I think my paladin may be somewhat annoying...

[Callista]

I'd like some advice on this: Basically, I need to tone down the angst level; it's getting annoying. But I also want to stay true to the character.

The character is named Anya. She's a 16-year-old paladin of the campaign's equivalent of Pelor. In this particular setting, 16 is considered "young adult", though she is still unusually young for an adventurer. She's level 6.

Backstory:
Escapee from CE nation. No relationship with family; when she escaped she left behind a girlfriend who went catatonic after attempting suicide (a supernatural effect involved with the deity of the place; essentially destroys souls). Anya had her deity's help to escape and eventually found a paladin mentor who taught her theology and chivalry. Currently she is on her own because her mentor decided she needed to learn to trust her deity rather than constantly questioning herself and pestering him about whether she was doing the right thing. She's joined a mercenary company; the party is non-evil with a few Good. The party leader is a LN soldier/commander type with high INT and a tendency to want to prepare for everything, ever.

Personality:
Still feels a little like she's died and gone to heaven, because now she's actually with people whom she can trust, something she's never had before (except with her girlfriend, and that was more of a puppy-love thing). Very attached to order and predictability--something she's never had before.

As a coping strategy back home, she developed a tendency toward superstitious rituals. Currently she touches every doorway she passes through because she can't shake the belief that if she doesn't, she'll do something horrible and hurt somebody while she's in that room. She knows it's irrational but does it anyway. When she feels like she's in over her head or feels guilty, she tends to obsessively maintain her equipment. (For those of you who've had psych classes, she has a moderate case of OCD.) She's scared to death of having her free will taken away and being forced to do something horrible; this fear has been exacerbated by the fact that she's now having prophetic dreams she knows don't come from her deity.

With an average intelligence score and little education, she leaves magical and scholarly pursuits to other people and is a little intimidated by things she doesn't understand. Currently she is trusting the others in her party to deal with these things; if she had to try to make decisions like this herself she'd probably freeze.

She's a follower, not a leader, and prefers to take orders rather than give them; only when Good/Evil issues are involved will she stand up for herself and others. The other party members have come to trust her as a dependable person to whom doing anything underhanded is a foreign concept.

Recently, she was involved in an adventure that led to the inadvertent destruction of a town by a tsunami--something nobody could have predicted or prevented. She still blames herself and has been working tirelessly to rescue survivors, even using Detect Evil to find and extricate Evil-aligned townspeople and anyone else trapped with them. (Obviously she's not very much the detect-and-smite type. Anya believes strongly in mercy and redemption because she is always so aware of how she herself could go horribly wrong.)

The problem:
Well--you can see the potential for angst overload here, right? The backstory by itself is OK, because I figured that as time went on she'd learn more about how to deal with her uncertainty and inability to trust herself to do the right thing. But then with the prophetic dreams undermining her trust in her own mind, and then this recent incident in which she was involved in the unwitting deaths of innocents, she's pretty much been given the absolute worst set of circumstances possible, and as a result it's becoming more and more common for the rest of the party to have to support her instead of being the generally awesome butt-kicking mercenary company they are.

Twice now her party leader has had to take her aside and talk to her about this issue. What I'm worried about, out of character, is that I'm going to end up turning her into some kind of bundle of nerves that the rest of the party has to take care of, constantly reassuring her.

What I want is to get her out of this somehow. I want character growth of some sort, rather than this downward spiral that's just getting more and more annoyingly emo as time goes on. I've talked to people with real-life OCD and they are often very strong, resilient people. Anya wasn't meant to be a dependent, helpless person; she did take the initiative to escape from her homeland, and she's stood up to her party members at times, when the well-being of innocents (and occasionally not-so-innocents) was concerned. I'm just not sure how to go about it, how to get her to learn the things she needs to learn: That she really can trust her deity; that she needs to stop obsessing about her own morality and start thinking about how she can make herself useful; that she needs to find ways to deal with things like magic which she doesn't (and often can't) understand.

I'm just not sure where I should take her from here. Anybody got any ideas?

[navar100]

Do you control your character or does your character control you?

