Smuggler 5e
On a rickety barge, you carried a hundred longswords in fish barrels right past the dock master's oblivious lackeys. You have paddled a riverboat filled with stolen elven wine under the gaze of the moon and sold it for twice its value in the morning. In your more charitable times, you have transported innocents out of war zones or helped guide herd animals to safety on the banks of a burning river.
Source: Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Tool Proficiencies: Vehicles (water)
Equipment: A fancy leather vest or a pair of leather boots, a set of common clothes, and a leather pouch with 15 gp
Features
Down Low: You are acquainted with a network of smugglers who are willing to help you out of tight situations. While in a particular town, city, or other similarly sized community (DM's discretion), you and your companions can stay for free in safe houses. Safe houses provide a poor lifestyle. While staying at a safe house, you can choose to keep your presence (and that of your companions) a secret.
Claim to Fame: Every smuggler has that one tale that sets them apart from common criminals. By wits, sailing skill, or a silver tongue, you lived to tell the story—and you tell it often. You can roll on the following table to determine your claim or choose one that best fits your character.
Claim to Fame Table
| d6 | Accomplishment |
|---|---|
| 1 | Spirit of the Whale. You smuggled stolen dwarven spirits in the body of a dead whale being pulled behind a fishing boat. When you delivered the goods, the corpse suddenly exploded, sending whale meat and whiskey bottles for half a mile. |
| 2 | Cart and Sword. You drove a cart filled with stolen art through the middle of a battlefield while singing sea shanties to confuse the combatants. |
| 3 | The Recruit. You enlisted in another nation's navy for the purpose of smuggling stolen jewels to a distant port. You attained a minor rank before disappearing from the navy and making your way here. |
| 4 | River of Shadows. Your riverboat accidentally slipped through the veil into the Shadowfell for several hours. While you were there, you sold some stolen dragonborn artifacts before returning to this plane and paddling home. |
| 5 | Gold-Hearted. You agreed to transport a family escaping a war. The baby began to cry at a checkpoint, and you gave the guards all your gold to let you pass. The family never found out about this gesture. |
| 6 | Playing Both Sides. You once smuggled crates of crossbow bolts and bundles of arrows, each destined for an opposing side in a regional war, at the same time. The buyers arrived within moments of each other but did not discover your trickery. |
Suggested Characteristics
In general, smugglers value survival, and then profit, above other things. One could be a part of a larger organization, or might run a small smuggling vessel of their own. Smugglers live the lies they have told, and they have a natural ability to recall all the falsehoods and half-truths they have ever spouted.
Smuggler Personality Traits
| d8 | Personality Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | I love being on the water but hate fishing. |
| 2 | I think of everything in terms of monetary value. |
| 3 | I never stop smiling. |
| 4 | Nothing rattles me; I have a lie for every occasion. |
| 5 | I love gold but won't cheat a friend. |
| 6 | I enjoy doing things others believe to be impossible. |
| 7 | I become wistful when I see the sun rise over the ocean. |
| 8 | I am no common criminal; I am a mastermind. |
Smuggler Ideals
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Wealth. Heaps of coins in a secure vault is all I dream of. (Any) |
| 2 | Smuggler's Code. I uphold the unwritten rules of the smugglers, who do not cheat one another or directly harm innocents. (Lawful) |
| 3 | All for a Coin. I'll do nearly anything if it means I turn a profit. (Evil) |
| 4 | Peace and Prosperity. I smuggle only to achieve a greater goal that benefits my community. (Good) |
| 5 | People. For all my many lies, I place a high value on friendship. (Any) |
| 6 | Daring. I am most happy when risking everything. (Any) |
Smuggler Bonds
| d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | My vessel was stolen from me, and I burn with the desire to recover it. |
| 2 | I intend to become the leader of the network of smugglers that I belong to. |
| 3 | I owe a debt that cannot be repaid in gold. |
| 4 | After one last job, I will retire from the business. |
| 5 | I was tricked by a fellow smuggler who stole something precious from me. I will find that thief. |
| 6 | I give most of my profits to a charitable cause, and I don't like to brag about it. |
Smuggler Flaws
| d6 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lying is reflexive, and I sometimes engage in it without realizing. |
| 2 | I tend to assess my relationships in terms of profit and loss. |
| 3 | I believe everyone has a price and am cynical toward those who present themselves as virtuous. |
| 4 | I struggle to trust the words of others. |
| 5 | Few people know the real me. |
| 6 | Though I act charming, I feel nothing for others and don't know what friendship is. |
Should You Be a Smuggler?
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
I mean- you could be already. In the Player’s Handbook, the Criminal background has a “Criminal Specialty” option, and included on that list is Smuggler. This background trades Stealth for Athletics and thieves’ tools for water vehicles while bringing practically nothing else to the table outside of a fun “Claim to Fame” table. I can’t figure out why this was printed.
Features: Down Low and Claim to Fame
Down Low is reminiscent of the Player’s Handbook background features- you know some people who can house you, and maybe a safehouse or two you can find in a pinch. It shares most of the problems with those, namely in that outside of your hometown, you’re not always going to benefit from it, nor will you often need safe houses.
Claim to Fame provides you with a rich, fantastical story your character may or may not have actually experienced. It tells a story from your past- it doesn’t empower that story to draw attention or anything, nor even does it affect how people view you like some other flavor features do. It doesn’t provide any mechanical benefit to your character whatsoever.
They are charming elements to add to your sheet, though, and I’d recommend taking these from here and incorporating their ideas into other characters with backgrounds that offer a bit more mechanical juice than this.
Skills
Atheltics and deception both are fantastic additions to a charismatic martial character, namely Paladins. Athletics is used all the time on characters with a high strength, including for grappling in combat. Oath of the Open Sea paladins seem like they’d fit right at home alongside this.
You do likely want a high charisma to maximize the effectiveness of Deception. A lot of social encounters tend to get warped by somebody with the highest social modifier, whether that be Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidation. By having a +2 to your Charisma, you can likely make yourself the default authority for Deception. Otherwise a bard or other social character with a +3 Charisma can be as Deceptive as you without even trying in the low tiers.
Other Proficiencies
Water vehicle proficiency sets you up to do things at sea. Its something you consider when you want to be part of a crew in a campaign dedicated to sailing. It may come up in long campaigns from time to time journeying all over the place, but shines brightest when paired with plundering as pirates or sailing into the unknown for glory and discovery.
Equipment
This might be the worst set of equipment I’ve ever seen background get- you get “fancy” boots or a “fancy” vest, common clothes, and 15 gp. As somebody whose job it is to smuggle things, it is a shame that you don’t get a crowbar or any other tools of the trade to start with.
Bonus Tables
While I do like the Claim to Fame table, the remaining tables leave me feeling like I just read the Charlatan or Criminal tables. None of these are particularly tied to the business of smuggling- they’re generic Sailor options like “I become wistful when I see the sun rise over the ocean” or generic criminal options like “I’ll do nearly anything if it means I’ll turn a profit.”
Having so many existing backgrounds that all do functionally what this offers leaves me wondering what the point of this is. What new characters get to exist that are specifically smugglers you couldn’t craft from a mix of the Sailor, Criminal, and Charlatan tables?
Closing Thoughts
Smugglers boil down to Criminals with Athletics and water vehicle proficiency. They don’t need to exist- the Criminal background does the job well enough at covering this identity. Still, at tables using the Player’s Handbook backgrounds planning on setting sail, I can see this being a side-grade to those other options and entirely fine. The moment you start working with modern backgrounds with feats, this will show itself to be pretty worthless by comparison.
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