Vandire Campaign - Session Zero

Four of us got together a couple of weeks ago to do a "session zero" on the new mini-campaign that one of my other campaign's players wants to run.

Since there would only be three players in the campaign, it seemed like a good idea going into this to lean toward the player character types that tend to annoy me in a larger game (from the power overload standpoint). By this I mean that there are several character classes, subclasses within certain classes, or just character builds that are very powerful and tend to make that character seem to have the abilities of more than one person.

In 5th edition D&D these include things such as:

• Druids - Effective combat, shape changing, healers and powerful combat casters.
• Paladins - A warrior and a cleric-lite.
• Fighter (eldritch knight subclass) - Warrior with spell casting ability.
• Wizards of dwarven or elven stock - Powerful combat casters with racial armor and weapon proficiencies making them effective fighters in a pinch.

With only three of us, I planned to lean toward these kinds of characters - we will need to make our 3 seem like more than that...

To make a long story short (for the moment), at the end of our session zero, we ended up with:

• Tygon, a human ranger. He was orphaned and raised in a monastery, where he learned a variety of martial skills. He worked as a mercenary for a while before ending up in the city. Tygon has good combat abilities and will have some useful spells and special abilities.
• Durga, a dwarven sorcerer of draconic bloodline. Durga comes from a noble background, but was never fully accepted by his people because of his strange talents and draconic bloodline. Durga will be our combat spell caster, and also can fight with armor and good weapons because of his dwarven heritage.
• Merka Aldersaf, a female half-orc paladin (my character). Merka is one-quarter orc, and is fortunate to have far more human features than orc. However, her heritage is still hard to hide (being 6'2" tall with a hint of lower jaw fang-like tusks), and she was ostracized growing up in a human village. She has dedicated herself to the goddess of home and hearth, the protector of families and children. Merka will be a paladin of the oath of devotion, and will be a strong fighter with healing abilities and other buffing spell casting abilities.

Over the course of an evening of rolling characters, plotting and planning, creating backstory and how we connect with each other, I think we are off to a very enjoyable start to this endeavor. The first level or two should be a challenge given that we have little spell casting power and very little healing,  but I can't wait to get started.

Session1 is scheduled for June 2nd, and I can't wait...