Help me build a Ravenloft character

[Keldin]

I have a friend who is expanding his current Ravenloft game, and I'm looking for an interesting character concept and build for it.

The theme for the characters in this campaign is, basically, "On the road to redemption." Every character has gone through 3-4 powers checks. For this expansion, most of the new characters are some combination of Rogue, so I want to stay away from rogues for it. The DM says that fighter types or clerics would be useful. (Druids too, but I have a druid character in another game, so I don't want to create one for this one.)

So I'm looking for inspiration. Do you have any concepts that pop into mind? Or builds that are interesting? I like having strong role-play in my characters, but there IS a part of me that's a bit of a gamist number cruncher, so a bit of meat is a good thing as well. Sources are pretty much open -- 3.5e core plus splat plus worldbooks, etc. The DM is an old-time Ravenloft GM, so if you want to draw on concepts from 2E, that's fine too.

Normally, I generate a background with Heroes of Legend, but I figured I'd give this a try now, see what pops up?

 

[Rune]

I'd play a fighter flavored as a fallen paladin.

 

[tylermalan]

How about a Cleric who has fallen out of favor with his god, but still get his powers somehow and doesn't know how or why? If I was the DM, I would love that character.

 

[Jester David]

The Lawgiver is a pretty harsh god in Ravenloft. He was originally Bane in the Realms, so he's this deity that is big on order to the extent of tyranny.
You could spin that into a pretty offensive cleric build focusing on smiting infidels. Combine with a few levels of fighter and you have a pretty good inquisitor type character. But after killing a few heretics he's beginning to have a crisis of faith that might lead to another god... or not.

 

[Madmage]

A dark sun warrior character. He's had to do immoral things just to survive the crucible of Athas and at first did the same in Ravenloft as he knew no other way.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've had a concept floating around for a few years that I'll probsbly never get to play, mainly because I'm the only fan of Eberron in the group, AFAIK.

Hellbox is a Warforged who was created to be a living gateway to the lower planes, but who has rebelled against his creator's intent. He appears as darker than normal, more rust/black in appearance, with arcane traceries in gold. His head has a crown of short spikes, some broken.

Think Hellboy meshed with a LeMarchand Box from the Hellraiser movies and stories.

In 3.5Ed, I typically model him as a Warforged Battle Sorcerer with the Infernal Sorcerer heritage and Battle Caster feats as bare minimums. Others start with Warlock as the core. Some write-ups feature spiked armor, and/or Mithral body. Enlarge Person would be on his spell list, as would spells without somatic components. I'd probably favor Fire spells and the Fiery Burst Reserve feat, too. I'd also toss in some levels of Marshal, Fighter, Psy-War, Divine Mind, Soulborn or Paladin, heading into Kensai and/or Eldrictch Knight.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What about a Skarn Totemist with lycanthropy?

 

[Keldin]

I've actually settled into a character concept. I'm in the process of writing the background, and have been for the last couple of days, off and on. I did borrow on a number of people's concepts here -- for example, the character is from Nova Vaasa, where the Lawgiver is the state religion, and I decided to go with an ex-enforcer from the local mob (one who has not only killed one of his rivals, but his immediate boss as well). I opted to use the Bestial Caliban from Issue #8 of Quoth the Raven, by the Fraternity of Shadows as much because we don't have any calibans in the game as anything else.

I haven't actually put together the character's stats yet, but he will make a minimum five attacks on a full attack action, and that number goes up to seven if he's charging. I imagine he'll probably do a lot of charging. He's not very smart, but I wanted him not to be -- I don't want there to be any kind of situation where they'd put him in charge. Rather, he'll be a point-and-kill creature.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The classic Guided Meat Missile? Can't go wrong with that!

 

[Keldin]

Hopefully, it'll work out. Some occasional mindless anger works out pretty well as a stress reliever.