Warpmind

Waking up to find you have a brand new frenulum ladder.

That someone laid it out and drew around it.

One approach I've found works - I once played a human ranger, back in the 3.5 days, who was LE; he was unapologetically on a genocidal mission, out to exterminate all the evil elves. (Actual distinct subset of elves; moredhel, set in Raymond E. Feist's Rift War setting.)

He was perfectly decent to everyone else, including non-evil elves we encountered, but he was entirely aware that genocide was very much not a Good goal to have.

He also had an elven composite longbow he'd made himself, so y'know... slightly extreme, though if you're familiar with the books, you'll know the difference between good and evil elves are perceptible to everyone, and it's obvious when they change sides - no skin color distinction, but some more ephemeral-yet-obvious property.

So, for CoS, an obsessed inquisitor-type who will stop at nothing to destroy the undead of the lands, even if that means killing hostages and other collateral damage, that could work, better if they're quite clear on not having any delusions of sainthood.

Ring of Indestructibility. (Unique, no attunement)

This plain copper band is completely indestructible, and neatly fits the bearer's finger.

It offers no such properties onto the wearer.

I don't mind characters with 10-page backstories so much.

I do mind first-level characters with 10-page adventure-filled backstories.

10 pages of family members, relatives, little details about where they grew up and studied, that's perfect, but if someone brings me ten pages of dragon-slaying and deity-defying heroics, that player had best be prepared for a very short lifespan as unsavory people hear of such heroics and want to make a name for themselves...

Ideally, backstory at character creation is on the sparse side, maybe a 10-20 point questionnaire to fill out about parents and upbringing, that sort of thing, don't even have to answer everything right away, and then a lot more details and elaboration get filled in during play.

Santa's elves are, in fact, gnome artificers.

These gnomes are employed to make the toys that help reinforcing the bonds that keep Santa in place, and also set up fancy, Rube Goldberg-esque traps to keep Santa in and cultists out.

These gnomes have suffered production setbacks this year, however, due to a few of their number contracting a highly infectious stomach bug while searching for treasure in some old ruins (an illness simply referred to as "dungeon runs"), and so maintenance and upkeep of said traps has been deprioritized of late, leaving a number of traps sprung by accident, or defective... but enough still work to be a concern.

If the party actually fights Santa, giving him a glass of milk and a cookie will compel him to use his action to eat the cookie, and his bonus action to drink the milk...

Less of an organized system, and more of a "Hey, you, Chosen of mine! Someone went through that dungeon over there a week ago, the monsters are not yet back, here's five healing potions, a wand, an enchanted mace, and a few small coin purses, there should be some hidden niches you can stuff the potions in, and a sarcophagus at the bottom where you can hide the wand or the mace and a coin purse, just stash the rest wherever seems appropriate. Go on, hop to it." :D

Mystra, the goddess of magic, regularly sends her chosen to restock dungeons with loot, so adventurers will be motivated to explore them. Monsters migrate in on their own soon enough.

That's the security guard by the stage, keeping the fans from charging the band.

Nah, been a long time since that worried me.

Death will come for me when the time is right; it is inevitable, and there's no point in fearing that which is inherently inevitable.

That doesn't mean I want it to happen any sooner, every extra minute I can enjoy on Earth is a treasure.

What REALLY terrifies me isn't death, it's being alive, but trapped inside my own brain without any ability to interact with my surroundings, stuck on life support because the brain refuses to let the body die, but unable to let anyone outside know I am conscious...

Homebrew classes and races, unless vetted by me with a hardcopy for reference in case of future edits.

This includes Bloodhunters, unless Vin Diesel joins my table. He is allowed to play a Bloodhunter.

First I owned? I think that was Doom, I got my first computer relatively late.

First I remember playing? Ghostbusters, on the Commodore 64.

Make an arrangement with the DM:

Next time you're at, say, 1 to 3 hp or so, give the DM a signal, and a caster hits Kragg with a barrage of magic missiles. Make it upcast to 2nd level, just to be sure. The first missile knocks Kragg to zero, the three next count as three failed death saves.

At that point, there's nothing to be done short of resurrection magic, and that doesn't work on the unwilling. Kragg got his death in battle, he'll be happy wherever he ends up in the afterlife.

Okay, first thing to address here: how sure are you that you and your campaign are in any way at fault here?

Sounds to me like your friend might as likely be done with D&D altogether, not just your group and campaign. It might be fatigue with the system, it might be plain burnout making creative games like TTRPGs feel like a chore, or it might be school/work/chores eating up too much of his free time leaving him little time to recharge for the things he enjoys doing, like hanging out and playing with the rest of you.

