Recap

After getting their first level and class by doing the test of the tower, or group joined up to a school to get more training and more access to the tower where they can level up. In the school there were two spies they were supposed to try and find, but it turned out one, Addruss was actually just a spy.

They managed to find both of them but then when Addruss’s cover was blown things went sideways. Since that happened the group has been tasked to try and figure out what is going on with these scarabs that attracts dragons and Addruss. They found his contact Nahzir and stumbled across an Arcane Stalker who was waiting for Nahzir to show back up.

This is the point where they then found the person who was keeping on eye on Nahzir’s apartment who led them down into the tunnel beneath the city that runs oddly enough from the Tower to a bar at the end of town.

The Session

The group decided to follow the person into the tunnel finding a few stops along the way. One was a bathhouse which they took note of, one was between two outhouses near Nahzir’s apartment and one led into the courtyard where they went after going into the tower. But there was another option as to where to go, they could go back into the tower.

What they found there was a way to shortcut into the training level of the tower. That is the level that when you go through it, you end up leaving with a class, or at least that is what it did before. They realized that this maybe wasn’t the best plan as they had to go through everything again. Now, at a higher level with their gear this level of the tower was nowhere near difficult. It was built to be a challenge for level 0 characters and they were level 5.

However, what was interesting, is at the end, they had to drink from one of six chalices again. And these chalices were something that influenced what class they went into. Now, the tower took into consideration what the players want to play, but also added in some randomness. And this time, with the players having levels, it begged the question, did the players remember what they had to drink from before.

One of the tricks of the tower is that you kind of forget what is going on. And that was the case, the players forgot that there had been a a fourth, named Steve, with them the first time. And then there was a question as to how to get past the monster in the last room which had them drinking tea or fighting. Could they have taken this monster in a fight, maybe, but tea was a safer bet.

I think that two of the players did end up drinking from the chalice that they did before, but this time, the chalice only went based off what was in the chalice. It didn’t take into consideration what they had gone into before. So Bokken drank from one that was white and fizzy and ended up getting a level of Paladin. Thrain drank from the same one as the first time, so just got another level of Warlock. Kip, whom hadn’t as a player gone through this process since he joined part way through drank the red smoky one and got a level of Sorcerer. And finally, Barrai drank from a clear and calm one and got a level of Cleric.

They got out of the tower, found themselves in the courtyard, and decided to head back to the school with their new abilities. Also to take a long rest. They find Castillia just waking up in their barracks and Bokken talks with her. He fills her in on some of the details because they’ve always been able to trust her before. So he doesn’t think it’s likely to have changed, and that’s where we ended the session for the night.

Behind the DM’s Screen

They had a couple of options here. Firstly, a bit of investigating would have told them that the person didn’t go into the tower. While the courtyard wasn’t obviously the route that he went, because there were tracks, recent, still leading into the tower, they could have checked it out more.

In the tower, I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to do. So I decided to do a callback to what had happened the first time. There were opportunities for things to be different. There were rooms they hadn’t seen before they could have gone to. They also could have gone into different areas than before, but they don’t know how to do that yet, or what might be different with skipping the whole first room.

Then, I thought it’d be fun to give them the option to multiclass. Now, I say option, if they picked wrong they were going to multiclass. And three of them did, though Kips player correctly guessed what the two classes were for one of them, so he knew to avoid it.

So it was a weird session, but is it one that you’d want to play in?

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Easiest To Hardest

Fighter

The first two on the list are by far the easiest to rank. Fighter is not a difficult class to play, mainly because it’s the most common thing that we’d know of. We can think of fighters in basically any movie set in a fantasy setting or a medieval era. And the mechanics are pretty simple as well, most of what you will be doing is fighting with your main weapon. Now you can make it more interesting by adding in additional types of weapons or customizing your attack style in a different way, but mechanically it is a pretty straight forward class to play.

Barbarian

Next up is the Barbarian, much like the fighter they are basically all about fighting in their fairly basic way. The fact that they add in the rage, that makes it very slightly more complicated. Same with the natural defense that they have, but neither of those really make it more difficult to play, they just change is up from how most other classes handle your basic fighting. Once you have the concept of rage down, the Barbarian is as easy to play, or maybe even easier, than the fighter.

Rogue

Next up I went with the Rogue. Now, I do think that the Rogue is a slight step up in terms of complexity. But again it is still going to be more of a standard fighting class. The rogue, however, is shiftier and interacts with their adventuring party more in combat than other classes. They like to focus on enemies are already facing off against someone else to get that sneak attack damage. But they can also go and hide to get bonuses and get away from someone they are fighting easier. It if a little more to keep track of, and they aren’t going to be able to tank like a Fighter or a Barbarian can.

Cleric

Our first spell caster is on the list and it’s the Cleric. Mainly because the concept of a cleric is pretty simple to grasp. The cleric is going to be pass out some buffs, but really, they are going to keep the party on their feet. So slinging around healing spells and making sure if someone gets knocked out they can get back up again, that’s going to be the clerics main focus. There are types of clerics who can fight solidly as well, but most clerics will focus on healing.

Paladin

The Paladin is much like the cleric in that they are good at healing. The difference is they are a half-caster class versus a full caster and that means they have access to fewer spells. Adding in the fighting that a cleric can do, it is definitely a step up in complexity, but not that hard. The main thing to know is that Paladins can convert their spell slots into more damage, so there are two types of Paladins. The first is going to be the type that heals and the other is going to be the type that fights, and generally stick to one instead of trying to do both. But once you pick, then it becomes real easy.