Choose to be different. By fiat. Just like that. Poof, it's done. Call it "My character finally grew up." Seeing the destruction the tsunami caused, instead of wallowing away in self-doubt, choose it to be a resolve. It's time to be what a paladin should be. It's a revelation. If you don't know why you are receiving these prophetic visions, find out why. If you do know why, and since you know it's not from your deity, ignore them. Defy them. Pretend you don't have them. Give them no power over you. By fiat. Just like that. Poof, it's done.

[Ceaon]

Something I have done with a character when I didn't like the direction I had taken with him was to have him leave the party for about one or two sessions (fleeing, visiting relatives, meditating, something unknown) and then have him shift personality a bit when he returned. (Edit: And make it clear that this shift is because of his time away from the party.) When you don't know how to change it, keep it vague. Then fill in the details together with your party if necessary along the way.

[Sutremaine]

Once the search for survivors gets called off, take the opportunity to draw a line under her current behaviour and start afresh as a non-emo paladin. In-universe justification is that once you start acting as though you have confidence, it gets easier to be confident, and choosing a particular event to mark the turning point is as good a time to change your behaviour as any.

[Larkas]

Have she turn her obsession to conviction. She is obsessed with finding survivors. She is obsessed with helping people. Have her realize that helping people is the right thing to do. Turn that obsession into the conviction that helping people is always the right course of action, even if she screwed up, even if people are in danger because of her. Let her relent when she have the time, now is the time for action! She can always take some time off when she is enjoying afterlife in her deity's celestial realms :smallsmile:

[Averis Vol]

i once made a lycanthropic paladin with a similar issue, i started playing "too much into the character" and he became a sniveling little wuss who couldnt even dare to use lethal damage--or even fight unless he was dropped below half HP. so one day after being yelled at (in game) by the party leader of the time i had him spend four days in his church's temple, no food, no sleep, no outside contact or anything. the group kindly waited to finish our mission but when he came back out, something had changed, he wore his affliction like a badge of honor and from then on only left werewolf form when he absolutely had to. inside that church he met with heironeus who described that he was disappointed that he had fell to the ranks of a coward and told him not to fear his affliction, for if he was strong he would never succumb to it (fail his transformation check to take on the wolfs alignment) and it could be a greater boon then he had noticed, and blah blah blah. point is, RP a transformation with your character. have her get a revelation for her god and take up the mantle of a courageous warrior, instead of some child barely able to stand on her own two feet. this is something easily done without changing her character (in a negative way).

[Sucrose]

Closest I've come to a character like that is a devoted husband whose wife went insane due to the effects of a curse upon the world, leading him to going adventuring.

When he met up with the PCs, he wished to obfuscate what was going on with him, to prevent any enemies he might make along the way from knowing who his loved ones were; thus, he did not inform them of his situation, but kept up a jovial mask. The thing is, it is difficult to act out an emotion without gaining some measure of that emotion. Consequently, he started to actually cheer up, and now allows himself a great measure of joy, even as he remains steadfast in a relatively depressing mission.

Likewise, perhaps your character could put up a brave face for the rest of the group, once she's determined that she's done as much as she can for the tsunami survivors, in order to keep them from worrying about her, and thus allow her to keep fighting with them, since presumably she thinks that they are capable of great good together. This mask could bleed into her real personality, and allow her a greater measure of resilience.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I think telling the OP to "just change" is a little harsh, this is their character and they're self aware enough to realize there may be a problem. I can sympathize because I myself am a method actor and write in a way equivalent to method acting where the character exists in my head and does what it will do and I just record it, sometimes I transition into method acting and say lines while I'm writing.

Is the OCD itself problem? If so I'd suggest not mentioning it every time she does an OCD thing. It's a well established part of your character that people won't forget overnight and you should only bring it up when it's relevant like if new people are seeing her fidget with things and pull things out of her pack in the middle of a conversation. Other than that there should no longer be a need to point these things out anymore than there is a need to mention how your character eats, drinks or poops.

