Mortigneous
2015-02-13, 05:19 PM
Okay so this ended up being kind of a big block of text. Here's the short version:
I need help coming up with a character concept. Now read the first two paragraphs, then the party composition right below that and ignore the rest. That should tell you the bare minimum. For more information, it's there... just kind of hidden.
So a friend of mine is starting a Pathfinder game some time in the future. I'm not entirely sure when, but I'm having issues coming up with something I'd like to play in this. Usually I'm pretty quick with this sort of thing and this is bugging me quite a bit.
Basically, the setting from my understanding, is some dark thing dealing with humans isolating themselves because of a fear of magic because their leader was killed by magic. That was after a war that caused a location equivalent to Golarion's mana wastes. Humans seem to have the biggest issue with Elves. Everything else seems to have basically sided with the Elves, but I'm not entirely sure if they are attempting to maintain some kind of neutrality or not. The GM has said that magic isn't really all that important to have in the party for this, as things that would come up as magical mumbo jumbo would be the job of one of the Human organizations.
The party for this is pretty rough right now, but it'll look something like this:
Inquisitor of Gorum
A player that really only likes playing fighters and fighter like things
A player that likes the more skill based classes, but varies around a bit sticking mostly with martial and rarely does magic based classes, and when he does, does not enjoy it
Whatever I do.
Then there's the fact of, this group is already playing a few different systems, and one of which is Pathfinder. This kind of thing is actually common with us though, so it's not really that big of a deal, just means that we alternate what we play. The only real issue here is that the Pathfinder one is a campaign that is supposed to have a high risk of death. Two characters have died already and there have been a couple of other close calls. My character in this is a gunslinger (musket with vital strike) so I'd like to try to avoid a really one path approach with this new thing.
More on this gunslinger and this setting for assistance with variance: (This is normally something i would consider completely unnecessary, but seeing as how these settings will probably be run side-by-side, I feel like it may be useful for some people for helping form a suggestion)
The setting I guess can be pretty easily summed up as sky pirates. There are floating cities, flying ships, and uh... Dwarven ruins. As in go find this ancient dwarven vault because there's stuff and we're pirates. It's actually underground too. But that's not the focus here. The main thing is this was set up for, we fought and killed an inevitable. Our gnome summoner died because I switched up how i was doing combat for a round. He got pummeled into unconsciousness, and then until dead. Something about it was given orders to kill, not KO, but whatever. Point is, we stripped the little dude, gave him a minor funeral thing (as in we tossed his body over the ship and I gave him a one gun salute), and I severed the inevitable's chains from its body and made bullets out of it. It probably could've been more dramatic, but I don't think anyone really liked the creepy midget anyway. I only really expect the same to happen to my character. Pretty sure none of the crew really like him.
Now we get to my character here. He's a pirate. He's a Gunslinger/Slayer. Kind of has to be since that's what the campaign revolves around. He didn't always used to be a pirate. Before he can remember anything a ratfolk clan adopted him (he's a human), and taught him their merchanting ways. Somewhere along the lines he picked up some gambling tricks, and a gun. He worked with that gun, tinkering and learning it's secrets. Now he makes them so that they're there. He's also the only one on board the ship with any kind of experience with managing goods, so he's the ship's quartermaster. And cannon expert. And was the interim first mate when the first mate got killed when his player left. And he also makes the navigation checks. He does a lot. He's also kind of an ass most of the time, and apparently has some trust issues that seem to have manifested during play.
In combat he's really straight forward. Am I within 30 ft? No? Get within 30 ft. Yes? Study that thing. Deadly aim/vital strike. Swift action reload from bandolier. Rinse. Repeat. The one time I tried switching things up (because of haste) got the guy keeping our engine in line killed. So much for combat versatility I guess. At least until much later.
Here's the real kicker though. I have three characters pretty much just sitting around. Yet I don't feel like any of them really seem to mesh well with his setting. Well, that isn't entirely true, but still. Maybe it's just that I don't actually want to play these. I don't know. Maybe it's my inner party balance yelling at me saying that we're going to get screwed because the only caster in the group would either be one of my three, or that inquisitor of Gorum. And he's not all that good with magic from what I hear. How about I explain the three that i do have.
