From past experience, the DM that is beginning a Dungeon Crawl campaign is not very reliable. Both times he's attempted to begin a campaign (including the one I was introduced to D&D with), the campaign only lasted two sessions.
I've spent a lot of time on my character, Gregor Silverbeard, building a background and character that I thoroughly enjoy. None of the three other characters I've made come close in how much I liked them, and I haven't even played with this one yet.
So, if this falls through, I'm hoping I can find another group that will allow me to play that character, as long as he's not too high of a level.
What is your experience with this? Have you ever carried a character over to another campaign? Did you have to change background elements to fit him in? How well did it work out?
My suggestion:
Don't get attached to the character sheet, but keep the background, and make the character ready for about anything. Don't stat anything out, and most, well, if you ask nicely, most DMs will let you play a character that you are already invested in.
I've played with people who play the "Same" character. Every campaign.
My suggestion:
Don't get attached to the character sheet, but keep the background, and make the character ready for about anything. Don't stat anything out, and most, well, if you ask nicely, most DMs will let you play a character that you are already invested in.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to play as Silverbeard forever. But if there are only two sessions of this campaign, he still has a lot more juice to him, a lot more roleplaying value that hasn't come close to being played out. No use wasting a character I like so much.
And yes, I primarily mean his background. I like his stats and such, but it's the background the personality that makes me love the character already. I just want a chance to actually roleplay as him.
In 3E character porting was frowned upon. The rules don't even discuss the possibility. With more variety of character builds, it wasn't even necessary. Players usually wanted to try out different things. Players joining a group would just create a new character. However, adjusting for any house rules, there was nothing stopping a player from recreating a character he played before. It wouldn't be the same character, but it could have the same class, feats, and personality, and no one else would know or need to know.
Since 4E is a simple system (my opinion), I suppose it would be easy to port characters again. The only thing the new DM would need to check are any previous game house rule stuff, if any, that affected game mechanics or DM-made magic items.
My first 4th Edition character, Coal Glomhammer the Dwarven Cleric, has become my stock NPC who turns up to help out any party who's short on members.
A thief/assassin/ninja~esk based class called Ryal Crossblade. When at all possible, he keeps most of his face covered, if not all. He refuses to use poisons; and while not evil, he's definitely not good. He'll kill the bad guy because it's the right think to do, but then ignore the little orphan boy who's now comatose because the Tiefling Wizard killed the kid's bully in agreement for the kid to be a worshiper of the Wizard; all because Ryal's busy drinking a beer to forget that the rest of the party is outside summoning skeletons to try and fight/spar amongst each other. (That was an interesting group)
And on top of all that, I think he's least kleptomaniac thief I've ever known.
Actually, he's a more boring/less comically inclined, yet more resourceful side of my own personality when I was in my early 20s.
Add-on:
Oh! And then I have a warrior-healer persona. His name always seems to change, but he's always some sort of paladin or fighter/cleric that wields large... somethings! This time around, in my solo campaign with my gf; he wields a large great sword; in an MMORPG I played a few months ago, he was a paladin that specialized in big heavy shields that he'd use as a weapon. Personality-wise, aside from loving weapons, he is very protective and duty bound to those he loves and/or has sworn an oath to.
I think the above was an adaptation of a duel-wielding fighter how was my first RP'ed character ever (and I reuse from time to time too); Ganlo Stonefist. A green spikey haired naive warrior. He would try to befriend a lich if he could because "his glowing eyes totally make him look bad*ss!". Think fighter from 8bit, but more observant and witty... but still naive. Ok, yes, he can get annoying; a god of the realm in the text based MUDD actually turned him into an 8 year old, which somehow made him worse. (Granted, it was a reward for worshiping him; and the god was a living book/"buk"). Ganlo also has an older monk brother, Aruden, who is overly protective, but unable to use or channel magic of any sort due to blunt force damage taken to his skull as a child... when Ganlo threw a toy sword at cornered wildcat in a tree, and the sword came down at Aruden's head. (Played by my best friend at the time, we had good RP moments after Ganlo's reverse aging).
Each DM was free to assign rewards and magical objects to the characters. The DMs (I was one of them) discussed from time to time eventual balance issues, mainly item dependant, to avoid problems. We played with those characters for a long time (at the end the most experienced were in the 35-40th level range as we used High Level Campaign).
4e makes things even easier as it's much more balanced than 2e. I think that reasonable DMs can easily play interwoven campaigns.