Has her lack of curiosity and decision making skills been a problem for the PC's? You mentioned a tsunami and her blaming herself did her inaction or ignorance lead to more deaths(even if only in her mind)? If so then this could be a new productive avenue for her OCD. She could feel a need to learn a little about everything this can lead to some great intra party interactions and your DM will love it if, big if, he populates his world with lots of fleshed out NPC's and towns beyond the minimum needed as a backdrop to adventuring.

The one revelation/instant change you might want to make is for her to realize that well intentioned and wrong action is better than inaction. This could come at the end of some intense reflection on a time that her inaction hurt people. She could go over the potential consequences of the actions she could have taken and eventually realize that the worst case scenario of her various theoretical actions aren't worse than her inaction.

As for trusting in her diety, at some point she needs to realize that he's got her back. He's trusting her with Paladin abilities and hasn't pulled the rug out from under her despite her perceived failures. That's gotta be worth something.

[Callista]

I think telling the OP to "just change" is a little harsh, this is their character and they're self aware enough to realize there may be a problem. I can sympathize because I myself am a method actor and write in a way equivalent to method acting where the character exists in my head and does what it will do and I just record it, sometimes I transition into method acting and say lines while I'm writing.Yes, exactly that. If I suddenly changed her behavior it would feel like I was playing her out of character and it'd be jarring.

If it came down to it--if I started actually annoying the other players--then I'd change it in a heartbeat, because the game's supposed to be fun, amirite? But I think I can head this off without her annoying them and without rewriting her personality suddenly. At least, I hope, which is why I posted here. :)


Is the OCD itself problem? If so I'd suggest not mentioning it every time she does an OCD thing. It's a well established part of your character that people won't forget overnight and you should only bring it up when it's relevant like if new people are seeing her fidget with things and pull things out of her pack in the middle of a conversation. Other than that there should no longer be a need to point these things out anymore than there is a need to mention how your character eats, drinks or poops.I'm already doing this, actually. I figured it would probably be annoying to mention it every time she went through a door; so I only mention it when there's some reason that it'd look unusual. She's somewhat ashamed of it and tries to be surreptitious about it when she's in company, and much of the overzealous equipment maintenance doesn't really become too obvious unless you were to watch her for a few days and realize just how much time is spent doing that sort of thing. The OCD itself is not the problem so much as the personality traits that make her vulnerable to it--the constant self-doubt and second-guessing.


Has her lack of curiosity and decision making skills been a problem for the PC's? You mentioned a tsunami and her blaming herself did her inaction or ignorance lead to more deaths(even if only in her mind)?Actually, yes. There was magic involved, and she naturally deferred to the rest of the party. This could indeed be a good reason to have her start learning more. There's only so much you can do with a 10 INT, but it's still average; and like most pallys she has a good wisdom score, which means she has common sense enough to recognize that freezing in situations that seem complex is not going to be a good idea.

In the near future, one thing she could probably be thinking about is the fact that even though the world is more predictable now, it will never be fully predictable and she'll always have to live with uncertainty. Building on that would lead to the idea that her living with uncertainty and fear is not an indication of her own failure, but simply something she has to endure in order to become a decent paladin. This would connect with my concept of a paladin's fear immunity: They can feel the emotion of fear, but are not compelled to run or cower, no matter how intense the fear is. She's currently level 6, and capable of facing death quite casually--but facing her own fallibility is more difficult. In a way, this sort of character growth would be more of a choice to do something she's always been capable of--the ability to do what she needs to do even when she's afraid she may do something horrible.

I don't know how common this view of that particular class feature is; I just don't like the idea that paladins become inhumanly unable to feel afraid. Without fear, there's no courage...

[Averis Vol]

i meant no offense telling you to just change, but you asked for advice saying it was getting annoying so i offered a solution, if you don't want the advice you probably shouldn't ask =/. that being said i still mean no offense, but i gave a solution to the problem. you don't have to take it.

[Callista]

LOL, no, of course you didn't offend me. It is a potential solution, albeit one I'd only want to use as a last resort.

