Help! How do you play in an RP game?

[boxfox]

I'm completely lost.
Every game I've ever played in has been just a few levels with pretty bad DMs before the play group "breaks up". Every campaign was highly "kick in the door" dependent.

I'm about to start playing a new campaign with a really experienced DM, 1 other experienced guy, 1 guy who's only played a few times, and 1 complete newbie.
The DM is throwing us in Sigil (planescape setting) at level 1. LA buyoff is NOT an option. He says that it's best to try solving the problems by role playing as much as possible.

I'm used to min/maxing and completely building/optimizing my character, complete with level plans from 1-20 (or further). I rolled 13/9/13/17/9/12, which led me to think Wizard (yay, tier 1!)until finding out that magic is HIGHLY unpredictable in Sigil. What's the point of being super duper weak with NO other abilities? I don't want to play a wizard who's afraid to cast spells....

No template/race/class is banned. The other experienced guy is planning on a Vampire (full vampire!) Paladin. The roleplaying options for that are titanic, but a +8 LA?!?! DANG!
One of the other guys rolled basically average human stats and is playing an average human bard. I admit, I inwardly groaned when I heard his plan, (so weak!) but I'm not so sure now...High diplomacy scores ftw?

Anyway, I need advice. Anything from how to survive in Sigil, in an RP-heavy campaign, or on other planes, to good classes/races/templates to not be super weak.
:smalleek:

[Kazudo]

Woah.

In an RP heavy setting, the best advice I've ever gotten is "Know Thyself". Know your character. You don't have to write a huge backstory, you don't have to have every little flaw and quirk penned out, but know your character, how they'd react, and how to fit that into the rules of the game. Other than that, loosen up and let yourself go with the flow everyone else presents. If it's a heavy roleplaying game as opposed to, say, a heavy roll-playing game (snrk), then you really have to play off the other characters and the DM. That being said, though, remember that the game has a few built in failsafes for players who are genuinely not prepared: Your character has inherently different stats than you. It's completely legitimate, depending on the game and group, to say "Well, I need to attempt to get out of this situation, but I, the player, cannot figure this out. My character, however, with an 18 CHA and 10 ranks in Diplomacy, might be able to. May I roll my Diplomacy?" and if they say no, bumble through it.

[lytokk]

For the more RP heavy games, I usually start by coming up with a character concept. Backstory, personality, motivations and all that. THEN I add the class levels to fit the concept, and then assign abilities. You're going to end up relying more on your own thinking skills to get out of jams rather than killing it with fire. Unless you character is a pyromaniac, in which case your response is about always going to involve fire.

[Bloodgruve]

I agree, create a concept first and dress it up with a class that fits. Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Knowledges, Gather Information, Sense Motive, etc... are always good in RP situations. The average human bard with a good Diplomacy may fit the campaign better then a super T1 with awesome feats. I find that optimized combat characters are terribly boring ouside of combat.

My suggestion, lean towards Charisma/Int/Wis with a good skill selection and make something that you would really enjoy PR with.

Begulier or Factotum could fit here.


Wait.. You said Sigil at 1st level? Your only options will probably be talking yourself out of messy situations or rerolling new characters daily ;)

Will your Vamp Paladin be starting 1st level with full Vamp levels and Paladin1?
Blood~

[hemming]

Develop tastes and hobbies for the character

This alignment test from HBG on the WOTC website is actually kind of interesting for thinking about personality :https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20001222b

I like the hero builders guidebook if you can get a hold of it (I think I paid $5 for mine used) - gives you lots to think about in character creation

[boxfox]

Very handy advice!

The more I read, the more I realize that I need to actually make a character, and not just my typical imaginary puppet to kill imaginary stuff better than anyone else...

Looks like I'll have to calm down, ignore numbers, and come up with something....kinky. :P

Not sure how Vampy is starting out. I think Cleric level 1 and he just stays that way for 8 levels. Oh yeah, he's cleric now, not paladin.



Wait.. You said Sigil at 1st level? Your only options will probably be talking yourself out of messy situations or rerolling new characters daily ;)
DM said almost this same exact thing, lol.

[Bloodgruve]

Very handy advice!

The more I read, the more I realize that I need to actually make a character, and not just my typical imaginary puppet to kill imaginary stuff better than anyone else...

Looks like I'll have to calm down, ignore numbers, and come up with something....kinky. :P

Not sure how Vampy is starting out. I think Cleric level 1 and he just stays that way for 8 levels. Oh yeah, he's cleric now, not paladin.


DM said almost this same exact thing, lol.

I'd highly suggest having your DM look at Savage Species for moster levels. An effective level 8 or 9 doesn't play very well with level 1's. Quite unfair to the rest of the group IMHO.

Blood~

[iceman10058]

lol bard isnt a bad idea giving that it is a high rp game, you would have access to skills you need to help out.

[boxfox]

I'd highly suggest having your DM look at Savage Species for moster levels. An effective level 8 or 9 doesn't play very well with level 1's. Quite unfair to the rest of the group IMHO.
I certainly understand what you mean. I'm alright with this, though. I trust the DM (he's been playing for a very long time). Also, anything that can squish me like a bug will probably screw him, too. :P

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd suggest the following exercise, derived from Fate's character creation game:

First, answer the following three questions:

Where did you come from? What kind of upbringing did you have? What set you on your path of adventure?
Where are you now? What are you doing when the campaign starts?
Where are you going? What does your character want? Where do they see themselves a few years down the road? A lifetime down the road? What gets them up in the morning?


Come up with a past adventure of some sort. Nothing too fancy-- just the sort of short blurb from the back of a paperback. "When <event> occurs, you must <quest>. But will you succeed in the face of <obstacles>?"

