Favorite character

[Tanuki Tales]

Plain and simple: Who was the favorite character that you've played in all your years of gaming? GMs can join in on the fun by mentioning their favorite character they've seen fielded by one of their players.

I barely remember much about my favorite character, but he holds that position because of how cemented he is in my mind and memory. It was a pre-generated dwarf cleric of Pelor that my DM gave me for a game he ran back during high school. What cemented him as my favorite is that in our first combat, which was a close one, a single were-rat had managed to hide in the rafters and got the drop on us. Unfortunately for him, my dwarf still had a scorching ray, my DM ruled I got to react as the scoundrel leapt from the rafters.

I rolled max damage on both rays and the only thing that hit the ground was the smoking, empty armor.

[Eno Remnant]

My favourite character was from a campaign still in progress. D&D 3.5e, with a lot of homebrew elements.

His name was Dorian, and he was absolutely freaking brilliant. Winged Lesser Cansin Dragonfire Adept with low save DCs and high social skills, but it wasn't the mechanics that made him so good. His story was that he'd been born with a low level psychic perception, and had always seen the world as a series of threads woven together. Everything looked alive and vibrant through his eyes.

He was uncanny, unpredictable, and the party didn't hesitate to call him insane. Playing him was so much fun because there were just so many different little things that he said or did that enhanced this odd-yet-inspired personality. He once took Wisdom damage and spent the duration rhyming about things vaguely related to the situation at hand. He had an inferiority complex because a guy with a flamethrower did his job better than he did. He could find a piece of paper his employer was looking for without even know what exactly he was looking for. He liked to ask existential questions that nobody ever understood, but that made them stop and think.

He was eventually killed on a moon base by an electromagnetic being that shut of his body. Later, he was killed again by the same being while trying to sabotage the mission his party was a part of, to rebuild an evil god.

[Vitruviansquid]

My favorite character I ever got to play is Mithridates Jones, who was a little bit good at ever'thing but leaves the thinkin' to smarter fellasn'he.

During play, he would always throw out a lot of "homespun wisdom" that don't make any sense, and his favorite thing to say was "I am but a humble mountain man..." "Please sirs, I am but a humble mountain man. Can y'please find it in the kindness of your hearts to re-explain this plan'a yers?"

Unfortunately, the campaign never made it very far due to it having been a game played in college.

[Sajiri]

I have two favourites, both in games Im still playing. Officially my favourite is Antoniette (Ana). She's been through a lot of changes, both mental and physical, she's seen a lot of friends/npcs come and go, she's done a lot of crazy stuff, and the time thats passed in the setting is about 12 years now. She started as a human, widow of a recently deceased nobleman who's motivation was trying to rescue her kidnapped daughter.

Now she's not entirely human, due to plot reasons and DM granted powers, she's got dragon powers and can change her colour/type at will, she's trying to stop a war and a potential world ending catastrophic event. She was intended to be a sneaky and charismatic rogue/bard type, but as far into the campaign as we are (just had our 209th session today) she's strong and angry enough she just goes rambo on everything. It's incredibly amusing and satisfying to roleplay as her.

My other favourite is a character the DM really had to convince me to play, in the game that was meant to be the test game for his homebrew system. A cyberpunk/sci fi setting where I would have to play as an android, two things I really didn't want to do, but after many months I relented. So my android was named Anima, she didn't even have a name until several sessions in, and started off as a complete blank slate, both for plot reasons and because I had so little experience with that type of setting and didnt know any of the terms, it would just work out well for me roleplaying a character who knew as little as me. This campaign isnt nearly as far in as Ana's and has been on hiatus for several months now, but its clearly more roleplay focused and has been quite the experience. Anima turned out nothing like I thought she would, I had expected she would end up like most of my characters- an agile fighter who's got a bit of an attitude and grey morality. Instead she ended up sort of a pacifist, naive, struggles with negative emotions (particularly jealousy) and is built around being a brawler type when combat is inevitable. Playing an android character learning about sense of self and being 'real' has been a fun experiment.

[Asmodean_]

Vergil Asmodean (although I suppose I'm only saying that since he's the only character I've played, except for Ker'anson but that doesn't really count since we're only a few in-game minutes into the campaign). Drow Sorcerer (currently L5), with a sharp wit and a no-nonsense approach to most scenarios. Typically in disbelief of how hare-brained Amnestria is being.

[Inevitability]

I once played a female GOO warlock. Backstory was that she'd been a famous singer. A wizard fell in love with her during a performance and her parents married him off to her. After years of loneliness in the wizard's far lands, a mysterious stranger seduced her. The wizard found out and cursed her to never speak again in an act of rage.

That night, she ritually killed her husband, gaining eldritch powers afterwards. Now she's a half-crazed adventurer seeking her lover (who she doesn't know is the source of her powers) while trying to regain her voice.

I used the GOO warlock's telepathic ability to 'speak', and the DM let me fluff verbal components as a sudden burst of telepathic static in the nearby area.