[Chronos]

Honestly, I don't see a problem. The angstiest thing you've mentioned is the prophetic dreams, and presumably those are coming from the DM, not from you. As for the OCD, successful people with OCD in the real world don't cure it, they learn to live with it. The touching doors thing is minor enough to just not worry about it, and for the equipment-maintenance, you might try to channel that into doing something more useful instead: At the very least, volunteer to help maintain the other folks' equipment, or maybe take over the fire-building and cooking duties, or something like that.

I can potentially see a problem arising, if she gets too fixated on trying to deal with that tsunami. There, I would recommend talking with your DM, and ask that he throw you an adventure hook that forces your paladin (and the rest of the party) to move on to the next adventure. The best way to avoid dwelling in the past is to continue bravely on into the future.

You might also try talking over these issues, in-character, with one of the other party members. Is there a cleric (of an at least somewhat compatible order) in the party? That'd be ideal.

[Amphetryon]

Is there a particular topic in which Anya feels confident? A relatively easy way to overcome angst-overload is to figure out something your character is good at and focus your attentions there - at least from time to time.

[Gnome Alone]

I don't know how common this view of that particular class feature is; I just don't like the idea that paladins become inhumanly unable to feel afraid. Without fear, there's no courage...

That's the only way it makes much sense to me - if they couldn't even FEEL fear it'd be like they didn't entirely have free will or agency... they'd be almost inhuman. I mean, missing a vital part of what makes people human. (Apologies to made-up magical demi-humans.) Also courage doesn't mean a whole lot if one has no fear to overcome.

As far as your dilemma goes, this sounds like a great character to me and I certainly wouldn't advise you to "just change it." Maybe I don't play with very heavy roleplayers but this campaign or at least your paladin seems a little too RP-oriented for that. (If I somehow made that seem like a bad thing, I really didn't mean to, personally I'm all about the RP.)

My suggestion would be if all these angst-inducers become too much of a problem, I would attempt to develop the idea that underneath all the self-doubt and guilt about the horrible stuff that she has an unshakable core of integrity and devotion. I mean, she became a paladin, right? That (if it were, you know, a real thing) comes from somewhere deep inside. Don't know if that helps; anyway it's not intended as a subtler version of "hey, suddenly have her be different," just a suggestion of a possible RP direction.

[W3bDragon]

The angle I would take would revolve around her abilities. I mean, she doesn't understand magic and is intimidated by it. Yet, she is performing magic! She is performing miracles granted to her by her deity directly! She can heal the most grievous wound with a touch, and end the most virulent disease in moments! Her prayers get answered on a regular basis! She has the direct eye of the deity upon her. She has been judged and deemed worthy. Her deity sees her for all she is, faults, doubts, fears and all, and has accepted her. Trusted her. Maybe realizing that is the first step to realizing that she can trust the deity, which means she can trust herself.


That's the only way it makes much sense to me - if they couldn't even FEEL fear it'd be like they didn't entirely have free will or agency... they'd be almost inhuman. I mean, missing a vital part of what makes people human. (Apologies to made-up magical demi-humans.) Also courage doesn't mean a whole lot if one has no fear to overcome.

You are of course right. However, this isn't the only option available. I once played a LE cleric of Bane in a 2nd Ed game. When he gained the "Immunity to Fear" ability, I decided to play it as if the deity had delved into his soul and surgically removed all the components of fear. He was fearless, foolhardy even. What tempered that was intellect. Knowing when you're beaten and retreating even though you don't feel the slightest bit of fear. That was very interesting to roleplay actually. A completely fearless but smart character.

[Fallbot]

It might be worth talking to the DM about the direction you want to take your character in, and your concerns about how she's currently developing.

Rather than attempting to change her on your own, the DM could easily add some event or side quest that would act as a base for you to develop from to restore her faith in herself. There are the usual cliches - a reassurance from her god, rescuing someone when all hope seems lost, averting some disaster, a resolution to the prophetic dreams - Admittedly weak, but I expect you and your DM, knowing the character better, can come up with something far more fitting and interesting.

