Fun PC Concepts

[RUMBLETiGER]

I never got to play this character, she was actually designed to be a Cohort, but Meet Tasha:

Half-Minotaur template Changeling
Warblade4/Warshaper4/WarHulk10

Large creature, Warshaper gave the Fast Healing and an extra 5' reach, than equipped with a Vampiric Spiked chain. This permitted a reach of 25'. Between Warblade maneuvers and the WarHulk abilities, allowed for hitting multiple opponentes within that reach, to a maximum of everyone within 25' reach multiple times as Full Attack action as a level 18 character. The Fast Healing and Vampiric weapon ability allowed for endless combat. The more opponents hit, the longer she'd last in battle.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Way back in 2Ed, I ran a PC based on the M:tG card, Hurloon Minotaur.

He was a white minotaur from a Plains Indian style tribe, proficient in axe and longbow. His natural color marked him as being marked by Fate, so he pursued the path of shamanism/leadership, and tested and prepared himself for this role by becoming an adventuring Ftr/MU. His tattoos and carved horns sealed his oath, and served as a banner of his intentions to all of his people.

Fun PC.

 

[Celebrim]

Now that this thread seems well and truly dead, I'm going to practice some necromancy. In this way, no one can accuse me of killing a lively debate. I'm raising a morbid one, and all too likely, it's coming back in a less pleasant form. Still, there was something that really bothered me about this thread when it was alive.

When I think of a 'character concept', I pretty much never think in terms of what the character is like at any point past first level. As such, I almost never think of a 'character concept' in mechanical terms. To me, a 'character concept' denotes the fluff which will inform and motivate how you role play the character. A typical character concept in my game might start with, "Jack is the third son of a minor noble, and he's leaving to seek his fortune." It certainly doesn't tell you his class, much less an array of feats and classes. But it starts to tell you who the character is, what they've done up to this point, who they know, what they care about, and why they aren't staying safely in the village away from the scary monsters. If there is some crunch you can use to make the outcome of your propositions match the expectations generated by your fluff, then so much the better but generally speaking, a character concept will work just fine with the most generic of crunch. There is no need in fact to have anything other than 'fighting man' as the mechanical implementation of a concept. You can run a dwarven aristocrat just fine by taking 'fighting man' and redressing it. Mechanically you are identical to a 1st level human fighter; your character concept nonetheless lives regardless of the rules that explicitly support it.

When I here a character concept described in terms of what the character will be mechanically at 20th level, I cringe. First of all, D&D has never played as well, as quickly, or as entertainingly at 20th level as it does at 3rd or 5th or even 10th. Secondly, how do you know? Chances are, most characters aren't going to survive a journey from 1st to 20th anyway, and if you already know where they are going to end up, the journey couldn't have been very meaningful anyway in my opinion. Thirdly, D&D has since the beginning been heavily weighted toward rules that told you what your character could do, and almost none that told you who your character was. The only way to tell who your character is in D&D is through a character concept, but if your idea of a character concept is solely a list of what the character can do, then it feels to me almost like you are abandoning role play entirely. That might not be an entirely bad thing; D&D still plays just fine without any role playing in it and if that's what you enjoy, more power too you. But, I would hope you do that because you know what you like, and not merely because you like what you know.

One of the many things I hate about PrC's (which I again insist are the single worst thing about 3.X) is that they tend to encourage a very very narrow range of PC concepts. Most PrC's seemed to not only tell you who you were, but seemed to insist that everyone in the class was basically indentical in personality and concept. To those that used and embraced them, it seemed like your PrC became your character concept, which to begin with was pretty sad because most of them time you'd be 6th level or so before you could begin taking a PrC and it would be several more levels before the PrC mechanically allowed the 'concept' of the character. To the extent that a character concept is about mechanics, it always felt to me that your character needs to fit to those mechanics immediately. If your character doesn't get his defining ability until 10th level or something, it doesn't feel to me like the defining ability ought to be the character's defining trait.

To pick on Danny, because he's an oldby and can take it, if your character concept is 'Swampthing', then how in the world is 'Sorc/Cleric/Geomancer/M-T.' the mechanics? Doesn't that skip most of the game before your character even is well, himself? What do you do with a character who dies before they become a Sorc/Cleric/Geomancer/M-T? Are they a nobody? Is the game satisfying to you before your concept has reached its fulfillment, and if the concept takes 15 or 20 levels to do that, then aren't you guilty of enjoying the destination and not the journey? Or, do you just consistantly start at 10th or 12th level, and complain about how the combat in D&D is so slow and the game is too complex because everyone has four classes and a vast portfolio of abilities to track when they are 'just starting out'? I don't get it. This style of play is utterly foreign to me. Where did you learn it? What's it like?

 

[Empirate]

That came from the heart, it seems. Would like to give you a million XP for that post, Celebrim (can't at the moment, though). People taking the OP's question up as a challenge to present their most beloved mechanical builds has stopped me from posting here.

I do believe it can be fun to build a character at the same time you come up with a concept. I'm having fun with that part of the game from time to time. Rumbletiger's Myriad is a good example of a character concept that translates well into mechanics (and is most likely well playable, roleplaying-wise AND mechanically, at all levels of the game).

But when I truly intend to play a character (be it as a PC or as an important NPC), I need to come up with a concept first, and the mechanics will be chosen based on what actually happens to the character, what makes sense at the moment (not in ten levels' time), and what fits the general setting and mood of the game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To pick on Danny, because he's an oldby and can take it, if your character concept is 'Swampthing', then how in the world is 'Sorc/Cleric/Geomancer/M-T.' the mechanics? Doesn't that skip most of the game before your character even is well, himself? What do you do with a character who dies before they become a Sorc/Cleric/Geomancer/M-T?