Ranger

Next up we have the Ranger. The Ranger is another half-caster class and can be a bit trickier. There is the Beastmaster Ranger who can have an animal companion which gives them more to do. However, for the most part the Ranger will use a few standard spells, like Hunter’s Mark, and a bow and arrow to deal with their enemies. Some of what becomes trickier are their other abilities. The favorite terrain, how do you work that into a campaign or use that meaningfully. Those are the questions for the Ranger player and DM.

Monk

After the Ranger comes the Monk. These two and the next one are all really close in complexity if you ask me. The Monk is another fighting class. Like the Barbarian it has it’s own way to calculate defense. Where the complexity comes in is the chi that the Monk has. Basically it is a way to manipulate attacks and attackers. Some of the disciplines of the monk give you lots of ways to manipulate your chi so you really need to think about how you spend it.

Wizard

Now we are into caster territory, and the second easiest caster is the Wizard, in my opinion. The Wizard could even go higher, but I think that casters tend to be a bit trickier than some of the other classes. Why is it easier than some of the others, how it casts is very simple. Simple use of spell slots and not much else that a Wizard does besides cast. It just depends on what type of caster you want to be.

Bard

The Bard is also a pretty straight forward casting class. Again, like the Wizard it is just spending spell slots. Where it adds is Bardic inspiration. Bardic Inspiration is basically a way to help your party do better. It gives them a die to spend on a check and the Bard has a limited number. As you go, it can even do more depending on the college you went to as a Bard. Not too complex to play but adds in a little more to do, and a Bard can also get into the fray with combat more.

Druid

These last three could have gone in most any order, but I’m placing the Druid as my third most complex. The reason that it’s sitting here is that the Druid can go in two different ways. There are caster druids and there are wild shape druids, basically think shape shifting. While the caster has some wild shape, they will focus on casting. Whereas a wild shape Druid will cast, but the wild shape is a key to a lot of what they do. Definitely adds in complexity with what creatures you can turn into with your wild shape and when you do.

Warlock

Next is the Warlock, I think that the Warlock could be simpler than some of these, except that it’s casting works very differently than other classes. You have fewer spell slots, they are always as the higher level and you get them back on a short rest. Plus they have their pact and different benefits that they get from what. Once you can wade through how the class plays, there are some solid and simple combos out there, mainly with Eldritch Blast you can take advantage of.

Sorcerer

Finally we have the Sorcerer. I put this one as the most complex even though it’s base casting is simple. You spend a spell slot and cast it. The difference is they have meta magic with sorcery points. You can convert spell slots to points and back. And you pick which meta magics you want to use. So there are more choices to consistently make than other classes, in my opinion.

Are Any Too Complex For A Beginner?

To wrap this up, let’s talk about this question, are any of the classes too complex for a first time player? Yes, but it depends on the player. I wouldn’t give someone who is casually interested in Dungeons and Dragons any of the last three classes. The Druid, Warlock and Sorcerer are probably just a bit too much, and I would maybe shy away from the Ranger and the Monk as well.

However, a player who is really excited about Dungeons and Dragons, they can play any class. No class is too hard out of the box for a player to pick up. Some of them are just going to require a little bit more work to learn than others.

Now, I skipped the Wizard, I think the concepts of the Wizard a good for a new player. And I think that they are pretty easy to learn, they just have a lot of choices. For a new player that might be too many choices, or it might be just fine. But I think even a somewhat interested new player will be able to figure it out, leveling up just might take longer.

Which is your favorite class to play? Are there any that you avoid because they are too simple or too complex?

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Things pick up immediately with Assendial calling up everyone from the cellar. Dorin tries to sneak into that group, but Barrai spots him coming out of some bushes that he had been looking in last time and had been hiding in during the dragon attack. Barrai calls that to everyones attention and Dorin tries to convince everyone that he was trying to be helpful and out of the way, not just cowering in the corner, but Barrai calls him out on that.

Meanwhile, Addruss comes out of the basement where Bokken knew he hadn’t been before. They call out Addruss on that and he says that he had come in after that fact since he had been outside and with a second year student when the attack had occurred, he hadn’t realized he was supposed to go to the cellar until later. Barrai calls him out on that, but he says that Barrai was probably unconscious when he came in so he wouldn’t have known.

Assendial, having enough off all of this, sent the rest of the students to the mess hall. Parrag and Cordin help Castillia to the nurses station to get her leg treated. Once everyone else has left, she gets the truth from Dorin that he’d been looking for threatening messages in the bush like he’d found before and that he’d just gotten scared. Addruss says that he came in a side entrance which is why Barrai, Bokken, and Thrain wouldn’t have noticed him. Assendial doesn’t look fully convinced, but sends them all into the mess hall.

About half an hour later, Tormin comes in and informs the students that they are going to be sleeping in there for the next few nights just for their protection in case something comes to attack again. Barrai has a lot of questions about what they should and shouldn’t do if something attacks and what the biggest things to attack are from the tower and if they are as targeted as this one was. Tormin says that most attacks haven’t been targeted and that this was an adult dragon and he’s seen ancient dragons come out of the tower before, and if the players see any sort of dragon, to run to the cellar. Barrai asks a few more clarifying questions and they all decide to call it a night.

