Page 1 of 3 [ 47 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3  Next

foxxi
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 25 Sep 2017
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Posts: 40
Location: Skyrim, Tamriel.

26 Jan 2018, 10:23 am

What are your characters? I am about to start a game with my brother and dad, I am going to be an ogre mage named Urbok, I am 9 feet tall with emerald green skin, dark green eyes, black dreadlocks that go down to my butt, and a big beard, I will also be really fat. I will be lawful neutral and I will wear a robe covering my lower body but, like most orc-like races, I will be topless.

My backstory is that I come from a tribe of ogres that live in the frozen Nordic mountains, my mother is a shaman and my father is a warrior, I will someday take my mothers place as shaman but I must first go on a pilgrimage across the world and bring back a great trophy to prove my strength.

My personality is that I am very friendly and kind compared to other ogres but I am still impatient and hot headed, I am easy to anger but when I'm calm I'm just as friendly as an average human, I am highly intelligent due to the fact that, at a young age, I found an abandoned human library when I was out exploring the forest, I went there every day and I soon enough became obsessed with collecting knowledge.



Bradleigh
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 May 2008
Age: 33
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 6,669
Location: Brisbane, Australia

26 Jan 2018, 11:42 pm

I would like to more than I do, but I am able to DM if I get enough people.

A question about your character. Do you mean Ogre, Orc, or Half-Orc? In D&D, Ogres are essentially giants rather than humanoid, they count as large in size at 10 feet tall, which player races tend to not be able to have, and biologically by their nature they have a legendary lack of intelligence that they tend to really easily believe what they understand, and break what they don't. Usually they tend not be smart enough to build much of a society.

Half-Ogre are a cross breed between an Ogre and an Orc. They still count as large at 8 feet tall, which some other player races can be around while counting as only medium, but I think it is their build that puts them just over at being stockier. They can be just as intelligent as an Orc, but have a little less awareness (wisdom), and often part of an Orc tribe. To be specific, a large size means you take up about 10 square feet in combat.

Orcs as per Volo's are sort of a monster race, but are playable, they can big, but only count as medium, their bigger build affords them the Powerful build feature, which has them counting as a size larger for calculating carry capacity and weight they can push, drag and lift. These are the guys that can create nomadic tribes, with shaman and the like, but also still aggressive. But at least in official rules seem to get a negative 2 to their intelligence from their ability score. They do specifically have a goddess called Luthic, the Cave Mother, who's priestess specifically have the role of raising the young.

Half-Orc are a standard race, as a crossbreed of an Orc or Half-Orc and usually human or another Half-Orc. They don't have any negatives to their intelligence, but still have the savage nature at least dormant. They can thus live in both Orc and human societies without much trouble, but probably still have some bias against them.

You are still free to play however you want, one game does not have to be like another and fun is the most important part. But from my understanding, usually in D&D, an Ogre is on the total other scale in terms of nature. A Half-Orc might cause some racism, a Orc might cause a little bit of a panic, a Half-Ogre more panic as combatants at the ready and non running, and an Ogre causes serious panic as an almost thousand pound monster that wanders into cabins eats the occupants and then wander again when they get hungry. An Ogre at last in standard 5e might not be what one has in mind when they want to play. In the Monster manual it is also completely bold, kind of like the troll from Harry Potter.
.....

As for characters I have. I have a few for different games. I have a Half-Orc barbarian in one called Grolag, I edited her a little bit to be have been the child of an Orc and an Elf, not really gaining anything but the Fey ancestry trait. Orcs don't tend actually to like Elves much, so a child of both usually means something pretty unscrupulous, and will have scorn from Elves who recognise the nature, and also from Orcs who would treat her as something to be played with. The background I gave was that she was abused by her Orc tribe, escaped into becoming a slave in general society, was made an indentured bodyguard, and passed into the possession of the player party after being arrested in the wake of escaping an attack and offending some locals.

