Inspiration for a Goblin character.

[snowman87]

The next pathfinder character I will play will be a Goblin Rogue. He won't be evil or malicious. He won't be good, either, but he will resent the reputation Goblins have everywhere and the limitations it places on him. When he wants to go into a town he will disguise himself as a Gnome wizard; what he thinks a Gnome wizard would look and act like, anyway. He'll wear a mask and scarf and carry a "spellbook" but mostly he'll use wands and other stuff to fool people. There's actually an archetype for Rogue called Counterfeit Mage.
He wouldn't speak common very well, either. He'd mostly try to communicate through gestures and people can try Linguistics checks to understand him.

Any other ideas to help this concept along? Not just optimization but characterization.

[Necromancy]

Yeah, don't play a goblin :-)

[Geddy2112]

If you wanna pull of being a gnome, you better know gnome and sylvan. Likewise, a wizard likely knows draconic. This also helps offset the "I don't know much common, sorry"

A rank in knowledge-arcana and spellcraft to round out your basic "do you know magic" stuff. Maybe the minor magic rogue talent.

That should get you by as a counterfeit caster to any untrained eyes.

[Draconi Redfir]

From my experience at least Goblins tent to be erratic and eccentric, preferring to act before thinking and taking the consequences as they come.

other key pointers might be how they view certain things that humans see as Taboo. If Goblins regularly struggle with high populations, they may not see eating dead goblins as a problem, so to them at least, there's really no reason to be upset about cannibalism. or they might have small kleptomaniac tendencies, where they see something that technically doesn't belong to them, but it's not actively in-use by others at the moment, so they just take it and don't understand why people are upset about it.

Personally with my own Goblin character, i also have her as a bit of a sociopath, unless something is affecting her personally, she won't really have any feelings on things happening to others, she won't be upset about small children getting bullied around, and believes that if you want to NOT get bullied, you need to take your own measures to ensure it doesn't happen. So another possible trait could be refusal to help people if they don't want to help themselves, or viewing people who loose a fight as idiots for not fighting better.

Remember, there's “Muahahaha i want to kill all life” evil, and then there's “I just really don't see the problem in killing and eating this guy who isn't doing anything productive anyways” evil. You want to aim for the latter, or at least dance along it since you're not being evil yourself.

Be egotistical, be selfish, you can do no wrong. You can still form bonds and freindships with others, but ultimately your goals are more driven towards your own benefit then others.

[redzimmer]

Be a goblin bard who is exiled from your tribe due to "telling it like it is" instead of lauding the chief's glories.

Character can be a dangerously honest outsider always commenting on the varied hubris and hypocrisies of "civilized" cultures.

[Anlashok]

Literally in the OP he says he wants to play a goblin rogue and doesn't want to be evil and we have one response telling him to pick a different race, one telling him to pick a different class and one telling him to be evil. Yikes.

Passing off as a gnome when you can't speak common will be pretty hard. A question, do you want the disguise to work completely or do you want it to be sort of shoddy for the sake of the character? If it's the latter you look to be on the right track. If it's the former the lack of languages will really put a hamper on it.

As for the rest of the disguise. Gnomes are known for being illusionists when they are spellcasters, hamming that up and trying extra hard to be mysterious and misleading when maybe the character isn't could be fun if you're going for a humorous angle.

[Secret Wizard]

1. Communicating with your party is part of the fun. Don't leave it to Linguistics checks - instead, speak Common normally, but make sure to toss in some ill-translated Goblinspeak now and then. Call a castle a stone-nest. Call a nursery a kid-farm. Add weird idioms like "from the kennel to the stable" (meaning, "from bad to worse").

2. My Goblin Inquisitor of Besmara was a rueful guy. He had good WIS and INT, but low CHA. He was smarter and wiser than most Goblins for sure, being articulate and calculating. But he always saw that as a burden. He wished, oh how he wished, he could be happy crushing bugs and setting things on fire. He really admires Goblins who are passionate about their mayhem. But alas, he felt like he was boring for preferring more quiet things like a pirate's life instead.

3. Check out the Blood of Shadows book. It has some really nice Darkness tricks for Major Magic using rogues!

[Draconi Redfir]

Literally in the OP he says he wants to play a goblin rogue and doesn't want to be evil and we have one response telling him to pick a different race, one telling him to pick a different class and one telling him to be evil. Yikes.

i never said "be evil" i said "here some ideas of goblin-like tendancies. don't be affraid to have some ideas, opinions, and actions that dance the line of being evil"

[Pyromancer999]

There are a few things you can do, albeit dependent a bit on your Int score.

First, make sure to select the major and minor talents. Try to go Unchained Rogue so that these actually work well for you. Add in Bookish Rogue so you can have an actual spellbook to swap out "spells known" for each talent. For additional simulation of being a wizard, there is a familiar talent, if I remember correctly. If the goblin is weak and doesn't care about having an intelligent familiar, give it the mauler archetype and have it go into battle, claiming you've buffed it into oblivion.

There is also the Counterfeit Mage archetype, which does a lot for your being able to activate magic items, and does you the favor of swapping out Charisma for Dexterity with UMD checks by 6th level. Use this to pretend you are magical.

Edit: Just noticed Counterfeit Mage mentioned in the OP.

A different whole step is going the Eldritch Scoundrel Archetype route. You basically swap out half your skill points, Rogue talents, and sneak attack dice, as well as trap sense and uncanny dodge(including improved, although you can regain both as rogue talents) to cast as a magus off of the wizard spell list.

[unseenmage]

I had a skeleton rogue character once who pretended to be a wizard. Via constant bluff and sleight of hand checks he would "cast" summon dagger.

He also had various pouches and sacks tied up his arms under his robes. The pouches were filled with fluids and powders and gasses.

With a flick of his wrist he could annoint a forehead with blood, blind foes with a cloud, or fling a sparkling metal powder.

Eventually someone sees through the ruse. Hopefully by then he has made himself an ally, a valuable one if all goes well.

Being a wizard is as much about being a showman as being a spellcaster.
No fireball ever has been cast with a whisper when a belly roar will do. :smallsmile: