But this is a discussion on roleplaying in combat
It's not about "I raise my hand and radiant light shoots out of my holy symbol" as you describe the fluff your attack
It's about the fact that people will roleplay their characters out-of-combat, but once combat starts they try to optimise their tactics, rather than do what their character would do
For example, I play an Avenger of Kord who thinks that ranged attacks are cowardly. So he will avoid ALL melee foes in order to engage that ranged attacker, that might mean taking OA's or leaving the wizard to get hammered by some melee brute
I had a rogue who tossed a coin as a free action to help decide what he would do, "Heads, I stabilise my ally... Tails, I ignore him and keep attacking". Oh and this was before i knew about Two-Face from batman
Another thing I had in mind, a defender who is sworn to protect one of his allies, and will ALWAYS mark the last foe to attack that ally
What are some other examples people have? or their thoughts/experiences on it?
Basically I'd love to collect a huge list of ways to roleplay combat, and show that list to my group so they can be inspired to roleplay in-combat as well as out-of-combat
That said, the other character was a Fighter, and he was bold, pragmatic, competitive, and impulsive. So I did my best to tone down tactical thoughts and just had him do what seemed fun/right. So, when we hit a room with various trapped squares and skeletons shooting arrows at us, while the rest of the party advanced cautiously and looked for traps, my character just charged out into the middle of the room and tried to get at the skeletons (he got grabbed by a zombie, and then spend much of the fight keeping zombies off the ranged characters). When we hit a room with kobolds raining missiles down from a ledge, with a door, and a potentially trapped zone, and the rest of the party was hesitant, my character used the run action to cross the trapped zone and get to the door in a single round.
t~
If you are pursuing avenger with high AC and melee training or retributive avenger with high hp and damage reduction - going after the cowardly artillery will actually be a memorable quirk of your character rather than annoying hindrance to the rest of the party. Although they know your character is slightly off... they also know that they can count on him to deal with any ranged threat rather that afraid to meat some ranged enemies, because one of them is enough to totally neutralize the avenger and kite him around till tomorrow.
Leaving the wizard break some sweat, healing surges and encounter powers against the mentioned brutes is also ok. Leaving him to his obvious death when the leader is out of healing and the wizard is out of evasive spells and hp is not.
Rogue tossing a coin to choose between two different but somewhat equally sound decisions is also fun. "Should I backstab my ally or jump from that cliff..." is not.
In the defender example it is also a nice quirk as long as he is not running to save his friend from a weakened kobold minion, while the wizard is having his brain eaten by two mind flayers.
In the end I don't find any difference between role playing in and out of combat. There is nothing wrong with playing your character in not always the most optimal way (but still a way leading towards the party goal), but there is a wrong in going towards the demise of the party just because "You are playing your character."
"I toss a coin... heads... and go kick the king in the nuts in front of the royal guards." is equally unacceptable compared to "My character is afraid of spiders, so I leave you to die into the trap and run back to the village... call me when you are ready rolling new characters."
Also playing a character who is incompetent in combat is ok, as long as your DM knows that and awards experience and prepares encounters with that in mind.
My characters have a tendency to be gratuitously acrobatic. My preferred tactic is to fight from the shoulders of Large enemies, even though I gain no mechanical advantage for doing so and provoke opportunity attacks from entering their squares.
I do similar.
I'm playing a taclord in one campaign who's arrogant and completely self assured, but always knows his risks. He will leap into a situation thats completely dire, knowing that he has the skills, talent, and bravado to see himself through it. He's not afraid to taking an OA in order to acheive his goals, and willing to risk his life for advantage.
He also has an aversion to killing though. A former military veteran who's seen way too much killing. When at all possible, he always seeks a chance to capture a foe than kill him....much to the chagrin of his allies...whom he thinks are "bloodthirsty bastards".
In another, I play a rogue who is tenacious never stands still. He's also got a real taste for blood letting. I use a theme song from Cypress Hill as my motivation:
So come on as cypress starts to kick it
cause were like the outlaws stridin
While suckers are hidin
Jump behind the bush when you see me drivin by
Hanging out the window
With my magnum taking out some putos
Acting kind of loco
Im just another local Kid from the street getting paid from my vocals
He was a combat chicken.
