Newb here. Requesting DM/Player feedback on my first 5e character. Could this work?

[Vos]

I am guessing this is the right forum. Mods feel free to ruthlessly move it as you will.

Let me preface by saying the last time I played DnD was more than a decade ago. I despaired at finding a group.
This place looks like a great opportunity. That said, I just made my first character. He is saved and I have him here in a nutshell. I always wanted to play a warlock and here is my chance.

What I would like: A review of my character by DMs/players. I think it is hard to go wrong with a warlock as there is not much to them. I would especially like a review of his pact, Its a little different. I wanted it to be ambiguous, it could be either or.

Sol Thraxis Warlock 1
Variant Male Human NG AC:14 Hits 11 Move 30
STR 10, DEX 16, CON 16, INT 13, WIS 11, CHA 18 (+1 went to CHA and DEX)
SKILLS: Arcana +3, Deception +6, Intimidation +6, Slight of Hand +5, and
Stealth +5 (bonus Var human)
Background: Charlatan. He considers himself reformed now, his alignment changed to NG, but his flaw is: he is still greedy.
FEAT: Spell Sniper. Double range, ignore cover, and extra attack Cantrip
Warlock patron: Great Old One
Abilities: Awakened Mind, talk to anyone 30’

Spells: Cantrips E Blast, Chilling Touch (bonus), and mage hand
1st Level: Hex, Tasha’s Hideous


Languages: Common, Draconian, Elven
Proficiencies: Light Armor, Simple Weapons, Disguise kit, Forgery kit
Equipment: Explorers kit, leather armor, marked cards, dagger, quarterstaff, signet ring of a fictional duke, a scale from a Golden dragon

Appearance: strikingly handsome. His studded leather is black with gold trim. A gold dragon is emblazoned on his left shoulder. He has nearly black hair and a well-trimmed beard, His eyes are a light brown flecked with gold, soon they will be golden.

THE PACT
Eons ago there lived a brilliant Gold dragon. It favored High elves and sired a line of Dragon sorcerers that persist to this day. The dragon reached great heights of power and achieved immortality, But it wanted more, it reached out for deity status...and failed.
~~ Now its moldering corpse lies floating on the Astral plane.
BUT. It is not dead yet

Greatly weakened, it can still reach out to those who would follow it. It will grand them power in exchange for dropping one of its golden scales in a place of power. Once the scale hits the floor it melts into it and disappears. afterwards another scale will appear in its follower's possession.

any number of places can be a place of power. a court room, a palace court yard, a temple (which is not defiled), even an evil temple cleared out by adventurers is a place of power. when enough dragon scales have been dropped, the golden dragon can reenter the world as an immortal living being again.

OR SO IT SAYS. The followers all believe the nameless golden dragon, but they have only seen it in dreams and visions. It could be an eldritch horror for all anyone knows. Still the dragon's followers are all of good alignment, and they truly believe that are accomplishing a great thing.
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Further I am thinking of taking the pact of the chain. The spirit familiar would be a Fey spirit (more playful) and thus it would appear different (because I cannot imagine a Celestial/Fey spirits willingly looking like fiendish familiars). The psuedo-dragon would seem like a mini gold dragon. The sprite would be female and charming like Tinkerbell, and the imp would look like this:
https://i.postimg.cc/5tHrTZSc/circe-by-black-falcon01-d72h58a-fullview.jpg
https://www.deviantart.com/black-falcon01/art/Circe-427422394
(that's my DA site and I commissioned the art) This is little Circe' my old 3.5 humonculous familiar.

So what do y'all think? Yeah or nay, any feedback will be helpful. I'm a newb and I know nothing of how this community ticks.

[LordEntrails]

Welcome back to D&D and welcome to FG :)

Well generally 5E specific stuff goes best in the 5E forum, but not really a problem its here (there you would get more eyes of people who are interested in 5e and not 'bother' those not.)

It all looks pretty interesting to me. I don't generally comment on stats because that depends on the DM.

I like the backstory and the patron info. Its good, interesting, and provides room for the DM to run it as written, or to twist the truth to their campaign. I do wonder about his background a bit (and his marked deck of cards!) and suspect their is a story of how he went from charlatan to warlock? That's the only thing as a DM I would want to know a bit more of.

[GavinRuneblade]

You may run into DMs who say "that's not what great old one means" but I'd be fine with it especially the possibility of it being a real monstrosity. Personally I love re-flavoring something and using the mechanics RAW. So should be fine there. The official rules say the relationship between a warlock and the patron is the same as between and apprentice and the master. But many DMs think that makes the patron too much of an NPC and gets in the way of the game's story. Still, don't be surprised if you find a DM who makes your patron much more active and vocal than your writeup suggests. The suggestion that there are more warlocks out there and they might have a network is fun. There's enough there for a DM to use it easily and not so much that it is hard to fit into a pre-existing setting or adventure. Overall, well done on the pact. One caution that people often get wrong about the great old one's telepathy: It only functions one way, they can hear you, but you cannot hear them. If you really wanted two-way telepathy check with your DM, odds are they used it two way anyways not knowing any better, or might be fine homeruling it. Again, just be aware you might find a DM who runs it RAW. Still, it is a potent ability especially with your background.

