Grotesque power imbalancess that result from characters being statted in 3.5

[Thealtruistorc]

A lot of people enjoy rebuilding their favorite characters from books, movies or anime in D&D 3.5. However, one begins to notice that when such things occur, the characters' power levels can find themselves rewritten in some...odd ways.

This came about when me and my friends were discussing the anime Fairy Tail, and I pointed out that by D&D logic Wendy (a mage who specializes in buffing and battlefield control magic) should be among the most powerful characters in the series, or at the least substantially stronger than the evocation specialist that is Natsu.

Meanwhile, a player of mine built their character off of Yuno from Future Diaries and often finds herself barely keeping up with the offensive capabilities of the rest of our partÿ.

I imagine there are a whole lot more of these strange issues that develop when porting characters over, and I am honestly curious to hear them.

[Greenish]

Fairy Tale wizards aren't D&D wizards, though. Wendy might just as well be a Healer to Natsu's unarmed Swordsage.

[maniacalmojo]

I have also seen it done well but sometimes you have to.. experiment a bit. I made a character based on ruroni kenshin and i used a cleric, barbarian and scout levels along with swordsage to make him a bit more thematic and found he was actually pretty powerful compared to many of my fellow players. I utalized iajutso with a few swordsage abilities and some good movement based abilities to move about the battlefield and strike down most the enemies i came across.



Also i do not see lucy as being a summoner more then someone who has a few artifacts of summon monster, at least if you were porting the charecter directly.

[Tengu_temp]

Building any established character in DND 3.5 is an exercise in frustration and pointlessness, because it fails to model even the thing it was created to simulate (heroic high-power fantasy), much less any other kind of story. At best you will create a character who can more-or-less copy the main schtick of the character you're trying to simulate, while lacking many of the qualities it should have and having many qualities it shouldn't have at the same time.


I made a character based on ruroni kenshin and i used a cleric, barbarian and scout levels along with swordsage to make him a bit more thematic and found he was actually pretty powerful compared to many of my fellow players.

Case in point. Kenshin can cast Cure Light Wounds? Who knew!

[Karl Aegis]

It really sounds like you're having problems putting levels on things that have no levels in the first place. An effort in futility if I've ever seen one.

A better idea would be playing with a system that supports anime characters, like Tenra Bansho Zero.

[atemu1234]

I have also seen it done well but sometimes you have to.. experiment a bit. I made a character based on ruroni kenshin and i used a cleric, barbarian and scout levels along with swordsage to make him a bit more thematic and found he was actually pretty powerful compared to many of my fellow players. I utalized iajutso with a few swordsage abilities and some good movement based abilities to move about the battlefield and strike down most the enemies i came across.



Also i do not see lucy as being a summoner more then someone who has a few artifacts of summon monster, at least if you were porting the charecter directly.

I would.'ve statted kenshin as straight Swordsage, maybe with levels of scout.

[oxybe]

Also note though that most of the situations they encounter in Fairy Tail are situations that require the use of massive damage.

Most arcs are basically the main characters VS characters they can't talk down for various reasons be it ideologies clashing or simply the enemy is a mindless monster. Plus wendy's healing and buffing magic exhausts her, so she can't just sit behind the group and shoot healing lasers around willy-nilly. Some of her spells also seem to lose effect if used repeatedly on someone, like how she doesn't want to keep pumping anti-nausea spells into Natsu every time he sees a boat as they'll lose potency. There is also the fact that Wendy simply isn't as experienced or powerful as Natsu. Natsu joined Fairy Tail when he was a child, was in constant competition with others his age to grow in power, had Gildarts as a sort of 2nd adopted father to guide him and is ~18 years old (I don't think an official age was ever given, seeing as how he was first found as an orphan of undetermined age by Igneel). Wendy is 12 and lived a comparatively peaceful life from what we know.

Finally, as others have said: 3rd ed is really bad at emulating any fantasy that isn't directly based off 3rd ed since the system has it's own view of how spells should stack against other spells and how enemy growth and power works.

Also: Celestial magic is kinda weird in FT. The ability to summon is VERY reliant on the summoner: the duration and quantity of summons Lucy can have out simultaneously is because she's actually quite strong. The keys themselves are more of a focus then anything and aren't necessarily needed. Loki alone is proof that the celestial spirits can come and go as they please from the normal world and that the strength of the summoner is important: He was able to force himself to stay in the world against his old summoner's wishes so that she couldn't summon her other spirits and mistreat them (as she wasn't strong enough to keep 2 out at once).

The key itself seems to be simply acting as a rather forceful pager, attuned to a particular spirit and allowing the summoner to open and close the gates keyed to the key.

/weeaboo card validated

[Arbane]

A better idea would be playing with a system that supports anime characters, like Tenra Bansho Zero.

Or, if you've got to use a d20 system, one that's good at custom-making powers, like Mutants and Masterminds.