in a few months, a friend of mine is intending to DM a D&D one-off...

[sciatrix]

...for which she has assigned all of us character species and classes, and instructed us to create level 5 or 6 characters "so you'll have cool things to play with." I've been given a High Elven Arcane Archer and instructed to "go nuts."

So of course I will be playing as Clint Barton, Elven Warrior. (Toying with always-an-elf!Clint AU vs ported-into-the-body-of-Legolas!Clint. Either way, this is gonna be fun.)

Thus far, Cilinton Baeriton is getting exploding arrows, arrows with thorny grapply powers, and also the ability to light small fires at will. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

Comments

[sciatrix]

I can! Actually, prestidigitation is the source of the "ability to start small fires" quip, which seemed very Clint-like. Druidcraft might work too, but it looks like all the minor sensory effects there are more natury. I... cannot think of many folks less natury than Clint Barton. (I see upon recheck it can also be used for small fires, of course, but Prestidigitation seemed more useful.)

...Clint totally dyed Lucky purple, didn't he.

I bet he could use Prestidigitation to sign with his hands full, if only via making a symbol/pattern for the sign appear on a nearby surface, or otherwise to maybe amplify signs for emphasis. (Imagine getting to sign with multicolored sparks when you felt really strongly about something!) I imagine PD would also be good for forcibly getting the attention of people who don't happen to be looking at him when he has something to say.

(In my last campaign, we had a Deaf bard named A-Aron, who did quite well by using ASL poetry/spoken word/dance as his medium of choice. Mind you, he only ran into another speaker once and often had to make do with a combination of lipreading, gesture, and irritated translation via comrades...)

[silversandbea]

Yeah, if Clint Barton had druidcraft, it'd be some sort of city/trash druidcraft, where it looks like it's made out of leftover wrappers and a stretched out rubber band.

Prestidigitation seems like it would work a lot better, though. I like the sparks idea - also I'm imagining him having a small illusion signing go away while he manages to drink an urn of coffee. Or just using the spell to imitate a hand pointing in Clint's direction right in front of their face.

A-Aron sounds cool, if possibly a challenge to play sometimes. At least the rest of your party could understand him! I've had players try to play characters that can't communicate or understand the rest of the party, and it tends to end with a lot of big gestures and frustration.

[sciatrix]

Honestly, he was by no means the most problematic member of the party, although it was a bit of an interesting party at the best of times. Other members included Theodore Roosevelt if he was a really obnoxious elf, a literal birch tree that had been given druid status and sapience for Reasons and had a total horror of wood in any form, a fairly easy going sapient vulture that believed it was a demon, and then there was me. I was playing a gnomish artificer on the precipice of a really promising career, really great things ahead of him, except that the gods had suddenly called him to druidcraft despite him really being more of an indoor gnome. (He went by Badger. He never found this out, but the gods in question had meant to summon an actual, literal badger and had summoned him up by mistake.) Since he was a crabby little fucker when he was out of his depth, and also since he had something like ten sets of various tools but the gods had not seen fit to summon his trusty mule, he was perpetually running at the mouth and, er, putting his foot in his mouth besides. Also we had the other Bard, Blair Sandburg Bland Stairburg, who was nearly as hard to wrangle as any of the rest of them.

This and three other newbies was, I believe, T's first ever try at DMing. I'm actually kind of amazed that they're willing to go again.

ANYWAY. More on Elfish Clint and adapting ASL to D&D when I clear the kitchen. You think access_fandom would be into that discussion?

[silversandbea]

Holy shit, poor T! They have my sympathies. (That sounds like a fun party, but also like A Lot)

And yes, probably! I don't have much experience with access fandom, but this does seem like their conversation.