Solasta is an incredibly faithful recreation of the 5th edition rule set. And I absolutely love it. I've played the main campaign, all the DLC, and a fan made recreation of the temple of elemental evil.
The rule implementation is fairly strict, especially when compared with BG3. Can't be casting somatic component spells with something in your off hand. Your wizard spell book is something that you can accidentally sell (oops). Need to attune those magic items. But I find it all pretty fun and I felt like I actually learned more of the D&D rules.
The cutscenes and dialogue animations are... actually comically bad. But I like the idea behind the way scenes work. Basically you set your character's personality at the start of the game and then they automatically speak according to that. Some of dialogue is hilarious. Some of it is even internally hilarious.
But what really shines are the encounters and campaign design. The encounters are all very fun and well designed, there's a fair amount of verticality and environment interaction. Each encounter feels like it could plausibly be part of an an actual tabletop adventure. And the overall story also feels like something that your friend would come up for his homebrew world. It lacks the style and polish of BG3 but makes up for it with authenticity and heart.
Assist
Solasta is the closest I've ever felt to playing dungeons and dragons in a video game and I would highly recommend checking out the base game at least.
Been playing Baldur’s Gate 3. Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a lot of fun and the game is polished and great. But I miss solasta for how close it is to 5e rules implementation and how clear and concise the mechanics are. (It draws predictive line of sight for you as you consider where to move). I’ll be going back to solasta for more custom campaigns (and the UB Mod) when I’m done with BG3.
He has no experiance in ever fighting anyone or anything.
Don’t forget your character should have a reason to be with the group and fit with them and go adventuring. Not knowing how to fight is commoner-levels of skills and will force rapid character progression from the start.
He has no experiance in ever fighting anyone or anything
Nooooope! He can fight. You’re an adventurer. Maybe you come from humble roots, but you are now a roaming mercenary who fights for money (and maybe a few other things). Make sure you can work with the rest of the party. Make sure you bring value to the group both in and out of a fight.
As for the character concept…
in a world with bards, there had to be critics too, right? So this character had a weekly column in some newsletters published from town to town (is that a thing?) and developed a reputation for being a snob. He barely ever hands out a score higher than 6 out of 10.
His only real talent seems to be intuitive analysis and articulate critique - skills that have helped him at what he does…
College of Eloquence Bard. Just don’t play him elequent. Instead, use his great powers for “evil” (not literal evil). To tear down the art of others and crush the confidence of his enemies into dust.
When Giants attack, he makes them feel small.
When Gods rage, he gives a solid, “meh…6/10. I’ve seen better.”
By “bad” riddles, do you mean riddles that are so blatantly obvious that they’re basically no-brainers? Or rather something like bad puns? Does the riddle itself need to end up in praise for the sphynx, in some “who is the goodest boy in the room” sytle?
A bad riddle being something stupid or overly simplistic but with a different answer or overwrought.
The creature doesn’t know it wants to be praised for the riddles it makes. It believes it is very clever and isn’t. Even if they guess the right answer it would only get angry and deny they got it.
But I also don’t want the players to waste too much time thinking of riddle answers that will never go anywhere. It’s supposed to be funny
“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs midday, and three legs in the evening?” “A dog.” (Because it always walks on 4 legs, which means it also is walking on 2 and 3 legs)
This is a twist on the classic riddle of the sphinx. The actual correct answer is “man”/“mankind”.
Edit: Also, he could claim the answer is specifically “a dog” he will not accept any other 4 legged animal as an answer. If the players insist that, say, “a cat” or “a sphinx” are also valid answers for the exact same reasons, he could be really condescending and belittle them by insisting that they just don’t get it. He could insist that it’s understandable they don’t get it because “It’s a really tough one. A real thinker.”
Honestly it sounds like the riddles may be clever, but the creature simply thinks the correct answer is wrong. Like “what has four legs in the morning, 2 legs in the afternoon, and 3 at night?” The answer is a person, but maybe the creature says it is another creature that operates literally on this premise. Or it presents the riddle about the head that lies and the head that speaks truth, and has a totally different idea on how the riddle is actually solved, much to the chagrin of your players who are, hopefully, smarter.
“Say my name and you break me. What am I?” “A child named ‘nobody loves you’!”
The answer to this riddle is “silence”, because saying the word “silence” will also break the silence. Obviously the less clever/funny version is about emotional harm to children.
So this creature likes to imagine himself a sphinx? I would just give simple riddles, and have it get frustrated if they say the riddle is too easy. Then hit them with a harder one and when they say that it’s harder, have it be pleased.
“Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?” “Because they both start with ‘R’.”
This is Lewis Carroll’s classic riddle the Mad Hatter asks to Alice in her titular Adventures in Wonderland. Interestingly, it is never answered in the story and was intended to be a nonsensical riddle that would have no answer. But Carroll did give a fun and clever answer later after years of people asking him. His answer was “Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!” Other writers have suggested clever meta answers as well, such as “Poe wrote on both,” and “Because there is a ‘b’ in both and an ‘n’ in neither.” I like to think that your fake sphinx would both be not very imaginative in his answer, and also clearly a poor speller.
You could give ambiguous riddles, and hint at the trick by having the creature get flustered and angry when someone provides an answer that is correct but not the expected answer.
Like “I am a key that opens no door.”
There’s monkey, donkey, turkey, piano key, musical key, whiskey, malarkey, lackey, jockey, computer key, keystone, typewriter key, and probably some more that they will think of.
There are a bunch of riddles that can be made more ambiguous by leaving out one of the lines. Getting the riddle wrong could also be a hint that the creature is not as clever as he thinks.
There’s also the riddle my grandfather like to tell.
What is red, you hang it on a clothesline, and it has four legs?
A fish!
But a fish isn’t red! (Well, you could paint it red and then it would be)
You don’t hang fish on clotheslines (It’s mine, I can do what I want with it)
Fish don’t have four legs!! (Yeah, I threw that in there because I didn’t want the answer to be too obvious.)
Make sure the players understand that it’s not just you who is the idiot.
“You are driving a carriage. The carriage is empty when you begin your route. In the morning, you bring 2 merchants to an auction. In the afternoon, you take 3 farmers to the market. In the evening, you bring a noble to a ball. What color are the driver’s eyes?”
The creature was told this riddle by someone else, and misunderstood the answer: when the creature was “the driver,” the answer was “purple,” because its eyes are purple. It still believes the answer is “purple,” even though the players’ eyes are not purple.
“A man is sentenced to death. He has to choose from three rooms to receive his punishment. The first room has a firing squad holding fully charged Wands of Magic Missile. The second room is full of deadly poison. The third room is full of bulettes that haven’t eaten for six months. Which room should he choose?”
The creature believes the answer is the second room, because it is immune to poison. It does not understand that bulettes feed constantly, so a bulette that hasn’t eaten in 6 months would be dead, and refuses to grasp the answer no matter how many times it’s explained.
@DoctorTYVM
I did this last month with an idiot shiftless Hieracosphinx reluctantly guarding a treasure, and just had him ask the dumbest possible riddles in the most pompous and self-satisfied tone:
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” To get to the other side.
“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” The egg. But he will argue.
“What is the difference between a duck?” One of its legs are both the same.
“What's got two wings and is going to eat you?” Point at the sky behind him and shout “That thing?!”
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