Misfits

You aren't the heroes the world wanted. You aren't even the heroes the world needed. You are most likely the cautionary tale that parents tell their children to convince them to not be an adventurer.

"Remember what happened to Doug the Vigilant? He fell off a cliff chasing a rabbit for dinner, hit every branch on the way down and survived only to be eaten by a grue."

- Every mother from Doug's village

But, hey, you are here, and you are willing.. and you might have a weapon or a skill - or at least a frying pan and pants, and friends.. maybe they are friends or allies? are they friends? acquaintances? frenemies? It doesn't matter. I'm sure you'll figure it out as you go.

A Word of Caution

Don't get too attached. They might not survive. These are designed to be one shots. mini-campaigns or one-off adventure league for laughter and fun and general story telling. You are an every day commoner in a small town. Your town never needed a hero... until now. and well, you are not who they wanted.. but you might be the bet chance they have.

How to build your character

Follow all your standard D&D character creation (point buy or standard array) with the following restrictions:

1. Only the following standard races: bugbear, dwarf, elf, firbolg, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, halfling or clasic human
   — NO variant humans! You don't get special feats... you aren't spechul 🤦‍♂️

2. You are level 1 unless otherwise stated by the DM.

3. There are no ability requirements for any class (no matter how bad you are. )
   — Bard with an 8 CHA? You do you. Go sing the song of your people! 🎼

4. Once you decide your attributes, subtract 3 from ALL of them. Yes. that one too.
   — The best score you can possible hope to have in any attribute is 14 (15 +2 racial - 3)
   — YES that means you might have a 5. Thats OK. make it a good one

Note: The easiest way to do this in DNDBeyond is to go to the Ability score page and add a (-3) in the Other Modifier field, like this:

When choosing your equipment. think of your backstory. If you are a cook turned fighter, maybe you have a baking pan as a shield and a frying pan as a club.

Maybe you aren't even an adventurer:

• you are investigating missing groceries and foods from your shop

• or perhaps times are tough and this is a last ditch effort to feed your family.

• or you lost a drunken bar bet after stating "its easy to be a fighter. if he can do it. I can do it."

• a new bride in search of her husband the adventurer
  — he might be missing.. or he might have just "NOPED" out and left.

Simple, right?

Just remember this rule and repeat it as a mantra:

"For every successful adventurer, there are around 99 that fail. That makes me part of the 99th percentile. I'm in the majority."

That's how that math works, right?

Now get out there ...
... and be somebody!

This doesn't mean you have negative stats. Look at this standard human commoner build: