What this? Have I lost my mind in the holiday festivities? You’ll be mostly right. But you see, I made a Twitter poll last month asking the community on what class would best suit Santa Claus.

Twitter Poll

So a whooping 41% chose Bard! I was originally hoping for Wizard or Cleric but I liked the challenge presented and decided to have at it. I had several comments directed that Santa Claus should be the Paladin of Christmas Spirit, indeed he does possess many noble qualities that befit a divine champion. But I also valued the whimsical nature of Saint Nicholas and the good cheer he brought to all people. I even considered multiclassing Santa at one point but opted out of it for the integrity of the poll. It was a lot of fun writing the full Bard class in stat form up to level 20 (I mean we all know Santa is up there in epic tier). Sure I added some extra abilities, maybe gave Santa some artifacts, but I thought I did my best to uphold the source material for Santa Claus.

Now you may be asking, which version of Santa am I utilizing as my reference material? Why does it matter? Well, depending on which part of the world (mostly Europe) you hail from, Santa Claus is somewhat different. Santa has a lot of Viking and Norse background as he is often associated with Odin. So I wanted to keep some combat prowess there. As for base race, I went for the fey-ish route so Half-Elf was an option that appealed to me. Most origin stories of Santa have him as a full fledged human that was raised often by elves or fey. To satisfy both the stats and some play on the story, I considered Half-Elf to be happy medium.

I’m not going to lie, Rise of the Guardians was a huge inspiration and aided in the direction I wanted to take my rendition of Santa. So I added dual wielding scimitars (hey if a dark elf chaotic good ranger can do it, why not Santa?). Instead of a panther, Santa has eight celestial reindeer and a magic sleigh! The choice of which Bard College was a tough choice. If I had wanted to keep in line with the Viking traditions that Santa originally began from, the obvious choice would have been College of Valor. But instead, I opted for a Santa that was i in tune with Saint Nicholas of Myra (who was the patron saint of many things, namely children), this Saint Nick studied much in his younger years before becoming a bishop. I wanted to offset the Bard’s spells with things that gave magical oomph so to speak. So College of Lore fit the bill very nicely. With 8 spells from any class, it opened up alot more variety and options for the build, I mean think about it: a Santa that can cast Wish? Heck ya, Christmas miracle!

Alright without further adieu!Santa Claus Statblock MM

Let’s forget the Equipment!

Artifacts of Christmas

Happy Holidays to everyone! We won’t have any other posts next week due to holiday other than the Adventures of Team BAJA.

Update: Don’t forget to check out Santa Claus as a Wizard, click here!

Update: You can now get your own copy of this Santa Claus as a PDF as a Pay What You Want on DriveThruRPG, just click the link here.

Update: We have two versions of Santa Claus as a Warlock, click here!

Update: Witness the divine might of the Wonderwarrior Cleric/Paladin build for Santa Claus, click here.

Update: Welcome the arrival of the Shepard of Joy Druid/Paladin build for Santa Claus, click here.

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