[RickAllison]

Has to be 5CR-3W, Upsilon class, my slicer droid from Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. His backstory involved being brought out of a junkyard by a poor farmer wanting to cure the terminal illness of his young daughter. Unfortunately, the reason 5CR was junked was because he had zero skill with Medicine, instead relying on having a massive Int of 5 (which puts him in the top 1% in the galaxy). The party found out that not only did I lack the Medicine skill, I was cursed with continually bad luck on any Medicine checks using my Int, usually making things worse than before.

Fortunately, he was really good at hacking. In our first session, he managed to hack into a casino's systems to string together a steady stream of small wins on a slot machine, while intentionally (and obviously) setting a separate machine to cheat to hit the jackpot, sending some poor schmuck to get kneecapped in the process. Then, when the party encountered an assassin droid in disrepair, he convinced the party to avoid killing him long enough to slice into and disable the assassin in the middle of combat. This became his MO, figuring out how he could leverage his massive Int (and dumped combat abilities) in order to help the party!

Over the course of the story, 5CR began to learn what it means to be "good" or "bad", from a moral perspective. His wonderful influences included a very moralistic doctor, a drunken pilot who was mainly good when he wasn't wasted, a very grey Jedi (who was his closest friend), and a sociopathic brute who axed people (literally) on sight, was wholly evil, became a Sith while still part of the party, and whose main strength was the fact that he could tank just about everything. So his moral system needed heavy calibration. The party could never be sure which side of a moral dilemma 5CR would fall on, and he pulled some rather despicable stunts in his pursuit of creating a better galaxy for everyone.

First, he started a series where he would take a droid body, wipe out its mind and personality, then hook his own CPU into it. First an astromech, then an IG-100 Magnaguard we salvaged, and finally his ultimate form that he manufactured in his personal droid factory. He worked with the doctor to recreate a serum and corresponding control crown that basically zombified and controlled whoever was injected while making them stronger (we used it to make our pilot control a swarm of gundarks. Then we made them pilots...). Finally, he managed to rack up the highest kill count of the campaign, including the sociopath. He did this by being launched at an enemy capital ship whose engines we disabled using our ion cannons (low quality, but there are a lot of people aboard), then sealing all of the inhabitants on board into rooms using the bulkheads, then extracting the breathable air into unoccupied compartments while playing "Staying Alive" over the loudspeakers while they slowly died from oxygen deprivation.

He did learn better over the course of the game, however. By the time he gained his stronger forms, he started lugging around a mini-turret with the help of a helper astromech to make up for lack of skill using heavy, explosive automatic fire. He helped establish mercantile support of a colony who became successful and well-known in the galaxy because of their superior turducken (grown with our serum) and lack of trouble with pirates (because we were the tiny crew that, in a standard freighter, had managed to take down several different capitol ships with fighter swarms). Finally, we worked alongside the Rebels (after we captured Han Solo, sold him to Jabba the Hutt, stole him back from Jabba while killing Fett, sold him to the Rebels, killed Chewie while stealing Solo back, then selling him to the Empire) to take out the emperor and the second death star.

The final step of my character's evolution from a slicer to a combatant was the synchronization of the two. He became a starfighter-size Liger droid (yes, from Zoids) who controlled an army of other droids who were enslaved to him. He could fight a capital ship on his own due to the absolutely massive armor he had, but he always feared the Force because that tended to bypass much of his armor.

It was a rather chaotic campaign. For a while, we had Ahsoka Tano as a mentor, but she abandoned us after my whole "slowly kill a capital ship through oxygen deprivation while playing ironic music" stunt...

[AnBe]

My favorite character was a lady knight named Fiona Varnez, who was part of a homebrew campaign. She won many battles, lost many battles, and finished up the campaign with her sanity not entirely intact. She was captured by one of the villains and tortured into submission, but later on she killed her captors and stopped their evil plan (which was to construct a giant Darksteel Golem to go rampaging across the land).

She got married to a necromancer (who managed to resurrect her dead brother several times) but eventually he died in an avalanche. Later on, some nasty cultists burned her childhood house down and murdered her mother, while also kidnapping her son. She gathered her allies and went up to the enemy fort, and killed all the undead, demons, and cultists in there and rescued her son. Since then, she has claimed ownership of that fortress and it is now called "Fort Varnez"

The only thing she was unable to do was get justice on the Ice Giant that killed her father. Maybe someday that will happen.

This character has been through a lot and she is one of the most memorable characters I have ever played.

[No-Kill Cleric]

My all time favorite is the character that inspired my username, and my very first. Rosemary d'Lark was a runaway cleric who was supposed to become stronger so she could remove the horribly corrupt high priestess and lift the curse on her homeland. I created her on the fly since I was a backup player who moved up when one player had a schedule conflict. Though she only had two kills in the entire campaign (Channeled a zombie ogre to death and decapitated the final boss), she was a blast to play as the trusting innocent. The DM created a rival "evil" cleric, whom I befriended and helped her with her backstory issues among other fun RP opportunities. We have yet to have such a dynamic campaign since, which may be biasing my opinion of all of my characters....

