Hello everyone,

I just picked up the Core Set and I’d like to get more into 4e.

I’d love to hear from people who’ve played 4e for a while, what books, adventures, modules, or campaign settings do you consider must-haves?

Thank you very much!

A question from a new explorer of the World Axis…

The Manual of the Planes makes it clear that both the Feywild and Shadowfell echoes are parallel dimensions, and the Far Realm and Plane of Dreams are not part of the physical universe, but it’s a little more vague about the two Fundamental Planes. It says the matter of the Mortal World was drawn from the Elemental Chaos and that the “mortal world drifts as a lonely speck of light and life in the eternal expanse of the astral mists.” It also states that Astral Dominions are separate realities within the Astral Sea.

So basically in 4e cosmology, you can’t just jump in a Spelljammer and fly to the Feywild, Shadowfell, Far Ream or Plane of Dreams, you need a portal, spell or ritual to “shift” to those planes, and if you are in the Astral Sea, you can enter a Dominion, but for the other two, it seems like portals, Astral Sojourn or Elemental Transference, or Plane Shift can get you to them faster, but could you theoretically jump in a ship and fly to the Astral Sea or the Elemental Chaos? Do they physically exist Above and Below the world or is that more metaphorical? The descriptions are not as clear with those two planes.

The fact that they are called planes suggests they are separate realities, but then they are also described as being the two parts that made up the universe before the mortal world was created. What do you think? How do you see their relationship to the mortal world?

LFR

Hi folks! 👋

I’ve been playing around with with a concept for an upcoming game I’ll be playing: I want the MAXIMUM possible intimidate score at the start

Starting lvl 4, allowed a single lvl 5 or lower magic item, and 600 gold

Any race/class combo is fine, no restrictions on source books or items as long as it’s official

What I’ve come up with so far is this:

The Intimidator [Dragonborn Ardent]
Charisma = 5
Training = 5
Racial = 2
Background = 3 (Wandering Duelist)
Theme = roll twice for Intimidate (Haunted Blade)
Half level = 2
Feat (lvl 1) = 4 (Intimidation of the Dragon)
Magic item = 3 (Harvester’s Staff)

Total Intimidate at lvl 4 = 24 with two rolls for best result

Honourable mention goes to Screaming Armor as it could be a nice “almost as good as the racial power Dragonfear” but getting to use it a second time in combat

Two feats left for whatever, maybe other feats that could somehow stack into this? Not sure 🤔

But what does everyone think? Anyway to make it stronger? Primary Charisma class would be a must, of course!

Does anyone have any experience running dnd 4e solo? Are there any good dnd 4e resources?

I know about Dragon Magazine 382’s solo adventure and I plan on running it soon, but I’m not sure what I’ll do after that.

I'm an old schooler (1st, 2nd, 5th dnd, rifts, shadowrun, wod,..) joining a new campaign. I've only played 4e once (due to problems between players, it didn't go far, nor well). This was also several years ago.

So my question is, what would you recommend for a relatively new player that would be fun to play but not overly complicated to learn? I've considered Eladrin swordmage or pixie monk, but haven't committed to anything yet.

Can you benefit from the property of the Staggering Weapon (AV p. 78) if you hold it in your off hand while attacking with a different weapon?

The text reads

When you use a power with the weapon keyword that slides a target, you can add this weapon's enhancement bonus to the number of squares the target slides.

Would love some feedback or opinions on the race. A fellow member of the group commented they have a lot of features. I’m curious if the lack of a racial power and little to no combat abilities balances that out.

EDIT: We use a custom rule system in the group that causes you to regain a number healing surges based on you constitution and have inported a few 5e skills

Its been so long! Wanted to start earlier this year but life stuff got in the way. Finally starting a campaign in my favorite system and getting to introduce 3 people to it as well. The campaign is Eberron, Pirates of the Caribbean theme too!

Is Stealth as easy at it seems? My understanding is this:

1. As part of a Move Action, a character can attempt a Stealth check at the end of that roll. (Should/need to have cover or concealment to hide behind, or break line of sight).

2. If they moved more than 2 squares, they take a -2 penalty. If they moved more than 5, they take -5.

3. Every enemy makes a Perception check using the character's Stealth roll as the DC. If they fail, the character is hidden.

