Kind of funny how if you go by RAW, your first character idea with the tortle is basically impossible. For some reason they only live 50 years. Turtles that everyone relates to living a really long time are one of the shortest living races. And another silly age thing in DnD is how kobolds can live up to 120 doe to their draconic ancestry (though the average kobold lifespan is significantly shorter due to other causes of death). Whilst dragonborn only live up to 80 years. Apparently not getting any such draconic ancestry bonus to how long they can live.
I quite like the Spear Skeleton idea, more so if they can act independently from the party. Like say the party is on the ropes fighting an undead hoard only for the spear to come to life and possess one of the skeletons, cloak appearing from shadows and its eye sockets lighting up like lanterns. It then holds off the hoard allowing the party to escape. The party always seems to randomly come across said spear in there travels after its use too... Also the anti necromancer sounds a lot like Yuna in FFX, only with less summons and more hard labour.
The Lich-King of Krael built his capital city over a magic circle, and uses the natural death of its occupants to fuel his phylactery (the castle) and create workers and soldiers from the bones. Lawful neutral, and a just king. The people live there intentionally because they can live a good life (and they're willing to sacrifice their soul upon death for present convenience.)
((very long comment)) I've got three characters that can't really be PCs in 5e without speaking with your DM to bend the rules: Mèa-thèad, inspirational bodybuilder. A "machismatic" elf performer for Brütannia, a religious troupe of "musclebound thespians" who espouses the "Protean God." This cult rejects destiny as a concept and instead believe mortals have complete freedom to shape their lives (and bodies) as they please. Their performances never feature prewritten scripts or organized music and usually devolve into dance exhibitions atop impromptu evangelical oration. Mèa-thèad speaks with an annoying Shakespearean accent and considers himself an ateur at stagecraft despite a demonstrable lack of skill in singing, acting, or dancing acceptable in polite society. In combat he functions like an open hand monk except that he uses STR instead of DEX for his features, and has the Bardic Inspiration feature (1d4) which he activates by flexing. If you're playing him, obviously you could just multiclass bard, but you still need to confer with your DM if they'll allow you to use STR for monk features. Osseus Quassum, bone whisperer. A quirky skeletal street urchin, birth identity unknown, enjoys eavesdropping. Because they have no lungs or throat, they communicate by gently vibrating the bones in our ears to mimic speech (skelepathy). They have no eyes and therefore cannot read, but can navigate with tremorsense (60 ft) and can perfectly hear and isolate the voices of any skeleton-bearing creature within tremorsense range regardless of volume or background noise. Osseus is generally well respected in their territory and is sometimes hired as an informant for law enforcement, however they have no waver in their "voice" and can sit dead still for days at a time, it's very difficult to tell if they're lying through their teeth. In an emergency, they can cast Shatter once per day and destroy the target living bone (usually the enemy's femur, humerus, or even pelvis) the spell is centered on, hopefully causing enough pain or debilitation to escape. This is not how Shatter works, living body parts are not considered "destructible objects" in almost all games. I don't see any way Osseus can be a PC as-is. Bell, paranoid human. An engineer with selective arcanophobia. Her family has a long history of literary study, and magic seems to cause way more problems than it's worth in her eyes (evil mages, deadly curses, apocalypse at the hands of a single spell). Bell won't use items or magic that breaks conservation of mass (creates matter), use bags of holding, drink potions of any kind, accept healing from divine sources, or use portals that lead to other worlds. Despite this she is happy to use even experimental nonmagical technology because mechanical actions and chemical reactions make more logical sense to her than nebulous and often fickle magic. In combat she's an eldritch knight ranged fighter (musket with Gunner feat if available / heavy crossbow with Crossbow Expert feat otherwise) with "anti magic" spells (silvery barbs, shield, counterspell, dispel magic). She was my PC for a while and functions perfectly fine within the rules. Was intended to be a "relatable ordinary human", but at level 12 any character becomes ridiculous. And she was an active hinderance to her party at one point because the story demanded we go through a portal that Bell would not. Characters that avoid magic in a fantasy setting demand lots of conversations with your DM.
The title: 12 PC/NPC Ideas For Your Next TTRPG The content: 12 PC/NPC Ideas For Your Next D&D 5e game very specifically "Stop conflating D&D with tabletop gaming as a whole" challenge go
The content: 12 PC/NPC Ideas For Your Next Fantasy TTRPG Considering the guy never cited any lore or in-game mechanics (except with the Wild Magic table, and that was still not required for the character concept), I don't see what makes you think those ideas would only work for D&D, let alone 5E specifically. Most you can fault them is not clarifying the genre in the title, but most people already assume TTRPGs to be "fantasy unless stated otherwise" anyway.
Tell us about some of your favorite Characters or NPCS in the comments!
Kind of funny how if you go by RAW, your first character idea with the tortle is basically impossible. For some reason they only live 50 years. Turtles that everyone relates to living a really long time are one of the shortest living races.
And another silly age thing in DnD is how kobolds can live up to 120 doe to their draconic ancestry (though the average kobold lifespan is significantly shorter due to other causes of death). Whilst dragonborn only live up to 80 years. Apparently not getting any such draconic ancestry bonus to how long they can live.
