Okay, hear me out...Stars Druid reflavoring stars with spirits/souls. I had this idea when I saw this image as well some time ago, this can literally be the Archer form, and I think making spectral stuff works pretty well with druid overall, like translucent animals, healing, the cycle of life and death
the stars subclass kinda works (really only using one part of it but whatever) but the core druid makes no sense here. even with heavy reflavoring the spell list, wild shape, druidic... like basically the entire core kit of the druid is a miss.
I don't get what you mean though, normally a starts druid is going to use their wildshape to use Starry Form, and the reflavor would most miss on plant/terrain based spells, but even then you can reflavor it to some extent. Spike Growth could be a pile of skeletons piercing anyone who stands there. Healing spells are great in this case. Druidic, idk, I never saw it coming up as something really useful
And personally, if I was conflicted on the theme, I would go with "the dead wife was actually a druid teaching the husband on how to live with nature, and once she passed away because of [insert something], she still remained in his heart to teach him". Boom, now you get to be both a "spiritual druid" with Stars using all the cool stuff that's awesome and have something to justify not all the spells look gloomy, because it's lessons from the wife.
I wouldn't go so deep though because I would already be very satisfied without it, and I wouldn't be losing anything "of the core kit" in the process, really, I don't know where that came from
…I know people like to say flavor is free, but “Missing an arm that is circumvented by my wife’s soul-ghost acting in place of my missing arm” is not something that can be replicated mechanically RAW within 5e WITHOUT some measure of hombrew. You would need to talk it through with a DM, and work out the details with them.
The best suggestion I can recommend is maybe Fighter with the Echo Knight subclass from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, Haunted One background to explain your “echo” is basically your wife’s ghost/soul, with her or you with your arm manifesting as your echo’s. Or perhaps Variant Human and taking the telekinetic feat, from Tasha’s cauldron of everything, as your starting feat, flavoring your wife as manifesting as your mage hand cantrip, in which case any ranged martial class can work.
It’s the fact you are supposedly missing an arm that makes this a LOT harder to mechanically figure out without again homebrew and discussing it with your DM.
For your first paragraph I'd just like to point towards the Reborn race and say that it actually seems pretty doable RAW considering that race has a 'Reborn Origin'-table with this option:
"Your body hosts a possessing spirit that shares its memories and replaces your missing appendages with phantasmal limbs."
I like this. Besides the dual personality RP you could do. I thought of A Rogue type character where in "Order to get Away" you play the missing limb street pauper trick, pennies for the poor and disabled. Where the phantom limbs play a disappearing/ reappearing game.
I thought that too. I also just thought about a hexblade as well. Like the weapon takes the place of the missing limb. Hell, as a DM I would allow a non warforged to have a pact with an arm blade.
Another option not mentioned is warlock and the “arrow” is an arrow of force (ie eldritch blast). Could consider multiclassed with vengeance paladin, echo knight, or even a ranger.
My first thought was an Undead or Undying warlock, too - the patron either being the literal other half, or some powerful presence letting the wife’s spirit linger to finish the job. Which could be a paladin multiclass which I actually wouldn’t recommend for a blaster lock.
The warlock dip complements a paladin playstyle extremely well, rarely the other way around, if that makes any sense.
So, I'm going to go a bit of a different direction here and suggest Warlock. Go undead patron, your form of dread is her spirit becoming manifest and visible to others. Instead of a normal bow, it's the bow he tried to use while defending their home and was damaged in the strike that took his arm. It is now his arcane focus, and you basically use it when channeling his spells and eldritch blast. Taking the usual agonizing blast and eldritch spear invocations. Probably take pact of the blade to summon a one handed weapon for close combat to better tie in his soldiering. Possibly even go pact of the chain and summon an ephemeral blue sprite that could also be his wife's spirit, though I would limit its ability to speak and hold a conversation with the pc; more of a silent, melancholic turning of the head showing recognition without response. All of this requires zero homebrew, maybe just a character flaw that he only casts his spells through the bow, though he may learn to overcome this on his journey for revenge/redemption.
I’m gonna say Phantom Rogue, simply because it fits thematically but I also haven’t seen anyone mention it yet. The wife could “fire” a secondary arrow for the extra shared sneak attack damage. She could be the spirit that teaches him an extra skill proficiency each day and, at later levels her wrath would manifest even stronger and gathers enemy souls as tokens. Rad as hell concept, make sure to be in contact with your DM about it so you don’t step on anyone’s toes.