Some characters from that campaign:
Gabriel Do'Urden: he was the son of Vierna, born during her exile. Started as a Drizzt clone and ended up as a dual classed fighter/cleric of the Sun God (quite a change). Final levels were 17/26.
Dagor: human half gold dragon, rejected by his father. He was a fighter with psionic wild talents. Final level around 35.
Laran Na'Chieri: our good human necromancer. Final level around 35.
Amerasu: aasimar fighter/cleric of the Bleak Cabal. Final level around 15/15.
She worked as a cook at the Asylum in Sigil during her "downtime".
When a DM in my new gaming group decided to start a game, with 3rd level characters. So I dusted off the old warlock, wrote up a low-level version, and showed new DM the back-story. He loved it. We worked together to adapt it to his campaign setting, and in the end it was a very good fit. (Think medieval 'Bros. Grimm' faerie tale with a proper Shakespearaen bloodbath at the end.)
During the course of the campaign, the character progressed to about the power level where he'd started in the old campaign, thus filling in the levels I'd 'skipped' the first time around, when I played him as an epic character. Funny how that worked out.
Slightly off-topic:
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And I've also used the same character in multiple campaigns when playing Champions, but I think most Champions players do this at some point, cross-overs being an important genre convention. Now back to D&D....
Usually though it is a situation of the player in question wanting to re-use the idea of the character because they didn't get a real good amount of development time in play in the first campaign they were used in... typically from games that died out before coming to any real sort of end.
This is always done with explicit DM permission, and always involves a complete rebuilding of the character in question (read: altering of level, equipment, and all character sheet details necessary to make it equal to a new character made for the current campaign).
More rarely we will re-use entire casts of characters from campaigns that reach a decent end-point but not the "level cap" in a new campaign that is a sequel to the original campaign.
With that, the two times we have done it so far as a group, we have transfered the idea of each character into a new edition (from 2nd to 3rd, or 3rd to 4th).
If done correctly it is no different than a player coming to the table with a "brand new character" that they happen to have invested a lot of thought into.
I assume that if you did, the campaigns would not be at the same time, but I suppose that could be possible.
From past experience, the DM that is beginning a Dungeon Crawl campaign is not very reliable. Both times he's attempted to begin a campaign (including the one I was introduced to D&D with), the campaign only lasted two sessions.
I've spent a lot of time on my character, Gregor Silverbeard, building a background and character that I thoroughly enjoy. None of the three other characters I've made come close in how much I liked them, and I haven't even played with this one yet.
So, if this falls through, I'm hoping I can find another group that will allow me to play that character, as long as he's not too high of a level.
What is your experience with this? Have you ever carried a character over to another campaign? Did you have to change background elements to fit him in? How well did it work out?
I created a character for an Eberron game that only lasted a few sessions. I had spent hours on his background and character development. I sat on that character, and a few years later, I got an opportunity to play him, and I am loving it so far. You may have to start the character over at level 1, but that is a small price to pay to get to play your awesome character
As a player I've got 3 D&D characters who span campaigns.
2 of them cross editions.
My favorite (a bard) even crosses game sytems/companies/& genres.
My bard has been active in AD&D, AD&D2e, 3x, 4e, Amber, a Star Wars game, and a few other systems.
He fits anywhere because his background (or part of it) is specifically written to accomodate this. Most people never learn his full backstory - either in or out of character. Many a DM though has read the "optional" part of his background & assumed a Dr. Who/Quantum Leap inspiration (it's neither, the original inspiration was Zelazny's Amber Chronicles - though I've only ever had 3 people {2 DMs, 1 player} spot it).
This character (or versions of him) has been active in no less than three con-current campaigns in the past.
Next up is my Swordmage. Originally he hailed from 3.5 as an gestalted elven Warmage/Fighter/Paragon. But that campaign got derailed & is on indefinite hiatus.
Thus right now he can be found in a 4e campaign as an eladrin swordmage.Then there's my 4e dwarf.
If I ever get to play the Warhammer Fantasy RPG he'll be a true GW slayer in stats/rules as well as model. But for right now he's merely a 4e dwarven barbarian.
Atm he's involved in a Scales of War campaign. In a few weeks though I'll be retiring the eladrin swordmage for a while & using a copy of this guy due to how that story is progressing. So I'll be running the exact same character 2 nights a week....
