Not-so-adventurous character types?

[Ry]

Have you already made up your mind, then?

 

[I'm A Banana]

*shrug*

If they don't mind dyin', I don't mind killin' 'em.

Of course, it mostly depends on the group. A group more interested in non-combat solutions might be good, but I generally don't like to DM peaceful games of Machiavellian politics. I want action and adventure. Machiavellian politics are for the background.

 

[Mark CMG]

re "(E)xperts can be adventures even though it realizes most will stay in whatever town or city they live in and do their own thing. But players are usually adventures and this opens experts up to be used by players characters. They are not going to be as strong as the traditional player character classes but it can go a long way in offering some interesting depth to character. Not everyone needs to start out as an adventuring type.":

So are you OK with the character in your group who provides low-key support or is helpful in special niche areas but isn't otherwise able to do much killing/lockpicking/magic-slinging?

In some one-shot adventures I have run for gamedays, I have offered an Expert as one of the possible pre-gen characters from which the players can choose. I think they can be very good in particular situations, and not so bad in the remainder of them, unless you get into real high level play.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've never had a PC expert, but I did GM a game where one of the PCs was a single-classed Akashic (Arcana Evolved) with none of the combat-related abilities. He had a *very* non-combat focused LA +3 race (the undead eleti Mythic Races).

He had, IIRC, one kill in probably 25-35 sessions. All but I think maybe 1-2 of those sessions involved at least one significant combat. He was OK defensively only because he was uncrittable, meaning he didn't go down in one hit and had time to run away, but he had essentially no combat skills whatsoever, nor a single combat-related party buff.

Yet that character was the second- or at worst third-most effective and important PC in the game, behind only the party leader/combat monster paladin/shadowbane inquisitor and probably tied with the rogue/assassin.

The PCs were in an enemy city and the enemy knew where to look for them. This character hid the party so effectively that an epic-level counterintelligence agent COULD NOT FIND THEM WHEN TAKING 20. Even knowing they were in the building (a captured PC gave up the info to an enemy psion), he simply couldn't beat the Hide check and had to give up the search.

This character also had a habit of disguising himself as the party leader and the party leader as another character - his main contribution to combat, because enemy snipers with the IK Rifleman class would routinely be frustrated at the party leader's apparent immunity to their auto-critical ability . Sometimes, he disguised every member of the party as a different party member. Other times (such as when the party leader was briefly serving as the regent of the PCs' country, the leader of their armies *and* their emissary to his church), he disguised multiple characters as the party leader to throw off enemies (he acted as the regent in this case).

This character routinely forged documents that completely altered the political landscape. He incited a rebellion against a hostile regime that had taken over the PCs' country (leading to the aforementioned regency), instigated a war between two hostile countries, got the PCs entrance to multiple factions, etc.

With this character in the party, the PCs were literally never at risk of discovery until they began an operation. His disguises were literally perfect, his bluffs just as good.

This character's knowledge skills were also almost all maxxed. Certainly by the end of the campaign there were no published Knowledge DCs he couldn't meet with a roll of 1.

So yes, a purely skill-based character who has no fighting skills CAN be a perfectly valid PC, even in a combat-heavy game.

 

[Driddle]

Have you already made up your mind, then?

Is it important that I do?

 

[Ry]

Do you want me to?

Not at all - I just want you to consider you DM and fellow players.

 

[Driddle]

Not at all - I just want you to consider you DM and fellow players.

Thank you for your concern. I'll definitely take that under advisement.

:\

 

[delericho]

IMO if the player makes a lazy, unmotivated, or lone-wolf character, it should be up to them to figure out how to get their character involved (while working with the GM, of course).

I agree. The funny thing was, this really wasn't a case of a problem player. He'd just created the wrong character, and latched slightly too tightly to that one aspect of the character. I think he was as relieved as everyone else when the rest of the group forced him to retire the character.

 

[Crothian]

So are you OK with the character in your group who provides low-key support or is helpful in special niche areas but isn't otherwise able to do much killing/lockpicking/magic-slinging?

Ya, I don't mind if that's what someone wants to play. Our games are not so combat oriented or difficult that everyone needs to be equally and perfectly useful. I find it is more fun when players deal with things the characters are not built for at times.

 

[Slife]

Just choose the appropriate skills for class skills. UMD and autohypnosis are good.