Once the lights are out, Barrai and Thrain sneak out through the kitchen and Bokken, after losing his plate armor exoskeleton sneaks poorly after them. They notice that there is something up in the watch tower on the campus that is glinting every thirty seconds and Barrai uses minor illusion to create an image of Addruss sneaking. The illusion is spotted and after a few seconds Tormin comes to the door and tells Addruss to get back inside and then mutters under his breath, which Bokken hears, that they wonder why they had recruited an idiot like Addruss. They decide not to sneak to the trapdoor that night.

So next morning, Bokken, to get sunlight to recharge, goes to the top of the tower and meets a flashy half-elf who is smoking a cigarette. They chat for a little bit and Bokken finds out that he is one of two adventurers hired by the school to keep watch just in case something else happens. They chat some about dueling and Bokken is able to get some lessons or sparring with the half-elf. He finds out from Barrai, later, that the half elf is likely Sanphire whom Barrain and Thrain had seen fight in the duels.

They go about their school day until they can get a hold of Parrag and have him join them in talking with Assendial. They tell her that they know that Addruss is one of the spies and that they had found that out from Tormin. Assendial is pissed off at Tormin for letting it slip, but generally keeps a pretty good poker face. Parrag, after the initial shock is pretty pleased that the group has brought him in on that for the credit. They ask him if he’s a spy and he tells them, unshockingly, that he is not.

Barrai interested when the watch shifts sees that there is a female dragonborn up in the tower and goes up to find out who it is. It is Esmelda from the duels whom he’s seen before. He has a brief conversation, and he gets the information that he needs for Bokken that Sanphire will be taking over the watch at midnight.

They wait until midnight and put together a plan where Bokken has grabbed some dried meats and beer during dinner and he’s going to take those out to Sanphire to chat more and learn some fighting skills. Meanwhile, Barrai and Thrain will sneak to the trapdoor and go and explore down there. The party decided to split themselves, not me. It works well, and Bokken goes out and is sent a message by Sanphire to hurry up to the watch tower before any of the teachers spot him. He goes up there and they start to talk about his past and about how he wants to learn skills with throwing knives. He shows off some good dexterity to Sanphire and he suggests that they throw at a target to practice their skills, the target happens to be the barely propped open trapdoor.

During this time, Thrain and Barrai sneak over to the trapdoor and get it open. Barrai stick a piton in to hold the trapdoor just barely open and they climb down the ladder in pitch dark. At the bottom Barrai lights a candle and they can see that there are three passages, one leading under the messhall, one leading away from the tower and one leading towards it. They start out heading down the one leading to the mess hall to see if they can find an easier access when there is a thud and an echo in the tunnel from something hitting the trapdoor.

Behind the DM’s Screen:

Life has been busy so I didn’t have much time to plan. This is a reason that I like to end my sessions on a cliffhanger or in the middle of a scene. It means that even if I don’t have the full session planned out that I can then have a few minutes as we wrap up what was previously going on.

Also, I think I rolled dice twice or maybe three times in the session, it wasn’t much. This was heavier role play and playing off of the role play from what happened in the previous session.

All role play sessions or heavier role play sessions are interesting because it gives the characters chances to interact more and develop what is going on and gives me a chance to see who they care to interact with and what they are thinking. Doing this allows you, as the DM, to figure out which characters they think are important and give them a bigger role in the story being told.

So what can you take away to add into your own game?

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The semester continues with Barrai trying to get some more money and Thrain doing a poor job of gambling. Bokken, more focused on the goal of finding out who the spies are meets with Castillia and finds out from her that of her barrack mates, Addrus and Narius are the two who are gone from the barracks and not hanging out on the campus most often.

Things are going fairly boringly with Thrain studying up on necromancy around a fire and Barrai is coming up with ways to mess with Dorin. Bokken is sharpening his weapons and keeping on eye on his surroundings, he sees Dorin searching some bushes for something and Addrus off talking to someone in the shadows. He then when he hears the sound of an alarm off in the distance and he can see something come out of the tower, a massive creature that then flies in their direction. As it gets closer he sees that it is a massive black dragon that spews acid across one of the barracks in the school. Bokken braces against the wings but Thrain is blown over.

The group immediately jumps into action with Thrain getting up and rushing towards the barracks where he can hear Cordin and Castillia inside. He readies a spell against the dragon as he runs and unleashes it when the dragon comes back hexing the dragon. The wind from the wings knocks him down again. The teachers join them outside and Assendial urges the students down into a cellar below the mess hall. Bokken rushes into the barracks that’s structure has been weakened by acid and see that Castillia’s leg is pinned between a beam that was holding up the roof. Cordin, a wizard, is trying to lift it, Bokken helps and Castillia wiggles free. Bokken carries her to the mess hall where two other students take her to the basement. Meanwhile, the dragon flies over again and with a bit of luck Barrai taking a bunch of acid to the face as he’s by the barrack goes down but isn’t outright killed. Thrain drags Barrai out of the open and Assendial stabilizes him. Thrain, after placing his shield to cover part of Barrai, runs to the cellar. Bokken, on his way to get a weapon see Assendial trying to pull Barrai the mess hall and the cellar changes course to help her and they get Barrai into the cellar.