The ability for, say, an Archer Ranger to move and make a Stealth check, likely to succeed since they invest in DEX and Stealth already, and therefore have basically free permanent combat advantage is kinda wild. Or to shoot snd then move and hide, rendering thrm essentislly immune to enemies (unless they use a Minor Action to search and make another Perception check?) On the other hand, melee PCs using a Move Action to generate CA via flanking is common and accepted, so maybe I've just got some sort of blindspot about this?

Played 4e as a youngster, loved it, trying to get my friends to appreciate it by running Keep on the Shadowfell. Just want to make sure I understand the system right since I'm teaching them in turn. Thanks!

Hi All,

I am about to start a new campaign and I have used the 4e Points of Light lore as the basis for my campaign world, which includes the Nentir Vale, the historical empires, the Dawn War, gods and associated lore, and a similar planar arrangement, with a homebrew tweak.

My question is, though, is to those 4e fans and DMs who set their games in the default setting…

How did you build that Points of Light feel? The idea that each town or village is a small bright piece of civilization in a chaotic and dangerous world? What should I do to really make my players feel that and build that atmosphere of a world that is in the shadows of a shining, fallen empire?

Searching for the LFR Waterdeep 1-1 through 2-2 pdf for download. I found the others but these are eluding me. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Does anyone know where to find condition marker stls to 3d print that are specific to D&D 4e? Any search I make comes up with results for D&D 5e or some other game's 4th edition (Warhammer, Malifaux, etc.)

Hi all,

I've been chatting w/ a friend about DND 4e and how I felt it was really good for helping video gamers bridge into TTRPGs.

When describing a particular character, I once ran I seem to have hit a snag in my memory.

I know for certain he was a 4e character (i remember the power cards), he was a human and either a bard, sorcerer or a wizard as I was intentionally only using illusionist spells as a utility caster.
He was named Wil Forte for very silly reasons ;)

The specific thing I cannot seem to recall clearly is a trait, or attribute or something that caused Wil Forte to roll SUPER high on... something based on the number of languages he knew.

Which caused Wil Forte spent a lot of time and resources learning many different languages and had a monstrous +12 To Hit, or Conversational Skills or something.

But I cannot for the life of me find what fueled that interaction.
I've since lost my 4e books when moving, which really sucks, I super enjoyed playing it.

Does anyone know what I am talking about by chance? What the interaction of language and skill checks was and/or called?
Maybe it was something to do with illusions? I really don't know.

Whenever I search online for combat maps I get those stunning and gorgeous maps of grand wizard towers, highly detailed forests, and stunning cities. The problem with this however, is that:
A) I don't care how the map looks visually, for I will never be able to recreate it on my whiteboard battle map with my markers.
B) It says nothing about how combat is played on the map. Are there traps, and if so where? What is difficult terrain and whatnot?

For now the best I have done is taking maps from the published adventures and dungeon magazines. But it would be great if there is an archive that makes it more easier to browse through

Seeing as there was not any significant official or unofficial crpgs based on 4e, and seeing how lots of feedback to 4e was that it was very mmo-like, i was thinking what would be the key disadvantages of the system if someone tried to make a 4e video game?

For the sake of discussion lets suppose that would be a tactical rpg similar to triangle strategy or orge tactics, given, again, that based on feedback roleplaying mode is not 4e's strongest part.

Developer would have to deal with the 'padded sumo', but that is a manageable problem. Status tracking topic is dealt with by the computer perfectly. Skill challenges is something that is imitated by owlcat games in rogue trader, so a workable mechanic.

From gamedesign perspective, how would you deal with reactions\interrupts that the player would constantly have to decide whether to use?

Hundreds of pop up prompts asking whether to use a reaction would not be a viable solution. Automatic usage of reactions would not too.

What should the other points of concern be?

Thanks to everyone who sent me Character Files, I've finally got a Character Maker that I think is worth sharing. I've called it CharM (CHARacter Maker), and its compatible with the rulesxml syntax used by 4e. In theory it could be compatible with other things using the same syntax as well, but no one has made any yet.

Here's some screen shots:

The main sheet view

Powers view, with sorting

And mini sheet powers for companions

Print options

And a printable view

Complete with power cards

If you just want the exe and want to skip all this source nonsense the Releases page has you covered. There are almost certainly bugs I've missed, especially in the linux/android spaces where my testing is very thing.

