How would you make this character concept playable?

[GeekGirl]

Hi everyone. I'm helping a friend bring his character idea to life, and we're kinda stuck. Here's the idea:

The idea started with the Scribe subclass. First, magic to me is like math. It's built on the foundation of simple thing you learn. As you get higher levels, sometimes to will work with a team. New high levels spells can be discovered on your own, but it's easier with a few people looking at a problem.

If a powerful (high level) paranoid wizard (especially in a taboo specialty like necromancy) wanted an assistant, but clearly would never trust another wizard smart enough to help him. So he's going to make one. So its starts with an awakened spellbook. After time being sentient, it get smarter. The book would almost be like research assistant (think Jarvis, or Bob from Dresden Files). The next step would be to give it a human-ish for to work. Maybe the spell has a time limit and they revert to a book, or maybe there's another spell to turn them back. After a few changes to human form, the book doesn't want to turn back into a book. So tricks the wizard into making it more permanent and escaping.

So that's basic idea for the character. The DM likes the idea, it give nice story elements, like being hunted by the wizard. I think a homebrew race would be the way to go, but we're not sure what racial traits they should have. Or if that's the best idea. Is there a race that would fit?

Here's the general ideas for racial traits we think.

It's a being of magic, the living embodiment of the written word.
Racial Traits:
+2 int (its a book, it should be smart), +1 Con(magic creation should be hardy)
Living Construct
Something to let them understand most written text. Not read, or translate, but get the general idea of what is being said. so exact wording doesn't come through.
Dispel and Anti-magic field may hurt them, maybe dispel can stun them on a failed save, and lose consciousness in an anti-magic field?

These were just kind of spitballed ideas. We want to make something balanced, but I haven';t spent enough time with 5e to make it myself.

I open to any thoughts or suggestions.

[Garimeth]

Is the PC the wizard?:

I'd model it off a monster manual stat block and not worry too much about mapping to to a PC style race. Make it like an animated armor, but made of paper and reduce the AC and HP accordingly and call it good imo. Maybe make it vulnerable to fire if you need to get that in the weeds with it.

Is the PC the book?

I'd model it off of warforged and say that it found a way to put it's sentience in a construct and escaped. I would avoid the whole dispel magic and antimagic zone thing, but that's just me. Otherwise you are playing the PC equivalent of that girl from the old Attack of the Killer Tomatoes that turned into a tomato every time salt was sprinkled on her.

The 5e Dark Matter supplement (unofficial) has an interesting construct race called Vect that would work well too.

[J-H]

What about taking Warforged and just swapping the ability score bonuses around? Maybe this one's made of special (durable) magic paper covered in runes instead of wood, metal, or stone.

[GeekGirl]

Is the PC the book?

Yeah, that's the plan. Warforged is a way to go, I was thinking about that too. He wanted it to look human, but again warforged base may work. I was never tied to the dispel thing, I would make the character afraid of it, like they don't know if the human form will go away. but that's another matter.

I've never seen I've never seen Attack of the killer tomatoes, but now maybe I should? I'll also look for the Dark matter stuff.

[Garimeth]

Yeah, that's the plan. Warforged is a way to go, I was thinking about that too. He wanted it to look human, but again warforged base may work. I was never tied to the dispel thing, I would make the character afraid of it, like they don't know if the human form will go away. but that's another matter.

I've never seen I've never seen Attack of the killer tomatoes, but now maybe I should? I'll also look for the Dark matter stuff.

Lol, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was like... weird cheesy pulpy 80s/early 90s movie that got made into cartoon I watched as a kid when nothing I wanted to watch was on. May be worth a look-up on youtube, but I wouldn't invest much time into it lol.

As far as looking human, what class is the PC going to be? Disguise self and creative and obscuring clothing can do alot.

[GeekGirl]

As far as looking human, what class is the PC going to be? Disguise self and creative and obscuring clothing can do alot.

Not sure. I assume caster. Wizard, or artificer is my guess.

[solidork]

I'd probably go with Variant Human with the bonus feat being Eldritch Adept to select the Warlock invocation Eyes of the Runekeeper. It even makes sense if they decide to switch the invocation on level up, since they're a living spell book and they're just accessing a different part of their innate magic.

It could be that breaking the bond to the Wizard who created them greatly weakened their innate magic.

[LumenPlacidum]

Isn't this sort of thing what the Custom Lineage is supposed to handle? Specify a feat that makes sense for a book. Keen Mind seems appropriate if the book actively records everything it experiences.

[GeekGirl]

Isn't this sort of thing what the Custom Lineage is supposed to handle? Specify a feat that makes sense for a book. Keen Mind seems appropriate if the book actively records everything it experiences.

Is that in Tasha's? I haven't gone all the way through that one yet.

[Naanomi]

Custom Lineage, Eyes of the Runekeeper as a bonus feat, call it good?

[Keravath]

I would go with warforged wizard. Maybe add a cosmetic package on the outside to make it passable as human. Rearrange the stats to +2 int, +1 con. Perhaps the sentience of the book was transferred into a warforged brain to create an even more capable assistant. Not only can they catalog information and spells, they can bring ingredients and assist in casting rituals. The creature could even be sent to obtain specific ingredients without wasting the wizards efforts/time or risking their life. Have a copy of their spellbook, or another awakened spellbook and the warforged spellbook is completely expendable.

Of course, the warforged spell book might not feel that way.

The warforged could either have a human looking outer shell applied or the character might take the Eldritch Invocation: Mask of Many Faces so that they could keep Disguise Self up when needed.

This would probably be the easiest way to create the character in 5e.

[Droppeddead]

Defo Warforged with Tasha's alternative racial bonuses. Or basically a warforged but using the custom linage and take Keen Mind. remember, appearance-wise you can always alter how the warforged looks, there is no set standard.

[GeekGirl]

Thanks everyone, Warforged definitely seems like the right way to go. Appearance is easy to play around with.