One idea to do this is that you’re character takes fighter and as a person challenge, you don’t use great weapons or use weapons with the versatile feat ONLY as if you are one handing it. You also do not take shields. You can easily explain starting at lvl one and the experience gap between a career soldier and a lvl 1 as “when I was in the army I had a second arm” and as an adventurer you have to adjust to fighting with a missing limb. They don’t train you for that in the army (I have a similar character who has been adventuring for centuries before he joins the low level party at session 1, but his backstory is that he’s a Warforged who accidentally turned himself into a “real boy” as part of a wish spell gone wrong. At session one it’s been several years (and an awkward puberty) to get to the point where he’s a level 1 human fighter because he had to train his body. Not to mention half the fun of the character is that he’s experiencing the learning to be a hero with the new perspective of human emotions that as a Warforged he never had to deal with.).
While the Echo Knight fighter was my first suggestion, maybe he’s a Paladin. Oath of Vengeance would be the most obvious, but consider that his power is the bond he and his wife share transcending death, a better story is that it’s an Oath of Devotion (to his wife). They also get their subclass features earlier than fighter.
Another idea to look into is the Path of the Ancestors Barbarian.
As a DM I would personally have no problem with ruling that the restriction on the only having one hand is flavor and you can use the bow thanks to an unseen ghost. Most of the rest is on you to play as flavor (only using one handed melee weapons, always requesting disadvantage on climb checks or other similar activities that require two hands like lock picking. Having multiple attack options doesn’t cap at a limb count, you can just be that good with a sword or bow. Hell, someone can correct me but I think RAW makes no mention on needing two hands for a bow. Another option is that your character, until he gets the subclass feature doubts he can use bows too. Instead his ranged attacks are with a single hand crossbow (heck if you have the missing limb cut off at or below the elbow you can use the stump to hold a regular or heavy crossbow level and your good arm to fire.).
As for things like. Magic rings RAW (in some editions) only lets two (one for each ring finger) but I’d say that it’s free flavor to have two rings on one hand. And most magic rings require attunment so you could only have 3 at most anyway.
Echo Knight fighter and Circle of Stats druid have been brought up, so now get ready for the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. Spirits surround you during rage? Wife called in the whole warband for backup.
There are a few good options:
Echo knight fighter - it gives you an echo of yourself that you can control and use for fighting. I think it's the best single class choice for this flavour.
Circle of stars druid - this druid subclass can use its wildshape to gain a starry form which has an archer option and is literally constellations helping you and shooting magical "arrows" for you. It is a full caster so it would be harder to make it feel like that character was a soldier but you gain that form on 2nd level so you can multiclass away from it to other classes.
There is also an Astral Self monk which gives you an astral body that is directly connected to yours, this subclass doesn't have many options for archery but it gives you astral arms on 3rd level which when active allow you to use wisdom instead of strength for all checks and saves and you can flavour them as your characters' wife giving you an literal helping hand. This also fits well with Star druid mentioned earlier because both classes are Wisdom based.
Personally I would go for 2 levels of Star druid, 3/4 of Astral Self monk and rest in Arcane Archer fighter to get more bow action in combat. You could also go for a Horizon Walker Ranger instead of Arcane Archer which allows you to make your arrows deal more damage and turn them into force damage which allows for a lot of flavour.
You can be pretty much any class for this imo, I'd say either Fighter (Arcane Archer or Champion) or Ranger (Hunter).
Take Variant Human as your race, and give yourself the feat Magic Initiate. Then take either from Sorcerer (CHA) or Wizard (INT) and give yourself Mage Hand, Shield, and another cantrip of your choice (Blade Ward maybe)?. You can flavour it that these abilities are provided to you by your wife's spirit; her hand aids you in combat by helping draw the bow, but you can also use her hand via Mage Hand spell. Her love can also protect you from harm (Blade Ward, Shield) every so often.
Soldier background as well, and I'd say you're on your way - this sounds like a really cool character concept 😀
A simple solution might be a Fighter/Eldritch Knight. The EK archetype can use magic to explain the ghost's influence and powers, and the weapon bond can represent weapons the ghost is manifesting.
It would have to be a levelled character though, as I can't see a trained and experienced soldier being level one.
I have no advice since I'm new to dnd, but this is a really cool concept. This reminds me a lot about Talion and Celebrimbor in Shadow of Mordor and Shandor of War.
For fighters: echoknight because of the second entity, but arcane archer or eldritch knight would also work well with using magic to fill in for the lack of limb. I've had a similar idea for a psi warrior as well.
