Thought Critical Hit is distributed to the masses every Saturday, of late we have been recording the actual shows on Wednesday evening, and as of this writing, a C.H. session is scheduled for tonight. (Wish me luck, my dice have been wonky lately.) The duration of this campaign makes it officially my second-longest running game of all time, and I always enjoy playing young Halston Thorquelson, but sometimes I like to consider what type of character I might want to play in a (completely theoretical) new session. Would I want to be a striker? A leader? A shape-shifting creature? A butcher, a baker, a candle-stick maker? How about Englebert Slaptyback?
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is leaning towards a character base of either Captain Marvelous or Bob Saget, asking: If you were rolling up a new character right this instant, what would it be?
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I’ve been wanting to play a fighter. A man trying to live up to his ideal of what his father and a fallen knighthood was (a Strum Brightblade esque character). While the rest of the world believes that the knights were corrupt and the order was destroyed by a league of nations.
Today? A straight up Tim. I want something where I can sit back and throw fireballs. I’ve been playing paladins and fighters a lot lately and I was something a bit more… magic.
‘Round these parts, we call that the old Zappy Kablammicus.
I would roll a Rogue in a hand-to hand supporting role. Someone who can shift around the battlefield easily.
For personality, someone who fell in love with the wrong girl and had to flee mere steps ahead of the girl’s rather angry family.
In DnD?
Stromsorcerer. Maybe a Halfling or so.
In games i am actually playing?
Apocalypse World
Savyhead – a weird techie with an unnatural fixation for lightning. The one above is inspired by this one.
Apocalypse World is a great game. I’m currently playing a Gunlugger named Stump in my group’s homebrew sci-fi setting. He has his own gang and runs a brothel on a derelict space station with an iron fist.
yeah!
Awesome!
That’s a coink. I was considering a Rogue who runs a brothel in a DnD setting
A zen Minotaur monk whose worldview is built on the idea that life is a labyrinth with obstacles, traps, walls dead ends, etc. After every major event in his life he uses a series of shaped brands to burn his own ‘life’s labyrinth’ into a large quarter staff that is his own life story. Or a dwarf.
In my 3.5 game, if it restarted… I would like to play a warlock. Just having one basic ability that can be modified to my ultimate specifications? Yes. As for backstory, his father is a warlock of asmodeus, but he will have no idea till around 5th level. Then it will all be about his struggle with being inherently evil.
An Artificer, without any doubt. While Randis is an inspiration, a friend of mine played one in a one-shot who was just constantly filling jars and vials of random stuff we found to use in his “experiments”. It was a real mad-scientist kinda vibe that was a lot of fun. In the final encounter the main creature was just a bit too tough and he threw a jar of fire-beetle guts at it. He crit on the roll so the DM had the fire guts burn it’s eyes and blind it, dropping it’s defenses just enough so we could start hitting. It was a great RP moment.
I always have extra idea brewing in the back of my mind, waiting for a campaign or scenario to fit into.
There is the fighter who is an earnest (kind of new-age-like) believer in the teachings of a guru, who is actually a con man whose guru-teachings are entirely made up to attract wealthy followers and give the a reason to part with their money.
Then there is the almost-recovered spoiled rich girl fighter, who is loyal and fearless and will hack through a mob of undead without pause…and then refuse to walk through a swamp because, you know, it’s unhygenic and there are probably monster tapeworms living there.
And my current D&D Next character is a wizard who is ever so slightly bipolar and ever so slightly paranoid, adventuring while also delving into the Secrets Men Were Not Meant to Know.
A battle-scarred Warforged fighter, who has slaughtered hundreds in his automated frenzies at the behest of his now deceased master, witnesses love and compassion and decides he must search for a ritual to transform him into flesh and blood.
My friends back in high school tried to get me to play D&D and I told them it would only happen if I could be Ash from Army of Darkness. They told me no, as they would not allow a chainsaw and boomstick in their game. Today he would still be my choice. What would he be anyway? Rogue/Mechromancer?
No offense meant, but if you really want to get the most out of D&D you need to have an open mind about roleplaying and be able to work your character into the story the DM and the other players want to craft. If you only want to play on the condition you get the EXACT character you saw in a movie that is not even a creation of your own imagination… then I’m guessing you really just don’t want to play D&D.
For D&D, I’ve always wanted to try an Illithid (Mind Flayer) Necromancer. Either an adversary (look it up!) or somehow bound/enslaved to one of the other characters to explain why it is part of the group.
For Star Wars, Twi’lek Smuggler (as in a Twi’lek who is a smuggler, not someone who smuggles Twi’leks).
A bard.
I’d like to try a dwarven defender or similar. I always enjoy playing tanks and the like.
As fun as it is to play a super-intelligent mastermind who always stays a step ahead of his or her foes, there’s something to be said for the simple pleasure of a character who takes a haymaker, spits out a few of a seemingly endless supply of teeth and jumps right back into the fray.
I’ve never gotten a chance to play D&D because of not having any friends in the area, but I want to really badly! I used some character creator sites to make a few characters a little while back, including a female eladrin cleric/wizard with long pretty hair named Ilyrianna of the Powder Forest (yes, yes, it sounds very sparkly unicorny, doesn’t it?) and a wizard named Arkady who is basically a wizard librarian and a massive polyglot (based on a character from a book I’m writing).
Sarah
If you want to get your feet wet with D&D, there is a virtual community that play on RPGTableonline.com – it is free to join and there is a community forum for ongoing games, one-shots and such. Also wizards of the coast have a community site where new games are posted which is free to join http://community.wizards.com/dndbeta
Gehrigan
A wizard by the moniker “Dr. Sarcophagus,” dressed as a mummy despite being entirely alive. He carries around a stolen canopic jar which contains the liver of a legendary magi. The liver and wizard hate each other immensely: the liver resents the disruption of his eternal peace, so he refuses to reveal the secrets of immortality. It is unclear if the jar actually has some sort of innate psychic connection with the doctor, or if he is just super crazy and walks around yelling at a jar.
