Source
r/rpg•
ceae

My little sister was invited to join a D&D group and asked me for help. (XPost from DnD)

The group lost their cleric and she has never played before. I've not played 5e yet and I've been a fairly notorious minmaxer in my various adventures. I don't know what kind of group she'll be playing with or what kind of character she wants to play.

We should be shopping for books and dice next week. I'm pumped - I finally have an excuse to shell out for the 5e books. My group has been play testing Degenesis since before it launched here in the US (we got review copies for my podcast).

The real question is - do I gently guide her through character creation or do I cave to her begging and help minmax her character? I'm so excited that she was invited to a group and that she is actually interested in playing, but I don't want her first experience to be with an "overpowered" character of my design.

Posted Feb 11, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

5156
recursivefaults•

Maybe you should start by not talking about the rules at all and first talk about the kinds of things that she thinks would make the game fun? You know, does the idea of killing monsters seem fun, or getting treasure, or interacting with a cast of characters, or whatever it is. There's really no point to her playing if she doesn't enjoy any of it.

22
ceaeOP•

She already agreed to be a healer, so I assume she's okay with that part. I'm hoping to not make her a cleric and make her a class that can heal and do other things as well (to her preference).

Someone else suggested that I write up a mini campaign to help guide her through character creation, and I think that is exactly what I am going to do.

9
Nickeal1•

Many clerics aren't just healbots. Tempest clerics actually both put out a lot of damage and tank, with both martial weapons and heavy armor proficiency, along with an array of strong damage spells like call lightning and destructive wave. War domain works even better if you want a stronger focus on martial ability rather than spellcasting.

10
ceaeOP•

Less of an issue with clerics, more of an issue with replacing a player that dropped out with that class and replacing it with the same class. I don't want the party expecting the same thing.

5
recursivefaults•

As long as you are confident that playing a healer will be fun to her, go ahead.

My concern is that if your little sister is new to RPGs, that you or the DM should spend some time talking to her about RPGs are about, and try to find out what is appealing to her. This all comes before you slap a character on her.

I don't want to generalize too much, but most men enjoy the rules and combat/conquest aspect of the games. Most women enjoy the socialization and deep role-playing. Assuming your sister wants to play the game the same way the rest of you do is going to lead to some bad experiences for all of you.

5
ceaeOP•

My little sister and I are so similar it is sometimes scary (we're both ladies, just to clarify). I guess that is what comes from being related. ;)

I have a feeling she is going to play the "traditional MMO healer" caricature: begrudgingly healing, otherwise dealing damage. That's what she had in mind when we chatted over dinner yesterday.

4
recursivefaults•

Well excellent, as long as you two have talked about that stuff then go for it. Every time a someone new plays, an Aasimar gets wings.

6
rglitched•

My SO had a Cleric as her first 5e champ and we built her character with the backstory that she was talented enough that two oppositely aligned gods are both competing for her attention and as a result she's a little nutty.

We made it a 50/50 percentile roll on long rest to swap her domain between Life and Tempest (1-50 stays, 51+ changes). Due to progressively waning willpower, each time she rolled but did not change domains added a +10 to the 'change' roll on the following check.

Some days she was healy but many days she was killy.

It led to some weird situations in terms of receiving healing or not but it was a ton of fun to roleplay around.

3
GeneralRose•

Definitely do not make her a min maxed overpowered character. Her GM may have already made her a pregenerated character for her first adventure to help her learn the rules. Actually if he/she hasn't done this, your sister should call him/her up and ask them to.

14
ceaeOP•

I told her to get all the rules and character level from the DM before we generated a character. They did say she could make her own character, so I'm hoping she'll get to breathe some life into something fun.

8
wrc-wolf•

Actually if he/she hasn't done this, your sister should call him/her up and ask them to.

This seems like... odd advice. I don't think I've ever seen it presented as a common practice to have your GM roll up your character for you, even if you are joining a campaign already in progress.

4
GeneralRose•

If you've never played before I think it's a great idea. I also think that it would be interesting to do a one shot for her first session or have her take the role of a temporary companion with the party and have the character she creates join in the 2nd session. The 1st session is always a learning experience. It's best to make that experience as streamlined as possible so "fun" can actually happen

1
vaminion•

I do this for new players all the time. They give me their concept and I make the character for them. I also let them do a complete rebuild once they understand the system.

1
GrimminuspantsDnD, Rifts, WoD•

I would help her focus on guiding her character creation. Party balance isnt quite as cemented in 5th as it was in 3.5 so she should be ok playing something like a paladin or druid that can throw out the occasional heal.

