Default Class Fluff turned on its ear

[RedMage125]

I'm looking to hear how some of you have taken the default assumptions of class fluff for D&D, and turned it around so that the character with it is radically different from most of his/her type.

Now, to start with, here's some that player's in my games have come up with.

The most tame variation to begin with. I had a player who was new to D&D of any edition. He decided to go with an Eladrin Fey-lock. He came up with a pretty great backstory that basically revolved around his character's father. The father had left him and his mother when he was still a baby, and sought out a powerful archfey. The father made a pact with the archfey for power for his son. When his son (the PC) came of age, a sword was delivered to him-a gift from his absent father. When he took hold of the sword, he felt its power coursing through him. The sword is now the symbol of his fey-pact (for which his father made the deal and paid the price, not him). He took Arcane Implement Proficiency (Heavy Blades) as his first feat, to represent using his sword for warlock powers. Since it was such a rich flavor thing, instead of giving him magic swords, I simply ruled that the magic in the sword was building with him. But I decided to use Magic Rods for him, since they had cooler stuff for warlocks than most magic swords. Mechanically, I gave him a Rod of Corruption +1 and a Magic Sword +1, but in-game, his personal weapon became enchanted in a manner that allowed him to use it as an implement or a backup melee weapon in a pinch.

The next was also a lock of a different variety. My player made a half-elf Infernal Pact Warlock, but wanted to come up with a way to actually be non-evil, didn't even want to play his character as "evil lite". His character was a part of a secretive cabal of worshipers of Sehanine. The cabal had, in the past, defeated and captured a powerful pit fiend. Not wanting to kill it and allow another one to just re-form in Baator, the cabal imprisoned the devil. Certain members of the cabal were chosen to siphon off the devil's power. As long as they held a portion of its power, the devil itself had less. So all of them became Infernal-Pact warlocks in every way except flavor. None of them made a deal for their powers, they are stealing them. And it did require a sacrifice, because each of them, upon accepting the devil's power, went into exile. As each individual warlock of that cabal's power grew, more was siphoned from the devil, further weakening it. However, if one of them was to die, that power would be returned to the devil. To keep any potential minions of the devil from being able to locate a group of them in one place, they leave their home temple, never to return, but hoping for the best for all of their brothers. The idea being that each of them has an obligation to go into the world and try to become more powerful while avoiding their home temple and each other.

It was a great and unique concept, and had the added benefit of 1) not being another "sold my soul" story and 2) providing me (the DM) with great fodder for a plot hook later (like...what happens if enough of his brothers die that the devil has enough power to break his bonds?).

Finally, the big one. This backstory came from a Marine I played D&D with aboard an aircraft carrier. He decided to play a Shaman, World Speaker build. For those of you unfamiliar with Primal Power, the World Speaker's "spirit companion" is not a spectral animal, but physically composes itself out of whatever is in its environment when it is called/summoned. He got this idea when I explained how the different Primal Classes all interact with the Primal Spirits (druids command them and they obey, wardens and barbarians invite them into their bodies, albeit in different fashions, and Shamans commune with them). So his character was once a young man with a young wife and a child. In his youth, he was a hunter for his village, and he provided well for his family. His house was attacked by gnolls, however, and his family was eaten before his eyes, but before the gnolls got to him, an adventuring party saved him and killed the gnolls. His character spent the next 20 years living as a hermit in a shack in the woods, talking to a stone he had found (kind of Wilson from Cast Away), and believing that he was going mad, as the stone was happy to converse right back with him. After many years, the stone finally got through to the 40-something man. He was not-in fact-mad at all. The stone was a very real spirit, and he was one of the few people in the world chosen by the Primal Spirits to be their voice in the world. So he took up his old leather armor and his old spear and set out towards the village he lived in as a youth. The stone he spent so many years with, accompanied him, surrounding itself with earth and vegetation so that it could move. Since the first outsiders he encountered on the way to the village were a druid and a barbarian (who immediately recognized a shaman when they saw one), he started to truly realize that the stone had been right and he was not, in fact, losing his mind.

