Brilliant Gameologists Forum

The Thinktank => Min/Max It! => : nightshade February 09, 2011, 08:18:35 PM

: your favorite character
: nightshade February 09, 2011, 08:18:35 PM
I'd like to know which character members of the min/max forums enjoy playing the most and why?
I think it's pretty interesting to see if characters you play are fully min/maxed or if you just like to optimize.

nighti  :)
: Re: your favorite character
: Kajhera February 09, 2011, 08:40:11 PM
Favorite character to date?

June Shrenan, Hawkeyes, Chief She-Who-Topples-Mountains
CN Whisper Gnome (honorary Orc)
Rogue (Wilderness) 5/Thug 1/Barbarian (Falcon Totem) 2/Wildshape Ranger 1/Assassin 1/Warlock 1/Spellthief 1/Warblade 1...

...Or something like that. We may have gotten one more level of who knows what.
Feats included  Improved Initiative, Item Familiar, Weapon Finesse, and Two-Weapon Fighting. I don't remember what I picked after that. Quick Draw at some point.

Warlock invocation was Spider Climb.

Equipment included a diamond short sword of subtlety item familiar, another short sword of... the kind that bores into your foes for several rounds, a living breastplate, boots of speed, darkwood shortbow, gloves of cat's grace, ring of feather fall, a ... did I ever use that hat of disguise?

Alterations include: Rod of Wonder type effect gave her a cat tail when I was hoping for a rhino to fall on my enemies again, purely aesthetic. Got eaten by a bear (she was somewhat grieving and without concern for her life at the time, hence the tactics that led to getting eaten by a bear) and wound up with a weird tattoo that grew whenever she did evil, gave her some templatish aspects like a bite attack and red eyes, and might have destroyed the world if we'd kept going in that campaign.

Accomplishments include: Beating the new chieftain of her old orc tribe (Chief Gro-ak Who Is The Mountain) in single combat, and replaced him as chief - earning her title - before leading them in battle against a mutant hobgoblin army along with some other races. As a party, we won that war by a surprising margin, and um... got orcs, elves, and humans working side by side somehow.

Pic: http://kalai-eljahn.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48#/d28w1oq (http://kalai-eljahn.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48#/d28w1oq)

I enjoyed playing her because her story was pretty epic, she was a whirling reckless impulsive blender of sneak attack, and her slow redemption from the morals of an orcish bandit was quite interesting to play.

And she got eaten by a bear, and that was awesome.

...I was so scared when she nearly got mindraped.
: Re: your favorite character
: Lycanthromancer February 09, 2011, 08:44:26 PM
My all-time favorite was my LE (LA 0) blue shaper/constructor, who used his metacreativity powers in the absolute most imaginative ways I could think of.

I managed to keep the CR ~30 epic-level shadow dracolich that was gunning for me tied up (at level 16 no less) for several minutes until my goodie-two-shoes party could show up and take him down.

He was a bastard who loved causing pain, but he was faithful and loyal to the party of beloved meat shields friends who regularly risked their lives to keep him safe.

Not particularly optimized, but he still kicked all kinds of ass.
: Re: your favorite character
: Maat_Mons February 09, 2011, 09:43:02 PM
My all-time favorite character was Jay the Fae, the fairy mecha pilot.  I built him for a GURPS Supers campaign where the DM asked for our characters to be a little silly.  He was about 1 foot tall and rode around in a miniature giant robot about 5 feet tall.  He came from a parallel world full of magic and mythic creatures.  He got stuck in our world as a “practical joke” played on him by his “friends.”  The game only lasted two sessions, but he's still my favorite character concept. 

Limiting it to Dungeons & Dragons, I'm going to go with the crazy conflagration cleric.  I built him for a campaign set in the frostfell, so of course I themed him heavily on fire.  The DM allowed me the 3.0 version of the madness domain.  That gave me a madness score equal to half my level (cleric level + prestige class level) that I added to wisdom for spellcasting and subtracted from wisdom for all other purposes.  He was off his rocker, the only person or creature in the entire game using fire-based abilities, and quite fun to play. 
: Re: your favorite character
: Shadeseraph February 09, 2011, 09:48:01 PM
I suppose my favorite character was Ayra, a reflavored female Human Dragonborn Sorcerer/Pally of freedom/Spellsword/Abjurant Champion/Sacred Exorcist, who had a heck of a life and used hisher own knowledge to free herself from slavery and (of course) save the world (TM).
And out of D&D, Asuna Daidoji, a Crane Samurai on L5R with a not so pretty story. She got a bad ending. Married to some motherfucker. Alive, at least.
: Re: your favorite character
: Mushroom February 09, 2011, 10:22:54 PM
his own knowledge to free herself from slavery

: Re: your favorite character
: jojolagger February 10, 2011, 01:35:04 AM
Hard for me to pick. It's a three way tie between Dallun, Beldeck, and Crais.