In one combat that had gone on for some time, he was getting very low on spells. None were useful. When the fighter went down he readied his action. The bad guy came toward him, got within three squares, and he acted. He threw his sword (he carried one for looks) at the creature, turned, and ran.
The rest of the party renamed him Robin. Sir Robin.
(The fighter went down. The rest were fine, but were not in positions to protect him.)
Our party was storming the mansion of a vampire lord and our barbarian crashed through the door, smashing a weaker vampire underneath. As the rest of the party stormed into the room, my dwarf sat down and made sure the smashed vampire wasn't a threat - but hammering a stake right through the door into its heart.
Second, his bookish nature and perpetual musings on the essence of reality (again, star pact warlock who teleports by warping reality) have made him somewhat... detached. He cares for his brother, the party rogue, but a lot of the time he uses tactics that harm other party members and sometimes himself. Usually this occurs when placing his hunger of Hadar zone directly on the fighter. When asked why, my character usually explains how he measured the outcomes of all his possible actions to conclude that this was the one with the most gain and least loss. Once, he even tried to jump across 10 feet of lava, despite having a teleporting spell left and an abyssmal athletics bonus; he stated that his plan required him to teleport in two more turns, then he promptly fell into the lava.
What I liked the most is that these two traits weren't pre-planned. The first one came about during a swamp fight, and the second I only noticed after my group started making jokes about how I was almost as dangerous as the enemy during a fight.
Good thing I got the Toughness feat...!
What I liked the most is that these two traits weren't pre-planned.
Those are the best kinds of traits, IMO. They just naturally come out in-game.
Here is some 'traits' that I have thought of how a PC could use a few of the examples within that particular trait:
Vengeful - Suits Striker or Defender
Focuses on a particular type of foe before attacking anyone else, due to some hate or trauma relating to that type of foe
Examples: Foes that use ranged attacks, magic, melee weapons, a type of melee weapon such as an axe wielder, a particular race, or a keyword such as undead or fire
Phobia - Suits a role that fights in melee
Avoids attacking a particular type of foe, due to some fear or trauma relating to that type of foe. Once that is the last foe remaining, the character switches from melee to ranged to defeat it, wouldn’t have to be a ranged at-will, as all PCs can throw javelins
Examples: Foes that use magic, a type of weapon such as an axe, a particular race, a type of beast such as spiders or wolves, or a keyword such as undead, fire, or psychic, or maybe a fear of heights and wont stand (or move past a square) adjacent to a pit
Random - Any role
Randomly decides what to do in combat by doing something as a free action, such as flipping a coin, throwing magical stones on the floor, or hearing voices in their head. Believes in fate or some higher power that gives him direction
Examples: Choices would be fairly simple, such as, ‘Stabilise ally or keep fighting’, ‘Focus on the brute or the artillery’, ‘Jump the pit or walk around it’, ‘Use a second wind or keep fighting’
Protector - Suits Defender or Leader
Is sworn to protect an ally due to a debt, fate, sibling, partner, god’s wishes, or dreams
Examples: Will always attack (and mark if possible) the last foe to attack that ally, prioritises stabilising and providing any form of healing to that ally, wants items and powers to buff or protect that ally
Selfish - Suits Leader, Controller, or trained in Thievery
Looks out for himself first, either doesn’t trust his allies or thinks his life is more important due to status, race, or a religious belief
Examples: Tries to save healing for himself by telling allies to use their second wind before he will heal them, wont stop to stabilise others, wont hesitate to include an ally in an area of effect attack if it hits more foes, will rush to a dropped magic item in combat claiming it is his now
Intimidating - Suits a role that is trained in Intimidate
Is a bully in the arena destroying a foe’s morale, or is physically imposing and scary
Examples: As soon as a foe becomes bloodied he tries intimidate, tries to bloody two or three foes in order to maximise his intimidate action, saves his action points to combo an intimidate action straight after bloodying an important foe
Berserker – Suits a role that fights in melee
Goes crazy when bloodied, acting much more recklessly
Examples: Tries to use second wind before getting bloodied because he doesn’t want to get mad and lose his focus as he wont use second wind once bloodied, saves his action point for when bloodied to do an extra attack, wants items and powers that trigger on bloodied, attacks the last foe to hit him when bloodied
Bloodhunter - Any role