Another is Shallad, a black scaled Kobold Warlock. His tribe started to follow an Adult black dragon that moved in and took over a swamp for its lair. His role was pretty much to be a minion for the dragon and order around other minions, acting as a medium to the players of the evil campaign we are playing for giving them instructions. Although, unknown to the dragon Shallad has formed a contract with a Great Old One, it taking over as Shallad's true master and will eventually lead the players to overcome the dragon and be overlords in their own right. The last time I played he also became a wererat, which honestly would not effect much of his nature.

And yet another character is Raven, a human warlock, who has a background of being haunted from messing with occult forces when she was young. I am using Unearthed Arcana class of Raven Queen, she is sort of like a goddess that lives in the Shadowfell with a hatred of intelligent undead, a dark force but not evil and able to keep other forces at bay. A good fit for a Curse of Strahd campaign. I imagined her as sort of goth, dressed all in black and sort of sombre, and specifically felt inspired to perhaps creating an atmosphere that I felt inspired by Ozen from Made in Abyss.


_________________
Through dream I travel, at lantern's call
To consume the flames of a kingdom's fall


whatamievendoing
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Aug 2016
Age: 29
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,336
Location: Finland

27 Jan 2018, 5:26 am

Yep! :D

My character is a Human Cleric who goes by the name of Sakarius Bardus.

Born into a seemingly good family, however with an abusive father, he fled from home at the age of 17 and started looking for himself in a sense. He visited numerous towns and villages, trying to blend in somewhere but utterly failing. At the age of 18, though, he met a generous bard named Jeromeas Tenuo, who gave Sakarius his harp as a gift. Sakarius found solace in playing said harp during these hard times - in fact, he even managed to make money by playing in a few pubs, small though the pay was.

Three years later, Sakarius met a group of demon hunters who convinced him into joining them, since they were lacking a Cleric. Sakarius joined them without hesitation and started learning magic among them, specializing in healing magic. However, he resigned from the group a mere two years later due to the constant dealing with demons beginning to strain him mentally.

Fifteen years have passed since he became a wanderer yet again, but now he's on a mission to investigate odd happenings in some city.


_________________
“They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same.”
― Kurt Cobain


foxxi
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 25 Sep 2017
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Posts: 40
Location: Skyrim, Tamriel.

27 Jan 2018, 11:46 pm

Bradleigh wrote:
I would like to more than I do, but I am able to DM if I get enough people.

A question about your character. Do you mean Ogre, Orc, or Half-Orc? In D&D, Ogres are essentially giants rather than humanoid, they count as large in size at 10 feet tall, which player races tend to not be able to have, and biologically by their nature they have a legendary lack of intelligence that they tend to really easily believe what they understand, and break what they don't. Usually they tend not be smart enough to build much of a society.

Half-Ogre are a cross breed between an Ogre and an Orc. They still count as large at 8 feet tall, which some other player races can be around while counting as only medium, but I think it is their build that puts them just over at being stockier. They can be just as intelligent as an Orc, but have a little less awareness (wisdom), and often part of an Orc tribe. To be specific, a large size means you take up about 10 square feet in combat.

Orcs as per Volo's are sort of a monster race, but are playable, they can big, but only count as medium, their bigger build affords them the Powerful build feature, which has them counting as a size larger for calculating carry capacity and weight they can push, drag and lift. These are the guys that can create nomadic tribes, with shaman and the like, but also still aggressive. But at least in official rules seem to get a negative 2 to their intelligence from their ability score. They do specifically have a goddess called Luthic, the Cave Mother, who's priestess specifically have the role of raising the young.

Half-Orc are a standard race, as a crossbreed of an Orc or Half-Orc and usually human or another Half-Orc. They don't have any negatives to their intelligence, but still have the savage nature at least dormant. They can thus live in both Orc and human societies without much trouble, but probably still have some bias against them.

You are still free to play however you want, one game does not have to be like another and fun is the most important part. But from my understanding, usually in D&D, an Ogre is on the total other scale in terms of nature. A Half-Orc might cause some racism, a Orc might cause a little bit of a panic, a Half-Ogre more panic as combatants at the ready and non running, and an Ogre causes serious panic as an almost thousand pound monster that wanders into cabins eats the occupants and then wander again when they get hungry. An Ogre at last in standard 5e might not be what one has in mind when they want to play. In the Monster manual it is also completely bold, kind of like the troll from Harry Potter.
.....

As for characters I have. I have a few for different games. I have a Half-Orc barbarian in one called Grolag, I edited her a little bit to be have been the child of an Orc and an Elf, not really gaining anything but the Fey ancestry trait. Orcs don't tend actually to like Elves much, so a child of both usually means something pretty unscrupulous, and will have scorn from Elves who recognise the nature, and also from Orcs who would treat her as something to be played with. The background I gave was that she was abused by her Orc tribe, escaped into becoming a slave in general society, was made an indentured bodyguard, and passed into the possession of the player party after being arrested in the wake of escaping an attack and offending some locals.

Another is Shallad, a black scaled Kobold Warlock. His tribe started to follow an Adult black dragon that moved in and took over a swamp for its lair. His role was pretty much to be a minion for the dragon and order around other minions, acting as a medium to the players of the evil campaign we are playing for giving them instructions. Although, unknown to the dragon Shallad has formed a contract with a Great Old One, it taking over as Shallad's true master and will eventually lead the players to overcome the dragon and be overlords in their own right. The last time I played he also became a wererat, which honestly would not effect much of his nature.

And yet another character is Raven, a human warlock, who has a background of being haunted from messing with occult forces when she was young. I am using Unearthed Arcana class of Raven Queen, she is sort of like a goddess that lives in the Shadowfell with a hatred of intelligent undead, a dark force but not evil and able to keep other forces at bay. A good fit for a Curse of Strahd campaign. I imagined her as sort of goth, dressed all in black and sort of sombre, and specifically felt inspired to perhaps creating an atmosphere that I felt inspired by Ozen from Made in Abyss.



My brother (The dm) and I Had a conversation And decided ogres are too big and I will be an orog.



Bradleigh
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 May 2008
Age: 33
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 6,669
Location: Brisbane, Australia

28 Jan 2018, 1:28 am

foxxi wrote:
My brother (The dm) and I Had a conversation And decided ogres are too big and I will be an orog.


Looking at my Monster Manual, it looks like orogs are mostly orcs, but have a higher intelligence from being blessed by probably their goddess Luthic, with normal orcs and especially their chieftains fearful that they take their position, and thus may be excluded from the tribes. I suppose it would be interesting decisions, maybe even choose the blessing from a god of choice that is not so much literal mother bear ferocity of Luthic.

A question, what class are you choosing for your character? You said shaman and that had me think of cleric, although even a druid would fit, these are wisdom based classes. If you said your character wanted intelligence, that would speak to wizard, which learn magic via memorization of books, although even classes like fighter and rogue have subclasses where they can learn some wizard abilities. And then there are the two charisma spellcasters of Sorcerer and Warlock, I like warlocks especially of the idea that they try and find ancient tomes of knowledge which may have led to getting the contract their power comes from. And yet there are also things like monk or Barbarian if you wanted the no armor thing, both gain bonuses from not wearing any.

One of the things I have been kind of fond of for a bit is that I made up an excel sheet with all the race options, class options, and background options, gave them all a chance on dice, and then randomly rolled to make a character up. It did some interesting work at making characters that do not necessarily fit only into cliché. Like it put out a hill dwarf born on a ship, that became a guild artisan that was a glassblower, and became a transmutation wizard. Which along with some other things rolled from the books created a skeleton for a Dwarf that family could made ale, which moved to a new land (ships are rare for dwarves), their ale business did not work to well, he learned the trade of glassblowing which worked interesting with the family business, and was encouraged by his new wife to learn to be a wizard he used to like hearing stories of, which he could apply to his glassblower skills. I think it can work interestingly when you don't just think in terms of what the expected choices are.


