The Hellfire Avenger
A Tiefling Paladin Custom Character Build Experiment
I have had many a rainy Saturday afternoon where my companions and I are bored and decide, hey let’s play D&D. We break open the books and grab some pencils and spend an hour making characters. By the time everyone has finished perfecting their character, the rain has stopped and we move on to other activities.
As much as I love making characters, there are times when I would like the process to be a little faster so we can get to the playing. Sure, we could just use pre-gens, but we do not want to completely give up the control of creating the character ourselves.
This is where the character builds in 4th edition are excellent. They let you create your character, but they take away the work of sorting through all the powers and feats. This is not something unique to 4e, but it is something I like and something I felt could be expanded on.
Let’s take a look at my expansion of this feature.
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What is this?
On the one side we have a blank character sheet and a stack of books. We page through the material and build out our perfect character. This provides the most flexibility, but it does take time.
On the other side, we have a pre-generated character where we do not make any choices, except the character’s name. This gets you a character immediately, but you give up the ability to make customizations.
I wanted to see if there was something in the middle.
My goal was to create a custom character build format that was a little more robust than what is provided in the 4th edition books. The format used in the books covers the powers and feats, but what if I extended that to include some of the other choices that the player would have to make while still leaving them the flexibility to customize the character to their needs.
Much like monsters have a stat block, I created a Custom Character Build Block that can serve as a template. Some decisions are made, but others are left to the player.
Hellfire Avenger
In this first example, I kept it relatively simple. I stuck with a first level character and limited myself to just the Player’s Handbook and one powers book2. In this case, the Divine Powers book.
Character Theme
This was the most important part of this effort. I was not just randomly mixing together abilities and calling it a build. There needed to be a reason for what I was creating. What made this build special? I wanted someone to look at the build and say, “Yes, that is a character I would like to create”.
I envisioned a conflicted character that is struggling to control some inner demons. They have the best intentions, but are quick to fly off the handle at the slightest hint that someone has wronged them or their friends.
I imagined the character on the battlefield giving a side-eye to every enemy that dared to take a shot at them. This character had the attitude that there is no better defense of their allies than exacting revenge against their enemies.
With this in mind, I eventually settled on a Tiefling Paladin as the core for this build. But this paladin was not interested in healing. This paladin was about revenge.
Core Decisions
The character builds provided in 4th edition are a nice start. They offer suggested powers, feats, and skills. I wanted to take this just a little further by including the racial details, alignment, and equipment while also packaging it in an easy-to-read block.
With my theme in mind, I went through the Player’s Handbooks and the Divine Powers book to select feats and powers that I think most aligned with what I was going for. I really liked the Ardent Vow from the Divine Powers book. The addition of Divine Sanction definitely fit my vision of a character that was constantly adding to their list of enemies.
The Improved Initiative feat also leaned into the notion that this is a character acts first and thinks later.
Using the standard 100gp, I then shopped for an intimidating weapon and some hefty armor and basic adventuring gear. This left just enough gold for the player to buy a few more odds and ends to round out the character.
What is left for the player?
The intention with this build is not to create a character for the player, but to provide a guide to help them shorten the time it takes to get into the game.
The player will still generate their ability scores and complete the character sheet. They can come up with a more robust backstory if they desire. And, most importantly, they can change any of the options I selected to something that better fits their needs.
I am still experimenting with the details and the format. I want to try out how it works if I make builds for higher level characters—including paragon and epic tiers. I am also curious if it holds up if I try to create builds for multi-classed or hybrid characters.
If you want an actual character created using this build, you can download it over at my website.
It is a fun exercise and I am interested to see where it goes.
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