In retrospect of one's characters

[tobian]

I was going through my post history and happened upon a post where I stated out the party that I was in not that long ago with their roles, strengths, and weaknesses. Reading through it, I realized that if I could go back and remake the character, there are some specific changes I would make that just plain were not good decisions at the time.

So, I pose a question for everyone:

If you could change something about your character (a current or past one), what would you have done differently? (It could be skill choices, feats, class, race, anything really)

[Volug]

Takin a "leadership" feat. Turns out my intelligent item was an evil Demi-God. my character is now ruler of the world . because he helped him out by relesing his soul from imprisonment in the sword.

if i taken a leadership feat i would have saved alot more time then trackin down others to join the cause. that would have been alot more easier.

[Ravyn]

Favored Performance. SO favored Performance. I was expecting to play a spymaster, not the Orator for the Masses.... not that it's slowed me down much, but it would've just fit the character a lot better.

[adanedhel9]

Oddly enought, I just thought of this tonight, despite not playing the character for over a year. The second version of my Ranger/Bard/Horizon Walker (he was rebuilt after the campaign derailed and was restarted) should've been an Urban Ranger instead of a core Ranger. The first version was all about the wilderness, but the second version was much more at home in the city.

Ah well, he only had 3 or 4 levels of ranger anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

[Merlin the Tuna]

My first and only long-term real-life-gaming-group character was a Rogue/Thief-Acrobat that the DM basically drove me into because he wanted the new guy in the party to cover the "role" of "guy that finds traps and unlocks doors." That wasn't really what I wanted out of my character, but hey, I didn't know what was going on (at the time, I wanted to play a *shudder* Monk), and he was a good friend and the guy running the game. There were a lot of stop-gap solutions (many of which didn't pan out well) in making him be the character I wanted him to be, and ultimately the DM struggled to make acrobatics an option in many situations, essentially nullifying the part of my character that did work the way I wanted him to. Looking at it now, a Swordsage would've been a great base for him (ToB wasn't out yet, and I'd still probably go T-A), and a Ranger or Swashbuckler blend might have worked as well.

Aside from that, I feel like I missed a lot of roleplaying opportunities with him, as well. That's one thing that PbPs have been good for to me -- the quickness with which they die means that I've put together a lot of characters and gotten to play with some very different groups. Even those sometimes-extremely-brief experiences have gone a long way in helping me make more interesting characters.

[Dhavaer]

I would have given my Illusionist slow instead of fireball. Would have been so much more useful. Also, a wand of magic missile instead of scorching ray.

[MMad]

The things I worry about in hindsight are usually character and plot related, not so much about builds.

The last character I played was a warrior, a unmatched genius when it came to killing people, but he had a pretty miserable life and was the only one to chose not to be reincarnated after the whole party sacrified itself to destroy the BBEG (who happened to be the evil god of madness and deception. It was a pretty epic campaign). He always thought there were more important things to be doing than soul-searching or praying, and always figured there would be time to save his soul and sanity later. Which turned out to be wrong. If I could change something in this campaign, I would have had my character take various spiritual advice more seriously and acted upon it with less hesitation. Perhaps, with luck, he could have found peace, even love.

Also, I should totally have gone with a chain weapon as an alternative to the naginata.

[Jerthanis]

Okay, MMad's is really awesome, I approve heartily.

As for my "shoulda done it better" story, the first time I played 3.0 D&D, and actually the first time I had played for years, I negotiated a homebrew class which was a Fighter/Rogue type, with no sneak attack, half bonus feat progression, but full Rogue skills and full base attack, with d8 HP, rogue weapons and light armor. Needless to say, this was an awful class, though I didn't have the tools or experience to realize that yet. To make matters worse I chose to fight with a rapier, and be a duelist type, though he didn't go into the duelist PrC.

In retrospect, I shoulda just played a rogue. Also, I shouldn't have ended up giving away every magic item I ever got with that character.

[Kurald Galain]

Interestingly, nothing.

There are a few in-character decisions that were in retrospect not such a good idea; but the build behind it has never interfered with my enjoyment of the game.