Post/Author/DateTime	Post
gammelpot 10-13-03, 11:08 AM	hi i would like some input,on some background ideers for my charecter , he is a contrakt killer what drives a man to become a hitman. i would like some ideers from you guys he is an archer (sniper). i was thinking that he, would be some kind of neutral. when he is on the job, he is a coldhearted, but when he is at home he's cheerfull. dossent care about alot of peoble except his family and friend(s) he got a brother and a sister, they dont know what he for a living. he has one true friend, a halfling thief, they work together, stealing, killing. thanks for all your help
The_Yellow_Dart_Swinger 10-13-03, 12:44 PM	Well when your talking about hitmen and the such, they are motivated usually by: Money or the sheer joy of killing. Those are probably the main reason's a person becomes a contract killer to kill random people. As for alignment you have to look at what motivates them. Chances are if your killing innocent people then your character would fall into a evil catagory, or if you don't want that, you could say neutral with evil tendicies. You'll probably want to make him a lawful for the simple thing that he probably has some rules which he follows IE: Doesn't kill children. Or he has some sort of standard proceder that he does, like watching a target instead of just randomly showing up and killing him/her.
Gingerbread Guy 10-13-03, 01:10 PM	Hiho, Okay, lets discuss alignment first. Killing people isn't inherently evil, but doing it for money pretty much is. The only way I can see him not being evil is if he only takes contracts for jobs in which he truely believes he's doing a good thing [ie, taking out the bad guys and profiting from it] but that would make him a very, very poor man. I suggest he be Neutral Evil, based on what you say. Don't forget, Evil characters can still have friends and people they like. Its a common misconception that evil characters will kill their friends over a mug of ale - not always so. As for what drives a guy to being a hitman? There are probably a lot of reasons. Any decision that big has to be complex. I can see two good routes.. a) He was driven into the field by necessity. Maybe he was poor or blackmailed or something. Maybe he started killing "the bad guys", and then his definition of "bad guy" got a little shakey. Either way, now he's growing decensitized to it all, and tries not to think about it. As long as he doesn't ask himself the difficult questions, he doesn't feel guilty. b) He LIKES to kill, and when he figured out that people would pay him for it [probably realised this at a young age] he started training himself to be good at it. Sometimes he'll do it for free, or if he really hates the SOB he's out to kill. In terms of what equipment to use, if you're going to snipe, I suggest a light crossbow. I know, the bow seems like a natural choice, but trust me, the crossbow is the better sniping weapon because you don't have to hold the string back while you wait for the perfect shot. Take copious quantities of Craft (poisonmaking) and get yourself some nice poisons when you have the time and money. Sneak Attack, Sneak Attack, Sneak Attack. Need I say more? Adopt the Assassin Prestige Class. Its perfect for you. ~Ginger
eudas 10-13-03, 01:28 PM	Well, i don't know about you, but poor grammar and spelling make me think about justifiable homocide. :) Just kidding.. it sounds like you probably just saw 'Road to Perdition', or something. In the case of that movie, Tom Hanks' character got into 'the biz' out of a sense of debt.. his employer helped him and his family out when they really needed it, and through the work he did, his boss made him prosperous. (Alignment is arguable, but I guess I'd say NG.) If you think about 'Grosse Point Blank', John Cusack's character kind of 'just fell into it' as well; straight out of high school, he went into the military, and fit a particular CIA profile for a loose sense of morality, and after he got out of that he kind of went into biz for himself, since that was what he was good at. It wasn't even that he did it out of a sense of greed, or evil, it was just what he was good at... he was very neutral about it all. (Again, alignment is arguable, but I'd probably say true neutral.) There's also 'The Professional', where he works out of a sense of debt to his employer, and it's just what he's good at (mainly by virtue of having done it for so long, but that's another subject). Personally, none of these characters are inherently evil, IMO, but of course D&D assumes that assassination is evil, and hence the alignment requirement on the Assassin PRC. I guess a DM could argue a change from 'Any Evil' to 'Any non-lawful' on the alignment requirements, depending on the specifics of their campaign, but *shrug*. I think one thing to focus on your character is the sneak/hide/bluff skills. In a society, if you kill somebody, most of your work is not going to just be in killing the target, but also in making sure that you don't get caught. Alibis, cleaning up after yourself (ie, leaving no evidence), remaining anonymous, procuring and disposing of equipment, always having an 'out' (a la Robert DeNiro's character in 'Heat'), etc. On the subject of bows vs crossbows, don't forget also the hand crossbow, and the covered hand crossbow... though do keep in mind the rule from 'The Professional'.. "the better you are, the closer you can get to the target". A rogue/wizard/Arcane Trickster/Assassin character could easily do some things and get into areas that a pure rogue/Assassin character would find more difficult. Just another $0.02, eudas
gammelpot 10-13-03, 04:04 PM	Gingerbread Guy, i like the first one you wrote alot, i think thats the one i was looking for. he started out killing bad guys and he cant really tell the difference, so now he's killing for money. thank you guys for your replies :)