Suugestions for personality and rping tips of my wizard

[Suzaku]

So I'm creating a wizard for the first time and I'm starting at level 3 and I purposely didn't take blasting spells like magic missile nor do I plan on taking future damage spells like Fireball. My "attacking" spells don't actually harm the people per say but can ruin their day.

Here are my stats I rolled using 5d6b3

Str 10
Dex 16
Con 16
Int 17
Wis 15
Cha 12 (note I have yet to play a character w/o positive cha mod and I don't plan on changing that anytime soon. So no swaping my Str with Cha ).

And this is my spell book

All 0 level spells

Grease
Sleep
Color Spray
Ray of Enfeeblement
Disguise Self
Enlarge Person
Comprehend Language
Identify
Alarm
Mage Armor
Protection From X
Glitterdust
Mirror Image
Web
Bull Strength.



Incase it matters my feats are

Improve Init
Extend Spell (H)
Craft Wondrous Items (3)

I was thinking of having my character dislike violence and instead would like to avoid it sorta like mimicking Celcia (sp? who is from order of the stick). But I think that may just get on people's nerves, so I thought maybe I could limit the personal qualms to myself and ask for the enemy to surrender. Would my character remain effective dispite my no violence cold, and what future Save or loose/suck could I pick up that doesn't violate my character's ethics?

 

[Shin Okada]

Well, basically, D&D is a game of killing. Even if you don't kill people, your comrades will kill foes you have disabled. You are assisting killing. So IMHO true pacifist don't work well in typical campaign.

There are several other options I can think of,

1. Oath bound one

You are some lawful (possibly LN or LE) character bound by some oath, rule, or tradition from your mage school, religion, etc. That rule prohibit you to, say, "Kill or harm creatures with your spells." As a lawful character, you keep that rule but do anything not strictly written in that rule. It is like some Muslim who never drink alcohol as it is prohibited by Koran but use LSD or other drugs as nothing about those drugs are written in Koran.

2. Dirty work is for lowlives

You are snobbish noble type who thinks direct violence and killing are works for lower-class people. So you don't commit such dirty works by yourself unless it is needed to protect your precious life (far much precious than others').

3. Don't have courage to kill by yourself

You are coward and don't have courage to commit direct violence. So you can't take or use directly violent spells. You can be a naive maiden, or a coward scholarly wizard.

4. Just that is your taste.

You just don't like direct attack spells for some reason. Or you just really like non-direct attack spells. It is not that you don't like violence or something. It is just that you like or dislike some type of spells. You can even be a sadist or a trickster who think that directly killing creature is not so fun nor smart.

 

[Suzaku]

Does it help if my character was conscripted and forced to join the party?

 

[Shin Okada]

Does it help if my character was conscripted and forced to join the party?

For a short time, I guess.

It is a RP issue and there will be no clear answer to it. So this is just my opinion and just my take on "typical" D&D games.

If your party is composed of usual adventurers and the campaign is not so different from typical D&D campaigns, your comrades will continue killing tons of things.

So unless your PC will eventually graduate from being a total pacifist, it will soon become very hard to be in good relation with other party members.

D&D is basically supposing that all the party members co-operate for overcoming challenges (many of them need killing living things). So, having a true pacifist PC in a party itself will make your game a very "unusual" one as a D&D campaign.

So, you would better think about it and discuss with other players and DMs, about what kind of difficulties or inner-party ethical struggles your PC may cause.

IMHO, having a total pacifist in a party is at least as challenging as having both good and evil aligned characters in a party.

If your play group is likely to enjoy such kind of games, that will be OK. But unless all the members in your play group accepts, you would better not playing such a character, IMHO.

 

[aboyd]

I was thinking of having my character dislike violence and instead would like to avoid it sorta like mimicking Celcia (sp? who is from order of the stick). But I think that may just get on people's nerves, so I thought maybe I could limit the personal qualms to myself and ask for the enemy to surrender.

Well, you have a lot of buff spells, so it would appear that you're going to be assisting in violence, even if you don't do damage directly yourself.

One build that is very effective but only if your DM goes with it, is the diplomacy build. Page 72 of the PHB shows how you can turn an attacking monster into a friendly one. You would need to get a 25 on a diplomacy check to make the monster indifferent. However, you'd take -10 to your roll because you'd be doing it in combat, as a full-round action. So you'd need a 35. To get there, you'd need a natural 20 + 15 points, which is easy to get by 3rd level. You could have 11 just from full ranks in it, plus being a half-elf, plus taking skill focus. Add in a buff or two and you could be at +18 or so, allowing you to get even lower than a natural 20 and still do it.

This potentially allows you to get through lots of encounters without combat. Technically you're getting past the monsters, so the DM might even award XP.

The problem is that most DMs I've ever worked with will not allow this. It's game breaking, especially once you get up to level 6 or 7. By then you can easily have +25 on your diplomacy rolls, and you're charming every monster in the dungeon into giving you their gold and sending you on your way with a sandwich.

A more sane DM might give you some room while also trying to be reasonable. For example, you have to speak the creature's language or it doesn't work. You can only influence those that do not have something more powerful behind them (for example, using diplomacy on that minotaur isn't going to work if he knows that he will be killed by the wizard for letting you pass -- his situational modifier to the roll might cause you to need a 50 just to change his attitude to "indifferent"). And monsters who ARE influenced might change their minds if they see you doing something untoward.

Anyway, I try to be a DM who allows this stuff to work. It should be a viable option in my games. But even with a power gamer who has optimized the heck out of it, I don't allow it to solve every problem. And for some, that makes the build seem useless. Your mileage may vary.

 

[roguerouge]

I like Shin's post a lot. Here's another concept: the spell snob. You take only those spells that are conceptually difficult to learn and demanding to apply in the field. Any fool can learn to create fire with arcane energies; most do. It takes no intelligence to fire off a magic missile. What are you, a glorified ranger? No, only these spells are worthy of your time and research. Let others trod the well-worn path. Greatness lies elsewhere.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another option: You are devoted to chaos.

Your spell selection is designed not to kill directly, but to sow confusion among the enemy, either directly - Grease, Sleep, Color Spray, Ray of Enfeeblement, etc.- or indirectly by buffing your partymates (skewing assessment of party strength).

To that end, Silent Spell and Still Spell might be feats you'd want to consider.