moon elf ranger [Archive] - Wizards Community

moon elf ranger [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
MonkeyPaladin
11-30-03, 09:25 PM Hey, I'm the one who started that never ending "how do I play a female character" thread a while back. I'm still playing the character but I'd like to talk about her a little more in depth.

Rianneth (pretty much called Rianna by everyone) is a 7th level moon elf ranger in our FR campaign. Her stats are Str 16, Dex 19 (soon to be 20) Con 14 (originally 13), Int 13, Wis 14, and Chr 10. I went with the two weapon route, and also gave her weapon focus: shortswords, two weapon defense, and diehard. Her skills are fairly standard for a ranger. She's neutral good and worships Mielikki. Her favored enemies are orcs (background) and evil outsiders (come up in game a lot). I picked up a wolf as a companion; she has trained it some but it is still fairly wild.

I had a decent length background, basically she was from Evermeet but wasn't happy with the reclusive lifestyle and headed for the mainland. She followed a female human ranger for a while and was trained by her until the mentor was injured. Setting off on her own, Rianna went to Suzail, Cormyr and joined together with with a couple other adventurers to investigate mysteries.

She has taken some abuse in melee, leading to the con bump and the diehard feat, so I play her as fairly tough despite the elven stereotype. Though we are all good aligned, the rest of the party is more willing to morally compromise than she is, so I play that up a bit as well (though this has more to do with the players than the characters).

I like Rianna a lot but am having trouble developing her personality. Although the DM encourages rp to an extent, we still remain a primarily combat based group. Combined with the fact that we don't get together as often as we'd like and we've been alternating D&D with *cough* Rifts, I don't seem to be getting anywhere with her personality. Not only that, but it's actually harder to roleplay her than it was originally for 3 primary reasons.

1) Another ranger joined the party, an aaracockra. He has all the same skills and tends to be as or more effective at tracking, etc. despite the level hit.
2)She's the default melee character. Elven rangers are hardly designed to do that. Though she has four attacks a round, she doesn't do a lot of damage and takes abuse.
3)Her charisma is low. I didn't play her as one of those sex fantasies like some people, but I didn't want to be referred to as the "ugly chick" either. It's getting annoying.

I like her but don't know if I should replace her with a new character, probably a male fighter/barbarian with a spiked chain or something cheesy like that. It's not like the rp will get anywhere and I might as well stop getting smacked around. If anyone has some advice I would appreciate it.
Jadeforest
11-30-03, 09:46 PM 1. Don't worry about it so much, DnD is team based so just support each other. I'm sure there are things his ranger doesn't do quite as well as yours and that is okay.

2. I'd suggest a few things;
a take a class or prc that grants sneak attack
b take a class or prc that gives you a d10 or d12 for hp
c buff your ac and hp up as much as possible
d take some bow feats so you can do a combination of both. ie wearing the enemies down before they get to you, then switching to melee, might be feat intensive however.
e take leadership and try to get a fighter cohort so you can flank and be max effective.

3. Charisma has no real relation to physical attractiveness. Ugly people can be the greatest people to hang out with, and pretty people can be total a**holes that everyone hates. Maybe she looks pretty good, but because everyone flaunts attention to her it has annoyed her (imagine hundreds of years of this) she is a tad withdrawn and even 'mean' around those people because she considers them 'fake.'

Really the only way to develop a personality is to sit down and think about her. What ticks her off? Makes her laugh? Cry? Is she tough outside but fragile inside? If it helps don't think of her as a female, just a person. Things like sex etc don't come up very often in DnD games so gender doesn't mean much. PCs and campaigns (usually) concentrate around fighting monsters, finding treasure and accomplishing the impossible.
Lord of the Ninth
11-30-03, 11:23 PM First, don't say "Suggestions for Roleplaying" because that is what the entire board is for. That's like going to the Monsters Lair Forum and saying "monster". Say somehting about your character, like "moon elf ranger", or something [mutter FR mutter].

Now to your character, I'd be kinda ****** OOC if someone was playing a ranger when I was playing a ranger. If it's the DM then hopefully it won't be a perminate NPC. But this does kind of seem like an intentional attempt to cramp your style, and that's not koshar. Now if you want to give you character personality I have a few reccomendations, first go to This Site (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/character_questionnaire.asp) , when answer most of these questions you will know a great deal about your character.

Also, it is very important to think of how your character is different from yourself, because generally we roleply by doing one of two things: being ourselves, or being cardboard cut outs of our bare-bones character concept (especially paladins). So what you should do, is when ever something happens think of how you would respond, and then think of how Rianneth is different from you in that situation (most of the time you don't need to do this quite this way, because "well I would normally run from the firebreathign wolf, but Rianna would know that she can take it). But sometimes it helps.

Also, stand up for yourself and your character, never let the rest of the party define your niche. If you aren't supposed to be a melee monster, then don't let them put you on the front lines. However, if you play a class with a full BAB, and you take feats that only work in melee combat people will assume that you will be fighting melee more often then people who do not play that type of character, this is only logical.
Ithilorien
11-30-03, 11:24 PM On the other hand, if you're truly becoming tired of the character, it might be time for a switch.

I'm always made fun of by my D&D group because I tend to want to switch characters every few sessions, but sometimes a character just isn't that fun to play, and perhaps you want to try something different.

In that case you should by all means feel free to start up another.