One of the most original shaman concepts I have ever encountered.

What have you done/seen/thought of? I'd love to make this thread a place where you post a really creative and innovative concept that defies the default fluff of a class, while still remaining, at its core,a amember of that class.

[Kurald Galain]

Refluffing is all the rage these days. I've had a player who refluffed his character into a superhero (in a fantasy campaign, no less; think Super Robert or whatever that guy from Domic Degan was).

[Excession]

Not a PC, but I refluffed a dragon into an enchanted table. The players were sitting down to eat when it and the chairs attacked them. The cutlery-based breath weapon was a highlight.

[georgie_leech]

If it counts, I came up with a way to emulate a beholder here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16821746&postcount=89)

[Tegu8788]

While not a heavy refluffing, I'm loving my human Paladin|Warlock/Bard. Quarter Eladrin, he's obsessed with living up to his grandfather's image, so he's a Mage-Knight, in service to Corellon. As a good paladin of a skill and magic god, he has spread out, using a Fey Pact and Bard MC to fill out his skill set. Runs around swinging his long sword trying to make the old swordmage happy.

[Sol]

i had a lovely STR/INT Earthsoul Genasi Berserker, who was refluffed as the guardian spirit of a mountain in the feywild. She used the unseelie agent theme to summon/dismiss a heavy warpick.

Most of her abilities were flavored to match, with Defender Aura being a localized and constant dust storm, which swirled around her, slightly impeding foes, while heightening her awareness of enemies within, allowing her to sense when their attentions were focused elsewhere and strike.

Her Shadow-Wrought heavy warpick was chosen as fitting revenge against the fomorians who mined deep within her, and summoning it was flavored as bits of rock and soil condensing from her defender aura into the solid form.

She picked many THP-granting abilities, which were flavored as fresh mud patching her wounds. De-activating defender aura by using berserker fury triggered berserk vitality, which of course meant all of the dirt in her swirling defender aura would get sucked into the gaping hole in her torso.

And she ended every combat by opening her maw too-wide, tilting her head back, dropping her shadow-wrought heavy warpick straight down her gullet with a sickening crunch, and belching.

she probably could have been more optimized as a bookish barb, but even as she was, i loved her.

[HappyBlanket]

Sort of simple ones, but two Warlock refluffs. One I played briefly at the table, the other is a concept. Similar to your first example!
My first character, a Fey warlock who I played at the table, had his Warlock powers refluffed as an arcane crossbow. They were all ranged powers, so it all fit very cleanly! When he entered combat, the bow would shimmer into existence from the back of his hand and forearm, and his arrows (his Encounter powers :P) would either float on his back like bolts in a quiver, or be drawn into existence like his At-Wills.

Second one I haven't played yet. Had the idea to make... I think it was a Revenant (Warforged) Vestige Pack Warlock, using Eldritch Strike. With Arcane Familiar (Warforged Face Plate :P). Used a sword/rod, just like your Fey fellow. But I refluffed his Eldritch Strike as the blade, instead of using an actual sword. So he'd hold the Rod as his implement, and destructive magic would flow from the tip, forming a blade. So just like that, magic lightsaber! Was hoping to try filling up his Encounter powers with Close attacks or some such, refluffing them as massive swings of the magic sword. Although, most Warlock spells end up being ranged :P.

I also fluffed that his familiar was his very own face (noting that Revenants seem to have replacement faces of their own). This Warforged would serve as a vessel for the powerful personae of the Vestige, and as a result of having done so, had lost his own identity along the way. The person he once was lives on in his original face.


Ah, had other half baked ideas for refluffing that I never managed. Few ideas for a character who fought using massive claws of arcane energy (starting to see a theme here, maybe), using them to smash the ground or deliver direct blows. Simple enough, actually; a Monk works really cleanly. Any other class with Melee, Blast, or Burst attacks also does this well. With the Unseelie Agent theme, the claws could be a refluffed weapon, using the stats of any weapon permitted by the theme.