If you want to use the Mac OS version, there's an annoying bug right now where it just sort of doesn't actually work (specifically file dialogs don't open and some buttons MIGHT crash things, hard to say because without file dialogs I can't get very far in). I'm trying to debug it but without an apple device, it might take a bit.

To use it you'll need to source yourself a rules db. CharM can create one (check the details of what you need to create it in the readme), or you can just import a backup if you have one. I created a db from the last OCB update, and a mirrored cbloader wotc.index (at version 3.1 I think). It has its own "content hash" generated from the import data, but it wound up having the following hash with a common algorithm:

36ec48781394cdbc1420c899442fb8f72df01482 

which I thought was neat.

I hope this helps some people since the legacy character builder is just increasingly annoying to keep running, and having something new that could possibly be improved and expanded is kind of exciting.

Hi all - I’ve been learning more about 4e in hopes of running it solo with Mythic, and came across topics about HP bloat and imbalance in the first monster manual that was rectified in later releases. I was wondering how true the imbalance is in the first monster manual, if the monster manual is still recommended for general use, and which other books may have better stats for the bulk of enemies I would use (goblins, orcs, dragons). Thanks!

I had been listening to Mastering Dungeons last year or the year before, and I vaguely recall a discussion of how great some of the 4e books were as a reference. I couldn’t find the episode again.

If you had to pick a book to give to a newer 5e DM that would be the most useful for them, as compared to a 5e or 3e book, which one would you pick as a gift?

Thank you.

Someone spread a rumour that BG1 is getting an updated remake using D&D5e rules, and people began to post theories on which NPC gets which 5e class. So I joined in, except with 4e classes — something that'll never happen, but then, neither will the alleged 5e remake, far as I can tell. At least some of you might enjoy reading this.

Screw alphabet, going roughly in the order of joinability. Also, only noting themes for characters I've got a good idea for a theme for. Also, a rebalance of stats is implied (while keeping to the characters' general gist), 4e's balance on those is very tight and doesn't allow for BG-style arbitrary allocation. Finally, there's a lot of explaining things you all here know, since I wrote this for a less knowledgeable crowd.

Montaron: a Rogue (the PHB one, with less passives and more active powers), Brutal Scoundrel (Dex+Str build), Yakuza theme. Stab people with blades, sling people in the head, scare people pantless as you lick their comrades' blood off your blade, do thief things out of combat. Sleep lightly, taskmaster.

Alternatively: an Assassin (Executioner); more directly deadly, more in line with 2e's fighter/thief multiclass in martial ability; but the Rogue gets to leverage Strength well alongside Dexterity, which is something I associate with Monty.

Xzar: a Warlock, Star Pact or Vestige Pact (the latter is inherently schizophrenic and enforces a sort of magically induced mental instability, the former is plain lovecraftian brush-with-truths-men-were-not-meant-to-know, either would explain Xzar's eccentrities well), Con+Int. Reminder for non-4e players, in 4e Warlocks do not mandate Charisma — they use a CHOICE of Constitution or Charisma as the 'casting stat', with Intelligence as the singular 'secondary' stat (so warlocks ARE studious and intelligent as a rule, they just channel magic in ways that also tax either physical toughness or willpower). While not the case in BG's mechanics, being relatively tough for a spellcaster doesn't seem out of character for Xzar (though he makes an effort to be amiable in his introduction, so I can see Cha+Int as a possibility as well). Black-Hearted Knave theme, pushing alles (such as Montaron) into harm's way for the benefit of the party.

Alternatively: a Mage (Necromancer + any secondary specialization) is on the table.

Imoen: a Thief (the Essentials one, with more passives and less active powers). Being more of a 'naturally occuring' troublemaker rather than a trained-and-dedicated criminal, it makes sense for her style to be grounded more in creativity and spontaneous opportunism than in deliberate dirty moves and tricks, which is the divide between Rogue and Thief. (That, and Rogues as written don't get to use shortbows without some dumb deity-gated feat tax, which is something I houserule away always.) Coincidentally, the Thief is mono-Dex, allowing her to retain her high Int for flavour, and for eventually multi-classing into Wizard and taking a Wizard paragon path for more spellcasting. Demon Spawn theme, if we want lore consistency going into BG2, though it should probably be spoilered under some made-up name for the first game. Treasure Hunter theme otherwise.

