The Worst Characters

[Isaac Zephyr]

So I have a thing, I like to play objectively bad characters. Ones that take a little TLC to really get rolling. Lemme give some examples.

Drow Arachnid Wildsoul Vigilante. Unarmed strike build focusing on Nightmare Fist, Boar Style and Intimidate.

Teifling Divination Wizard. Forbidden schools Transmutation and Conjuration. Currently dabbling with Necromancy and non-transmutation party buff spells.

Kobold Brawler. Two-Weapon Grace with Fighting Fan, Dirty Trick focus with Moonlight Stalker (in same party as the Drow. Is a cohort).

Dhampir Mysterious Stranger Gunslinger. No strength, but trying for a racial blood drinking character.

Dwarf Makeshift Scrapper Rogue. Who says shovels aren't a good thrown weapon?

Samsaran Reincarnated Oracle. Took trait so Disable Device works off of Wis, goal to be divine sorc-frontline fighter through revelations-skill monkey. Cause why not have a "my past lives have done it all" character?

Many of these were simply "this is bad, don't play it" in the case if the Vigilante, the Kobold (Kobold Monk being the worst option in many forums, so I cheated a little) and the Wizard. Some are arguably kind of good like the Samsaran. I really like taking bad options and making decent characters though. I've been told the Shifter is arguably really bad (or just functionally broken), the Fighter is lackluster, and the Cavalier is bleh. What are some "worst" options? Whether races that just don't work with classes (and I'll hunt an archtype or advanced class to compensate), or classes/archtypes that in and of themselves are bad.

[The Sideromancer]

I'd watch yourself with the fighter. Due to these two things, unarchetyped fighter is respectable. Early archetypes that replace Weapon training with something just different enough to disqualify AWT are another story. There's also this archetype that trades out weapon training, armour training, and a few bonus feats for 4th level casting that still uses te swift action if it's in armour.

The Wizard archetypes from Ultimate Combat aren't considered great due to the high number of opposition schools, but the spellslinger can be salvaged by multiclassing out of it.

The Drake companion archetypes.

[Set]

Thematically, I'd love to play a dwarven geomancer sorcerer** (elemental earth or shaitan bloodline) all about ley lines and drawing magic from focusing crystals or alloying magic into metalworks through Craft Arms & Armor, or a dwarven stone oracle with a similar theme, but that Cha penalty, woo! A dwarven paladin feels 100% on-theme, as well, but, again, Cha is kind of important to paladins, and not so much to dwarves, who apparently don't have or need any sort of leadership ability from their rulers...

Many small race combatants seem pretty dire, as well. I like the visual of a Halfling monk or gnome barbarian (with a badger theme!), but a Str penalty combined with reduced damage die for small weapons (fists) feels like deliberately choosing to piss into the wind.

**With the caveat that the acid ray / acid resistance junk is ditched for something that actually involves earth and stone, like the ability to conjure and throw boulders at people, or make one's skin hard like stone temporarily.

[Klorox]

well.. I don't know about geomancers, not having the proper books... but for the sorcerer, the Deep Earth bloodlinei (APG) is very appropriate, cha penalty or no... though, as a player, I'd never, ever play a character with a racial penalty to a key attribute... might use such a character as an NPC, thouigh.

[SheepishEidolon]

Set wrote:

A dwarven paladin feels 100% on-theme, as well, but, again, Cha is kind of important to paladins

Well, there is the stonelord racial archetype.

Quote:

Many small race combatants seem pretty dire, as well. I like the visual of a Halfling monk or gnome barbarian (with a badger theme!), but a Str penalty combined with reduced damage die for small weapons (fists) feels like deliberately choosing to piss into the wind.

Hmm, barbarian doesn't necessarily mean Str based. The urban barbarian archetype can add the boost to any single physical stat, and Unchained barbarian gets a direct boost to melee attack and damage, no matter whether you use Str or Dex (or whatever) to attack.

Further, +1 AB from size equals roughly +2 damage. That compensates for the smaller weapon dice, even when using a greatsword. It's only the Str penalty (and the absence of a Str bonus) that make the difference. There is at least one Small race without a Str penalty: Wayang.

