Best Character Concept You Never Got to Finish?

[incarnate236]

I plan all my characters from 1 to 20 pretty early on. (My group starts low 1-4 almost always) Although most times, I find games tend to peter out due to scheduling issues or whatever before ever getting to my final vision.

As the name suggests what builds have you had that never quite got to wear you wanted?

[Nibbens]

I plan all my characters from 1 to 20 pretty early on. (My group starts low 1-4 almost always) Although most times, I find games tend to peter out due to scheduling issues or whatever before ever getting to my final vision.

As the name suggests what builds have you had that never quite got to wear you wanted?

Shar - Halforc Sorcerer (Serpentine bloodline) focusing on every charm spell in the book - Every turn he unconventionally took out an enemy combatant via charm spells - which always left someone for interrogation. LOL. He also used the mind killer spells to make people forget the things he just did to them or the best was making an enemy commander forget he ever told him anything about the battle-plans. It was great.

The campaign petered out before I got the Dominate Person stuff and the Poison shenanigans from the serpentine bloodline - which I really wanted to see. I wanted my own minion army of enemy soldiers. lol.

[Vhaidara]

Original Nalin. Tiefling Warlock, descended distantly from the demon lord Graz'zt. Obsessed with righting the wrongs of his ancestors, he eventually was going to murder an entire village of innocents in order to gain the power he needed to kill Graz'zt. Of course, the party was going to arrive in time to see him perform the act and kill him. About a week later, Nalin would return, a hellbred paladin, with a newfound understanding that the ends almost never justify the means.

[MorgromTheOrc]

A half giant with a dip of monk and a lot of shapeshifting shenanigans, I planned on using barbarian and various other things combined with warshaper and either eventually polymorph or enlarge to basically make Eren from Attack on Titan(Rage plus large-huge size plus unarmed) not quite perfect mechanically but knowing what it was based on was enough for it to scare the DM.

EDIT: Forgot to say how it ended, after I actually got the mechanics working and was doing close to 40 damage a round with my punches the DM killed me off with a pack of purple worms that apparently only like larger meat.

[Tindragon]

AD&D Bard (1e)

We rolled for psionics back then, randomly, based on int, wis, chr per optional rules. I got them, was pretty nice having mind blast at level 1. I decided to be a human, and build toward Bard. I mean really, psionic 1e bard... how is this not a win? Made it to level 11 IIRCC. Apparently, mind blasting the King and his court is frowned upon ( I got cocky ) and was zerged by dozens of soldiers, the court wizard, and a couple of clerics... I swear, 1 more round, I'd a been King Bard in training!

[danzibr]

I had a Silverbrow Bard/Sublime Chord that got to mid levels. He was pretty OP (relative to the rest of the party, though he primarily just buffed) by the time we quit, but he was about to get a lot stronger.

Had a Kobold Sorcerer with the intention of going into Swiftblade. That campaign died out at early levels, never got to shine. Darn gish builds.

[PaucaTerrorem]

My evil version of Father Farnsworth Facesmash. Campaign was a homebrewed world with its own gods and I was to be the savior of my dark lord(all evil gods had been enslaved and used as a power source). Best part was the DM had a time frame in mind for this campaign in which we were to take over the continent and I talked him into using our evil characters as the antagonists in the next game where we were to free the land.

And our DM had put a lot of time in making this world. Interesting countries. Cool history. Was set to be a blast.

Game was going good. Had my character planned out to 20 (possibility of going epic) and then people started putting their real lives ahead of the game. I know, right!? Ended up dropping the game around level 8, just as we were on the verge of starting a huge war that would last decades and my cleric had just gotten his psionic cohort. Still have my character sheet. Still want to finish it. Probably never will.

Sadness has eclipsed the panda.

[1pwny]

Spiderman! I took about 6 levels in Warlock for Spider Walk and some other incantations, then I started taking Fighter levels. It was cool, but we never finished the campaign, which sucked.

[bloodystone2]

I DM a lot and I make a lot of interesting npc's for the players to hang around with, befriend, become rivals with, ect. Anyway, there was this one hobgoblin paladin named Yander. He can't stand evil with a passion and goes around swinging a two handed waraxe (encrested with the image of his clan before he killed all the ones he found to be 'evil'). He was crazy but the good kind. Had only one rule, don't hurt any children. He was supposed to meet the players outside a lich's citadel home and slaughter everything in there upto the lich (and his slaymates) but the players thought he was nothing more than another shiny hobgoblin, and murdered him on the spot outside the lich's house.