Not sure if you have Xanathar's guide, but have you looked at the pact of the undying? That might also fit your theme and pact very well, but the powers are very different.

Charlatan is a really fun background for warlocks but often you see it with the fiend where they are trying to be tempters. You are taking it in a very different direction, love the marked cards BTW, and that's interesting to me. I like it. It also is thematically fitting for the way your standing orders from your patron work, since you can use the skills to sneak or charm or bluff your way into places of power to drop scales.

Good spell choices from an optimization standpoint, but they are a little bit thematically all over the place. If you are going for being a controller-style caster (Tasha, chill touch, hex's debuff), why not focus on saving-throw spells which ignore cover without the feat? With spell sniper you only have eldritch blast that can benefit from it. Also, both Tasha's and Hex use concentration so you can only have one active at a time. That's no biggie right now at 1st level since you have 1 slot, but it becomes more of an issue as you level. Charm Person is almost as good control as Tasha's if used creatively, doesn't need concentration and has synergy with your charlatan background. Dissonant Whispers (the other bonus great old one spell) is another one that doesn't need concentration, works with hex, also might prevent at least 1 attack (enemy has to run) and has synergy with your telepathy. Just some thoughts, your choices are fine as I stated at the beginning. If your DM has Xanathar's Guide there are some better options than Chill Touch for your free spell sniper cantrip, but if not then you probably got the best one.

One caution on the race is that feats are an optional rule and some games don't allow them. So you might consider making a second version of the character with normal human just incase. My understanding is that most groups use feats, but I have seen a few that don't. Should be fine.

Your stats though might be a big problem. I'm sure you can find a DM who is ok with your stats, but I wouldn't be. I find it is best to either use the point-buy method, pick one of the standard arrays, or roll with the DM present.

[Vos]

Your stats though might be a big problem. I'm sure you can find a DM who is ok with your stats, but I wouldn't be. I find it is best to either use the point-buy method, pick one of the standard arrays, or roll with the DM present.
Thanks to both you and Lord Entrails for the review.
~~This is the first I heard of standard arrays. Where can I find them, please? I've been rolling the dice and I either get great stats or worthless stats. I had one roll where I had four 16's a 9 and a 10.

If you can point me to a standard array I would be really happy. They would fit with pretty much any campaign.

also, another newb question, please. How do I get the icons for the picture in my character profile?
do I need to buy something?
thanks.

[GavinRuneblade]

Thanks to both you and Lord Entrails for the review.
~~This is the first I heard of standard arrays. Where can I find them, please? I've been rolling the dice and I either get great stats or worthless stats. I had one roll where I had four 16's a 9 and a 10.

If you can point me to a standard array I would be really happy. They would fit with pretty much any campaign.

also, another newb question, please. How do I get the icons for the picture in my character profile?
do I need to buy something?
thanks.

The "standard array" is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. It got the name because it is used by the Adventurer's League for organized play. There were two other sample sets of stats included in the PHB, which sometimes also get called "standard array" as a result but people don't use them anywhere near as often: 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 and 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12.

Every possible legal set of stats (https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2epkdi/5e_here_is_a_complete_list_of_valid_ability_score/) is found in this reddit post. The rules for point-buy are in the Players Handbook and can be found here online (https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/step-by-step-characters#3DetermineAbilityScores).

My favorite point buy calculator is here (https://chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html), but there are many others I'm sure some are better.

If you aren't familiar with it, the Adventurer's League (https://dndadventurersleague.org/) is organized play designed for any table. Meaning you can go from one game to another with the same character and everyone knows your character is legit. You can find their character creation guide here (https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/ALPGv82.pdf). Note that most games are less strict than the Adventurer's League. ^.^ I only offer it as a way to compare your character to something designed to work if you joined a random game at a convention.

As for the character profile, I assume that you mean on the front page of your character sheet inside fantasy grounds? You don't need to buy anything. For that, you click on the square where the portrait goes. A popup opens with all the available portraits. Near the top is a button marked "folder" open that and you get the folder where images are stored. Drag and drop any image (not more than 200x200 pixels is recommended and if it isn't square you'll get ugly distortion as it stretches until it is square) into that folder to make it appear in the list of choices.

[Vos]

That standard array looks great! I could work with that. Thank you very much!