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View Full Version : My Favourite Characters [Any version/RP]



Baalthazaq
2009-05-25, 09:08 AM
I just put up (after about a year of considering it) my name in the player registry. See here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6151519&postcount=1054).

I've changed the format a bit because I'm not just looking for a game. I'm looking for somewhere I can play the 4 or 5 characters I'm really itching to play somewhere, and saying as I've been DMing 75% of our 3.5 games and everyone else seems to want to DM WHFRP/WH40K/4.0/Runequest/WoD it doesn't look like I'm going to get the chance any time soon.

So, reason for this thread is twofold.

1) Shameless self promotion. (Any DMs out there? Hello?)
2) Advice on how I could improve the characters (either storywise, or mechanics wise, or in any other way. with roleplaying being the main focus, not optimization. I know Ultimate Magus may be sub par, but it fits well with who the character is).
3) Promoting other people. Does anyone have any characters they're dying to try out? Something a little bit of a break from the norm? Have DMs just been turning you down for some reason? Is your at home group just not doing the game you want to put him in?

Anyway, here are my characters for those of you too lazy to click the link.
Warning Wall of texts ahead, especially with Lomax.

Baharai Brittlewisp: Gnome Master Illusionist. Build at level 20:Several variants: Chain of Disbelief + Illusion Mastery + Focused Specialist Illusionist + Gnome Illusionist Wizard + Master Specialist (Illusion). Can you guess what I'm going for here?

Feats: Dazzling Illusions, Deceptive Spell, Invisible Spell, Face Changer, Dimensional Reach, Dimensional Jaunt, Spell Focus(Illusion)Backstory:A little vanilla, but therefore fits any setting. Baharai has recently retired from a life of academia to branch out on his own, feeling he could learn more with a practical approach than an academic one. He is currently working on his book "Illusions of Grandeur: How to make the most underestimated school of magic work for you".
Campaign Type:Tiny bit of comedy, but not slapstick. The character will likely be making light of serious situations, but not a constant assault of metagamey/Monty Python jokes. Any level could work for this character. The lower thelevel, the earlier he left academia, no biggy.
Anything else:I'd really like to have Cityscape Okayed for this character for the deceptive and invisible spell feats. RoS for Gnome Illusionist, otherwise I'll take shadow shaper.

Lomax Constantine: Lawful Good Hellborn Cleric of Levistus, Lord of the 5th Circle of Hell Build at level 20:Domain Caster Cleric (10) + Contemplative (10). Domains are Truth, Trickery, Cold.
Feats: Not sure yet, but taking alot from the Fiendish Codex II.Backstory:After years of losing cases he should have won, Lomax, an adjudicator of the courts, finally started to realize that part of being an adjudicator wasn't just knowing the law and applying it. All the others knew to blur the lines, how to use the system and get around the laws they needed to get around.

Disheartened, he didn't pay enough attention to notice it was devils that came to him and advised him. He'd watched too many innocent clients be convicted and too many guilty defendants go free, when the law should have protected them. None of the other adjudicators respected the law, they did nothing like the book like he did, and the devils confirmed it. He'd have to protect the law to protect his clients, and that meant fighting their deceptions with their own tactics.

Then he started winning. He was determined to defend the law – the other adjudicators were the enemies, they subverted the law for their own agendas, Lomax did it to protect the law itself. No other agenda. He was doing the right thing, because the law would protect the innocent and punish the guilty. It wasn't up to him to determine that, it was up to the law, and eventually he stopped even looking at who was guilty or innocent.

When contracts started to come in, more and more as news of his success spread, he didn't really notice a pattern. One of particular note slipped past him. A contract with some other adjudicators to "take some of their cases time to time". Lomax regarded it as a sign that his career was turning around. He didn't know the one who offered it was an agent of Levistus, even though he read the carefully worded contract.

In return, Lomax would be trained at a "more advanced" institution. There was no mention of Levistus, even though in hindsight it was he who was pulling the strings. Lomax jumped too quickly at the chance, anything to help him defend the law better.