[Blackhawk748]

My Half Fey Sorcereress Morrigan (as in THE Morrigan, Goddess of Death, War, and Fertility. Oh and Ravens, gotta have Ravens) I got her all rolled up, made her at level 4 (one level of Half Fey Savage Progression), and i was gonna go into Wild Soul (Unseelie :smallbiggrin:). Well the campaign just kinda exploded when i made it to level 4 (nothing to do with me). Didn't help that we were in Dragon Lance and the campaign seemed to have no real point, as well as the fact that multiple artifacts were in play and none of them were particularly useful.

I was sad, i didnt even get to cast glitterdust :smallfrown:


I DM a lot and I make a lot of interesting npc's for the players to hang around with, befriend, become rivals with, ect. Anyway, there was this one hobgoblin paladin named Yander. He can't stand evil with a passion and goes around swinging a two handed waraxe (encrested with the image of his clan before he killed all the ones he found to be 'evil'). He was crazy but the good kind. Had only one rule, don't hurt any children. He was supposed to meet the players outside a lich's citadel home and slaughter everything in there upto the lich (and his slaymates) but the players thought he was nothing more than another shiny hobgoblin, and murdered him on the spot outside the lich's house.

RACISTS!!!! Thats sad, Hobgoblins are fully capable of being good, and awesome.

[HunterOfJello]

Dwarf crusader built around controlling and defending.

I played him for half a session and then scrapped him because he was waaaaay too strong and effective at keeping the 2 spellcasters safe from harm at level 1 and knew that would be true till at least level 6 or so.

~~

Also every artificer build i've ever toyed with because i ended up going crazy creating hundreds of items and lists of strategies using said items each time.

[BowStreetRunner]

Every single character I have ever made. Seriously, the survival rate of my characters leaves something to be desired. :smalleek:

[Lerondiel]

Yeah, where to start...

A 2Ed minotaur in Krynn with the best stats I've rolled in my life...

A drow Conjuror/Ur-Priest...

A master specialist abjuror/initiate of the 7 fold veil

An arcane hierophant...

A gestalt mindbender...

....and having weekend work rob me of a PC shredding epic campaign for 30 levels (with 4 free LA) of Sylph Paladin/PiousTemplar/Exorcist/Ultimate Magus/Arcane Trickster/Fatespinner.....its been 9 years and I'm still getting over it :P

[prufock]

I've got a few, but these are probably my two favourites that I never got to play.

Bartleby Underburrow: A mage who, in a magical accident, got stuck on the plane of shadow. Many years later he found his way back, but his time there has given him a case of solipsism syndrome. He isn't sure what is real and what isn't, if he's in some sort of dream, if anything outside himself exists, or if HE even exists. He would be a shadowcraft mage, able to manipulate quasi-reality through shadow, which only serves to reinforce his position that "reality" is mutable. His friends are taking steps to help him deal with it, but he's often slow to react to things and displays no real concern about danger. They've got him a pet and he does some gardening to try to connect to reality, but it's only marginally successful.

I, Warforged: I (pronounced "eye" but was actually a numeral for one, as he was his creator's prototype) is a warforged binder/wizard/anima mage. He is technically evil, and views squishy mortals with a mix of disdain and pity. However, he obeys Asimov's three laws of constructs (except replace "human" with "master"). Before his death, his master ordered him to treat the PCs as his new masters, so he has to obey them and can't harm them. But he isn't necessarily happy about it. Think Marvin the Paranoid Android, but misanthropic instead of neurotic. He will do as ordered, but will complain about it. He won't hurt them, but will insult them. He will protect them, but state how pointless it is. His magic will focus on a) becoming immune to as many things as possible and b) dealing ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, and so on to mortals.

[Blackhawk748]

I, Warforged: I (pronounced "eye" but was actually a numeral for one, as he was his creator's prototype) is a warforged binder/wizard/anima mage. He is technically evil, and views squishy mortals with a mix of disdain and pity. However, he obeys Asimov's three laws of constructs (except replace "human" with "master"). Before his death, his master ordered him to treat the PCs as his new masters, so he has to obey them and can't harm them. But he isn't necessarily happy about it. Think Marvin the Paranoid Android, but misanthropic instead of neurotic. He will do as ordered, but will complain about it. He won't hurt them, but will insult them. He will protect them, but state how pointless it is. His magic will focus on a) becoming immune to as many things as possible and b) dealing ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, and so on to mortals.

