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Kizara
2010-11-17, 06:20 PM
What is the most tragic character flaw you have used for one of your characters, or alternately have seen others use.

What do you think is the most tragic flaw a character can have?

Otherworld Odd
2010-11-17, 06:21 PM
I haven't done it yet, but I plan on making a mute character.

Lhurgyof
2010-11-17, 06:35 PM
Hmm... my friend made a half-orc charger wearing spiked armor and shields that flung himself at people... He got the flaw of having a peg leg. It was pretty funny.

Callista
2010-11-17, 06:37 PM
Are you talking about "tragic flaw" as in the "tragedy" style of stage drama? Because being mute doesn't count...

Kairyu
2010-11-17, 06:42 PM
A character of mine I used in various other media, Yan, was translated over to 3.5e D&D for a campaign. His flaw was reflective of his actual character flaws borne of his history... long story short, this was a crippling flaw you could actually justify, and that my team agreed was genuinely worth the bonus feat that flaws are claimed to grant you:

Broken Will
The character takes a -4 penalty to all their Will saves, and a further -4 penalty against compulsion effects.

nedz
2010-11-17, 06:47 PM
I haven't done it yet, but I plan on making a mute character.

Don't do this !

I've seen it done and the consequences are bad.

It sounds cool, but RP involves a lot of talking - so you're basically sidelining yourself.

Zeofar
2010-11-17, 06:48 PM
Most tragic flaw possible?

A paladin who goes into a violent rage and tries to kill all around him (for whatever reason). He's hated himself ever since he strangled his toddler sister as a child, then stabbed his mother dead years later and fled. He joined a monastery in the hopes that it would calm him and that the gods would help him against this evil influence, but he killed three of the brothers there. He fled the world again and was saved by a Paladin from the brink of death after retribution for another one of his rages. The man trained him to be a soldier of good, and after a long time without another outburst he thought that he had recovered; he eventually killed his master in his sleep. He atoned for his crimes, and tried to do good once more before killing a family on a small farm. He went totally mad and then killed himself when he realised that he'd only become better at murdering people.

Mr. Zolrane
2010-11-17, 06:48 PM
I played a ranger fairly recently who, after seeing his wife transform into a vampire in his arms, developed a repressed desire to die, which manifested itself anytime he was conscious while in the negatives. He would do things that were downright suicidal. Eventually he died by impaling himself on the spines of a skeletal howler, which dropped him down to -9, and the fighter of the party, who'd been antagonizing him the whole game, took the opportunity to finish him off.

pffh
2010-11-17, 06:50 PM
Well in my current game there is a rogue with 6 con that has two flaws.
One of them forces a fort save everytime he takes piercing or slashing damage or he keeps bleeding for 1d4 damage every round until healed (it also stacks) and he can't stabilize automatically when he reaches negatives.
The other makes him obsessed with slashing weapons forcing a will save or be dazed for 1 round everytime he sees one and if he fails he will try to touch it and if he can aquire it.

I don't think we've been in even one fight where he hasn't gone down but he's having a blast playing him and it makes for some awesome rp.

Rasman
2010-11-17, 06:52 PM
Don't do this !

I've seen it done and the consequences are bad.

It sounds cool, but RP involves a lot of talking - so you're basically sidelining yourself.

I disagree.

RP CAN involve a lot of talking. The character that I enjoyed RPing with the most was in a Savage Worlds/Spelljammer game where I played Thri-kreen that, per the rules, couldn't speak or write Common, he still understood it though. So, I went around making Clicky noises, used lots of facial expressions/hand motions and used a "dry erase board" notepad to Draw what I wanted to say.

Being Mute doesn't mean you can't RP, it just means you have to be CREATIVE.

gallagher
2010-11-17, 06:56 PM
i once played a split-personality Eldritch theurge where once his two sides actually are aware of eachotehr and present normally, but once he takes combat damage he only has either the sorc or warlock personality up

and they both love bickering

Akimu
2010-11-17, 06:57 PM
I am scared of birds (IRL)... their beady eyes... always plotting...

