D&D General Your favorite character experience?

[Cadence]

I had a cleric of Badb in a Conan game who had escaped from chattel slavery in the North of where the game was set. Her eventual goal was to lead a campaign to end slavery in her homeland. At one point early on the DM had a child being beaten on the street, so the character stepped in and delivered the child home -- only to find out that was worse. So she adopted the child. Lots of down time spent arranging care and training and the like.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

My favorite types of characters are Beast Master/Pokémon Master type characters. Those that either have a creature as a class/subclass feature (Beast Master and Drakewarden Ranger, Battle Smith Artificer, Wildfire Druid, Pact of the Chain Warlocks) or have access to many summoning spells like the Tasha summons.

It does suck that you can’t have every summon spell in one class’s spell list, but it’s still fun for me.

 

[el-remmen]

Hol of Ahto (called "Hanno" or "Little Han" by his friends) was a cleric/fighter of the god of surf, sea, and strength (and to some degree brotherhood) had his origins as the scion of an evil man, raised by a family intimidated into caring for him (and thus didn't like him) and a bully because of it. He ended up a coastal raider. After his ship was attacked by those resisting the raiders and he fell into the sea, apparently to his death, he was found by locals washed up on the beach being guarded by a walrus. As followers of this coastal god, they took this as a sign and nursed him to health. During that time, he learned to love those people, abandoned his evil ways, and joined the priesthood.

Soon after his calling brought him to the Southlands, which is where the campaign took place. He was a lot of fun to play. A guy who was dedicated to good, to teamwork, to the kind of bonds you have among ship crews and adventuring companies, but with a deep sense of both what evil people are capable of (having done it in the past and feeling shame) but also how they are capable of change. This led to some fantastic scenes and he was great in combat.

I remember once the group being guests at a dinner where I was certain the host was the bad guy. My instinct was to topple the table and attack, but trying to fit in with my Southlander companions I held back to learn their more reserved ways and have patience. Which led to him sneaking around the house at night (which he was bad at*) to figure out what was going on and nearly dying in the process. Luckily, the one other member of the party he told he was sneaking off, heard the commotion and came to the rescue. But it turned out we were probably better off having attacked at dinner.


* Yes kids, it is possible to have fun having your character try stuff they are bad at and failing!

 

[DND_Reborn]

Very cool, all, reading about your experiences! Thanks for sharing and I hope to hear more.

 

[steeldragons]

My favorite character to play is a caster. Option 1 (and my first Basic D&D PC, ever, and dozens since across all editions and gaming systems): magely/arcane -without being the "old man/Merlin/Gandalfy"- type. Option 2: followed, closely, by a druid/""nature magic" type, could be staight up "plant magic" or "storm magic" druid, or "storm magey/weather magic" type or "witch" with their "raw/untrained" magic (unlike the refined incantations and gestures of those hoity-toity academy wizards) from the edges of society. Option 3: a tie between casterly-clerics (I don't object to wearing armor or swinging a mace when necessary, but if there's a spell that will be useful, or healing/bolstering my allies, I much prefer that tack) and/or psychic/mental powers type.

Generally males, but have played numerous female characters over the years. Generally prefer an elf or half-elf to a human. Once I really got into D&D, at least. Most of my initial characters were humans. But have, on occasion, gotten the itch for 'something different," in which cases, I've had my share of halflings (my fourth ever Basic D&D PC, and several since) or gnomes (first and best wasn't until late 1e).

Favorites for various reasons: the most recent was from a Pathfinder game: a [celtic flavored] Elf Witch/Psychic gestault character (the party was all gestalt and existed before I joined the game. I was told I needed to make a gestault character) in a homebrew world/campaign, who eventually achieved godhood. He was my first PF character and I just loved it.

My "first ever" character mentioned above, a human mage ["magic=-user"] who was eventually transitioned into a 1e AD&D character and eventually made it to 14h level (some decades ago). A personal best...until this PF elf-witch-god. This character (and several others of these early adventurers) lives on in my campaign world as a powerful NPC, leader of a self-formed organization of guardians of the realms, especially vs. magical threat or any mortals who seek to attain (or destroy) the (catastrophically destructive, but intrinsically necessary) power of "dragon magic." He's the guy I learned the game on. He used magic! Eventually created his own magic items and spells! He'll always have a special place in my "D&D characters" codex. Montor [later added surname] Dragonwing, first son of the Lordmage of Daenfrii and former Dragonmagess (now deceased), the Dragonmage apparent, champion of Wyr, wielder of the Staff of Wyr.

Going back quite a bit of years, and completely different than anything i said above, but a favorite in the sense of "most memorable," fun to play, and rather outside my typical style -both for roleplay and actual playstyle- was a halfling fighter/thief in 2e. A chain & shield wearing, short sword and short bow toting, battle hardened and road-wise halfling's halfling of impeccable valor, unimpeachable integrity, and incorrigible lover [of anything that would have him].