[Dr.Epic]

Paladins tend to be annoying when the whole party isn't LG or NG.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I've always perceived fear immunity that way as well; infinite courage. A Paladin could choose to act "more that human" if it fit their personality and seemed advantageous to project that image.

Since being a person of average intellect and minimal education/experience (Int 10 2 skill points per level) amongst geniuses (18 INT Wizards) worldly travelers (6 and 8 skill per class level 12-14 INT Humans) can be very intimidating/humbling/awkward a good coping mechanism might be to take notes every time someone shares the results of an Knowledge check and start a habit of asking for an explanation of everything that happened in any fights with magical opponents from the casters' perspective. You could even take this a step further asking warrior types about tactics that were used or roguish types about ambushes or local culture.

This would help your character broaden her horizons while channeling her OCD positively and hopefully would be the opposite of annoying by allowing other people to talk about things important to their character.

[Callista]

That is a very good idea. One of the other characters is already keeping a notebook; if she were to copy that (she does look up to him) and start collecting information, I might be able to justify a cross-class Knowledge rank or two, as well as giving her something more productive to do than polish holes through her shield.

The ironic part of the whole situation, which I'm seeing now, is that in an attempt to become truly selfless this character has actually been focusing more and more on herself. Once she gets that little revelation, she'll probably facepalm and laugh at herself, which, all things considered, is probably going to be a good thing. She takes herself way too seriously. Pride--the bane of Lawfuls everywhere.


Paladins tend to be annoying when the whole party isn't LG or NG.Her alignment isn't the problem, actually. The whole party is at least neutral, and the things they've done have been shady at worst, and never puppy-kicking evil. All of them know that the only reason for parading anything evil in front of my character would be if they deliberately wanted to incite a duel. Neutral and Good get along very well together, in my experience; even CN characters (which is as far as you can get from LG without being evil) have ties of friendship and professionalism, not to mention the pragmatism that says "these people have treated me fairly, I've made a good amount of gold while with them; therefore I'll stay with them and watch their backs."

I think maybe your experiences with paladins may be at fault here--I know some people play them as though they can't be team players, ever, and have to smite anything that smells even vaguely evil or chaotic. That's not been my experience, though; the most important part of being a paladin is the Good alignment--which means you genuinely care for other people. That makes you a basically decent person, a good friend, a dependable comrade. All too often, though, people play Neutral as an ersatz evil, pragmatists who'll do evil things because it was practical and balance it out with throwing gold to beggars. Any paladin would take issues with that. But if that's the case you're basically playing a paladin in an evil party and that's just not going to work--not without very careful planning anyhow.

[Gnome Alone]

You are of course right. However, this isn't the only option available. I once played a LE cleric of Bane in a 2nd Ed game. When he gained the "Immunity to Fear" ability, I decided to play it as if the deity had delved into his soul and surgically removed all the components of fear. He was fearless, foolhardy even. What tempered that was intellect. Knowing when you're beaten and retreating even though you don't feel the slightest bit of fear. That was very interesting to roleplay actually. A completely fearless but smart character.

That sounds awesome too. I'll admit I hadn't thought of any other ways to do it.

[Rejusu]

Take a level in badass.

In all seriousness though, actually "just changing" your character isn't necessarily a bad idea. You don't have to rewrite her personality completely or play her out of character to accomplish this. You can play it out in such a way that stays true to the character and allows her to get over her fears and worries. You can use a catalyst to accomplish this (like have her go through a breakdown, or have a friend make a poignant remark) but it's not a requirement. People can just sit up and re-examine their entire life without any outside stimulus. Sometimes it's just something that's been slowly simmering away in the back of their mind.

You can always round off your transformation with an important haircut (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImportantHaircut) too. Just remember as long as she has a motivation to change, she can change.

[TheDarkSaint]

Something helpful you might try when you come to an rp session where her in character actions are becoming a problem.

Ask yourself, as a player, "What other actions can she do besides this one that will be fun for the rest of my group, helpful to the party AND be in character for her?"

You're gut instinct for rping her may be to make her more and more despondent and untrusting, but I think if you stopped for a moment and thought "what else is she capable of that would make sense right now", you'd find alternative actions that show growth of character.

