Meet the adventurers taking center stage in Ken's Greyhawk '76 test drive campaign for Dungeons & Dragons 2024!

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Show Notes

In the second episode of Greyhawk '76, Ken talks about the player characters the campaign is using to test drive the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 rules.

Campaign Guidelines for Character Creation

Since the purpose of the campaign is to test drive the D&D 2024 rules, we decided to start at 3rd level rather than 1st. That gives everyone a few more options to play with, and lets them pick a subclass (which is where things often get interest for players, since more advanced capabilities kick in with the subclasses).

Here are our guidelines:

Everyone begins at 3rd level

Everyone uses the Standard point buy for attributes

Use the "starting at higher level" rules on page 43 of the D&D Player's Handbook

They get normal starting gear plus one Common magical item

Characters who will die (what, Ken kill low-level 5e characters? Impossible!) will be built using the same rules, with the "starting level" tweaked as necessary.

The Characters of Greyhawk '76

Ramnulf Heathertoes

Male Halfling Thief

Subclass: Rogue

Background Origin Feat: Magic Initiate (Mage)

Species Origin Feat: N/A

Reed Goodbarrel

Male Halfling Cleric

Subclass: Trickster Domain

Background Origin Feat: Tough

Species Origin Feat: N/A

Tiberius

Male Human Fighter

Subclass: Battlemaster

Background origin feat: Tough

Species Origin feat: Magic Initiate (Wizard)

Raqsam

* Male Dragonborn Wizard

Subclass: Illusionist

Subspecies: White Dragon

Background Origin Feat: Alert

Species Origin Feat: N/A

Evaluating the Party

It's a well rounded party.

There's a good mix of classes (with a surprising number of halflings), which should help us achieve our playtest goals.

It nicely balances hard-hitting martial characters (the rogue, the fighter), magical support (the wizard, the cleric), and healing (the cleric again).

The chosen classes also help us playtest specific parts of D&D 2024 rules, like mastery, tweaked spells and cantrips, and the less combat-oriented skills (finding and disarming traps, interacting with NPCs, offensive and defensive spells, and the ever-fun battle master maneuvers.