Oh my god you make HK-47, where you gonna call them Meatbags??

[prufock]

Oh my god you make HK-47, where you gonna call them Meatbags??
Meatsticks, skinbags, breeders, bonesacks, softies, etc. He'll have a creative vocab for insulting humanoids.

[torrasque666]

Scholar. The Warforged I never got to finish. Archivist 10/Juggernaut 5/Primal Scholar 5. Basically, he was an escaped Warforged Juggernaut who fled to Xendrik to learn the secrets of the giants. Yeah, I knew that he'd lose caster levels, and thus access to 9ths, but I didn't really care about that.

[BWR]

In L5R I barely started a pbp with a scholar-berserker. Sort of like Berserker from 8-bit theater. He was the closest thing the setting had to a philologist, had no ranks in combat skills above what he started with, had increased nothing but Knowledge skills, his highest ability score was Intelligence, with things like Strength and Stamina being rather low. The way his school (class) worked he would still have been dangerous in combat had he ever gotten that far. his biggest joy in life was sitting and reading. his job however was to brutally murder demons and undead.

An alternate take on an actual character I play that never saw the light of day: he's a Hida berserker married into the Doji. In VtM terms he's a Brujah married into the Toreador. For those who don't get either reference, he's a giant, brutish uncivilized man who, for reasons of politics, was married into the most refined, cultured and artistic family in the Empire. Traditionally the two families dislike each other immensely. The poor guy is, due to system, literally incapable of understanding art and is now expected to learn stuff like calligraphy, flower arranging (his attempts are more like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNV1U34p6jk)), poetry, refined music.
Anyway, the idea I didn't go with was giving him to elderly gentlemen to help him learn how to behave, by the names of Sutateru and Warudorufu. They would be jesters - a class whose primary function is to make witty remarks at the expense of some poor schmuck.
I think you should see where this is going. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statler_and_Waldorf) Sadly, this idea was shot down.

[Thurbane]

I've not yet had a chance to play a Binder, but I always wanted to play a Hellbred Binder. Next game is likely to be E6, so I won't be taking Binder there (even though the DM is encouraging me to).

Fortunately, someone else has taken up the mantle. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?369705-I-died-again-new-character-a-binder!-I-m-looking-for-inspiration-suggestions-a&highlight=binder+hellbred) :smallsmile:

[Zaq]

I often mention my Binder/Incarnate/Chameleon, who reinvented his abilities every day (and pretended to be a new class every day). What I don't often mention is that he only got a single level of Chameleon before the game folded, and there weren't that many play sessions where he actually had Chameleon powers. Most of his exploits were actually just as a Binder/Incarnate. It was still a blast (he remains one of my favorite characters ever, and I would play another version of him in a heartbeat if my current GM's weird-ass houserules didn't make it impossible), but he never got to get into any of the really weird stuff that Chameleon offers. Darn shame, really.

He remains my best example of a character that only 3.5 can really produce—I've never seen another system that can handle a character who pulled off the stunts that he did.

[atemu1234]

Rook, the Chaotic Neutral Lesser Aasimar Rogue. He was born in a monastery, and for the first six years of his life was trained to be a member of the clergy there. Unfortunately, a horde of Orcs overran the monastery, he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave to a nearby kingdom. He was seven at the time, and grew up the rest of his life under the fist of a variety of cruel slave owners. He escaped after slaying his final slave owner, and despite being branded with a Rekhyt to mark his status, he managed to use his charisma to find his way to allies.

He was incredibly Misotheistic, hating the gods and blaming them for what has happened to him. He did, however, have a soft spot for the downtrodden, those he considered hated by the gods; he thought all gods are evil chessmasters who value only the miseries of mortals.

But, that game wound up falling apart for... a variety of reasons. But the roleplaying interactions between him and the party cleric were truly interesting. I drew inspiration from Firefly for that bit.

[IZ42]

Azov Vonnarc: Drow sorcerer focusing on mind-affecting spells and becoming a vampire. DM approved a 3rd party bloodline, which facilitated my Idea, but sadly my campaign never got finished due to the DM being a bad person.