Remember, the only interesting characters in books are those that change :) You've set up a great story for a protagonist who has to deal with a lot. Now, it may be time for her to start struggling against what is surmounting against her and begin to change. Those make amazing stories :)

Good luck!

[Dairuga]

Well then, this problem actually sounds quite like something I have encountered before with my own characters, aside not on the depressive side of things.

Without delving too much into a rant; I had a cleric. A gnoll cleric, whom was as much of a pacifist as you could get. He had met Pelor, or so he believed, and he wanted to live his entire life giving back what he had been given. He felt as if nothing he ever did would be worthy of the gifts he had been given prior, and he hardly accepted anything. Gifts from party members that took pity on his frail state, healing potions and magic items alike. He wanted to be self-sufficient, refusing help.

And then, he met a little girl. A little girl whom was shunned from society, having manifested unheard powers at such a tender age, (A Psychokinetic Psion) and she was chased away as a monster. Needless to say, when this cleric found her, he started becoming a more fatherly figure, and when she was hurt... That was the first time he had flown into a rage.

The point is, for your paladin. As badly off as she is, what would happen if she met someone even worse off than her? Someone that had suffered, someone that needed help; someone that needed protecting. You could try having her meet a younger, or more vulnerable person, and perhaps; just perhaps, your Paladin would feel a stronger urge to protect this other being, more so than being afraid of herself. Perhaps this person could also have escaped from CE land, and was in an even worse condition. Perhaps she would see herself in this new person.

And if the situation is right, perhaps she would be able to Man herself (or girl herself?) up to give whatever is threatening this new person the trashing it deserves. Usually, people only need one, life-changing experience to turn their lives around.

And you said that she has a deathly fear of being mind controlled and do evil things? I have had a player that did the exact same thing. His character concept -was- that he wanted to play a good person, that could protect himself from being mind controlled. So I put him up as a Paladin, and I told him about the feats "Iron Will", and "Indomitable WIll".

These feats are epic for your characters (And waiving the endurance requirement, perhaps, if it is fitting), and it would suit her extremely well once she gains access to new feats. It could be a sign of her mind being more resolved, and it would not be too bad if you awarded it for free (That might be looked at slightly badly, but in the one scenario I saw, it was played in such a beautiful way that it would almost be a shame -not- to give it).

Iron will, while only giving a simple +2 to will saves, can have such a wonderous roleplaying flavour, signifying that someone have steeled their resolve for the future. And Indomitable will makes you roll two dice whenever you make a will save, and take the highest number, which is an excellent way of showing that someone's will manifesting in a way that struggles and fights back against evil beings that try to charm them, or control them with magic. It could for example take the form of her almost succumbing, her mind growing heavy as some effect manage to land on her, but the second throw saves her; resulting in her shaking her head, shouting out, breaking free trough sheer force of will.

Granted, from where she is now, this could all be a long way ahead... but it could be something to work towards.


And it seems I did break into a ramble, so my apologies there.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Just had to comment on this fantastic thread. This has made it onto one of my favorite threads of all time. The advice is fantastic btw. Lots of stuff for me to use.

I am getting ready to play an Aismar celestial bloodline Paladin who has escaped the evil Drow clutches of slavery and torture in the Underdark and made it out into the surface world. Obviously he is horribly scarred (Mentally) and messed up. So what do I have him do...
He protects those in pain...
He will always resist capture and never torture anyone...
He will buy food for those in need...
Slavers shall receive no mercy...
He sleeps with a light crystal on...
Drow will fear his name...
I would suggest to come up with a few general things your character will do. Things that countermand the "angsty" parts of your character.
Your character will not lead...
But she will defend those in need...
Your character believes in her god...
So she will oppose all who are against righteousness. (Even with shaking legs)
Your character seems to abhor mind invasion spells and things (evidenced by her girlfriend.) So any character that messes with peoples minds is not going to have a good day. I recommend sketching out what your character does and doesn't. Then "Take a level of Badass" and smite evil. Again fantastic thread.