[Wonderstell]

Isaac Zephyr wrote:

So I have a thing, I like to play objectively bad characters. Ones that take a little TLC to really get rolling. Lemme give some examples.

I've played in a "0-point buy game" before. Straight 10's down the line, and then modified for race. What I learned was that Animal Companions can become monsters if built right, that there are several spells that don't target any save, and that Touch AC attacks was a mistake.

But those were heavily optimized characters, so I wouldn't call them objectively bad. It seems as if you enjoy overcoming a handicap, rather than playing a "bad" character, correct?

Isaac Zephyr wrote:

Dhampir Mysterious Stranger Gunslinger. No strength, but trying for a racial blood drinking character.

As I'm sure you're aware of their Blood Drinker feat, have you seen the Racial Paragon vigilante talent?

Racial Paragon:

The vigilante can take a move action to gain the benefit of a feat with a racial prerequisite he meets but doesn’t have. This effect lasts for 1 minute. The vigilante must meet all the feat’s prerequisites. He can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + 1/2 his vigilante level (minimum four times per day). The vigilante can use this ability again before the duration expires to replace a previous racial feat with another choice. If a feat temporarily gained in this way has a daily use limitation, any uses of that feat while using this ability count toward that feat’s daily limit. This vigilante talent can be selected multiple times. Each time it is selected after the first, the vigilante can use this ability to gain the benefits of one additional racial feat at the same time, or to reduce the action required to activate this talent by one step (a move action becomes a swift action, a swift action becomes a free action, and a free action becomes an immediate action). If the vigilante chooses to gain the benefits of multiple feats, the feats selected must share the same racial prerequisite. He can use one of these feats to meet a prerequisite of a second feat; doing so means he cannot replace a feat currently fulfilling another’s prerequisite without also replacing those feats that require it. Each individual feat selected counts toward his daily uses of this ability.

***********

2 levels of vigilante, then Flurry of Blow/Brawler's Flurry with Feral Combat Training so you can deal 2 Con dmg per hit. It gets a bit more complicated if it's for PFS, since the talent is kitsune only for society play.

[Brolof]

Set wrote:

Many small race combatants seem pretty dire, as well. I like the visual of a Halfling monk or gnome barbarian (with a badger theme!), but a Str penalty combined with reduced damage die for small weapons (fists) feels like deliberately choosing to piss into the wind.

**With the caveat that the acid ray / acid resistance junk is ditched for something that actually involves earth and stone, like the ability to conjure and throw boulders at people, or make one's skin hard like stone temporarily.

I've played a Gnome Arcane Bloodrager to great effect, I even used a Greatclub instead of a better weapon for most of it! (I mostly wanted the flavor of beating people with a wrench.) Never used Enlarge Person, she was beast. If only she wasn't in a party with an optimized Gathlain Swashbuckler...

[Mark Hoover 330]

Bad characters... bad options... these don't compute for me. Start with the basic math of the game. At level 1 with a 15 pt buy all PCs arguably start out slightly better than most villains going by the average monster stats per CR.

From there PCs, built to do their jobs, will continue to exceed their enemies, mathematically speaking, unless utterly poor choices are made which keep those PCs at little better than NPCs by the numbers.

Now if you're only playing APs then most PCs have to have a combat focus. Some characters or builds will be BETTER at combat than others, but measuring the characters against each other will always yield good and bad PCs. If you use enemies as your yardstick however and are hitting the benchmarks needed to contribute positively to defeating them before you yourself are defeated... why use "bad?" to describe it?

On the other hand if you're playing a homebrew, who's to say that a Kobold Monk isn't a good character? Perhaps the focus of the game is defeating a group of kobolds or infiltrating the sanctum of a dragon god. Suddenly this PC's niche build has a lot going for it.

TL/DR; I guess I'm just saying that bad is such a subjective term. The only "bad" character I think I ever played was back in 2e when I got stuck in an all-evil campaign for a few sessions playing an anti-paladin. I don't like playing evil characters but trying to when the GM specifically calls you out as the "leader" of the group and the rest of the party is both Chaotic Evil and more powerful than you physically, the game is no fun at all.