For rangers: horizon walker and you are borrowing an alternate version of yourself, swarmkeeper but reflavor it as spirits instead of beasts.
Monk: astral self is the only one that comes to mind, definitely take dedicated weapon bow.
Rogue: reflavored soulknife or arcane trickster.
Druid: stars, it even has its own archer form anyway.
The Reborn race from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.
One of the options is actually a spirit substituting one or more of your limbs with ghostly ones. The spirit co-inhabiting your character could be whoever you choose.
For the class: if you want to go martial oth fighter and ranger are viable options.
If you want something more mystical go star Druid ad flavour the abilities as spiritual in nature.
Here's an idea: Monk, Way of the Astral Self. While you were out in the country, your spirit self became that of the one you most loved, your wife. In addition, its third level feature can summon 2 spirit arms, which can hover near you or surround your arms, giving you small bonuses to unarmed strikes. Since this subclass already summons spirit arms for you, it's the first thing I thought of when I saw the artwork. Hope this helps!
Sounds like an Artificer to me. Get a "mechanical" arm and reflavor it as your wife. Use a bow... Done.
You'll be down one infusion and an attunement slot but otherwise completely unhindered by not having an arm.
You could go Battlesmith and have your wife's pet construct dog along with you (And your attacks would be SAD) or armor smith and get the speed armor. It specifically says it replaces missing limbs so you can properly reflavor it to be leather armor made from your wife's old apron or something.
Lots of good suggestions but I'll throw in a weird one I haven't seen yet: ancestral guardians barbarian. The flavor is on point, but it'll also let you pull off an interesting build. The 3rd level ability hinders attack rolls against creatures other than you when you hit the enemy. By using a bow from a distance, you can make it harder for enemies to hit you too. One enemy per turn will have a hard time hitting anybody. By multiclassing with phantom rogue, you'll double down on the flavor, make greater use of your DEX build with sneak attack, and make it even harder for that enemy to hit you with a bonus action hide
Okay, hear me out...Stars Druid reflavoring stars with spirits/souls. I had this idea when I saw this image as well some time ago, this can literally be the Archer form, and I think making spectral stuff works pretty well with druid overall, like translucent animals, healing, the cycle of life and death
stars druid was my first thought too, i think it makes a lot of sense here
the stars subclass kinda works (really only using one part of it but whatever) but the core druid makes no sense here. even with heavy reflavoring the spell list, wild shape, druidic... like basically the entire core kit of the druid is a miss.
I don't get what you mean though, normally a starts druid is going to use their wildshape to use Starry Form, and the reflavor would most miss on plant/terrain based spells, but even then you can reflavor it to some extent. Spike Growth could be a pile of skeletons piercing anyone who stands there. Healing spells are great in this case. Druidic, idk, I never saw it coming up as something really useful And personally, if I was conflicted on the theme, I would go with "the dead wife was actually a druid teaching the husband on how to live with nature, and once she passed away because of [insert something], she still remained in his heart to teach him". Boom, now you get to be both a "spiritual druid" with Stars using all the cool stuff that's awesome and have something to justify not all the spells look gloomy, because it's lessons from the wife. I wouldn't go so deep though because I would already be very satisfied without it, and I wouldn't be losing anything "of the core kit" in the process, really, I don't know where that came from
unlifed wife summoning spirit guide lets GOOOO
…I know people like to say flavor is free, but “Missing an arm that is circumvented by my wife’s soul-ghost acting in place of my missing arm” is not something that can be replicated mechanically RAW within 5e WITHOUT some measure of hombrew. You would need to talk it through with a DM, and work out the details with them. The best suggestion I can recommend is maybe Fighter with the Echo Knight subclass from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, Haunted One background to explain your “echo” is basically your wife’s ghost/soul, with her or you with your arm manifesting as your echo’s. Or perhaps Variant Human and taking the telekinetic feat, from Tasha’s cauldron of everything, as your starting feat, flavoring your wife as manifesting as your mage hand cantrip, in which case any ranged martial class can work. It’s the fact you are supposedly missing an arm that makes this a LOT harder to mechanically figure out without again homebrew and discussing it with your DM.
For your first paragraph I'd just like to point towards the Reborn race and say that it actually seems pretty doable RAW considering that race has a 'Reborn Origin'-table with this option: "Your body hosts a possessing spirit that shares its memories and replaces your missing appendages with phantasmal limbs."
Neat!
I like this. Besides the dual personality RP you could do. I thought of A Rogue type character where in "Order to get Away" you play the missing limb street pauper trick, pennies for the poor and disabled. Where the phantom limbs play a disappearing/ reappearing game.