Focuses on attacking foes that have become bloodied, due to a fascination with blood, wanting to execute the final killing blow, or tactically believes in focused fire
Examples: Will disengage versus current foe to attack another foe that has just become bloodied, wants items and powers that trigger against bloodied foes
Fearless - Suits a role that fights in melee
Wants to die in battle, dreams of a glorious death, wants to fight challenging foes that have the skill to fell him in battle, think of a Spartan in the movie 300
Examples: Never asks for healing, only uses second wind (and similar powers) when bloodied and is re-fluffed as an adrenaline rush, doesn’t start to fight defensively once he is down on hit points, healing surges, or death saves
Cautious - Suits a role that has both melee and ranged at-will attacks
Fights aggressively in melee when healthy, but once bloodied or failed a death save they fight defensively by staying back and using ranged attacks
Examples: Clerics, Druids, Bards, Avengers, Rangers, Rogues, Swordmages, Warlocks, and all have at least one melee at-will and one ranged at-will
Passive - Any role
Doesn’t use up his resources until he is bloodied (or an ally) and feels the situation is dangerous enough to warrant the extra effort, or is lazy and can’t be bothered to use bigger powers until he feels threatened
Examples: Saves encounter attack powers, daily attack powers, utility powers, racial powers, action points, and second winds until he is bloodied
Fragile - Any role
Doesn’t have the energy and focus to use powers when bloodied, due to a physical or mental weakness
Examples: Can’t use any power beyond at-wills when bloodied, and tries to use up all other powers as soon as possible, knowing he is much weaker when bloodied
She always aims for the the monsters closest to the party member with the least amount of HP. His powers are mainly ones that alter die rolls.
Anyway, so now, whenever I want to roll an intimidate check with that character, I wink and blow a kiss at my intended target.
Got myself a date with a Wymic in one mod because of it... :: Shudders ::Anyway, my other character is a Dragonborn Rogue. He's an Artful Dodger rogue and focuses on the CHA skills as well. But he goes about things a little differently. For one thing, he likes to go right up to the biggest group and baddies and breath on them with his Dragonbreath power. Then, he hopes the rest of the party comes into melee so he can get some flanking going on.
My best memory with him - We were in a mod fighting a group of soldiers and my rogue walked up to them (they were in phalynx formation) and just breathed on them to open combat. It was awesome!... up until I rolled misses on all but one of them. I took my lumps though and almost died in that combat. Thank goodness for Warlords who have a heart. * Somebody - Help, I'm dying over here!
* Selfish Character - No healing for you, I need it all! Now get out of my way, I want that item!
* Rest of Party, after the battle - Selfish Character, we don't think we can trust you. We're not going to travel with you any more, and we think we'd be better off without your "help" on this quest.
And some of the trait behaviors seem a bit overspecific, in a robotic way. Protecting a particular ally above all else is fine. Focusing on a random kobold who was the last person to attack that ally, when the nearby dragon poses much more of a threat to them, seems like bad AI.
I mean, real people are influenced by their personality traits, but they're also influenced by the situation. Even the most fastidious individual is going to prefer running through some mud to being eaten alive by a giant centipede. And people who face life and death battles frequently tend to use tactics that keep them alive.
Set formulas for your behavior can make a memorable character, but a very 2-dimensional one.
Over time your arrogant character might take enemies up on perceived challenges, or shout throughout a fight how great he is -- until he's knocked out the first time.
The "cowardly" character might avoid melee and take extra steps to keep out of range even when not strictly necessary ("I shift backward first") or roleplay his misses when in melee as a frantic lack of concentration, shouting, "Eek, get them away from me!"
A defender might take it personally when a particular enemy either ignores him or is a little too interested in his party members, and devote some measure of taunting or powers to getting the monsters' attention again even if his own condition isn't that great.
But those things presented in the post above are I agree very "robotic" and unthinking. To doggedly pursue such character traits goes clearly into being a character "flaw" of serious proportions. If you have proclivities to act certain ways that's fine, as can being vocal about "Bronwon doesn't want to deal with the scrawny looking guys, does Bronwon have to?"
But giving so much power over your actions to your enemies is not much removed from being a random component which might be a healing sink for the party. Just a bull charging after a red flag.