He'd never been destitute in his job, but when he doubled the amount of money he was making, then quadrupled, he took it as a sign his career was finally on the right track. He made sure everyone knew it too, spending it on every status symbol he could and dressing to outdo the other adjudicators. All of it was a sign he was protecting the law, and doing it well.

He worked hard at it too, working long hours, and coming home late at night. The nights were always safe in this town too. Or at least they had been. Lomax didn't notice that things were changing. He didn't notice he was changing them.

Walking home after another late night, Lomax found himself face to face with a former client. At first he thought the client just wanted to see him, after all, he'd gotten the poor man off of a murder charge, the man had no grudge with him. This was small comfort when Lomax was fending off five attackers with only his document bag. Before his thoughts caught up with the pain searing up his side, his vision darkened and the world started to fade.

As the world around him started to fade, he looked up from his dark alley into the light; A woman and child trying to make it home before curfew; His killer's eyes focused on the same spot.

"I'm sorry" Half aloud, half whispered into the black as he fell.

"I'm sorry!" He grasped for something to hold on to, the pain between his ribs intensifying to a ball of fire. "Leave her alone!" The fire dragged him down and consumed his vision, the world fading into bright white light of the flames.
Pain, and fire. Out of the tongues of flame came letters, then words. The words of the contract he had signed. The entire document, bright as sunspots against his eyelids. His soul was no longer his. He'd sold his soul, but to who? It slipped away, and he was left with nothing but the contract seared in his memory, the coal-burning fury in his gut at all the injustice he'd helped cause.

The pain contorted him, melded him into a new shape, and the world came back into focus around him. But no, not the world. The Hells. The Nine Hells. He breathed, saw a forked tongue flick out of his mouth in front of him. Frozen air crackled between his fanged teeth as it spilled out into the burning hot air of the hell. A smaller pain, but more pervasive this time, rippled along his skin, cracking it with the heat and cold.

Who had put him here? He would make them pay for this. No, the justice in that would be shallow. He would find a way to get back, to make right the injustices he'd committed. He'd bring down this hell, he'd bring down the corruptors of this place, and the soul trade that had brought him here, no one else would be duped into coming here, not that way. Not any way.

He glared around at the hell surrounding him. There was still no way to tell who had put him here. He closed his eyes a moment and recalled the contract, seared into his memory as it was, with the trickiest most subtle clauses burning the brightest. No, there was no way to tell who had put him here.

Fury at the hell surrounding him bubbled over. He lashed out at the nearest devil that came to taunt the new arrivals.

Caught off guard by the newcomer, the scraggly devil remained pinned beneath Lomax's hell-scorched hands, and cried out.
"You." Lomax's voice was unfamiliar to him, frozen and scratchy. "Who put me here?"
"N-nobody?" It squirmed but couldn't get free. "Let go of me, save it for the demons or so–"
"Who put me here!"
It flinched. "Levistus. Who else did you think it was? Now let me go before–"
He shoved the devil back against the scalding ground beneath them. "Where is Levistus?"
"You're insane, you belong here same as the rest of us, just get used–"
"Where is Levistus."
"Alright! Calm down, he's in Stygia, where else would he be? But you know you don't have anything to bargain with anymore, what do you think you're going to do? So he tricked you, big deal, you're here now, nothing to do about it, right?"
Wrong. Lomax new the laws these devils were bound by, and he also knew if it was Levistus who had tricked him, Levistus he could bargain with. Not with his soul, or even for his soul. But to bring down hell, Levistus was the perfect one to use against Asmodeus and all the others.

Lomax let the little devil up, and stood back to consider. This soul trade would stop. The law could still be protected, and the innocents, too. He'd lost sight of that half of it, but he wouldn't again. And he'd use the law the devils were bound by and get Levistus to help him. Levistus had empowered him once, and would again.
"Get up," he said to the cringing devil. "Do you know how to get to Stygia?"
"Wh– Um. Yeah, but look, you have a torture wish or something?"
Lomax drew himself up to his full height. "Then take me."

