B.F. Griffith’s tabletop-RPG character-building philosophy

This page serves as a short philosophical treatise briefly summarizing B.F. Griffith’s methodological approach and goals in building “optimized” (but hopefully thematically interesting and distinctive) tabletop-RPG player-characters, primarily for 5th Edition D&D. In summary, while these are shared in the hopes that others might find them mechanically interesting, they’re also intended to be thoughtfully creatively conceived and cohesive character “concepts” in terms of suggested names’ etymologies, suggested backstories, and fun roleplaying potential.

Some of the builds published on these pages will be for much-loved characters that B.F. Griffith has personally playtested in various campaigns, while others are merely theorycrafted in the hope that he may one day have the opportunity to experience them in action — whether roleplayed by himself or someone else. Most include at least one multiclass dip, as there is obviously less to bother documenting for sharing with an audience as well as less extensive creative complexity involved in even a well optimized single-class build with strong spell selections.

All these builds could, of course, also optionally be used as élite NPCs or adversaries with as much mechanical simplification (or further customization) as desired compared to rigorously following a fully detailed “by the book” player-character progression of advancement (which traditionally isn’t deemed necessary for most monsters or NPCs).

Unless otherwise noted, most aspects of these builds will be strictly RAW (“rules as written”) — as well as hopefully also RAI (“rules as intended”) per all official errata and “Sage Advice” clarifications. However, these builds will take no interest whatsoever in conforming to Adventurer’s League limitations (such as “PHB+1” sourcebooks restrictions, if that’s still a thing).

On rare occasions, some builds may include “Unearthed Arcana” playtesting content — however, in that case, B.F. Griffith will clearly make note of that, and perhaps eventually subsequently update each build to reflect or leverage “officially published” rules and the most current “finalized” class or subclasses mechanics once those become available.

Any homebrew or house-rules options or suggested DM rulings vis-à-vis RAI interpretations that might impact the build should also be distinctly noted as such and separated from what will otherwise hopefully be a scrupulously RAW-legal optimized build-progression summary in the overwhelming majority of cases.

For Analog Players In A Digital World

In cases where B.F. Griffith happens to have created a bespoke character sheet for a character (as he habitually does for most characters he plays in any extensive campaign), this will usually be included for the convenience of anyone interested.

⇠ return to main RPGs page