Anyway I plan on making a character with a fear of birds causing a save vs. fear effects. Maybe all flying creatures... but I have yet to build a character with any flaw.

Callista
2010-11-17, 06:58 PM
Most tragic flaw possible?

A paladin who goes into a violent rage and tries to kill all around him (for whatever reason). He's hated himself ever since he strangled his toddler sister as a child, then stabbed his mother dead years later and fled. He joined a monastery in the hopes that it would calm him and that the gods would help him against this evil influence, but he killed three of the brothers there. He fled the world again and was saved by a Paladin from the brink of death after retribution for another one of his rages. The man trained him to be a soldier of good, and after a long time without another outburst he thought that he had recovered; he eventually killed his master in his sleep. He atoned for his crimes, and tried to do good once more before killing a family on a small farm. He went totally mad and then killed himself when he realised that he'd only become better at murdering people.Contingent Spells. Calm Emotions. And, if that fails, Flesh to Stone, with the paladin as the target. The tragic flaw isn't the rage attacks; it's his unwillingness to get creative in dealing with them!

Zeofar
2010-11-17, 07:01 PM
Contingent Spells. Calm Emotions. And, if that fails, Flesh to Stone, with the paladin as the target. The tragic flaw isn't the rage attacks; it's his unwillingness to get creative in dealing with them!

He's part of an adventuring party? Huh. Missed that.

Otherworld Odd
2010-11-17, 07:04 PM
I disagree.

RP CAN involve a lot of talking. The character that I enjoyed RPing with the most was in a Savage Worlds/Spelljammer game where I played Thri-kreen that, per the rules, couldn't speak or write Common, he still understood it though. So, I went around making Clicky noises, used lots of facial expressions/hand motions and used a "dry erase board" notepad to Draw what I wanted to say.

Being Mute doesn't mean you can't RP, it just means you have to be CREATIVE.

This is pretty much exactly what I was planning on doing. I was going to carry around a notepad of some sort to communicate with among other things. I definitely wasn't just going to sit back and be a "I'm here for the fights" type of character. I'd probably commit character suicide from boredom if I did that. x_x.

herrhauptmann
2010-11-17, 07:09 PM
Don't do this !

I've seen it done and the consequences are bad.

It sounds cool, but RP involves a lot of talking - so you're basically sidelining yourself.

You can still describe your own actions verbally. You can also describe the moods passing over your characters face as he thinks. Your character just shouldn't be able to verbally communicate with others.
On the other hand, don't try to turn it into a game of charades when you want to communicate with the other characters.

edit:
For the tragic flaws. You don't have to create a mechanical effect for the flaws the way the ones in Unearthed Arcana are written. Don't need to roll a will save every time you see somethign which gives your character a flashback, or that he's afraid of. Just act it out.
Perhaps you're afraid of cats. Now seeing a cat sitting there across the street, knowing you'll have to walk past it shouldn't entail you drop everything and scream because the dice say so. You can work yourself up to it mentally, so that you can get close to the infernal thing without making a scene.
On the other hand, if you wake up in bed, and there's a cat next to your pillow, the dice might say you don't freak out. Roleplaying however, would have you jump up with a shout, maybe trying to hit it with a lamp.

Synapse
2010-11-17, 07:10 PM
Tragic flaw tragic flaw...
I had a character once whose soul was misplaced. Whenever he slept he had out of body dreams of a stranger killing people. Eventually he realized it was his own soul going on a rampage. He turned into the game's big bad in his quest to stop his own soul.

Rasman
2010-11-17, 07:12 PM
This is pretty much exactly what I was planning on doing. I was going to carry around a notepad of some sort to communicate with among other things. I definitely wasn't just going to sit back and be a "I'm here for the fights" type of character. I'd probably commit character suicide from boredom if I did that. x_x.