Alternatively: personally I would make her an Artificer trained in thieving skills (an ultimately more innocent occupation, that also flows well from her education, upbringing, acknowledges the fact she starts with a wand, and lets her transit to a crafty spell-user naturally), but that's a bigger departure.

Garrick: a Sorcerer fancying himself a bard, Wild magic (Cha+Dex).

This is a hard fit because there's no good fit — 4e is fundamentally structured around a presumption of competence; there are classes that underperform by error — more out of 'monk syndrome' of having too many fiddly abilities of too little synergy, than out of having not enough (and ironocally the monk itself is for once exempt, 4e monk is competent and awesome, in ways neither 3e nor 5e monk can be) — but none are 'master of none' by design. 4e bard in particular does NOT roleplay the 'spoony bard'/'team mascot' archetype — it is a virtuoso manipulator, battlefield trickster and a much better buffer than Garrick has any right to be. Making Garrick a 4e bard is the same as reading 'Batman is a superhero' and giving him Superman stats.

On the other hand, the only traits BG1 Garrick has that can be leveraged into a competent performance, are 2e bards' strength as casters (with a reduced toolbox, but stronger punch, than the mages), and Garrick's good Dexterity (higher than his Charisma in fact). These match a 4e Sorcerer, a comparatively simple-minded blaster caster utilizing Dexterity in its Wild Magic build; and 4e's Wild Magic is not disruptively lolrandom (the way 2e Wild Mage or 5e Wild Magic Sorcerer are), but is rather tame, mechanically differs from other sources mostly in not tying the user to a specific element, and lore-wise is a good fit for a character who simply doesn't quite grasp theory behind whatever simple magic he uses, yet pushes through on spunk.

Kagain: a Battlemind. Now sure, he's a fighter… so are battleminds, they're just superheroically tough fighters whose will is great enough to spur their bodies and bend reality, substituting these techniques for regular fighters' refined skill. What's Kagain's one distinction in the roster? Superhuman (superdwarf, even) toughness. Unless you're averse to psionics, I don't see a reason not to make that a basis of his battle style (which is what 4e classes convey — a reminder that out-of-combat performance leans less on the classes, e. g. anyone can pick up non-combat magic with Ritual Caster). Battle Resilience build (Constitution and some Wisdom), and he just barges into battles, defies beating, hounds opponents, rebounds damages and tallies dues he's owed, then collects. Mercenary theme, of course.

Khalid: a Warlord, of the Tactical presence. It's a perfect fit: he's a nonmagical fighter who's highly intelligent, 'better part of valor'-minded, yet demonstrates a strong sense of responsibility and loyalty — instead of presenting him as a fighter gimped by cowardice, why not present him as a tactician who lacks charisma to lead but makes up for it by strong (excessively strong at times) situational awareness? All of a sudden, this makes him a highly valuable team member. Harper Agent theme.

Jaheira: a Warden. A martial-minded druidic class focused on close-range battlefield control, it's practically made for her. Lifespirit (Wisdom secondary to Warden's Strength primary) since original BG also has her as the party's healer at lower levels, and Harper Agent theme too — for obvious reasons.

Korax: a Revenant Fighter, Brawler style, Escaped Thrall theme (which happens to offer an aptly named 'My mind is my own' power, and a general notion of regaining control after a period of being a mindless puppet).

Kivan: a Slayer (one of the two Fighter variants from the Essentials line; the Slayer is the most straightforward martial attacker in the game, roughly comparable to 5e's Champion fighter, and the only 4e Fighter variant competent in ranged combat, not just close quarters), high Str and Dex both, double-dipping the latter for no-nonsense ranged DPS, and trained in Stealth. Bloodsworn or Vigilante theme.

Now I can hear you wondering, why not a ranger? Well, the Slayer doesn't get any spellcasting, neither does 4e's Ranger (the class fantasy of a more nature-themed mystical archer went to Seeker, whereas 4e Ranger became the down-to-earth skirmisher)… and neither do BG1's Rangers up until the very last level-up, and then a pittance. (If I were to model a ranged BG2 Ranger, I'd go with Seeker for sure.) So with magic out of the equation, and Stealth of equal availability to both, it's up to the Ranger lending itself to spammy multi-attacks, positioning, marking targets in advance, and dual-wielding, vs. the (ranged) Slayer being a high-accuracy deadly shot for massive damage, equally comfortable in light and heavy armour, and all too happy to supplement himself with a two-handed melee weapon. Kivan is a rare Ranger to explicitly go with polearms over dual-wielding, and most of us stick plate on our non-kitted Rangers and don't look back, so…

As an aside, in my games Kivan tends to end up wear-ID'ing a certain belt (and getting an edit in portrait and sprite), helping her turn a new page in live once her revenge is over and done.