I have a favorite character that I simply enjoy playing.
My only caveat is that I don't play him in a new campaign with a group of players or DM that has encountered the character before.
But if I'm starting a completely new campaign with new people? Sure... why not?
We did this for almost 3 years straight with a consistant group of about 7 people. By the end of it all our characters where all epic level and most of us "retired" the characters as they were all in their 50's or 60's.
In 3E character porting was frowned upon. The rules don't even discuss the possibility. With more variety of character builds, it wasn't even necessary. Players usually wanted to try out different things. Players joining a group would just create a new character. However, adjusting for any house rules, there was nothing stopping a player from recreating a character he played before. It wouldn't be the same character, but it could have the same class, feats, and personality, and no one else would know or need to know.
...No, no it was not. Character porting doesn't require rules. You simply play the next campaign with the character you played last/the character you want to play. There was no bizarre, arbitrary ruling that you had to use some kind of carbon copy to port your character.
In 3E character porting was frowned upon. The rules don't even discuss the possibility.
My WotC printed character conversion booklet disagrees with you. It even broke down which exceptional strength scores (18/01 to 18/00) turned into which 3E equivalent score - and man did my converted human samurai have some serious strength score going on (I'm not sure I remember correctly, but I think his score at 1st level came out to being a 22 because of how high I rolled for exceptional strength in AD&D 2nd).
Obviously, she had a different class build each time (especially since I was jumping editions), but the personality and backstory were the same, which is all that really matters. Two of those plays were even through the same DM, and we basically worked out what had happened in the interm since the previous game (being that both were played in FR).
The reason I played her multiple times was because I really enjoyed roleplaying the character, and because I felt that her "story" wasn't done. I felt that there was more character development to do with the character.
The trick, as one poster mentioned, is to file off the serial numbers - don't get attached to the powers and specific abilities, but rather the character background and personality.
The last time I played her will be the last, however - the game ended in the epic levels of 3.5, when she basically gained divine power. Her story came to an end at that point... rather fitting, since this was the same DM and same game world that I had originally started playing her under, 7 years before.
My WotC printed character conversion booklet disagrees with you. It even broke down which exceptional strength scores (18/01 to 18/00) turned into which 3E equivalent score - and man did my converted human samurai have some serious strength score going on (I'm not sure I remember correctly, but I think his score at 1st level came out to being a 22 because of how high I rolled for exceptional strength in AD&D 2nd).
That was about converting your 2E game into a 3E game, not quite the same thing as taking your cleric/church inquisitor from Bob's game and playing it in Fred's game across town, sometimes while also playing in Bob's game at the same time on alternate weeks with cumulative XP and treasure, as was common in 2E.
No, 3E did not forbid such a thing, but it wasn't such a common occurrence. The fact that 2E specifically did have rules for it gave it more credence as something to do while 3E's lack of such rules gave it an out of sight out of mind happenstance.
There was a character I made mechanically before I built his backstory. Originally he was for a campaign a friend was going to do, but it never happened, and then I found out somebody was going to run an Eberron campaign, but just wanted the backstory, race, and class.
I don't normally reuse a character because there are sooo many options available, mechanically and fluff-wise.
Everyone plays the 'same' character.
Not true.
Right now I'm playing an Unaligned Bugbear Rogue named "Bart". He was raised by Halflings that found him as an infant and thought he was a dog of some sort until he started speaking common. He hates Goblins, though technically he himself is one, specifically because of the prejudice he faced because of the fact. The Halflings he was raised by were pretty normal as Halflings go, though they were privy to steal from wealthier people, where is where he got his Rogue tendencies. He's actually a Ruthless Ruffian due to his brutal instincts and the realization that he was much larger stronger than his 'peers'. His brash temper and intimidating looks lost the Halflings many of their contacts, though they didn't ask him too eventually Bart realized it was time for him to leave and find his own place in the world.
He doesn't really steal unless he deems it necessary, forgoing any possible trouble he would get into. One of our first sessions we found a special dagger that was a clue to something bigger in the encounter. The bard took it being the leader. Bart did not like the bard due to the Tiefling's charasmatic talk-talk-talk nature, and figured the wizard would make better use of it. After trying to persuade the bard to let the wizard have the dagger, and failing because the guy who played him... well, just wanted to keep it, and plus Bart called him stupid for not letting the wizard have it and examine it, he stole it and gave it to the wizard.
