Adventuring Shrink: Feedback, please. (4e)

[Leliel]

Basically, an idea I just had is a Fey Pact Warlock who was orginally a psychologist, who became intreseted in the cause of the high number of insane people in his home.

Naturally, he discovered that it was due to a member of the fair folk in the area, and opon veiwing it, his own mind broke. He managed to remain sane enough to mentally contact another fair folk, who he bargained with for his mind back, and the horror threw in warlock powers for good measure.

Naturally, he hasn't given up on his chosen profession, and I want a few skills to reflect that.

So, how would you make this character to show his origins and profession?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Which system?

[Leliel]

Sorry, I keep forgetting about that.

[Hzurr]

It depends on how comically you want this character to be. If I was playing something like this, after every battle I would ask the other characters things like "So how did killing those Kobalds make you feel?" "You were really ruthless to that halfling; have you had previous experience that associates halfings with negative stereotypes?" "How do you feel about your mother?"

Naturally, the rest of the party will learn to hate you before too long.

[Person_Man]

If a fellow player started psycho analyzing me during a D&D game, I would craft an improvised weapon out of my pointiest die and stab them in the eye with it. It's bad enough that every talk show host, teacher, family member, clergy, website, and every other armchair shrink is trying to make themselves feel smarter by telling us what we really feel. We don't need a PC that does it as well.

[/rant]

Sorry. I work with too many psychologists.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Sorry. I work with too many psychologists.

And how does that make you feel?

[Leliel]

Actually, I want him to be a fairly nice, non-annoying character-an ideal therapist with a twist.

[Starsinger]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...hairPsychology

[Colmarr]

I assume you were looking for mechanical advice, here, rather than the sort of stuff you got above

As far as skills go, I'd recommend Insight as a trained skill (even if you have the take Skill Training to get it, I'm AFB). It's a must for a psychologist character.

Diplomacy might be appropriate too.

History and/or arcana might represent book-learning, depending on how you view those respective skills and psychology in your campaign setting.

As far as classes go, you clearly want the character to be a fey warlock so that first choice is easy. If you are solely interested in matching the build to the backstory, warlord might be a good multiclass (because 'Inspiring Word' lends itself really well to "I think we're making good progress here. Let's talk about that"). Obviously it's a sub-optimal mechanical choice but it fits the character well.