D&D 5e Builds for The Stump Kids pt. 2 [#TCOTCWriting]

Welcome! You’ve made it to part 2 of my Craig of the Creek D&D character builds, aka my #CAWinter21. Stop and rest your weary head, traveler, for soon we shall continue our journey…

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When last we left this blog, we had just determined Kelsey’s stats. Now onto Kelsey’s class. In one episode, she describes herself as a paladin, which is an actual D&D class, but I don’t think this actually fits her. For one, paladins need to have a high Charisma and, well, we just made that Kelsey’s lowest stat. The most obvious choice would be fighter, but instead I think I’m going to go with…

Barbarian!

In D&D, the most notable thing about barbarians is that they have this thing called a “rage”, which makes their hits harder and makes them more impervious to damage. Whenever Kelsey starts a fight, she always does this yell and starts wildly swinging. Compared to someone like Maya, Kelsey just seems to charge in: no thoughts, head empty, only attacking on her mind. Plus, when she didn’t have Craig and JP to keep her in check after their winter break fight, she became a feral ball of rage living in the woods around the creek. Some other cool things barbarians get are Danger Sense, Reckless Attack, and Feral Instinct. These all sound like things that Kelsey employs in her fighting style.

Barbarian subclasses are referred to as “paths” and there’s a fair number of them. However, I think that Path of the Totem Warrior suits Kelsey best. Totem Warrior involves choosing an animal to spiritually serve as guide and inspiration, so of course Kelsey’s animal would be her fearless “falcon”, Mortimor! This Path doesn’t have falcon as a choice, but it does have eagle which I’m going to say is close enough. This animal spirit basically increases the barbarian’s agility, which would definitely work with how Kelsey is small and can avoid attacks easily. In later levels, you also get improved vision and the ability to fly, which would fit with how Kelsey has tried to fly before so she can be similar to Mortimor.

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Lastly, all of the miscellaneous stuff! Starting with background, I think Kelsey fits as a Faction Agent.

Faction Agents are one of the location-specific backgrounds, but we’re just going to use the basic flavor text. A Faction Agent is someone who is part of a particular faction, like how Kelsey is a member of the Stump Kids (aka our main trio). You get something called “Safe Haven”, which means that you have a secret network of ers who are a part of/allied with your faction. This is shown most obviously when Kelsey became one of the Sugar Swipers and had Jason helping out, or when she had Stacks hack the library system in order to “publish” her book.

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Additionally, I’d like to make Kelsey a Variant Human. This means that, instead of a +1 going into all of her stats, we’ll only be putting +1 into two stats, but also giving her 1 Skill and 1 Feat. I think the +1s should go into Intelligence and Charisma. This doesn’t actually do anything, but it lays the groundwork for those stats to be good in future level ups. For the Skill, I’m gonna say Animal Handling, so she’s able to be good to Mortimor. Lastly, the Feat I want to give Kelsey is Sentinel. Mainly, I like that you’re able to attack creatures who attack your allies with this Feat, which connects to how Kelsey often jumps in to defend Craig or JP from others.

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Last but not least of our main trio, it’s JP! I honestly feel like he’s the least developed of the main trio, which means figuring out his stats was the most difficult. Still, I’m going to do my best!

For the highest stat, I’m going to put JP’s 15 into Wisdom. As the oldest kid in the trio, he often fills the role as the voice of reason. I mentioned that Kelsey is this as well, but she has a short temper and can mess up. That makes JP the main voice of reason, doing things like asking Craig if “that was really necessary” when he throws a small tantrum. For 14, let’s put that into Constitution. JP is a people pleaser and will often do or eat anything asked of him. This leads to him being a bit of a comedic punching bag, but he always bounces back, ready to go at something again. Next, I think 13 should be in Charisma. Like I said, JP is a people pleaser, so he always tries very hard to be nice and get along with others. Plus, he’s one of the few characters with a canonical girlfriend! He and Maney have good chemistry, and that needs to come from both sides.

Now, I think the next two stats are really interchangeable, but I’m going to say put 12 in Dexterity. The main reason I say this is because of the episode where JP gets a new jersey (temporarily) and it’s shown that he’s the only one of the main trio who can “ice skate” well. I also think that JP needed some precision in order to become the Pencil Break Champion the way he did. However, I think it’s equally valid if you put the 12 into Strength, but for now I’m going to say put the 10 in there. Again, as a people pleaser, JP is often stuck doing tasks no else wants to do. He’ll be at the bottom of the pyramid holding people up, or doing a majority of heavy lifting when collecting items. So presumably he’s got decent strength. Finally, we’re going to put the 8 into JP’s Intelligence. I think JP is actually fairly smart, which is why I made his Wisdom so high, but when it comes to actual book learning, I don’t think he can shine. I forget if it’s stated in the show or I’m just projecting, but I believe JP has a learning disability of some kind. He doesn’t excel in school like Craig and he’s too fidgety to get into reading like Kelsey. Therefore, I’m making Intelligence his lowest.

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Class time! Now, JP is really hard considering that he’s essentially a pacifist. However, as mentioned previously, he often takes on the role of a parent to the others since he’s older, which I will flavor as him being a good class. So I’m going to go with…

Cleric!

This is a bit odd to justify, as clerics are all about devotion to a god and JP isn’t very religious. He didn’t even get suckered in a weird religion like Craig did with the Dog Cult (twice, I might add). However, clerics are also one of the best classes you can play in D&D. They can do a lot of healing and protecting their allies. JP has shown time and time again that he’s useful , like when he takes on Paloma after everyone else has been jinxed or when he throws a sandwich at Maya to distract her from hitting Kelsey.

The main reason I chose cleric for JP, however, was because I thought the Unity Domain subclass fit him really well. He is very much a forgive and forget type, as long as it means that everyone gets along at the end of the day. His role as attempted mediator between Kelsey and Craig during the snowball fight with King Xavier is solid evidence of this. The Unity Domain is all about creating bonds between people (and yourself) that protect and strengthen them and I think JP always tries his best to do just that.

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Finally, we get to JP’s background. I think I’m going to go with Far Traveler for him.

Far Travelers are known for being a bit weird and unique, literally from some place so far away that others haven’t encountered someone like them before. JP has a lot of oddities about him, likely stemming from the fact that his parents are divorced, his sister is much older than him, and he essentially raises himself with all adults in his life working busy jobs. In one episode, JP becomes convinced that he is actually an alien because there’s so many weird things about him. He feels like he can’t fit in with anyone because of all these differences (which is to say, he literally feels alienated). I think this background would allow people to fully embrace JP’s distinct personality while playing it completely naturally.

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And finally… we’ve made it to the end of this blog! It’s been very long, I know, but I hope it was entertaining enough to keep you hooked. I wanted to do builds for more kids initially, but after the main trio took up over 5 pages on Google Docs, I knew it just wasn’t feasible. I still have some ideas (specifically about Wildernessa, Green Poncho/Omar, and Sparkle Cadet), so feel free to inquire about that in the comments! Or, if you think I should’ve chosen differently for anything, also leave a comment about that! OR, if you feel so inspired by how much time I dedicated to writing this monster blog, why not Team Craig of the Creek for the #CAWinter21? We’d love to have you on board (^_−)−☆

#AllyTalks