You could also pull a move like the guy at the end of Gone in 60 Seconds where you only say ONE thing that is highly insightful and totally unexpected.

My Thri-kreen could secretly say "Don't Sleep" in common, but it didn't really sound...like common, but if you payed attention...it would give you the willies...

Godless_Paladin
2010-11-17, 07:23 PM
Humanity.
You heard me.

FMArthur
2010-11-17, 07:37 PM
I once designed a character to be horrifically gimped so that I could optimize from there in a low-op group... and grew to love him purely as a character. First of all, he started with 4 levels of Fallen Paladin. Yeah. Second, he had a bad stab wound in the abdomen that he survived, permanently lowering his Fortitude saves by 3. That's just a flaw though, which he got a feat from. He was also missing an arm. No feat given in exchange, just down by one arm and he was a swordsman. He had also been permanently blinded shortly before the start of the campaign and had to develop Blindsense, but during the campaign he acquired short-ranged Blindsight via lenient DM. This was all inflicted upon him with Vile damage, so it could not be healed. His backstory was basically him being sold by his abusive family into even more abusive slavery, then escaping with the aid of paladins and becoming one himself. His eventual revenge made him fall and he refused atonement.

Everyone at the table thought he was totally badass in his unending perseverance. He was also quite powerful compared to the rest of the party because of how high I got his Concentration checks (I levelled him as a Warblade, from the shiny new ToB at the time), edging out the rogue in damage. He went down fighting a horde of orcs at the end of one session, bravely covering the escape of his comrades. Later in the campaign during an overwhelming battle in which my replacement character died, the DM had a crippled man leading a band of barbarian orcs charge in to the party's aid, and handed me an old character sheet with a grin on his face. This was probably the best D&D moment for me, hands-down. :smallbiggrin:

Man I miss that DM. He died from lung cancer three years ago. :smallfrown:

Curmudgeon
2010-11-17, 07:38 PM
A Fist of the Forest (Complete Champion) in an urban campaign. The character had 3 dead levels (no BAB or saving throw improvements, no special features) for the duration. That Primal Living class limitation can be as bad as a Paladin forced to join an all-Evil party.

Rasman
2010-11-17, 08:50 PM
I once designed a character to be horrifically gimped so that I could optimize from there in a low-op group... and grew to love him purely as a character. First of all, he started with 4 levels of Fallen Paladin. Yeah. Second, he had a bad stab wound in the abdomen that he survived, permanently lowering his Fortitude saves by 3. That's just a flaw though, which he got a feat from. He was also missing an arm. No feat given in exchange, just down by one arm and he was a swordsman. He had also been permanently blinded shortly before the start of the campaign and had to develop Blindsense, but during the campaign he acquired short-ranged Blindsight via lenient DM. This was all inflicted upon him with Vile damage, so it could not be healed. His backstory was basically him being sold by his abusive family into even more abusive slavery, then escaping with the aid of paladins and becoming one himself. His eventual revenge made him fall and he refused atonement.

Everyone at the table thought he was totally badass in his unending perseverance. He was also quite powerful compared to the rest of the party because of how high I got his Concentration checks (I levelled him as a Warblade, from the shiny new ToB at the time), edging out the rogue in damage. He went down fighting a horde of orcs at the end of one session, bravely covering the escape of his comrades. Later in the campaign during an overwhelming battle in which my replacement character died, the DM had a crippled man leading a band of barbarian orcs charge in to the party's aid, and handed me an old character sheet with a grin on his face. This was probably the best D&D moment for me, hands-down. :smallbiggrin:

Man I miss that DM. He died from lung cancer three years ago. :smallfrown:

That's...that's just a tear jerker...I mean, you hear stories of "I killed this at level blah blah blah with a blah blah...at level blah." and people go, that's awesome...but...my heart strings...you pulled them...

the best D&D stories are the ones that make you feel like this because they feel like they matter

and to top it ALL off, he came back...you created a character SO LOVED by your group that he survived what would typically be an inescapable death and turned his enemy into an ally...so props to you for creating something so memorable and to your DM for his creativity, god rest his soul

dsmiles
2010-11-17, 08:58 PM
My Thri-kreen could secretly say "Don't Sleep" in common, but it didn't really sound...like common, but if you payed attention...it would give you the willies...Personally, I've always put points into Perform:Sound Mimicry every time I've played a Thri-Kreen in the past. It ends up coming off much like the Predator's sound mimicry. He can only say things in common that he's heard and memorized (via autohypnosis), and even then he ends up getting them out of context, and in exactly the same tones as he heard them. The sound of a little girl laughing in the middle of a horrifyingly gory battlefield is pretty creepy. I actually recorded some random sounds, ran them through a mixing program, and played them back. Sometimes I even did it at times appropriate for the sounds.

Cealocanth
2010-11-17, 09:01 PM
Well I've only ever had 1 PC...

My most tragic NPC flaw was the guy who's smelly and covered in ugly green pus-spitting sores, and can't help but try to hug everyone around him.

dsmiles
2010-11-17, 09:02 PM
Well I've only ever had 1 PC...

My most tragic NPC flaw was the guy who's smelly and covered in ugly green pus-spitting sores, and can't help but try to hug everyone around him.

Awwww...that's no flaw, you're just sharing the love...:smallbiggrin:

Yukitsu
2010-11-17, 09:07 PM
Nihilistic paladin who never came close to falling.

Otherworld Odd
2010-11-17, 10:08 PM
I once designed a character to be horrifically gimped so that I could optimize from there in a low-op group... and grew to love him purely as a character. First of all, he started with 4 levels of Fallen Paladin. Yeah. Second, he had a bad stab wound in the abdomen that he survived, permanently lowering his Fortitude saves by 3. That's just a flaw though, which he got a feat from. He was also missing an arm. No feat given in exchange, just down by one arm and he was a swordsman. He had also been permanently blinded shortly before the start of the campaign and had to develop Blindsense, but during the campaign he acquired short-ranged Blindsight via lenient DM. This was all inflicted upon him with Vile damage, so it could not be healed. His backstory was basically him being sold by his abusive family into even more abusive slavery, then escaping with the aid of paladins and becoming one himself. His eventual revenge made him fall and he refused atonement.

Everyone at the table thought he was totally badass in his unending perseverance. He was also quite powerful compared to the rest of the party because of how high I got his Concentration checks (I levelled him as a Warblade, from the shiny new ToB at the time), edging out the rogue in damage. He went down fighting a horde of orcs at the end of one session, bravely covering the escape of his comrades. Later in the campaign during an overwhelming battle in which my replacement character died, the DM had a crippled man leading a band of barbarian orcs charge in to the party's aid, and handed me an old character sheet with a grin on his face. This was probably the best D&D moment for me, hands-down. :smallbiggrin:

Man I miss that DM. He died from lung cancer three years ago. :smallfrown:

Dayum... =[. I'd hate to quote old internet memes but at first I was like :] then I was like :[. Sorry for your loss. Great story though, I wish I had a character like that.

Rasman
2010-11-17, 10:34 PM
Personally, I've always put points into Perform:Sound Mimicry every time I've played a Thri-Kreen in the past. It ends up coming off much like the Predator's sound mimicry. He can only say things in common that he's heard and memorized (via autohypnosis), and even then he ends up getting them out of context, and in exactly the same tones as he heard them. The sound of a little girl laughing in the middle of a horrifyingly gory battlefield is pretty creepy. I actually recorded some random sounds, ran them through a mixing program, and played them back. Sometimes I even did it at times appropriate for the sounds.

that...is...AWESOME...

what program did you use? I'd LOVE to try that!

Some "la laa la la laaaa la" as I drag away a corpse by one of it's feet would be...most good Tom...most...good...

unimaginable
2010-11-17, 11:03 PM
My current PC is both arrogant and a coward. Half the PCs hate him, but all the players love him. Just downright disdainful most of the time. Planescape campaign where he's the only one who actually grew up travelling the planes (everyone else is from the Material), so he thinks of them as ignorant yokels. He's also a Factotum with an enormous Intelligence (and just generally high stats all told -- rolled the equivalent of a 46 point buy), so his arrogance is to a certain extent deserved. Because I knew coming into the game that I'm by far the most experienced with it, I decided I'd hold back from any real optimization or even full use of what abilities I had... his story is that his mother was a cutter (sailor on the Great Rivers, Styx and Oceanus) and he grew up always travelling to different super intense places, always being protected from very powerful forces by a quite capable mother who knew he'd be in mortal danger if she didn't do everything for him. Now that he's alone for the first time in his life, he's simultaneously bored of everything that isn't dangerous, and terrified of everything that is.

Approach in many situations is to roll his eyes and stand back while the rest of the party tries to solve a problem, and look for a way to make it look easy, subtly insulting everybody at any chance he can get.

Psyx
2010-11-18, 07:34 AM
I'm seeing a lot of mechanically disadvantageous flaws, and some hard to roleplay ones... but not much in the way of actual tragedy!

panaikhan
2010-11-18, 08:06 AM
I played a mute character, but it wasn't a flaw per se, it was part of the race.
I played a Saurial Mage (can't remember the exact name - lizardlike race, the 'spellcasters' were 8' tall bipedal triceratops).
The race communicated by smells more than sounds, so the guy had a wax tablet hung around his neck that he wrote stuff on when he thought he needed to.

Lev
2010-11-18, 08:13 AM
An Exiled Modron, who is essentially a warforged borg separated from the collective, he loves adventuring SO MUCH, he's a little like kid or like spongebob his his I'M READY type RAAAAWR! attitude when using magic to bash down doors and fly and such, but he is so tragically alone because of his inability to relate to almost anyone, his encyclopedic knowledge is a crushing burden of his long life as it carries hundreds of years of emotional baggage and he constantly tinkers and makes semi-intelligent "friends" as constructs, some have as high as 6 intelligence, but adventuring is a risky business and constructs can never be revived. Each construct is hand crafted, given personality, cherished and named, given worth as a sentient creature, but eventually falls in combat, it's entire sentient existence erased without a trace.

dsmiles
2010-11-18, 08:36 AM
An Exiled Modron, who is essentially a warforged borg separated from the collective, he loves adventuring SO MUCH, he's a little like kid or like spongebob his his I'M READY type RAAAAWR! attitude when using magic to bash down doors and fly and such, but he is so tragically alone because of his inability to relate to almost anyone, his encyclopedic knowledge is a crushing burden of his long life as it carries hundreds of years of emotional baggage and he constantly tinkers and makes semi-intelligent "friends" as constructs, some have as high as 6 intelligence, but adventuring is a risky business and constructs can never be revived. Each construct is hand crafted, given personality, cherished and named, given worth as a sentient creature, but eventually falls in combat, it's entire sentient existence erased without a trace.

I'd have to say, that's fairly awesome.

Mastikator
2010-11-18, 08:52 AM
I recently played a character, a warrior type, who on a full moon or at extreme fear became a werewolf.
Being a werewolf of course means you have to kill your party members. Which I almost did to two of them. Also it broke my armor when the transformation occurred. Which they witnessed.
So the character had to leave :(

I'll probably use him as an NPC in a future game when it's my turn to DM though.

Emmerask
2010-11-18, 08:56 AM
My character had mortal fear of deep water (rolemaster), for a pretty important mission we had to go by ship I took drugs to sleep the entire way...
Ship sank, I drowned.

