Class, Subclass, Ability Score

Building Sir Gawain in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

As always this week, I’ve decided to do something a little bit different. In class, we’re in the process of discussing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I’ve simply always loved King Arthur, the knights, and everything that comes along with that. I’ve been in love with fantastical stories since I was very young, and it should come as no surprise that I’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons for just as long. So! As a fun challenge for myself this week, I’ve decided to try to build Sir Gawain in D&D. I’ve gone with 5th Edition here, as it is the most recent, however if you’d like to try this on your own, I’d recommend perhaps 3.5 or Pathfinder, as the customization options really get kind of ridiculous, and might allow you to build out a more fleshed-out version of this character.

I’ll be explaining my choices along the way, so that hopefully by the end of it, you’ll see why I believe these things about Sir Gawain, and how the text should (again, hopefully) back up my decision.

If you disagree, though, I’d love to see what you suggest in the comments, or perhaps how you’d build The Green Knight himself!

Anyway, let’s get started!

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(I can’t help but imagine the fictional nerdy high-schooler printing out this art and keeping it in their binder alongside their character sheet)

Name: Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table

Level: 5 (There’s no real reason for this number, but its was a good starting place with lots of options!)

Race: Human, non-variant. He’s made of that good old classic chivalrous stuff.

Alignment: Neutral Good. Listen. I know there’s an argument to be made here for Lawful Good, considering how devoted he is to King Arthur, but I think Neutral suits him better. Lawful Good, while it makes sense, would typically lean him away from lying to help save his hide. Our man is good through and through, but on the rare occasion he can twist a rule or two, as long as the outcome is still beneficial to him and his kingdom.

Hit points: 72

Strength: 20 (We know he’s strong. No one without even a decent modicum of strength could cut off someone’s head in one blow.)

Dexterity: 15 (I’m considering him above-average dextrous, because he is a knight.)

Constitution: 17 (Constitution here is again, pretty standard for a paladin and a knight of his time.)

Intelligence: 14 (Our man is pretty book-smart, he knows how to be chivalrous and he knows the rules he needs to follow.)

Wisdom: 10 (While he has some intelligence, I think his wisdom fails him. You might be inclined to argue, but hear me out, okay? Cutting The Green Knight’s head off was a ridiculously stupid move. This mythological creature shows up at your holiday party telling you that he’ll deal you the same blow in a year and a day, and you go straight for the head? Gawain, please. Obviously he was going to be able to come back from that!)

Charisma: 10 (Listen. Listen. This man has no rizz. I know it’s working against us because I’m building a paladin, but I believe this. While he’s chivalrous, and I would listen to and respect a higher charisma argument, I firmly believe that this man has no idea how to talk to a woman.)

Background: Noble. I felt like this was obvious, considering Gawain is, in the canon, literally King Arthur’s nephew. This gives us proficiency in skills related to History and Persuasion, and with a charisma that low, he’ll need something to up that persuasion to convince the Lord to believe him with those kisses.

In lieu of ability score increases, I’ve chosen to go with a feat instead. I’ve specifically picked the tough feat, because as I said before, he’s a knight. He’s built of firmer stuff.

Skill Proficiencies: Of the ones available for a paladin, I chose Religion and Athletics. (The others were Insight, Intimidation, and Medicine). I think that Religion was important here, again because of the imagery on his shield, and Athletics helps with the believability that he was, again, able to cut off someone’s head in one blow.

For his base class I decided Paladin. Maybe there are other options for other versions of Gawain, but the mix of magic and fighting, while ultimately being a devoted tank made sense to me.

Fighting Style: This was a tough one, I’ll admit. Eventually, I did go with protection, which allows our man to protect the people around him using his shield, and impose disadvantage on certain attacks. This felt right to me. I didn’t want to go defensive, because he sits down and accepts the blow with grace, but an argument could have been made for great weapon fighting.

Subclass: Oath of Devotion. Some would argue that he’s perhaps Oath of the Ancients, due to his affinity towards nature. I considered this for a bit, but then I ultimately decided against it. Listen, okay. If you were building The Green Knight as a playable character, then I’d pick Oath of the Ancients for that guy (however, I’m against the idea of him as a playable character and firmly believe he should remain a stat block due to his mythical status.) Gawain is, first and foremost, loyal to King Arthur. He follows through on his promise to find the Green Chapel, he agrees to participate in the game, and he is utterly devoted to his honesty and truth. Ancients is cool, I agree, and if you wanted to take that route you could, but to me, he’s a devoted man through and through.

Spells: Being Oath of Devotion, he already has access to Protection from Evil and Good, Sanctuary, Lesser Restoration, and Zone of Truth (funny, considering who we’re talking about). But! I also get to select two more, being that I’ve put him at 5th level. For the first, I’ve selected Heroism, which allows you to become immune to being frightened (and gain temporary hit points!) and I’ve also selected Magic Weapon, which allows you to imbue weapons with magical power. I feel that this works perfectly with that greataxe our Gawain will use (especially if we consider The Green Knight to be a Fae creature.) He’ll need the magic boost, and, as I discussed above, I think maybe his lack of wisdom could keep him from being frightened at times.

Other equipment: A shield, duh. It’s got a gorgeous painting of the Virgin Mary on the back of it, don’t you think? And with that protection fighting style, we can really use it to defend our kingdom. On top of that, Sir Gawain uses a greataxe, at least in this iteration of his story.

This is where our character building ends, at least for right now. Honestly, aside from the low charisma, which isn’t beneficial for a paladin, I’m actually quite thrilled with how this character turned out. I think that if I had the time, I might go in and build him at an even higher level, allowing me to flesh out some more details and some more things that make Gawain, well…himself.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I hope you’ve found it as interesting as I did. This week, I’ll leave you with the link to D&D Beyond’s New Player Guide, so that maybe you could check it out for yourself, if it interests you!