anime challenge

[Rakusia]

so, I assume there is a large cross over for people who play dnd to people who watch anime/read manga. has anyone tried to make a dnd character that replicated their favorite anime character? if you have please post about it how you made them, did they run correctly? if not but you've thought about it. heres your chance. not fishing for a new character just like seeing the creativity come out.

 

[sabrinathecat]

One gamer in my group based all of his characters on different anime. In his mind. He played the all the same way, except for one.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I've never been good at that kind of thing but I did try to make Vampire Hunter D once. *Digs through notes*

D - Human Fighter 6 / Ranger 9
I gave him a bunch of the anti-undead stabbity death feats from Libris Mortis and the Strongarm style from Dragon Mag for his combat style. I didn't like the Half-Vampire template from LM but the Katane from Dragon Mag would definitely work.

I never played him, but maybe someday if I'm playing an undead campaign I'll give it a try.

I once tried to make Teresa of the Faint Smile. I was trying to figure out how to convert Acolyte of the Skin from a caster to a martial prestige class. Lore-wise it makes sense, binding with a yoki (demon) and gaining abilities but I had no idea on how to balance it or what to convert a caster level bump to. A bonus feat? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Rakusia]

could always go with the monkey grip to allow him to duel wield heavy repeating crossbows on the vampire hunter d. when i started play i was told of a thing called ogre strength. but that could either be from older dnd or a house rule not sure. the way it worked was that if your dtrength was over a certain modifier you could one hand a two handed weapon. thinking back this was prob. house rule because he also talked about godly beauty if your charisma was over a 15

[h=2]Monkey Grip [Combat][/h]Maybe you're inspired by Diablo II barbarians, or teens with pointy blue hair, or both. Maybe you want to throw boulders and crumpled chunks of metal like the Hulk, or knock a hill giant's teeth in with an oak tree. Or maybe you just want to play with Mjolnir. Whatever. To you, size matters. People who disagree, or still have the cheek to snark about Cloud Strife after 15 freaking years, get over it, can say so under the business end of your thousand-pound greataxe.
Benefits: This is a combat feat that scales with your Base Attack Bonus.

• +0: You may wield an object as a weapon one size category larger than yourself as a two-handed weapon, and a weapon of your size may be wielded in one hand -- instead of your size = two-handed, and one size below = one handed. This feat doesn't change what is considered a light weapon for you, or make it any easier to conceal weapons or whatever (so no drawing a greatsword from your sleeve and slitting sleeping throats).

You are also considered proficient with improvised weapons, and thrown improvised weapons have a range increment of 20' (increases by 10' every 5 BAB). With improvised weapons only, you can wield them one size higher than you could with actual weapons (2 sizes larger than yourself in two hands, 1 size larger in one), and throwing the largest object you can is a standard action instead of a full-round action (and you can gain iterative attacks if you full attack; wrenching off chunks of stone wall or uprooting trees is just part of the attack action).

• +1: You can wield objects as weapons up to your medium load in weight, rather than only up to your light load.

• +6: Any magic weapons you wield are considered to have the sizing property.

Your carrying capacity is doubled.

• +11: When you Power Attack for at least half your BAB, and you attack with the biggest (doesn't have to be heaviest) weapon you can in two hands, the base damage die is tripled. If you do so with the second-biggest you can in one or both hands (or one in each hand), the weapon's base damage die is doubled. This only works with weapons you are proficient with.

You can use objects as weapons up to your maximum load in weight, rather than only up to your medium load.

• +16: You may wield a weapon two sizes larger than yourself as a two-handed weapon, and a weapon one size larger than yourself may be wielded single-handedly. Your allowed improvised weapons are likewise increased (+3 size categories in two hands, +2 size categories in one).

Improvised weapons you wield score a threat on an 18-20 and deal x3 damage on a successful critical hit, but only if they are objects of at least one size category larger than yourself.Your carrying capacity is tripled.

nvm this too is homebrew. darn dndwiki should make it ore obvious. didnt actually read it

 

[Rakusia]

hmm just learned about a class called sand shaper. seems not super powerful as a prc but... now i want to make a gaara character. base class being ninja with a lvl dip in either wizard or sorcerer. then prestige to sand shaper. gonna be running a lvl 20 campaign and think after i get the char. made their first mission in the deser is to find his remains and bring him back to life.

 

[Luce]

Have you considered using BESM D20 or Slayers D20? While the feel of the table is different to most "typical D&D" both go a long way to approximate anime feel in D20 terms (as it is the intention).