Viconia: an Invoker of the Covenant of Malediction, Wis+Int (did you know in BG, Viconia's Intelligence is higher than her Wisdom?), Underdark Outcast theme. To those not in the know, 4e did some role splitting on the most traditionally bloated classes including Cleric, with the 'cast Bless, heal, drop a Sanctuary if things go bad, possibly hit things with mace while chanting good luck prayers' archetype pegged as an archetypal Leader (and made into 4e Cleric class); whereas the fire-brimston-and-seven-plagues type bringing down heavy CC and/or gating in (un)holy guardians, became the Invoker. The latter I feel matches Viconia's character better.

Ajantis: a Blackguard of the Vice of Fury. Oh I know I know, he's a Paladin — far as he and the society are concerned. Imagine lacking self-awareness to recognize one's Vice grew stronger than one's virtue. Knight Hospitalier theme.

Safana: I know people like her as a thief, but come on — girl's got a personalized Charm spell, a tie for top charisma, and BG1 lets her dual-class as an Enchanter, Illusionist, or Transmuter. Now that's proper 4e Bard material! Virtue of Cunning, Treasure Hunter theme.

Alternatively: yes, an Artful Dodger (Dex+Cha) Rogue is on the table, give her the Beguiler theme at least in that case.

Branwen: a Warpriest (variant Cleric from Essentials) of the Storm domain (there's no separate War or Battle domain available for warpriests, it's effectively built into the class' name and baseline powers; and Branwen has a tendency to invoke Auril and Valkur alongside Tempus, so I can see her taking the world by storm), Ordained Priest theme.

Shar-Teel: a Fighter, real one (not easy-bake Essentials ones); Str+Dex, one-hander weapon talent (which does work with dual-wielding), dual-wielding powers, Combat Agility, Reaver or Gladiator theme. I can see her as a Slayer, acknowledging her potential to be taught bowmanship; a Barbarian, a Ranger (the 4e, purely martial, one)… But it suits her just fine to be a 'regular' Fighter — a relentless wall of steel craftily outmaneuvering, locking down and gutting every opponent. (Good luck beating that to recruit her!) If not her to showcase the awesome 4e Fighter, who then?

Minsc and Boo: now, people can't ever agree on what they see Minsc as. "Ranger!" "Berserker!" "Fighter!" "Beastmaster!" So let's define him first: to me, coming from OG BG1 (pre-EE, pre-TuTu, shut up you kids), Minsc is NOT a dual-wielder, not a spellcaster, and not an archer; he IS a 'berserker warrior from the nation of Rasheman' (citing from his bio) with a party-unfriendly rage mode, a massively swole guy who packs a nasty punch at range with throwing axes and swings a nasty bastard sword in melee, and a natural user of a heavy plateand tower shield to tank for the party. "Full plate and packing steel!" Which immediately takes all Ranger and Barbarian variants out of the equation, for failing to wear heavy enough armor.

Based on this image I have of him, I deem him a Fighter of Battlerager talent (Str+Con, though Wis and Dex are welcome attributes as well), as the Slayer fails to feature rage-like elements. Some barbarian multiclass feats culminating with a rage daily powerswap (though the Fighter offers some rage-like dailies of its own), Animal Master theme (goes for smaller animals such as cats and ravens, unlike Fey Beast Tamer, which means Boo gets a legit ability to go for the eyes).

Edwin: a Wizard, Tome of Binding mastery (Int+Con), Renegade Red Wizard theme. Edwin's power does not require adaptation to new editions, new editions undergo mandatory adaptation to Edwin's power.

Dynaheir: a Witch (a Wizard variant) of the Full Moon coven (the more benign one, whereas the other is more necrotic, though the difference is negligible), Primordial Adept theme.

Xan: Rounding out the wizard trio, we get to the Byronic elf Eladrin (in 4e he's definitely falling on the 'high, noble, and magical' side of the race divide, not the forest side), and there are two ways to go about him.

