Most. Annoying. Character. Ever.

[Malacode]

Everyone knows the feeling of having an annoying character. It's the Cleric you played when 50 sourcebooks were in use, and it was time to prepare her spells. It was the Wizard who spent most of his time researching and buffing himself to protect. It was the Monk you were stuck with when there was a Scout already in the party. The ones that you really have to put a lot of effort into during gameplay. Well, I believe I have come up with a new cadidate. The Bard/Chameleon/Master of Masks. Here's the plan:
First up is five levels in bard. Go human, it's really the only way to do this and not suck, as Doppelganger takes much needed levels away from you. THe bonus feat can go towards Able Learner. This character seems to be the ultimate backup character, so why not take Bardic Knack alt class feature. 2.5 ranks in every skill that ever existed ever seems like an OK deal, and you'll be using them too. You're now the guy that makes the Survival, Knowledge Arcana, whatever skills that require training to be used, check, because everyone else forgot to take ranks. After your first five levels, you move into Chameleon. Take 7 or 8 levels, it's a decent class. You could take all 10, but then there are fewer class features to keep track of, which is bad for the purposes of this excercise. After your levels in Chameleon, you have roughly, what, 10 options for your character sheet that you'll be switching between, plus any Mimic'd abilities that add to that? Then comes Master of Masks. We'll just take the rest of our 7/8 levels here. This nets you a nice +3 bonus to your bard or chameleon casting, and a decent number of masks. At level 7, a Master of Masks has 6 masks to choose from, and they can wear two at a time (Only one benefits you though). Now you have 60 total options for your character at any one time. Have fun keeping track of all that.

Obviously, this isn't really well thought out or complete, but man it'd be great to dump on your DM. Even better: Don't tell your fellow players what class you are. They'll be guessing for ages.
"Hmm, well Dereck has Divine casting and wings, so he's got to be a Favoured Soul"
"But there's Arcane casting too, and a breath wepon he uses ocaisionally... I think he's a Dragon Adept"
"Hmm... He also changes shape though, and uses Wild Empathy, so a Druid"
etc.

So! What do you think? Is there any reason to turn this into an actual character? Is there any way this can be made more useful? Is there, in fact, any point to the exercise at all?

[Draz74]

Gotta add in levels of Factotum and/or Binder to really trip out.

Generally, builds that try to be this versatile will end up bad at everything, though. A 2-level Chameleon dip and sometimes a 1-level Master of Masks dip (see: Haberdash the Kitchen Sink build) can be good, though.

[MickJay]

Generally, builds that try to be this versatile will end up bad at everything, though.

But that just helps making the character more annoying!

[Narmoth]

Much simpler character that's much more annoying for the other players:

I had a stand in character since my main character was dead at the moment. I played a paladin / grey guard in that hired the rest of the group to find 2 dwarven smiths kidnapped by the league of hired killers.
We break into their hideout, and I confiscate all loot in the name of the king, as it's most likely stolen and should be given back to the victims of the hired killers.
And I don't care about the loot I don't get, as this character is a stand in.
You should have seen the faces of the rest of the group

(the group was paid a fee by the paladins organization after the quest, so they got more or less compensated)

[Behold_the_Void]

I fail to see the point in creating a character with the sole intent of annoying your group. That sounds counter-productive to say the least.

[wadledo]

I fail to see the point in creating a character with the sole intent of annoying your group. That sounds counter-productive to say the least.

That's not the point of this.
The point is that you find your own character annoying/boring because the other's in the party can do what it does better.
So you make a character that can do everything, so your always useful.

[Zen Monkey]

Anything with too many character sheets could qualify. Someone in one of my games played a barbarian/druid, and got infected with lycanthropy in the course of the game. That gives you:
Normal stats
Enraged stats
Fatigued stats
Were- stats
Enraged Were- stats
Fatigued Were- stats
Animal Companion stats
Various animal stats for Wild Shape
etc

Watching him get organized and makes switches during combat qualifies as a party annoyance. Too much math and too many pages.

[WalkingTarget]

Anything with too many character sheets could qualify. Someone in one of my games played a barbarian/druid, and got infected with lycanthropy in the course of the game. That gives you:
Normal stats
Enraged stats
Fatigued stats
Were- stats
Enraged Were- stats
Fatigued Were- stats
Animal Companion stats
Various animal stats for Wild Shape
etc

Watching him get organized and makes switches during combat qualifies as a party annoyance. Too much math and too many pages.

Heh. In an Eberron game I played a Shifter Barbarian/Weretouched Master

I had a chart of all of the permutations between the Barbarian rage, the shifter racial ability, the weretouched master shifting bonuses, and whether or not I had Haste on me at the time. The other players thought I was crazy to pick something that complicated since I had to update the chart (handwritten, unfortunately) every level. The chart let me know at a glance what my attack bonuses, move speed, AC, etc. were without slowing things down.

[Epinephrine]

Anything with too many character sheets could qualify. Someone in one of my games played a barbarian/druid, and got infected with lycanthropy in the course of the game. That gives you:
<le snip>
Watching him get organized and makes switches during combat qualifies as a party annoyance. Too much math and too many pages.

Yep, been there. My gestalt (shapeshift)druid/scout - with Expeditious Dodge and Improved Skirmish. Different AC/damage depending on how much he had moved/what form he was in. The DM found it a bit annoying to always have to be asking my AC, since in a given round my AC could have 3 (or more)values - base, moved 10', moved 20', moved 40', for each of the shapeshift forms.

We've since trimmed him down a bit (he lost his shapeshift to become a hunter-type, and traded some feats, so he's only got base, 10' and a 20' AC to look after, and no shapeshifting).

[Kalirren]

Oh yeah, I have a ragng shifting barbarian story too. My DM once had an barbarian afflicted with -uncontrollable- shapeshifting. (How he got that way is a long and involved story, involving drinking out of what essentially was a pool of primal chaos to cure his poisoning.) So the DM was the one who was telling Scott, the player, how many tentacles he had in any given round.

And then Scott had to keep track of all the haste and buffs and things that I was casting too, - I'm just glad that Scott is good at doing math in his head, because if it had been anyone else in the group, it would have been -so- annoying.

[Arbitrarity]

My "bard" has to roll dice every round for maneuvers, keep careful track of his swift actions, and repeatedly add and subtract for his various spells and other bonuses, but that's about it (No, +7 to hit, silly). About 75% of the time, when he misses, he actually hits, and I just need to find the numbers to prove it (+1 from furious counterstrike, I was hit last round, +11 from Snowflake Wardance, +4 from Arcane Strike, +5 from Bite of the Werebear, +1 from being a Fire Elemental, etc.)
He quite often forgets a few points of damage dealt here and there.

[Realms of Chaos]

I can't believe that a thread with this title could go on for even this long without the following word popping up at least once.

Spoiler

Show

Kender

That is all.

[zakk2to2]

that was mentioned quite a bit but every time someone "borowed" it before you could see it.

[Lycanthromancer]

No no no no. Kender paladin.

The self-righteous, tells-everyone-what-to-do-because-they-make-the-paladin-lose-class-abilities-otherwise kind of paladin. That just happens to be constantly stealing the group's most valuable things (such as weapons just before a deadly battle), and then berates the rest of the group for being careless and clumsy.

Especially bad when it's a DMPC.