Favorite actual/wished for fantasy character that wouldn't work well with D&D rules

[On Puget Sound]

several Zelazny characters come to mind... Jack of Shadows, Mahasamatman, all the Amberites. That general flavor, almost more gods or embodied concepts than "heroes", with unique spheres of influence within which they are supreme, but with very human flaws, and weaknesses outside of their spheres.

 

[Nonei]

One core concept that has been done, but never been done well, is the rune caster, most prominently on display in Weis and Hickman's Death Gate Cycle. It may just be because of inherent balance issues (i.e., Patryns and Sartans are essentially allowed to cast any spell they want, any time, infinitely), but the core concept / fluff for a character like that is fascinating, and no one has ever really captured the real flavor of a character like Haplo the Patryn.

Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved runethain is in the general vein, but severely weak compared to the book characters; the "truenaming" system in the 3.5 magic system variant splatbook (whose name eludes me) was another attempt at capturing the same type of flavor, but did it horribly, and with awful mechanics.

While I'm thinking about it, I've also never seen a good approximation of the character Garet Jax from the original Sword of Shannara. I'd imagine he'd be a weird monk/fighter hybrid, but to actually try and spec out a viable build of the character as described in the book would be a real challenge.

I keep hearing about the Death Gate Cycle, I will have to read it sometime. What are the key parts of the rune caster that you would like to be able to do?

[slightly off topic: I am also working on a variant magic system ('working on it' in this case meaning not past the pondering stage) that is also more organic, probably starting with the core elements and working on expanding from there, a la "Elements of Magic", but also getting rid of spell points/uses per day. Likely I will incorporate some sort of DC... if you fail, the spell doesn't happen, if you fail by a bunch, then you get fatigued or something like that.]

 

[Oryan77]

I've always wanted to play a character with multiple personalities but with the ability for each personality to use the character class associated with it. Like the character Sorak from the Dark Sun Tribe of One novels.

Maybe it would work within the rules. It would probably be more of a player/DM trust issue than anything. I'm sure there's a lot of ways it could be abused and be unfair to other players.

 

[Nonei]

Simple, any character who is defined as the one (and only or of a select few), most powerful Wizard on the planet. D&D is not designed for such a thing. The twins in Janny Wurts Mistwraith saga (and the 7 other magicians in that world) do not translate to D&D at all.

Similarly, you can't be "The best swordsman of all time" in standard D&D as a 1st level character.

Hmm... Well, while this is true, it also depends on the world. If it's low-to-no magic, a 3rd or 5th level magic user might be considered The Most Powerful. Of course, the fluff relating to magic use would be considerably different.

As far as the swordsman... well, no you can't be the best swordsman at first level - but if your goal is to be the best swordsman, then IMO there should be a way for your character to grow there without feeling second-rate to the people that pick abilities based on the numbers.

Both of your suggestions relate to growth of the character vs. growth of abilities within the story. If the progression that you are looking for in the story is mainly character-centric (rather than ability-centric) then there would need to be alternate rules (or maybe not?) to encourage that story. And the DM can just not give out xp, or give it out much slower, related to abilities. The system I am working on is a 'point-buy' system, and so you can do 'partial levels' and buy-as-you-go.

several Zelazny characters come to mind... Jack of Shadows, Mahasamatman, all the Amberites. That general flavor, almost more gods or embodied concepts than "heroes", with unique spheres of influence within which they are supreme, but with very human flaws, and weaknesses outside of their spheres.

I'm not familiar with these, but it seems like they are similar to the Greek gods? I plan on making the builds scale indefinitely... so that you could play an epic-plus character using the rules and still have it balanced.

I also hope to incorporate something similar to Fate's attributes or True20's vice/virtue, to help structure the character's weaknesses and strengths.

 

[renau1g]

If all the personalitys shared the same weapon group/implements it might be easier and the same general role.

 

[Nonei]

I've always wanted to play a character with multiple personalities but with the ability for each personality to use the character class associated with it. Like the character Sorak from the Dark Sun Tribe of One novels.

Maybe it would work within the rules. It would probably be more of a player/DM trust issue than anything. I'm sure there's a lot of ways it could be abused and be unfair to other players.

[sblock=off topic]Maybe using an adapted gestalt rules, except instead of combining/taking the best of- abilities you have them completely separate. It would probably work best if you had some sort of trigger(s) to switch, and if one personality was in control, and there was some element of randomness... I can see it working in a solo game or a small group for sure. --You ever watch "The United States of Tara"? Very clever, hilarious, and actually semi-accurate depiction of MPD.[/sblock]

 

[Dandu]

I've always wanted to play a character with multiple personalities but with the ability for each personality to use the character class associated with it. Like the character Sorak from the Dark Sun Tribe of One novels.

Binder

the "truenaming" system in the 3.5 magic system variant splatbook (whose name eludes me) was another attempt at capturing the same type of flavor, but did it horribly, and with awful mechanics.

Tome of Magic

While I'm thinking about it, I've also never seen a good approximation of the character Garet Jax from the original Sword of Shannara. I'd imagine he'd be a weird monk/fighter hybrid, but to actually try and spec out a viable build of the character as described in the book would be a real challenge.

Warblade13/Unarmed Swordsage2/Master of the Nine5

 

[steenan]

Characters from Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" trilogy. Their magic is very specific in ability, but happens to be very broad in application. Also, most magical combats are very dynamic, with three-dimensional movement and a lot of Newtonian physics. No edition of D&D comes close to emulating this.

 

[Chrono22]

Playing a ghost/spirit.
Playing a child.
Playing as royalty/nobility.
Playing as an animal (subhuman intelligence).
Playing as an organization (a multiple-NPC entity).

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Now, satisfactorally fitting something like an intelligent ship that's a PC into a campaign without leaving them at the dock for long periods of time is a whole different matter...

Could be done if player got to play the ship as maybe a side PC or a cohort to their regular character.

That's another thing: cohorts from 1st level. There should be a way to do them that doesn't give the player the equivalent of a full extra character.

Maybe something you wanted to try but were told you couldn't (or didn't even ask), or you did try and it was unsatisfactory b/c of the way the rules worked. Or something that just popped into your head while reading the thread.

Non-humanoid PC options. Anything from awakened animals to dragons. I think the two biggest problems there (in terms of mechanics) are lack of hands and difficulty with armor (the latter being easy to rectify using the Class Defense Bonus variant rules). Really the system is built assuming the use of so many hand-held items that when a non-handed PC hits the scene they're orders of magnitude disadvantaged.

(There is a product for playing awakened animals out there, so I know it can be done. But that doesn't cover other interesting characters such as magical beats.)