[Gavran]

I once almost got to play a Wilden World Speaker Shaman who I fluffed as a genius loci (trading most of its power for the ability to leave its land.) Much more of a race refluff than class, but I really liked the concept. I should build it again and find a game for it. >.>

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Refluffing is all the rage these days. I've had a player who refluffed his character into a superhero (in a fantasy campaign, no less; think Super Robert or whatever that guy from Domic Degan was).
4E actually works really well for supers.

[Ceiling_Squid]

Maybe not so much turning fluff on its ear, as it might be tying fluff together in a way that felt remarkably natural. Seemed to be a happy accident to me. With hybrid classes, I love coining new fluff using the combination as a starting-point.

Setting is Eberron. Unfortunately, the actual start of this campaign is still a ways off (due to unforeseen real-life delays), but I'm itching to start playing this character.

Rolled up a Hobgoblin Warlock/Swordmage hybrid, as a fifth man in the party. Hobgoblin having Con/Int seemed like the natural choice for a Warlock/Swordmage hybrid. So far, he was shaping up to be a tough-as-nails secondary defender. Mostly focused on disruptive striking, using eldritch strike to kick off his assault aegis and his curse at the same time, but also tough enough to be a front-liner.

Swordmages have a sword bond, I realized. What if I got the DM to fluff this sword-bond into the swordmage communicating with an intelligent item? Maybe an old heirloom sword taken from his homeland.

What happened to the hobgoblin homeland in the past? Oh right, Xoriat invasion. Far realm shenanigans.

"...wait, what if his sword-bond and his warlock pact were the same thing."

I immediately changed my hybrid pact of choice to Star Pact. It's not optimal compared to my original choice of infernal pact, but humor me.

"So that's how I wound up making a pact with an ancient weapon that's now bonded to me, and probably contains the spirit of a trapped evil being of madness from the realm of Xoriat. I will destroy these foul beasts with their own magic!"

So now I'm a vengeful aberration-hunter with an intelligent blade bound to me through some sort of contract. I feel dangerously close to corruption.

And I just bet that it hates having to kill it's fellows. I'm slaving its foul magic to my own ends. Or maybe it has its own agenda and I am but a pawn? Why did it agree to be bound to me? Who knows! I was throwing hook ideas at my GM (who can use them to screw me over), and loving the possibilities.

Really don't know if I thought this through. My brethren probably hate me. I'm going full on "he who fights monsters" with this character.

Also have the Scholar theme, to improve my knowledge checks for things man was not meant to know. :smalltongue:

[RedMage125]

Ooh, I forgot about hybrids...

SO, I was pondering making a Final Fantasy I/Origins style game for 4e.

And it occurred to me...you could make a PERFECT Final Fanatsy I Red Mage.

Use stat array that gives 2 16s, put one in STR and one in CHA.

Pick a STR/CHA race, like Dragonborn.

Hybrid Warlord|Sorcerer, use 1st level feat to pick up Hybrid Talent: Warlord Armor Proficiency.

If you start at 1st level, not having a magic implement means you don't technically NEED one, so don't worry about it.

At 2nd level, take the feat Arcane Implement Proficiency (Heavy Blade)

Now you have a character who can wear Chainmail and use Light Shields, but no heavier armors.
He is proficient with all Military weapons.
He can fight well in melee, but not as well as a pure martial character, and he is NOT a tank.
He can heal a little bit, but not as well as a Cleric, and won't have Turn Undead (the DIA spells from FF).
He can cast some offensive magic (Black Magic), but not as well as a dedicated caster, as some of his options will have to be Warlord powers.

All you have to do is reflavor Inspiring Word to be actual healing magic, and voila!

Red Mage.

