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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5374923" data-attributes="member: 1165">I don't think this has anything to do with Drizzt.Or maybe we're arguing about it the wrong way. Do you see an elf ranger as a Legolas-clone? I sure don't. That's bland. Elf + ranger = good mechanical build.Drow + ranger + dual-wielding scimitars = non-optimal build. If you've got a player who apparently isn't interested in RPing, why do they build such a character? And toss in a good alignment... it really starts to look less like a potentially cool build, and more like Drizzt clone territory.Ohhhkay then. See above about how a Drizzt-clone is suboptimal (at least in 3.x; I'm pretty sure it worked pretty well in both 2e and 4e).I never said it did. The key words were part of.They might until they get to know this character. But good-aligned drow really do draw a lot of flack. I'd have to ask why? (Especially in 3.x. Lose 1 or 2 ECL and get what in return? SR! That's it! And you could RP'd that character without being a drow.)Maybe because you used not-great examples (as you said, you only spent a few minutes on them). None of them screamed "clone" like a dual-wielding good-aligned ranger.He seems more like a fighter with some added skills to me. He doesn't do a heck of a lot of tracking; I can't recall the last time I read about him hunting. He does do stealth though. He doesn't have an animal companion, not exactly. (It's intelligent, even though it can't talk. It's a magic artifact with a personality.) He spends a lot of time leading troops, to the point where I wonder if he should have been a warlord. (But no, warlord Dex-fighters just don't seem to work. *Sniff*)Part of, and it's a big deal when you have an entire race of (usually) evil creatures, and how said drow managed to survive being good-aligned in that society would be expected to come up in their backstory somewhere.How does he justify surviving long enough to escape as a good-aligned drow? Is that in his backstory? Was he raised in some unusual good-aligned drow community? (That's why I hate Eilistraee; I'm glad she's gone.)It's a lot easier to describe a character as a good-aligned dual-wielding drow fighter or ranger than to go into lots of detail about how you're RPing said character.Those other character types just didn't have an RP hook. (Except maybe jerk mages like Raistlin, but I've never seen that done. At least, none except the Chaotic Stupid sorcerer variety.)What are Drizzt's RP hooks? Quite a lot, but a few include being a defector from an evil culture who had to run away to an unfamiliar surface due to his good alignment... (which incidentally would also apply to a lawful good drow paladin, or a chaotic good drow wizard, or...). Even if the player is only interested in hack-and-slash, that's going to come up. (And especially in 3.x, they're basically giving up 1-2 levels for what? The SR? I don't think I've ever seen someone play a drow just for the SR. Gotta be some other reason... I wonder if drow are just so cool and non-evil campaigns so very common that good-aligned drow are the only way said characters can actually appear in most campaigns.)What are Legolas' hooks? A prince of some kind? I don't think I've seen legions of elven royals who do something. Good-aligned? Yeah, him and plenty of other elves. It's not like Legolas had to run away from his family for failing to be evil. It's actually pretty hard to copy Legolas unless you're looking solely at his build, which people who have never even heard of Lord of the Rings would have used anyway because mechanically it's a good option.Can you say such a character might be vanilla and bland? Sure. Can you say he's copying Legolas? The player might not even know who Legolas is.</blockquote>

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