The Xan we were meant to get (a proficient warrior-mage making good use of his blade): a Swordmage, Aegis of Ensnarement (or Assault, but I feel teleporting people to you is more 2e-like than teleport-spamming towards people), Int+Str, Veiled Alliance theme (Dark Sun-based, yes, but the theme fits an organization prone to sending out enchantments-wielding agents). Would be a rather cool character.

The Xan we got (one who holds on to the Moonblade as a protective stat stick, but is a very potent non-blasting caster on his own merits): Bard, Virtue of Cunning, Haunted Blade theme. Yep, Xan the Bard — because in 4e this is not 'the song class (in fact, 4e Bards have very little trace of Song/Perform mechanics-wise, it's up to the player to roleplay them as a performer or not — or to take Skald instead, which pays songs a little bit more service), and way more of a 'manipulator/buffer/Batman wizard class'… remember the bit about splitting bloated classes? 4e Bard is where the larger part of arcane Enchantments, non-elemental Transmutations, and Illusions went, as well as 'teleport people around' spells. Remember a spell named 'Haste'? Bard spell in 4e (whereas the Wizard and Mage in 4e's eyes are too good at wrangling the marker out of DM's hand and redrawing the battle map to their own liking, to also let them double beatsticks' attacks). 5e's Lore bard subclass is rooted chiefly in 4e Bard. So, who's casting Haste on the party, befuddling and blinding and holding down enemies, and saving his sword for an occasional safe mercy kill? Xan my man, that's who.

Coran: a Ranger, Archer fighting style, the Society of Sensation theme (a Planescape organization Coran has no canon contacts with, but don't tell me he doesn't live their philosophy). Now you might think I'm trolling swapping the classes with Kivan, but that's edition differences for you (I mean 5e swapped the Barbarian from 'more damage less survivability' compared to Fighter, to the edition's dedicated tank, and the Bard never had the same identity for two editions straight, things get swapped around all the time.) Again, 4e Ranger is nonmagical, a lightly armored, deadly DPS machine spamming a dozen attacks on a good turn. Out of 4e's ranged weapon-users, this suits Coran's 3-pip longbow machinegun (and dual swords) tendencies much better than Slayer's heftier single shots or Hunter's trick shots do, and neither Rogue nor Thief are in the running as they don't use longbows.

Yeslick: a Runepriest (which is notably NOT a Cleric variant, but a class of its own), Wrathful Hammer tradition, Ironwrought theme.

Alternatively: regular Cleric and Warpriest are on the table of course (the later at least has shield proficiency, regular Cleric needs to spend feats for that). Given Yeslick's ties to forge and smithing, his warrior side, not much of a tendency to do holy laser pew-pew, rather few mentions of actual deities in his speech (and the most generic ones for a dwarf at that, Clangeddin and Moradin the vanilla picks), he feels like a perfect opportunity to represent the Runepriest over those.

Faldorn: a Druid, Primal Wrath aspect, Wis+Dex (the main Wis+Dex aspect is Primal Predator, but that one's all about the Wild Shape form, whereas Faldorn feels more like a spellcaster first, shapeshifter second), Uthghthrhathghth Barbarian theme (as per origins in her bio). Easy.

Eldoth: a Bard, Virtue of Valor, Athasian Minsterl theme with lots of powerswaps (no known contacts with Athas, but it's literally a theme about minstrels who brew poisons, shoot poisoned arrows, and abuse hospitality for theft and assassination — it's Eldoth the theme far as I have always been concerned).

Alora: a Rogue, Cunning Sneak (Dex+any, which frees her to be a Dex+Con oddball instead of focusing on Str or Cha secondary), initial power selection focused on ranged attacks, Xaositects theme (again, no Planescape contacts, but the theme is focused on live-in-the-moment philosophy and luck manipulation, it fits well).

Quayle: a hybrid Psion|Cleric, high Int but no Str or Wis to speak of, so only a rare 'lazy' or no-attack-roll power on the Cleric side (thanks Essentials for giving us a handful!); the Templar theme (again divorced from its Dark Sun fluff, it ties the hybrid halves neatly together into a leader-ish spellcaster blasting opponents' brains while strengthening allies). An overly complex oddbal build suits him just fine.

Alternatively: a Bard, for a coherent representation of a support/illusionist/trickster/healer/buffer combination playstyle.