I’d play a shepherd. A shepherd of sheep, no less. None of this men shepherding nonsense.
He’s have a sheep dog as an animal companion. Or maybe a sheep. (Or both!) His weapons would be a product of his occupation. He’d have a knife made out of a broken sheerer. Probably a sling or, even better, a Shepherd’s Crook/Hook Staff.
The character class would probably be a ranger of some kind. A quiet sort, he just sort of sits around and watches all day and play the harp. Because, when all you normally do is watch sheep all day, you got to do something. Maybe it would be a bard cross-classed with a ranger? I don’t know. All I know is I would play a shepherd.
I’m actually sitting at my job currently toying with some character ideas for D&D 3.5. Trying to decide between a rogue and a ninja because I’m not sure if I would want to focus more on social tomfoolery or on straight up combat awesome.
I also have some ideas for a barbarian, but I can’t decide which race I’d want to choose for his smashy goodness.
A human monk who isn’t really getting the whole serene contemplation thing. His abbot sends him out adventuring because he’s having difficulty meditating when he could totally be kicking a dude in the head right now, man!
I have a monk just like that set aside for Encounters, if the party doesn’t go too striker-heavy for a change (unlikely, since the new players we’re currently breaking in seem to really enjoy getting their hands dirty). He’s a Stone Fist monk, so his fighting style is less “Hong Kong action flick” and more “enraged hockey player.”
I would play a Warforged Avenger named Chef, he has seen so much and battled so many evils that he sought out a pursuit that gave him pleasure and was helpful to others. His lack of taste/smell is a large impediment to him accomplishing being a fantastic chef but he does have the techniques down pat. He continues questing in the hope of finding a way to actually experience food/dining as living beings can.
I’m currently playing a goblin druid who is the comic relief for our group, so I would be interested in something a bit more serious, but still light. I have this fun idea for a halfling paladin with a riding dog, but is otherwise straight paladin. That’s probably where I might go at the moment.
I’ve always been a fan of the classic Legolas style arrow-flinging ranger types. I think one of those with an animal companion (Sterling, from Reed Gunther perhaps?) could be a lot of fun…
Actually, maybe drop Legolas and turn Reed Gunther into an arrow-flinging ranger type :-)
If I were rolling up a character right now, it would be for Encounters, and it would probably be a leader or controller to round out the party, since everyone wants to just hit things really hard. I’d probably go with a wizard, because I’ve played clerics and sentinel druids to death.
How about a Wizard with a classic western gunfighter’s mentality. Always looking to “high noon” the other side’s spell casters, maybe with an odd need to make things a “challenge.”
viking dwarf kitten
Malevolent banana sarcasm elemental.
You could make Munchkin cards.
I’d want to roll up an Eladrin Barbarian and flavor the spirits and rages as arcane energy that drives him into psychotic homicidal rages. Possibly the result of some freak encounter with a mad scientist wizard. All the shouts and primal powers would be bursts of arcane energy he releases.
Carrot Top as a Half Dwarf
Mathew, you, me, and my cousins dog know that you want to play a bard so bad it hurts your brain. I listen to the show, I can hear the contempt in you’re voice as the people around you make overly complicated plans. Give in to the darkside and be the senselessly over complicated character of your dreams.
Mmm… I would like to say that I do not have contempt for my fellow players. Everybody on the squad brings their own awesome to the table in C.H. and it’s the combination of Rob’s strategery, Stephen’s flair for the dramatic, Brian’s understanding of underlying principles, Adriana’s exuberance, Rodrigo’s wonderful world-building and whatever the hell it is I bring to the table that makes the show awesome. :)
That said, I would enjoy playing a bard, even though I have no idea how they work in Fourth Ed.
I’d probably make a half-elf shaman with a humongous bear as a spirit companion. I did have one half-elf shaman that I played with a party of degenerates in a single session of a campaign doomed to fail from the start. After the battling, hung-over wizard had burned the tavern to the ground, I knew this was going nowhere. That made me sad, because I loved my knowing, wise-beyond-his-years shaman who was amazing at all his skill checks. While it sounds a bit like a Marty Stu, all I really wanted to play was a competent healer.
I’ve had fun at Encounters playing a dwarf rogue: much more Indiana Jones than Artful Dodger. At the last Encounters I DM’ed and let one of the players sell me on a singing bug character. Actually, a thri-kreen bard that uses its forelegs as a musical instrument. And at one point my nine-year-old daughter wanted to play a fairy princess so I created a pixie sentinel with a spirit wolf companion/mount for her. She created a tragic backstory of a destroyed magic grove, animal friends dispersed, and an enemy to hunt down.
Warforged Barbarian.
I’d probably also give it a focus on charging with a greatspear. Because that could be terrifying.
I’d make a medium armored guy who can dodge. Mildly strong with a sword and board. Focus on defense and grabbing the attention of the smashy things. He would taunt enemies and come up with clever plans. I usually end up as comic relief rather than group leader so the plans will probably just be silly.
A character I built for a one shot that never got played, a dragonborn paladin of Ioun. The guy had a decent intelligence and had multi-classed sorcerer for the whole magic side of things. His armour was covered in writing (in draconic script) and he would defend the innocent an all that, but he would always have tried to save books and what not.
In 3.5 i have been toying with they idea that goes against the stereo types, such as a gnome barbarian or a half ork or dwarven monk.
in d20 modern i would like to try a parkour (no idea on spelling) fast hero that uses long range weapons or a smart hero that makes fun new weapons.