Favorite character to play and to play with?

[mgrinshpon]

Short version: What characters did both you enjoy playing and everyone else at the table enjoyed you playing?


Long version: I'm pretty new to D&D. I played it once for 3 straight days in a basement with a few friends a year ago and have now joined a group at a comic shop. The DM only allowed base character classes from PHB1 for balancing purposes. Because there were so many players already and I didn't want to play a rogue, I went with a CN Human Bard. He, like everyone else, is level 1 (except 1 guy who is level 2). I think that if I asked for a PHB2 class or something from the complete books, however, he'd allow it if I made it interesting for the party.

My problem is that I can't figure out how to play him in such a way that's enjoyable for everyone at the table, myself included. Right now, he's just a raging alcoholic who has a penchant for torture when diplomacy fails. There are multiple problems, though. 1- Out of combat, he's the diplomancer for the party so he just takes over. 2- In combat, he's useless. 1+2=3- He's not fun to play with for anyone at the table as it's either a 1-man show or I'm completely excluded from combat. At some point, however, he's going to die for some reason or another.

I'm looking for inspiration on future characters from all of you. What characters have you played in basically any D20 game (a lot of these concepts seem translatable between games) that were both fun to play and fun to play with? What characters allowed everyone to have a good time?

[Garimeth]

Short version: What characters did both you enjoy playing and everyone else at the table enjoyed you playing?


Long version: I'm pretty new to D&D. I played it once for 3 straight days in a basement with a few friends a year ago and have now joined a group at a comic shop. The DM only allowed base character classes from PHB1 for balancing purposes. Because there were so many players already and I didn't want to play a rogue, I went with a CN Human Bard. He, like everyone else, is level 1 (except 1 guy who is level 2). I think that if I asked for a PHB2 class or something from the complete books, however, he'd allow it if I made it interesting for the party.

My problem is that I can't figure out how to play him in such a way that's enjoyable for everyone at the table, myself included. Right now, he's just a raging alcoholic who has a penchant for torture when diplomacy fails. There are multiple problems, though. 1- Out of combat, he's the diplomancer for the party so he just takes over. 2- In combat, he's useless. 1+2=3- He's not fun to play with for anyone at the table as it's either a 1-man show or I'm completely excluded from combat. At some point, however, he's going to die for some reason or another.

I'm looking for inspiration on future characters from all of you. What characters have you played in basically any D20 game (a lot of these concepts seem translatable between games) that were both fun to play and fun to play with? What characters allowed everyone to have a good time?

What is everyone else playing, what is the setting, and what aspects of the game do you enjoy the most?

[Garimeth]

Anyway w/o knowing the above this list may be helpful to you. Some of my favoreite characters from past games, not all of whom were played by me.

Adrian Thessaly: Human Bard, had many aliases that he used to manipulate events and scheme. One example was in the persona of Cavander The Great. He would arrive in town ahead of the party and tel stories and sing about how amazing Cavander was, then appear with the party as Cavander and reap the benefits.

Garimeth Firemane: Seacliff Dwarven Cleric, ex-Marine and current war-priest of the God of Travel and Weather. Travelled with sailors and Marines and defended them against pirates.

Vic: Old human bard with a tendency to start stories and then trail off while puffing on his pipe.

Tane Belmont: Halfling Rogue. Cut-throat borderline evil. Only cared about the bottom-line and made many self-deprecating jokes about his height.

Tin'akh: Half-orc fighter. Was a gladiator who impressed the emperor at a match. When asked to name his reward he requested to be made a member of the Emperor's personal bodyguard. Left the Legion when a magical warhorn made all those of orcish blood go beserk in a battle. Tin'akh in his beserked state was the hand that slew the emperor.

Darien: Human/HElf/Elf flighter/warlord who was a drop-out from a military academy and son of a minor noble and he was the party's tactician/face.

Soushi: human monk (could work as a paladin or cleric as well) who was the firstborn the son of a wealthy and powerful noble who swore it all off for an ascetic life of poverty. (Depending on the power level of the game you may want to avoid this one, but you could still do it as a wizard or cleric, or even druid since they are badass on their own without any gear.)

[Deaxsa]

What characters allow everyone to have a good time? Any character that is entirely unique and interesting, that is engaging, and that everyone cares about. No, really. Kinda like that question "How do I conquer the world?" to which the answer is "get the DM to like you." You have to understand that if you're going to play a character everyone enjoys to have at the table, it's not about having a skill ranked for every situation, it's about simply being memorable (in a good way). Granted, I'd try to make sure that i had something for combat, and something for speaking, since those are like, the two most prominent scenes in DnD. And while combat cannot be supplanted (most of the time, you need to have something to be able to do effectively in-combat), Verbal interaction can be done and added to simply by being outspoken, whether or not you've got every bonus in the book to charisma.

In your shoes, i'd do the following:
1. Establish the motivations of your character, so that you can really project what this character is, and everyone will not only remember it, but he'll seem human
2. Spend some of the resources in your build taking advantage of that charisma. And in an offensive fashion. Charisma to will is nice, but Snowflake Wardance is just so much more flavor. Also, it lets you wade into the fray, and take part of the action. A gift. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus)
3. Ask the other characters to speak up during more 'Diplomatic' encounters. You may be the only person ranking the charisma-based skills, but that does not mean the other characters don't have opinions. This is what makes many good shows great, is the character interaction. Ask them to take part, it's not only your cross to bear.

In fact, no matter what you do, i'd make sure you get those things clear:
1. know who the character is and their motivations so you can portray an interesting and human character.
2. Spend some resources on combat because that's a huge time sink and if you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs you won't have fun.
3. Get others to involve themselves, or don't listen to their complaints about not being involved. Granted, if you're stealing the show all the time, it's different, but still. Just like how you need to push your way on the battle scene, they need to push their way onto the diplomacy scene. EVEN IF THEY ARE BAD AT IT!

