Let’s Play D&D With ‘The Suicide Squad’
This week we’re collecting our weirdest friends and figuring out how to add part of the Suicide Squad to our next D&D campaign.
Suicide Squad comes out this weekend, and we’re all pretty excited to see what this pseudo-kind-of-not-really remake of the first one brings to the table. With a colorful cast of DC Comics carnies taking the helm and the “I didn’t pay attention” energy that every DM is familiar with, these characters are almost too perfect for D&D campaign. Way back in the before-times when movies were always released in theaters, we made a sheet for Harley Quinn, so let’s come back with a few more members of the crew for your next D&D adventure.
King Shark
The hardest part about King Shark was figuring out what D&D race he’d best fit into. For a little while, I’d considered putting a custom spin on Half-Orc or Triton or maybe even Leonin, but none of that felt right. I don’t like to homebrew these sheets too much if I can avoid it, but there didn’t seem to be a race for shark men. I opted for Simic Hybrid; magic fused life forms combining humanoid subjects with magically transferred animal traits? It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough for D&D. That also gave me the opportunity to take an increased Constitution, Underwater Adaptation, and Carapace for another boost to AC. All things that are important to King Shark’s invulnerability and aquatic abilities.
Easiest to determine was his class, King Shark is a Barbarian across the board except for maybe in the Harley Quinn animated series where he may duel class as a bard. But this version? Barbarian all the way. Path of the Beast let me give him some more primal attacks like bite and claws, and we had a completely functional King Shark. Is he smart? Not really. Does he need to be, though? Really the worst thing about this sheet is how straightforward he is.
Polka-Dot Man
Let’s see a show of hands if you forgot this character even existed before Suicide Squad reminded you.
There’s a line to walk with this character between wanting to make a somewhat playable sheet and accepting that to a 2021 eye, Polka-Dot Man is a laughable character. When you get down to the basics Abner Krill made a costume that allows him to throw polka-dots and make them do things – sort of like some super-archers trick arrows. It’s silly, sure, but so is D&D. I thought about accomplishing this with an artificer of some kind, but in the end I thought making the dots a magic element and arcane focus would be fun in a Dungeons and Dragons-y sort of way.
I made him absurdly low level and a little on the sadder side, but this is a character with room to grow and spells that would actually be useful in a low-level fight. I did my best to base the spells on various dots he’s actually created and used, but we’ll have to see how exactly he utilizes them when the movie is released this week.
Are you excited for Suicide Squad? What other members of the Squad would you like to see character sheets for? What movie, show, or game would you like to see sheets for in the future? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
