Unique character concepts
Sometimes players seek to create character concepts that don’t fit into any of the published races, classes, and subclasses. A player might imagine a character as a scorpion-hybrid that combines aspects of its arachnid and humanoid nature. None of the existing races or classes can easily accommodate that concept. In that case it can be a collaborative exercise to come up with an entirely new class for that concept. However, it is also a lot of work, and if we’re not very experienced a lot can go wrong when designing a new class. Reskinning classes instead of creating new ones can be a great way to accommodate unique character concepts.
Reskinning classes
Instead, we can re-skin an existing class to make the character concept come to life. What does reskinning mean in this case?
Character classes come with flavor and mechanics. Throwing out the flavor lets us use the classes as mechanical templates to create wildly different character concepts. Our scorpion-oid PC might use the fighter’s mechanics to represent their arachnid combat prowess. Weapon attacks could be re-flavored as natural weapons of its scorpion form. If we’re looking for a more magical hybrid creature, a warlock might work. A hexblade warlock could uses its stinger in place of a Hex weapon. Their Pact Magic might stem from the magical scorpion essence of its transformed body. Looking at the class abilities as bundles of mechanics lets us use them for a wide range of character concepts.
Pitfalls to avoid
Reskinning means we stick with the mechanics of the existing class. Once we start messing with the mechanics too much, we can run into problems. Classes are carefully designed packages of mechanics that are balanced against each other. We might over- or underpower a character quickly if we change a lot of mechanics. In reskinning, change the flavor, keep the mechanics.
Additionally, talk to all the players before you reskin a class for an individual character. A session zero is a great moment to do so. Make it clear that mechanically the class is not changed, and offer to reskin classes for other players as well. That way, there’s no awkward surprise when the scorpion-human PC arrives, and another player is bummed out because they desperately wanted to play a turkey-human hybrid character but didn’t know that was an option.