He likes to smash things and is easily annoyed, and won't be afraid to tell you if he thinks you or something you're doing is dumb or pointless. Several times my party has tried to talk to Hostile/Unfriendly NPC's and Bart just runs up and smashes them, feeling that talking to enemies is a waste of breath. He jumps into trouble without regard to his own safety or the numbers he faces, but also unashamed to sneak around and use stealth to his advantage when he can. Pretty much, I use him to push the story along most of the time.
He gets along with most of the PC's, though not really getting too buddy-buddy with them. Mostly the Fighter Dwarf who just goes with the flow. In towns he keeps to himself and acts very nonthreatening, making sure not to go anywhere without another party member for obvious reasons.
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I also play a Good Dragonborn Inspiring Warlord named Priwen. I just started playing with him in a new group, so he's pretty much a natural-born leader. In the Campaign we're playing, most of the Dragonborn are from a land where Tiamat is worshiped, and the Dragonborn are evil. He ended up joining the land's military where he worked his way up to being a leader of a small policing force. During a raid on house accused of "Illegal Activities" one of his soldiers handed him a book saying that it looked like it had Illegal Content in it. The book had a curious allure to it, and before he knew it he snuck it back to his private quarters. After looking through it he found that it contained the teachings of Bahamut, he ended up reading it cover to cover and realized the true nature of the empire he was a part of. He knew that if found with the book, even the fact that he hesitated to destroy it would cost him his life. Having no other choice, he dishonorably fled. Now he traverses the rest of the world working as a mercenary, hoping one day to acquire the skills and the army to go back to his homeland and thwart the Evil Empire that's under Tiamat's influence, restoring his broken honor and installing a new golden age of Bahamut.
He is relatively humble for a Dragonborn, ashamed of his homeland. This trait ends up working for him when tied with his charasmatic way of talking to people, it doesn't take him much to glean information from them. In battle he is unrelenting and quick to shout orders, though he values his party members lives more than his own and won't hesitate to assist even the most annoying of them. *cough*deva*cough*
He gets along well with the two Warforged in the party, respecting their discipline and aptitude for melee combat. There's a half-orc ranger he thinks is a female, but doesn't talk much that he's unsure of. There's Elf with a Greatbow that he also respects due to the Rangers keen senses, though he's not fond of those that fight from afar he's impressed by the size of the weapon and the accuracy of which it's used. Then there's a Deva of Kord that he very much wishes to drop off a cliff, the invoker is slow to follow directions in combat, and has already almost cost Priwen several contacts and acts haughtier than even the most arrogant of his kin back home. The Deva is an invaluable resource when it comes to scholarly things such as Religion, History, and Magic though, so he tolerates the "God-sent"... for now.
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Aaaand, whenever I start another Campaign I wanna play a haughty "I can defeat anything, one day I'll be the best there ever was!" kind of Human Fighter/Melee class. That's usually my favorite type of character to roleplay :D
Recently we had a chance to begin another solo campaign and we thought it would be very neat if we were to do an alternate universe sort of thing. Sort of like Desperation and The Regulators, by Stephen King. Both books had the same characters in different adventures.
So I rerolled my character, made a few changes that I wished I'd have considered the first time around, and gave him a different class. It's been a metagaming frolic trying to figure out who is who, and what everyone is up to. We have some trouble getting through sessions because I will recognize someone and start laughing about what she's done to them or I will do something silly in character because I want to see how the person I'm interacting with will react now versus how they would have done.
It's not what you have in mind, that is, the exact same character, but it is quite fun. I think in your case, if you were worried about what some other group would think about you playing a character that's already been done, all you would have to do is keep mum on the notion that he was anything but brand new. They don't have to know. No reason it should be a big deal anyway.
You may have to change a detail or two, but if you get to play the character out, it's totally worth it, right?
That's how many different versions of Ripper the psychotic oversized halfling I have. On paper, that is - he's also been done in about 4 different videogames, including a female version I called Rippa Warsprite. :D
Other than having continually been a rogue (thief) since his inception, among his various incarnations he's also been multiclassed as a fighter, barbarian, ranger and/or swashbuckler.
Ripper's been kicking around since a pickup game in 2nd Ed back in college, when his pair of magic daggers and ring of jumping made me decide during the first encounter that his preferred mode of attack was to jump on opponents' backs from across the room, holding on with his legs while dual-slitting their throats.
