Evil ranger who protects the innocent. Good concept? How to play her?

[Roxxy]

I had this idea while I was cooking lunch today. She's a ranger (hooded champion archetype). She's a freedom fighter who viciously opposes the local lords who rule over the region with an iron fist and enforce the law by death and torture. They are the enemies of the people, and they must face justice. Problem is, her version of justice is to kill or cast out propertyless any nobles she can get her hands on, and publicly execute the worst offenders in ways so brutal and painful it will serve as a deterrent to other tyrants. Those misguided citizens who won't join her rebellion? Traitors to the people who must be dealt with. Make her lose her temper, and she lashes out violently. When she kills someone she's angry at, she tends to fall into a deep bloodlust, and inflicts as much pain as possible before ending their lives to sate her desire for revenge. She is thoroughly convinced that she is the good guy in all of this, even though she causes more death and misery than the *******s she wants to depose. Every time she does something brutal or unnecessary like having a noble's children executed, she finds some way of rationalizing it as the morally correct course of action, even though it isn't morally correct at all. The people she "protects" are more afraid of her than they are of the local lords. She's a very intense person who speaks in a low tone of voice, and is quite persuasive, largely because of how uncompromising and threatening she sounds. When she flips out, it's truly intimidating, because she makes all sorts of over the top violent threats, and is actually willing to carry them out a fair amount of the time. She will try to protect the innocent as best she can without thought of reward, but she does so with death, hate, pain, and revenge, not justice and long term solutions. Her alignment is Chaotic Evil, but she would never consider that she could be one of the bad guys in this war.

Here's her character sheet:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=30290

Do you like this character concept? Should I put her into my campaign setting as a villain, or reserve her in case I ever need a character to play on short notice? If I do put her on reserve as PC, and then end up playing her, how should I portray her at the table? How do I underline how unreasonable and violent she is without going over the top? How do I avoid starting inter-party conflict with a character as extremist as this?

[paperarmor]

I had this idea while I was cooking lunch today. She's a ranger (hooded champion archetype). She's a freedom fighter who viciously opposes the local lords who rule over the region with an iron fist and enforce the law by death and torture. They are the enemies of the people, and they must face justice. Problem is, her version of justice is to kill or cast out propertyless any nobles she can get her hands on, and publicly execute the worst offenders in ways so brutal and painful it will serve as a deterrent to other tyrants. Those misguided citizens who won't join her rebellion? Traitors to the people who must be dealt with. Make her lose her temper, and she lashes out violently. When she kills someone she's angry at, she tends to fall into a deep bloodlust, and inflicts as much pain as possible before ending their lives to sate her desire for revenge. She is thoroughly convinced that she is the good guy in all of this, even though she causes more death and misery than the *******s she wants to depose. Every time she does something brutal or unnecessary like having a noble's children executed, she finds some way of rationalizing it as the morally correct course of action, even though it isn't morally correct at all. The people she "protects" are more afraid of her than they are of the local lords. She's a very intense person who speaks in a low tone of voice, and is quite persuasive, largely because of how uncompromising and threatening she sounds. When she flips out, it's truly intimidating, because she makes all sorts of over the top violent threats, and is actually willing to carry them out a fair amount of the time. She will try to protect the innocent as best she can without thought of reward, but she does so with death, hate, pain, and revenge, not justice and long term solutions. Her alignment is Chaotic Evil, but she would never consider that she could be one of the bad guys in this war.

Here's her character sheet:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=30290

Do you like this character concept? Should I put her into my campaign setting as a villain, or reserve her in case I ever need a character to play on short notice? If I do put her on reserve as PC, and then end up playing her, how should I portray her at the table? How do I underline how unreasonable and violent she is without going over the top? How do I avoid starting inter-party conflict with a character as extremist as this?

I wouldn't bring this as a PC to one of my tables but mostly because I'm not comfortable with potraying torture and mouth foaming blood lust. That said it isn't a bad concept but um traditionally "Innocent" when used by an evil person tends to mean kids, also consider making this a lawful good character as the need to justify her actions to herself just kind of screams Miko to me.

[Spore]

The violent lashing is actually more of a barbarian thing than a ranger thing. Keeping her as a ranger would benefit the cold and calculating style. Like Batman but without morals. I really dislike random bloodlust not triggered by a specific action or situation. That isn't relatable and inhuman. Relatable and giving her character however would be certain mannerisms or situations that reenact a childhood trauma of her or a certain situation that deeply scarred her in her past.

Overall I would keep the cold and calculating "evil Robin Hood" vibe while cutting out her Hulk episodes. Or maybe have a narrow "trigger" like a situation reminding her of the death of her first lover, her village or something else.

You actually need to come up with a reason WHY she is cold hearted, evil and brutal. Also keep in mind that brutality isn't the same as bloodlust. In bloodlust you kill 15 men without even recognizing their status (enemy, friend, protected villager?) but with a brutal and remorseless ranger you kill the baron's guards quickly and then torture the baron slowly until he dies.