The devil got to its feet, watching him like a runt watches the pack leader. "You know if we go down there we'll get ourselves in worse pain than we are here, and that's not even counting everything between here and there. Stix, Avernus, Dis, Phlegthos, do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"Yes." Lomax swiped at the devil, knocking him down again, but not pinning him. "Now take me."
The devil took him.
Levels of hell later, Lomax's resolve hadn't flagged off at all, and instead hardened into a plan. A deal. How to fight hell with the help of a devil.
"Um, okay, this is Stygia..." the little devil said, one of the first things he'd said in a long time after learning that Lomax didn't much care for his attempts at dissuading, mocking, or advising him. "I'll just, um, hand you over to one of our superiors how about, and you can talk to them about getting to see Levistus..."

"Now now. Never too busy to see a customer." a voice behind them said.
Lomax turned, unphased by the fear the voice tried to instill. "Levistus, I take it."
An Aspect of Levistus loomed over him, a cold grin discernible somewhere over his pointed teeth. "As long as you aren't here to repent. You've no idea how tiresome that gets. Have something else to waste my time with?"
"I'm here to make a deal." Lomax ignored the much deeper threat in Levistus' voice.
"One I can't possibly refuse?" The devil laughed, then took a swipe at Lomax, too quick and unexpected for him to evade.
Lomax sprawled on the ice, shocked all the same by the pain of having his gut sliced open.
"You've nothing to bargain with, we had a deal and I have your soul. Don't think your petty last minute repentance gets you that back. And now I have another plaything, it seems, but do try not to wary me with threats and repentance and cries of unfairness, really, that's unspeakably dull."

"I'm going to write a contract, you are going to shut your mouth and sign it" Levistus stepped closer and unsheathed his rapier, ready to end him. "I'm here to offer you your freedom," Lomax forced out, determined not to show weakness. He glared up at the figure over him. "I don't want revenge, or justice for myself, or even my soul. You empowered me once, and you will again. You're trapped here, Asmodeus screwed you like you screwed me, but I can free you."
"And why would you want to do that?"
"So you are interested. A new contract then? On my terms?"
"I'll have my people look it over when you're done."

*****************

Effectively Levistus is the lesser of two evils. In a choice between Asmodeus and Levistus, you want Levistus every time. Lomax wants to restart the war in hell, cripple it, and end the soul trade. To this end he has made a deal with Levistus to empower him to do so. Levistus gets the possibility of his freedom. Lomax gets the power to make a difference. Neither are aware of the other's entire plan.

Lawful Good character, fighting hell in the only way he knows how. Deals.
Campaign Type:Any level, but obviously for Lomax to reach his ultimate goal it is likely he'll need to reach epic levels. Obviously a certain level of consistency with DnD lore is required for this character to make some sense.
Anything else:I require the DM agree he is borderline Good. It is perfectly understandable that some would disagree but I don't want to have to debate alignment subtleties every session. I'm looking for a DM who likes the character and will let me play it as a good guy. I'd prefer lawful, but I'm perfectly happy playing him as Neutral or even Chaotic Good.

It is perfectly reasaonable for the DM to determine that what he is doing does not constitute a good or lawful act, or not one worthy of redeeming his soul. That to me is separate from the character believing it is. He is trying to make up for past deeds by ending hell. I don't (as a player) actually care what the DM determines the act is. The player will still believe it is good.

Finally, I'd like (at least) one of the Gods to agree with my character's position. Assuming a cosmology with many gods of every alignment all with conflicting opinions, I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation that one of them agrees with what I'm trying to do, especially considering Heironeous actually tried to storm the gates of Hell back in the day according to the FCII. I'm tired of campaigns where all the gods, no matter their portfolio/alignment/philosophy all agree with the DM's perspective on morality for some reason.

I know I'm being really fussy here, but I really like this character, and I want to get to play him properly. He is the only character I really don't want to compromise on. I hope nobody finds this insulting, I likely respect your opinion on the matters, but this character I think really works best in a specific environment, and I want to do it justice.

