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Aard_Rinn
2013-05-17, 03:41 PM
So I need to make a level 6, LA 2-4ish half-elemental for a campain I'm working on. Problem is, I have no idea how to deal with spellcasters, or magic players in general. So I was hoping for some help designing the character sheet, plus some feedback on the backstory, ect.

Here's what I have so far, with a link to the current Char Sheet in the DM notes (you don't have to read the rest, although I'd love input!):

Riishaad


http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt184/x--mzzofficur/Axela.jpg


The girl is short, only about 4'11". She is dressed in a white cotton robe, but she has red leather shoulder pauldrons, and by her side is a sword, sheathed in red leather as well. Her hair is copper coloured, and her eyes are warm and hazel. Before her is a bowl of stew, and she is drinking what looks to be a flagon of mead. She reaches up to brush her hair back, revealing a topaz ring set in silver. It glitters brightly in the dark tavern.

Riishaad is one of the handful of Arranclancy who still chooses to roam the world, rather than living in seclusion in Kyrellnhalk. She is an enigma - the half elemental daughter of an elven sorceress - and few outside a small group of close companions know anything about her past. Most assume her a simple mage; she wears human form almost constantly, so this assumption is not that much of a reach, but in truth, she carries no human blood at all.

She is short, in her human form - only 4'11", and although she is very distinctive in appearance, with copper-red hair and dark gold eyes, she is a master of unobtrusivness - few notice her if she truely doesn't wish to be noticed. She typically wears a simple linen robe beneath a few smaller pieces of red leather armor - usually only shoulder pauldrons and boots - and a red cloth belt, prefering to protect herself with magic and a massive, devistating offencive. On her hand, she wears a silver ring set with a topaz - it adds a glamour to her ordinary human form, which is itself a total transformation; at Sagen Hoch, she lost an arm and was scarred massively on her face, and the ring hides both the metal arm she had it replaced with and the scars.

Riishaad's childhood was spent in a small village at the foot of the Sagen Mountains, but when the Children's Army - then just a small group of child soldiers following Arram and Liliander - traveled through, she and her two older brothers chose to join. Their mother had died in childbirth, their father in war, so it seemed a logical place to be, and a safe way to leave the half-deserted villiage. Riishaad first gained prominence at the battle of Sagen Hoch, where both of her brothers were slain. A caster, fighting with both mortal magic and her innate fire, she was responsible for the complete destruction of one side of the fortress - allowing the CA to enter the castle proper and begin clearing the tunnels running beneath the dwarven citadel. After that, with no surviving family, she grew closer to Arram and more fervently devoted to the CA, Liliander, and later Arram, in turn, tutored her in elemental magics. She was one of the handful in attendance when Liliander was slain, and she is said to be the one that finally quelled the Arrada'ankaar's rage.

After the war ended, Riishaada took to travelling the word under the pseudonym "Shaada", doing odd jobs and working as a theif, a mercenary, and an assassin. She also does missions for the Arranclancy, on occassion, and for other friends from the Mortal Wars. She is fiercely defensive of her comrades from the war - she feels that they have sacrificed enough that they deserve respect; a respect which is not always afforded by those who have no memories of the war.

Usually, these travels are undertaken alone, with "Shaada" traveling from city to city, visiting old friends and taking work where she can find it. Sometimes, she will take jobs with others, or recruit others to help her - these helpers rarely know who she is, only that she is a friendly girl they met at a bar who needed some muscle for a job. Sometimes, they don't even know the background of the job - she is not above hiring unknowing adventurers to help her with a job that is less than legal.

Rarely she travels with one of her old comrades, a man named Lysander. A human knight, he provides the muscle to her magic, and he too loves to wander the world, although he stays in Kyrellnhalk for most of the time. He keeps her on the straight and narrow, for the most part - when they are together, they typically work as mercenaries or stay out of society all together, travelling to ruins and old relics to study and search for treasures and artifacts. They are close companions, and together, they are powerful enough that few things threaten them in there wanderings.

Although it's widely assumed amongst the Arranclancy that Riishaad and Lysander are in a relationship, these assumptions are mostly foundless; although they are a close team, he is gay, and she is not interested in mortals: despite wearing a human form, she still conciders herself an Outsider. Indeed, though neither would ever act on it, there is a mutual attraction between her and Arram - Riishaad being drawn to the powerful elemental who protected and trained her after her brother's deaths, and Arram seeing someone who, like the Phoenix Liliander, is passionate and chaotic, burning hot with fire and life. This tension between them is a big part of why Riishaad chose to wander rather than remain in Kyrellnhalk; however, when she visits the Clancy fortress, or is summoned by the Arrada'ankaar, she is Arram's closest advisor, and she is given leave to question and defy her in ways that few other Clancymen would dare.