WAAAAH! I'm tellin' Mommy!

*ahem*

I was actually just discussing this elsewhere, in fact.

When I design characters, I start with a concept, which could be as simple as "dude with battle-axe" to "unusually large woman who grew up the sole child of a fisherman; outgrew being able to help her Dad; apprenticed with masons; heard The Call (becoming a Paladin)- all in a fairly misogynistic, rigid caste system that prevents commoners from carrying most weapons, which is a privilege of the upper castes."

From there, I try to figure out what kind of goals- if any- such a character would have, then what kind of mechanics exist in the game support that. Then I plot out a path.

Just like as a teen I planned my path to becoming an artist and musician.

However, the plan is not set in stone. It is fluid- it is subject to change based on events in the campaign, so the character may wind up very different than the original concept.

Just like I wound up becoming an attorney and MBA. I'm still an artist & musician, but not at a professional level.

In "Swamp Thing's" case, he was a coming into an established mid-level campaign after I retired my "Indiana Jones" character because the two players running healers left the group- leaving us with ZERO healing ability. So I wanted to design a PC with healing abilities...but with enough of a flare that I wasn't just playing Sir Healbot. So instead of playing a straight cleric, I started looking for other options, and stumbled on the aforementioned schtick.

It started with finding a way for me to keep healing ability up while still being able to do something "non-clerical", and the CompDiv feat Sacred healing fit the bill. Since that meant I'd be burning Turn Undead attempts to supply healing, I obviously needed to take Extra Healing as well. As I continued to look around at what could be fun to do, I found the Geomancer PrCl...and noticed that there were "planty" options at each level of Drift. After that, it was kind of like a game of Tetris as things fell into place. His clerical side provided the link to the plants and earth, the sorcerer side provided the "fire" and additional earthy elements. And so forth.

Then it became a matter of winnowing down the many, many mechanical options into something both conceptually coherent and playable.

 

[xigbar]

I just posted this my equivalent of the same thread, but, Wayne, the awakened dog wandering around aimlessly on a search for the meaning of life. A druid, probably, but I'm more interested in seeing how I can unfold the journey, as film writing is my other hobby.

 

[Quickbeam]

Celebrim & Empirate: I take full responsibility for allowing the thread to run amok with commentary on mechanical builds. I was entirely too vague in my initial post and went away for a number of days before returning to peek in on things.

Since I have not been a frequent participant in the forums for ages, a refresher about me is warranted. I simply don't like worrying about 15-20 levels of maximized, efficient character building when starting out with a "PC concept." There's no doubt that I want my characters to be useful and capable of contributing to the party's overall success, but not at the expense of a solid, fun concept. So both of your posts resonate deeply with me.

I was just looking for something that was interesting, fun, and perhaps a bit unique -- not uberpowerful -- to play during a mini campaign. Once upon a time, I remember settling on a Dwarven bard who was the clan's most engaging storyteller, and therefore tasked with teaching many of their most valuable life lessons to children. His Perform specialty...hand puppets! He wasn't the most gifted combatant or bard of all time, but he filled his party niche and well and was a blast to roleplay!!

Anyhow, thanks for all the feedback folks. There are some incredible suggestions here from a flavor standpoint, and I particularly like the Black Bolt-driven concept.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

His Perform specialty...hand puppets!

100%

Pure.

AWESOME!

 

[Quickbeam]

100%

Pure.

AWESOME!

Thanks buddy! I truly do appreciate everyone's input on this matter.

FWIW, our group chose to create the party for our mini GenCon campaign with each of the four iconic classes represented. No other restrictions on race, feats, skills, etc. were placed, but we NEVER go this route and thought it would be fun.

I was tasked with creating the fighter for our band of merry adventurers. I chose to make an axe-wielding dwarf (no reach there), and then looked for ways to add a little spice to the recipe. Using the Pathfinder rules I swapped out the Hatred racial trait which provides a bonus when attacking orcs & goblins, with Ancient Enmity which confers the same bonus against elves. Now that makes for entertaining roleplaying!!

 

[emoplato]

Pretty much anything that utilizes a bonus damage source (Tome of Battle maneuvers, sneak attack, or Dragonfire Inspiration Bard) and nifty tricks (ToB maneuvers; prestige class abilities) to do crazy awesome damage and battlefield control effects with innocuous items.

For example, Bloodstorm Blade gives you the Throw Anything feat and the ability to re-arrange your weapon-based feats like weapon focus on a whim, and lets you "bounce" your weapon off the enemy back to your hand so you can full attack with the same thrown weapon(s); Master Thrower gives you all sorts of "thrown weapon tricks" for weapons you have weapon focus with, including a free trip attempt on every successful hit, throwing two weapons per attack if they're "little," and attacking touch AC.

Combine with Dragonfire Inspiration Bard (and a hefty amount of Inspire Courage optimization) or Rogue sneak attack and you can have a guy that peppers enemies with spoons for massive damage and tripping, or other such nonsense. It's too cheesy a magical weapon property for my taste, but if you made the spoons Aptitude weapons, you could also get a free Daze effect on every person you hit via the Boomerang Daze feat. If you were size large or larger, you could get the Knockback feat and Bull Rush every enemy you hit with your thrown spoons. If you had Dungeoncrasher Fighter levels and pushed them back into a wall, you'd be able to inflict even MORE massive damage with your spoons of death.


Knockback requires you to be able to use power attack. Though he could use small "longswords" and still qualify for the palm throw and dual throw of Master Thrower on top of Bloodstorm Blade.