Dallun was an artificer, in a post-undead apocalypse game. the game didn't get far, but it was amazingly fun planning stuff to make. The DM was cool with custom items as long as I ran them by him, and I devised some cool things, and found a whole bunch of items that would be very nice to have.
Holy water nuke: Dust of dryness + 100 gallons of holy water= one marble that when broken releases 100 gallons of holy water. 100 gallons of holy water is 1600d4 damage. (note, only to be used in event of a possible TPK).
G.E.C.K: A very long term plan (I qualified to make it at level 13, but would have had to wait until level 14 due to the fact the massive XP cost would drop a level). Of course, it would have a major impact on the setting, but that's what I get for a whole level of XP spent on 1 thing.

Beldeck was the first custom Character I played. My DM made him, and that's back when I was about 11, so the DM was very lax about the fine print. Like needing food, and rest, and ammo. And wizards needing to prepare spells.

Crais was a Ghost sorcerer. This is where I figured out that Max Cha on a ghost + Malevolence is freaking amazing.
Malevolence is Su, not Sla, and as such ignores SR. I was running around in a CR 12 golem, which was immune to most magic, by total accident.
: Re: your favorite character
: Barbarossa February 11, 2011, 01:32:38 AM
It is a tough choice for me. Of them all, I have two that tie for first place. The first is Eafoth the Cleric, the other is Maelrigar Desraktu, an orcish monster.

Eafoth
(http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa238/Fumblez/th_Eafoth.png?t=1282608571)
was a pretty rad (wo?)man. S/he was a Radiant Creature based off of a human, losing 3 ECL to that template. They also had 8 Cleric levels, with the Sun and Strength domains. I figured that Pelor was a pretty good domain for a creature with bonus spells based on light, and only later did I find the Radiant Servant of Pelor. Eafoth quickly went from being the character 'only alive because it can provide heals so we have to save it' with a mere 40 hit points at ECL 10 with no real firepower to becoming an ECL 13 powerhouse with the ability to slay dozens of skeletons per round.

The best part? This particular cleric of the light was as blind as a bat. Literally. They could only see because of that fancy red headband in the character portrait, the Blindfold of True Darkness. It gave him/her 60' blindsense with which to see. The trick to all this, though, was that they were blind by choice. I didn't get any benefits to being blind, and I made sure it was this way because I never stated that their eyes didn't work. They just couldn't see with them. Do you see any eyeholes in that robe? I figured that being a glowing target was a bad idea in a world mainly populated by evil-aligned outsider-haters. Thus, nobody in my party even knew my gender until we ran into a pair of vampire wizards, levels 20 and 15. Most of the party is trapped by spells or the vampires' mooks within the first turn, and the only people I could see standing freely were myself, the heavily optimized swashbuckler, and the two vampires. (Technically I could only see the swashbuckler in the meta-sense due to their Darkstalker feat preventing me from auto-succeeding on the spot check.) I suddenly disrobe, and out of sheer dumb luck both vampires fail their saves to avoid being blinded. While they can't see, I unleash impossible amounts of damage via a couple maximized Searing Lights followed by my usage of the gauntlet I bought long ago with two charges of Anger of the Noonday Sun 2/day. Because I became a Radiant Servant of Pelor, the radius of that second spell extended so far and did so much damage that nearly all of the mooks died. My party swiftly finished off the blinded and heavily wounded vampires, and by the time it was all over, I had already reassumed my robe. They never guessed what happened, though my DM gave me a high five afterwards for how awesomely I did against the vampires; he was expecting a near-TPK, and instead I flattened them in a matter of rounds. Best individual fight ever.

Maelrigar Desraktu
(http://www.danddminis.com/assets/images/King_Obould.jpg)
That right there is a pretty fitting picture for Maelrigar, the level 4 Water Orc Battle Sorcerer. Originally created to be extremely weak to balance me with the rest of my party (they were all new guys), Maelrigar far exceeded my expectations. He was unnaturally good at melee combat, and in fact several of the other players thought he was a fighter for the first dozen sessions or so. Being a Battle Sorcerer, his spell list was very limited, but +6 strength from Fist of Stone goes a long way. Here are some highlights.

