I have a problem with characters in pathfinder; I keep getting bored with the characters I play -to the dismay of my teammates and GM- so I often build new ones and will swap them in the middle of the campaign. I hate doing it but I can't help myself, I'll look online or through the core books at character/race options and I'll say to myself "Oh that looks nice, lets build one of those as I'm getting bored of my current character" it's like a disease that plagues me as I would like to stick to one character like my chums. Does anyone know a cure? if so I would appreciate the advice. (sorry for the rant and if this is in the wrong section)
Yours in adventuring- Thecrazyjester
Have you tried being a GM and making all those ideas in to NPCs?
I have, me and my friend rotate GM duties
Edit:
It helps a little bit, but it isn't enough to stop it at bay
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Hi My Name is Azaelas Fayth and I have a problem... I am addicted to making characters...
This is why I always setup my campaigns using a Guild or such set up.
There isn't a cure. The only treatment is, when you play, choose a class as flexible as possible. Like an evolutionist Summoner.
Thank you! I'll look that up right now!
That may be the answer I was looking for
Hi My Name is Azaelas Fayth and I have a problem... I am addicted to making characters...
This is why I always setup my campaigns using a Guild or such set up.
I'll have to suggest this to my GM next campaign -currently we're playing the ROTRL AP-
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Ooh, Alt-itis. Yeesh, I know that feel.
Here's something that's helped me stick with my characters (in anything really): Give them a story or personality that is interesting enough and appeals to you enough that it holds your interest for a long time.
Maybe you'll get bored with the mechanics of the class, but the characterization is something that never goes away.
Ritalin
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How I set it up is the group can make Characters and can sub them out (if we are playing a Heroic Campaign like an AP) or have each group/character having independent adventures (sort of like a group working in Golarion as Pathfinder Society Members might work).
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Come up with a backstory you love, that touches your heart. Or die spectacularly. That works too.
I have come up with a character for an AP were playing right now that I will -hopefully stick with- an oracle following the bone mystery, focusing on you guessed it, necromancy
Thank you guys for all of your help and advice!
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In a good game, players should be engrossed even if they're playing Joe the Cookie-Cutter Fighter. Suppose it's all what you're looking for out of your game, but I've had a gamer who had something like your syndrome. Kept switching characters over and over, had to build the next great character that would be even more awesome than the last while the rest of the party seemed satisfied with "ordinary" races and classes like "fighter" and "wizard." In the end, he just needed a break from gaming, to refresh himself. Maybe a game day devoted to something else from time to time?
I guess I never thought of that, thanks
Maybe set it up every 4 or 5 sessions you play a Board game or a party of Evil Characters.
You have many options for a break from your campaign.
Come up with a backstory you love, that touches your heart. Or die spectacularly. That works too.I have come up with a character for an AP were playing right now that I will -hopefully stick with- an oracle following the bone mystery, focusing on you guessed it, necromancy
If your description of your character concept focuses mainly on what he can do, and his eventual game mechanics... you will probably become bored again before the AP ends.
Instead, try to approach your character like you are writing him as a character in a novel. Address his motivations, aspirations, dreams, his past, dark secrets, lost loves, tragic moments.
Maybe by the time you are done, you will have something that you have breathed a little more life into, and something that you are more committed to seeing to the conclusion of a narrative.
If the dm allows it... create a "cursed" character that has multiple heros stuck inside... then roll a dice to see who "wakes up" that morning
I would only force you to keep your physical stats the same but chr,int,wis could be different... imagine a paladin cursed by an evil conven of witches that has the soul of a cast out necromancer inside
I have a character who has 7 characters each representing one of the 7 Deadly Sins. My later version has the 13 characters each representing one of the 13 Great Sins.
I stopped trying to build characters that did things "greatest healer", "spear fighter", etc.
While I CAN do that, it leads to the problem you mentioned. Instead, I try to build a character whose personality I enjoy playing. That goes a long way.
Make sure you have something to look forward to with each level too. Try out interesting feat and class feature combinations to make encounters more entertaining for yourself. One trick ponies get old fast. Aim for prestige classes too, they can offer some excellent options for variation.
Base Fighters can be boring, but a Phalanx Fighter built to work with a Inquisitor or Cavalier can be fun and unique.
I'm the same way, it's the main reason I took up Dming our games since I'd just drive everyone else nuts
Take leadership at level 7 and hire on a cohort (make sure your DM lets you build them). Now you get to play two characters at once! Very useful.