Other than that, I need Fiendish Codex II to be allowed (obviously), and I would like the spell "grease" to be moved into the cold domain as a spell that basically makes things "icy" rather than "greasy" but I can live without that too.



Omistopher Carma'il: Wizard "Master Generalist" developing his own school of magic.Build at level 20:Likely Spellthief(1), Arcane Reabsorbtion Wizard(6), Ultimate Magus(10), Archmage(3).
Making me effectively Spellthief 11, Wizard 16 at level 20 with a Caster level of 31.
Epic progression: After level 20, I'll simply take 1 more level of archmage, and from then on all levels will be Spellthief. This should simultaneously get me 9th and 10th level spells, and represent my final "breakthrough" in understanding magic. After that the Spellthief feats should serve as me developing my magic beyong the ken of normal mortals.

Important feats: Master Spellthief. Other than that I'd like to take a single homebrewed version of Spell Focus explained below. Everything else is metamagic and requirements for prestige classes.
Backstory:Magic never really made sense to Omistopher. The schools especially. "Magic jar is Necromancy while trap the soul is Conjuration? Why?"

He spent his time in Academia arguing with his professors until he was convinced they had nothing more to teach him. Any more would just sully his view on the true nature of magic, and off he went to research on his own.

So far the truth in magic has only just begun to reveal itself, but day by day, he feels he gets closer to an answer. What is magic really?
Campaign Type:Any campaign, of any level, though I'm hoping to go from low levels and make my way up to Epic levels where starting my own school will become a reality.
Anything else:I'd like spell compendium okayed. I'll ask for spells and whatnot individually though so you can vet them.
One thing I really would like though is for a modified version of Spell Focus, where instead of choosing a school, I roll a D8 when casting a spell, and on an 8, the DC is increased by 1. (This should give me 1 in 8 spells that are at +1 DC, so extremely similar in power to regular spell focus). I also wish to take it at least twice. Either giving me 2D8 (and a small chance of getting +2), or letting both 7 and 8 be considered a success (this again makes it mathematically identical to regular spell focus). I really don't want to make a specialist you see, and this lets me take spell focus (a requirement for certain Prestiges I want), whilst giving me a mathematically identical (or at least exceptionally similar) effect.

Tweaser Seeds: Kender SpellthiefBuild at level 20:Simple Spellthief Build. 3 Levels of Focused Specialist Abjurant Jaunt Conjurer maybe, cutting out the spellschools STheives can't have. Maybe some Arcane Trickster.
Backstory:I like the idea of the Kender in that some things are communal. He is likely to know by now that other races regard things differently, but Magic is another matter. No-one owns Magic. No one can own magic. No one should own magic. He views Wizards with disdain and dislikes them for trying to "imprison" it. Ironically he sees them as theives, stealing from the communal source.
Campaign Type:Any level again, this is mostly a "just for fun" character, but some nice roleplaying potential. Not going to go overboard stealing from party members or doing any stereotypically Kender things. I just like the concept.
Anything else:Nothing really to say here. I can change the Kender stat wise to a halfling without any problems, but the culture is important. I'm also willing to go more pure spellthief if you don't like the multiclassing aspect, I just want a more rounded low level portfolio.

House: Construct(Warforge) artificer in love with the Dryad he serves.Build at level 20:Simple warforge artificer, maybe 1 level of fighter at first level. Leadership feat.
Backstory:House is a Construct Artificer that is effectively the servant of my Cohort.

A gnomish artificer had made me after accidentally cutting down the dryad's tree. The gnome spent his life trying to make it up to the dryad by building her a new home to replace her own and whatnot.

The gnome grew to love the dryad after a time, and was saddened by the sense that she never forgave him.

The dryad was impressed by the gnome, and slowly grew to love him too. Being fey, she adored being doted on, but being fey she never told the gnome she loved him or that she forgave him, for fear he would leave. She didn't notice he was growing old, and she didn't realize he was dying.

The gnome realizing his time was coming to an end built the warforge out of ironwood, and made it's heart from the Dryads fallen tree. It's only command was to give the dryad what she truly wanted to be happy.