I'm looking forward to playing a Magical Child vigilante, mostly since she'll be my first melee character with a broadsword and Power Attack, and it's going to feel awesome!

[Quertus]

Tough call. Because history from time actually played is so much better than backstory, in order to qualify, it would be one of my characters who saw extensive play, to build up a rich history.

The obvious answer, what I'd expect people to guess, would be my signature character, for whom this account is named. Quertus.

Spoiler: Quertus

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Quertus probably has the most play time of any of my characters, not even counting his clones, simulacrum army, alternate reality versions, or derivative characters.

What makes him fun to play? Hmmm...

• Quertus is a genius with a lot of miles under his belt. I never have to play down my intelligence, and rarely have to play down my knowledge.
• He has a very narrow, well defined niche: understanding magic. He also has a lot of random knowledge, and a strong toolkit of custom spells. He is very good at what he does, hilariously horrible at combat, and doesn't generally have to worry about stepping on other people's toes, or other people stepping on his toes.
• He has a distinctive, easy to run personality.

Cons: nothing Quertus says in character is really all that memorable. He is simply a fairly vanilla verbose genius academia mage.

Perhaps my second most often mentioned character is Armus.

Spoiler: Armus

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Armus didn't get the decades of play Quertus did. His experience was concentrated primarily in a series of adventures and one "end of the world" campaign that took place one after the other.

What makes Armus fun to play? There's lots of little things, but the big one is probably that Armus views things as morality and tactics. And on his adventures, he had plenty of opportunity to both explore his own unique morality, and establish himself as my best tactician.

A few of the other things that make Armus fun for me to play:

• Armus is...moody. If I'm having a bad day, and might not be able to successfully pull off the role-playing / acting for another character, no problem, Armus can just randomly be having a bad day, too. Therefore, I never have a bad day playing Armus.
• He has some of the coolest items of any of my characters. Not the most powerful, but cool. This short sword was given to him by a now deceased dwarven lord; that long sword was a gift from a celestial being; this snake skin belt was fashioned from the giant snake that disturbed his rest the night before an important diplomatic mission; that cloak was looted off his own dead body; etc etc.
• Armus has lots of little tricks up his sleeves. Not all are terribly powerful, but he can tailor his response to the situation, and doesn't get boring to play.
• Armus seems like a mild packrat, but he has made good use of almost everything he collects. For example, he was introduced to the party as a prisoner, with his hands tied behind his back. He proceeded to untie himself, and use those ropes to strangle one of the drow priestesses. Said makeshift garrote was one of his fallback weapons for a long time, until he turned it permanently invisible, tied one end around his waist & the other around the magical staff he uses as a walking stick.
• One of his first DMs made the mistake of giving him a portable black hole. It was supposed to be a cursed bag of devouring on steroids; it actually functioned as a Sphere of Annihilation, but without the drawbacks. Armus kept it secret (although everyone present at the time heard both the DMs statements and my explanation of Armus' experiments with it), and I think he only ever used it to assassinate a fellow party member who had decided to go PvP on the party.
• Armus' combination of tactical brilliance and statistical inferiority make him a knife's adrenalin rush to play.

Cons: Armus is all about emotional investment. Not having played him in a while, it would be difficult to properly remember the little things that make him Armus.

But the real answer for single character who brought me the most fun per unit time would probably be Raymond.

Spoiler: Raymond

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Raymond hails from a homebrew called Paradox.

The biggest flaw of 1st edition Paradox was the "mother may I" nature of character creation. There were obvious, consistent rules to character creation, but the GM never printed them - likely because he wanted people to focus on their character concept, and not min maxing the mechanics.

But you could make whatever you wanted to. The game was all about traveling through portals to other realities. I once made a sentient plant with no independent locomotion, just to try it out.

Anyway, Raymond is a merchant spy turned telepathic vampire. Or, at least, that's what he was as of the end of character creation.

Why do I like Raymond?

• Raymond was exactly what I wanted him to be. In most systems - whether they're class, point buy, or something else entirely, that's often very difficult to impossible to achieve.
• The magic system was very dynamic - arguably too easily exploitable. But full of mana costs and failure chance. Because Raymond was a) very narrowly focused on telepathic magic, he was very successful at pulling off powerful effects, right out of the box; b) because his magic was powered by blood, he was "easy" to recharge. So it wasn't love playing D&D, where a first level mage gets one pathetic spell per day. No, Raymond got to be magical and powerful straight out of the gate.
• Raymond shares Armus' knife's edge, although to a lesser degree. Raymond also prefers the role of "Control", so his actual danger level is mitigated.
• Lots of cool toys. Raymond discovered and utilized lots of... "system exploits", I suppose you could say... as well as collected lots of cool gear from multiple realities.
• Because he saved a group of mages, the archmage leader gifted Raymond with "real magic"; ie, the ability to do anything, not just limited to telepathy. I quickly learned that this was more confusing for Raymond, and less fun for me. Since "giving power to another" was clearly something that real magic could do, Raymond transferred this magic to Tivec (effectively his cohort), and returned to being "just" a telepath.
• I never have to play Raymond as though he doesn't get it: Raymond's telepathy made him effectively an Illithid Savant about a decade before such things were published.
• Raymond was one of only a few of my characters to have a cool, unique voice. I'm no good with accents, but with Raymond, his voice and mannerisms just came naturally.
• Raymond has no moral qualms about... anything, really. Playing someone so free to choose whatever they wanted was... liberating. He had a strong sense of loyalty, and... "trade"... contractual obligation, I suppose you'd say. Very lawful evil, in D&D terms.

