Roleplaying A Softie

[Bartmanhomer]

Ok I thinking of playing a Chaotic Good Male Elf Cleric Of Corellon Larethian and he turns out to be a softie or a sensitive. He doesn't want to kill enemies and believes of sparing a life no matter how evil the enemies are. So I just want to know how can I roleplay a softie. Any advice anyone?

[Zaq]

Ask why this character acts this way.

Does he truly believe that every creature's life has value and that everyone can be redeemed?

Does he lack confidence in his ability to determine who really deserves death?

Does he just find the concept icky and/or unsettling and prefer not to deal with that sort of thing?

Any or all of those might be true, just for starters, and there's plenty of other potential reasons as well. And of course you can ask why those beliefs are in place. For example, in the first case (every creature's life has value), maybe someone spared him at a vulnerable point when he didn't think he deserved it (like a certain well-beloved pally), or maybe he's under a strict external code of teachings that he follows behaviorally without necessarily 100% supporting emotionally. (Maybe like 95% support.)

But fundamentally, roleplaying is all about having your character act believably and reasonably consistently in a variety of situations, even if it's not necessarily how you would act in those situations. The more you understand about why a character holds a given belief or a given set of values, the better you'll be able to come up with verisimilitude-heavy reactions to new situations.

[tiercel]

Zaq makes some excellent points.

On top of those, another point to consider is how you see your character interacting with the rest of an adventuring group. If your campaign is likely to contain a fair amount of combat, will your character be trying to get his friends to always capture/redeem their enemies? (Be careful here and consider checking with other players — if the expectation is one of slaughtering a lot of Obviously Evil orcs etc, then you don’t want to just be annoying the other players.)

Alternatively, would your character avoid doing killing himself, but is (reluctantly) okay with acting as buffing and support for the rest of the party when they go mook slaughtering? Perhaps your character is a Technical Pacifist (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TechnicalPacifist)?

The point here is not only what your character is willing to do (and why), but what your character is willing to tolerate or even support — which is something that really might not be a bad idea to work out a bit with other players to make sure you are all having fun.

[Talverin]

I once roleplayed a character like this. Find spells and abilities that do nonlethal damage. Have a Merciful weapon, like a mace. If you have damaging spells, see about nonlethal metamagic, or 'alternative', nonlethal versions of spells.

Talk to your party members OOC, definitely. It's good to have their feelings on it.

Keep in mind, also, that unless your character is willing to -attack- your party members over it, remember that oftentimes your allies... well. won't go along with it. Don't take it personally.

Save everyone you can. Maybe now and then try and talk to your allies about it. But when you choose to keep enemies alive, remember, they are now your responsibility.

Tie them up, cuff them, but remember you have to drag them around with you. Unless you have a cart, it may not be viable. In later levels, you could burn a high level spell and Gaes someone into never taking up arms again. There's a lot of great RP potential, but recognize that you can't save them all, and likely won't save many or most of them.

Bonus points if whoever you're working for offers a bounty for captured enemies!

[MaxiDuRaritry]

In later levels, you could burn a high level spell and Geas someone into never taking up arms again.In most settings, that is an all-but-guaranteed death sentence. D&D worlds are extremely violent by nature. In fact, even nature is out to kill you, unless you're a high level druid.

Doing that to pretty much anyone is extremely cruel.

[Mechalich]

D&D is a difficult system to engage with for a pacifist character. The game is deliberately combat focused, that combat provides extremely limited opportunities for surrender especially at higher levels of optimization (if you hit someone with Wail of the Banshee, they don't exactly get a chance to surrender first), and it is extremely common for characters to encounter enemies that cannot surrender or even stop attacking.

For instance, using traditional D&D cosmology, a good character acting to spare the life of evil outsiders is engaging in stupidity, not pacifism. They are expressions of evil as a cosmic force, killing them reduces the evil in the world in some way. The same is true of undead. Even many aberrations exist in violation of the existing ecology and their destruction can be considered a divine mandate (ex. mind flayers). So while giving humanoid, sapient, enemies is a defensible stance, that's already being pretty darn selective. It gets weird talking vowing to 'never kill another man' when that leaves you open to slaughtering everything on entire planes.

[Doctor Awkward]

So I played a character once called Thix. He was a Changeling Rogue 5/Charlatan 5/Chameleon 10.

PB: 32
Str 8, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 18
1. Able Learner, Social Intuition (Changeling Rogue Substitution, Races of Eberron)
3. Skill Focus: Bluff, Minor Lore (Changeling Rogue)
6. Weapon Finesse
9. Fade Into Violence (PHB2)
12. Combat Panache (PHB2)
15. Master Manipulator (PHB2)
18. <open>

Skill Tricks: Assume Quirk, Second Impression, Social Recovery, False Theurgy, Never Outnumbered, Listen to This

For skills I maxed Bluff, Sense Motive, and Use Magic Device, 1 in each knowledge except, 5 in arcana and religion for synergy bonus, and I spread the rest out as necessary for a social character.

Charlatan was the winner of the Origins/Dragon prestige class design contest and published in Dragon #335. A playable enough description can be found here: http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=6543.0

While I roleplayed him as the face of a gang of miscreants and con men, you could easily take a character like this and turn him into a genuinely nice guy who just wants peace, and has decided that the best way to that peace is to bluff his opponents into backing away from a fight.

"There's no call for all this violence! Now settle down before I get really angry. ...What?? Do you have an idea who I am?? Well... <long diatribe>"

Or something like that.
It's just a suggestion, but I think if you had a better idea mechanically for what you wanted to play, you'd have an easier time deciding how he should behave.

[martixy]

Ok I thinking of playing a Chaotic Good Male Elf Cleric Of Corellon Larethian and he turns out to be a softie or a sensitive. He doesn't want to kill enemies and believes of sparing a life no matter how evil the enemies are. So I just want to know how can I roleplay a softie. Any advice anyone?

Been meaning to play something like that for ages.

As an almost exact copy of Vash the Stampede.

If you have not seen Trigun, go watch it yesterday. It's that good.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Focus on summoning, but only conjure creatures with high grapple checks.......


Edit: i also love the tale of the 60 billion double dollar man

[Manyasone]

Been meaning to play something like that for ages.

As an almost exact copy of Vash the Stampede.

If you have not seen Trigun, go watch it yesterday. It's that good.

His rage if I recall correctly is terrible to behold, however.
And the price for the coolest name ever goes to his brother 😁