Not sure I'd recommend the cheesy barbarian, however . . .
MonkeyPaladin
12-01-03, 03:20 PM Thanks, LotN. I changed the topic and am checking out the site. I've seen questionaires before, though; I'm really wondering how I could play this characer better.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MonkeyPaladin 11-30-03, 09:25 PM	Hey, I'm the one who started that never ending "how do I play a female character" thread a while back. I'm still playing the character but I'd like to talk about her a little more in depth. Rianneth (pretty much called Rianna by everyone) is a 7th level moon elf ranger in our FR campaign. Her stats are Str 16, Dex 19 (soon to be 20) Con 14 (originally 13), Int 13, Wis 14, and Chr 10. I went with the two weapon route, and also gave her weapon focus: shortswords, two weapon defense, and diehard. Her skills are fairly standard for a ranger. She's neutral good and worships Mielikki. Her favored enemies are orcs (background) and evil outsiders (come up in game a lot). I picked up a wolf as a companion; she has trained it some but it is still fairly wild. I had a decent length background, basically she was from Evermeet but wasn't happy with the reclusive lifestyle and headed for the mainland. She followed a female human ranger for a while and was trained by her until the mentor was injured. Setting off on her own, Rianna went to Suzail, Cormyr and joined together with with a couple other adventurers to investigate mysteries. She has taken some abuse in melee, leading to the con bump and the diehard feat, so I play her as fairly tough despite the elven stereotype. Though we are all good aligned, the rest of the party is more willing to morally compromise than she is, so I play that up a bit as well (though this has more to do with the players than the characters). I like Rianna a lot but am having trouble developing her personality. Although the DM encourages rp to an extent, we still remain a primarily combat based group. Combined with the fact that we don't get together as often as we'd like and we've been alternating D&D with cough Rifts, I don't seem to be getting anywhere with her personality. Not only that, but it's actually harder to roleplay her than it was originally for 3 primary reasons. 1) Another ranger joined the party, an aaracockra. He has all the same skills and tends to be as or more effective at tracking, etc. despite the level hit. 2)She's the default melee character. Elven rangers are hardly designed to do that. Though she has four attacks a round, she doesn't do a lot of damage and takes abuse. 3)Her charisma is low. I didn't play her as one of those sex fantasies like some people, but I didn't want to be referred to as the "ugly chick" either. It's getting annoying. I like her but don't know if I should replace her with a new character, probably a male fighter/barbarian with a spiked chain or something cheesy like that. It's not like the rp will get anywhere and I might as well stop getting smacked around. If anyone has some advice I would appreciate it.
Jadeforest 11-30-03, 09:46 PM	1. Don't worry about it so much, DnD is team based so just support each other. I'm sure there are things his ranger doesn't do quite as well as yours and that is okay. 2. I'd suggest a few things; a take a class or prc that grants sneak attack b take a class or prc that gives you a d10 or d12 for hp c buff your ac and hp up as much as possible d take some bow feats so you can do a combination of both. ie wearing the enemies down before they get to you, then switching to melee, might be feat intensive however. e take leadership and try to get a fighter cohort so you can flank and be max effective. 3. Charisma has no real relation to physical attractiveness. Ugly people can be the greatest people to hang out with, and pretty people can be total a**holes that everyone hates. Maybe she looks pretty good, but because everyone flaunts attention to her it has annoyed her (imagine hundreds of years of this) she is a tad withdrawn and even 'mean' around those people because she considers them 'fake.' Really the only way to develop a personality is to sit down and think about her. What ticks her off? Makes her laugh? Cry? Is she tough outside but fragile inside? If it helps don't think of her as a female, just a person. Things like sex etc don't come up very often in DnD games so gender doesn't mean much. PCs and campaigns (usually) concentrate around fighting monsters, finding treasure and accomplishing the impossible.
Lord of the Ninth 11-30-03, 11:23 PM	First, don't say "Suggestions for Roleplaying" because that is what the entire board is for. That's like going to the Monsters Lair Forum and saying "monster". Say somehting about your character, like "moon elf ranger", or something [mutter FR mutter]. Now to your character, I'd be kinda ****** OOC if someone was playing a ranger when I was playing a ranger. If it's the DM then hopefully it won't be a perminate NPC. But this does kind of seem like an intentional attempt to cramp your style, and that's not koshar. Now if you want to give you character personality I have a few reccomendations, first go to This Site (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/character_questionnaire.asp) , when answer most of these questions you will know a great deal about your character. Also, it is very important to think of how your character is different from yourself, because generally we roleply by doing one of two things: being ourselves, or being cardboard cut outs of our bare-bones character concept (especially paladins). So what you should do, is when ever something happens think of how you would respond, and then think of how Rianneth is different from you in that situation (most of the time you don't need to do this quite this way, because "well I would normally run from the firebreathign wolf, but Rianna would know that she can take it). But sometimes it helps. Also, stand up for yourself and your character, never let the rest of the party define your niche. If you aren't supposed to be a melee monster, then don't let them put you on the front lines. However, if you play a class with a full BAB, and you take feats that only work in melee combat people will assume that you will be fighting melee more often then people who do not play that type of character, this is only logical.
Ithilorien 11-30-03, 11:24 PM	On the other hand, if you're truly becoming tired of the character, it might be time for a switch. I'm always made fun of by my D&D group because I tend to want to switch characters every few sessions, but sometimes a character just isn't that fun to play, and perhaps you want to try something different. In that case you should by all means feel free to start up another. Not sure I'd recommend the cheesy barbarian, however . . .
MonkeyPaladin 12-01-03, 03:20 PM	Thanks, LotN. I changed the topic and am checking out the site. I've seen questionaires before, though; I'm really wondering how I could play this characer better.