Dizlag
2010-11-18, 09:03 AM
Hackmaster 4.0. Grel Elf Shaman of Ikka Paatang. Died during character creation. His god raised him from the dead with a goiter, scoliosis, and short-term memory loss.

The goiter gave him a chance to bleed out if critically hit. The scoliosis made the critical hits he did take more severe. And well, what can I say ... short-term memory loss to roleplay is pretty fun.

The last session of the campaign my character crumbles to the ground and Ikka Paatang pops out of the goiter going ape-sh.t on an uber god while the rest of the party fights back baddies coming through a portal to destroy the world.

One of the best campaigns EVER!

Dizlag

dsmiles
2010-11-18, 09:38 AM
Being a werewolf of course means you have to kill your party members.

It does? :smallconfused:

Even an "always" type alignment allows for exceptions. Unless you were the curse-type werewolf. Natural werewolves have a fair bit more impulse control.

FelixG
2010-11-18, 10:00 AM
only if you are inflicted with the were-dealy will you try to maul your friends

natural werewolfs can do what they like :smallcool:


Also most tragic character flaw: Druid with agoraphobia :smallbiggrin:

Callista
2010-11-18, 10:04 AM
I'm seeing a lot of mechanically disadvantageous flaws, and some hard to roleplay ones... but not much in the way of actual tragedy!Okay then. I guess I have one for you. I posted this one recently, but I guess a re-post might make sense.

My character is a LG wizard who loves children. She's kind of a country girl who's had magic as a hobby since she was a little kid, and lives with her sister, helping raise her sister's two children. Over the time I've played her, her love of children has become a defining characteristic.

She's also extremely idealistic. Well, like a lot of mostly-Good parties, we eventually had someone wanting to play Evil. The character got into our party after being sentenced for murder; he was ordered to help us on our quest because, being a bard, he can't be imprisoned; he'll just charm the small-town guards; and being a PC, he wasn't executed outright.

The tragic flaw? My idealistic character proceeds to save his life. Twice.

And then he slaughters an orphanage.

The story... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9754161&postcount=1)

Needless to say, she's no longer idealistic.

Zen Monkey
2010-11-18, 10:16 AM
L5R Campaign: My arrogant and narcissistic crane duelist got infected with the shadowlands taint by a maho witch (first edition, no cure). So, before it spread too far, he had to cut off his own arm at the shoulder. The rest of the game had to be spent as a scarred and one-armed swordsman, taken down many pegs in order to avoid dishonor and death. It's good to roleplay character change.

dsmiles
2010-11-18, 10:18 AM
L5R Campaign: My arrogant and narcissistic crane duelist got infected with the shadowlands taint by a maho witch (first edition, no cure). So, before it spread too far, he had to cut off his own arm at the shoulder. The rest of the game had to be spent as a scarred and one-armed swordsman, taken down many pegs in order to avoid dishonor and death. It's good to roleplay character change.

Too bad he couldn't just cut it off at the hand and get a chainsaw attachment.
:smallcool:

Fallbot
2010-11-18, 10:55 AM
Also most tragic character flaw: Druid with agoraphobia :smallbiggrin:

I see your agoraphobic druid and raise you an arachnophobic drow. (Yes, he's my avatar. It does make sense in context, I swear)

plllizzz
2010-11-18, 11:58 AM
Well, once I was playing a very cynical guy, who only wanted to live in relative peace and quiet, while being quite powerful fighter at the same time

his flaw was that he was:

a. trouble magnet - every demon, alien etc. was targeting him for the sole reason he COULD get in the way... slowly, he lost his home, family, a bit of his lifespan and finally his life due to this

b. after loosing everything, he could not take people that believed that they can gain or defend something without sacrifice - it was the 'easy way' for him, which he never had the choice to go

c. once in trouble, unable to back down - fought impossible battles to the very [sad] end

DragonBaneDM
2010-11-18, 12:11 PM
I currently play a masochist Pacifist Cleric.