Looking around the cellar, Bokken notices that both Dorin and Addrus aren’t there. Remembering how suspicious Addrus had seen and questioning the timing, he has Thrain, who is considerably more sneaky than he is, sneak out during the fight to go and see what he can find where Addrus was. There wasn’t anything there, but Thrain decides to go into a tower where he could see better and see if he can see Addrus. He doesn’t see Addrus but he notices two things, first that there are tower climbers joining in the fight and that the barracks is getting razed to the ground by the dragon, and that there’s an odd spot that doesn’t seem to be kicking up dust and dirt when the dragon flies over it near where Addrus had been meeting. He goes over to investigate and finds what looks like a trapdoor. Thinking better of going just by himself, he goes back to Bokken.

Meanwhile, Parrag heals Barrai being him back to consciousness. And Bokken heads up the steps to watch the fight. Assendial shoos him back, but she’s busy supporting everyone else in the fight. Thrain fills them in and Bokken distracts Assendial so that Barrai and Thrain can sneak away. Then Bokken just walks away to join them. They get the trapdoor open, but they hear the barracks finish collapsing in on itself and decide not to investigate the ladder that leads down into darkness. On their way back Assendial catches them, she knows that Bokken disobeyed her, but Thrain lies and convinces her that he and Barrai were out looking for Bokken and avoiding trouble.

That’s where we ended. Not much behind the DM’s screen this time. Some things were made up on the spot, some things were planned, such as the dragon, but as to how much combat we’d be a part of, what would happen with the people trapped, that was all kind of up in the air depending on what the players did.

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Quick reminder of our characters:
Thrain the Hill Dwarf who became a Hexblade Warlock
Bokken the War Forged who was granted the ability to become a great Fighter (Samurai)
Barrai the Tiefling who now gets to use their musical and story telling skills as a Bard (sub-class to be determined)

At this point in time, they are all level 1.

Upon leaving the tower they were given what basically was an exit interview to gather what their powers they had been granted. A runner took all of their skills around to the various schools, but the characters (players) were given a free choice of what school they wanted to pick as a group.

There were eight different schools:
School of Spying and Espionage
School of War and Combat
School of Charm and Seduction
School of Wisdom
School of Business and Money
School of Order and Government
School of Nature and Raw Emotion
School of Dark Arts and Assassination

They went with the last one, though they did debate for a little while around some other the other ones, The School of War and Combat made sense and they were also interested in Nature and Raw Emotion. At that booth they spoke to Tormin, a recruiter and one of the teachers at the School of Dark Arts and Assassination and had to explain why they wanted to go and what skills they had that would be useful for the Strawhog – Ye Old School of Darkness and Magic. Tormin told them that they’d be in a barracks, bunk house, type set-up with another person who had gone through the trial of the Tower at the same time as them, a Gnome named Dorin.

Then I gave them two weeks of time to do whatever they wanted, Barrai practiced the harpsichord, Bokken picked up work at a warehouse and made a bunch of money moving boxes non-stop for that time. Thrain went to brush on his fighting and sparring at a local combat focused gym.

Showing up at the school, Strawgoh, they met Dorin. He was a pompous little gnome who clearly had a chip on his shoulder and was trying to be important. Barrai made friends with him by bribing him with a gold piece, but Bokken really didn’t acknowledge him, and Thrain constantly referred to him as a halfling, as a goof, though the best part was when the player, not the character, forgot that it wasn’t a halfling. They dropped their stuff off in the barracks and then joined the other nine students for their introduction to the school.

Head Mistress Assandial told them about the school, about how hard it was going to be, about how they still might die, even in the school and if anyone wanted to leave now they could. But everyone stuck it out. She then told them what became the focus of the rest of the session, there were two spies in their midst, two of the people had been recruited prior to the test of the Tower and already had some training. Those two would get extra credit if they could stay hidden for the year. But if someone correctly figured out who they were, they could get those extra credit points. But wrong guesses, there was a consequence for that.

Bokken immediately began investigating and looked for the people who stood out the most, the richest, the prettiest, whatever caught his eye. He spotted a halfling who looked rich and spoke to Narius. While Narius was a bit of a pompous jerk, Bokken didn’t get the feeling that Narius was likely a spy at that time and decided to offer to work for him if he had a job. Which, Narius said he would consider it once they graduate and he started his own assassin’s guild.

They talked to a bunch of other of their classmates, Domon a Tiefling Warlock who wasn’t that smart. Thrain interjected himself into a conversation between Cordin a Dragonborn Wizard and Sadran the Aasimar Wizard who Bokken had noticed earlier. Sadran was nice enough, but Cordin treated Thrain fairly rudely. They talked to Addruss a Human Fighter who had gone through the Trial of the Tower with Castilla a Wood Elf Rogue.

Barrai used his ability to cast the message spell to get information from Domon that he’d gone through the tower trial with the Aasimar, Sadran, and an Elf whom the players haven’t talked to yet.

At one point, Dorin, appointing himself, or trying to appoint himself, leader of the barracks decided to confront the party and see if they’d just tell them that they were spies. However, the party turned it on him pointing out that he was the only to survive the group of four, which seemed fairly suspicious to them.

Finally, the party talked to Edzial, a Dwarf whom they don’t know what class she has yet. However, she says that she went through the trial with Domon, Sadran, and the elf that they didn’t talk to. And the characters call her out on that. She gives a reason that they is investigating to see how much they know, but the players note that she, like Dorin, is the only one who didn’t have party survive the trial of the tower.

