One if my players wants to make a character that’s all about beig a master chef. I was wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to do that. He found a custom cook class online, but it’s very convoluted and not beginner (which we all are) friendly. Now we’re thinking how we could just take a normal magical class and (quite literally) flavor its abilities (having verbal components food-related maybe replace certain material components with, like, truffles and caviar or whatever).
I’d also be open to give him one or two fitting special abilities that could be useful under certain conditions, as long as it’s still balanced, or use feets or something. Does anybody have ideas and suggestions?
Do not let players use some homebrew they find online. It’s almost always overpowered garbage.
I’d recommend that you talk to the player about what exactly is the fantasy they are looking for.
The D&D classes are primarily packages of mechanics for what a character does inside of combat. One does not cook during combat. Realistically, being a cook is more about how you roleplay outside of combat. They can pick whatever class they want, as long as they support the cook fantasy with their other choices.
You could maybe work with the player to come up with a custom background and have them use the “Chef” feat from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything as the background bonus, which is only mechanical support you will find for being a cook in 5e.
If your player wants to be Senshi from Delicious in Dungeon, they are going to have a bad time. There are simply no mechanics to support that much cooking. Nutrition isn’t modelled in D&D, there isn’t a monster harvesting system, every table I’ve ever played at forgets to even mark off rations during rests. You could homebrew a whole new mechanic for food, but this would be a big effort and may be hard to balance in a way that’s fun for everyone at the table.
Don’t be afraid to tell the player “no” if you don’t think D&D is the right game to achieve the fantasy they want. It’s better to rip that Band-Aid off quickly rather than have the game system do it over several sessions.
Assuming this is 5e you have a few different options:
- Background: Guild Artisan (PHB), taking the proficiency in cook’s utensils and using the extra rules such as Prepare Meals from XGE
- Feat: Chef (TCE), a different way to get the cook’s utensils proficiency and it comes with some nice healing bonuses, make your race variant human (PHB) or custom lineage (TCE) to get this at level 1
- Class: Artificer (Alchemist) (TCE) - the artificer is all about re-flavouring spells as different things, potions can easily become magically-prepared food and drink
All simple options from “core” books, eat your fill!
I’d say to treat it like a profession and not a class. Like you would a Blacksmith or Barmaid.
Maybe there are some custom profession stuff available somewhere you can build off, but yeah, most of it would be flavor (pun intended).
Agreed.
If you want to do a custom class, take the stats of something that already exists and just flavor it as something new with a new name. Maybe a bard but their performances are cooking meals for people or something.
Maybe come up with a few homebrew spells for them that are cooking related (or something functionally identical to a spell, even if it isnt). Pick an existing spell that’s close to what you want and flavor it as food related and give it a new name.
Re flavoring spells seems like the easy way to go about this:
Acid arrow: marinate & tenderize!
Any fire spell: flambe!
Viscous mockery: IT’S RAW!
Mage hand: sous chef.
Or, think about it differently, like Sanji from one piece, where cooking is his thing, but he’s also a solid fighter. (That will not use knives or his hands to fight, those are for cooking)
Embrace the flavor. And by flavor, I mean change the theme of your character without changing the mechanics.
Is that a dagger or an incredibly sharp sushi knife? Is that a longsword or a butcher’s cleaver?
I personally have made this character as an artificer but you could do it as a rogue. A highly skilled chef who knows exactly how to cut (sneak attack). As an adventurer, you seek out new flavors and styles of cooking and aren’t affraid to try some dragon steaks, with harpy eggs, with a side of black ooze gelato.
Also there is a single feat that really helps push it.
