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WiP D&D 5E Build: The Knight of the Rose

Tags: #Character Build Crusader  #Character Build Juggernaut  #Dragonborn1721  #character build paladin  #D&D 5E  #Race:Half-Elf  #Character Build Level 15 
  • July 15, 2018

    Before I continue any further, I just wanted to mention a few things. First, I have never successfully started a game of D&D (5th Edition) and haven't really played since 3rd Edition, so this isn't actually a fully playtested build, nor is it something that's come about due to an in-depth understanding of D&D Lore, Gameplay or anything along those lines. All of this has been framed around the content provided for free by D&D Beyond so it's kinda limited in a lot of ways, making the builds anything but viable for proper play.

    The other thing is that I'd like to give huge props to Valric for starting this whole D&D thing off, a conversation with him in the forums led to a bit of brainstorming about how building for D&D would be accomplished here, then he posted The Grappler as a WiP build over in the Workshop before posting it over here. Along with his build, he's also posted a nifty little Character Creation GuideSo yeah, it's unlikely that either this build or anything else that's posted going forward is more or less inspired directly by his work. So go check it out, his stuff is actually playtested and formed from a good understanding of the game rather than just a guy who knows how to build trying to bring that into a game he doesn't play :P

    I'm also fairly light with my builds, nothing complex or really...deep just fun little ideas that are kind of silly, not supposed to be taken too seriously and all that. And to quickly explain the strange 'character' here, I was sort of inspired by the video, 5 Rules in D&D 5E that Everyone Gets Wrong. Watched it randomly and there was a bit of a joke at the end about how your Paladin can use Lay on Hands on themselves...and it kinda escalated from there. Weird idea, but I thought it'd be kinda fun, so yeah :P

     

     The (Ex) Knight of the Rose

     The Order of the Ruby Rose is a faction of Paladins, Fighters and Bards that   worship Sune, Goddess of Beauty, Love and Passion. As followers of Sune they   tend to be beautiful, and in most cases, females with red hair as an homage to   Sune's appearence on the physical plane.

     Sienna is...not your typical member of the The Order, in fact she was kicked   out for having...unique beliefs. She is very much a dedicated follower of Sune,   but her approach to her main skill, Healing, is just, so strange. You see,   Sienna takes an approach that is supposed to be more... pleasent for the   recipient. She has mastered touch based healing spells and uses them...okay   time to cut to the chase, she uses her healing spells in a somewhat  sensual   manner. Not immensly, just that she's a bit more...expressive with her healing   style. Her logic is that Sune is the goddess of Passion, and what's   more   pasionate then the loving embrace of a beautiful maiden?

     Is it flawed? Almost certainly, which is why Sienna was kicked out of the Order   of the Ruby Rose for being...just really kind of strange.

    Starting Abilities

     Strength - 12 (13)

     Dexterity - 8

     Constitution - 15 

     Intelligence - 10

     Wisdom - 13

     Charisma - 13 (16)

     

     

     

     

    Final Abilities 

    Strength - 14 

    Dexterity - 8

    Constitution - 16 

    Intelligence - 10 

    Wisdom - 15 

    Charisma - 18

    The Basics:

    Race: Half-Elf 

    Ability Score Increase - + 2 Charisma and +1 in two abilities (Charisma and Strength)

    Fey Ancestry - Resistance to Charm, Immunity to Magically induced Sleep.

    Darkvision - Can see in Dim Light as if it were bright light and darkness as if it were dim light.

    Skill Versatility - : You gain proficiency in two Skills of your choice. (Persuasion and Medicine)

    Gender: Female

    Levelling:

    Level One lets us get all the basic stuff for Paladins. Lay on Hands allows us to heal 5*Character Level HP which is, kind of alright and more importantly for this character, it's a touch based spell meaning we can really hit the important stuff...Groping yourself to heal, smoothly gliding your hands down an injured warrior's back to cure them of their pains, while soothing their battered spirit. You know, the healing's nice, but more importantly, the ROLEPLAY. There's also Divine Sense which gives you the ability to detect Undead, Fiends and Celestials that aren't completely covered or hidden. Uh, can't think of a character-specific use for it but it seems like an actually useful ability.

    Level Two properly starts us off on our Spellcasting journey, finally giving us some more variety than just healing people for 5 HP. There's also Divine Smite which gives us our first anti-Undead/Fiend attack giving the character a pretty significant damage boost which can be useful when...fighting undead or fiends. Our Fighting Style is also learnt at this level, or enhanced? One of the two but we get to take that +1 to AR that the Defense Style gives us.

    Level Three is sorta cool? I mean Channel Divinity allows us to add our Charisma modifier to our attack roles while also turning our trusty Longsword into a glowing piece of metal...The first is actually really useful to be fair, this character thrives on her Charisma so being able to add that to her attack roles can be useful at times. Turn the Unholy is a useful staple and, again more Anti-Undead stuff is nice.  Divine Health is also at this level...