When the other party members are making plans, your character very well may be left out as a "wild card" which hopefully will benefit their tactics rather than hinder them.
Remember, people do things they don't strictly "want" to do all the time, because it makes so much more sense to do so. Adventurers usually do what they have to do, influenced by their personalities. If they can't do what they have to do, they get themselves and maybe their party killed.
This has led my ranger, whose personality is a bit bloody, developing a bit of a "nobody gets out alive" mentality.
Now, just in general, my ranger has a habit of taking a double-run or run-charge action in combat, and pretty much the whole party is now using run actions to get around quickly during fights since most of our battles are outdoors so there's plenty of space to avoid taking OA's.
However, in the past two or three battles, my ranger has taken to running after anyone who even looks like they may be backing up or trying to disengage, chasing them hell-and-gone all over the map, Twin Striking with her long bow until they drop.
Twice so far, I've actually taken a double-run, then blown an action point for another run action to run past the opponent before turning around to shoot at them again.
Also, the ranger has memorized the faces and descriptions of every human, goblin and gnoll that's ever gotten away, so that she can hunt them down if they ever cross paths again. :D
Now, this trait came about as an accident, when I realized that during just about every RP, my character has pulled out a pipe and started smoking, so now I've made smoking a habit, something he does particularly when he's nervous. Right before one epic battle, where our characters were deployed on the front lines to defend a half-ogre city from an approaching army of kobolds/fanatical worshippers of Faluzure, my character stood in front of all the others, crossbow in hand, and watched as the horde came charging towards the city. After loading my crossbow, my character pulled out his pipe, tamped down some pipe weed, and lit up. The entire fight, his pipe never left his mouth.
Another thing about Roan (that's the characters name) is that, before the campaign, he had pledged his life to protect his companion and love interest (played by my girlfriend) Analee Robitussin, a halfling cleric/wizard. In the huge, final encounter of that battle, she got dropped to -3 HP, and my character immediately dashed over to her, stood over her unconcious body, and started fighting like a madman. After downing two kobolds at near point blank range, my character ran out of ammo in his current clip and, rather than waste the time on reloading, he used his crossbow as a club to down one more kobold. He than dropped his crossbow and drew out his handaxe and shortsword and kept fighting and alternatively attempting to stabilize Analee (which didn't take long, he had max ranks in heal).
Eventually, it came down to just myself and one Faluzure Fanatic, when the fanatic closed I immediately jumped on him, won my grapple check, and ripped him to pieces with my handaxe. The DM also let me bite off a chunk of his ear.
There's a rogue who acts like a defender. Charging into the fray because his character has the attention span of a 7 year old, not bothering to dodge unless it means gaining combat advantage and immediately going after the biggest threat on the field. Considering he has the highest initiative count this usually means he is stranded in the middle of the field with little too no support... He usually falls unconscious 3 times as often as the rest of the party.
Our wizard is a neurotic Tiefling mercenary who is afraid of most, if not all physical contact and has geared ALL of her gear (except for implements) and all of her utility powers to staying the **** out of melee combat. She will often forgo her controlling role for a turn in order to stay away from physical combat.
Finally, we have our spell-scarred, changeling bard. He is a walking swiss-army knife with as many items as you could possibly imagine, he will often spend his entire turn tossing items to the party in order to set up for a ridiculous plan to win the encounter (he took Planeshifter for his paragon path for extra dickery options), the funny thing is, it usually works. The party managed to to defeat the main villain of one of my arcs 4 levels early thanks to a plan involving wall-walker boots, an ebony fly, a radiant scabbard and an exodus knife...
When the big undead monster fell to the ground at the end of the dungeon, I was left thinking 'gee, this was a nasty monster but has NOTHING to do with the quest we were on'. So I had my character turn around, walk out of the room and head back down the stairs to try to find a secret door or another passage we'd missed.
The other players instead continued to attack the dead undead monster or spend actions to continue their encounter effects because they knew the adventure script was that the monster gets back up and keep fighting.
Bizarre enough, even though this encounter had absolutely nothing to do with the beginning of the adventure that was a bunch of Gnolls on a rampage because they thought their god was telling them to do so, it really was meant to be the final encounter of the adventure.
I wonder if that module was really two totally seperate adventures that were somehow cut in half and pasted haphazardly together.