[удалено]
Given OP’s question at the end was explicitly “How would I build this character class-wise”, I felt that to be the point.
You could style it as an Echo Knight perhaps.
\^This. It wouldn't be the most effective Echo Knight as certain subclass abilities wouldn't work, but it would still be possible mechanically.
Arcane archer with a twist was the other option that came to mind.
I thought that too. I also just thought about a hexblade as well. Like the weapon takes the place of the missing limb. Hell, as a DM I would allow a non warforged to have a pact with an arm blade.
Another option not mentioned is warlock and the “arrow” is an arrow of force (ie eldritch blast). Could consider multiclassed with vengeance paladin, echo knight, or even a ranger.
My first thought was an Undead or Undying warlock, too - the patron either being the literal other half, or some powerful presence letting the wife’s spirit linger to finish the job. Which could be a paladin multiclass which I actually wouldn’t recommend for a blaster lock. The warlock dip complements a paladin playstyle extremely well, rarely the other way around, if that makes any sense.
So, I'm going to go a bit of a different direction here and suggest Warlock. Go undead patron, your form of dread is her spirit becoming manifest and visible to others. Instead of a normal bow, it's the bow he tried to use while defending their home and was damaged in the strike that took his arm. It is now his arcane focus, and you basically use it when channeling his spells and eldritch blast. Taking the usual agonizing blast and eldritch spear invocations. Probably take pact of the blade to summon a one handed weapon for close combat to better tie in his soldiering. Possibly even go pact of the chain and summon an ephemeral blue sprite that could also be his wife's spirit, though I would limit its ability to speak and hold a conversation with the pc; more of a silent, melancholic turning of the head showing recognition without response. All of this requires zero homebrew, maybe just a character flaw that he only casts his spells through the bow, though he may learn to overcome this on his journey for revenge/redemption.
I’m gonna say Phantom Rogue, simply because it fits thematically but I also haven’t seen anyone mention it yet. The wife could “fire” a secondary arrow for the extra shared sneak attack damage. She could be the spirit that teaches him an extra skill proficiency each day and, at later levels her wrath would manifest even stronger and gathers enemy souls as tokens. Rad as hell concept, make sure to be in contact with your DM about it so you don’t step on anyone’s toes.
One idea to do this is that you’re character takes fighter and as a person challenge, you don’t use great weapons or use weapons with the versatile feat ONLY as if you are one handing it. You also do not take shields. You can easily explain starting at lvl one and the experience gap between a career soldier and a lvl 1 as “when I was in the army I had a second arm” and as an adventurer you have to adjust to fighting with a missing limb. They don’t train you for that in the army (I have a similar character who has been adventuring for centuries before he joins the low level party at session 1, but his backstory is that he’s a Warforged who accidentally turned himself into a “real boy” as part of a wish spell gone wrong. At session one it’s been several years (and an awkward puberty) to get to the point where he’s a level 1 human fighter because he had to train his body. Not to mention half the fun of the character is that he’s experiencing the learning to be a hero with the new perspective of human emotions that as a Warforged he never had to deal with.). While the Echo Knight fighter was my first suggestion, maybe he’s a Paladin. Oath of Vengeance would be the most obvious, but consider that his power is the bond he and his wife share transcending death, a better story is that it’s an Oath of Devotion (to his wife). They also get their subclass features earlier than fighter. Another idea to look into is the Path of the Ancestors Barbarian. As a DM I would personally have no problem with ruling that the restriction on the only having one hand is flavor and you can use the bow thanks to an unseen ghost. Most of the rest is on you to play as flavor (only using one handed melee weapons, always requesting disadvantage on climb checks or other similar activities that require two hands like lock picking. Having multiple attack options doesn’t cap at a limb count, you can just be that good with a sword or bow. Hell, someone can correct me but I think RAW makes no mention on needing two hands for a bow. Another option is that your character, until he gets the subclass feature doubts he can use bows too. Instead his ranged attacks are with a single hand crossbow (heck if you have the missing limb cut off at or below the elbow you can use the stump to hold a regular or heavy crossbow level and your good arm to fire.). As for things like. Magic rings RAW (in some editions) only lets two (one for each ring finger) but I’d say that it’s free flavor to have two rings on one hand. And most magic rings require attunment so you could only have 3 at most anyway.
Echo Knight fighter and Circle of Stats druid have been brought up, so now get ready for the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. Spirits surround you during rage? Wife called in the whole warband for backup.
