theamed characters, how do you find games that allow them to be useful?

[frost890]

So I like to play characters that craft or have a feel to them but It seems that I never get in to games that would allow me to really use them. When my current GM sets it up to allow me to make a character that focuses on a type of weapon it seems like I get a bit railroaded in to having to use something else. When I sit down and make something that crafts it seems that I never get time to make anything. I guess I am just feeling like I might as well just go back to video games if I am forced to do things this way.

[Greenish]

Pick a theme that can fit in the campaign you're in. Work with your DM.

[nedz]

This sounds like a problem with your DM. Have you tried talking to him about it ?

Perhaps you could try creating themed characters which can't be blocked so easily, though you shouldn't need to do this ?

[eggynack]

Well, solution one would probably be either finding a non-jerk DM, or convincing the DM doing this that their actions are jerkish. The crafting thing is at least halfway reasonable, as some campaigns have more free time than others (though finding out before embarking down a particular theme would make sense), but taking away your themed weapon just seems kinda vindictive. So, you find someone that won't pointlessly steal your theme, because I suspect that there are more games would let you hang on to your fancy weapon than there are games that would steal it.

Solution two is to go with themes that are less dependent on your DM not being a jerk. Magic based themes tend to work well for this. Say you go cleric. You want to give yourself some thief theming, so you toss thief related domains onto the cleric, give them the relevant skills, and pick your non-domain spells to generally fit that theme. Now you have a theme that is dependent on nothing but being able to prepare spells each day, and the skill aspect isn't even dependent on that. Or you go druid, and you want to base yourself on dragons. So, you pick up dragon wild shape, pick a suitably draconic race, maybe get a phynxkin companion, and again choose spells that feel right, and you again have a theme that can't be easily removed.

In both cases, perhaps pieces can be removed. Maybe the DM steals your weird dragonish animal companion, or makes spell preparation difficult, but because your themes are relatively intrinsic to the characters, it's much harder to take away the entire theme. A theme like, "I use a bastard sword," can be removed from you trivially, grabbed away in an instant. A good theme, at least for a situation like this, is intrinsic, and flexible, and multi-layered. The ideal theme is one where you can point every aspect of your entire character in the direction of the theme, creating a character that is a whole and perfect expression of the theme. Because, if your character is the theme incarnate, then the only way to take that theme from you is to kill the character, and that leaves you with a relatively honest challenge.

[frost890]

I suppose I should have given more context. My GM asked me to build a character to Help out one of his players. He said that he would give the down time to allow me to make a replacement leg for one of his group. so far I have had to run from orcs in to a stamped of dinosaurs only to be caught in a tsunami and bullied by one dragon in to trying to steal something from another dragon. We are nowhere near a city. My character is trying to make a weapon like Verric from Dragon Age 2 and now he just gave us a batch of weapons. Honestly I think I just needed to vent.

[Vhaidara]

Haven't played DA2, but I do have a suggestion: Scrap the new stuff for parts.

[Aleolus]

FWIW, Varric in Dragon Age uses a crossbow named Bianca (at least, that's what he uses in Inquisition)

[Ruethgar]

Call Weaponry and you always can have a relevant, if inferior, weapon on hand of your choosing.