Cons: he doesn't translate well into most systems.

But the class of character that was the best was...

Spoiler: drum roll please

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Any of my characters who gained the ability, usually by ascending to godhood in D&D, to take on proxy bodies and pretend to be someone / something else.

Can't think of a character concept for a new 3rd level game? Well, what could one of my gods come down as? This saved me from countless hours playing as some character with no history that I couldn't care less about.

[LadyFoxfire]

Serena Foxfire, whose name I borrowed for my user name: She was a filthy rich socialite studying at her uncle's magic academy. She was spoiled, shallow, ditzy, and hated getting her shoes dirty. She was also surprisingly good at magical mayhem, despite being a complete dolt in most other aspects of life. Her familiar was a Pomeranian named Pooka, whom she carried around in her purse. She was usually found in the company of her cousin Adrianna (my friend's character), who was a third level wizard at only 7 years old (being raised by an archmage has it's perks). Her arch-nemesis was Adrianna's cat familiar, Shadow, who liked to chase, bite, and otherwise be mean to Pooka. Her catchphrase was "Be nice to Pooka!"

[Aldarin]

I've had a few great ones.
Ramus Wildborn, Elven Druid. This was in 3.5. He had a horse as his animal companion, which was named Galadrhim. He met his fate in the Gears of Mechanus--he sacrificed himself to close the Night Door. NG.

Aldarin Greenwarden, Half-Elven Ranger. Wielded a longbow and used a longsword when things got personal. Came into a great sum of money and became the ruler of a city called Naervin. LG.

Andur Silversteel, Changeling Rogue. Favored the form of a rugged dwarf, and robbed the king of Waterdeep, earning 24,000 platinum coins in a single night. NE

Immeral Meliamne, Elven Bard. Had a beautiful voice, and was my only character to get to epic level. Died in a TPK at level 27, defending the kingdom of Anselin from an epic half-orc blackguard. CG.

Regis Thornstaff, Halfling Wizard. Loved fire. CN.

Gandalf (not kidding) the Puce. He got to the almighty heights of 5th level before immolating himself. Repeatedly. N.

My current character is Drendan Greenwarden, grandson of Aldarin. Half-Elven Paladin, NG.

[Jormengand]

Vergil Asmodean (although I suppose I'm only saying that since he's the only character I've played, except for Ker'anson but that doesn't really count since we're only a few in-game minutes into the campaign). Drow Sorcerer (currently L5), with a sharp wit and a no-nonsense approach to most scenarios. Typically in disbelief of how hare-brained Amnestria is being.

As a DM, I must admit that Squishy is my favourite character. No, I'm joking, it's clearly the owl.

[Rensvind]

Ooh, favourite character is a tricky one...

From D&D:
Heron, my second ever D&D-character, started of as a Monk, and then gained levels in Paladin (high op-game, as you can see ). After some adventures he contracted Lycantrophy and ate the party wizard his first night transforming. He kept this secret to the others in the group, and he managed to succeed on all his Control Shape tests to not turn chaotic evil (the only high rolls I made in that campaign). Unfortunately the campaign just grinded to a halt, so Heron's last appearance was when he got chopped in the leg by a party member who wanted to feed his cursed axe...

from my friend's homebrew game based on the Amber-series by Roger Zelasny, where we play immortal dimension-walking beings:
Rhamni, a decadent fraud who spent most of his time drinking, whoring and painting nude paintings of the party (and important, powerful NPCs). To gain cash he used his powers of reading peoples feelings and his extreme Charisma to pretend to be a fortune-teller. He was by far the worst fighter in the party, having the lowest Weapon value, and only one offensive spell, which only worked on demons. He survived by being the best teleporter in the group, the only one being able to travel almost instantly between worlds (but that didn't work in the Nightmare dimension since his power came from the Dream dimension, poor, poor team mate that bled to death in the wrong dimension...). He was later forced to calm down a bit when he had to marry for his mother to teach him more dimension-traveling magic (she demanded grandchildren) and his wife threatened to kill him if she found him cheating...
He often made the other party members mad at him for his total inability to withstand torture, and since he was the weakest of them all, he always spilled the beans when the ancient, powerful creatures threatened to hurt him for information.
That campaign ended when the BBEG killed his wife and unborn child, so he ventured with his mother to the Castle at the Centre of All Dimensions to rewrite reality with a magical dagger he had stolen from the Unicorn-God. That turned into a all-out braw when 10 of the most powerful NPCs in the game turned up to steal the dagger. I think we destroyed all dimensions for 10 seconds, instantly killing everything not in Reality right then (so all gods, angels, demons and others traveling the dimensions) and then they went back to normal. My character died along with most of the party. Nice ending all in all :)

[Malimar]

My very favorite character ever was a huge Mary Sue, so I shan't bother to describe him. (In my defense, I made him a renegade half-drow (well, that setting's equivalent of drow) before I'd ever heard of Drizzt.)