Here, the three:
MariusSo let's start off with this simple. The first guy is your typical barbarian dude. He's got a decent head on his shoulders, fairly wise, a generally good guy, but he's not afraid to smash in some heads. He's an Invulnerable Rager though. When combat hits, he's the guy with lower AC than he should, but he's a big dude running around slashing the hell out of things with a falchion. You can't ignore him or he'll do something awful, but you can fairly easily hit him. Then there's the DR. It's not ridiculous, but 1/2 level DR and d12 HD is decent enough as far as I was concerned with this guy. He was a test to see if I'd like playing a DR threat tank type thing or not, and I actually enjoyed him a bit, but he didn't really work for the setting he was in so I pulled him out and just threw him in a back up group.
Izumi
Number two on this list is a flowing monk. She (I don't gender bend too often, but it seemed to match the character's personality well enough) is pretty straightforward personality wise. Wait and watch what happens, gather as much information as you can to make an informed decision. If asked about a decision before feeling comfortable drawing a conclusion, she basically responds telling the questioner that she does not know and does not feel comfortable giving bad input that could be drawn by lack of information. If a decision must be made quickly, then she will gladly give input based on current knowledge. In combat this is a character that runs around in panther style provoking and punching back, then taking a more defensive stance (generally not actually taking an action to do so, just fluff) and going from there.
Clark
Last, but certainly not least, there's Clark. Clark is a character I'm hesitant to throw into anything before knowing what the party set up is beforehand (and I'm sure you'll see why). Honestly he would probably make a better villain than a member of a party of adventurers, but that's Clark I guess. He was originally made for a setting that was loosely based on Ravnica, and as such was able to get away with certain things (basically being a part of the faux Golgari), but when that campaign came to a close for no reason other than random shenanigans from another member of the group, that is no longer here, causing a lack of interest, I threw him into my characters that might one day be played group.
Clark is not an easy character to play. He is evil aligned (I've already gotten pretty much anything okayed by the GM), but has a false good guy face. He's also a cleric of Urgathoa. And a wizard. With aspirations to be a Mystic Theurge Lich. This is a very long game character, with a very long game personality. He'll sit there and give a few coppers to that peasant child giving them directions, just to make the party fighter with a paladin mentality think he's a good guy. Make them think he's not as bad as he is. That way, when they die, they might just be alright with being his servants. Or maybe they'll contribute to his Lich fund by commissioning an item. Either way, it doesn't matter.
Oh, and did I mention he's a half-elf? I'm tempted to play him with this, but I think with everything I'd have to put a lot more work into it here than I would anywhere else. And he's pretty... grim. And a half-elf where humans and elves would both have a large issue with him. And basically being next to land that gives spell fail chance. With all of that I'd have to power build more than I should, and that's not exactly something easy to do with his class set up. Also with magic being illegal with public use I feel like this setting would just have too many repercussion for an aspiring Lich, but if I can't get a better idea, this is probably the character I'll end up deciding on playing. Ouch.
Now some of you may be wondering why I've gone kind of in depth with four characters, and given a basic overview of two campaigns. Basically I don't want to be playing the same character twice at the same time. I'd probably end up getting a lot mixed up and I'm sure it'd end up causing a lot of issues. I also thought that this might give some kind of help for figuring out what types of characters I enjoy playing. Don't get me wrong, combat may be fairly boring with that gunslinger, but I actually enjoy playing him. The combat sucks, but his personality can be pretty fun, really helps when he isn't being forced into a leadership role though. The others, well I'd like to think that they're fairly different people, but I know there's enough things in common to tell that they were made by the same person. Maybe someone will pick up on the exact things there and be able to recommend some character concept to help me get my brain on the right track, maybe not.
Either way I'm looking for suggestions for something fun here. And preferably something different from any of the four listed here, or if you have some good reasoning for why I should play one of those in the non-pirate one I'll gladly take those reasons as well.
I think that should sum up just about anything. I'm really looking for something to get my brain thinking in the right direction. Some base line personality, maybe some odd class combination that would form something that could be considered unique-ish. I don't know, all I know is that I need help figuring out what exactly I want to do with a character here before I can get things rolling at all, and apparently my usual sources of help aren't doing it for me with this situation.