[Burley]

Not a huge derivation fom the main fluff, but:

I had a Deva Artificer who, tiring of reincarnation, attempted to make himself either mortal or immortal. He set up various laboratories an support networks do he could continent his research in each life. He realized at some point that his want to abandon the Deva cycle was turning his hands backwards.

"Oh, dang. I'm, like, half rakshasa now. Dang."

So, he chopped off his hands, made himself some magichanical ones, and decided to systematically turn himself into a warforged.

It all came from the little flavor text for the rakshasa. I focused on the summoning bits of the Artificer, foregoing anything that was actually magical, and refluffing what I needed to.

[Lord Raziere]

Fighter: I'm a war mage who conjures arcane armor and swords, then attacks

Wizard: I'm a mundane alchemist guy who throws bottles of potions for various effects.

Rogue: I'm a shadow-magic user who uses his shadow to sneak around, help me steal things, pick locks and help me perform various feats of acrobatics

Paladin: I'm a guy who uses lost nanotechnology to repair other people on the cellular level while fighting with power armor.

Ranger: I'm a guy with a six-shooter and a steampunk robo-dog.

Psion: I use technology to hack reality

Druid: I am guy who knows demonic magic, and can turn into a demon.

thats all I can come up with now.

[Inevitability]

Ooh, I forgot about hybrids...

SO, I was pondering making a Final Fantasy I/Origins style game for 4e.

And it occurred to me...you could make a PERFECT Final Fanatsy I Red Mage.

Use stat array that gives 2 16s, put one in STR and one in CHA.

Pick a STR/CHA race, like Dragonborn.

Hybrid Warlord|Sorcerer, use 1st level feat to pick up Hybrid Talent: Warlord Armor Proficiency.

If you start at 1st level, not having a magic implement means you don't technically NEED one, so don't worry about it.

At 2nd level, take the feat Arcane Implement Proficiency (Heavy Blade)

Now you have a character who can wear Chainmail and use Light Shields, but no heavier armors.
He is proficient with all Military weapons.
He can fight well in melee, but not as well as a pure martial character, and he is NOT a tank.
He can heal a little bit, but not as well as a Cleric, and won't have Turn Undead (the DIA spells from FF).
He can cast some offensive magic (Black Magic), but not as well as a dedicated caster, as some of his options will have to be Warlord powers.

All you have to do is reflavor Inspiring Word to be actual healing magic, and voila!

Red Mage.

I once did something like that with a barbarian | sorcerer. The fluff was that he was a member of the dragon totem tribe, a group of barbarians who slowly turned themselves into dragons by dedication to the primal spirits.

Burning spray? No, that's his breath weapon.
Howling strike? A attack empowered by his dragon totem, eager to enter the battle.

[Fortis]

I once played a chemist/herbalist who was a refluffed wizard. He didn't know magic spells, but what he had were various compounds and chemicals that he would throw at the enemies. I went onto various websites to look up poisonous herbs to use in the refluffing. Winged horde, a psychic illusion at will attack, became Jimsonweed extract. (Jimsonweed, FYI, is a hallucinogenic plant.) Illusory Obstacles became Hemlock powder. Sleep became Mandrake extract.

A fun character to play, though I hit a fluff snag when the party came up against skeletal undead.

[Tegu8788]

Another fun hybrid I played, Skald|Executioner/Warlock, I played as Mal Reynolds. Fluffed it all mundane, used a shortbow, cursed guys out in Mandarin.

[GPuzzle]

I've seen a Warlord refflufed as a Psionic guy who could control minds. It was fun.

[Loreweaver15]

OP's marine friend is a genius, that's really clever!

[LimeSkeleton]

Hmm. I think most of the players in my current IRL campaign qualify, but I'll mention the two I think are most notable.