Another character I had a lot of fun playing, and the rest of the table also enjoyed him greatly, was Dr. Blelyj the "Evil overlord", who was convinced he was the most Evil villainous mastermind ever, but who did exclusively super-Good things while justifying them Evilly. He donated to orphanages and the homeless on the grounds of "investing in potential future minions", he left foes alive to recruit them into his minionry (he offered his minions health care and dental), he ultimately saved the world from a "rival" evil overlord because there's only room for one evil overlord in the world (this was Rise of the Runelords -- Dr. Blelyj wound up declaring himself the "Runelord of Awesome").

I looked at Dr. Blelyj's sheet again recently and was alarmed to see his inventory contained "10x yeti testicles" -- Dr. Blelyj hatched a plan to breed yetis with woolly mammoths to produce giant fluffy centaurs, but the yetis turned out to be uncooperative, so he hoped to manage by using mad science on harvested parts.

[Madokar]

My favourite character is my current one and the PC I named my account after. Madokar Valortouched, half-orc paladin of Iomedae from a Pathfinder homebrew campaign. Madokar is an unconventional paladin, as he's not so hung up about the law as most expect him to be. Truth be told, he was more of a NG character before he decided to become a paladin, and he's been trying very hard to remain lawful.

See, Madokar makes mistakes. Some big, some small. But he owns them. He acknowledges when he messes up and never forgets it. That way, he can learn from mistakes so that they never happen again. He also knows that obeying the law doesn't automatically make it the right choice. Law must be tempered with justice and respect, after all. And if the law makes no sense, is just there to make life difficult, or is outright evil in it's intent, then that's a law he will not follow and enforce.

In that regard, he has a lot of respect for other faiths. Some as outright enemies, such as the evil and more senselessly chaotic ones. But some as a way to teach discipline and how to enjoy life. For example, Madokar does not condone the senseless warmongering the CN god of war Gorum. Fighting endless war for the sake of a "good" fight is counterproductive to society. However, he views the CG Cayden Cailean's and Desna's teachings as cathartic. Caydenites teach how to enjoy life and to fight for your freedoms when pressed, and Desnans preach how to expand your horizons through seeing more of the world than what you've known.

There is also the apparent divine future that awaits him. Madokar's backstory was constructed using the Background Generator from the Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign source book. When I rolled on his paladin background, I got the Mark of Faith background. Which meant that Madokar was born with a birthmark of Iomedae's holy symbol, the Sword of Valor, on his right arm.

The GM has started to play that into Madokar's development. When Madokar reached level 5 and unlocked the Divine Bond class feature, he chose to bond the spirit to his weapon. When the ability first manifested, a flash of light emerged from the birthmark and entered his sword.

Now, at level 9 (and after dying three times), Madokar has started a transformation that appears to be angelic in nature. Wings are starting to bud from his back, he has a racial bonus against poison of +4, Acid Resist 15, and Regeneration 5. Not to mention the +2 to STR and CON.

The party hasn't confirmed the nature of the transformation yet, but those abilities are in line with Angel racial traits. Except for the Regen, but that is a high level trait for powerful angels like Planetars and Solars. Even then, it's Regen 15.

[RickAllison]

My very favorite character ever was a huge Mary Sue, so I shan't bother to describe him. (In my defense, I made him a renegade half-drow (well, that setting's equivalent of drow) before I'd ever heard of Drizzt.)

Another character I had a lot of fun playing, and the rest of the table also enjoyed him greatly, was Dr. Blelyj the "Evil overlord", who was convinced he was the most Evil villainous mastermind ever, but who did exclusively super-Good things while justifying them Evilly. He donated to orphanages and the homeless on the grounds of "investing in potential future minions", he left foes alive to recruit them into his minionry (he offered his minions health care and dental), he ultimately saved the world from a "rival" evil overlord because there's only room for one evil overlord in the world (this was Rise of the Runelords -- Dr. Blelyj wound up declaring himself the "Runelord of Awesome").

I looked at Dr. Blelyj's sheet again recently and was alarmed to see his inventory contained "10x yeti testicles" -- Dr. Blelyj hatched a plan to breed yetis with woolly mammoths to produce giant fluffy centaurs, but the yetis turned out to be uncooperative, so he hoped to manage by using mad science on harvested parts.

