|
Hey all!
You get to help me choose what race I am going to be. I have two character concepts for my next PFS character. The character will be a Paladin, probably Oath of Vengence Divine Defender, but I have a race dilemma. I have two character RP concepts that are equally attractive to me and one that I am worried may go too cheesy.
1) Halfling Paladin - Basically will play up the role of party defender. He will be more boasting than truthfulness at the beginning but as he gets levels on him, well most of those boasts will be true. The end goal is a tiny halfling who refers to himself as the "Mountain" and can usually back up that nickname with a ridiculous amount of healing and overall anti-evil smiting.
2) Tiefling Paladin - This character idea is to play a tiefling who has been abandoned by his parents. A long awkward childhood ensues and, you guessed it, he is the antithesis of his parents. Now the mechanical issue is that +2Dex +2Int -2Cha is about as bad as it can get. Hence option 3.
3) Heritage Tiefling - Same concept but I get useful stat bumps. Since this is a choice purely for Ability score bumps, it's kind of cheesy.
What would you choose?
|
Regarding 3 - Don't think of it as picking a heritage purely for mechanical benefit. Allow it to inform your roleplay. For example, if your heritage says that you are descended from daemons, you might object more to senseless violence than anything else as you distance yourself from your parents. You can choose a choice for purely mechanical reasons, or you can let those choice help shape your character and understand better who he is.
|
Halfling paladin. Mount up on your mighty steed, fluffy the terrible, and make foes fear your charging lance.
Plus then he is the "Mountain that Rides"!
I like the halfling paladin idea. Abandonment/adoption/raised by X/child of the streets back-stories are pretty common fare and thus a little less interesting (to me, anyway).
|
|
Thanks all for your opinions.
1) I am pretty sure I don't want to go mounted. I have done mounted characters before, including a mounted halfling paladin from lastwall with all the mounted goodies. While you end up with a great character it is not the way I want to go. I really want this character to be in the middle of it and not 40ft behind enemy lines on a mount, leaving the BBEG to romp through the archers/casters. I am thinking more along the lines of using those paladin spells and the antagonize feat to keep everyone focused on me.
2) I agree with people that the tiefling back story is weak and cliche. I really just liked the paradoxical feeling of a lawful good half-monster hero. The idea of him being much closer to his monstrous side would be fun to role play. Less "Oh Mr. Paladin save my town!" and more "Oh my Gods don't eat my baby!"
|
You could have fun with the tiefling Paladin idea by not making them a Paladin. I say this as a demon blooded tiefling who failed Paladin training due to 'anger management' issues, seducing the top canidate (I'm trying to overcome the succubus blood, really), and the fact that I occaisionally threaten to flail people when they are not cooperative (and send the leather back to my little sister so she can make another of her fashion forward handbags).
Thing is, I'm still a good person, I mean, I never actually flail anyone. I just have some issues I'm working on.
But I think a little more thought on how a tiefling becomes a paladin or what a halfling does. For example some thoughts about family and background might make the character shine.
Gnome barbarian.
<nod>
-k
|
It doesn't matter. As long as you're a gnome you're automatically better than everyone else.hmm sounds fun, what archetype would you use?well we are the best race for everything. but i don't like to shove it in people's faces.Gnome barbarian.
<nod>
-k
Well ofcourse, isn't this obvious? I mean look at us we are the awesomerest.
|
Well ofcourse, isn't this obvious? I mean look at us we are the awesomerest.It doesn't matter. As long as you're a gnome you're automatically better than everyone else.hmm sounds fun, what archetype would you use?well we are the best race for everything. but i don't like to shove it in people's faces.Gnome barbarian.
<nod>
-k
Of course it's obvious.
Fun fact: we're also the lolsomerest.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
|
You might consider the sling staff as your weapon of choice. It has a lot of fun flavor and they are uncommon. Pick up warslinger as a racial trait for full rate of fire (though there are some GMs who don't like that combo so you might have to deal with table variance).
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
|
You might consider the sling staff as your weapon of choice. It has a lot of fun flavor and they are uncommon. Pick up warslinger as a racial trait for full rate of fire (though there are some GMs who don't like that combo so you might have to deal with table variance).The halfling sling staff is a separate entity from the sling; warslinger explicitly states it works with slings.
Unless the sling staff had language saying that it counts as a sling (for example, the composite longbow says it counts as a longbow, despite already having longbow in its name), it does NOT count as one, no matter how thematically appropriate this combo is.
You can go chase down one of the threads where this has been beaten to death already if you want to debate it. As I said, there will be table variance.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
|
This is NOT the kind of thing you should be advising players to do. If you're bringing it up here, you need to be willing to discuss it here; the players who see your endorsement probably won't track down any other threads, so chasing me off to those threads will only serve to foster a misconception.
I am a firm believer in avoiding the gray areas of the rules in PFS. I just don't think this is gray. I don't have to guess that it's a sling, the sling staff says it's a sling in the very first sentence. Warslinger works with... slings.
If you want to discuss it more, go chase down a thread or start a new one if you want to debate it.
The OP now knows some GMs don't think a "a specially designed sling" is a 'sling'. Move on.
|
This is organized play. If you want your character to stand out and be memorable, take a cliche and run with it.
A complicated back-story is great for a home game where you and your party members come together every week to flesh out your characters. When you come to a game store or a convention with that character though, no one is going to know about you or your past. What people will recognize is Ogg the dumb barbarian, Larry the brilliant yet insane wizard, and Fenrith the paladin who is afraid of nothing but spiders.
Spiders might not come up every week, by the way.