The Warforged Battlemind is the product of a secretive cabal of Dwarven worshipers of Asmodeus creating a receptacle for a particularly powerful Pit Fiend. He re-flavors his various psychic powers to feature brimstone, chains, and fire, and his body is covered in Supernal writing and complex runes of binding. It works quite well, actually, and he eventually ended up accidentally acquiring a War-Devil slave from a succubus. (But that's a different story, really)

The Pixie Sorcerer is the twisted remnant of a Halfling who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a True Fae (Think Changeling: The Lost) came knocking. His wild magic powers are re-flavored as the insanity of the Feywild being channeled into Arcane might. He's been choosing primarily cold-based powers, and we've decided his "creator" is essentially Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. Instead of truly being a Pixie, he's essentially Halfling-sized, but mutated by the darkest essence of the Feywild, with wings made of shadow and icy skin.

[LaniusShrike]

My last Slayer MCed Seeker and was a ranged weaponless attacker who summoned swarms of glowing astral spears and commanded them to seek out attackers.
Nabbed the Hunter's slide/prone/slow control as well, pretty effective build for what I was going for.

[mjorkk]

Numerous characters in the game I'm currently running counts.

-Formerly a warforged wizard (acidentally created construct,) but when he was touched by true power from across the boundary of reality, slowly became more and more T-1000-ey, but it came with an odd bloodlust. At this point, he's a "swordmage" who "summons" his "sword" by growing blades from his arms.

-(No longer active charater) Shaman refluffed into a necromancer who summons an undead champion to fight for him, and restitches people's wounds with necromantic energy, or simply "pushes the death away."

-As a ranger slowly became more interested in the arcane arts (multiclassed into wizard, and started "apprenticing" under the warforged wizard when he was still a wizard) eventually builds a whole new mechanical character upon the jump to epic who's now a ranged artificer, firing all manner of alchemical hawkeye arrows.

-(No longer active character.) A "Human" "Monk" who was possessed by a fire demon at birth, and carried around twin "clockwork katars." She begins battle in total clarity, but eventually, a combination of the demon and her training take over and she goes into a zen-murder-trance. Mechanically she was a Fire Genasi Berzerker.

[MoutonRustique]

@OP - those are awesome back stories! Very, very cool.

[Laserlight]

When our campaign changed DMs. we were told we could rebuild our characters. The party had a warforged; my pixie firemage would occasionally flit around and look in his ear, ask "is your head hollow"? etc. The player decided to let his warforged die heroically; I considered rebuilding as a dragon sorceror by having my pixie get into the warforged head, refuse to come out, do a little handwaving with Raise Dead to animate the body, and then cast fire spells through the forged mouth.

[bloodshed343]

-snip-

I've played a very similar Hobgoblin Swordmage|Warlock named Jack. He came from the time when the hobgoblins were establishing their empire in the Feywild. He was dueling with an Eladrin hexblade, when magic happened, blade magic to be specific, and... well just think the temple of time from Zelda, except he was trapped for however long it's been since the hobgoblin empire. He uses the Eladrin's blade of the white well, and after defeating her has bonded her soul to his with his sword bond ritual to give him fey powers.

I used Sorcerer-king pact for psychic and necrotic damage, reflavoring it as drawing power from my soulbound Eladrin, and two-fold pact'ed into star for Student of Caiphon. I reflavored the star pact to be a pact with a Fey entity of the court of Starlight.

He was strictly Lawful Evil, though.


I also have a Githzerai monk that's actually a Swordmage|Cleric.

[obryn]

Wow, this is an old thread.

I might as well mention, though, that we reskinned a Desert Wind monk into a mad scientist using an experimental steam-powered battlesuit. It worked great, too; a simple renaming of powers went a long way.

[charcoalninja]

This is the stuff I miss the most about 4e. Reflavouring the game to whatever you want.

[Inevitability]

This is the stuff I miss the most about 4e. Reflavouring the game to whatever you want.

You know you can still reflavour stuff in 5e, right?

