Hi all,
Im looking for the combination of the worst possible race/class/stats abilities for combat.
We do the flat stat system. Think its like 15,14,13,12,10,9 or something like that from the PHB.
This character is all for town and RP and wants to be horrible in CC, any ideas?
You can be good at combat and RP at the same time....
Half-Elf Rogue 1/Knowlage Cleric 1/Warlock 2/Lore Bard 6 + skilled feat can have all the skills, 4 expertise, and not be too bad.
Wizards can get a huge number of utility spells while still flinging off the occasional fireball.
That said... if you still want the worst... drow monk.
13 Str
9 Con
12 Dex
15 Int
10 Wis
14 Cha
Or just play an pesant NPC.
I second Drow Monk, and fight outside in the sunlight as often as possible.
Actually a drow wizard with no combat cantrips (light, dancing light, mending, message).
Don't buy a spell book and you can never prepare spells.
This assumes you arn't going to self-sabatoge. Like cast darkness over your allies and silence on yourself.
I hope your idea of "role-playing" isn't going to ruin everyone else's gaming experience.
DEX 8 eans you take a minus one on your to-hit rolls. That ought to mess up your character's combat capability.
I recommend sorcerer with no combat spells (Comprehend Languages and feather fall should serve you well).
Lore bard is probably the winner from an RP standpoint; you literally run around the bad guys trying to insult them to death ('vicious mockery', cutting words), dealing approximately 0 damage, until someone 1 shots you. You unfortunately do have the option of taking a real spell at 6th level, but it's easy to avoid nabbing something combat relevant.
Archon007 wrote:
Play a Rogue who once drank a weird potion and got polymorphed into a talking squirrel. Useless in a fight, but great at climbing walls and trees and lots of role-playing possibilities. Flaw: you are obsessed with acorns.
This is a real character, IE not a thought exercise where we just plain make the worst possible for combat character? If yes, then you'd have quite a few options.
You could do a wizard with the Divination subclass. Choose spells to fill your book that do not work well in combat - spells focused on gaining knowledge of your surroundings or persuading creatures. I think this likely would be the easiest character to not be guilted or coerced into combat. Use DEX and STR as your dump stats. Don't carry a weapon (Punches, aka Unarmed Strikes. should you be forced to do it, only do 1 damage). Do not pick a spell that causes damage at all, even cantrips. You could play the character as a fortune teller or medium that tries it's best to warn the group of danger. The optional hilarious but kind of jerk move would be if you ever roll a 20 with the Portent ability you could warn the group of grave danger, if they don't heed your warnings when they get into combat you can swap a hostile creature's attack roll with the 20. I am not responsible for what the players do to you if you do this though.
You could do a Knowledge Domain cleric. This is where it gets tricky. Other Players, or their characters, might start suggesting you prepare spells that work in combat. Because you're a cleric you have access to your full list of spells. You'll have to only prepare non-combat spells. But you could even be useful in the field by picking up spells like Prayer of Healing; with a 10 minute cast time you'll likely never be asked to to cast that in combat! Make sure to only wear cloth armor and never carry around weapons. You could play the character as a holy priest or some kind of deranged doomsayer.
You could play as a rogue that is a burglar/swindler instead of a combatant. The bad part is you'll want a high DEX score for successful stealth/acrobatics checks which gaurantees you'll be decent at combat. If you want to refrain from combat mostly I'd suggest choosing a sling as your weapon of choice (the weaker you are the less obligated you will be to participate) and focus on traps using Hunting Traps, Caltrops, using Oil to make slicks, etc. If you do a few successful burglaries and supply the group with some nice coin they may not get bent out of shape over your pacifist ways.
A bard could be interesting too. Pick up the Feat Inspiring Leader and give rousing speeches to your group before hand. Focus on spells that bolster the abilities of your allies and sit in the back shouting commands. If the campaign is not combat heavy you could play this character like a politician and use your influencing abilities to sway whole towns into actions.
What is that campaign? is your DM told you it was a RP campaign and you won't have to fight? was that a challenge you did with your friend? If it's for a private game that you play with friend, talked about it with them and everyone tought it was cool, then go for it have fun.
If this is for organized public play (like Adventure League) DON'T DO IT you will ruin EVERYONE else experience. I know if I was your DM I would ban that character from my table for ruining the fun of the other player. Yes as a player you are not obligated to play the most optimized character in the game (otherwise there woul dbe only 5 allowed build and nothing else, since mathematically their is a very limited number of optimized options, since WotC made few option that are better then everything else), but you are expected to be a helpfull part of the group and help the group succeed the adventure, ideally at the end of the night, everyone should be able to say:
-hey without you we wouldn't have survive X.
-Oh thank you but without you we would all die at Y.
-etc...
From what I see here you want player to tell you: you shouldn't have come, because of you we had to play the adventure at Hard difficulty but with the ressource for a medium encounter only.
Yes you are allowed to build your character the way you want (as long as it respect Adventure league rule aka, not neutral evil, not chaotic evil, follow the PHB race/class/feat/spell/equipement options, 27 point buy system stats, and average HP) so there is no rule explecitly forbiding you to play a pacifist, but those are the kind of idea that seem good on paper, that can be great with friend that agree on the idea and in home game where combat is non existant, but if you want to play in Adventure League you will play with other player who want to succeed the mission, the missions are combat based (yes there is a little bit of RP, but the biggest challenge are combat related)
Remember in Public game, the DM assume that every character are equal, so when he calculate to determine the difficulty level of the encounter he count your pacifisct useless character the SAME way he calculate the super optimized killing machine player. There for he assume that the team got the ressources coming from X players. If your character wasted his ressource on useless option, then you are playing with the ressource of X-1, making the adventure a lot harder on everyone else.
So if you play with friend, the rogue/bard/knowledge cleric/abjuration wizard with no offensive spell is a good choice where you'll have a lot of skill/expertise and you'll be able to cast protective bubble on your friends, but you'll be unable to fight.
I see a drawback to the whole idea.
If you are role-playing in a town, one of the things you will want to do is to hang around in taverns picking up rumours.But if you are clearly weak, you will be picked on by every drunken lout in the tavern who knows he can taunt you with impunity because if you react he can flatten you. And the rest of the tavern patrons will laugh and encourage him. No-one will give you any useful information.
Then, after you get thrown out of the taven after you lose at arm-wrestling against the halfling's little boy aged about 6 and everyone else has a good laugh, you will be assaulted by thieves (there are always thieves in alleys outside taverns) who will trip you up, push you to the ground and run off with your belongings. Because they can. What did you expect? They're thieves. That's what thieves do. Steal from the weak. That means you.
And no-one is going to help you, because nobody loves a loser. Except one person, who is very kind and sympathetic and takes you home and gives you a bowl of soup and a bed for the night. Isn't that nice of her? Most vampires wouldn't do that. Unless they are thirsty.
See, if you only make your character good for talking to nice people, you won't last half a day in a real D&D town.
Go for a half-orc paladin and and put your points into Strength and Charisma. Strap a greatsword on your back and look mean. People will be much more forthcoming with information. You still won't have to do any fighting, not because you can't, but because you know you don't have to. That's role-playing.
scourn1 wrote:
Using point buy
8 Str Dex Con
15 Int Wis Cha
Then go fighter, maybe monk
Race, Human most likely, but gnome or tiefling should also work
Wildshape Druid - once you can turn into aquatic forms, you can be truly and uniquely useless in land combat.
Basically, Magikarp.
How about a ROCK GNOME BARD NOBLE with an oversized weapon that he/she is not proficient with, and a lot of non-offensive, effect-based spells? Make the stats 10/12/8/15/14/13, and you are well on your way to ineptitude.
While I'm certain there are potentially worse characters out there, this one seems pretty combat deficient to me. Hopefully lots of role-play and decent skills will make the character have a niche regardless. Don't forget the HELP option and Bardic Inspiration which will mitigate the uselessness without harming the integrity of the combat-poor character. Good luck, and have fun.
DarthMacho wrote:
I really like that divination wizard idea, Slumgum.
I rolled up a purely social rogue (CHA is 16, I think his DEX is a 12 or 14) that I cannot wait to play in a campaign. I created him to specifically be the "face" character for a party; his go-to combat maneuver is Hide + run (sneak attack if the fight is going the party's way), Help against high AC targets. He doesn't have a CON bonus, so standing in the thick of the melee is a bad idea.
I see where BoldItalic is coming from, but I don't think you'll encounter as much trouble as he forsees . . . especially if you play your character intelligently. Your party will contain most likely contain a barbarian or a half-orc (possibly both) that you can use to bodyguard you from drunken louts. Barring that, clever use of Bluff, Intimidation or Persuausion will get you out of many a scrape. Then again, gold is king and will be able to smooth over many a social issue. Just buy the lout another drink OR free drinks for whoever punches him out for you. You can sneak out in the ensuing chaos, if you like.
The Charlatan background would seem to be ideal for this. 
BoldItalic wrote: