Short version:
I'm in a rut with character creation. Most of my clever ideas from when I started have faded to ideas that are bound heavily in the rulebook, and as such the more creative things lack effectiveness/inspiration. What I want is some help trying to rejuvinate my character creation process and suggestions as to how I can make spellcasters entertaining (in a subtle, sneaky and manipulative type of way).
Long Version:
I've been playing pen and paper for about two years now and a lot of my original character ideas we nearly impossible to accomplish in a way that I wanted in the game (counterspell, good gish ideas, teleporting melee users, etc). I had some really out there and tbh overpowered ideas for how I wanted my character to function but at least I thought of good ideas and character concepts.
Now I've gotten into the habit of limiting myself to the available mechanics in the game to come up with interesting concepts and I've become a huge fan of multiclassing to try and juxtapose two completely different classes together in an effort to make something unique and more flavorful since I like having a toolchest of options.
The thing is, most of these ideas end up being extremely underpowered when I try to shoehorn them into the established options in the system and this has resulted in many characters that I have either been disappointed with when campaigns lean more towards combat or have outright died due a single mistake.
That being said, I was wondering if anyone had some better ideas for ways to create unique characters without 1) asking for the impossible and 2) getting something that still feels unique. I think one of the biggest problems is looking at classes as part of the character and not just a means to accomplish their goal. Just because you are a Ninja by class doesn't make you a ninja in appearance or profession, for example.
That being said, there is a significant amount of baggage in certain classes when it comes to flavor and a lot of that I feel can be limiting and sometimes offputting when you can't seperate the mechanics from the fluff.
Anyways, the reason I am asking for help is I need a way to break my mind off mechanics and create more of a concept that is based in the lore and not the rulebook. Also, I want to try and break out of my martial class shell and play some casting classes, but due to my pet peeves with the mechanics of full casters as well as many bad experiences with them. This could be either a result of my compulsion to break the traditional concept of a class (dex/int/charisma based martial classes, for example) as well as my personal dump stat being CON (because I'm fairly cautious in my play).
But I digress, when it comes to casting class I prefer manipulation, fear, illusion, etc. I enjoy the subtle/maniacal approach to the way magic works and is percieved but to facilitate that I feel that choices are limited and on top of that it is very risky (especially at early levels).
So far the only full casting class I've gotten any relatively decent mileage out of is the Witch, and my combo of choice was Misfortune/Cackle with an extra 1st level feat for hex in Human. That way I could Misfortune every enemy in the area and cackle them into fumbles constantly due to having to reroll so often. I also chose 0 damaging spells, only debuff and mind affecting because that's how like to see things, subtle and manipulative. Elemental magic/evocation in general doesn't strike me as anything but generic and most of the other schools outside a few spells in each don't really have what I'm looking for.
I guess another good example of how I play a mage is Skyrim, where I mained conjured weaponry, sneak and used illusion to keep everything silent. Thus I could come up behind you, spawn a dagger and stab you in the back.
The first thing that would probably pop into anyone's mind here is Arcane Trickster, but that class takes a lot of time and early level strife to get to and doesn't really come into its own until way down the line. What I want to avoid is being in a situation where I am a) useless and b) unhappy with my choice. And so far it seems much of my preferences are on the trailing end of power and effectiveness (its even more difficult to make a counterspelling wizard/sorc it seems).
I know this is TLDR material here but hopefully someone can help out with both the things I'm talking about
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My favorite classes are Bard, Witch, Inquisitor. I think you will find these classes to work in your favor.
Problem with D&D for what you are trying to do is its a class based system. 3E/PF has done an excellent job of opening that up a bit. You still are going to have those walls blocking concept.
Ever try branching out into other games? Maybe ones with classless systems? Also, take this with a grain of salt but, I find 4E does a pretty good job of turning the fantasy characters up to eleven. Some of the concepts you mention in your post I could see fitting into that system.
What's important to you and what's important to your group? Is it roleplaying and story lines? Is it character personalities? Is it killing lots of things, killing one thing quickly, or crowd control? You mention "uniqueness" as a big part. What does that mean to you? I've seen some very "pedestrian" fighter builds, but their back story and personalities were so unique that it made the character awesome. I have a friend who will never play the same class or race twice and always comes up with these absurd permutations just to be the "mysterious" guy.
How is your campaign? Is it a combat heavy, role-playing heavy, or a balanced campaign?
I would figure out what gives you the most fun in your games and how your table plays and work from there. It sounds like combat has some importance since you mentioned not enjoying feeling under-powered. It also sounds like your biggest beef is with the Vancian system. I would either resolve your issues with the magic system, or look to something different like psionics, or even the true sorcery optional rules system.
Regardless, the first step for you is deciding what it is you really want to do and seeing how much of that jives with your table and DM and working from there. We all take turns DM'ing and we involve each other in our character development to create better story lines and ideas. Working with your DM might prove really helpful and help him inject plot lines into your games that build on your character.
It is very hard to divorce character from mechanics. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Why don't you try writing the background for your character. Don't consider any aspect of him aside from how and why he fell into a life of adventure. Write him to be a martial character if that helps.
Then make him weaker than his companions. Make him more clumsy, more frail... but, more intelligent or charismatic (or, you know, wise). Have him discover/awaken/study his abilities as the adventure progresses, lamenting his inability to swing a sword.
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Have you checked out the thread here RavingDork's Character Emporium? The guy has made so many flavor characters that it is sometimes inspiring to look at.
Also maybe try to randomize things a bit. Randomly generate stats or just use a 15-14-13-12-10-8 array, randomly roll race and class, and make some flavorful dudes using the archetypes. Make them level 5 or 10 or something and see if they look at all effective. Read some feats and see if you can build a character around one. I think an abjurer wizard built around parry spell and destructive dispel could be viable, for example.
Go through the feats in the race guide and try to build racial paragons.
At any rate, you'll end up with a ton of NPCs.
To take the short cut to what this flavorful dude said; Get the NPC Codex
it's not what mechanics you use, but how you flavor those mechanics
for example
an onispawn 2hand invulnerable rager barbarian with Strength 17 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 14 Wis 14 Cha 7 could be your typical savage with a huge axe, an excommunicated monk from a monastic order of trance based warriors, a zen samurai, a twisted sohei with corrupted beliefs, a claymore style half-demon demonslayer, or even a viking half giant giantslayer.
these are all similar ideas, but with slightly different skins, all built around the barbarian mechanics
To take the short cut to what this flavorful dude said; Get the NPC Codex
Link to NPC Codex.
@Pan - I really do enjoy the Witch and the Inquisitor. I have yet to play a bard but I've been meaning to. My first pen and paper was NWoD which is classless, which may be why I'm in the position I'm in. I have been looking at more systems with classless character building as well but the problem with getting books for other systems is people expect you to run them :P (and i'm not a huge fan of running a campaign period). I've hd bad experiences with 4e, and to me its too cookie cutter. I do, however, enjoy its multiclassing concept (iirc it's basically gestalt).
@Coarthios - I currently play with 4 different groups. One of them is very story and character driven (my favorite so far) and in this I am an Urban Ranger/Shadowdancer (my favorite character so far). Two other campaigns are pretty over the top, comedic and not serious and more focused on combat. The last group is heavily combat/dungeon based and has little RP involved (although that has changed in more recent sessions). This last guy has killed 3 of my characters in the first/second session usually because he underestimates the CR of his encounters and players don't take the proper precautions.
In terms of talking with the DM, each DM is different and the campaigns where they have worked with me have been far better than those where they haven't. Still, many times I end up in a dead end with a character mostly because rules get ruled incorrectly or incorrect information is relayed. Even so, I have a bad habbit of getting irritated when that happens because I pour hours into my characters.
@The Crusader - I usually do write 1-2 page backgrounds for my characters, but that's after I know what skills they have and am writing reasons why. I guess I'm getting to far ahead of myself sometimes since I have recently started planing for 1-20 (which is probably a bit too much XD).
@bfobar/Pan - I have skimmed that topic before, perhaps I'll go back to it. I've also looked through the NPC codex and there were some interesting things in there that sparked my interest (such as Assassin/Monk and the flavor behind it).
Well I would avoid the dungeon crawler number four if you're going to invest a lot of time. I've played games like that. We usually use 4E and you can burn through characters pretty fast so I keep them generic and min-max.
Keep this one for the other games and start with personality concept. Alchemist is a good choice for a pseudo-caster that can be developed a number of different ways. Pair that with an exotic race like a home-brewed Assimar and you could have something flavorful and potent.
Perhaps it might be useful for you to play a totally vanilla character mechanically and focus on generating interest (for yourself) entirely through the background/flavour. In a similar vein, if any of the games are set in golarion, perhaps try and work towards one of the prestige classes in Paths of Prestige. I found myself coming up with loads of character ideas whilst browsing that.
That might be a completely different approach from how you usually do it, but could be a nice change (especially in the high character turnover game, perhaps).
A way to fit together multiclass concepts are through the prestige classes in the CRB.
Examples: rogue/arcane caster = arcane trickster; melee arcane caster = either dragon disciple or eldritch knight; ranged arcane caster = arcane archer; cleric or druid / wizard || oracle/sorcerer = mystic theurge.
So essentially you feel bogged down by the flavor of existing classes so you multiclass to create something a little different correct? How do you/your dms feel about 3rd party material? Pathfinder really does favor single classed characters more then anything else. And there are alot of 3rd party classes that might fit the bill of your need for flexible spell casters.
The Magisterlets you mix and match 2 or possibly more spell lists and pull certain class abilities from one of several casting classes. But it does it in balanced and well thought out way. This is as close to a mystic theruge as you can get and be a single class (that actually works at all levels)
The Mosaic Mage Is another spell casting class from the same company. Here you have the concept of 'colors' of magic, that alter your ability set and your spell selection. Mosaic mages can be very varied in concept and application, and allow for alot of flexibility in character creation, again with potentially similar results to multiclassing. (please note that you need to use the spell db download from d20pfsrd.com to make using this class practical when picking spells).
The Riven Mage Is another flexible class, in this case it operates with a different kind of magic (riven magic) which is much closer to alot of modern concepts of magic. Where you have a few basic spells, and their effects vary by how much power you pump into them.
Those are a few examples by super genius games (my personal favorite source for new classes). In my experience they are all balanced but effective classes and might suit your needs without needing to heavily multiclass or limit your creativity by the 'baggage' of the more common casting classes.
personally when i wanna flex those creative CharGen muscles i look at tv shows, comics, cartoons (and anime), etc. and try to build someone from them, or trawl pfsrd and look at classes/archetypes and think of ways to use them effectively, even if not the greatest thing ever.
Just wanted to echo what someone said earlier about messing around with some randomly generated characters.. I did that for a while just as a mental excersize, rolling out random stats, rolling for race/class/archetypes and such.. Then you just choose feats/skills/traits/gear and see what you can come up with... It is interesting what can come up, I had a number of results that I would never have thought of myself.. It is kinda fun...
Kobold Gunslinger/Spellslinger Sniper?
You won't ever be "useless", and even when you're "less useful", you'll be entertaining. :D
I am also in favor of rolling up a random stat array, class, and race, and seeing where you can go with it. The character is different than the class. One fun thing to do is look at the abilities of a class, and see how else they could be explained, keeping the class mechanics, but coming up with your own take on it. Another thing is thinking about what someone with only one level in a class might be doing as a job, and building a character to fit that. (Rogue = shop attendant, wizard = teacher, druid = pet store owner)
The more I both roleplay and rollplay, the more I realize that unique characters are the result of effort and thoughtfulness, rather than gimmicks, backstories, or weird races. If you want a unique character in that sense, just try and get into the RP more.
That said, you are much more sounding like you're looking for mechanical/stylistic uniquity, so go do something really off the wall and (mostly) independent of classes. Max your Diplo/Bluff and try to make a character who avoids combat as much as humanly possible. Play a Batman character who relies almost entirely on gear. Play an ambush specialist who lures enemies into traps on battlefields he's prepared ahead of time.
The problem with Pathfinder, if it can be called a problem, is that standard hack and slash strategy usually carries the day if you play APs. Most things are balanced for a slightly optimized party of 4 to win. If you want a really unique character, make one whose primary strategy is something other than run in, bash/blast/control the enemies, heal the survivors, take teh lewtz. Whether you then build your character around that is up to you, because it can work either way.
Archetypes are a great way to help you "branch out" from the "typical" class stereotype without multiclassing. Taking ranks in "non-standard" skills for the class (either "flavor" choices or to gain a specific benefit/fill a certain role), one or two feats not directly related to the "main focus" of the class, and/or even just thinking about/planning characters in a "well-rounded" fashion (instead of hardcore CharOps min/max) can help.
Above all, IMO, start with the concept and make character choices that let you do things mechanically to match the concept (although the concept may be tied in part to the mechanics). Trying to focus on mechanics first and retrofit the concept afterward tends to cause issues with belief/immersion ("Your character was a ninja for the Red Mantis Assassins [to receive training in the sawtooth sabre] before apprenticing as a winter witch in Irrisen [for hexes and specialization in cold magic, before becoming an arcane trickster]? Riiiight...").
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Sometimes you dont need to make a character unique right off the bat. Ive noticed over the years that most people dont take into account what "experience" really is. Its not just a number, its what your creation has been through. By the time you have a level 5 char its got memories of great fights, scars from battle both physical and mental, and may have even lost close friends. All these things can and should be used during rp to slowly change the way he/she may act with people, on the road, and in a fight. If you use this as part of a way to decide your feats and other progression aspects it can make your character very unique over time.
That being said... Some times its fun to just come up with something basic but with a wacky twist that you can build on. Like an aasimar sorcerer of the infernal bloodline. No one would be supprised that its a sorc until you use corrupting touch on someone. Makes for fun moments both with your group at the table and for the characters in the game.
I may go back to rolling up random characters. I've done that in the past and come up with some interesting concepts. I also totally agree with the experience over time building up your character. My favorite characters are once that have developed that way.
