Building the Titans as a DnD Party

A typical DnD party is best off being a 5-man band, with roughly five main roles to fill: the Tank, the Blaster (ranged damage), Healer, Stealth, and DPS roles, and the Teen Titans fit this very very nicely. So, I want to approach building the team as a cohesive unit. I’ve tackled building the characters independently, but some fall into a build in relation to other characters’ builds. The challenge here is to build the team to function nicely together as a unit.

ROBIN ( Party Role: Leader, Stealth, melee combatant)

Race: Human Background: Entertainer (Acrobatics, Performance) Classes:    Mastermind Rogue (12)    Battle Master Fighter (7)    Monk (1) Stats:    (SA) STR 11 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 20 CHA 9    (PB) STR 11 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 12 WIS 20 CHA 10 Skills:    Acrobatics    Deception    Investigation    Perception    Performance    Stealth Fighting Style: Dueling Battle Master Maneuvers:    Disarming Attack    Feinting Attack    Maneuvering Attack    Parry    Reposte Tools: Thieves’ Tools, Tinkerer’s Tools

With Robin’s subclasses, he can study an opponent and discern their HP, Level, AC, and any stat compared to his own, allowing Robin to be an expert in deducing the weaknesses of his adversaries. He also has the ability to give himself advantage, allowing Robin to make use of Sneak Attack damage even in a one-on-one fight. Robin’s 1 level in Monk is only there for the AC, and if you feel it’s unnecessary, he can drop it for another level in Fighter and another ASI or feat. This Robin excels at infiltration and finding clues like a classic detective, and with his maneuvering attack can reposition his party around the battlefield, moving injured allies toward Raven for healing, or helping melee fighters close the gap with enemies. Robin’s other maneuvers make him adept at creating openings in his enemies’ combat, such as making mages drop their spellcasting focus. If the DM is willing to rework Commander’s Strike maneuver to not be exclusively for melee attacks, letting Robin tell his party to attack instead of him can allow party members to exploit an enemy’s weaknesses that he can’t bypass himself, which is a good quality for a leader.

STARFIRE (Party Roles: Blaster, Tank, Talker)

Race: Protector Aasimar Background: Soldier (Athletics, Intimidation) Class:    Phoenix Sorcerer (20) Stats:    (SA) STR: 14, DEX: 12, CON: 18, INT: 10, WIS: 9, CHA: 20    (PB) STR: 14, DEX: 12, CON: 18, INT: 8, WIS: 10, CHA: 20 Skills:    Arcana    Athletics    Intimidation    Persuasion Feats:    Elemental Adept (Fire) Metamagic:    Empowered Spell    Heightened Spell    Quickened Spell    Twinned Spell

Between the boys who are all mostly melee combatants and Raven who is more of a support role, Starfire is the long-range magical powerhouse whose spell list is exclusively Fire and Radiant damaging spells. While Starfire lacks the superhuman strength she really should have, I figured her alien endurance was more valuable, as it made her able to get up and keep fighting harder. While I did in earnest consider a build where she’s an aasimar Brute Fighter or Zealot Barbarian (both of which would prioritize her super strength) while reducing her starbolts to the Firebolt cantrips she’d pick up with magic initiate, when it comes to party composition, the party already has Cyborg who tends to use physical combat more often than Starfire, despite her being stronger than him, as well as Robin and Beast Boy who are also close-range fighters. The party is better aided by her making use of immense magical power.

BEAST BOY (Party Roles: Utility, Wildcard)

Race: Longtooth Shifter Background: Folk Hero (Animal Handling, Survival) Class: Circle of the Moon Druid (20) Stats:    (SA) STR: 18, DEX: 20, CON: 12, INT: 8, WIS: 13, CHA: 14    (PB) STR: 18, DEX: 20, CON: 10, INT: 8, WIS: 14, CHA: 14  Skills:    Animal Handling    Nature    Perception    Survival

This one’s pretty straightforward. We need to turn into animals, a druid is the only way to do that. If you want to channel your Beast Within, feel free to do a 16/4 split and add some Barbarian levels with the Path of the Beast, but for standard Beast Boy, focus on wildshaping into the highest CR monsters that you can.

