Worst character ideas

[Irk]

What are the worst character ideas that any of you can think of?
"worst" may be interpreted in any way.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Cleric taking 10 levels in a half granting class, then splashing into fighter. Your casting would be on par with a paladin who took a sweet PrC (like Fist of Raziel). You would have equal class features, and less BAB.

Worst? No. Insanely wasteful? Yes. Close enough to being awful for me.

[Deathkeeper]

Kobold Monk, core books only?

[LTwerewolf]

venerable non-DW kobold fighter, no ACF.

[Segev]

(Epic-template) Pseudonatural Half-Orc Bard.

[lsfreak]

Chaotic Stupid/Stupid Evil, fullstop. It doesn't matter how good the build is or how interesting background because of the havoc they cause. And it often crosses into OOC frustration: the player who thinks the DM is picking on them for just "playing their alignment," the party who has to deal with the messes, or the DM who has to choose between coddling the player and alienating the party, throwing out any idea of the PC's actions having consequences, or making the player feel like they're being singled out for Bad Things.

[Asrrin]

Skill-monkey focused Truenamer, with not enough points left to actually put skills in Truenaming.

[ArqArturo]

Shining Blade of Heironeus.

[Alex12]

Shining Blade of Heironeus.

Which is qualified for by taking one level of cleric and then a sufficient number of levels in Truenamer.

[ArqArturo]

Which is qualified for by taking one level of cleric and then a sufficient number of levels in Truenamer.

Or, you know, buying a weapon that does all those things that the SBoH does.

Also, most of the Thrall/Disciple classes in BoVD are awful. The Mephistopheles one is particularly bad because it does what a warlock does, without advancement on his fire thing.

[Grinner]

Wizard, because it's altogether trite.
Rogue, because the Wizard can do everything it can.
Paladin, because it's absurdly inflexible.
Fighter, because it's nearly completely unsuited for the adventurer's lifestyle.
Monk, because Monk.

[Alex12]

Or, you know, buying a weapon that does all those things that the SBoH does.

We're not just talking about classes. We're talking about characters overall. I'm reasonably confident that Paladin 7 is more effective than Cleric 1/Truenamer 10, especially if the Truenamer is doing anything other than optimizing the hell out of Truespeech.

[JaronK]

Worst I've seen players try:

1) In a "heroic, realistic, low magic campaign" the player showed up wanting to play as a dinosaur.

2) A player showed up with an archer who spent two thirds of his money on his sword... which he never was going to actually use. He also hadn't actually looked at what his character choices did (for example, he picked an animal companion that he hadn't read and then was surprised that it wasn't what he thought it was).

3) In Shadowrun, playing a realistic campaign, the player showed up with a character who was a thinly veiled version of Megaman (wearing a motorcycle helmet with a shotgun in his arm). He then proceeded to purchase all his gear based on name without reading what the gear did, and tried to use a Bola round (which is basically monofilament wire between two slugs, and cuts people in half) as a non lethal round because he thought it was a Bolas. Later he complained that he didn't like the game because he didn't feel like his character was interesting enough.

Moral of the story? The worst characters are the ones you don't understand, that are built just to be a gimmick, and that don't fit the campaign. Don't do that.

JaronK

[ArqArturo]

We're not just talking about classes. We're talking about characters overall. I'm reasonably confident that Paladin 7 is more effective than Cleric 1/Truenamer 10, especially if the Truenamer is doing anything other than optimizing the hell out of Truespeech.

In that case, way back when we were playing with 3.0 rules, one player made a paladin that always fought with two sword in hand (no feats whatsoever for two-weapon fighting) because of Rule of Cool.

Also, a Barbarian wizard that raged... Before casting spells.

[Sarison]

Any character that has a "death wish" or "doesn't care if he lives or dies."

I talked a player out of playing an average Monk. And I'm serious when I say Average, he had 12 in all stats, and 2 in all his skills. Feats were Great Fort and Iron Will, 20 guesses what he would take at 3.

[Werephilosopher]

A character who thinks he's in a fantasy world because he hears voices in his head... voices that say "I got a 14 on my attack roll," "How many points did you put in Use Rope?" and "Who keeps eating all the blasted chips?" :smallamused:

[Psyren]

Any caster -> Risen Martyr

[ArqArturo]

Any caster -> Risen Martyr

Well... It's not a PrC that you don't really plan on doing. Then again, if you're a caster X, and you happen to die, you're halfway to make a Blood Magus.