The players, since they decided that they could trust Castilla, spoke with her about their suspicions as to who might be the spies, but they really didn’t have all that much proof and they didn’t want a wrong accusation on their record. Barrai, since he is also a Tiefling and Domon had made a big deal out of that earlier, leveraged that friendship to convince Domon, not the brightest character, that he should go and accuse Dorin for them.

And that’s where I ended the session with Domon off to do that.

The DM Notes portion, if you don’t want to see behind the screen don’t read further.

There were only a handful of rolls in this session, once they started talking to people, they rolled for several insight checks but that was about it. I’ve run sessions like this before with little rolling but it wasn’t planned.

So about the planning itself, I had all 8 schools determined and I had the cast of characters, teachers and students whom they’d meet at whatever school they went to. Would they have always been paired with Dorin, no, Barrai asked early who they were going to be paired with, and I had him roll a D10 to determine which out of 11 students they’d be paired with, yes the math doesn’t work.

Also, for preparing for something like this, don’t come up with a new batch of teachers and students for each school, my four teachers (two of them met so far), and nine students were going to have the same names no matter what. Now, the fact that Dorin is a Gnome Rogue and Castilla is a Wood Elf Rogue, those things could have changed.

I was also potentially prepared for combat in this scenario. Only because they went to the school of Dark Arts and Assassination did they end up being a test and students. It was going to be a school who was going to send in some spies that the players would have had to have fought and figured out what they were after instead. But it worked well this way for the school.

Strawgoh is Hogwarts backwards and because of that Bokken now has a commanding officer, mentor named Rettop Yrrah as well, Harry Potter backwards.

This session went really well and I had a lot of fun with it, even though it wasn’t dice chucking combat or an epic set piece of massive story, it was a bunch of different smaller social interactions, some funny, some normal that the players had. Even with the funny ones probably being the most entertaining, the players have already gravitated and made Castilla someone who is going to be important later because they trust her, you never know who they will pick.

Feel free to steal ideas from this for your own game and let me know, what would you have picked for a school in the players shoes? Do you think they are right and Dorin is a spy (I should say, spies were set before they got Dorin as a bunk mate)?

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Quick refresher, high magic means that magic is common and is used for common tasks or that towns will often have a healer or someone who can cast some spells. When people see you cast a spell they won’t want to either worship you or burn you as a witch. Low magic means that magic is rare. If you can do magic, you might be revered or you might be seen as an abomination that should be killed.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about how it can affect how you role play in a game.

I think if you’re a magic user in a high magic world, you aren’t going to be set apart at a lower level. A spell like mend or cure wounds, your small towns are probably going to have someone who can do those things. People are just going to see that as normal and it won’t be until you start casting higher level spells that you’ll be considered special. In game, I would use that a motivation for a character, you want to be the best smartest wizard, most powerful sorcerer, or devout cleric. It gives a reason for a character to go off adventuring from their small town where they might be able to live a good life, but they want more because they’ve heard of that powerful and revered wizard who now consults for nations and can travel to other planes of existence, you want to be like that. Or maybe you have a rival who is just slightly better than you.

You can also, since magic is common, take some role playing queues from maybe you are just common and not needed in your town. You can almost be kicked out to go find a small town where your skills are needed or maybe you’re just not as good yet, as the person in town, so they want you to take over as being the towns healer, but they send you away to get more experience first. So instead of leaving to make a name, you might be leaving to adventure so that you can come back home. I like this one because it can give you a nice hook for adventuring and gives the DM something to play with.

Let’s look at the flip side of this, what if there is very little magic in the world, how do you role play that?

Firstly, there’s always getting kicked out of your town because you’re a witch or needing to flee, especially if it isn’t a holy magic. So any class that isn’t Cleric or Paladin could be seen as being some sort of abomination. And if you’re a Warlock, maybe your pact actually is with a demon. But, how can you use that to role play. You might be out to prove that you are in fact great. Or prove that your town should have kept you around because some day they might need you. This is a very chaotic and potentially neutral or even possible for an evil character. And, again I like it for a hook as a DM, at some point in time, when you have the power to stop something to happening, I’d force you to make a decision, do you go back to your home town to save them or do you let them burn because they kicked you out? If you still have family there, did they kick you out or was it the town, do you need to still save them?

Or, on the other hand, you might be almost revered. Does that make your character pompous because they can do something else that others can’t and everyone loves them for it? Will they hold that over everyone? I can see a couple of backstory hooks, one where the town sends out the person to save them from some impending doom because you are the best person for it in the town and you must be able to save them because you have magic. But what happens if you can’t? The other would be if you’re playing more a pompous character, are you going to go out and make a name for yourself because the town you’re from is too small? If someone did that, I would then definitely have something happen to the town that you could have stopped, and how does that affect the character? Is it an acceptable loss for their fame or do they feel guilt over something having happened?

There are a ton of hooks you can choose to play around with for both low and high magic worlds and playing a spell caster in them. I didn’t even get into how it might affect party dynamics, but that’s something you’d probably need to role play out with your own adventuring group. Do any of the hooks I’ve presented interest you? Have you played a character like any of those before?

