Help Roleplaying a Diviner

[pitdude243]

Hello everybody, I hope all of you are doing great. :smallsmile:

I was faced with the opportunity to create a new character for a friend's entry into DM-hood, and I decided to create a wizard. Originally I was looking at a transmuter, but I realized I didn't like the background that I had written so I scrapped it for Divination. So far I find myself having some problems figuring out a fun way to role play him.

My character is a forest gnome. His ideals are simply Knowledge and Freedom, and his largest bond is his daughter back home (he had her at a young age, and is anywhere between 12 to 18). I haven't figured out any official personality traits for him as of yet. His alignment currently is in the air, and anything goes.

Anybody believe they could give me a little advice?

Thank you for your time.

[Aurthur]

Forest gnome you can say you commune with nature and you read her 'signs'. Only, they only make sense when the context is right. Depending on how well ou can improv, you could be quite entertaining making up nature metaphors for portents.

--party attacked by ogre

"The mighty bear roars, but the squirrel leaps aside into the trees..."

--ogre rolls a 2, you say ooc

[Tanarii]

What's your background? I'm assuming if it's a prewritten one none of the suggested personalities appealed, even modified. But it could still give us a better idea what the character is like. You could also look at the Sage background for suggestions, since his ideal is knowledge. Or maybe Hermit or Acolyte.

If his other ideal is Freedom he's almost certainly Chaotic.

[RazDelacroix]

May I recommend perhaps being relaxed about everything? When the dragons come down and the skies turn red awash in flame, just smile, nod, and say something like, "Tuesday bread bargains are going to be sweet." Be nice, sweet, attentive, and never flummoxed when ogres go on a rampage through the chicken coop (or city guard barracks). You can see the future, and are under no obligations to spoil anything about it.

[DracoKnight]

You can see the future, and are under no obligations to spoil anything about it.

You are River Song.

Though, she didn't really see the future, so much as she had just already lived it.

[pitdude243]

For a little more information, I have already picked the Sage background, but am looking for some more unique personality traits, flaws, and the like. All of the previous suggestions have been fantastic, the one about Tuesday's bread bargains was hilarious :smallsmile:

[PotatoGolem]

Alternative idea: go the opposite from calm and sagacious. He's surly and short-tempered because everyone keeps doing stupid things without stopping to look at the clear consequences. Keeps forgetting that other people can't see the future, so he constantly feels like he's surrounded by idiots. Been a diviner for so long that he doesn't really keep straight what he knows because he's a high-Int genius and what he knows because he sees the future. When the ogre rampages through the city, he's just super annoyed that they didn't double the guard on that gate yesterday because it's SO OBVIOUS.

[Levism84]

Perhaps he feels his gift of divination gives him more of a connection to the world around him, like he is always being guided subtly in a synchronistic sort of way. Perhaps he buys extra food because he feels he will run into someone who will need it: "Ah, child, there you are. This is meant for you." He says, as he hands a poor commoner an extra loaf or bread or a nice slice of meat and cheese he picked up at the last shop because he "felt" he needed to. Perhaps when things are going poorly, he feels out of synch with the world, as if he had unintentionally skipped an event that was meant to keep him on the "right track", so he slows down and tries to let "the natural unfolding of events" catch up to where he is.

Mechanically, I would keep a few low cost, low weight nick-knacks on your person and try to work them into your roleplay as "Oh, that's right, this is for you!" moments. Not heavy-handed, mind you, but when it makes sense for what you have on hand. I would limit it to one or two items per session in order to cut down on it becoming an overly common event. Also, don't be afraid to learn or prepare a few spells that deal directly with your connection with your daughter. When you gain access to 3rd level spells, pick up sending even though it isn't a divination spell. At the end of the day, if you still have a 3rd-level spell slot to use, use it to cast sending to let your daughter know you are okay and thinking of her. The best part, you can get a reply back from her!

If your DM allows it, maybe take a few divination spells that come from outside sources. The (not really) Complete Tome of Spells has some rather fun and interesting 5e converted spells from 3.5e and earlier that could work nicely. If you wanted to focus more on what has already transpired, death recall is a rather balanced 2nd-level divination ritual. It allows you to concentrate over the course of 10 minutes to relive the last 10 minutes of a dead creature's life in real time. However, if you are interrupted while concentrating, you can never cast the spell again on that corpse. This is a great spell for an investigative character. Since it can be cast as a ritual, you can get a lot of mileage out of it (so long as the party is willing to protect you and doesn't mind waiting).