1) One of the party's first adventures was to visit an abandoned tomb where a necromancer was said to be desecrating the dead within. Wandering through the halls, we slew a few skeletons, nothing really important. Suddenly one of my party members decides to open one of the doors from the main hall, and from within he hears chanting. Like a reasonable human being, he slammed the door shut so that the party could organize and fight whatever came through. Like the unreasonable Water Orc I was roleplaying, I decided that the best course of action was to stop the ritual before it could be finished. I bull rushed through the door, and somehow my wild guess of an angle was exactly correct, giving me the ability to push the door onto the necromancer and break his concentration. That being the surprise round, we had yet to roll initiative. I rolled at the very top of the list, and immediately got a critical hit with my scimitar, instagibbing the boss of the dungeon.

2) Later in that very same dungeon, the gnome of the party attempted to move a stone slab by pushing on the bottom. Due to the un-luck of a d100 roll, the slab started falling towards them. On reflex, Maelrigar tackles the slab aside and smashes it against the far wall.

3) The party heads eastwards with a caravan of goods. A band of orcs attack, aiming to steal the wagons and horses. The druids of the party entangle the ground all around the caravan, hoping to slow the orcs. Our DM being of the sadistic variety, the orcs were master crossbowmen all along. Maelrigar has no ranged spells, and he doesn't want to get trapped in the entanglement. Instead, he draws a couple knives from his belt and throws one every round. He isn't very good at this, but there is little else he can do. Suddenly, after half a dozen misses, he hits an orc. A critical hit, killing the orc instantly as it reaches for the first horse's reins. Another shot, another critical. This happens not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times. The DM even made me change dice every time.
: Re: your favorite character
: fuinjutsu February 11, 2011, 03:47:23 AM
A few months ago it was Mother Rona, a VOP Saint Incarnate I described as "Cross Quasimodo with Mother Teresa."

Now it's Serena Malachel, former apprentice/plaything of a Necromancer, subsequently (but still former) sidekick to a Paladin, currently studying Bardic Music in hopes that channeling her magic through music will allow her to overcome the taint on her soul and cast something not tainted by the energies of undeath.

(Dread Necro -> Prestige Bard)
: Re: your favorite character
: Archao February 11, 2011, 04:00:43 AM
My favorite character was a Dark Whisper Gnome. Rogue 4 / Swordsage 2 / Guild Thief 3, standard feats. This character was a temporary replacement to my cleric, who lost their soul to the BBEG midway into the campaign. Before leaving the party, this rogue become known as "Roach".

Roach had the Paranoid flaw, and it matched much of what happened to him. After stabbing an illusionary dragon in the eye, Roach (and the rest of the party) had nightmares in an evil temple. His dream gave him fear or orb-like objects, and caused him to have the constant feeling of someone watching him. Later, the ghost of a king have him a Vorpal sword so that he would hunt those who defiled his tomb, and was warned not to touch anything. Of course, the other rogue in the party (we have 8 people if everyone shows up) takes some things. So Roach hears the king say "You were warned..." and is afraid that his shiny new Vorpal sword is going to behead him. The party says I'm being too paranoid and convinces him to use it.

We go though the rest of the dungeon and have this huge battle. Mostly fodder, but there were some high level enemies. The captain of the fighter-types knocks Roach dead. The cleric casts Revenance, and Roach returns to continue annoying the captain. Finally, there's just a wizard and some fodder left. The wizard runs, and Roach follows, rolls a natural 20, and cuts his own head off. The sword was indeed cursed after someone took something. The party wizard finishes the traumatized enemy.

The party raises Roach back in town and we head off to the final battle. In a stunning display of un-luck, Roach fumbles and drops both his daggers and both his Gnome Quickrazors in his first two turns. An enemy wizard, lacking anyone better to target, hits Roach with a Disintegrate and wouldn't you know it, another natural 1. Roach goes poof and the party goes on the finish the fight and save the world. I get my cleric back and Roach goes into a folder to be brought back later.

Roach is infamous in our group, and I can't wait to bring him back. Probably as a Necropolitan.
: Re: your favorite character
: Nytemare3701 February 11, 2011, 09:14:25 AM
Mechanically, I love my SCM simply named "Kobold". He's a ghost progression DWK sorcerer (loredrake, white dragonspawn, the whole deal).
He's an imaginative pacifist, so he spends all of his crazy broken shadow spells on figuring out new ways to save everyone (including the bad guys).

Storywise, I love my pet character Desthin Sinkropht (my avatar) He's a fire based gish that uses wings of cover to block with, but he has a major opening on his flank for surprise attacks. It's fun to play, fun to roleplay, and a cohesive member of any team he ends up in.
: Re: your favorite character
: Bloody Initiate February 11, 2011, 10:15:15 AM
In D&D it was probably one of my two gestalt characters.