@@sirshrafle1607 yeah I tend to home brew alot to either make things make more sense or make more sense to me haha
That last one reminds me of The Ritual and I love it so much! There’s homebrew statblocks of Moder floating around Reddit too.
Yeah the ritual inspired it and a short web comic I saw on Instagram.
Per RAW, turtles live like 50 years
I quite like the Spear Skeleton idea, more so if they can act independently from the party. Like say the party is on the ropes fighting an undead hoard only for the spear to come to life and possess one of the skeletons, cloak appearing from shadows and its eye sockets lighting up like lanterns. It then holds off the hoard allowing the party to escape. The party always seems to randomly come across said spear in there travels after its use too...
Also the anti necromancer sounds a lot like Yuna in FFX, only with less summons and more hard labour.
The Lich-King of Krael built his capital city over a magic circle, and uses the natural death of its occupants to fuel his phylactery (the castle) and create workers and soldiers from the bones.
Lawful neutral, and a just king. The people live there intentionally because they can live a good life (and they're willing to sacrifice their soul upon death for present convenience.)
((very long comment))
I've got three characters that can't really be PCs in 5e without speaking with your DM to bend the rules:
Mèa-thèad, inspirational bodybuilder. A "machismatic" elf performer for Brütannia, a religious troupe of "musclebound thespians" who espouses the "Protean God." This cult rejects destiny as a concept and instead believe mortals have complete freedom to shape their lives (and bodies) as they please. Their performances never feature prewritten scripts or organized music and usually devolve into dance exhibitions atop impromptu evangelical oration. Mèa-thèad speaks with an annoying Shakespearean accent and considers himself an ateur at stagecraft despite a demonstrable lack of skill in singing, acting, or dancing acceptable in polite society. In combat he functions like an open hand monk except that he uses STR instead of DEX for his features, and has the Bardic Inspiration feature (1d4) which he activates by flexing. If you're playing him, obviously you could just multiclass bard, but you still need to confer with your DM if they'll allow you to use STR for monk features.
Osseus Quassum, bone whisperer. A quirky skeletal street urchin, birth identity unknown, enjoys eavesdropping. Because they have no lungs or throat, they communicate by gently vibrating the bones in our ears to mimic speech (skelepathy). They have no eyes and therefore cannot read, but can navigate with tremorsense (60 ft) and can perfectly hear and isolate the voices of any skeleton-bearing creature within tremorsense range regardless of volume or background noise. Osseus is generally well respected in their territory and is sometimes hired as an informant for law enforcement, however they have no waver in their "voice" and can sit dead still for days at a time, it's very difficult to tell if they're lying through their teeth. In an emergency, they can cast Shatter once per day and destroy the target living bone (usually the enemy's femur, humerus, or even pelvis) the spell is centered on, hopefully causing enough pain or debilitation to escape. This is not how Shatter works, living body parts are not considered "destructible objects" in almost all games. I don't see any way Osseus can be a PC as-is.
Bell, paranoid human. An engineer with selective arcanophobia. Her family has a long history of literary study, and magic seems to cause way more problems than it's worth in her eyes (evil mages, deadly curses, apocalypse at the hands of a single spell). Bell won't use items or magic that breaks conservation of mass (creates matter), use bags of holding, drink potions of any kind, accept healing from divine sources, or use portals that lead to other worlds. Despite this she is happy to use even experimental nonmagical technology because mechanical actions and chemical reactions make more logical sense to her than nebulous and often fickle magic. In combat she's an eldritch knight ranged fighter (musket with Gunner feat if available / heavy crossbow with Crossbow Expert feat otherwise) with "anti magic" spells (silvery barbs, shield, counterspell, dispel magic). She was my PC for a while and functions perfectly fine within the rules. Was intended to be a "relatable ordinary human", but at level 12 any character becomes ridiculous. And she was an active hinderance to her party at one point because the story demanded we go through a portal that Bell would not. Characters that avoid magic in a fantasy setting demand lots of conversations with your DM.
I love Osseus! XD
@@thatmage5483 Aww thanks. Skelepathy is one of my favorite concepts recently
these are really good ideas, i was hooked immediately from number 1
I would point out that most of the time kobolds are lawful.
@@nettlesandsnakes9138 very true. This one just so happens to be lawful chaos 😈 (joking of course)
The title: 12 PC/NPC Ideas For Your Next TTRPG
The content: 12 PC/NPC Ideas For Your Next D&D 5e game very specifically
"Stop conflating D&D with tabletop gaming as a whole" challenge go
I mean some of this could be used for games like Pathfinder right? hehe.
The content: 12 PC/NPC Ideas For Your Next Fantasy TTRPG
Considering the guy never cited any lore or in-game mechanics (except with the Wild Magic table, and that was still not required for the character concept), I don't see what makes you think those ideas would only work for D&D, let alone 5E specifically. Most you can fault them is not clarifying the genre in the title, but most people already assume TTRPGs to be "fantasy unless stated otherwise" anyway.