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Warlocks get by far less spell slots, and they only get spell slots at a single level. If you need a refresher on what spell slots are, you can check out the article I wrote here on casting spells. Whereas every other class gets spell slots of different levels, a Warlock never has more than four. That might seem like not that much, and they never get higher than 5th level, which is what half-casters max out at, but a Warlock plays like a full caster, so how does that work?

Firstly, even though you don’t have that many spell slots or high level spells, the Warlock’s spell slots refresh differently. For the most part, if you play a Wizard, Sorcerer, or other caster, you have you spell slots and you use them throughout a day, then, when you long rest, you get them back. With the Warlock, you get them back after a short rest, so if you’ve used them all and you can take a couple of short rests throughout the day, you could cast, at level 20, 16 fifth level spells.

That jumps us into the next thing, when you cast a spell, you cast it at the highest level available to you. So when you have four spell slots at 20th level, all of them are fifth level slots, you don’t have any first level slots or anything like that. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t cast first level spells, it means what when you do, you cast them at a higher level. Compare this to the Wizard who only, at 20th level, has three fifth level spell slots. Now they also have a ninth and an eighth level slot as well as two of sixth and seventh level, but compare that, again to the count of spells that a Warlock can cast with a couple of rests, the Warlock can cast 16 fifth level spells, and the Wizard can do nine at fifth level or higher. So you get a unique casting trade off that way.

Along with this, you still get cantrips, including a very important one, which is Eldritch Blast. The thing with Eldritch Blast is that it scales nicely, but beyond that, as a Warlock, you get invocations which can make it much better. While an Eldritch Blast does 1D10 on a hit, which isn’t bad, you can take an invocation that will make it add in your charisma modifier as damage, and when you start to be able to shoot several blasts in a single round at long range, a Warlock can take down enemies quite quickly. In fact, the spell slots that you do have, you won’t always be using them a ton in combat, because with fully maxed Charisma, which is the Warlock’s casting stat, at a higher level, you’ll have a +9 to +11 to hit, be shooting three or four bolts and dealing 1D10 + 5 (again your charisma modifier) to an enemy. And that’s at a good range of 120 feet, plus you can possibly even increase that if you so desire or push them. So while all classes do rely some on cantrips once they have run out of spell slots, a Warlock can really focus in on a cantrip only.

Now, I’ve said that I think that Warlock can be a harder spell casting class to play. The primary reason for that is because how spell slots level up to a certain level, even though you’re casting a lower level spell, I think that can confuse some people. I also think that everything that a single Eldritch Blast can do also can cause issues. Once you get down what an Eldritch Blast can do and understand that you won’t be casting many other spells, the Warlock is quite easy to play. You simply launch a volley of Eldritch Blasts over and over again until the enemy is close enough for someone else to start hitting them as well. So, is the Warlock actually a hard spell casting class to play, not really, but I think people already have an idea of how casting works, from video games and other places, so the Warlock feels different in how it handles them.

That’s a brief primer on how the spell casting for a Warlock works. They are, as I think I called them before, a little bit more than a half-caster for me, but they also aren’t a full caster because they don’t get access to ninth level spells. And I can see how they’d be a lot of fun to play in a game as a caster with your ability to blast away with an Eldritch Blast and the role play possibilities for them.

Have you played a Warlock before? Was it hard to wrap your head around mainly casting Eldritch Blast?

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Spells have a lot of different components to them, and if it wasn’t hard enough to already have extra things to track, now you need to figure out which spells you want to take with you into combat.

With spells for most casters, you have a few different things to keep track of. The first is the number of spell slots that you have. If you are a Wizard, and this will be my standard example throughout the post, and you are at 3rd level, you will know 3 cantrips, and a number of spells in your spell book, generally to start that is going to be level plus intelligence modifier So let’s say your intelligence is 3 and your level is 3, you’d have at least 6 spells known. Then you have spells that you have prepared for the day. Again, intelligence plus your level, so you’d be able to prepare at least 6 spells for the day. Finally, you have your spell slots, that’s how many non-cantrip spells you can cast each day, which is 4 first level and 2 second level spells.

Now, as a Wizard, that doesn’t mean that you can cast each of the six spells you prepared once, and you need two second level spells ready to cast. You can cast the same spell all six times as long as it’s a first level spell. Spells can be cast at a higher level, so you can cast first level spells at second level, and you generally get some sort of bonus. So maybe you only use a few spells all the time, but you can prepare more so that you have the utility if you want.

Finally, cantrips are different. Those can be used as many times as you wanted throughout the day. But these spells tend to be weaker spells. It might do less damage or be an easier save, but more likely, if it has a save, it simply won’t do any damage if the person saves against it. These spells, though, sometimes do scale with level, because the spell slots, even at 20th level are still somewhat limited.

But that’s just about preparing your spells for the day for a Wizard. It’s similar for a lot of the other spell casting classes, with Warlock being the biggest exception, I’ll write about the Warlock specifically later. The other question with spells is what does the information mean on the spell itself?

Spells are going to have a handful of basic components. I’m going to be using the spell Thunderwave (found here on DnD Beyond). The first thing we see is the level. Thunderwave is a first level spell. That information isn’t extremely important, you’ll have that noted down on your spell list based off of where you put it. There are a few other things that can be useful, but not always. The school is useful if you are that type of Wizard because it makes it easier for you to learn. The same can sometimes be said for the damage type. Especially at low levels most monsters won’t resist much damage.

