop being a commoner rear wuick.

[Haven]

I am running a 3.5 ed campaign, and one of the players wants to play as a commoner, pointing out that not everyone who goes off to fight evil gets the benefit of good combat training. That said, are there any feats or items that would be especially helpful to a commoner?

Why would you not obtain training before going off to fight evil? Even if you don't, you definitely should have some special skill or talent. I think the way to make his character concept would be a newly-awakened sorcerer or psion who's just growing into their new abilities.

Failing that, they could take their first three levels human paragon, which I'd argue would make them even more of an adventuring Everyman than a commoner. If they do this, I'd allow those latter two levels to stack with levels in whatever their next class is for spellcasting purposes.

Oh well. If they insist on sticking with the Commoner class, you should given them the option to take the "Chicken Infested" flaw, because that is one of my favorite things from D&D that doesn't really get a lot of play. :P

[Omegonthesane]

Why would you not obtain training before going off to fight evil? Even if you don't, you definitely should have some special skill or talent. I think the way to make his character concept would be a newly-awakened sorcerer or psion who's just growing into their new abilities.

Say you've just lost your home, your family, have nothing to go back to except revenge. You're probably not going to spend too long on training before trying to do something, since you have nowhere else to go. That said I agree, if you aren't going to be a psion/wilder/sorcerer/something else (not in the sense of multiclassing you understand) then I'd do a homebrew class, possibly based off buffing and reflavouring the Aristocrat or the Humanoid creature type. At least one such class was already linkeded.

Or you could play an Expert, because by definition an Expert is a little exceptional. The big thing is, you'd need a lower CR for such NPC levels because they're intentionally designed to be wimps who can't stand up to real heroes.

[Gaiyamato]

Ok, gone over the infested chicken builds and they are all flawed to a degree.

Here is why:

Chicken Infested

Whenever you draw a weapon or pull and item out of a container, you have a 50% chance of drawing a live chicken instead. No we don't know where the chickens come from; it's your character.

Firstly you require something to be able to draw or pull out to begin with.
Should you fail to draw a chicken you draw the intended object, no longer having anything to attempt to draw. So you cannot gain infinite chickens unless you prepare before hand.
Meaning that all of these builds fail unless you include a couple more details.

So it is hardly cheese. :P
That said it is amusing.

Also the necromantic chickens works slightly better when you think about it.

Human
Commoner 1/Dread Necromancer 6
Flaw: Chicken Infested
Flaw: Shaky
Level 1: Tomb Tainted Soul
Human: Corpse Crafter
Flaw: Destruction Retribution
Flaw: Quickdraw
Level 3: Versatile Spellcaster
Level 6: Nimble Bones

Fill a small bag/pouch with tiny pebbles or beads.
When you get into battle as a free action draw all of the pebbles/beads from the bag and drop them on the ground. You will get a bonus chicken 50% of the time. Solve your chicken problem by activating your negative energy burst. Make sure to stop drawing chickens when you have enough or else you might make a bit of a mess. The chickens will all be within 5 feet of you as they have not had a move action yet. As these are instantaneous free actions they are all automatically slain (you deal 6D4 damage to creatures with 1 hp).
Once you run out of chickens cast animate dead as your action. Turn them into zombies. Note: Chicken zombies have limited flight!
Order them to all attack your enemy.
Spend your next action picking up your pebbles and putting them back into your pouch/bag.
Repeat if needed.. or just summon some slightly more useful undead.

They will fail and gradually die. But not before they deal a LOT of negative energy damage to the target.
If you have suffered damage stand close by in order to heal.

Your suicide chicken army may be pre-prepared for battle ahead of time. Though really why bother?

At higher levels make wight chickens instead.
Yes.. that is right exploding wight chickens that if they actually get a kill turn the target into a useful wight that you can rebuke and keep for your own.

Once you can make wight chickens go and find an unprotected village or hamlet and make a real army.

[Curmudgeon]

Fill a small bag/pouch with tiny pebbles or beads.
When you get into battle as a free action draw all of the pebbles/beads from the bag and drop them on the ground.

Stop right there: I call shenanigans!

In most cases, moving or manipulating an item is a move action.

This includes retrieving or putting away a stored item

Dropping an item in your space or into an adjacent square is a free action.

Dropping things is free. Drawing them out of a bag isn't.

[Flickerdart]

It is a free action to draw material components from a bag intended for storage thereof. It is a free action to drop said material components. Half of them turn into chickens. You see where I'm going with this?