The construct started plain but over time shrunk in stature, the heart guiding his shifts. A green bushy beard has grown around his chin, and a little pot belly that would look odd on any other construct has sprouted.

Now the dryad loves him too but still stays silent, and the little gnomish construct artificer still makes her trinkets to show his affection, trying harder each day, though he doesn't know why, to be more like the master she misses so much.
Campaign Type:Minimum level 6. It isn't Eberron specific. In fact, it works less well in Eberron where Warforge exist. I'm taking Warforge stats but am really supposed to be a Construct fashioned by an extremely skilled gnome.
Anything else:I really would like a Dryad companion, but if you don't want to give me something with Dryad stats I can build one out of an Elf with ranks in Spirit Shaman. I'd still be calling her a Dryad, and the history should stay the same, the differences are purely numerical, and I'm not too bothered what they are.

Ideally I'd like the campaign to be one where I've had dealings with the party before, so that we can start with a slightly higher WBL "I've sold them cheap stuff" or something. That's the main contribution my Artificer will make to a group, so I don't want to be hindered in that regard.

I want the Leadership feat to give me Warforge Scouts. I want the fluff to be that I built them, not that they follow me.

I'm building a carriage, I'm happy to send you stats (and costs) for it. The Dryad lives in the carriage with me. Ideally I'd like her to live in an extradimensional space that looks like an outdoor garden. I'm not asking for free extra-dimensional space, I'm asking to be able to change the look and feel of the extra dimensional space I buy, with no numerical/applicable advantage in game.

I'm happy to never level the Dryad, but would prefer you give her an appropriate "Level Adjust" and from there allow me to add levels of Spirit Shaman, or Druid.

In fluff, most of my stuff will have been made by my master, not by me, but I'll be using my own craft reserve and GP to fund it.

SolkaTruesilver
2009-05-27, 04:10 AM
Not a bad idea. You are presenting the characters based more on the role-playing that will be involved than the build itself, you earn +1 in my book. Too many people forget that...

If you don't mind, I will add my own character to the list.

Gork - Hero of the Humanorc

Build at level 20
I thought of that mix: Fighter4, Barbarian 1 (Begins Chaotic), Outcast Champion 5 (turns Lawful in the process), Kensai 10
Backstory
Gork is the child of an Orc and a Human, but born out of love. However, neither of his parents have been able to find a place to live for the whole family and be accepted. Gork grew to resent both races.

At first, he is an Outcast. He fights with a mix of brutality and cunning, honoring both his heritage. He knows how, and when to let loose his fury... But the more he learns of the world, the more he see his people oppressed, rejected. Forced to either live in denial of half of their blood, or live as second-class citizen.

Gork eventually decides that the Humanorcs (for we are more than just two halves) should be a people of their own! They shouldn't have to live under the heel of any specie. Both their bloodlines have rejected them, then they will reject both of their bloodlines! Gork will now sacrifice his sense of self, and fight solely for the well-being of his people, trying to gather them, and make them strong.

Campaign type
Obviously, an epic tale of "let my people go" flavour, with Orcish violence added to the lot (from time to time). Players should all get into the mindset of liberators of Humanorcs. Maybe for personnal gain, or for selflessness, but all should go for it.

A campaign like this would probably have less magic on the side of PCs. It should be more about clever use of brutality and violence. We shouldn't try to play "strong humans" that tricks and schemes, nor should we play "clever orcs" that simply attack and are brutish. Finding a proper middle-ground should be interesting.
Anything else
I'll need the GM greenlight keeping barbarian abilities even if I become lawful...

Baalthazaq
2009-05-27, 07:35 AM
Well I didn't like the player registry.

I'm not looking for a game, and DMs generally speaking wouldn't want to go through a player registry looking for people. I personally as a DM would want to pick out characters, rather than take my chances with players who might not fit the style of the campaign I want to run.

So I put my characters up. Some fun (Kender, Gnome), some minmaxy (Gnome, Omistopher), some serious roleplayers (House, Lomax).

If anyone is therefore running campaigns like those he has specific ones to choose from.