RAVEN ( Party Roles: Healer, Magic Utility, Diplomat)

Race: Asmodeus Tiefling (Variant: Winged Bloodline Tiefling) Background: Far Traveler (Insight, Perception) Classes:    Theurgy Wizard (Knowledge Domain) (19)    Rogue (1) STATS    (SA) STR: 8, DEX: 13, CON: 16, INT: 20, WIS: 16, CHA: 10    (PB) STR: 8, DEX: 14, CON: 16, INT: 20, WIS: 16, CHA: 10 Skills:    Arcana    History    Insight    Medicine    Perception    Religion

While the single level in rogue is not mandatory, it gives Raven the ability to have Expertise in two skills, letting her super charge her Insight and Perception. As Raven is an empath who can sense people’s emotions, read people like an open book, and even sense how many people are in a city on the other side of a bay, Raven’s extrasensory powers should be extremely impressive. So despite Raven not being much of a people person, her ability to sense emotions makes her invaluable as a negotiator and lie detector for her party, as well as scouting for lost children and fugitives. With her Wizard levels, Raven can have a truly staggering amount of spells, including abjuration shields, telekinetic spells to move objects, psionic blasts, messing with the senses or emotions of other creatures, and bypassing environmental hazards. With this extensive list of abilities, Raven becomes a veritable swiss army knife of dealing with problems. Between healing, defensive, offensive, and utility spells, Raven becomes insanely adaptable. While Psychic Soul Sorcerer and Fiend Warlock could work for Raven, those are CHA casters which steps on Starfire’s toes as a Sorcerer. So, Theurgy is the best way for Raven to be a healer, and makes her an INT caster. Knowledge not only gives her extra expertise skills, but it fits her character as the wise scholar of the party. Asmodeus, the Greater Deity of the Nine Hells, has Knowledge as one of his domains, allowing Raven to pray to him while fitting her character. Arcana is another good option, as it adds to her Wizard spell list and helps her break spell effects on her party, but at the loss of her extra expertise. Life Domain can also work if you’re leaning toward White Raven and making her a dedicated healer. Making Raven a Winged Bloodline Tiefling gives her the ability to fly endlessly, a good answer for her floating in the show, but not all DMs will allow it. Her WIS score can be lower, I used 16 to super charge her Insight and Perception checks, but if concentration and health matters more, she can easily get by with a WIS score of 14 or even 12.

CYBORG (Party Roles: Tank, DPS, Blaster)

Race: Variant Human (PB: +1 CON, +1 INT) (SA: +1 STR, +1 CON) Background: Athlete (Athletics, Acrobatics) Classes:    Brute Fighter (16)    Artillerist Artificer (4) Stats:    (SA) STR: 20, DEX: 11, CON: 20, INT: 18, WIS: 8, CHA: 12    (PB) STR: 20, DEX: 10, CON: 20, INT: 18, WIS: 8, CHA: 10 Skills:    Acrobatics    Athletics    Intimidation    Investigation    Perception Fighting Style: Unarmed Combat Feats:    Heavy Armor Mastery (V. Human) (+1 STR) Items:    Molten Bronze Skin (Plate)    Force Ballista (Tiny)

Some may cry foul that Cyborg is neither a Warforged nor a 100% Artificer, but Cyborg was born Human, that is is his racial identity. And with the Molten Bronze Skin from Theros, the metal can coat Cyborg’s skin so skin-tight that it can’t be removed, like having metal skin, making it a perfect parallel to Cyborg’s lore and character. While Starfire is physically the strongest Titan, she doesn’t tend to prefer physical combat, opting mostly for ranged combat with her starbolts, opening a spot on the team for the heavy-hitting melee combatant, where Cyborg comes in clutch. Between multiple attacks per round, and being able to fire his Force Ballista every bonus action, Cyborg walks away with about the same number of attacks per turn as a full level 20 Fighter as early as level 14. As a Brute, he’ll also add to the damage he deals with each punch, making Cyborg a serious bringer of pain. If your DM hates UA though, Champion works fine for him, it just doesn’t deal as much damage.