Based on the above, write a handful of short phrases about how your character thinks and operates. Maxims, perhaps. Guidelines for behavior that are more specific than "lawful good." Stuff like "justice is its own reward" or "shoot first and there'll be no NEED to ask questions later."


Build your character mechanically before or after; it doesn't really matter. Wrapping fluff around crunch and fitting crunch to the fluff are both totally valid methods.

[VoxRationis]

Aren't most extraplanar creatures well above appropriate CR for first level characters? I mean, even a dretch is CR 2 or 3 and has damage reduction. Anything in Sigil that has a plan besides "eat tasty human in front of me" is going to curb-stomp level 1 characters.

[Mnemnosyne]

Planescape is a fine place for a relatively inexperienced rp'er that doesn't know the ins and outs of the setting to come in, because it's half designed for that. You're a Prime who stumbled through a portal to Sigil and found yourself in the Cage. Congrats, now all your learning can be done in character; you're the wide-eyed newbie. Think like a normal prime material character and

There's nothing wrong with Wizard in a Planescape campaign either; magic is unpredictable in predictable ways. Specifically, each plane tends to have particular conditions, you can learn those conditions and plan and work around them. Although it is a good idea not to specialize hard in any one type of magic, because some planes can really screw with a particular school. This also gives you plenty of learning RP opportunities. Before you go anywhere, do not forget to go ask questions. You'll probably get hooked up with a faction before long, so ask your faction. They will be very helpful and you can probably trust the advice they give. It'll come at the obvious price of having to do stuff for them, but that's kind of the way things go anywhere. As long as you stay ideologically loyal to your faction, you should find allies there that think like you do.

Clerics are the ones that have it really bad, because for every plane they're apart from their deity, they act as one level lower, and you don't trace this route the shortest path, either. If your DM is sticking with this rule, the only reasonable deity choice for any cleric is to worship someone who lives in the Outlands or the Astral Plane, because that minimizes the level loss you're taking as you travel around.

As for the planes being a place only for high level adventurers, Planescape quickly disabuses you of that notion in the campaign setting, explaining that there are plenty of adventures for low-level characters possible both in Sigil and on other planes. Remember, people live on the planes. There are cities, towns, places that are safe and no more threatened in day-to-day life than any prime town might be. And for those places where big threats often loom, there also tend to be little threats. The party might be called upon to deal with a cranium rat infestation, not go off and fight tanar'ri. So, if your DM is actually following the setting and the general theme of adventures, you will see plenty of action at low levels in addition to high. It won't be all talk until you get powerful enough to throw down with armies of fiends.

It might be a good idea to keep your character plan for 1-20 pretty basic. If you avoid things that would be particularly odd or require hefty amounts of in-character explanation to achieve, then it makes it easier to just go with the flow of whatever is going on instead of trying to shoehorn in an unusual or special occurrence into the game in order to permit your character to plausibly have X ability. Think something solid and generally useful. And then be somewhat open to changing it up if something comes along that you can easily qualify for and does not cause an overall hindrance or reduction in your power. This is especially true if your DM decides to come up with custom prestige classes and/or feats related to particular organizations in the planes.

Ask your DM about adapting faction benefits to 3.5 also; the Planescape factions all gave a nice benefit in addition to a restriction, but some of them don't map straight onto 3.5.

[boxfox]

Very nice information. I'm a bit more relaxed about this campaign now, thanks. :)

[Amphetryon]

With a Vampire in the party already, a Dread Necromancer (Heroes of Horror) is a good fit for party cohesion. It also gives CHA-based casting and several CHA-based Skills, which could be beneficial in a high RP campaign.

I agree with Mnemnosyne that a more 'basic' Character progression plan is a pretty good idea; I'll toss a simple, suggested progression for a DN out there: Feytouched (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) Dread Necromancer 8/Binder 2/Anima Mage 10 (presumes LA-buyoff is in effect). It's easy enough to flavor this Character concept as one for whom traditional D&D answers to the workings of the cosmos don't entirely jibe with personal experience, forcing him/her to quest to Sigil to find better understanding of the way the world works.

[lytokk]

How would the strange magic rules work with say, a warlock's invocations? They've got social skills, not half bad if it comes down to fighting. I'm not 100% familiar with things outside of core D&D 3.5, never did much planar hopping, but spitballing ideas for a character concept never hurt.

[Mnemnosyne]

The most basic way to do it would be that any invocation that mimics a spell is affected in whatever way the spell would be. So if you're on a plane where illusions are verboten, like Mechanus, a warlock's walk unseen invocation would simply fail, and flee the scene would have the dimension door effect but the major image part of it would fail.

Of course, this is entirely up to the DM in each case, since a lot of the Planescape rules were never reprinted in 3.5 (as far as I can recall), so things like spell keys and power keys, how various types of magic work, will largely depend on how much of the original Planescape material the DM is using, and how they are adapting it.

[boxfox]

I should mention that my stats are Str 13, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 17, Wis 10, Cha 12. These can't be moved around.

[Yorrin]

I should mention that my stats are Str 13, Dex 10, Con 13, Int 17, Wis 10, Cha 12. These can't be moved around.

Sounds like Wizard really is the way you want to go, then. Unless you'd rather play a Factotum, which would actually be a decent idea in a Planescape setting.

[Togo]

In a high op game, things aren't worth doing unless you can make them super-good. So diplomacy is either max it out or don't bother.

In a more RP-aligned game, what matters most is being good enough to matter. So make sure you have a variety of ways to contribute, and don't worry as much about making each one a potential game-breaker. The motto of Sigil is 'there's always someone stronger than you', so don't worry as much about breaking the game and make sure you can effect and change it.