[AvatarVecna]

This character, as built and presented, would be a terrible addition to a PC group; I say make it a villain.

From her point of view, evil-doers can't go unpunished, anyone who attempts to impede her in bringing justice to evil-doers is an evil-doer, anyone who doesn't agree with her philosophies is an evil-doer, and any supposed "innocents" she kills by accident were evil-doers she wasn't aware of yet. The only aligned group that could potentially tolerate working with her is a CN party, assuming that she doesn't rope them into her "those who don't oppose evil are evil" mentality. The only way for her to work with others is for others to work for her; anyone who'll follow her lead will be welcome, and will be able to do evil, since it would be "ranger approved".

Without getting too deep into a discussion of alignment, I think her willingness/preference to avoid the legally sanctioned methods of dealing with corrupt individuals, her tendency to readjust her moral compass on the fly to make her actions justified, her willingness to torture and kill the supposed "innocent" without a shred of guilt, her tendency to fly off the handle into a justice-seeking rage, and her confrontational "you're either with me or against me" attitude doesn't point to Neutral Evil, it points to Chaotic Evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaoticEvil).

The character you've described is a perfect example of a Type 5 CE:



Type 5 is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who saw (or a Knight Templar who sees) himself as Chaotic Good (Just Like Robin Hood) but slowly passed over to the evil alignment, often without being consciously aware of it. You know what they say about slippery slopes...

[Nousos]

I agree that this character should definitely be chaotic evil, as she seems to accept no structure that she doesn't establish, and I don't see such a person actually setting up a stable government after they overthrow the tyrants. This could work as either a villian or a pc in my mind, but it would have to have very likeminded players.

Assuming she is built well enough to actually have the ability to defeat an evil kingdom, the campaign would end up mirroring the French Revolution pretty much perfectly. They all saw what they were doing as good and justified but used the same tactics, and turned on one another on just the thought that someone could be against them.

[Inevitability]

Chaotic Evil. Maaaaaaybe Chaotic Neutral, but that'd cross into one of those 'No, my character really is chaotic neutral' things that everyone wants to avoid.

But unless you are playing an evil campaign, I think you should avoid playing this, or at least talk it all the way through with the DM and be prepared to stop playing her at any moment.

[Extra Anchovies]

How do I avoid starting inter-party conflict with a character as extremist as this?

You don't, because you can't. The entire premise of an adventuring party is that it's a group of people all cooperating for a greater collective goal; the character concept you've elaborated is someone who both refuses to cooperate and refuses to work towards any goals other than their own. It simply would not function in almost any party, and would be pretty insufferable at the table.


Overall I would keep the cold and calculating "evil Robin Hood" vibe while cutting out her Hulk episodes. Or maybe have a narrow "trigger" like a situation reminding her of the death of her first lover, her village or something else.

Seconded. Looking at the character sheet, it seems built mostly for ranged combat/sniping, which doesn't quite fit for a character obsessed with brutal public executions and torture. I would suggest making them a much more methodical killer, seeing the deaths they cause as and unpleasant but necessary (e.g. having to kill innocents who intentionally get in the way) means to an end which is, in the character's view at least, great enough to justify the killing.

[Chronos]

Yeah, the character concept works, but it has "NPC" written all over it. Maybe have one of the nobles (your choice whether to make the noble a relatively decent one-- Interesting possibilities either way) hire the party to take out this deranged menace, and possibly have her as a recurring villain.

[hamishspence]

Seems like the sort of character I've brought up a few times, when arguing that it is possible to have an Evil character with most of the traditional Good traits, like "makes sacrifices to help strangers" and "never harms the innocent" - they're Evil because they do so much in the way of Evil deeds against the "not-innocent".

This characters a bit nastier than that - lashing out at "misguided citizens" and "noble's children".

[Blackhawk748]

This entire concept screams Avenging Executioner to me, and if you want brutal executions with a ranged weapon use a hand crossbow. Though i am gonna second not using this character as a PC though it would make a great villain considering you kinda just pity the beejeezus outta her

[VoxRationis]

The violent lashing is actually more of a barbarian thing than a ranger thing. Keeping her as a ranger would benefit the cold and calculating style. Like Batman but without morals. I really dislike random bloodlust not triggered by a specific action or situation. That isn't relatable and inhuman. Relatable and giving her character however would be certain mannerisms or situations that reenact a childhood trauma of her or a certain situation that deeply scarred her in her past.

Overall I would keep the cold and calculating "evil Robin Hood" vibe while cutting out her Hulk episodes. Or maybe have a narrow "trigger" like a situation reminding her of the death of her first lover, her village or something else.

You actually need to come up with a reason WHY she is cold hearted, evil and brutal. Also keep in mind that brutality isn't the same as bloodlust. In bloodlust you kill 15 men without even recognizing their status (enemy, friend, protected villager?) but with a brutal and remorseless ranger you kill the baron's guards quickly and then torture the baron slowly until he dies.

You don't need to have an anger-based class feature to have anger issues. A ranger is just as capable of flipping out as anyone else.