A lot of 5th is designed around building your character for a roleplaying experience than the min maxing you had in 3.5. Any race/class combination is usually pretty valid. While you can still optimize your character its not to the same degree as in 3.5

9
BaljetMiskatonic University•

Help her max a little, but avoid min. Ensure her character can contribute in some way in all situations so she's not sat on the sidelines.

I find the best balance of character can do something really well, but with another couple of standbys and something a little off topic but quite focussed.

Eg:

  • Mainly cast Buff spells in Combat
  • Capable of hitting things with a stick when combat goes south
  • Capable of treating other wounds and diseases with Heal
  • Specialised in Languages for RP and social scenes

You don't want you first character to be godly in combat but utterly useless for the rest of the game.

EDIT: Equally you don't want to be able to do everything but get outshined by another player at every turn.

6
ceaeOP•

This is actually good advice for me.

I don't know her group at all - I didn't ask her to get the group's builds to know what is and is not needed. A well rounded character is superior in this case.

Thank you!

2
lvl20dm•

Don't let her play the cleric, at least not for her first character.

Personally, I'd stay clear from suggesting anything for her. I'd just help with explaining the rules and such. A lot of the enjoyment in playing is in ownership of the character and the character creation process (similar to creating M:TG decks).

If anything, help her really develop her character's personality, so she can make decisions and act thoughtfully and meaningfully during the game (and interact with the rest of the group). Sometimes being the player who is added late keeps you on the outs too long - add the cleric role and being a newbie to that, and my worry for her would be that she would be the fly on the wall, waiting for the other players to tell her what to do. "Heal me! ...ok, just stay behind that rock now."

5
ceaeOP•

My first thought was, "Ugh, not a cleric."

My first thought was a paladin. I figured I'd help her look at all classes that have the ability to heal so she still fits the role that they lack, but still allow her to do other things that she wants to do.

4
AmPmEIR•

5e Clerics are a blast. Cantrip damage spells, normal damage spells, some buffs. Healing should only be used if someone is bleeding out.

Completely different dynamic from the older editions.

14
loonsunMontreal, QC, CA•

Paladin's Actually act a bit more like cleric's now if you build them for it, but then again Paladin's are super diverse now. Mine is a single target murder machine, like 30 damage at hit at level 2 murder machine. So really, in 5e you can be anything, just need to figure out what she likes and would want to do. Honestly though, no way to know what she would be good at until she plays because you can talk about how she 'thinks' she would play all you want, but you never know till you actually start.

3
absurd_olfaction•

That's basically how they were in 4e as well. Most people are glad they hung on to that particular paradigm.

1
Gorantharon•

Paladins are a bit of a mess rules wise. As always.

They can be a lot of fun and have serious burst damage, but their spell casting is limited to sometimes frustrating points. D&D5 has concentration spells. You can only concentrate on one concentration spell at a point. The problem with paladins is that you often want to buff yourself or your party, but all your attack spells are concentration, too, as they are held until you hit and have lasting effects on the target.

So you regularly have to drop spells and waste slots if you want to use a big part of the class in combat.

Some people will enjoy it, my current group's paladin gets a bit frustrated by it.

2
flametitan•

It sounds like they're trying to do too many things at once. Depending on the level of optimizing, 5e has more or less killed the ability for spellcasters to do everything. Instead it's much more effective for the player to set a goal in mind as to what they're doing in the fight, and then try to get the party on board with taking advantage of that.

Paladins make an absolute beast of a murder machine, or an amazingly useful support thanks to their Auras. Doing both, like you've noticed, is going to hit the brick wall of concentration. At the same time though, removing concentration, especially for the paladin smites, is going to create more problems than it solves, or more obtuse rules interactions than what currently exists.

1
Gorantharon•

As I said, some people like the harder choices. It is something I would warn anyone interest in paladin about, though.

And our player is quite good at managing his resources. He understands the mechanics very well.

The problem is the fun aspect. Having the buff up is often the optimal choice, but the most passive one and looking at your spell list and seeing all those fun smite spells, but knowing that they not only cost their slot, but the active buff, too, is something that not everyone will find fun. Especially as spell slots on paladins are quite limited.

I understand the balance idea behind it, I see the insane burst paladins can bring when needed, but I do agree with him that often you're relegated to a passive tank/buffbot playstyle by the system.

1
davecrazy•

She should have a character with a power level similar to the rest of the party. How's the rest of the group play? Nothing worse that being in effective, but at the same time, dropping in with too much power or too much specialization can be problematic too.

5
ceaeOP•

My concern was that it sounded like they were going to start her at level 1 no matter what. Someone offered to help her grind to level up, which made no sense to me as a drop in character... Which made me much more open to helping her minmax.