 

[Rakusia]

havent known they existed. thanks for the tip. saddly in my play group im the only real anime lover and only game experimenter. they mostly like to stick to what they already know. i swear one day im going to play the doctor who d20 system. but mainly im a character builder. i like making the characters almost more than i like playing them. i have a huge stockpile of different character concepts ive built at varying levels waiting for someone to play them. i enjoy the dnd classes and races. its not about having the anime feel insomuch as being able to take the right race/class skill/feat combinations to replicate what i want. take the different archtypes and create a character that was never meant to work on paper or in real life. like trying to figure out how to make a gaara character with access to his sand gourd. or alucard with the right set up to use two heavy repeating crossbows. im more about amking it work with what i have than changing what i have to make it work.

 

[Alzrius]

i enjoy the dnd classes and races.

I do too, and I understand where you're coming from with enjoying taking a combination of diverse mechanical elements - classes, feats, spells, items, etc. - and mix-and-matching them to get as close an approximation as you can of a favorite character. I used to do that a lot too, and it was quite fun.

I eventually grew to find the process cumbersome, however. The various mechanics, spread across so many different books, was a lot to keep in mind, particularly when they kept expanding as more and more new materials came out. Even having spreadsheets and databases to index things didn't help very much.

Worse, however, was that I had to keep settling for "good enough" character approximations that just didn't seem very representative of the characters I was trying to recreate. Comparing the in-character explanations for their powers and abilities with the background assumptions of a "typical" D&D world didn't (usually) show any sort of inconsistency for why most characters' powers wouldn't work as-is in a world like that...and yet the game rules didn't seem to want to let me, no matter how much I bent them.

The main problem, I believe, is that the d20 System simply doesn't deal very well with supernatural abilities that aren't rigidly-structured spellcasting. If you're using magical power, it wants to tie you to a clearly-delineated system of casting "spells" that have a number of basic assumptions built into them about how that power is gained and used, and what it's parameters and limitations are. Now, you have some room to play around with this, but not that much.

The sole exception to this is found in certain character classes that do have mystical abilities, but these are even more rigidly-defined than spellcasting is. You can at least select your spells there; classes like the monk have their mystic powers defined as class features, leaving no room for any but the tiniest amount of variance in what they can do, and this is always going to be an imperfect fit for a pre-existing character.

Ultimately, the class-level system is simply too structured to allow for the kind of variation you're going to need when making non-spellcasting characters who have powers that are not only supernatural in nature, but are highly individualized (e.g. a lot of anime characters, comic book superheroes, etc).

Far and away better for this sort of thing is a point-buy character-build system. However, those are exceptionally rare where the d20 System is concerned (I won't try and tell you to use another RPG altogether, since I don't think that's a compromise you necessarily need to make). The BESM d20/Slayers d20 rules are one such system, though I think that it's an imperfect one.

Personally, I'd recommend Eclipse: The Codex Persona for this sort of thing. It's incredibly flexible in the kind of characters you can build, while still being tied to the d20 System (and it's free). I've used it to make a number of characters on my blog (link in my sig, below), including some from anime. There are a lot more great examples of what you can do with the system over on the co-author's blog, too (which is good, because practical examples are the one area where the book is somewhat deficient).

I know you said that you're not interested in changing the tools you're working with, but I've found that it's far easier to use one resource that has everything you need to make exceptionally-faithful translation of a character, than many books to make "creative" interpretations of the same character. Do check it out.

 

[Rakusia]

will do. im all fine with changing tools it comes from others who dont want to have to learn new rules. i love learning new games but never get a chance to play them(naruto trading card game, duel masters trading card game dragon ball card game pathfinder, super heroes d20 dead lands d20 dr who d20) like i said before though. i love the challenge of making something work as close as i can. not necessarily a carbon copy, thats just uninspired in my opinion. but how can i take a gestalt fighter rogue with a one lvl dip in monk and make a batman character that works? a bag of holding for utility belt enchantments on goggels and helm for eyesight and hearing. shuriken in the shape of bats cape of fire protection. buffed up leather armor

 

[CAFRedblade]

Another Anime inspired RPG you could look into is Anima: Beyond Fantasy.
It takes some heavy design inspiration from Final Fantasy, but could probably be used with
other Anime styles.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=64&enmi=Anima: Beyond Fantasy RPG

Regarding using Anime for inspiration, I'll take it where I can get it. Anime, TV shows, Movies, Books, Art.

Although I don't think I've ever tried to recreate any one character in their entirety with either DND or any other system.. usually I take bits and pieces of a character and try to put a spin on it to generate something newish.

Although I'd like to try to pull off a Harry Dresden like character sometime within DND.