My group has the legend of the Dread Pirate Flailbeard... a pirate with a massive rugged beard with a heavy metal ball woven into it that he uses to strike down his foes. No one has ever made built it, but when we're brainstorming for characters he always comes up.
Another favorite is a treefolk assassin. People wonder why a tree with nooses hanging from its branches seems to be getting close each time they turn away and then BAM its too late. The next person who happens to come by wonders why someone is hanging out of that tree with all those nooses.
Also Warforged druid. He wildshapes into a cart.
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Transgendered kitsune whose fox and human forms are different genders.
Monk/barbarian who believes in discipline, tradition, and a warrior's honour.
Warforged Mystic Theurge with multiple personalities. The warforged claims to be a brother and sister, and says that when the sister was dying the brother attempted to magically transfer her soul into a metal body, but botched the ritual and bound both their souls to the body. The question - is this story true?
Middle-aged Paladin who has PTSD from being the sole survivor of a disastrous mission at the start of his career. He's convinced that the Good inevitably die young in the fight against Evil, and believes that the fact that he's survived means he must not be Good enough.
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Let's see . . .
With the introduction of the Jadwigga ethnic group, I came up with a jadwigga Fire elemental specialist who worships Azathoth and has the Blind Idiot God's symbol tattooed on his face, using it as a divine focus for the purposes of the False Focus feat [holy symbol tattoo].
A dwarf monk who never could get the hang of building things, but was fantastic at breaking them. Ranks in Knowledge: Engineering, and the dwarf monk favored class bonus that damages the hardness of objects.
Those are the two I've got foremost in my mind.
For a future game, I decided that I would take a Sorcerer concept to the table. Neutral Good Aasimar Celestial Wildblooded Empyreal Sorcerer, first few levels of spells would be ones that also appear on the Cleric list. She was abandoned at a convent, raised as a Cleric, but couldn't quite get the hang of a few spells (Cure). She finds out later that she has been channeling Arcane energy instead of Divine.
I thought, straight Sorcerer till level 20. Sounds awesome as all get out. Going to get wings at 11, fly around bombing people with Returning Spell Storing Chakrams from the air. Awesome.
Then the guy DMing says Gestalt and start at level 10, any 3.5 material.
So I'm doing the above Sorcerer, Gestalt with Swordsage for maneuvers, AC, and 3/4 BAB, and also mix in 10 levels of Rainbow Servant for access to Cleric spells at character level 16, which seems an appropriate time to remove her "block".
And then Black Flame Zealot if she falls for the Rogue/Assassin later on.
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I was playing Rise of the Runelord a second time with new players. Since I knew the campaign, I decided to go full sin. I was playing a fat human summoner with an animated chair as eidolon (four legged, slam, mount (useless but a chair is a chair), push)
As the campaign progressed, he became bigger, slower and lazier. He couldn't move more than 10 feet before going out of breath for the round. At some point, the chair became a flying throne, so he just sat on it. Glutonny and Sloth were his sins.
He died from a heart attack (weird).
The destined/chosen/lucky hero.
If the campaign allows Hero Points. Somewhere in the early to mid levels take all 3 hero point feats. Blood of Heroes, Hero’s Fortune, and Luck of Heroes. Take the human alternate racial trait Heroic, which replaces the human bonus feat. (I know this puts a real crimp in the available feats for the build, but you can almost use a Hero Point whenever you want.)
Almost doesn't matter what else your build is at this point. But something that gets bonus feats will feel the least pain for taking those 3 feats early.
Family tree warped by magic.
Discuss with GM. Some/Many will allow multiple Eldritch Heritage since they are mostly actually fairly week.
Human with Focused Study for 3 Skill Focus. Then pile on the Eldritch Heritage with any bloodline that uses those 3 skills. So maybe Celestial, Elemental, Abyssal, and Infernal to represent humans that got caught in the crossfire during a interplanar war. Maybe elemental and all 4 elemental genie types to represent someone attuned to the elemental forces. Etc...
With your charisma going to be that high, I would go ahead and be a sorcerer or oracle that matches up well with the different bloodlines you chose.
Non-magical, but magic using.
Fighter with really high UMD. Buys lots of cheap low level wands and scrolls to buff himself rather than relying on someone else in the party who may not feel like buffing him. Half-Elf and Arcane Training make this even easier.