I need help coming up with a character concept. Now read the first two paragraphs, then the party composition right below that and ignore the rest. That should tell you the bare minimum. For more information, it's there... just kind of hidden.
So a friend of mine is starting a Pathfinder game some time in the future. I'm not entirely sure when, but I'm having issues coming up with something I'd like to play in this. Usually I'm pretty quick with this sort of thing and this is bugging me quite a bit.
Basically, the setting from my understanding, is some dark thing dealing with humans isolating themselves because of a fear of magic because their leader was killed by magic. That was after a war that caused a location equivalent to Golarion's mana wastes. Humans seem to have the biggest issue with Elves. Everything else seems to have basically sided with the Elves, but I'm not entirely sure if they are attempting to maintain some kind of neutrality or not. The GM has said that magic isn't really all that important to have in the party for this, as things that would come up as magical mumbo jumbo would be the job of one of the Human organizations.
The party for this is pretty rough right now, but it'll look something like this:
Inquisitor of Gorum
A player that really only likes playing fighters and fighter like things
A player that likes the more skill based classes, but varies around a bit sticking mostly with martial and rarely does magic based classes, and when he does, does not enjoy it
Whatever I do.
Then there's the fact of, this group is already playing a few different systems, and one of which is Pathfinder. This kind of thing is actually common with us though, so it's not really that big of a deal, just means that we alternate what we play. The only real issue here is that the Pathfinder one is a campaign that is supposed to have a high risk of death. Two characters have died already and there have been a couple of other close calls. My character in this is a gunslinger (musket with vital strike) so I'd like to try to avoid a really one path approach with this new thing.
More on this gunslinger and this setting for assistance with variance: (This is normally something i would consider completely unnecessary, but seeing as how these settings will probably be run side-by-side, I feel like it may be useful for some people for helping form a suggestion)
The setting I guess can be pretty easily summed up as sky pirates. There are floating cities, flying ships, and uh... Dwarven ruins. As in go find this ancient dwarven vault because there's stuff and we're pirates. It's actually underground too. But that's not the focus here. The main thing is this was set up for, we fought and killed an inevitable. Our gnome summoner died because I switched up how i was doing combat for a round. He got pummeled into unconsciousness, and then until dead. Something about it was given orders to kill, not KO, but whatever. Point is, we stripped the little dude, gave him a minor funeral thing (as in we tossed his body over the ship and I gave him a one gun salute), and I severed the inevitable's chains from its body and made bullets out of it. It probably could've been more dramatic, but I don't think anyone really liked the creepy midget anyway. I only really expect the same to happen to my character. Pretty sure none of the crew really like him.
Now we get to my character here. He's a pirate. He's a Gunslinger/Slayer. Kind of has to be since that's what the campaign revolves around. He didn't always used to be a pirate. Before he can remember anything a ratfolk clan adopted him (he's a human), and taught him their merchanting ways. Somewhere along the lines he picked up some gambling tricks, and a gun. He worked with that gun, tinkering and learning it's secrets. Now he makes them so that they're there. He's also the only one on board the ship with any kind of experience with managing goods, so he's the ship's quartermaster. And cannon expert. And was the interim first mate when the first mate got killed when his player left. And he also makes the navigation checks. He does a lot. He's also kind of an ass most of the time, and apparently has some trust issues that seem to have manifested during play.
In combat he's really straight forward. Am I within 30 ft? No? Get within 30 ft. Yes? Study that thing. Deadly aim/vital strike. Swift action reload from bandolier. Rinse. Repeat. The one time I tried switching things up (because of haste) got the guy keeping our engine in line killed. So much for combat versatility I guess. At least until much later.
Here's the real kicker though. I have three characters pretty much just sitting around. Yet I don't feel like any of them really seem to mesh well with his setting. Well, that isn't entirely true, but still. Maybe it's just that I don't actually want to play these. I don't know. Maybe it's my inner party balance yelling at me saying that we're going to get screwed because the only caster in the group would either be one of my three, or that inquisitor of Gorum. And he's not all that good with magic from what I hear. How about I explain the three that i do have.
Here, the three:
MariusSo let's start off with this simple. The first guy is your typical barbarian dude. He's got a decent head on his shoulders, fairly wise, a generally good guy, but he's not afraid to smash in some heads. He's an Invulnerable Rager though. When combat hits, he's the guy with lower AC than he should, but he's a big dude running around slashing the hell out of things with a falchion. You can't ignore him or he'll do something awful, but you can fairly easily hit him. Then there's the DR. It's not ridiculous, but 1/2 level DR and d12 HD is decent enough as far as I was concerned with this guy. He was a test to see if I'd like playing a DR threat tank type thing or not, and I actually enjoyed him a bit, but he didn't really work for the setting he was in so I pulled him out and just threw him in a back up group.
Izumi
Number two on this list is a flowing monk. She (I don't gender bend too often, but it seemed to match the character's personality well enough) is pretty straightforward personality wise. Wait and watch what happens, gather as much information as you can to make an informed decision. If asked about a decision before feeling comfortable drawing a conclusion, she basically responds telling the questioner that she does not know and does not feel comfortable giving bad input that could be drawn by lack of information. If a decision must be made quickly, then she will gladly give input based on current knowledge. In combat this is a character that runs around in panther style provoking and punching back, then taking a more defensive stance (generally not actually taking an action to do so, just fluff) and going from there.
Clark
Last, but certainly not least, there's Clark. Clark is a character I'm hesitant to throw into anything before knowing what the party set up is beforehand (and I'm sure you'll see why). Honestly he would probably make a better villain than a member of a party of adventurers, but that's Clark I guess. He was originally made for a setting that was loosely based on Ravnica, and as such was able to get away with certain things (basically being a part of the faux Golgari), but when that campaign came to a close for no reason other than random shenanigans from another member of the group, that is no longer here, causing a lack of interest, I threw him into my characters that might one day be played group.
Clark is not an easy character to play. He is evil aligned (I've already gotten pretty much anything okayed by the GM), but has a false good guy face. He's also a cleric of Urgathoa. And a wizard. With aspirations to be a Mystic Theurge Lich. This is a very long game character, with a very long game personality. He'll sit there and give a few coppers to that peasant child giving them directions, just to make the party fighter with a paladin mentality think he's a good guy. Make them think he's not as bad as he is. That way, when they die, they might just be alright with being his servants. Or maybe they'll contribute to his Lich fund by commissioning an item. Either way, it doesn't matter.
Oh, and did I mention he's a half-elf? I'm tempted to play him with this, but I think with everything I'd have to put a lot more work into it here than I would anywhere else. And he's pretty... grim. And a half-elf where humans and elves would both have a large issue with him. And basically being next to land that gives spell fail chance. With all of that I'd have to power build more than I should, and that's not exactly something easy to do with his class set up. Also with magic being illegal with public use I feel like this setting would just have too many repercussion for an aspiring Lich, but if I can't get a better idea, this is probably the character I'll end up deciding on playing. Ouch.
Now some of you may be wondering why I've gone kind of in depth with four characters, and given a basic overview of two campaigns. Basically I don't want to be playing the same character twice at the same time. I'd probably end up getting a lot mixed up and I'm sure it'd end up causing a lot of issues. I also thought that this might give some kind of help for figuring out what types of characters I enjoy playing. Don't get me wrong, combat may be fairly boring with that gunslinger, but I actually enjoy playing him. The combat sucks, but his personality can be pretty fun, really helps when he isn't being forced into a leadership role though. The others, well I'd like to think that they're fairly different people, but I know there's enough things in common to tell that they were made by the same person. Maybe someone will pick up on the exact things there and be able to recommend some character concept to help me get my brain on the right track, maybe not.
Either way I'm looking for suggestions for something fun here. And preferably something different from any of the four listed here, or if you have some good reasoning for why I should play one of those in the non-pirate one I'll gladly take those reasons as well.
I think that should sum up just about anything. I'm really looking for something to get my brain thinking in the right direction. Some base line personality, maybe some odd class combination that would form something that could be considered unique-ish. I don't know, all I know is that I need help figuring out what exactly I want to do with a character here before I can get things rolling at all, and apparently my usual sources of help aren't doing it for me with this situation.