Player for a change, playing a 3.5 campaign, I have a problem.
I'm not often player, and I'm a roleplayer. I prefer every aspect of my character to be engaging, but especially characteristics and detail. I enjoy social confrontation and dealing with it as my character would.
In the campaign, we get 3 levels (or HD or level adjustment, you get the drill) to start with. The opening is that we're traded as slaves by pirates. The whole campaign is fairly civilised and a large part will take place in cities. The character freedom is very large, as long as we end up on that boat on our ways to slavery. I had a few ideas:
- Lizardfolk Druid: Although this character would start with 0 druid levels, I thought it'd be a fun and interesting character on paper. The problem is the roleplay. I could play him wise and gentle (NG) or punishing for crimes against nature (LN), but either one of those I'd prefer. I'd also like NE, but that's not appreciated as we need something that ties the party together.
I just can't really think of any good ideas how this character would play out. I mean, I can, but it'd be boring: he'd be avoided in social confrontations and he'd enjoy being avoided. That's not fun!
- Goliath "warrior": Where warrior means: Any effective combat class. Probably Warblade or Barbarian with prestige classes.
The fun part would be that I'd play him to be a prisoner who's had some sort of major crime in his past and spend 2 years in prison in a Lawful Evil society before being shipped to be sold as slave. I do want the crime to be something seriously painful, giving the character a dark gloom. Ranging from murder of an innocent or a family to the r-word. My fear is that this concept is either too heavy or isn't taken seriously enough, though.
I'm looking for more ideas. The setting involves floating islands and boats flying 'round, which, I think, is quite awesome. If you have any other ideas please let me know.
One thing, keep in mind I'm not looking for the imba build that allows me to slay that one dragon at level 9, I just want a nice and engaging RP-experience. Just a concept is enough, a build isn't needed.
Thanks in advance!
Peter aka Ekkoe
In my opinion, if you're playing a campaign like that, at least one character needs to be a swashbuckler
Also, what's the rest of the part look like, and are they going more for interesting characters or good numbers?
The easiest thing to do might be to pick a class, figure out how to insert it into the setting, and then flavor it by picking the race.
For a somewhat coastal or maritime campaign, Swashbuckler is always a great choice. Picking an "off" race (no DEX bonus or an INT penalty) like a Lizardfolk, Half-Orc or Goliath would make it interesting.
Depending on how badass you want the numbers to be, playing a Goliath Swashbuckler with a few levels in Rogue and the Daring Outlaw feat swinging a spiked chain reflavored as a small anchor chain or boarding chain could be really cool. :D
Cuz ya know there's always that one big-ass grim-looking pirate onboard the ship that has a huge chain of some kind, lol. :D
As far as a Lizardfolk Druid, you could play him as an atypical type, whose interest in nature extends to learning about lands and environments beyond his home swamp. Maybe he's out to explore the diversity of nature, looking for enlightenment. With a good WIS, he'd be good at understanding peoples' motivations, and if you gave him a decent CHA he could definitely come across as more "holy man" than "lizard man". Especially if you played him as a slow-talking educated-sounding philosopher/teacher type dressed like a civilized human in a plain homespun cloth robe, without all the typical "lizardfolk" stuff like the grass loincloths and fishhead necklaces, etc.
Although he'd appear to be sort of a Native-American tribal type, you could play him as being almost shockingly comfortable with functioning in a civilized city environment - his attitude would be "It's all just one world, even if the parts don't appear to be the same", and he'd be able to adapt to almost any social circumstances. You could think of him sort of as a cultural anthropologist doing fieldwork, learning about different cultures and races by being among them.
14, 10, 14, 15, 15, 15 in which I'm allowed to swap one. This doesn't REALLY affect my decision though. I mean, if I want a nice fighter I'll just swap charisma for dex, same goes for druid. The racial bonuses help compensate any loss.
Books: anyhthing is fine, long as it's not TOO campaign specific, like "initiate of the order of X".
Further: one of the players isn't that concerned with roleplay, he's more of a powerplayers who's half absent.
The other one is very set on the world. He plays a NG wizard/student. He's a good roleplayer and loves to explore.
I'm considering a warforged as well. Turning him into a juggernaut was an idea that always appealed to me, but the class seams awfully focussed on charge. I would have preferred seeing some strength and constitution bonusses. I know I said I don't play for power, and I don't, but it'd be more fun to watch your ideals narrow, but your strength increase.
Thanks for the tip and the lizardfolk in prarticular. Although I thought of playing him as a wise philosopher, I couldn't really picture it until you described it.
Keep 'em coming =]
Maybe a dwarven druid, has a badger compainion and takes the earth / fire spells (advoids water / air and animal ones). (maybe instead of knowledge nature takes Knowledge dungeoneering) His community while expanding, came across a dungeon that had long been abandoned by any civilized society. He being a wanderer and not being rooted in one place, knew that this dungeon was infected with (pick one, orcs or goblins or ogres). His community ignored your warns and soon was wiped out / enslaved by the baddies. Now the druid has made it his mission to clean out infested dungeons and make them safe with the help of his party...
Or use the lizardman druid with sameish background and do earth / water instead of earth / fire....