One was a vastly powerful bruiser. The other was a four-armed warforged multitasking blastificer (Obviously the DM gave me some nice things).

I played the bruiser for awhile but he was tied into the plot, so after a certain point in the campaign he was no longer available as a PC. Then I had to think of a new concept, and I was having a hard time until one night my DM and I were playing MechAssault 2. Afterward I said "I want to play a mech in D&D" and he made it happen for me.

In Shadowrun I've loved all my characters. You spend about 6 hours making a character in that system, so if you end up with something you don't like then you're probably a fucking idiot. No offense, but I don't know how you sink 6 hours into designing a concept without liking it. Making a bad character is a separate issue.

In variations of the Rolemaster system I tend to enjoy stealth melee murderers, because stealth is the only way to come out on top of the crit charts in those games.

In the Marvel Universe Role Playing Game, my first character is a concept I've loved ever since. Basically he's a life-energy vampire who has seen several incarnations which varied depending on how many stones he was allowed to use.
: Re: your favorite character
: Shadeseraph February 11, 2011, 02:09:49 PM
In variations of the Rolemaster system I tend to enjoy stealth melee murderers, because stealth is the only way to come out on top of the crit charts in those games.

So much truth...
: Re: your favorite character
: archangel.arcanis February 11, 2011, 02:10:02 PM
My favorite has to be my namesake. Arcanis Et Morte. I have played the character several times over they years with many different build types. The key points have always been psychotically loyal to Wee Jas and the militant arm of the church. He pretty much always had some sort of spell casting ability and any future builds would be some form of RKV as that class was written for the specific role I had been working for him since 3.0.
: Re: your favorite character
: cdg1533 February 11, 2011, 02:23:32 PM
My favorite character so far has to have been Klik the soul-eating clockwork man. He was a warforged totemist/soul-eater who was powered by the soul of an orphan that he refueled with the souls he ate. My DM and I also refluffed the totemist so instead of incarnum, the soulbinds were different arrangements of his clockwork components. Definitely the high point of my creativity
: Re: your favorite character
: Volfogg February 11, 2011, 09:45:20 PM
Without doubt my favourite character was Riann Caldumus (human, ftr1/wiz4/knight phantom10/dread witch5, with all the appropriate fear inducing feats/gear/items/etc). He was a blast to roleplay (and rollplay).  :smirk
: Re: your favorite character
: JohnnyMayHymn February 13, 2011, 09:17:42 AM
My all time favorite would have to be my Triple Gestalt Character (this was the plan, but never made it past 7th level before the campaign kinda dissipated)

Kudzu
NE Kalashtar
Druid5, Planar Shepherd10(Shavarath), Druid5
Binder19, Thrallherd1
Dread Necromancer 20

Yes, a druid that rebukes undead, binds vestiges and is actively working to become a Lich.  Kudzu uses the Planar Shepherds broader definition of what "Nature" is, but to an extreme, as to include undead.  He believes that by becoming a Lich and going into hiding(at Epic levels), he can emerge periodically to cleanse the earth of civilization, when he is truly needed.
: Re: your favorite character
: DMM4ever February 14, 2011, 02:40:11 AM
The top two characters I've ever played are:

"Admiral": A CE cleric of the god of the depths (From Stormwrack.  I forgot his name) that commanded a fleet of ships and pretty much redefined Chaotic Evil.  This was a campaign where the enemy was another player and I was not told to hold back, so I made DMM Persist (Of course) cleric and slapped on enough buffs to stand in the way of an oncoming 'chires and shrug it off (My DM allowed nightstick stacking.  Bad move).  We played from level 1 and it ended at level 16 (Just happened to be the same time I got 9th level spells, fancy that).  That Kraken spell is sweet in a Pirate campaign.

The other: Zaphyyr, a CN wizard of some sort that I have played several times with many variations.  Most of the time he was a "Chaos Mage" from one of the AEG books.  My GM did not find it OP'd, and I tried to keep it at a reasonable level.  There's nothing better than having a magic system so loosely defined that you can make yourself into a "Jello-mancer" whose fighting style revolves entirely around either turning the opponents into jello, encasing them in jello, creating walls out of jello, or summoning jello-monsters.  A very fun way to keep the game fun for everyone is to turn up the humor and turn down the breakage.  This was the character that made me realize this.
: Re: your favorite character
: Jopustopin February 14, 2011, 04:16:25 AM
Shimay Willow