This party composition makes the Teen Titans extremely well-balanced, as every member of the party has a primary role, but also cover a wide variety of skills, play styles, and abilities. They’re diverse enough to be able to handle most anything as a unit, and can handle just about anything thrown at them in combat. There may be some shortcomings like that many creatures resist Starfire’s Fire magic, but her Elemental Adept can help with that, and her other party members can make up for her shortcomings in such fights.

This is not an obscure or ridiculous question, but I do have a question I didn't know who to ask. I'm kinda new to playing DnD. What exactly is the difference between a paladin and a cleric, mainly in terms of the relationship to their god? The phb wasn't too helpful for me. I admit I chose cleric because they get more spells, but is that the only difference? One fights via magic the other mainly with weapons (but can enhance them with divine magic)? Thank you and have a great weekend!

Good question! I’m going to editorialize a little but the lore here will all be pretty standard; the editorializing is more about my personal thoughts on mechanics, rules as written, etc. Also this is going to be long but I’ve split it up so you can stop reading when you’re like “ok I get it shut up”

Relationship to a god

(note: in some interpretations, clerics can be devoted to a pantheon, and paladins can be devoted to more of a concept. I don’t super love the idea of a cleric to a pantheon, but I do think some interpretations of paladins devoted to a concept, particularly oath of the ancients, can work. That said I’m focusing on clerics or paladins of a specific deity).

Clerics: there’s some leeway but as a rule they are the chosen ones of a god. In general this is played as mutual; a god chooses one of their faithful and grants unto them magic powers.

Rules as written they need to be no more than one step away from their deity’s alignment; since alignment in my opinion works more as a general suggestion than a hard-and-fast rule you don’t need to be super strict but in terms of flavor you should focus on being at least kind of similar? Like, if you’re the cleric of a deity of chaos, you should probably be a little chaotic yourself; if you’re the cleric of a good deity you should not be evil.

A cleric can damage their relationship with their god, but there’s a bit more wiggle room than with paladins.

Paladins: paladins have been granted powers by a god, but specifically in their devotion to an oath to said deity (or concept). That oath is their defining feature, more so than the god.

In past versions, paladins were always lawful in their alignment. This has been relaxed in 5e, and I agree with that, but they should be absolutely adherent to their oath. They can be chaotic in every other way but they need to stand by this promise. If they break that oath, they lose their powers. That’s how paladins work. (obviously this shouldn’t be done lightly, but a serious misstep, like deliberately killing an innocent when you’re a good-aligned paladin, should be dealt with as as betrayal of your oath).

Mechanics (spells and stats)

Clerics: Mechanically they are full spellcasters, like bards, druids, wizards, and sorcerers (warlocks are their own thing).

Flavor-wise/also mechanically, they are wisdom-based prepared spellcasters [people here more for spicy takes than discussion of mechanics, please skip to the bottom]. What this means:

Wisdom: based on that stat and the skills based on them, clerics will be decent at reading people and situations, working with animals, they’ll be perceptive, and they’ll either be intuitively good at healing or have some training in it.

Prepared spellcasters: this means clerics can choose their spells every time they take a long rest. Clerics are the most powerful healers in the game, and have a lot of utility. They have, in my opinion, the most versatile spell list in the game (wizards have far more spells, but clerics can do a little of everything).

In battle: clerics can serve multiple purposes because of how versatile they are. Typically they do serve as the main healer, but they can also do a lot of damage, and they can also do a lot of support for their allies/grant disadvantages (either literal disadvantage, or other drawbacks) to their enemies. Clerics are also a decently hardy spellcaster; they can often wear medium or heavy armor, they can use shields, and they get a d8 for hit points.