"Garap 'the Bloodhawk'." Three foot five inches of bravado and sincere daring. Inadvisably extroverted and ever [self-assured] "dashing." The proverbial "legend in his living room." He was a hero, in his own mind, constantly looking to increase his "glory/fame," and no one was going to tell him he wasn't the best at what he loved to do. First to charge into battle. First to volunteer to go scout out the dark cavern ahead. First to goad an enemy the party was desperate to avoid. I recall he nearly died in a cavern full of trolls he'd been lowered into. The rest of the party really didn't have means to get to him when he needed assistance....but I don't think he, ultimately, died there...It may be the campaign/game/group just came to an end. Not sure. Don't remember. But a blast to play and very "not my usual" character.

Just so happen to have a [very old] picture of this one, I did, on my computer.

 

[iserith]

I like characters with a lot of dice manipulation tricks like diviner plus anything that allows rerolls or adds dice to rolls. I find that to be a lot of fun. I created a halfling where this was his whole shtick and reflavored him to be a leprechaun.

 

[the Jester]

I'm not sure what my own favorite pc ever is-- I will have to give that some thought- but I'm pretty sure my favorite pc of anyone else's was Federico. This was in a 3e halfling campaign, and Federico was a kobold that was basically the clan dog (playing up the doggy part of the kobold dog-lizard thing). He had a Str of 1. He began by multiclassing bard and sorcerer, then added a custom jester prestige class with its own spell list, which meant that he was about 6th or 7th level before he finally had 2nd level spells.

He was hilarious, amazing, and fun for both the player, the DM (me), and the rest of the party. He would tremble like a chihuahua and ask to be carried up steep slopes.

He lived from 1st level until that party retired. I think he may have raised his strength to 2 at some point, but wouldn't swear to it.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I've told this story before, but don't mind sharing again.


The game was first ed D&D. It was 1986 (so a couple of years before Drizzt showed up) , and I had discovered Champions the year before, in Oregon. I had moved back to Utah, and was desperately looking for a champs group, but had found none. So I played D&D. At this point in my gaming evolution, I had been a hack&slasher most of my gaming life. It was only after playing Champions for a while that I truly got into the idea of being "in character", role assumption, that sort of thing. I still was something of a powergamer, but it was now always within the constraints of the good characterisization. A new GM started a closed ended game, and wanted mid/high level characters. We were to investigate a Dwarven nation that everyone had lost contact with. I didn't have a character of approriate level (having been playing Champions) so the GM let me build one. Out came Obsidian- Drow fighter, but he was raised by Dwarves, from the age of a few weeks old. He was Lawful Good, and though of himself as a Dwarf. Now, this world knew about Drow, so he was hated/hunted, reviled and such, and always felt like an outsider, even at home.

We get to the town which became our home base and there was a statue to a local demigod in the town square, overlooking the main inn and general store. He had ascended, and this area had been his home in mortality. There was a legend that if somehow you could get inside the statue, you would find the "greatest treasure ever known". This Demigod was a half orc/half elf.

The adventure happens. A rather exciting mystery, but does not bear on my story. After we had ascertained the problem, and why, we were headed out to leave, but got lost in the Dwarven caves, and after hours of searching came upon a door to a small suite of rooms. A chapel, bed, and study. In the study were two windows, that when we looked out of them, we saw the village inn and store. We realized that we had found our way into the statue. At this point everyone starts ransacking the place looking for the treasure. Obsidian just looks out the window. The GM, taking each of us in turn telling us what we find- nothing. Obsidian keeps looking out the window, and the GM with a small smile keeps describing the interaction of the people, families moving about and such...
One of the other players, frustrated, cries "Where is this Greatest Treasure Even Know", and Obsidian (adopted Drow child of Dwarves) said "Right here." and gestured out the window. He turned and said "This is the greatest treasure, acceptance by your fellow man & family. This god was a half orc, half elf- everyone reviled him, everyone was disgusted by him. That is what is here- community".
All the other players looked disgusted.

Possibly my greatest moment as a roleplayer up until that point. I had a true sense of transcendence of self- much like the one or two times doing theater in school when everything just came together. It is part of why I play.

As a postcript, we found a chapel to the demigod later, who gave everyone a minor wish. Obsidian wished for a recieved a grand, silver, bushy beard

 

[Bitbrain]

Eberron campaign. His name was MCVC-35. He was a 5th level Oath of Vengeance Warforged Paladin who, while under the effect of a haste spell, dealt 175 damage to Mordakhesh in a single turn.

Mordakhesh’s statblock has 170 hit points.

By the end of the session, everyone at the table (including MCVC’s player) decided to ban Paladins from our home games forever afterwards, retired MCVC from adventuring, elevated him to a homebrew D&D god, and gave him the portfolio of Spears, Stabbing, and Artificial Intelligence.

So yeah, dude ascends to godhood and simultaneously gets his own class banned from our games.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

My favorite character overall took some GM allowing of re-flavoring - but I ran a monk/sorcerer with all the sorcerer spells flavored as ch'i type stuff (a fireball was "Hadoken") and the somatic and verbal components being the martial arts move with yelling a keyword. This was in pathfinder. It was the monk I have always wanted to run since I started playing in 1st edition.