Okay, I may just have to steal this idea for my mad scientist Minotaur. Right now, he is LG with some questionable tendencies (like when we captured a werewolf and were trying to figure out if he was born or made, he was fine with latching him in with knives because he would just heal from those). Playing him up as the good-boss bad guy would make much more sense considering his plans. Heck, he was already planning on taking over the world through a combination of religion, magic, and economics...

[Knaight]

I GM almost exclusively (97-98% of the time, easy), but I do often have a hand in character generation for people who are having trouble coming up with something interesting. Way back in the day, in a game I ran back when I was about 15 for a group that ranged from 12-15, I was involved in the creation of Silent Gecko Hunts Quietly.

Silent Gecko Hunts Quietly was a fighting monk of sorts, with two major quirks, both of which were played to the hilt. The more minor one was that SGHQ's highest skill was "Improvise Weapon". You'll notice the absence of a d at the end of the first word, that much is intentional. The character went about unarmed, and was routinely doing things like smacking branches into rocks so that the wood exploded away leaving an excellent stabbing club, or punching rocks into shruiken dart shapes to throw at people, or weaving nets while at full sprint to throw at a pursuer.

The more major one was a fault: Can Only Speak In Proverbs. Every line of dialog SGHQ had was a proverb, usually made up on the spot. The player was downright good at doing this, and so was I. This made it really fun when Silent Gecko Hunts Quietly ran into a contract assassin who had worked with the monastic order before, and was also capable of speaking only in proverbs. We had a good five minute conversation in made up proverbs, and understood the conversation just fine while the rest of the players were staring in disbelief, trying to figure out what had happened.

I don't remember all of it, but the crux of it was trying to bring the contract assassin in on a gambit to take out some dangerous foes, while they were suggesting caution. I also remember that at least a minute and a half were based on ocean creatures. "The octopus that inks the baracuda is helpless before the shark" would be a typical example.

[LivinlovinDM]

My favorite was in Pathfinder: Elithasi, NE Drow Wizard (Conjuration). On the run from her home as a political refugee (she knew if she stayed she was going to die), she dreamed of one day returning to her underdark home and having vengeance upon the organization that murdered her family. I played her slowly turning maybe Neutral, but I didn't want her becoming good, like so many rogue drow. That campaign has been on indefinite hiatus, and she's currently fretting inside the city watch HQ with Miles and Whiskeyjack, wondering how they're going to save the party rogue from the clutches of assassins sent by my homeland to hunt me down (the rogue is bait; they want me). I think this may throw her for a psychological spin as she has indirectly brought suffering to one of her few friends.

[Kapow]

My favorite character was from a shadowrun campaign that lastet close to ten years, hard to beat this indentification for every char who came before or after.
He was a hobgoblin (orc-variant in SR) field-medic and organ-trader/harvester. He was also slightly sociopathic and an alcoholic.
He took looting downed enemies to a whole new level. ("Has he cyberware? No? Well, which organs are still intact?" )
Because we played this Long, we all reached pretty ridicuous Levels of wealth, connections and influence, so in the end he had a beta-cyberware clinic and was himself more machine then man.


My favorite char, that I've seen as a GM, was in a "The Dark Eye"-campaign ("Das schwarze Auge" = it's big in german-speaking regions)
He was a overweight dwarven chef, who had a magical talent for cooking. And he was always on the lookout for something new to cook and eat.
He could cook so well, that he basically could get away with anything, as long as he could provide some of his selfmade food. Actually he often walked into an inn, gave the owner a Piece of his bread and said something like "As long as I'm here your kitchen belongs to me."
His greatest moment though, was, when he blocked a door from a dozen attackers, by simply sitting in front of it, and they couldn't get it to open - threw my whole planning out of the window... great timmes

[Cluedrew]

So much awesome in this thread already. I would point at all the good ones but I would be pointing at least most of the thread.

My favourite character would probably be Ken Gaterow, more commonly known as The Corpse Doctor. He and his partner Ribbon were orphans raised as secret agents. ... No the campaign was not an entirely serious one. Anyways there were a lot of interesting things about Corpse (as he was called by Ribbon and the other players) but most of those never got revealed before the campaign ended. The main interesting thing that jumped out is he used scalpels for the foci of his magic abilities.

However my favourite thing about Corpse was actually just the way he moved. He was a very graceful person and was trained in unseen movement. Instead of walking off he would melt into the night, he slithered up trees and gilded through the underbrush. I don't know why of all the things I that I could have said about this character it is the word choice that has stayed with me, but it has.

Plenty of other good characters; Kevin the vampire, Den the mechanic & Greg Kelly the mercenary stand out. I'm not sure how Den makes this list. I got... I guess you could call it half a session with him. Funny how that happens.

[oxybe]

Probably the character i had the most fun in a while was Nisha, the Swarmmistress.

Nisha was Evil. not too sure in which direction she leaned (or cared really) other then she was not a nice person, was rather open about her not-niceness and was very happy with her lot in life.