[bjoern]

This concept never really even got started, but I've always thought it would be fun.

Basically leadership feat fun. My guy would either be a paladin or cleric or some combination of those, would start his own church and have an army of righteous crusaders that would loot and plunder the countryside ......I mean a congregation of believers that would go out and spread the word of our god.

I've always thought this would be a ton of fun from the RP and fluff perspective.

But leadership is broken, and the only way it works is if the whole party is on board with the idea that's what the campaign is about.

[Guyver87]

This forum had inspired me to create several characters I never used, but one of my favorites was Elgor Blackroot, a human Binder/Scion of Dantalion, who was was supposed to be our party's enemy.

In this particular campaign we were playing as a group of mercenaries working for Zhentarim. In this sub-quest we were supposed to find, and kill a mysterious drug manufacturer, who ruins our bosses business by selling cheap alchemical drugs without paying "for protection". This mysterious character was supposedly named Alur, but nobody had ever seen him in person.

Only people who know who he really is were his two bodyguards: Half-Elf swordsman and ladies man Aker, and a grim Orc warrior Kuurth. There were several attempts to catch and interrogate them about their boss, but apparently they were quite strong, and outfitted with some magic items, as they were always able to slaughter their attackers, or escape.

During the sub-quest players were supposed to find out, that this "Alur" is in reality a small-time alchemist, and Binder named Elgor Blackroot. And that they were no bodyguards, as the whole thing was just a smokescreen created to boost his status in the criminal underworld.

You see both "Aker" and "Kuurth" were magical disguises created through the powers of Naberius Vestige, with skills and powers taken from other Vestiges. So Aker had Bound Paimon, Haures and Naberius, while Kuurth used Eligor, Eurynome, and Naberius, also using some of the drugs to boost their stats.

Nothing great, but me and DM had created a fun little adventure around this character, but never had opportunity to actually use it...

[oldkingkoal]

Mine would be a kobold cloistered cleric of Io (was going for the 'Singer of Concordance' PrC from Races of the Dragon) named Tak. Was going compleately support and healing with him.
He was an adorable, anxiety ridden nurotic that would often spout teachings of ballance and moderation. Tried running him in two post by post (PbP) games, but by nature of PbP the games died rather quickly after they started.
For the little time that I was able to play him it was some of the funnest RP I had ever done.

[illyahr]

Built a Drider Knight (Paladin of Slaughter) once. Wore Rhino Hide (+2d6 extra damage when charging) and had a +2 Lance of Charging (+2d6 extra damage on a charge). The Rakshasa in our group rode on his back flinging Web spells and Glitterdust so I could mow down our foes. DM lost interest after a couple sessions so he didn't see much play.

[SimonMoon6]

Pretty much anything since I only had one character get to 20th level (but still didn't quite get Epic Spellcasting to be able to abuse "Instantaneous" polymorph).

But, for example, I had a Disciple of Dispater who never even got to max out that prestige class.

And I had a true neutral Druid working on being an "Incarnate" from the Swords&Sorcery books. (An Incarnate is a druid whose wildshape lets him take on only a handful of forms from previous lives, but therefore gets more options like vermin and humanoid, plus some stat bonuses.) But I never even got into the prestige class.

[Mcdt2]

Shaper, a magical construct (used warforged stats) that was created by an evil duergar, but managed to escape to the surface. He had never seen any other living thing before, beyond the occasional cave bug, and was utterly entranced. Wandered aimlessly before stumbling upon a meditating druid (an elderly half-orc by the name of Irontooth, who I also attempted to play in a campaign but never got around to). He sat down in imitation of the druid, and eventually began to learn from him. He gave himself the name "Shaper" because he discovered he possessed an odd sort of magic; whenever he carved the likeness of a specific person or animal in wood, it seemed oddly lifelike. I played him as a very naive character, who failed to understand a number of basic concepts, and wrote several stories where he stumbled upon the other members of my party and learned something in the process (met the bard when she was a young girl, singing in the forest; met the cleric of farlanghan as he wandered the road and shared a meal with him, taking with a wooden carving of farlanghan's holy symbol; etc). Sadly, the campaign never really went anywhere; it was a play-by-post game and we never even left the tavern at the beginning.