Edit: If you need to change the character, make him meet, like, his young nephew or cousin or child, and he tries to shape up to be a better model and take care of the kid. I don't know. Maybe, instead, he met a lovely lady who gave him an ultimatum against his current habits. Maybe, he comes particularly close to death and realizes he wants to achieve something more than just alcoholism and torture. The great thing is, if you DO end up doing something like this, everyone will love your character, because he showed some real development, whether or not it turned out perfectly for him. (Maybe the kid got killed in an attempt to get at the man, or the lady turned out to be the devil incarnate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNAk39Jm88Q). Doesn't matter! It'll be a great story! People will enjoy, at the least, the humanity of your character! Because that's what people like! Complete characters! Realistic characters!)
:smallbiggrin:

[Garimeth]

I prefer Daxa's suggestions to mine, and think if there is a way for you to salvage this character then you should.

[imaloony]

My favorite, who I believe also became the favorite of the group at the time, was Rilk Halfwright, CN Human Fighter and lion tamer at a circus. He dual wielded a whip and a short sword, using the whip to trip and disarm people before going in with the short sword for the kill.
He was completely overdramatic, he had no sense of subtlety, he understood sarcasm but never quite caught on when it was being used, and his entire goal in life was to find the greatest adventure he could so he could take the tale back to his circus so that they could preform a play about it.
One of Rilk's crowning moments was early in the campaign. The basics of the campaign were that the races of this world had lived in a sheltered town for hundreds or thousands of years, protected by the gods from the horrible stuff happening outside. Finally, however, it became too difficult to continue providing for this city with what resources were left, so the gods dropped the protection. Our party was one of two or three sent out to explore. We found a giant forest that was quickly spreading across the continent thanks to a crazy Dryad queen, and were trying to help the Bugbears stop it.
So, during an early encounter with the Dryads, we fought off some Ents, but one Dryad planted a seed (That would, within hours, grow to a full sized tree and help expand the forest, and charmed me into protecting it. I took it as a challenge to protect this seed from the party for as long as possible. In real time, I kept them at bay for something like forty-five minutes.
First, they just tried to send some bugbears to overrun me. I beat them up and they refused to charge me after that. Then, the bard tried to persuade me to let him help guard the seed. That succeeded in making me believe he was on my side, but thinking quickly, I told him he could help by getting the others away. When he tried to backpedal, I used an Intimidate check to try and force him to help me. When he backed off, his lie was revealed. Finally, the mage blasted me with a color spray, which managed to stun me for a bit... but I did still manage to resist a bull rush from an enlarged Bugbear, so that plan ultimately failed too. This whole time someone was standing just out of range from me poking me with a longspear, and finally that knocked me unconscious. It was a great time.
Also, I ended the campaign with a Hydra buddy who also acted in the circus with me. And that Dryad who charmed me from before? Ended up being Rilk's wife.

[mgrinshpon]

snip

Thanks for the advice! I came up with a better back story and have planned out my character's advancement a bit more to include the ability to do something in a battle. #3 was especially helpful during yesterday's session. The DM made an NPC helpful after my diplomacy check and the rest of the party started joining in at my behest.

I appreciate everyone else's help, as well, and if anyone else has some cool character stories to share, keep on going! These are great and I'll definitely steal some of these when I have to reroll.

[Kid Jake]

My favorite (and first) character was Haiyeou Thife, an insane Halfling with an unholy Bluff modifier who had a crazy/horrible story for every situation(and was such a talented liar/was so mentally deranged that he believed every word he said, as he said it). In the party I was in there was a hulking cleric or paladin(I forget) that was on a perpetual crusade, a ranger specialized in the longbow that was known as a master hunter, a changeling bard that was far sneakier and better at combat than myself and made me wonder why they'd drag Haiyeou around in the first place.

The first time they met they were auditioning for a job and Haiyeou was regaling everyone with the time his cousin came to an interview like this and then 'BAM! Woke up without any kidneys four days later.' His constant prattling managed to run off everybody but himself and the PCs as he casually (wasn't trying to scare anyone, just make conversation) convinced everyone that this was definitely going to end in their murder and dismemberment.

Each of the PCs made their case before the client as to why they should be hired. The ranger knocked a fly out of the air with his bow, the cleric tore a bolted table out of the ground, the changeling perfectly mimicked the various pictures on the wall and Haiyeou just sort of panicked and did that stupid trick you do where you act like you pull your thumb off and make it wiggle. The client was about to pass when he found out that Haiyeou was the last one left and hired him on to round out the team.

They booked passage on a ship for some distant land to do who knows what, and Haiyeou spent the time teaching people games, conning them out of money and then teaching them a new game before they could get any good. Him and the Bard ended up becoming pretty chummy and discovered that they both like to scam people in their spare time.

Halfway through the trip some cult hijacked the ship and was rounding the passengers up, the team planned on ambushing the cultists when they got to their room but since Haiyeou was crazy and full of lies he decides to run out just as they near the room pretending to be a little kid and screaming that the cleric was trying to touch him. The cultists are confused, my team is confused and everyone just sits there staring at each other. Haiyeou shouts something about watch out for that arrow and stabs the man closest to him in his manly bits, yet somehow convinces everyone that the Ranger had fired an arrow and he was trying to protect the cultist with his own body.

Combat starts, a melee breaks out and Haiyeou starts shouting more and more random warnings that keep the cultists looking in the wrong directions while cutting hamstrings and just generally being a vicious little bastard. When it's all said and done, he's the only one that's not battered and bloody because nobody paid attention to him.