Trip/Disarm nearly anything
Magus with wand wielder and a cheap wand of true strike. Gets a +20 on any maneuver check. This will almost always work on things that are even several levels beyond 'level appropriate' enemies. Plus you can almost guarantee a hit on even really high AC opponents.
Snicker Snack
Tengu Cavalier/Ranger focused on using natural weapons (including beak attack) riding an Axe Beak.
Sorcerer with dual abyssal/celestial bloodlines always torn between good and evil.
Druid stuck in a cat form that she turned into running away from her abusive father.
any character concept i play is going to be a bit freaky in some way. i don't play by the book conventional characters except to twist the trope into something different. i won't play a tree hugging elven ranger whom smokes a specific recreational herbal medicine to keep calm, but i might play a sadistic fey bounty hunter whom is mechanically identical to an elven ranger with a different flavor attached.
Two of the more interesting characters I've played are Freddy Wifflebat, a Commoner 1/Ranger X who had the Chicken Invasion flaw (there ain't nothing like throwing more chickens at a problem until it fixes it) and Kippling Yates, a Merfolk Urban Barbarian who owns a restaurant that specializes in meals made with regenerating food products (hydra, troll etc). He spent so much time around chunks of them that he slowly gained fast healing.
The black mage from final fantasy 1. You're an arcane caster (player's choice which class), you wear a long robe, a wide brimmed hat, and no one can see anything but your glowing yellow eyes. As long as your GM is okay with it, you never, ever, ever tell anyone (including your GM) what race you are.
I made an NPC in a custom campaign I was running.
He was a goblin named Sir Reginald McDandy. He was a quite intelligent and extremely well mannered and dapper wizard / arcane trickster. He wore a monocle, cape, top hat and glued on handlebar mustache. Of course he was proper and polite, speaking quite eloquently. He didn't particularly care for his more feral kin however. Reginald had his own cohort, a beautiful changeling named Beatrix Belladonna, who was enamored with him (naturally so, not enchanted into doing it) and was quite protective of him. Often getting jealous when a pretty girl would speak with him.
I also have a PC planned who has gone insane to such a point, that he is extremely disassociated with whatever violent or "evil" act he's doing. He went insane by accidentally opening a temporary rift and viewing one of the great old ones. Now, he might stab people while legitimately wanting their safety and without understanding he's the one doing the stabbing, and will be slowly working towards summoning the great old ones without realizing that he's doing it. He thoroughly believes himself to be a kind man, doing kind things. [Might have to save this for an evil campaign.]
Viviovorivi aka Veevee was an experimantal character in Eberron and easily the most rediculous thing I've ever played. He came from a conversation about how people confuse absurd with clever. I had thrown out the idea for veevee as a joke but my DM challenged me to play him as a serious character. Veevee was a telepathic sentient ooze who lived with a number of wizards in Aundair before striking out on his own (persuaded by the party) with hopes of one day opening a Construct Factory but struggling to be taken seriously (he was usually satisfied when people weren't trying to kill him). His obvious handy caps were played straight and eventually lead to his untimely demise, but he managed to last longer than expected (from 3rd to 7th level in artificer).
There is an old school gamer in me that still finds the thought of a dwarven wizard odd and appalling.
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We had a kobold group:
The Iron Xebub : A green Kobold cavalier order of the dragon with a Deinonychus mount.
D'ka, The stone prophet: A brown kobold, oracle of the stone and cursed with haunting stone.
Xani and Xina, The twin assassin: Two black rogue/assassin kobold. They came form the same egg.
Sinitin, The Great Drake: A white kobold summoner with a ''White Dragon Eidolon''.
The group made others think that they were obeying the White Dragon, and the sight of a Large White Dragon is enough to make must villager back off. So they were enjoying human way of live, by intimidation and trickery.
Mostly based on the people who tell me "You can't do that", or "That can't be done", I create characters who shouldn't exist in the world, usually paladins who take very broad interpretations of their alignment and code of conduct.
Like the paladin of the God(dess) Gozruh, for a Skulls and Shackles game (the GM allowed it). Unfortunately the game only had two sessions, one of which was character creation.
