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Folks in my games have been using these techniques for years. I had one guy recently make a paladin with the Rich Parents trait; he re-flavored it to being gear/gold he acquired over years campaigning as a soldier.
Basically the paladin had first been an NPC Warrior class; a soldier who rose through the ranks over a 5 year campaign. Once his time in the army was over he was sick of the carnage and retired to a life of marriage, children and pious devotion to a small village church.
Since he'd taken Knowledge: History and Knowledge: Religion he explained the retired soldier became a sage and priest for this small village. Often the locals or adventurers would come to him and seek his counsel. During decades of relatively sedate life his skills waned, explaining why he's no longer as killer-y as he was in his youth.
During this time he also explored his faith. He learned more of the goddess he served. The paladin no longer just paid lip service but honestly began to understand and believe in the faith. Then a group of bandits kidnapped a little girl.
So this ex-soldier is now a country priest but he's also a father. When adventurers try to save the girl and get their heads handed to them, they return to the church begging for aid. The country priest puts down his books, opens a dusty old trunk and solemnly draws his longsword.
Now he's kept up with weekly practice with his skills so he's not a total newb again, but he hasn't faced a real foe in decades. The priest rides out with the adventurers, battles the bandits and finds that his skills are tempered with wisdom, faith. In the heat of rescuing the little girl the priest discovers his true calling as a paladin of his goddess.
There's a lot of cool ways to run these types of stories.
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@ Mark Hoover
Do you mind if I use your character story for inspiration?
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@ Mark Hoover
Do you mind if I use your character story for inspiration?
Do it.
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I have a dwarf drunken master monk which I did this for. (admittedly - a PFS character who I credited up to 4)
In his youth he had been a renowned warrior, but he retired long ago to a quiet life. The character's only son followed in his footsteps, and his father couldn't be prouder - giving his son his prized axe.
However, an expedition with the son on it went wrong. The specifics aren't clear, but the son died, and several others of the dwarven expedition blame the son as a scape-goat; the father thinks to cover for their own incompetence.
The son was the father's only living family, and he's horribly distraught. He's torn - wanting to prove his son's virtue, but also wanting to die. As a dwarf though, suicide is an anathema to him. So instead, he tries to drink away his troubles and goes into battle unarmored - charging headfirst at the most fearsome foes, a part of him hoping that they'll put him out of his misery.
While he travels though, searching for more powerful enemies to fight - he's on the lookout for information about his son's failed expedition.
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As a variation of the curse - you could go with a variation of the beginning of Darksiders. In that - War's power wasn't entirely his own. After he was scape-goated - they took away the bulk of his strength.
This could easily be the case if you used to be a divine class - especially if you were a cleric/warpriest of an evil deity and turned your back on your dark past. In response - your old god takes away all of your powers.
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The problem I have with this concept is that, at level 1, you aren't supposed to be a badass (yet).
That in no way means you should always start as a blank slate; I actually liked your article and some of those backstories (cheesy though they might have been) lead to a lot of potential in terms of role-play. But those aren't level 1 character concepts nor should they be. The one that really jumped out at me is your example of the person "not willing to give it their all" as a way of rping the levels they don't have yet, and it really got to me. This is a life or death thing (for my character), why on earth should I let some guy who explicitly isn't trying very hard in my adventuring party? What if the unthinkable (aka very likely scenario) happens and this half-asser gets killed or is unable to save someone else? You know, something he should have been able to easily prevent given his supposed power. Was he too lazy to save his own life? Or, say I was the general of an army. Nobody's letting the level 1 Ranger with no ranks in Profession Soldier boss around a regiment let alone an army, so my character damn well better have something to back that up mechanically. Rich backstories are wonderful and players should always come up with something for this person they are inhabiting. But you also need to be able to back up that story to some degree.
I'm just saying, if I ran away from some sort of duty (or abuse) and joined the circus where I befriended an animal who became exceptionally loyal to me, that sounds pretty easy to accept. But it's a lot harder to accept that a once world renowned duelist has had so much off time that a feral child who can barely speak has an even chance of taking him out in a fair fight.
Tl:dr. If you want to avoid being the level 1 weakling, don't start at level 1.
As a variation of the curse - you could go with a variation of the beginning of Darksiders. In that - War's power wasn't entirely his own. After he was scape-goated - they took away the bulk of his strength.
This could easily be the case if you used to be a divine class - especially if you were a cleric/warpriest of an evil deity and turned your back on your dark past. In response - your old god takes away all of your powers.
Awesome idea!
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@ Vratix
I tend to agree with you on the purely attitude based handicap (the guy who doesn't want to give his all) because it implies that if he were to find his motivation then he would suddenly regain all lost ability. I prefer the stories where there is some more substantial impediment like divine punishment or forgotten skills that will take time to rebuild.
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I enjoy characters like this a lot. It's a nice change of pace!
A former magical tyrant whose soul was imprisoned in a gem. After more than a century, she's managed to escape by possessing an innocent woman examining the gem. I use a kitsune, with the human form being the host's true form and the kitsune form being the influence of the tyrant. (Either a fox spirit or a rakshasa.) I do like having mechanical representations for the backstory stuff, so I'm looking forward to playing her as a rebirth discipline psychic. Bardic knowledge is great for providing that level of experience for a character.
Another one is making your synthesist summoner a former dragon/angel/whatevs who has been cursed into a weak flesh prison. Their synthesist form is them overcoming the limitations of the curse, and showing an aspect of their true self.
I like the synthesist summoner idea. I have never been interested in playing one until now.
Another thought might be something mystical. Imagine:
- Your level 1 PC is in fact a destroyer of worlds but sealed away their own power for safekeeping. Now they've been "awakened" by a need in the land. They must use their adventures to find macguffins or go to key locations or whatever to unlock their hidden powers.
- Reincarnation: you were once a badass but were utterly destroyed by the campaign's main villain. Now you've been remade by *something* to take one more crack at the BBEG. As you adventure you *remember* the skills and powers of your former self.
There's a few other ways you can try and pull this off. If you're playing a Magus for example you might say that your powers were locked away in the back of your mind but that your black blade's emergence is what is guiding you to realize your potential. If playing a sorcerer you could say that an alchemist used an eldritch formula containing dragon's blood to give you super powers but initially they turned you into a monster and you were defeated while nearly blowing up a city. Said alchemist then put bio-chemical blockers in place to dampen your powers but these are slowly wearing off the more you exert yourself.
The thing you gotta remember is: if you were a badass before and then de-powered, you might've made some badass enemies. An evil GM not fully sold on your concept might decide at 2nd level they've had enough of your shenanigans and send in some level 20 hit squad.
I think if you're going to make a background like this for your PC the GM and other players should have buy in. If for example you make a guy who was once powerful enough to level mountains and you're bound to the big bad by this, it kind of makes you the central star of the entire campaign. Your fellow players might want some of that spotlight too so you'll have to ensure this doesn't cheese off the rest of the table.
@ Vratix
I tend to agree with you on the purely attitude based handicap (the guy who doesn't want to give his all) because it implies that if he were to find his motivation then he would suddenly regain all lost ability. I prefer the stories where there is some more substantial impediment like divine punishment or forgotten skills that will take time to rebuild.
This is actually a fairly common anime/manga trope.. I'm not the fondest of it either or those sources as a whole when you get right down to it, but it has as much literary validation as wizard detectives and four dudes who have to save the world together showing up in the same tavern for no discernable reason.
Am I the only one who have a chain of characters who can trace relations to each other by family (blood & adoption), friendships, mentorship, and other associations? So long as someone remembers, the legend never truly dies. Inadvertently, one generation of Badass would raise/advise/inspire the next generation, even if they don't even follow in class.
Hopping around from Greyhawk, Faerun, Eberron, and Golarion... seeing as one can meta-rule them to be all existing simultaneously on the Material Plane, my PCs are able to trace links to each other, from blood relations to being stranded on one bad teleport-based Shanghai affair.
"Uncle" Avarice the Halfling Gish had a Warforged Paladin NPC Ally named Agrias who went on to adopt Rico the dilettante tinkerer Gnome (initially as a morality pet, then he grew on her) who went on to be ported to Golarion where he found out he was weird because he wasn't neon and found his true calling wasn't to be a Theurge but an Oracle cursed to ascend to a Hierophant... of Himself. During Rico Estaban de la Zilargo's darker moments in His journey, he went on to inspire a fey gnome/Uldra raising himself in the Wild that Power = Righteousness & Kill All Undead who went on to become a NE Druid who viewed the world in Predator-Prey cycles, Grim. The more Soap-Opera the chain, the more I love it.
Am I the only one who have a chain of characters who can trace relations to each other by family (blood & adoption), friendships, mentorship, and other associations? So long as someone remembers, the legend never truly dies. Inadvertently, one generation of Badass would raise/advise/inspire the next generation, even if they don't even follow in class.
Hopping around from Greyhawk, Faerun, Eberron, and Golarion... seeing as one can meta-rule them to be all existing simultaneously on the Material Plane, my PCs are able to trace links to each other, from blood relations to being stranded on one bad teleport-based Shanghai affair.
"Uncle" Avarice the Halfling Gish had a Warforged Paladin NPC Ally named Agrias who went on to adopt Rico the dilettante tinkerer Gnome (initially as a morality pet, then he grew on her) who went on to be ported to Golarion where he found out he was weird because he wasn't neon and found his true calling wasn't to be a Theurge but an Oracle cursed to ascend to a Hierophant... of Himself. During Rico Estaban de la Zilargo's darker moments in His journey, he went on to inspire a fey gnome/Uldra raising himself in the Wild that Power = Righteousness & Kill All Undead who went on to become a NE Druid who viewed the world in Predator-Prey cycles, Grim. The more Soap-Opera the chain, the more I love it.
Also not an uncommon trope.. Michal Moorcock's various Eternal Champions and David Gemmel's... Well pretty much everything he writes has some series or another taking place a generation or three down the line with the actual or spiritual decendants of earlier characters. I've done it the other way around before with the PCs from one of out evil games being the Big Bads in our next standard good guys game. To be fair though I think our GM just did that to give us a taste of the hair pulling frustration she had to deal with when those characters tore through her encounters like a Tsunami through a Japanese coastal city. I'm just glad said evil party was three 6 level casters <well two and a psychic warrior> and a barbarian.