She was also very accepting of others, loyal to those that she got close to, cared deeply about the people who lived in her country (in a literal sense... she was one of the founders and her voice had weight in affairs of state and planar issues) and treated the party like the caring family she never had (as one of many tiefling spawn it was a "who can impress daddy demon the most" situation at home in the lower planes). She also worked as an apothecarist and off-the-record actually kinda cheap healer when she wasn't adventuring.

You just never crossed her. Ever. You can push her buttons and she'd glare at you. Maybe give you a doofy curse for a day or so, making you look like an idiot. But people who crossed the line... **** got real.

People have woken up in the middle of night with the worst night terrors imaginable, screaming bloody murder and then being petrified in that horrified position. Then dragged into her front garden. And had their mouths and nostrils scrubbed off. No one ever dared ask where the statues came from. They just appeared.

An army of soldiers got their **** kicked as when they tried to invade they were held down by a sudden hailstorm in the middle of the night, only to have their supplies and sleeping quarters wrecked by giant, angry infernal dinosaurs that were gone as quickly as they arrived. Repeated nights of these lightning raids did not help their morale.

Demons were summoned with the express purpose to assassinate people who caused grief to those she cared about. Bone Devils were favoured because you could tell them to just dimentionally anchor people so they can't teleport away and then have fun.

She had effectively permanently dominated a Cyclops that tried to mount an assault on a friendly town and had his brain scrubbed down to nothingness and was in the process of rebuilding it to her specifications. In the meanwhile his job was to guard the cave. Only select people could go in the cave, everyone else was scared off. Stay out of the cave.

Nisha was evil. And real good at it. Transparent about it too: Nisha liked it where she was, liked the people there and was living a good, comfortable (and in her mind, idyllic almost) life and those who messed with this weird little status quo she has going on, had hell to pay.

Then again, people never seemed to learn that you really shouldn't be messing around with a demon summoning, poison brewing, curse-toting, shapeshifting, mind-warping shamaness that is perpetually guarded by swarms of hyper-intelligent wasps and other insects on the payroll of, and only takes orders from, the highest authority in the land because she likes that person as a close friend and party member.

I've had a few fun one-offs though:

the neurotically paranoid mage Draziw and the jubilant (and often drunk) kitsune Gon come to mind.

Draziw was accidentally teleported to the underdark when his magic backfired and was effectively scared of everything after that, including his own magic. He became a strong mage towards the end but being a bookish nerd, getting tossed unprepared in that environment left a strong impact on him.

Gon on the other hand was a kisune illusionist, shapeshifter & conman who would laugh and drink his way through life, though he could also use his magic for self-defense if needed. Between him and the party's vanara monk they had a nice little 2-man circus going on, with Gon providing showmanship and special effects and the monk doing acrobatics.

[LarwisTheElf]

My favorite character is the one that I currently am playing right now: Larwis Vanderstone, currently a LG level 17 Sorcerer // 7 cleric/10 Morninglord of Lathander. And there is truly only one way to describe him...

Spoiler

Show

No seriously, he is ridiculously into making sure he looks absolutely spectacular wherever he goes. And as a Cleric of Lathander, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is colored in some shade of reds, golds and yellows, and studded with enough rubies to make it seem like he's wearing sequin.

He also has a serious problem with the undead, and anytime he sees one he immediately becomes a bit unhinged, due to his tragic backstory where his mother was murdered and undead-ified right in front of his eyes by his former mentor Ignacius (who was eventually caught, killed, then blown up in a holy explosion). He used to fly into a bit of a rage upon seeing undead, but that was quickly rectified by the party, who didn't want to loose their heal-bot. Currently he is trying to stop his from killing Lolth and becoming corrupted by her powers, but it's starting to look like he might have failed already, through we're not 100% sure yet since we're too busy patching up a hole in the Sharn Wall.

Also he has a strange fascination with building a death cannon...for improving the tourism in the town our group settled.

[Belac93]

Probably my oldest character. He has been a wizard, oathbreaker, and warlock in his days (warlock suits him best).

Illufuas Dying-star, elf eternal. He is a spellcaster/dex melee fighter, looking to find the secret of his family (which has been different every time).

He is focused on coming back to life, or not dying in the first place. He accepts any deal to stay alive, within his morals.

His current incarnation in 5th edition is an undying patron blade pact warlock. This increases his lifespan to about 7000 years.

Really fun character to roleplay (survivalist gentleman), and is usually TN or NG. When starting at low levels, he is trying to find peace for the ghost of his father. When starting at high levels, he formerly ruled an evil elven empire, known as one of the worst of the last age.

I have had many people comment on how friendly and cheerful he is. Everyone thinks that he is going to be a brooding vampire lite, but I try to play him as a polite, kindly old grandfather figure.

[Kid Jake]

I've really only played a handful of times, not enough to have a favorite of my own; but as a DM I've seen a few that I really enjoyed. Of those I'd have to say that my favorite was probably Roger McCrow from my M&M game.