Paladins: Mechanically they are hybrid battler/spellcasters and are usually grouped with the battlers. They have comparatively few spells, they don’t have cantrips (so when they’re out of spells, they’re out for the day), and they are more reliant on their prowess with weapons - especially melee (5 ft range) weapons.

Stats: they are charisma and strength based, as written. They can wear heavy armor and their powers come from strength of will. They are good at persuasion, intimidating people, lying, performing, and feats of strength.

Prepared spellcasters: They can also choose their spells each day; however, they have far fewer spell slots than clerics, they don’t have nearly as high spell slots (top out at level 5, instead of level 9) and they have a much more limited spell list. And as you said, a good deal of their spells are based on augmenting their weapon damage (smites). Paladins also have both healing spells and a feature called lay on hands, where they can grant some healing/restoration from a limited pool.

In battle: the classic paladin build, at least, has a high armor class (medium or heavy armor), fights primarily in melee, and are much hardier than a cleric - they are harder to hit, as a rule, and have more hit points (they get a d10). They’re also somewhat versatile, but more skewed towards doing damage, soaking up damage, and minor healing. As mentioned their spells that do damage are mostly spells that augment weapon damage (vs. clerics, where the spell does the damage on its own). They have a few support spells for their allies, but they’re much more limited than clerics and are expected to spend most of their time damaging rather than casting spells.

My thoughts on Clerics and Paladins/how they’re often played

Clerics: you can play around with the non-wisdom stat for clerics but by dint of that stat they’re often kind of the mom friend? They don’t need to be, but that’s often how they are - they’re often the group confidant, especially if they have at least decent charisma. I love me a gruff, low charisma-with-heart-of-gold cleric too, but even then they often end up being the comforting one in their own weird way.

Thanks to the high wisdom clerics are often hardest to charm or control, and in general make a good voice of reason - even chaotic and ridiculous ones.

Because of your giant flexible spell list you can play around a lot - you can focus on damage, on healing, on buffs/debuffs. If you want to be a good player, in my opinion, look at the rest of the party. If you’re the only healer you can take damage spells but be prepared to spend a lot of time healing. Don’t let your friends die because you wanted to look cool. Also, speaking as someone who actively likes to play healers and utility casters...if you’re not prepared to heal you shouldn’t play cleric (we joke about Merle from TAZ and Jester in Critical Role but both actually do a whole lot of healing).

Paladins: I actually really love the more old-school interpretation, not so much the lawful aspect (as mentioned, I care more about devotion to an oath than to an alignment) but the slightly more black and white morality aspect. Which is weird, because I love campaigns with a lot of moral grayness, but maybe that’s why - I like that there are characters who do say “well, no, there is in fact good and there is in fact evil.” They’re a little less understanding at times, but a lot more intense.

Paladins as a rule are played as having less chill than clerics, and being a lot more action-oriented. Clerics might sit around and ponder; paladins are about enacting their oath in the real world.

Editorializing and Spicy Takes

With a few exceptions (letting a warlock use intelligence as a main stat which WOTC has condoned, and letting a paladin be dex-based instead of strength-based if there’s a really good in-story reason) I strongly dislike the idea of taking an existing class and saying ‘actually the casting stat is whatever I want it to be’. The fundamental concept of a wizard, for example, is that they have gained their magic through study and investigation. Basing them on charisma is not how they work, throws off all the lore, seriously unbalances certain subclasses, and makes your backstory worse. You can make a charismatic wizard! You can even make a wizard who is more charismatic than they are intelligent, if you want! You can make a wizard with intimidation or charm or other charisma-based skills as a major part of their story and character, and Caleb Widogast is a fantastic example. But in my opinion, the mechanics aren’t just a way of arbitrating or adding rules - they are part of the game, of the lore and of the flavor, and the experience is much richer for respecting that.

Also intelligence is often the least interesting mental stat to dump and you can fight me on that in the Denny’s parking lot of your choosing.