3
jmartkdr•

That's ... not a good sign.

Anyways, 5e doesn't really have a big gap between optimized and unoptimized characters, and way less than any version of DnD before. So long as you don't dump your attacking ability, you'll likely be alright. Truely min-maxing only helps if you know the dm is only going to throw one type of challenge at the party.

11
ceaeOP•

I'm trying to keep in mind that this group is made up of high school kids...

But I want to set her up for success!

1
The_Unreal•

I'm trying to keep in mind that this group is made up of high school kids...

She the only other girl in this group? Because I can smell the Dorito dust from here.

1
lvl20dm•

That sounds terrible.

5
ceaeOP•

Right? I couldn't comprehend that being a thing.

5
loonsunMontreal, QC, CA•

Because it isn't. That isn't how an RPG works. The DM can make up what ever the fuck they want. He could throw 30 kobolds at them, then have them all die of heart attacks and give them XP for the kills, because fuck it, he's the DM and can do what ever he wants. This isn't a video game, they don't need to 'grind' anyone to anything, is a storytelling game where everyone works together to have an adventure not to murder boars in the forest

4
davecrazy•

That can't be right. Must be a miss understanding.

5
ceaeOP•

My thought is my sister either misunderstood or the DM wanted to do a solo campaign to figure out her character.

Either way, I hope she won't be forced to level up a character that way. It's the perfect way to make someone hate the game. :(

3
loonsunMontreal, QC, CA•

Have you ever considered playing the game with your sister first. Like run a small 1 on 1 with her to show her the ropes. Shouldn't be that hard and it would be a great way to show figure out what she would do in a game.

6
rglitched•

Give her a basic rundown of what the different types of Cleric are likely to excel at, let her make her own thematic choices, and then help her optimize her creation according to the concept.

Don't necessarily tell her how to make "the strongest cleric ever" but if she decides that she wants to be a Spanish Inquisition type cleric then help her make the choices that will make the strongest version of something that plays like an Inquisitor (Trickster Domain with Mounted Combatant by the way, you clone yourself and surround your enemies while shouting how nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition).

Take the time to make sure she understands why the optimal choices are optimal.

To MinMax or not is a personal decision but I think it's good for all players to have a thorough enough understanding of the rules that they could if they wanted to. Broad knowledge of mechanics can really expand what you come up with in terms of interesting concepts and help avoid traps where it sounds neat but mechanically the concept won't pan out to be particularly fun to actually play.

Some of my coolest build concepts are pretty well balanced but I would never have thought of them if I hadn't understood my options well enough to have minmaxed had I wanted to.

3
Zombiebrian1•

Before minmaxing make sure the group she's playing with are munchkins, otherwise popping up with a powerful character with abilities that make no sense, no cohearent personality and background to a RP heavy game earns you very bad rep. Also if that's the case and it's a narrative game, don't suggest her anything. 5e is really noob-friendly, she should spend time learning what Rola playing is and how it works.

2
I_Pavlov•

Hope this works out for her.

Once it's done, tell us how the first session went?

2
ceaeOP•

I will!

2
cjdudley•

I would help her make a character, but not tell her all the exploits you see, and just make sure she doesn't make up something that is doomed to die in the first round of combat.

But if you help her make her character, you should also warn her about the perils of being a girl playing the healer in an established group. I would warn her not to let the other players dictate her every move. Letting her know what they need is one thing. Telling her when to cast what on who and when to hit what is totally different.

2
ceaeOP•

She goes to an all girls high school and it was a school friend that invited her, so I think the dynamic will be a little different than normal...

But I plan on helping her make a character that can survive combat!

6
ragan651•

Minmaxing is a bad habit to get into. Help her make a fun character that isn't a detriment to the party.

2
Captain-matt•

I think I'd start her off with a character that will be fun to play. THEN tune whatever she's built in to something powerful.

2
robmox•

To keep her from being min-maxxed, just encourage her to use the standard values 15-14-13-12-10-8 (plus racial bonuses). It makes for a strong and well rounded character, and many people use them.

1
ACE_C0ND0R•

I find that if I start off dictating rules to a new player, they generally don't stay interested. I think it is because it makes the game seem like work and you have to expend a lot of brain power to try and understand. That's not that much fun. New players want to try it out because they think it will be fun, and that's great. I usually just tell them to participate in the story and I'll help them with when and which dice to roll. Not really going into much detail of the 'why' part. That will come with experience. Playing the game is supposed to be 'fun' after all, and what is more fun than going on an adventure?

1