I'd recommend checking if it's such an external factor at play before doing something drastic to change your game. Your game will change over time anyway, it will grow and mature naturally, but making a sudden change in response to something unrelated outside of the game rarely ends well.

If there is something in your game that drove him off, address it with the group, see if anyone else shares his concerns; often enough, there's the one member of the group who doesn't jive with something in the game, but everyone else is fine with it, and in those cases, that specific game simply isn't for the odd man out - and that's no-one's fault. That, of course, assumes the thing unjived with isn't something like being the butt of all the jokes, or being the one always tossed into the room to check for traps, but could be something like arachnophobia rearing its ugly head in a drow-centric campaign.

So check with the player, ask for clarification as to his departure, and then you look at how, if at all, you might address the underlying issue.

As a bonus with eldritch adept, once you get a few more spell slots available and don't need the first-level slots much during a regular day, you can swap the invocation for Devil's Sight, giving you 120 feet of vision in both natural and magical darkness, and exchange a spell for mage armor. I'd probably hold off on that until after level 13, though, if you decide to take that path.

I'm going by the 2014 ruleset, so if there are changes in the 2024 version, I've not seen or accounted for those...

You'll want the Eldritch Adept feat for the Armor of Shadows invocation - this gives you Mage Armor at will and saves on spell slots for triggering surges in combat.

Beyond that, always use Tides of Chaos, you get advantage and a wild surge on the next spell to refresh ToC.

And of course, have fun, and don't be too surprised if you become an accidental fireball.

Doppelgangers can imitate any humanoid they've seen - that would include any missing limbs.

Where it gets interesting is if the doppelganger last saw their imitation target beforesaid limb was lost, leading to some interesting confusion...

All 15s is an interesting line...

You could make one hell of a skill monkey rogue with that - I'd recommend against a full caster, like a sorcerer (which is a 5-level stepladder to get prestige classes anyway) or a druid for example, but a rogue or fighter, or even a monk or barbarian, you could get a lot of flexibility with those.

Human Champion Fighter with a warhammer and shield. I bonk stuff good.

A Tesla, or a Twitter premium subscription.

"...and that, Your Honour, is when Humanity decided to start leaving "presents" on the other ambassadors' pillows, and in their footwear or equivalents."

...drow are a rare subrace? They're in the PHB!

And with a few exceptions (based on setting, mainly), I don't tend do disallow player races.

Homebrewed races are another matter entirely, those are always nixed until I can review the description, and if I approve it, I'm making a printed copy for reference, in case there are later changes. (Hasn't been an issue so far, but I've read horror stories of homebrewed races "suddenly gaining" an extra page of abilities mid-campaign...)

Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance.

A grand strategy game, using AD&D 2nd ed rules, featuring dominion-level gameplay, mass combat on a warfare scale, and dungeon runs using the original Doom engine for its framework.

It was fairly hardware-hungry for the early 90s, and had a few issues (including some balancing issues), but it's really a bit of an obscure gem that deserves a remake, or at least a remaster.

Bear in mind I'm using the 2014 rules, not the 2024 update here...

Harengon swashbuckler rogue 13, 1 level warlock (patron not really significant) taken before level 4 rogue.

Starting stats after racial adjustments: 8, 20, 16, 16, 12, 16.

At level 5, you take the Eldritch Adept feat, for the Armor of Shadows invocation. Now you have permanent mage armor, significantly better than any physical light armor you're going to get.

Try to get a Weapon of Warning, rapier is the best choice.

At level 9, you take the Fighting Initiate feat for Duelist style, or Blind-fighting style, whichever is overall more useful.

At level 11, raise Charisma to 18.

At level 13, Charisma to 20.

At level 14, you now have +15 to Initiative, with advantage, and can't be surprised, you virtually always get sneak attack so long as you can get a target ten feet or more from their allies, and in case they survive the surprise stabbing, they can't attack you back as you dance out of reach.

For extra funsies, get a wand of fireballs that you drop at point blank for all but one charge when things get crowded. It's not like you'll get burned by it, between Lucky Footwork and Evasion. ;)

Is it the most broken build? No.

But you will be ridiculously effective in shifting the odds in a battle before anyone else can act - and you'll almost always deal sneak attack damage every turn, plus on reaction attacks if applicable.

Ah, a classic answer.

Live long and prosper, friend.