[MoutonRustique]

You know you can still reflavour stuff in 5e, right?
Of course, but in some cases, it can be a bit more difficult as the interaction between the pieces is "more defined" (not the right way of saying it, but I'm having a hard time with the right word choice here.)

Ex: magic spells are a different thing than a magic effect since some things affect spells only, others affect all magic.

It's not that it can't be done, it's just that there seems to be more "fallout" in some instances.

I have some experience, but not oodles so I may just have stumbled upon the problem areas in my games and the rest is fine...

[charcoalninja]

Indeed but 5e has the same making magic not magic problem 3.PF does. I can't turn a paladin into a warblade say, because the very fact that the spells are spells is important. If I have all the paladin's powers but now can't be dispelled that creates an issue.

In 4e, the balance considerations of reflavouring was baked in and considered in the engine of the game, so that if you changed how a class does something it wasn't a big deal. In 5e anything that's magic needs to stay magic because dispel magic, counterspell, magic resistance and antimagic are things and having immunity to those things because you want to be an immature dragon rather than a dragon sorcerer doesn't work.

Taking a 5e wizard and saying you're an alchemical grenadiere can't work, again, because of counterspell, magic resistance, dispel, antimagic. But in 4e it doesn't matter, as any flavour advantage you gain isn't going to make or break an encounter.

[Runa]

I'm actually getting ready to do a campaign in 4e with the whole thing refluffed, to basically a version of feudal Japan that makes heavy use of mythical stories and folklore -- and I'm requiring the players to do the same, e.g. a Cleric = Shinto priest or priestess, an Orc is an Oni, that sort of thing. This means I've quickly become delighted at how easy it is to refluff in fourth. Apparently so is my hubby, who's one of the players, as he's come up with three vastly different concepts that were all brilliantly refluffed.

One of my favorites drew on the Japanese folklore that objects that get old enough basically grow enough of a soul to become magical entities: It would have been a Warforged Monk, mechanically, but fluff-wise he was an antique training dummy that gained sentience. That's right: he was basically Mokujin from Tekken :smallbiggrin:

He also explained that he would have played it completely straight, too, with his character having no mouth with which to speak, so that his communication was restricted to making crude, broad physical gestures or holding up a mask with a frowny face on it; and he had no fingers, so he couldn't just pick things up in his hands and he would have to balance it. My hubby is hardcore into roleplay and I freaking love him for it :D

Sadly for the DM's funny bone, that wasn't the final character concept he went with, but I'm still thrilled with his final choice for it because of how much thought he put into it: he's made an inugami (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inugami) (warning: the alleged process by which these undead creatures were created was pretty horrific and the Emperor outlawed the mythical practice for good reason; if you are sensitive to animal cruelty, you might not want to actually read that page in full. Just trust me on this).

Now, inugami are undead creatures, which started out as a dog. They're also shapeshifters. They're also known for possessing people (http://yokai.com/inugami/) and it's claimed that their "true form" is a mummified dog's head (see: "undead").

How did he/we achieve a semblance of this mechanically? By making a Hengeyokai Revenant Assassin and taking the feat that allows you to use your former race's ability. Oh, and giving him a "phylactery".

He is therefore undead, can shift into human, semi-human, and canine form, and is built for sneaky lethality the way a "real" inugami would be. But he also has the key weakness of his head needing to be kept intact (as that's how inugami were supposedly bound to their masters in the mortal world).

His "human" form? Well, remember how I said they are known for their ability to possess people? His human form is actually him possessing his former master's son, who loved that dog before it died, and was furious with his father for doing such a thing; did I mention that this possession was voluntary on the part of the possessed?

Because inugami (like many spiritual entities in Japanese folklore) respond to kindness, and because they can easily turn on their original masters, the son and his (un)dead puppy are working together, and currently in search of his father, who fled when he realized his control of the creature was slipping. They intend to kill him to punish his wicked deeds, should they ever find him.

I mean...just...

You see why I married this guy. :smallbiggrin: