Optimizing a Stupid Character

[1pwny]

Hey every one! I was wondering if I was the only one who did this...

So, to make things fun in any campaigns/battles I do, I always pick a stupid idea, then optimize it. Like, for example, a person that focuses on creating swords out of thin air and shooting them at people. Making stupid characters and pumping them up makes things fun, and usually more fair.

Have any of you done anything like this? If so, what kind of character?

[Flickerdart]

This is every character I play, because optimizing a good idea is too boring.

[Crake]

To be fair, manifesting swords and then magically hurling them at enemies isn't a stupid idea, it's pretty cool in its aesthetics.

[Emperor Tippy]

Hey every one! I was wondering if I was the only one who did this...

So, to make things fun in any campaigns/battles I do, I always pick a stupid idea, then optimize it. Like, for example, a person that focuses on creating swords out of thin air and shooting them at people. Making stupid characters and pumping them up makes things fun, and usually more fair.

Have any of you done anything like this? If so, what kind of character?

Sure, all the time.

I mean there was the little Wyrmling Mercury Dragon that specialized in fly by killings.

Or the sniper build that will jam arrows into your head from a thousand miles away.

Or the Psion who would fight by blinking at you and summoning up sixty Ice Assassin's of you to brutally slaughter you.

Or ninja that would kill you with sebon.

[Nerd-o-rama]

So, to make things fun in any campaigns/battles I do, I always pick a stupid idea, then optimize it. Like, for example, a person that focuses on creating swords out of thin air and shooting them at people.

I don't think it's that stupid. Another D&D player did this exact idea once and made about a trillion yen off the resulting story. Although I guess that was more due to the stupid idea's girlfriend than the stupid idea himself.

That said this is usually how I optimize: come up with a concept and see how well I can implement it in-game. Some of these concepts are stupid, like the Changeling Duskblade who started off as an attempt to just get an expanded spell list and wound up being a shapeshifting multiclassing monstrosity who'd just turn into a wide variety of fictional character parodies and got more and more stuff tacked onto her backstory until she was basically a parody of everything including herself.

I miss Eberron with Giant Robots.

[Red Fel]

What everyone else has been saying.

My typical method is to conceive of an image that's cool in my mind. (And for the record, I don't think your examples are "stupid," just "different," which to me is a good thing.) Once I've gotten that, I try to figure out how to play it in-game.

Sometimes I compromise on some flavor in order to smooth out the mechanics. But not to the point where the character dramatically changes. For example, if I have a divine knight character and I realize that, if I make him a Paladin as I intended, he can't do this neat and totally fitting trick I found, I may make him a Cleric/Crusader instead. I'm giving up on the specific flavor (Paladin) but still keeping to the general flavor (super neat trick).

My latest endeavor in this field was a face-shredding kitty (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=314320), which I thought would be outrageously fun. The goal was to make a Tibbit who was effective in kitty form as well as in monstrous humanoid form. I think it was successful. Another concept I worked on was a Dragonborn Hellbred (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=308622). On the surface, it's mechanically lame - Dragonborn strips Hellbred of basically everything, from bonus feats to Evil Exception. And yet, flavor-wise, it became a really fun idea. Another build concept (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=304135) was basically designed entirely around optimizing the feat Live My Nightmare (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm#liveMyNightmare). The feat itself is just a counter-attack version of Phantasmal Killer, which is itself a weak spell, in that it requires the victim to fail two saves (at higher levels this is almost unheard of). And yet, the build shaped into something fun and potent.

It's not stupid. It's the basis for great characters.

[Seer_of_Heart]

Sure, all the time.

I mean there was the little Wyrmling Mercury Dragon that specialized in fly by killings.

Or the sniper build that will jam arrows into your head from a thousand miles away.

Or the Psion who would fight by blinking at you and summoning up sixty Ice Assassin's of you to brutally slaughter you.

Or ninja that would kill you with sebon.

What's sebon?

[Gamereaper]

No, I try doing that sometimes and come up with a more memorable character than an OP near godlike powerful character sometimes.

Right now I'm creating a 3 foot tall Mongrelman Feat Rogue/Fighter/Psychic Warrior/Monk that is super cowardly and utterly useless in battle, but they are an AWESOME utility character. I'm trying to find a ton of DR feats so I can make him comically nigh invincible for the hell of it. If I do things right, he'll have like 20+ feats by the time he's level 8. Still pretty useless in a fight though.

[Slipperychicken]

What's sebon?

My google-fu is getting me Securities Board of Nepal and several companies (for precision casting, IT solutions, cosmetics). Apparently it's the welsh word for soap too.

Maybe he means "senbon", which are double-sided needles used in medicine, and also combat by a Naruto character.