He was a 52 year old former dockworker that gained hydrokinesis from a bus accident and he was pretty much the worst person in the world, which I found hilarious.

McCrow had a slew of substance abuse issues, had been divorced 7 times (hinted at because of spousal abuse), had grown children afraid of looking him in the eye and was so full of rage that he usually waded into fights with supervillains using his bare hands, despite the fact he had no particular talent or powers for hand to hand combat.

Highlights include him bringing down amob boss's entire organization for firing him; killing a roomful of men with a forklift; becoming BFFs with a Russian slaver; beating several supposedly invincible superhuman to death with things he found laying around and converting an abandoned arms warehouse into the HQ for McCrow and Friends.

His violent, selfish and antagonistic personality made it all the more surprising (and sad) when he made a last second heroic sacrifice in our final session to keep his city from being crushed by an unprecedented tsunami arranged by a genocidal superhuman.

His funeral/epilogue (attended by barely half a dozen people, his own family deciding they had better things to do) is one of my favorite moments in my entire gaming career.

[Inevitability]

My favourite character is my current one and the PC I named my account after. Madokar Valortouched, half-orc paladin of Iomedae from a Pathfinder homebrew campaign. Madokar is an unconventional paladin, as he's not so hung up about the law as most expect him to be. Truth be told, he was more of a NG character before he decided to become a paladin, and he's been trying very hard to remain lawful.

See, Madokar makes mistakes. Some big, some small. But he owns them. He acknowledges when he messes up and never forgets it. That way, he can learn from mistakes so that they never happen again. He also knows that obeying the law doesn't automatically make it the right choice. Law must be tempered with justice and respect, after all. And if the law makes no sense, is just there to make life difficult, or is outright evil in it's intent, then that's a law he will not follow and enforce.

In that regard, he has a lot of respect for other faiths. Some as outright enemies, such as the evil and more senselessly chaotic ones. But some as a way to teach discipline and how to enjoy life. For example, Madokar does not condone the senseless warmongering the CN god of war Gorum. Fighting endless war for the sake of a "good" fight is counterproductive to society. However, he views the CG Cayden Cailean's and Desna's teachings as cathartic. Caydenites teach how to enjoy life and to fight for your freedoms when pressed, and Desnans preach how to expand your horizons through seeing more of the world than what you've known.

There is also the apparent divine future that awaits him. Madokar's backstory was constructed using the Background Generator from the Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign source book. When I rolled on his paladin background, I got the Mark of Faith background. Which meant that Madokar was born with a birthmark of Iomedae's holy symbol, the Sword of Valor, on his right arm.

The GM has started to play that into Madokar's development. When Madokar reached level 5 and unlocked the Divine Bond class feature, he chose to bond the spirit to his weapon. When the ability first manifested, a flash of light emerged from the birthmark and entered his sword.

Now, at level 9 (and after dying three times), Madokar has started a transformation that appears to be angelic in nature. Wings are starting to bud from his back, he has a racial bonus against poison of +4, Acid Resist 15, and Regeneration 5. Not to mention the +2 to STR and CON.

The party hasn't confirmed the nature of the transformation yet, but those abilities are in line with Angel racial traits. Except for the Regen, but that is a high level trait for powerful angels like Planetars and Solars. Even then, it's Regen 15.

Fun fact: demons are acid and poison resistant, strong, tough, and can regenerate too. I'd check myself with a Detect Evil.

Also, check if you find cold iron unpleasant to touch now, are growing horns, or have been hearing otherworldly Abyssal whispers, just to be sure.

[JNAProductions]

Quite a few people can tell you my favorite 3E character.

[Madokar]

Fun fact: demons are acid and poison resistant, strong, tough, and can regenerate too. I'd check myself with a Detect Evil.

Also, check if you find cold iron unpleasant to touch now, are growing horns, or have been hearing otherworldly Abyssal whispers, just to be sure.

Not so far, no. I retain all of my paladin-y goodness and can still smite evil. Alignment hasn't changed either. Not even sure where I would be afflicted with demonic energy anyway. We've been fighting devils for the most part. The only demon we have fought was one that was a false herald of Kostchtchie, which we promptly sent back to the Abyss. And we only fought him because Kostchtchie is the patron Demon Lord of Frost Giants and we fought through a mountain of said giants for a month or two.

So until proven otherwise, I like to think it's an angelic transformation. Makes a lot more sense than a demonic one, anyway.

[Tanuki Tales]

Quite a few people can tell you my favorite 3E character.

Well, this thread isn't "Tell us about another user's favorite character".

[DigoDragon]

My favorite character is easily Doc, my pony field surgeon (and current avatar). He's had so many "First" records for me in the two decades I've been gaming; the longest-running character by a wide margin, the first character to have gotten engaged to an NPC, the first character to have "died and come back from the dead". He's a lot of fun to RP (the western accent is spiffy) and I've done a lot of artwork and comic strips about him. He's gotten a little fan following too, which is something I'm still in awe about.