Ways to be Bloodthirsty without a DM slapping a Evil label on you?

[CyberThread]

Ways to be Bloodthirsty without a DM slapping a Evil label on you?


Bloodthirsty = I enjoy killing stuff, am not here for the loot

[Segev]

This is not enough information to go on usefully. Can you elaborate as to why you wish to do this?

On the surface, with this level of description, it sounds evil, to me.

[Psyren]

Maybe you can enjoy a good fight or a good challenge instead of the actual kill itself? And pull your punches when a kill is not necessary, such as if the enemy surrenders.

[Kansaschaser]

Be a Warblade or a Swordsage from the Book of Nine Swords. There is a stance called "Blood in the Water". You gain bonuses to hit and damage every time you cause a crit in battle. You arn't just a bloodthristy character for no reason. You could prove that you need to kill stuff so you can get better at well,...killing bigger stuff.

As for avoiding getting slapped with Evil, you could play a Chaotic Neutral character and relish battle. Just avoid torturing people or killing innocent bystandards.

You could also be a Gladiator/Street Brawler/Duelist that specifically seeks out people to duel.

[Temotei]

You could be a sort of crusader against evil, loving every minute of smashing their bad faces into the dirt repeatedly. Probably not a good thing, but it's probably not evil if you're not just killing for the sake of killing (basically, don't kill evil people because they've got that alignment; kill them because they're dangerous to you or others, are running a tyrannical government, etc.).

Or maybe you just enjoy violence, but not killing, necessarily. You could love the thrill of the fight, but care less whether something is dead or just knocked out. As long as it's helpless and you're not, you win and you move on to the next challenge.

[Fax Celestis]

Big.

Game.

Hunter.

You're not out here to kill dragons and take their stuff.

You're out here to kill dragons and mount their stuffed and taxidermied head on your wall.

You're out here so you can have a girallon-skin rug.

You're out here so you can have razor-boar ivory piano keys.

Bonus points if you put points in Craft (Taxidermy) and take the Trophy Collector feat.

[Divide by Zero]

Or maybe you just enjoy violence, but not killing, necessarily. You could love the thrill of the fight, but care less whether something is dead or just knocked out. As long as it's helpless and you're not, you win and you move on to the next challenge.

I think this is the big thing: do you like killing specifically, or just fighting/winning in general? Killing for the sake of killing is pretty undeniably evil, I don't think there's a way around that.

[SethoMarkus]

Just think of characters like Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones, or Thibbledorf Pwent from the Forgotten Realms setting, or even Conan the Barbarian. You have a bloodlust for vanquishing foes in battle. You seek to prove yourself as the best. If the enemy surrenders, you might kill them rather than take them captive, but if you have a prisoner you don't torture or kill them. You don't stab someone because you felt like it, but that remark about your mother being an ogress constitutes a fight... to the death.

Don't play a psych-killer, play someone who takes battle very seriously. Maybe you detest fighting for sport, as it soils the glory of a true fight when one's life is on the line (for a cause). Maybe you think gladiatorial games are the finest thing ever created. Regardless of how you show your love for battle, that bloodlust only pertains to battle.

Think of the archetypal barbarian: might have a short temper out of battle, flies off the wall in a rage in battle, but has a rudimentary honor code that still discourages murder.

[AmberVael]

Ways to be Bloodthirsty without a DM slapping a Evil label on you?

Play a PC and don't comment on the issue. :smalltongue:

Seriously though, just because you're bloodthirsty doesn't mean you have to be an idiot about it... or even evil about it. It's not exactly a noble trait, sure, but you can be a bloodthirsty person who also values life. There would be a lot of conflict between these traits, but it is entirely possible to be a person who has both- maybe a character likes beating people up, crushing them to a pulp, and even killing them... but that doesn't mean they think it is the right thing to do.

I can easily imagine such a person taking up a role like Fax suggests. Or maybe they could be a bounty hunter, or an executioner- they don't kill anyone who doesn't have it coming, and they operate entirely legally. They might be a scary person, but so long as they kept control of themselves, I don't think I'd call them a bad guy.

Alternately maybe you could just play a game based on nordic myth. Seriously, have you read some of that stuff? I read about a dude who threw a bone so hard at another warrior that he killed him, then he went and slaughtered a dragon, fed its blood and heart to someone, then threw a berserker against the ground and shattered all of his bones. He later turned into a massive bear and slaughtered an army.
And he was the good guy in the story.

[Ravens_cry]

This is one you are going to have to pull on your DM wrangling boots for.
What works for one DM may not fly with another.
One advice I can give for the aspiring slaughterhound is to not kill their favourite NPC's or smacking up their villains in mid monologue. You can play Blender™ (it's like Twister™, but with more severed limbs and sharp implements) with all the mooks and minions and monsters, just don't go around killing anything before its time that the DM actually cares about.

[JaronK]

Ask your DM for an Abyss campaign? Then you can play a Paladin/Crusader fighting their way out of the abyss. Lots of demon smashing to do there!

JaronK

[QuintonBeck]

Play a barbarian or just have a lower intelligence. DMs tend to look over incredible bloodlust in those cases and you can cite your low intelligence as being why you resort to the "simplest" solution if you need to.

[Venger]

Big.

Game.

Hunter.

You're not out here to kill dragons and take their stuff.

You're out here to kill dragons and mount their stuffed and taxidermied head on your wall.

You're out here so you can have a girallon-skin rug.

You're out here so you can have razor-boar ivory piano keys.

Bonus points if you put points in Craft (Taxidermy) and take the Trophy Collector feat.

don't forget stormwrack's terrible (and fun!) leviathan hunter! a whole prc dedicated to the concept (plus it gives you a better version of leviathan hunter without spending a feat.