Or the PFS paladin, whose daily job was as a Procurer, or 'pimp'. He ran a brothel in Absalom. (Hey, prostitution is legal in the city, so he was taking poor women & men, giving them food, shelter, clothing, and training them in an honorable profession ensuring their future employment.)
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Recent oddness;
A superstitious magic-distrusting Kellid witch hunter, who uses scarification and tattoos to unlock his own inner power, which he calls 'sang' or sometimes refers to as his 'heat,' and associates with the iron in his blood, or his body heat (he's sometimes unclear on the specifics...). He can use this power to render himself unseen for brief moments in time, and strike to devastating effect, while invisible, using the power in his blood to strike out against 'witchery,' particularly that of the Winter Witches of Irrisen.
His class levels are all in ninja, he just doesn't use words like 'ki' or 'katana' and doesn't dress in black pajamas. His faux-Asian weapons are 'the traditional blade of the witch-finder' and his shuriken are spikes of metal (spike shuriken, from previous editions) that are mechanically identical, that he calls his 'hex nails.'
Ideally, he'd use some sort of AT that swapped out skills and weapon proficiencies to put him more on theme as a Kellid/Ulfen/'western' witch hunter and not a ninja assassin, but he's usable out of the box.
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Old oddness;
Gnomish giant space werehamster clockwork mage, for an 'anything goes' Spelljammer game (he had a collapsible exercise bike-like contraption that he would use to 'prepare' his shocking grasp spell, by generating electricity to charge a metal gauntlet, other spells were similarly tech'd up).
Unusual character concepts?
My character is a tiefling ( the offspring of a wizard and a summoned demon) who has been severely abused and mistreated as a child due to his demon heritage and as such seeks revenge against the being that did this to him ( the fiend) by taking the path of a summoner and choosing his mother( the fiend) as his eidolon to punish her by forcing her into combat with those who persecuted him ( may include an entire race, class or order). Eventually the mother is able to gain a mental control over the tiefling and they enter into a Norman bates type incestual relationship soon after.
I had more fun creating the monstrosity then roleplaying it as few but Tim burton could do it accurately.
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A Half-Orc Fighter who resents the image of half-orcs as savage brutes good for nothing more than swinging a sword... despite being just such a savage brute himself. As a result, he prides himself on his "military training". Frequently talks about famous knights and nobles he's worked under (and failing Bluff checks), always wears his uniform (and has worn several holes in it), quotes famous strategists (incorrectly), and carries around a book of poetry so people can see him reading from it (though he rarely actually does).
I once played a monk that was forbidden from using his hands to attack. He added a weight to his ponytail, just to be able to use it when he flurried.
@OP: Do the characters have to have made it into an actual game yet? If not (since ** I ** haven't yet made it into an actual game beyond 1st Edition AD&D), then here are my 3 so far from UnArcaneElection's Weirdo Collection (I have been making character concepts by intended AP(s)):
a Good Drow who ISN'T a Drizz't Do'Urden clone for Second Darkness -- I actually haven't read any of the Drizz't Do'Urden stories, but I have heard of them (and complaints about clones thereof), so I checked on Wikipedia to make sure I wasn't even close to replicating him. (Build note: Even with the nice Revelations offered by the Battle Mystery, attempting to build a Swashbuckly Battle Oracle is HARD -- you are seriously feat-starved, and with her background, also seriously skill-sraved.) This was my first Pathfinder character concept.
Sort of along the idea posted by Mirona above, I also have ready to go a Dhampir Thassilonian Conjuration (Sloth) Specialist Wizard for Rise of the Runelords, with Tainted Soul Drawback and Accursed Story Feat reflavored for Undead instead of Fiendish taint, and with his cat familiar taking on the Gluttony role (but also giving him a run for his money with Sloth -- think Garfield). My idea behind this was to have a Slacker Mage go up against the Greed Mage -- after all, one of the chapters of Rise of the Runelords is titled "Sins of the Saviors"; this was one of the hardest character concepts to come up with among the various APs, and the third one I made the background and personality for, but the first that I did the build for (I normally do the background and personality before the build, although I could make an exception if I come up with a really cool build idea). A Humanized version of this character is in progress getting into a community/group-mind Rise of the Runelords Play by Post (see this thread run by Abandoned Arts and join in if you want -- it will be an interesting experiment, and will have another interesting character in it, who is a Kitsune Druid whose Animal Companion thinks of itself as a big brother or parent to her). Surprisingly easy to build, except for feat starvation if going the Summoning specialist route.
Character concept fleshed out, but no build yet: A Qlippoth-Spawned Tiefling for Wrath of the Righteous -- Qlippoths hate Demons too! Thinking of just how to implement him has been problematic -- nothing seems entirely satisfactory to the character concept. Is the adoptive brother of the Dhampir Thassilonian Specialist Wizard above (they are both adopted). Due to their backgrounds, both have concern about Sin very much on their minds.
I have other concepts in mind at the first link above, but as of now these have neither builds nor fleshed out backgrounds and personalities.
This little girl here- Mildly obsessive, abused child soldier-turned- god-wizard, born into a noble house, yet running from it for her own feeling of safety, before learning wizardry, and running from her father as he nears finding where she ran, despite her constant hiding.
Do note that someone necromancied this thread from 2013, so I don't know that the OP is even on the boards, much less paying attention to a 2 year old thread. :)
Okay, so my first ever pathfinder campaign included a recurring NPC that the party somehow kept having to save from outrageous situations. He was ostensibly a traveling merchant who had a talent for creating rare and wondrous weapons and armor from the remains of whatever the party had saved him from, when in reality he was a Rakshasa Maharaja who was planting Raktavarnas (degenerate rakshasa relegated to the forms of objects) on the party.
When his identity was revealed at the very end, the party had the double shock of having their greatest benefactor turn into the BBEG AND having their relics and magic weapons literally sprout legs and join the enemy in fighting against them. ^_^
10 Infiltrator Witchguard (Ranger)/10 Invulnerable Urban Rager (Barbarian) that is Dexterity-based and TWFs.
This wouldn't seem that unusual, except for the fact that he's TWFing with Two Light Quickdraw Shields. Oh, and he can cast Haste.
Do note that someone necromancied this thread from 2013, so I don't know that the OP is even on the boards, much less paying attention to a 2 year old thread. :)
EldonG made a post not more than 5 days ago.
^Yeah, the Pathfinder Campaign Setting doesn't say anything about threads being raised from the dead having to be evil . . . .
- A Master Chymist, whose alter-ego is the town's "super hero" and his usual self is the "secret identity".
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- An intelligent, mind-controlling ring that creates lesser simulacra to act as its "owner".
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I play a very weak gnome plains Druid (archetype) With a badger companion. When it reached medium size I began riding it around (40 ft move speed). I now have spirited charge and ride by attack. I took a one level dip into gendarme (archetype) cavalier (order of the beast). I use a magical lance. Successful charge = 3d6+1! I have 10 str.
I role play him so that he is what I imagine a gnome to be. As curious as can be imagined, no fear of death (that actually sounds interesting, I've never died before!), completely sidetracked, talks too much about random things, rambles on and on, completely interested in all things it seems. has no concept of keeping secrets or bluffing, just tells the truth to a fault (seemingly oblivious to the potential bad consequences). Thinking of taking groundling feat to be able to talk to the badger companion allllll day all the time, insteafd of just once per day for a minute.
Uses his gnome magic whenever the situation calls for a funny joke. Prestidigitation, ghost sound, and dancing lights are all awesome!
Badger has a dire collar. Once per day for a minute, medium badger becomes large badger that flies into a rage with super str (plus bulls str), at this point or before, gnome either dismounts, or is a regular cowboy on a raging crazy bull... minus all the cowboyness. The gnome wears peasants outfit, no shoes (helps you run faster!), acts like a mix between an animal, gnome, halfling, dragon, cavalier with "lots of str".... some kind of "knight protector of nature".
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Captain Scurvy the Pigmy Pugwampi Pirate springs to mind, if only because his name and title is so unusually fun to vocalize. Captain Scurvy is a runty pugwampi (he's a size category smaller than usual thanks to the young template) who was never expected to amount to anything. However, he became one of the most successful pirates on the seas of my world.
Being quite clever, Scurvy gathered up a ragtag crew of gnolls who were down on their luck and propositioned them to become pirates with him, and he could ensure that the spoils were easily gained and plentiful. With a bit of convincing, the gnolls agreed and became his crew.