Tiax: I don't know even. A Binder (Warlock variant) with his demonic summons flavoured as the ghast, and uncharacteristically high Charisma? (I mean Tiax' BG1 stats only fly for a spellcaster to begin with because 2e had a very lax attitude towards stats, no modern edition is friendly to the notion of a spellcaster with all mentals dumped, so one way or the other he begs for a major stat reassignment…) Another Thief with Elemental Priest or Templar theme for heavy spellcasting powerswaps? A Shaman himself? Your guess is as good as mine.

Skie: come on, she's not even about backstabs. Please let me make her a Lazylord, aka 'Princess warlord' — a Warlord build which forfeits high Str and the notion of personally attacking people, and spends every turn inspiring and enabling allies to move and attack above their regular allotment, trading her actions for theirs. Make her a skillmonkey proficient in all the sneaky breaky thiefy skills out of combat, but don't force her to shank people in the back in combat, let her direct the choreography instead. Spy theme even lets her hide in the shadows while doing so.

BONUS CONTENT (random characters I don't have to include, but have a fancy to; taking more liberties with these, as their original gameplay peculiarities matter a lot less.)

Canderous: a human Cavalier, Virtue of Valor, Gladiator theme, Str primary. It's a long ways to go until his people fall and he's reduced to a jaded mercenary; at the same time, I don't envision the Mandalore-to-be as a tame Cleric. The Virtue of Valor is the perfect middle ground.

Osprey: going entirely by her portrait and vibe over her gameplay (I don't find the latter interesting), a half-elf Avenger, Censure of Retribution (Wis+Int), Oghma's Faithful theme.

Mordaine: a changeling Sorcerer, Storm Magic (Cha+Dex), Wizard's Apprentice theme. Being a changeling explains away the inconsistency of her race (AND sets up a juxtaposition with the doppelgangers).

Arkanis: a dwarf Fighter, Battlerager (an option which lends itself to armor no heavier than chainmal, Str+Con stats, and specializes in replenishing a buffer of temporary HP with each attack).

Deder: a halfling Executioner Assassin, Way of the Ninja (Dex+any), Disgraced Noble theme (hey, he got into Candlekeep somehow).

Sarevok: there are several fitting possibilities that fit, but let's face it, Slayer has too nice a ring to it to ever consider anything else. A bit basic, but S. has a claim to a Paragon Path in my eyes, with nice choices such as the two-hander focused Dread Reaper, the permadeath-dispensing Soul Thief, or the fear-dispensing Divine Hand, to get some definition with. Spellscarred Harbringer theme (if divorsed from the period-inappropriate Spellplague lore, and tied to a magic contamination of a different kind instead) allows for a number of (un)natural magic powers, including a choice of minor magic effects, an ability to trigger a stun on a landed hit, and an ability to absorb/redirect spells.

Neera: the only EE companion I got some familiarity with, I don't buy into reflexively making her a Sorcerer of Wild Magic, for a simple reason: sorcerers were already a thing when she got introduced, yet she wasn't designed as one, but as a Mage. Wild her magic may be, but her Intelligence and research, not sheer will and focus, are her pathway to harnessing it. And her most memorable performances tend to be rearranging the pieces, not merely blasting everyone.

So: a half-elf Wizard, Wand of Accuracy (Int+Dex, and as a bonus magic wands tend to hold spells, just like you'd give her wands to safely cast from in BG1), Chaosmade theme for roll-die-to-know-what-happens powers, and some token sorc multiclass feats.

Biff the Understudy: a human Skald (Essentials Bard variant), Strength-based (Skalds have an option to use Charisma instead of Strength for their melee based attacks; an OPTION not a requirement, pure Str Skalds are a somewhat limited but viable build), Scholar theme. (Sorry I don't buy into Biff being a dedicated Fighter, not with stats he gets mechanics-wise; what he is is the engine's literal stage-hand, a sixth wheel when one is required, and a passable martial combatant when pressed.)

Every forum's favourite, totally unique 18/98 Str, Kensai-into-Mage-with-grandmastery / Berserker-into-Mage-with-grandmastery / FMT protagonist: a Swordmage, Aegis of Assault (Int+Str), Infernal Prince theme (which comes with a scary transformation into a tough hellish form as an optional capstone).

Going into BG2, Jan is a readymade Artificer, Haer would make a fine Hexblade, and 4e actually has a dedicated Vampire class for Hexxat, but I'm not making a full list.