I also tried to play Shaper's mentor, as I mentioned above. It was to take place before he met Shaper, when he was merely middle-aged, and served as a wilderness guide, taking various adventuring parties out to ancient ruins and such. He was a peaceful man, who set aside both violence and material wealth as penance for his past sins (namely, he was a barbarian warlord who slaughtered wealthy merchants on the road). That campaign never even got started, sadly.

[incarnate236]

I suppose I should share the one I miss.

I had a planned build for Elan Telepath 3/Focused Transmuter 3/Cerebremancer 10/Archmage 4/ Thrallherd 10.

Not optimized but the concept was that he was a defector of the Reidran (Eberron Setting) elite inquisitors who fled to Khorvaire to study arcane magic in the hopes of finding a way to defeat the Quori and free his people. (possible SG-1 influence) As he achieved arcane supremacy he would realize that the only way to gain the support he needed in Reidra was to pose as a god himself and thus begin an epic tier journey through Thrallherd where he would eventually evolve into the new false god master of the continent.

I got to the riding a polymorphed treant familiar while chucking dominate powers part which was fun but not quite to the moral decay shtick I was looking for.

[Ruethgar]

Um, almost all of them. I don't really get time to play D&D much anymore, but I do make characters. My current favorites are:

"Anna" Aja'Oya Orisha: Inspired heavily by Ororo Munroe "Storm", she is able to Lucid Dream storms and forests into being. She is a princess of a now usurped desert kingdom that her family's magic was keeping fertile. On the run from the new rulers she lives deep in the desert being raised by living storms until she is of age to take back her throne. Mechanically she has a prestige race that lets her use a side effect and metamagic heavy Thunderhead spell at will and a Plant Companion with Elemental Familiar cast on it as her storm parent. I tripled the xp for the prestige race, added Skill Focus(Lucid Dreaming) as a prerequisite and made the Thunderhead require a multi-round casting time depending on how long you want it to last, plus a skill check per round, but also spread out its power over her E6 levels so its not front loaded like it would be by RAW with the modifications to Thunderhead.

Eg: The full group is Fe Ao Ter Zha Eg Ya meaning Fire, Water, Earth, Air and All Life. Eg is an E6 living prestidigitation that slowly becomes a mini god of creation gaining sorcerer levels and building a world in the space of a Circle Magic War Rope Trick. Because fauna and flora creation is difficult to create before True Creation, the portal to his world teleports around the material plane inviting adventurers to populate the world in exchange for free travel. Ya is a Jaunter Dragon and is the one who does the actual teleporting and assists in the portal creation. Fe Ao Ter and Zha are Familiar Formed Gnomes with Magically Adept and Elemental Familiar attained through leadership. The spells they get are, again, heavy on the side effects for things like grass growth, gust of wind and rain. They slowly create the world, expanding it outward ever so slowly and mostly with grass growth and create water since they can only make about 1lb of actual stone per day.

Nature: Couldn't think of a better name. Nature is cheesy by any stretch of the imagination, with a race of Arctic Young Incarnate Captured One Amalgam Fax Celestius Living Whispering Sanctum Create Air and Water(Side Effect: Move Earth, Wall of Stone, Stone to Mud, Grass) one can well imagine her power. She exploits the most advantageous interpretation of LA and combines an ancestral relic, item familiar and legacy item into a stronghold to Familiar Form into and literally become a small forest. She isn't intended to be a player character, but all the same I want to use her somewhere.

Dovah: An E6 dragon, sort of, I mean there is enough dragon in there that it may as well be. It is a Forest Gnome chain Familiar Formed into a Compsognathus that has been treated with the Dragonblood Ritual of Association and retrained for Dragon Wings, so yay mini dragon. It has a little sorcerer stuck in there, but also the Half-Dragon class, Draconic class, and Green Dragon class. The rules for E6 at my table were slightly altered to be up to ECL 6 rather than level 6 to make this possible(although a slow progression). The Green Dragon levels increase the size to medium from tiny making it seem more like a dragon. One thing I found irritating was the lack of ability to dig a home so she can regularly get the 20 Know Engineering check to tell if the ceiling is stable and be she and her consort have ranks in Profession Miner and a lovely cave including an underground reservoir and treasure room(though mostly practical treasure they made like bone weapons and leather armor).