    Level Four is one of the more important levels because of the ability score increase that we get. Now to be fair we could just get by with our current set-up. We've got all the required abilities so we just need to add to them here. Since I'm a stickler for evens (and you get rewarded more for having even scores) so we're grabbing +1 to Strength and Wisom here, kicking both up to 14. Wisdom is going to be our second most useful ability throughout the game, so take it, absolutely.

    Level Five is slightly less important than the others. Extra Attack is great but really all there is. 

    Level Six is our last level of Paladin and is the only reason why I went passed Level Four. Aura of Protection is kinda awesome, adding the Charisma modifier of the Paladin to all saving throws that allies within 10 feet make? That's just really useful for a more defensive character like this. 

    Level Seven is the first level of Cleric when we, again, get a whole range of new options and beneficial abilities. Divine Domain: Life is really great for this character because of the healing boosts it provides. Disciple of Life lets you add another 2 + Spell Level to all healing spells above Level 1 which isn't massive but a little bit is always great, especially on some of the AoE Healing Spells we'll take later on. The Spellcasting that a Cleric has is obviously surperior to a Paladin's rather limited spell pool, meaning there's some real variety now.

    Level Eight is great for the Channel Divinity: Preserve Life ability that's essentially an AoE, stronger version of Lay on Hands. Sure we miss the...character benefits of Lay on Hands, but it's just stricly a better spell if anyone is close to death. Unless your in a party with a bunch of Vampires but that'd be...kind of stupid and weird for a Paladin/Cleric so, yeah we're assuming that's not the case.

    Level Ten gives us another chance to boost our Ability Scores, and we're going for two points in Wisdom so we're actually able to cast spells at a semi-decent rate.

    Level Twelce gives us Blessed Healer which magically heals us when we heal others. Same deal as Disciple of Life just benefiting you now which makes it rather handy, but be aware that it doesn't count if the spell heals you, which I think makes it less useful with AoE spells (so you don't get the benefit of Blessed Healer while healing yourself and getting the benefit of Disciple of Life.)

    Level Fourteen has more Ability Scores to dish out and we're going with Wisdom and Charisma. The other option is to go double Wisdom which gives you access to Level 6 spells at the end of this character, but to be honest...I wasn't going to leave them as odds, that's all, it doesn't make tactical sense but Sienna is meant to be a Charismatic person, not really a master spellcaster so we're going for RP over Gameplay here. Divine Strike at this level is also pretty cool I suppose, can't have enough radiant damage I suppose.

    Next Section:

    Still a WiP. Gotta admit there's something really fun about researching a character for a game I don't play. It gives me just a bit more fun than writing down the mechanics to a game I've played a thousand times, and I'm slowly starting to figure out some of the basics of the game. So yeah, I'm also trying to experiment a bit more with text wrapping rather than purely relying on the wider images (though I'll still use them obviously) just so I can familiarize myself with it a bit more.

    Uh, yeah that's all, will keep updating this when I have the time.

  • Member
    July 15, 2018

    I'm pretty sure that to multiclass, you need to meet the requirements of all classes you're multi'd in - so as a Paladin > Cleric, you don't just need to meet the Cleric's 13 Wis requirement, but also the Paladin's 13 Str and Cha. That means you can't take Cleric levels until your Str is at least 13.

  • July 15, 2018

    Yeah that was intially a problem which is why I went with the 8 Levels of Paladin rather than stopping at 6 or 7 which would more or less get me everything I'd needed. By Level 8 you can put in the 3 points to Strength + 1 to Charisma (just to round that out to an even number) meaning you can then take the 7 levels of Cleric to gain more spells. Almost certainly not ideal, but it works and kinda goes with what I wanted, just a higher concentration early on of Paladin. Oh and I do need to add the Racial Modifiers to the starting abilitiy scores because you technically start with the 17 in Charisma.

    What I'd probably do in a more realistic setting (and what I'll probably change it to) is to take a point off Charisma and a point off Wisdom. They're still perfectly fine at being 13 in time for Level 4 where I can throw a point towards Constitution (hitting 16) and Strength (hitting 13) and changing over to Cleric once I grab Aura of Protection...Then I can grab 2 points of Wisom at Level 8, then 1 Strength, 1 Wisdom at Level 12 to hit 14 Strength, 16 Wisdom, 16 Constitution, 16 Charisma, 10 Intelligence, 8 Dexterity.

    Course if I were going higher I'd shuffle things around again to make things fit in the Level 20 scheme but this'll work for now.

  • Member
    July 16, 2018

    Sienna sounds like that person at a party whose really touchy-feely with everyone, and everyone thinks they're weird but they can't really complain.

    This is an awesome concept Debbie (which is what I'm gonna call you from now on). Still don't fully grasp all the DnD stuff, waaay to many numbers for my little brain, but this seems like a solid character. Was kinda expecting Charisma to be the highest stat, because, ya know, she definitely has a way with people if not words, but as a Paladin she's obviously gotta be able to kick ass as well as feel them up XD.

  • July 16, 2018

    Zonnonn said:

    Sienna sounds like that person at a party whose really touchy-feely with everyone, and everyone thinks they're weird but they can't really complain.

