Scout Character Depth Help

[joca4christ]

In my upcoming game I will be playing a lawful good unarmed fighting Hadozee scout. I am trying to frame him in my head, mannerisms and what not, and thought I'd look for a little advice from the playground.

Mainly, how does one roleplay a sneaky, lock-picking, trap disabling fellow who is also lawful and good? I don't intend to play him as lawful stupid. He's no paladin. My first inclination is that because he's spent most of his life aboard a ship, he's a rule following, "Aye, aye captain!" kind of guy. My concept is that when the ship he sails on happens to come to shore, he's the guy the crew sends out to...well, scout, of course. He scavenges for food, looks for lost treasure...not as a rogue who is interested in his purse, but as in someone looking to better the financial circumstances of his shipmates and/or party members.

I went with unarmed strike because Darsh is essentially a monkey man with sugar glider wings. While he certainly can pick up a weapon and fight with it, (thanks to the level dip into fighter), he prefers to bash things with his fists, if necessary. I also think he's the kind of guy who tries to settle things peacefully first. Violence is the last resort, and he may often deal subdual damage until forced to deal lethal.

This is my rough idea. What thoughts/impressions/additions/comments/additional mannerisms can you add?

Thanks for the help!

[WeeFreeMen]

Not more than 2 months ago, we ended a 2 year campaign in which my character, Jack "Fleetfoot" Daniels, was a Scout for our parties Pirate Ship.
He later became captain.

Now, Jack wasnt Lawful Good, but he was Lawful in the sense that he too was an "Aye Aye Captain" kinda guy. More along the lines of a Militant Mercenary.
If you like, I can give you his Build and Item List.

Within all of the encounters we ever fought in, the DM always knew my Scout had an Ace up his sleeve for ANY situation.
DM: "The enemy goes invisible, and the last you see of him he is on your right."
Jack: "Id like to activate (Item that gave Tremor Sense" and ready an Action to Fire my bow.
DM: "The invisible enemy moves from your left, directly in the square next to you."
Jack: "I fire my bow, using the Squid Ink Arrows I made earlier"
DM: " I hate you"

Keep in mind, this was a low magic setting, so an "invisible encounter" was a pretty big deal.

Anyway, if you take nothing else from this, you should have your scout develop the mind set of "Be Ready for Anything, and then be able to Beat it"
That was Jacks Motto, and by the end of the campaign, it was practically an "In-Group" MeMe

Like I said, if you have any questions Im more than happy to help. :smallsmile:

[joca4christ]

Thanks for the advice. Jack sounds pretty cool. Darsh has no Charisma, or average at least, so I've kinda let UMD go to the wayside in favor of other skills at the moment.

He currently is a 4 scout/2 swordsage. I using mostly manuevers that make him hard to hit (Child of Shadow) or throws.

Also decided to make him NG (swapped the monk with swordsage) so qualms about breaking and entering are pretty low. If it's for the greater good, ya see?

I do like the idea behind Jack. Don't know if Darsh is quite "Ace up his sleeve" material though.

I appreciate the input.

[Kojiro]

Well, Complete Scoundrel has some good advice on the subject of sneaky sorts who are of non-chaotic alignments, including Lawful Good. If you don't have it yourself, I can summarize: They tend to have their own personal code of honor and such, and even though they will break certain rules and laws for helping others and such, their own code, which is probably what drives them to help others even when it goes against the law, is generally unbreakable. They use Indiana Jones as an example (going about infiltrating various temples and places and basically stealing so that history and such can be researched and seen by everyone and blah blah blah), as well as a former law enforcer turned against the corrupt government.

Of course, that's all general. How it applies to your character is still up to you. The general basics, though: They wish to help others and do good, they have their own personal set of laws, and while those they will follow they won't hesitate to break other laws, or at least minor ones, in order to do good and help people. It's not quite as Lawful Good as a paladin and such, but as the character is partially defined by their sneakiness and deceit, this is kind of a given. There are varying degrees of both Law and Good, after all; characters who are "roguish" but still Lawful Good tend to focus more on the Good part.

Edit: Well, hm. How I can see it applying to your character... He, as you mentioned, follows the captain and such, and probably values him and the crew. The scouting out and gathering resources stuff (which a rogue actually could do without thinking of themselves, but that's off-topic), he probably would know effective and somewhat sneaky ways of doing that, but he wouldn't, say, simply screw over some innocent people living on the island they landed on or whatever. Efficient, but not cruel or unfocused; if they happened to land on an island where most of the food belonged to some small tribe that didn't have many resources, he doesn't seem like the type who'd steal (much) from them.

Sorry I can't give much here, but I hope this helps.

[joca4christ]

I decided to go for a scout/swordsage combo instead of the scout/monk combo. That said, I'll be neutral good. I like the idea of being good but being a little "eh" on law and chaos. Plus, we'll have a lawful neutral goliath samurai/kensai and a chaotic neutral drow warmage in the party. Think I may have to be the mediator between the two.


Thanks again for the input!