Mechanics are going to decide a characters staying power for me, a great back story is cool but after a while characters tend to become a new identity in the campaign and the back story seems like another life.
I like characters that can feel very important/powerful, have lots of options, and also feel very threatened at other times. This lets me play the hero and juice up my sympathetic nervous system regularly. This pretty much leads me to always making full casters. I enjoy making brutes for NPCs or for someone else to play, but I get very bored with a character that can't give me the above three things listed.
Some people like to crank out massive damage while feeling invincible, everyone likes different things. It sounds like you have played several types of characters, analyze what were the biggest draws for you to them an create an amalgamation.
Start with the question of "who is this guy?" instead of "what class, feat, build am I using today?"
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Hello, my name is Dust Raven, and I'm an altaholic.
In PFS, which I started playing in July, I already have 5 characters who have been stated out, and a 6th "GM baby" which I have yet to put into play who I keep rewriting.
Outside of PFS I have my snobbish, aristocratic wizard, my half-orc sorcerer, my cleric of random actions, my pacifist paladin, my master of blades fighter and my half-elven eldritch knight. Those are just the one's who have seen play.
I GM a lot too.
I let my altaholic tendencies run free as a GM.
As a player I tend to be the reverse, I tend to get seriously hooked into the characters I play. I love the role playing aspect and have been known to contemplate player personality traits as I drive to work or run on the treadmill...
I always have Character Concepts.
I don't mean to sound like a broken record here but thanks for all the advice everyone, it's much appreciated and has opened my eyes a lot I will strive to focus on my back story more then class I'm going to be etc...., thanks
Yours in adventuring- Thecrazyjester
Backstory is the key part of any character.
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I find this myself. And I think that fundamentally it's an issue with the system.
Pathfinder is a very inflexible system when it comes to character development.
Your characters abilities are represented by feats which are gained every two levels. Two levels takes a while to gain, weeks, perhaps a month or two.
A good character builder will set out many of his feats and abilities at character creation.
I'll give you an example, you build a fighter, furious focus, PA and toughness. 18 STR, 12 DEX, 14 CON etc. A good solid build.
You've cleared your first adventure and you want your character to start wearing light armour, dodging attacks and hitting multiple foes with feats like whirlwind attack. This is impossible. Your desire to move your fighter to a more mobile path is not supported by the system.
The character you design at first level is immovable from that.
For people like you and I it's very hard to play for long periods of time with this inflexible characters, there's so many classes, variants, archetypes!
My suggestion would be to convince your GM to use the fast XP track. This way you'll see alot more reward and gain from your character building and it won't feel so static.
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join an online rpg community (like rpol.net or something)
Make most of these characters for online games, it will get them out of your system and the ones you really like will be more likely to stick if you've gotten 'making them' out of the way.
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I'm on the same boat as you my friend. I have a bunch of character Ideas that I wanna do, hope to god my party wipes (why am I so evil!?!?!) and make a new character.
Well, not a perfect solution by any means, but if you have a character who takes Leadership, that gives you one more character build to play around with, unless your GM is the kind who prefers to build PC cohorts himself.
try making a character with a gimic? I was thinking of making a N Cleric using a scyth with the magic domain (Yes a throwing scyth to the face)
Take leadership at level 7 and hire on a cohort (make sure your DM lets you build them). Now you get to play two characters at once! Very useful.
Absolutely,as long as you don't fall into the two character trap where suddenly you're having ten minute conversations with yourself and disrupting the flow.
Take leadership at level 7 and hire on a cohort (make sure your DM lets you build them). Now you get to play two characters at once! Very useful.Absolutely,as long as you don't fall into the two character trap where suddenly you're having ten minute conversations with yourself and disrupting the flow.
Sometimes the group pushes for that simply for the comic relief though.
I found this. It might help at least explain your character changing.
Azaelaz you are a godsend.
While in the service this would happen to some of us on occasion. Even if we hadn't gamed in a while, due to deployment or whatever.
But as mentioned above maybe a change of venue or even genre, would be in order.
So on occasion if we were getting orced out. We would switch it up and go Hi-Tech with a Rifts game and blast some S!@#.
Azaelaz you are a godsend.
Mine I am going to make it to where the hourglass becomes inactive for a month.
I am also going to use the Shard Metagame Artifact.