A spontaneous decision during a fight in a burning tavern cemented Ripper's over-the-top personality - jumping out a window while howling a warcry and charging into the crowd of bad guys trying to prevent the rest of the party from leaving the building, with the party's dwarf fighter scrambling to follow him out through the window to "rescue" him.
Imagine a nearly dwarf-sized halfling with muttonchop sideburns and longish hair, biceps bulging like a wrestler, with a wicked sense of humor and a cunning intellect, who has a tendency to sing tragic elven ballads at the top of his lungs in orcish, or croon orcish warchants softly in elvish. Armed over the years with a pair of +5 daggers, a pair of shortswords, and a bastard sword, among multiple other things. Rogue, thief, madman, poet, slayer, womanizer, rescuer of stuck kitty cats for small children. A regular avatar of chaos, my Ripper.
I've never actually come up with a real background for him - he's got one of those "storied pasts" that just naturally adapts itself to whatever kind of campaign he's joining.
During a raid on house accused of "Illegal Activities" one of his soldiers handed him a book saying that it looked like it had Illegal Content in it. The book had a curious allure to it, and before he knew it he snuck it back to his private quarters.
Fahrenheit 451 FTW!
I've stated out and played Jewel, a Dragonborn Sorcerer at least 5 times so far. I never got to do much with the character, as these were mostly one-shots, and it takes me a while to get in-character.
I have decided that she's capable of color-changing to some degree, though not really chameleon-like. Mostly she can change chromatic dragon hues. She has an anger problem, though, and looses control of this ability. Also, she tends to set things on fire, and sort out the rest later. Lots of fun for taking out the bad guys.
In the latest incarnation, I got my hands on some damage-increasing items, bumping my Acid Orb's damage to 1d10 + 15 at level 3. In one encounter, I turned a corner, blasted with a daily, fired off Dragon Breath, then action pointed and dropped a powerful encounter, resulting in at least six smoldering corpses. The remaining two baddies were a piece of cake.
Sorcerers are very well rounded, which means I can toss her into any random one-shot and generally do something useful. I can focus on area damage if there are no controllers, and I can focus on one-or-two target powers if we really need a striker.
Many of the daily powers also have some utility element to them (Thunder Leap is my favorite power EVER), and combined with a high Charisma, I can actually do things outside of combat. Strength means I can actually overcome terrain obstacles, unlike the pathetic Wizard I've played.
Once past late Heroic, with the aid of some feats, powers, and items, Sorcerers can make OK defenders/tanks. I wouldn't want to be the only tank, but I can tank for bosses and mini-bosses well enough. With a solid CON, Dragonborn heal really well, especially with the aid of some "heal more when Second Wind" items. Once bloodied, my AC spikes a bit, and with the aid of some Daily powers I can get AC higher than most defenders.
Anyway, I guess I'm saying that I like doing it in some cases, but I still want to try other things. I've been getting an itch to play a Druid for a while, and I'd like to try that next.
Other than that, I don't believe I have, though it surprises me that I haven't as I am a creature of habit. I used to roll my eyes
at a player in my original group who had a penchant for bards with katanas called William (his name IRL) but I've always had a clear imagination, though I tend towards some sort of combo-spellcaster and when I first picked up 2e I couldn't help but create fighter/mage/thiefs as I thought it was good to have a kind of "just in case" character.Concepts, though, do vary.
Ripper sounds absolutely hilarious. Nice one.
In Mindarthis Silverburg's backstory, he took part in the Red Hand War.
Now, my friend is updating RHoD to 4E, and asked me to join in, asking me to play a Warlord.
So, I'll be playing him, minus a couple of things. (a feat/flaw combo for story reasons that took place after the Red Hand War. No more Eyebite for Mindarthis.)
EDIT: I haven't played the campaign he's from in a while, but it's far from over.
Ripper sounds absolutely hilarious. Nice one.
Oh, he's unabashedly my unfettered id, as filtered through a fine sense of dramatic style, flair, and the Rule of Cool, cackling and rubbing it's hands in glee - the little man in the back of my head that's always egging me on to push the mysterious button or pull the lever, saying, "C'mon, let's **** with something!"... The one question I've always asked myself when roleplaying him has always been, "What's the craziest thing I can do in this situation that will actually work, and how do I do it so that's it's entertaining and fun for everyone?"
It's the main reason why I keep bringing him back, because his shenanigans have consistently been memorable throughout every campaign he's been in.