[rexx1888]

Don't be blood thirsty, be zealous :-p

[lycantrope]

Be like Drizzt, and massacre every man, woman, and child gnoll you run into...because...chaotic good?

[Manly Man]

Be a Chaotic Good Frenzied Berserker, use Righteous Fury to maintain at least a little bit of control over your actions when you go into freak-the-f**k-out mode (most DMs I've had say that if it works on a Rage, it works on a Frenzy as well), and use a Merciful weapon. You beat them into the ground until they are completely unable to fight back, and even if you killed them anyway, it's apparent that you at least put forth some effort (or gold, with the enchantment on your weapon) to not do so outright.

[Mr. Mason]

It might just be something I don't understand, but I don't see why chaotic is necessary. I can see a character who strives to tame the rage and chaos of battle -- a character who is Lawful.

Also, in my opinion, actions aren't Lawful, Good, Evil, Chaotic, or even Neutral; actions just are. The reasons behind those actions are a different story. A prophetic character might discover that the only way to save a town with two-thousand people in it is to kill a town with twenty. Though the action of killing those twenty people might be perceived as Evil, It resulted in +19,980 lives being saved. I would play up this aspect of your character.

Finally, off the top of my head, I can't think of any mechanical reason being Evil should affect you; I don't have all the information, but it seems that being Evil will just affect fluff. And the cool thing about fluff is that it can always be "re"fluffed.

Hope this helps!

[Waddacku]

You can be bloodthirsty and not necessarily like it. You enjoy the violence and killing, in spite of what you think is right, and so you don't go around murdering people. When the deserving (bad guys) appear, though, you can let loose and indulge yourself.
In short, your friends think you're a decent/good person, but when in combat you seem to enjoy yourself quite a bit too much.

[Prince Raven]

You can get away with incredibly bloodthirsty Palaldins by making them fanatical crusaders.

[Alex12]

You can get away with incredibly bloodthirsty Palaldins by making them fanatical crusaders.

And if you're a Crusader, you don't even have to worry about falling!

[ShurikVch]

I'm not bloodthirsty, I,m creative with weapons! :nale: :thog::belkar:

[Hyde]

Dragon Ball Z.

Goku enjoys fighting for fighting's sake. Several times throughout he endangers lives and worlds just to fight a powerful opponent. Enjoying combat is not inherently evil, especially if you tend to save lives in the process, rather than end them. Goku's willingness to show mercy to an absurd extent is separate from this, and you could just as easily justify killing an enemy as a permanent end to a threat.

Frieza, on the other hand, genuinely enjoys causing suffering and pain, and kills because he likes killing. Let's review his behaviour: He goes to a planet well out of his way (a dungeon) and begins killing its inhabitants, whom he does not consider people (kobolds, goblins- whatever your dungeon is filled with) when even faking sincerity would've been more expedient.

So if your DM uses monsters that are inherently evil and your character is just enjoying removing the threat, at worst he's just sociopathic. If your character is adventuring specifically because it's basically socially accepted murder.... yeah, that's a little evil. You're basically saying "well, I would've been something normal, like a big game hunter, but I like when my prey has intelligence enough to recognize and fear me."

[Blightedmarsh]

Play a lawful good genocidal lunatic with a penchant for burning gnoll villages.

Play as a psychopath who adventures so he can murder to his hearts content without feeling guilty about it.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Play a lawful good genocidal lunatic with a penchant for burning gnoll villages.

Play as a psychopath who adventures so he can murder to his hearts content without feeling guilty about it.

Those are characters in the "Lawful Evil" and "Neutral-to-Chaotic Evil" spectra, respectively.

This thread is full of good advice, and I think I'll take the "big game hunter" approach next time I play a combative type just to get away from the honorable knights/religious warriors I've been on lately. Maybe a ranger...

[Fax Celestis]

This thread is full of good advice, and I think I'll take the "big game hunter" approach next time I play a combative type just to get away from the honorable knights/religious warriors I've been on lately. Maybe a ranger...

Bonus points if your last name is Von Pelt.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Bonus points if your last name is Von Pelt.

I'll probably go with Nessingwary if it's in my RL group since they're all big MMO fans and I like making fun of them for it.

[Slipperychicken]

Play as a psychopath who adventures so he can murder to his hearts content without feeling guilty about it.

So you mean, every player-character in history?

[BWR]

So you mean, every player-character in history?

QFT.

Do a body count throughout a PC's career. You will find they go through a truly staggering number of foes (and that's only counting intelligent foes). Just play a normal PC, you will be plenty bloodthirsty.

And there's always the Chaotic Neutral version.

[Manly Man]

And if you're a Crusader, you don't even have to worry about falling!

Crusader of Wee Jas. You spend all day spattering the blood of necromancers and their undead followers. That zombie wants your brains in its mouth? You'll have its brains on your flail.

[Just to Browse]

Be a nordic barbarian. You can be ridiculous in a fight, but as long as your espouse the importance of companions, make jokes about drinking, and you have some sort of object (like a ship, maybe battleaxe) that you cherish then people will see your character as a person and you're less likely to get slammed.

[Blightedmarsh]

So you mean, every player-character in history?

I mean play as a guy for whom killing and violence is the only way they feel alive. Since they don't see themselves as evil and they don't want to; hurt their friends and family, be arrested, kill innocents adventuring is their way out.

They can live their lives as they want, be rewarded and glorified for it, even do some good if they choose; all without having to feel guilty about any of it or chance their perspective on themselves.

[Slipperychicken]

I mean play as a guy for whom killing and violence is the only way they feel alive. Since they don't see themselves as evil and they don't want to; hurt their friends and family, be arrested, kill innocents adventuring is their way out.

So, it's adventuring. Except you usually do that stuff mid-adventure too.