    This is an awesome concept Debbie (which is what I'm gonna call you from now on). Still don't fully grasp all the DnD stuff, waaay to many numbers for my little brain, but this seems like a solid character. Was kinda expecting Charisma to be the highest stat, because, ya know, she definitely has a way with people if not words, but as a Paladin she's obviously gotta be able to kick ass as well as feel them up XD.

    Yes... I...yes those people at a party, who I know and have interacted with :P *cough* but that does seem like the general idea of it.

    I was kinda torn on her not hitting 20 Charisma and she definitely would if it were Level 20, but yeah I needed the ability to heal and tank a bit and to multiclass into Cleric (and thus pick up more touch spells :P) I needed 13 Strength, Wisdom, Charisma. Probably could've gotten away without the Cleric levels, but eh...it works.

  • July 16, 2018
    Are you...blushing, DB? Sorta feels that way in the first paragraph. I’ve never gotten into D&D although I know more about it than I should because I’ve read all the books and author notes and interviews for Dragonlance, which were basically conceived during D&D games. There’s just something about roleplaying and talking at the same time that I’ve never been able to do. But this is fun to read through, and interesting reading a build to a game you don’t play. Like Zonnon, I’m pictuing that person at the party. And also one of those women in magazines who’re posing, groping themselves for no apparent reason, since you mentioned the groping while healing thing. And that old Marvin Gaye song is running through my head now, which is really unfortunate. :p But I think the most important thing here is that Zonnon called you Debbie. That’s just beautiful.
  • July 16, 2018

    ilanisilver said: Are you...blushing, DB? Sorta feels that way in the first paragraph. I’ve never gotten into D&D although I know more about it than I should because I’ve read all the books and author notes and interviews for Dragonlance, which were basically conceived during D&D games. There’s just something about roleplaying and talking at the same time that I’ve never been able to do. But this is fun to read through, and interesting reading a build to a game you don’t play. Like Zonnon, I’m pictuing that person at the party. And also one of those women in magazines who’re posing, groping themselves for no apparent reason, since you mentioned the groping while healing thing. And that old Marvin Gaye song is running through my head now, which is really unfortunate. :p But I think the most important thing here is that Zonnon called you Debbie. That’s just beautiful.

    Eh, probably :P It's an odd pitch that I'm still kinda unsure about so, probably is a little bit of that. But yeah I've always enjoyed reading builds for games that I don't play, there's something interesting about how some people can make a build understandable even if you haven't played it, not sure how I'm doing so far but since the concept is incredibly simple here (wear armour, heal people) so...not too difficult to figure out. 

  • July 16, 2018

    I have really blushy stuff I’ve written on AO3 that I‘m not sure I can post here. It’s weird. I have no problem posting it on completely anonymous sites, but I...talk to you guys. So to have that sort of stuff out there? I don’t know, I’m not sure I could come back after that. Maybe. I would say, if you go the blushy route, that you own it. I don’t mean be graphic about it, but be like “yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. What??” She’s like a...reverse succubus or something? That’s a pretty cool power to have, honestly. 

     

    But yeah, my hat’s off to you guys who can handle all the numbers. I can’t even deal with stacking damage and bonuses in Skyrim, so D&D is probably beyond me. 

  • Member
    July 16, 2018

    ilanisilver said:

    I have really blushy stuff I’ve written on AO3 that I‘m not sure I can post here. It’s weird. I have no problem posting it on completely anonymous sites, but I...talk to you guys. So to have that sort of stuff out there? I don’t know, I’m not sure I could come back after that. Maybe. I would say, if you go the blushy route, that you own it. I don’t mean be graphic about it, but be like “yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. What??” She’s like a...reverse succubus or something? That’s a pretty cool power to have, honestly. 

     

    But yeah, my hat’s off to you guys who can handle all the numbers. I can’t even deal with stacking damage and bonuses in Skyrim, so D&D is probably beyond me. 

    Don't feel bad Ilan, I've written some rather odd porn before that people have commented they've possibly rubbed one out to.

     

    Also, on an unrelated note, I have little D&D experience, only been in two campaigns. One involved my party trying to get a town of ugly people less ugly (at which point they were...normal), which involved beating up and stealing from a swamp witch. Good times

  • July 17, 2018

    See, that’s just it, sort of. I mean, I’m a mother. And I’m getting to the point where my daughter wants to go online. And, I have to admit, I’ve started thinking, you know, what if years from now she’s on a site like this, and some 40 year old is posting sexy stories and pictures? And it’s not even about the sexiness. I’m really open about stuff like that with her, and that’s not going to change. But it’s the fact that she’s reading it WHILE interacting with the 40 year old, talking with him/her, etc. I don’t know. I can’t help but feel a little weird about that. And I admit that it’s a big part in keeping me from posting things I’d post on a more anonymous medium, you know?

    And sorry, DB, that I brought this up at all. I’m 90% positive this isn’t where you figured the conversation would go.