The next part is extremely important though, and that’s the casting time. For combat, casting time needs to be like Thunderwave and be an action. There are others that are bonus actions which can be used in combat, but you’re probably not going to be want to cast a spell that takes 1 minute to 1 hour to cast. You’ll be stabbed well before that. Then onto the duration of the spell. In the case of Thunderwave it’s instantaneous, so it’s a one off attack. There will be other spells that last a longer period of time. And the area of the spell, some of them will have a range to them, such as fireball does a sphere of damage at up to a distance away from you. Finally in the spell header information, we have the components for the spell. It might be an actual material or it might mean that you need to do a gesture and say something when you cast the spell. Most spells are going to have a verbal piece to them, but not all of them will.

Then we come to the main body of the spell. This tells you the affect of the spell and what sort of save people need to make against the spell. A lot of that information can be gotten from the header of the spell, but this makes it clearer and spells it out in order of how things will happen. It also tells you how much damage is being dealt and if it’s an attack spell, because not all spells get a save, some you need to make an attack roll for them. And beyond the damage, for a spell like Thunderwave, it tells you more flavor of what is happening, so it makes a loud noise that can be heard for a distance. Finally at the bottom, it tells you what it does if you cast it at a higher level. In the case of Thunderwave, for each higher level, you get an extra die eight of damage (1D8).

Now, this is a pretty dry read, I realize that. I’m really going through and breaking down a spell in detail. Most all spells are going to work like this and most casters are going to work like this. The Warlock is an exception, and some of the other classes, as compared to a Wizard, might not know more spells or have more that their disposal to pick from. I’ll actually give some advice for picking spells in a later article. Let me know what you think of spell casting, is it easy enough to understand, did I help make things clearer?

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Since Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy setting, you have magic in the same, I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone. How much magic you have to vary a lot. Some worlds in D&D have a ton of magic with lots of people being able to use small spells and little things, like curing a small wound are going to be magically done or lighting a fire, magic might be faster. There are going to be other fantasy worlds where magic is extremely rare. If you have magic, you have way more value to the nations because of what you can do. In either of them, the PC’s (Player characters) who have magic are going to end up being more powerful than most other casters, because, otherwise, those characters would be saving the world, and you’d still be a farmer.

But within magic, there are a number of different ways that you can get magic or use magic. Which, mechanically speaking, are represented by the different classes you can be. A Cleric and Paladin get their magic from their gods whereas a Druid gets it through nature, a Sorcerer just has it, and a Wizard needs to learn it. That doesn’t even touch on the bard who signs theirs (but just kind of have it) and the Warlock who has made a deal for it. If you know you want to be a magic user, picking your class can help determine what sort of background you have because of how you got the magic.

Bard – This magical mischief maker generally gets their spells from their ability to weave word or song in such a way to alter the world around them either for attack or entertainment. A bard is generally going to be someone who has been trained, but not to improve their magic, but their performance ability. I think that the bard is a class that can be generally used for most backstories.

Cleric – The first of our magical classes that gets their magic from the divine. The god that they are worshiping is giving them the powers and has chosen them as special. In particular, they are giving them powers to help people, and while combat might not be their strong point, but healing and aiding other characters is what that character is going to be the best at. With a cleric, your backstory can be anything but you might want to focus more on a religious background and have it something you’ve been a part of for a while, not something that you just picked up.

Druid – The hippy of the magical classes, the druid is all about nature and their attunement to nature. In some ways, I would say that a Druid is a bit like the Cleric in that they get their magic from the divine, but for the Druid their divine is their connection to nature. The Druid is going to be the caster who has the most connections to nature and natural changes in the world. The outlander or hermit backgrounds actually make a lot of sense for a background for the Druid, because you need that strong connection with nature that makes most sense to be gotten on your own. The trick can be connecting back into the group.

Paladin – Our second divine caster, the Paladin is what is know as a half-caster. What that means is that they have a more limited spell selection and a smaller number of spell slots with which to cast spells. What the Paladin does get is some of the healing abilities of the Cleric but much better punching power with their ability to handle weapons. They also get the ability to channel their divine magic into even more damage, at the cost of casting spells, but I still feel like it’s a spell like affect and is part of their magic. For a Paladin, your background can be much more open, because while they do have that divine magic from a god, their devotion to their religion is less strictly guided like a Cleric’s feels, though, they do need to maintain that collection.

Ranger – Another and last half caster, the Ranger pulls a little bit like the Paladin does from the Cleric, but for the Ranger it’s from the Druid. They get some of the connections to nature that the Druid has, but also then gets more focus in their magic for hunting down their enemies. Unlike the Paladin who has extra abilities they can do with their magic, the Ranger is more focused on just using their spells as spells. Their background is generally going to be fairly open, being a scout in the military or being a hermit all make sense, and even some of the more scholarly ones can make sense.

Sorcerer – The natural of the magic world, the bard might just use music, but the Sorcerer just gets magic. And they get amazing control over their magic. The Sorcerer is an interesting class in that they get things called meta-magics and meta-magic points that they can use to improve their spells. This might mean that they can cast them farther or do so silently so it can’t be countered. This allows a player to specialize their character so that their Sorcerer feels different from others. The Sorcerer definitely can come from any sort of background since their magic can be something that just newly manifested. It’s the magic class that you do if you don’t want to be beholden to anyone or anything.