Riishaad has no surviving family on the Mortal Plane - her mother died from the exertion of giving birth to a fire elemental, and both of her older brothers died in the battle at Sagen Hoch. Although her father still dwells on the Plane of Elemental Fire, they have never sought each other out - he is ignorant of the fact that his dalliance in the mortal world brought about a child, and she resents him for her mother's death and his absence in her life, unaware that he doesn't know she exists. Although her home village has been rebuilt in the years of peace since the war ended, Riishaad has never seen fit to return there, to what would only be bitter memories of her lost family.

DM notes:


Character Sheet - http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=572482

As she is one of a handful of Clancy characters that are actually present in the world at large, Riishaad as "Shaada" is likely to be one of the first Clancymen your players meet, although they wouldn't know this themselves. She makes a good longterm character - a average-level companion in the introduction, who splits from the group and then is reintroduced as a powerful, high-level servant of the Arrada'ankaar in the second act. She is passionate, but it is a simmer, not a boil; she is consistant in her desires, not prone to irrational fits of rage. When she does get angry, it is a cold and frightening thing - she has no qualms against hurting others, but her words are more cutting; she speaks from experience, and her experiences are painful. Someone who belittles the sacrifices of the CA, for example, a major offense in her eyes, might recieve a slap, but she is far more likely to show them her lost arm, and speak to them in icy words of her lost brothers and friends. However, she is generally very irreverant herself, prefering to live free of any higher authority, and she is typically happy and jocular.

Loyalty to the Arrada'ankaar is everything to Riishaad - she views Arram as her savior, her teacher, and her closest friend. She is steadfast and unshakeable in her alligance to Arram and the Clancy. However, she is also prone to disagreeing with the Arrada'ankaar - and she is one of the few people with the power to sway her even after she is set on a course of action. She is easier to sway and usually a touch more sympathetic than the Arrada'ankaar, as well, and so typically an major appeal to the Arrada'ankaar is best done after convincing Riishaad to support you. It would be very hard to convince Arram of something that Riishaad was firmly set against.

As a side note - Although almost all of the other Clancy, and all outsiders, call the Arrada'ankaar the Arrada'ankaar, Riishaad still calls her Arram; she has never called her anything else, and Arram would never ask her to.



I lost my hope at Sagen Hoch,
My brothers march no more.
I carry back their coffins, now,
Where once we marched to war.

She's supposed to be a high-level character who is pretending to be the same level as the characters - she's already being used in-game in the game in the siggy, if you want to get more of an idea for the character.

Thanks a bunch!

Draken
2013-05-17, 03:52 PM
This should probably be in the gaming session, D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder subsection.

Anyway, for a helpful answer. It looks to me like you want the Half-Elemental template from Manual of the Planes, it is even an LA +3 template, as you want.

As for 'how to deal with spellcasters" I will assume you mean how to build them, in which case the best advice I can give is that LA3/Anything3/Spellcaster2 is an extremely nonfunctional build.

Aard_Rinn
2013-05-17, 04:28 PM
So what would be a better option? I want her to be a fairly limited caster, who is able to take a bit of a pounding - and I am trying to limit her to fire attacks, not acid or lightning or anything like that. I was planning to give her a few innate spells that she could use, as would be fitting to the character - a fire elemental summons to substitute for a familiar, and burning hands at will - but I am going more for fluff than hard numbers, I just want it so other people can see where I'm going with the character.

MotP seems pretty close to what I was looking for, but I was hoping for a way to bulk it up a little - if that's an LAC 3, I need like LAC 6-8 - someone strong enough to provide a few good turns fighting with a group of lvl. 6 PCs before running off, preferably. I don't want her to have more than a max of like 10 CL, though... LA seems easier to adjust, since they'll be encountering her at higher levels later on.

Draken
2013-05-17, 07:36 PM
So what would be a better option? I want her to be a fairly limited caster, who is able to take a bit of a pounding - and I am trying to limit her to fire attacks, not acid or lightning or anything like that. I was planning to give her a few innate spells that she could use, as would be fitting to the character - a fire elemental summons to substitute for a familiar, and burning hands at will - but I am going more for fluff than hard numbers, I just want it so other people can see where I'm going with the character.

MotP seems pretty close to what I was looking for, but I was hoping for a way to bulk it up a little - if that's an LAC 3, I need like LAC 6-8 - someone strong enough to provide a few good turns fighting with a group of lvl. 6 PCs before running off, preferably. I don't want her to have more than a max of like 10 CL, though... LA seems easier to adjust, since they'll be encountering her at higher levels later on.

Still the wrong area of the forum, but lets go by parts.

1. What you want is likely a Duskblade, you can find the class in the Player's handbook II. A 7th level Half Elemental Duskblade should be pretty dangerous for a 6th level party. Specially because Duskblades do a lot of damage.

2. Any LA above 1 will pretty much invariably make a character weaker, compared to another character of the same ECL. Specially if said character relies on spell casting. That said, yeah, none of the Half-whathaveyou templates are really worth it for PCs.

3. A single opponent, specially a character with class levels, will only challenge a group if that character makes engaging him very difficult (which a melee will not do), the arena the fight is happening in is troublesome, or some other shenanigans are at work.