Dwarf Wizard, how to play him?

[jayaint]

I had a dwarven wizard to play, and never got around to it.

We play in a pretty high powered campaign setting, so backstories like mine aren't uncommon. Basically, during a siege of one of the Dwarvish Keeps, my character's mother was huddled with the rest of the women and children, as the tide of the battle had turned for the worse. Due to the help of an adventuring party who was trapped there, fighting alongside the dwarves, an avatar of Mystra (or fill in the name of your god of magic) comes strolling through the crowd, going to help the fight. She stops, looks at my char's mother, and touches her swollen belly. She whispers something softly and then proceeds to go get the clan out of trouble.

My character grows up with this hanging over his head, and kind of hates magic, and feeling so different from all his dwarven peers, but feels the ability in himself. Then one day, ol' avatar lady shows up again, and pulls him out the deep dark keep, and shows him how powerful he can become if he leaves his closed-minded brethren and becomes an adventurer. So with half of him longing for home, he sets out to take on the world.

Makes for a little bit of drama and gives a couple of hooks for DMs.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Ooooh! Sounds like a really interesting person. Lots of fun to talk to during down-time between dead monsters, eh?

You really should learn to accept that others like playing D&D differently than you and not make fun of them for that fact.

This could be a stat-wise mentioning of Rolf, my Dwarven Fighter/Wizard, and he is quite interesting, actually.

I guess you're just bitter because your command of the rules is so poor that all your dwarven wizards are useless in combat.

 

[JesterPoet]

Ooooh! Sounds like a really interesting person. Lots of fun to talk to during down-time between dead monsters, eh?

and

You really should learn to accept that others like playing D&D differently than you and not make fun of them for that fact.

This could be a stat-wise mentioning of Rolf, my Dwarven Fighter/Wizard, and he is quite interesting, actually.

I guess you're just bitter because your command of the rules is so poor that all your dwarven wizards are useless in combat.

Okay... how about we don't do this in here. Seriously.


It is pathetic on all levels. Live and let live, and ignore.

 

[Beard in the Sky]

and



Okay... how about we don't do this in here.

Seconded.

 

[Driddle]

(raises hand in favor) "Aye"

For the record? I don't taste bitter at all. Tangy, maybe, or even citrusy. But I never implied that I tasted bitter.

 

[irdeggman]

The first character I played with 3.0 was a dwarven wizard (actually a 1 fighter, 2 Wizard). Why - because a dwarven wizard (forbidden for all these years) appealed to me. He adventured with his cousin the bard. His history was basically he was trying to work out his depression/anger from the death of his fiance and the elders thought that he needed to see the world and so sent him off with his less serious cousin in an attempt to lighten him up.

I found out why dwarves such as wizards - they have terrible movement. So they can't get away quick enough, unless you have exp retreat memorized and can cast it quick enough.

I was going to play him following the dwarven artificer (I think that was the template) from the Dragon mag with the 3.0 dwarves in it. Fighter with wizard levels, focusing on creating magic arms and armor. A combat style wizard.

Oh yeah, he got killed and his cousin threw a huge party in the nearest town (people drank to Kaboom's name for at least a week).

 

[Zander]

If your dwarven wizard has low strength and con (for a dwarf), you could make him a kind of runt. He was born very prematurely by emergency Caesarean when his mother was fatally wounded saving the clan from invading goblins.

He was named Battleborn but was always weaker and more frail than the other dwarves and was hopeless at combat and forgework (which requires decent strength). However, what Battleborn lacked in physical ability he made up for in brains. He soon came to the attention of his clan's forge-mage who happened to be a female dwarf about the same age as his mother would have been. She took him under her wing and became a kind of surrogate mother to him. It did not take young Battleborn long to learn the rudiments of magic.

Battleborn is well-respected by the other members of his clan mostly because of the heroic way his biological mother died (honourable family and all that). His physical weakness is pitied by other clan members and a source of shame to Battleborn himself. Nonetheless, he is proud of his magical talent. Understandably, he bears a deep enmity for all goblins.

 

[Tom]

Oops

 

[Tom]

Doh!

 

[Tom]

Sorry, site locked up as I was trying to submit.