Captain Scurvy is a ranger with a large rat for an animal companion (a wharf rat actually) named Skitters. Skitters and he, being very small, easily sneak out onto ships that they intend to conquer. From there, Scurvy simply makes himself comfortable on the ship and lets his aura of unluck take its vicious toll. After the crew ends up with some run of bad luck (ranging from getting lost at sea to crashing on islands and stuff), Scurvy signals his crew to sail up and they quickly seize all the plunder. There's nothing particularly special about the gnolls (though some have gotten decent at fighting and sailing) but with Scurvy leading them and his aura, they easily overpower most merchant vessels.
Captain Scurvy is a sort of honorable pirate. He's perfectly fine accepting surrender and is more inclined to jump ship to pirate another day if given the chance. He's likely to joke and tease during his adventures and respects those who are willing to give them a good run for their booty.
So one of the great and mighty pirate lords of Alvena is in fact so small that he could fit in someone's shoe, who uses mounted archery on land and sea, and leads a crew of gnoll pirates known as "Scurvy's Dogs".
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that the name of his flagship is "Finder's Keeper". :D
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Not sure how unusual it is as a character concept, but as far as the pirate lords are concerned, Captain Scurvy is easily the most benevolent of them. He's good natured, prefers taking captives (and releasing them later), and has a humorous side. He has a sort of honorable pirate thing going on that makes him fairly endearing. However, his peers are not so pleasant.
One of the pirate lords is a sea witch, one of many sea witches, but one who has taken up the practice of raiding merchant vessels and plundering them for their riches. Her name is an enigma to most, because unlike Scurvy, few ever see her and live to speak of their encounter, let alone actually speak with her.
She's a powerful druid who rips massive holes in the hulls of ships and causes them to sink out at sea. Far from land, the best hopes that the crew have are life rafts, but many of those are capsized by often poor oceanic conditions that seem to commonly travel with her, or by the large sea creatures that seem intent on taking no prisoners.
She rarely has a true "crew" (though she occasionally may work with sahaugin) but is frequently accompanied by groups of sea creatures such as sharks, octopi, etc. She scavenges the downed wreckage, taking her pick of the plunder. In the underwater lands where she operates her dominion spreads for many miles and looks like a great graveyard of ships scattered about the ocean floor.
Even other pirate lords fear her, and some sailors revere her as a sort of oceanic deity, and make offerings in hopes that whatever terrible creature in the depths will pay them safe passage. A common practice to appease the great sea witch is to throw treasures into the ocean if some sort of strange sign happens (such as a mixed school of sharks swimming along the ship). A suggestion dating back to a diviner who was questioned as to how to avoid the fates of the many ships that went missing.
She is perhaps the most successful pirate if solely for the fact that merchants and travelers willingly offer up gifts and treasures in hopes of a safe journey. Few other pirate lords can claim that their marks revere them as a natural wonder and pay homage to them.
I was playing in a campaign once where someone had a major strop when the GM wouldnt let them play a PC unicorn warpriest!
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Most Dwarves are generally Lawful, worship gods of creation, and rarely dabble in arcane magic. My Dwarf Magus is Chaotic and reveres Rovagug. He takes every opportunity he can to curse the gods, and whenever anybody assumes he's "just another average dwarf" he turns his insults to them =)Cool...I'm going to run a dwarf wizard someday...one that's also a weaponsmith, and makes enchanted weapons for a living...and thinks of himself as a wandering merchant.
I'm playing a dwarf wizard right now! She's a pedantic, short-tempered snot who tends to get exasperated over the halfling bard's malapropisms and good-natured teasing. And she prefers glaives to axes and hammers! :D
Something I've always wanted to play is an elf...who was raised by dwarves! Wears heavy armor, is lawful, the whole shebang! And then a dwarf who prefers to live like an elf! If there's one thing I freakin' LOVE it's character concepts that turn expectations on their heads!
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I'm currently playing a characters whose natural talents are that of a chaokineticist.
Duty and family honor, however, demand that she join the Hellknights.
The end result so far is an armored warrior swinging a longsword, but occasionally launching bolts of pure darkness from her free hand.
People at PFS tables end up constantly asking "what classes are you again?", especially since my Warhorn signups say "Level 2 Hellknight"