Risen Martyr is when your low-level Paladin dies because of one too many kisses with a Succubus, and doesn't want to turn into a ghoul.

[gurgleflep]

Most people would consider this a horrible idea but I'd still play it because it would be fun: a grapple based mind flayer barbarian!
While not necessarily the worst, it's nowhere near the best.

[Darth Stabber]

"heroic, realistic, low magic campaign

I really hope that wasn't played in 3.5, because the system is pretty aweful at that "realistic, low magic" idea.

[NeoPhoenix0]

Lawful stupid paladin.

[Karnith]

If I can take "worst" to mean "worst that I have ever used personally," I tried building an intended-entry Yathrinshee (Drow Cleric 5/Wizard 3/Yathrinshee 2 with full LA, as I recall) for a game once when I was first starting out.

She never made it to the table.

EDIT: Also there are some things from this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=276467) from a while ago.

[BowStreetRunner]

VoP Kobold Barbarian.

[VariSami]

Well, I did this myself at one point...

Feral Mineral Warrior Half-Minotaur Goliath with a dip in Ape Totem Barbarian, two levels of fighter and the rest Warblade. I even only did this guy because the DM had told me that everyone else was making glass cannons so the party had no real staying power. Of course, since this is a melee build and not a full caster, it is far from optimal (my previous character had been a Precogitous Apprentice Wizard/Archivist/Mystic Theurge that focused on buffs and healing for the same reason; far from optimal as well, I know).

The results? A character with Int 3 making him utterly exploitable by the Chaotic Stupid "I-am-not-Evil" player (yeah, not his character IMO) since I wanted to play it out. Also, for some reason (probably the amount of template cheese) the DM seemed to have had enough of giving players any more choices. You could say that he had a horrible backlash from allowing essentially anything to going essentially "core only - and no casters allowed". I am quite sure that this character takes a lot of the fault. If not anything else, his existence and being allowed caused the other players to crank their optimizing up to eleven.

Edit: Glob it, its too late for me to write coherent sentences.

[JaronK]

I really hope that wasn't played in 3.5, because the system is pretty aweful at that "realistic, low magic" idea.

It was 6th level, no casters, everybody got all the benefits of VoP without the draw backs but had no magic items so you still got solid benefits and you could still have all the mundane gear you wanted. You also got to be gestalt. So... it actually worked great.

Until the player showed up with a Druid gestalt dinosaur.

JaronK

[Kuulvheysoon]

Most people would consider this a horrible idea but I'd still play it because it would be fun: a grapple based mind flayer barbarian!
While not necessarily the worst, it's nowhere near the best.

So long as he takes the Illithid Body Flayer, I'd totally play that.


Also, a Barbarian wizard that raged... Before casting spells.

With no Rage Mage? For shame!


VoP Kobold Barbarian.

...Might not be all that bad. Desert Kobold (with the RotD web enhancement) focusing on Natural weapons, maybe dipping some Totemist for Totem Rager?

[ArqArturo]

Warmage/elemental savant any single element.

Electricity can be slightly forgiven, since there's little critters immune to elecricity (save golems). And Fire can only be achieved one sep above mediocrity with Searing Spell.

Edit: Also, some people might think it's dumb, but in one of my last 3.5 games, I played a warmage/exalted arcanist/sacred exorcist (we reached lvl 15, and then the game ended), and at early levels I had both the Education feats and Arcane Disciple (I started with Healing, and then moved to Good). He was awesome. Essentially at level 9 I was a swiss knife.

The result? A backup healer at early levels, and a scourge of undead. Seriously, my cure light wounds did 1d8+my level + INT to undead. It was so satisfying :smallcool:.

[NeoPhoenix0]

Warmage/elemental savant any single element.

Electricity can be slightly forgiven, since there's little critters immune to elecricity (save golems). And Fire can only be achieved one sep above mediocrity with Searing Spell.

Acid it the best choice as far as fewest elemental defenses go for the main four. Also golems aren't immune to the warmage's orb spells. (The only class i think that should have the.)