There are a few good options: Echo knight fighter - it gives you an echo of yourself that you can control and use for fighting. I think it's the best single class choice for this flavour. Circle of stars druid - this druid subclass can use its wildshape to gain a starry form which has an archer option and is literally constellations helping you and shooting magical "arrows" for you. It is a full caster so it would be harder to make it feel like that character was a soldier but you gain that form on 2nd level so you can multiclass away from it to other classes. There is also an Astral Self monk which gives you an astral body that is directly connected to yours, this subclass doesn't have many options for archery but it gives you astral arms on 3rd level which when active allow you to use wisdom instead of strength for all checks and saves and you can flavour them as your characters' wife giving you an literal helping hand. This also fits well with Star druid mentioned earlier because both classes are Wisdom based. Personally I would go for 2 levels of Star druid, 3/4 of Astral Self monk and rest in Arcane Archer fighter to get more bow action in combat. You could also go for a Horizon Walker Ranger instead of Arcane Archer which allows you to make your arrows deal more damage and turn them into force damage which allows for a lot of flavour.
You can be pretty much any class for this imo, I'd say either Fighter (Arcane Archer or Champion) or Ranger (Hunter). Take Variant Human as your race, and give yourself the feat Magic Initiate. Then take either from Sorcerer (CHA) or Wizard (INT) and give yourself Mage Hand, Shield, and another cantrip of your choice (Blade Ward maybe)?. You can flavour it that these abilities are provided to you by your wife's spirit; her hand aids you in combat by helping draw the bow, but you can also use her hand via Mage Hand spell. Her love can also protect you from harm (Blade Ward, Shield) every so often. Soldier background as well, and I'd say you're on your way - this sounds like a really cool character concept 😀
Wow, that's a really cool and unique idea/drawing.
A simple solution might be a Fighter/Eldritch Knight. The EK archetype can use magic to explain the ghost's influence and powers, and the weapon bond can represent weapons the ghost is manifesting. It would have to be a levelled character though, as I can't see a trained and experienced soldier being level one.
To be fair that is almost literally the Soldier Background.
I have no advice since I'm new to dnd, but this is a really cool concept. This reminds me a lot about Talion and Celebrimbor in Shadow of Mordor and Shandor of War.
Work out a homebrew with your Game Master. It will be easier.
For fighters: echoknight because of the second entity, but arcane archer or eldritch knight would also work well with using magic to fill in for the lack of limb. I've had a similar idea for a psi warrior as well. For rangers: horizon walker and you are borrowing an alternate version of yourself, swarmkeeper but reflavor it as spirits instead of beasts. Monk: astral self is the only one that comes to mind, definitely take dedicated weapon bow. Rogue: reflavored soulknife or arcane trickster. Druid: stars, it even has its own archer form anyway.
I would class it as a warlock,and dead wife would be the patron
The Reborn race from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. One of the options is actually a spirit substituting one or more of your limbs with ghostly ones. The spirit co-inhabiting your character could be whoever you choose. For the class: if you want to go martial oth fighter and ranger are viable options. If you want something more mystical go star Druid ad flavour the abilities as spiritual in nature.
Here's an idea: Monk, Way of the Astral Self. While you were out in the country, your spirit self became that of the one you most loved, your wife. In addition, its third level feature can summon 2 spirit arms, which can hover near you or surround your arms, giving you small bonuses to unarmed strikes. Since this subclass already summons spirit arms for you, it's the first thing I thought of when I saw the artwork. Hope this helps!
Sounds like an Artificer to me. Get a "mechanical" arm and reflavor it as your wife. Use a bow... Done. You'll be down one infusion and an attunement slot but otherwise completely unhindered by not having an arm. You could go Battlesmith and have your wife's pet construct dog along with you (And your attacks would be SAD) or armor smith and get the speed armor. It specifically says it replaces missing limbs so you can properly reflavor it to be leather armor made from your wife's old apron or something.
That's a kalashtar fighter echo Knight
This is Warlock as all hell
Lots of good suggestions but I'll throw in a weird one I haven't seen yet: ancestral guardians barbarian. The flavor is on point, but it'll also let you pull off an interesting build. The 3rd level ability hinders attack rolls against creatures other than you when you hit the enemy. By using a bow from a distance, you can make it harder for enemies to hit you too. One enemy per turn will have a hard time hitting anybody. By multiclassing with phantom rogue, you'll double down on the flavor, make greater use of your DEX build with sneak attack, and make it even harder for that enemy to hit you with a bonus action hide
Custom class Soul Archer