In a more specific reply I've played a Gunslinger/Spellslinger before and tbh it was quite underwhelming in terms of it's effectiveness. In fact, most combats I was out in one or two hits and resorted to just shooting every round (since revolvers weren't aloud in our campaign).
I do want to play a non-combatant but that is the real problem, lacking effectiveness in combat is something that can make a party mad at you (especially when you outright avoid it). And usually in one of my groups we have that sort of character already. But I've been meaning to play a bard/wizard/sorcerer who is a non-combatant.
Pathfinder has the drawback that it doesn't have the wealth (and some people would argue "the power creep") of classes and prestige classes for inspired spellcasters. The PRD for spellcasters really only consists of nine books in total, encompassing everything from fighter to ranger to spellcaster, where as 3.5 and Forgotten Realms might have 9 books on spell book using arcane casters alone, not to mention divine/arcane hybrids, invocation users, spontaneous classes, and the whirlwind of feats in many different books out there.
Assuming then, that you want Pathfinder and Pathfinder only (As this is a Pathfinder forum) then the thought process that I put myself through usually follows only a few questions, followed by hours of research.
1: What do I want this character's gimmick to be?
This is a general question, not to be specified down to anything too detailed. Answers like "I want him to be better defensively than a general wizard." or "I want my enchantment spells to be his bread and butter." are good examples. This leads into...
2: How useful is this gimmick going to be in combat, is it combat only, and where is the roleplay outside of combat?
This is where you tailor your character to be more than "Once I roll initiative, I can start really playing." Spellcasters especially have a role outside of combat, though they also shine (depending on type) inside combat. Evokers are combat lovers, and clerics do most of their healing in between their front liners getting wounded.
3: What exists in the books to bring this gimmick to life?
This is the research portion. Spells and feats are the specifics to a spellcaster's type, with specialist wizard being a very close second. These will also make or break any spellcaster/non-caster hybrids, being that if the feats, spells, and requirements of the two classes don't jive, then you're really only as strong as the sum of your parts, and not making anything greater in the whole. My advice for this part is to build a character model competely, from level one to twenty, every special ability, spells per day, feats you'll take, saving throws, the works, and map out your power curve, comparing it to question 2. Once you have the model, you look at the next question.
4: Is this what I wanted? Will it be worth playing? What can I change to make it better, or slightly different, or alternate paths based on my GM's world?
Tool your model over and over, without junking previous builds. Many people look at this as "power gaming" and in a sense it is, but you also don't want to build a gimmick character who is absolute dead weight. Make veriations and alternate types of the same character to see which you like more, which fills that gimmick type best, and which will fit into your party better.
And don't be afraid to be bad at combat. Yes, other people will have to take up slack, but the power in spellcasters is that they are very useful outside of combat also. They're the immediate "go-to" guys when loot is suspected to be magical, that barrier in front of them is magically sealed, or those tomes you found are all in draconic when you're the only one who can read them. Plus, spell casters can use and abuse spell trigger items, from wands to scrolls and beyond. Just because you didn't take the spells your party wanted doesn't mean you can't buy a wand of Magic Missle, or a Staff of Fire, etc. Your character model won't be combat oriented, but can still join in with their own way.
I'd use the term "theme" rather than "gimmick" (minor quibble). Also, just because you start with one theme when developing the character concept, it doesn't mean that you can't add other themes or even that the one you started with ends up as the primary focus.
For instance, I was looking at the scarab breastplate write up (in Ultimate Equipment) and considering an interesting/appropriate druid to wear it (inspiration). A market price of 32,350 gp means a character level of 15 for WBL considerations. After looking at the various archetypes, it came down to blight druid (too sterotypical "disease and icky things, muahaha") and desert druid (interesting, although the archetype already grants the ability to assume vermin forms with wildshape). Vermin Heart and a vermin companion (giant scorpion) are obvious expansions on the initial theme.
Good so far, but now for a choice of race. After reviewing the Advanced Race Guide options, keeping in mind the desert theme from the desert druid archetype, the ifrit jumped out at me (even with the -2 Wis). Ifrit desert druid (fire theme) riding a giant scorpion; nice! Very Arabian Night-ish. The ifrit variant racial trait Fire in the Blood and the feats Scorching Weapons and Inner Flame look like good choices, as well. So far, not bad; but it still needed something more to show the character's mastery over fire. After some consideration (and seeing how ifrits have +2 Cha), taking two levels of oracle (Flame mystery; probably Tongues (Ignan) curse) lets me take the Burning Magic revelation (and Cinder Dance with the Extra Revelation feat, since the scarab breastplate is medium armor) and burning hands as a bonus spell.
So, starting with the scarab breastplate, I developed the concept for an ifrit druid (desert druid) 13/oracle (Flame mystery) 2 riding a giant scorpion. Note that the vermin theme that I started with is not the central theme to the character, but rather a secondary theme for a fire-focused caster.