He's also skitzo...kind of... He's kalashtar, and his quori's psychotic.

Tokuhara
2010-11-18, 12:54 PM
I once played a bickering Dvati twins who were each missing an arm. Funny part: it was the arm the other one had.

Granted, my DM was lenient, allowing me to be "Gestalt," with one twin being one class combo and the other the other half, but one was a Paladin of Slaughter Favoring Bane and the other was a Crusader of Wee Jas. They ALWAYS bickered about the stupidest crap, like direction, since the evil half wanted to always do the opposite of his "brother." When our DM had the sick idea to send us to Hell at 20th level, needless to say that they FINALLY worked together. This precipitated into the true secret of this build: Tank and Spank. The Good brother was, at the time, a Crusader/Ruby Knight Vindicator/Divine Crusader of Wee Jas while the Bad brother was a Paladin of Slaughter/Blackguard/Bone Knight/Rogue. The party was barely able to react when the good brother stepped up to smack with his smite while his brother just essentially stood there.

Most fun with a character I've played in a while

ffone
2010-11-18, 01:20 PM
Most tragic flaw possible?

A paladin who goes into a violent rage and tries to kill all around him (for whatever reason). He's hated himself ever since he strangled his toddler sister as a child, then stabbed his mother dead years later and fled. He joined a monastery in the hopes that it would calm him and that the gods would help him against this evil influence, but he killed three of the brothers there. He fled the world again and was saved by a Paladin from the brink of death after retribution for another one of his rages. The man trained him to be a soldier of good, and after a long time without another outburst he thought that he had recovered; he eventually killed his master in his sleep. He atoned for his crimes, and tried to do good once more before killing a family on a small farm. He went totally mad and then killed himself when he realised that he'd only become better at murdering people.

That's not a paladin.

Lev
2010-11-18, 06:24 PM
I recently played a character, a warrior type, who on a full moon or at extreme fear became a werewolf.
Being a werewolf of course means you have to kill your party members. Which I almost did to two of them. Also it broke my armor when the transformation occurred. Which they witnessed.
So the character had to leave :(

I'll probably use him as an NPC in a future game when it's my turn to DM though.
That's why you need to be a psionic warrior werewolf. Call Armor for 1PP of any make.



That's not a paladin.
Yeah, that just seems like a psychopath.

0Megabyte
2010-11-18, 07:51 PM
Actually, no, he doesn't sound anything at all like a psychopath.

A psychopath wouldn't be killing due to rage, and a psychopath wouldn't care, except for the danger of getting caught.

What this character sounds like is someone who is trying really hard to be good, but has something wrong with them. Sudden, unstoppable rages like that don't sound so much like a personality trait than a mental illness. There are actual diseases that can cause things like that, and in a sense it isn't his fault, unless you propose the character is lying (of which there is no indication.)

Cisturn
2010-11-18, 08:52 PM
My Cleric's flaw is a lack on intelligence. He's Good Aligned and honestly does the best he can. The problem is sometimes he doesn't think things through. Recently he planeshifted a tough opponent to heaven. In order to best show him the wrath of his god. Unfortunately the enemy was actually a conduit for his own immensely powerful dark god, which allowed him to manifest in heaven. So because the cleric didn't think things through he might end up causing the death of his own god.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-11-18, 09:32 PM
I'm seeing a lot of mechanically disadvantageous flaws, and some hard to roleplay ones... but not much in the way of actual tragedy!Many of my characters had the tragic flaw that, no matter what they wanted to do, luck and happenstance would force them to take one specific, predetermined course of action, for their entire lives. I would think this is a very common character flaw in roleplaying games.

0Megabyte
2010-11-18, 09:40 PM
Many of my characters had the tragic flaw that, no matter what they wanted to do, luck and happenstance would force them to take one specific, predetermined course of action, for their entire lives. I would think this is a very common character flaw in roleplaying games.

Ha. Wait, do I hear the sound of a train in the distance...?