Phaethon Conjurer 3/Black 1/Master Specialist 4
LN Medium humanoid (Elf, Fire)
Init +1; Senses low-light vision; Listen +1, Spot +2
Languages Common, Camptalk, Magius, Draconic, Ignan, Elven
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AC 13, touch 13, Flat-Footed 12
hp 37/43
Immune Fire
Vulnerable Cold
Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +9
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speed 30 feet; Fly 60 Feet (Average)
Melee +1 Jade Quarterstaff +4 (1d6/x2)
Melee Dagger +3 (1d4-1/19-20)
Ranged Dagger +5 (1d4-1/19-20)
Ranged Heavy Crossbow +5 (1d10/x3)
Base Atk +4; Grapple +3
Special Actions Corsair's Eyepatch (Swift Activation) See invisible 1 round or blind fight feat for 1 minute
Spells Prepared (Caster Level 8)
4th--Celerity, Celerity, Orb of Fire, Orb of Fire
3rd--Haste, Haste, Summon Monster III, Celestial Teardrops (Page 60 Renegade Wizards Handbook) [DC 22+moon], Haste
2nd--Command Undead [DC 19 +moon], Command Undead, Command Undead, Glitterdust [DC21 +moon], Glitterdust
1st--Benign Transposition, Benign Transposition, Ray of Enfeeblement, Enlarge Person, Enlarge Person, Grease [DC 20+moon], Grease
0th--Detect Magic, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Read Magic, Simple Bed
Spell-Like Abilities
Abrupt Jaunt 5/6 times per day
Abrupt Jaunt deals 1d4+1 points of cold damage (Vulnerable to cold) [Tower of High Sorcery Trait: Reminder that my actions have consequences]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abilities Str 9, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 23, Wis 13, Cha 12
Feats Scribe Scroll, Spellcasting Prodigy (Pre-Errata), Spell Focus (Conjuration), Greater Spell Focus (Conjuration), Skill Focus (Spellcraft), Hover, Spell Penetration
Skills Appraise +11, Concentration +10, Craft (Calligraphy) +8, Move Silently +2, Decipher Script +11, Knowledge (Arcana) +12, Knowledge (History) +8, Knowledge (ALL) +7, Sense Motive +3, Spellcraft +27, Spot +2, Use Magic Device +6
Possessions Wand of Baleful Transposition, Wand of Invisibility, Bag of Holding
Scrolls
(CL 5) Bands of Steel, Dimension Hop, Haste, Summon Monster III, Arcane Sight, Celestial Tear Drop, Trigger Trap
(CL 2) Ray of Enfeeblement, Enlarge Person
(CL 1) Grease, Grease, Mage Armor, Mage Armor, Burning Rage, Burning Rage, Burning Rage, Burning Rage
(CL 7) Stoneskin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abrupt Jaunt 6 times per day Shimay can abrupt jaunt up to 10 feet as an immediate action.




I played this character from ECL 3 (Phaethons have a +2 LA) to ECL 9 (Having bought off one LA).  I made her for two reasons, (1) to see if wizards really were better than all the other classes and (2) to convince everyone else of this fact.

It became obvious that I was better than everyone at a particular fight at ECL 5.  The fighter had taken off because someone cast fear on him.  The monk got killed.  The dragonshaman was ineffective.  It was me and a cleric (Both with level adjustments) that won the battle.  So much fun to play a flying wizard.
: Re: your favorite character
: Catty Nebulart February 14, 2011, 08:09:12 AM
I think my favorite characters so far have been a pair of pixies, brothers both Paladins of Wee-Jas for a oneshot in the tomb of horrors. We where there to investigate this demi-lich stuff, either you are undead or you are not, non of this inbetween stuff. Oh and to check his licence and registration of course, can't have illegal undead wandering around.  :smirk

I don't quite remember the builds since I made a bunch of them since one of the players had never played before, but both had trapfinding and two levels of swordsage as well as a level of cloistered cleric for such goodies as the Pride domain. I think the lowest save modifier was +18 or so. Flying and improved invisibility really made the dungeon much easier, though the rest of the party still had trouble with pit traps. Unfortunatly I had to leave 'early' (at midnight-ish) since I had work the next day so I'm not sure if they survived. Probably not , that dungeon is :banghead hard.
: Re: your favorite character
: Brullig February 14, 2011, 02:54:58 PM
Slick Willy, the human Extreme Explorer (Eberron). He was completely worthless in combat, had speaking mannerisms similar to Duff Man, and had a ridiculously optimized Jump check (mostly based on stacking modifiers and speed-related effects). Also, a Dire Cheetah mount. In true Extreme Explorer fashion he'd use Action Points to get out of any sort of situation (such as when he tried to bargain with a sewer lair full of Umber Hulks) that he often got into by using Action Points. He had most of the feats which boost AP stuff (such as gaining a new AP whenever you roll max on your action die), and studded leather armor with black and yellow bumblebee striping.