Warlock – If the Sorcerer isn’t beholden to anyone or anything, the Warlock 100% is. They’ve made a pact with some powerful being, fey, elder god, or demon that is giving them their powers. And the Warlocks magic works differently than everyone else’s. They aren’t a half caster, but they aren’t really a full caster. They get invocations that can really make their cantrips much better so they don’t need as many high level spells, which is good, because they don’t get many spell slots. But when they cast a spell it’s always at the highest spot possible. I don’t know that they are that much harder to play than other casters, but how they work makes less sense. They, because they can have just gotten their magic, do have it in common with the Sorcerer that most any background works.

Wizard – Final one and definitely the most iconic. The Wizard has learned magic. You could say that Bard might be considered a bit of that if you consider them learning their craft of storytelling and performance, but for a Wizard, there are Wizard schools and you study and you need a spellbook to be able to prepare spells for the day. But, as a Wizard, you have access to more spells than any other class. Their specializations also makes it easier for them to learn more spells in certain areas, and while other classes can be capped on how spells they know, a Wizard can always add in more spells if they have the time and money to transcribe them into their spell book. A wizard, the Sage background makes the most sense because they’ve spent at least some of their life in school, but that might not be the defining feature for them.

That’s a lot just looking at the classes and how they use magic, I’m going to spend some time coming up here going into more topics on magic such as spell slots and spells known or high or low magic worlds that I touched on that the top of the article. Some of them will be more player focused and others more dungeon master focused. Is there a certain type of caster that you gravitate to?

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Now, time to explain myself, and explain how you can play it better.

My issue with Chaotic Neutral is that most people who play it really want to be a murder hobo and not get into any trouble for it. So if they say they aren’t evil, that means that people are going to be nicer to them when they do Chaotic Evil things. It also means that the Paladin is less likely to smite them or pay as much attention to them doing bad things, because they are neutral technically.

So, really, most people who play chaotic neutral are actually playing chaotic evil, they just don’t want to be an evil character. Now, that being said, it also happens on the flip side as well. I would say that rogues or warlocks most commonly do it the other way. A rogue might be a thief, but everything that they do is good, but because they had a criminal background, they think they need to be Chaotic Neutral, and a similar thing with warlock. But really they are playing a Chaotic Good character. But it is much more playing Chaotic Evil, but pretending that you are Neutral instead of evil that causes issues in a game.

How do you play Chaotic Neutral?

This is where it gets tricky, as I feel like with chaotic, having either good or evil is very defining ,and chaotic neutral can just be chaos for chaos sake, but often times that leans into chaotic evil. I’m trying to come up with a good example of a chaotic neutral character, I would say that Loki, at his best, when he’s not trying to kill Thor, is probably Chaotic Neutral. But he walks that line of being Evil at times as well. Though, I’d argue when he is Evil he’s either Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil, not Chaotic Evil. After a quick google search, I came up with a couple more examples.

The first is Deadpool, which I think makes sense to me. He’s chaotic in that he’s fourth wall breaking, but also that his methods are extreme and sometimes random in dealing with the bad guys. He doesn’t have a plan, and he’s willing to terminate with extreme prejudice, versus bring anyone in, not because it’s letter of the law, but it’s because that’s what he does. When Venom is good, he does a similar thing. The other is Homer Simpson. Now, this is much more benign than Deadpool, but you never really know what Homer is going to do. He might do the right thing, he might do the wrong thing, but he’s never really trying to do the wrong thing, he just doesn’t think things through.

So, I think there’s a few things we can take away for playing all a Chaotic Neutral character from these character examples. First, these characters are not murder hobos. While Deadpool kills, he kills bad guys, and people that he knows are bad guys, not people he might just guess are bad guys. But even with bad guys, they don’t have to kill them, and they might not kill one of them for an odd reason. Thus, they also tend to be hard to predict. They would be a nightmare for a lawful evil villain or a lawful good paladin, because they can’t predict what they are going to do.

What classes then make a good chaotic neutral character. I have mentioned Warlock and Rogue, both of those make a lot of sense, and same with Sorcerer. But I think one that I haven’t mentioned yet is bard. Bards are entertainers based off of their class, and have a built in desire for being entertained, so while they don’t do the predictable thing, they do the thing that will entertain themselves and others the most. I think that Paladin and Cleric are going to be the hardest to go with in a Chaotic alignment, especially Paladin, but there are Chaotic deities out there that they can follow if you are using the D&D deities for Forgotten Realms.

A Chaotic Neutral character is also likely to be an adventurer because they are bored with what they’ve been doing. I actually like the Noble background for this reason. Tate was a Chaotic Neutral Noble Bard in the Dungeons and Flagons game, and it worked well, because he hadn’t received training to live in a hard world, he just had learned fluffier skills as a noble, so reading, song, etc. I think that a reformed Criminal would also make sense or a Charlatan. But as a player, you are going to have to find a reason that they would keep adventuring and not just bail when things get too hard or dangerous.

So, now I’ve given reasons how you can play it well. I still stand by what I’ve said, I do think that playing a Chaotic Neutral character is too often just a reason to play a Chaotic Evil character, but not have the Paladin smite you to death. There are ways that you can play it well though, so please, for the sake of your DM, try and lean into those aspects.

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