_________________
Through dream I travel, at lantern's call
To consume the flames of a kingdom's fall


SabbraCadabra
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Apr 2008
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,694
Location: Michigan

28 Jan 2018, 2:46 am

I've never been into back-stories, especially since most characters can have pretty short lifespans. I prefer to come up with personalities and voices for them, and let their story unfold through its natural process during gameplay. When I DM, I can really see how every player contributes to bringing a unique story together, and the DM is just there to make sure that everything stays within certain boundaries.


_________________
I'm looking for Someone to change my life. I'm looking for a Miracle in my life.


foxxi
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 25 Sep 2017
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Posts: 40
Location: Skyrim, Tamriel.

28 Jan 2018, 11:18 am

Bradleigh wrote:
foxxi wrote:
My brother (The dm) and I Had a conversation And decided ogres are too big and I will be an orog.


Looking at my Monster Manual, it looks like orogs are mostly orcs, but have a higher intelligence from being blessed by probably their goddess Luthic, with normal orcs and especially their chieftains fearful that they take their position, and thus may be excluded from the tribes. I suppose it would be interesting decisions, maybe even choose the blessing from a god of choice that is not so much literal mother bear ferocity of Luthic.

A question, what class are you choosing for your character? You said shaman and that had me think of cleric, although even a druid would fit, these are wisdom based classes. If you said your character wanted intelligence, that would speak to wizard, which learn magic via memorization of books, although even classes like fighter and rogue have subclasses where they can learn some wizard abilities. And then there are the two charisma spellcasters of Sorcerer and Warlock, I like warlocks especially of the idea that they try and find ancient tomes of knowledge which may have led to getting the contract their power comes from. And yet there are also things like monk or Barbarian if you wanted the no armor thing, both gain bonuses from not wearing any.

One of the things I have been kind of fond of for a bit is that I made up an excel sheet with all the race options, class options, and background options, gave them all a chance on dice, and then randomly rolled to make a character up. It did some interesting work at making characters that do not necessarily fit only into cliché. Like it put out a hill dwarf born on a ship, that became a guild artisan that was a glassblower, and became a transmutation wizard. Which along with some other things rolled from the books created a skeleton for a Dwarf that family could made ale, which moved to a new land (ships are rare for dwarves), their ale business did not work to well, he learned the trade of glassblowing which worked interesting with the family business, and was encouraged by his new wife to learn to be a wizard he used to like hearing stories of, which he could apply to his glassblower skills. I think it can work interestingly when you don't just think in terms of what the expected choices are.


My class will be witch, which does use willpower so I will have to change some stuff.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,177
Location: Right over your left shoulder

30 Jan 2018, 3:14 pm

I used to play 3.0/3.5 quite a bit. The campaign setting I started developing when I was in high school slowly shifted to become the world my novel is based in... you know, supposing I ever finish it.


_________________
"If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made... and they won't even admit the knife is there." Malcolm X
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


ViV1
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

Joined: 22 Jul 2018
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 4
Location: Canada

22 Jul 2018, 9:52 pm

I play D&D. I haven't play much but I remember one of my favorite characters I have ever played was a mute suit of armour who's name was Justice.



SabbraCadabra
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Apr 2008
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,694
Location: Michigan

23 Jul 2018, 5:02 am

I tried playing a mute character once...it was funny for a few minutes, and then it just got really difficult to do anything.


_________________
I'm looking for Someone to change my life. I'm looking for a Miracle in my life.


Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

23 Jul 2018, 8:15 am

My first character under 2nd edition rules

Name: Bog
Species: Human
Class: Fighter-7
STR: 18/96
DEX: 13
CON: 14
INT: 5
WIS: 7
CHA: 3
h/p: 53

Bog talk like Tarzan. Bog fight. Bog like fight. One, two, three, all same time! Bog fight, eat, drink, sleep, fight some more! Life good for Bog!


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


SabbraCadabra
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Apr 2008
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,694
Location: Michigan

23 Jul 2018, 3:59 pm

Those are some mighty impressive rolls.

We always used the "roll 4d6, drop the lowest roll, arrange to taste" rule.

For B/X, I've been using "roll 3d6 for each stat, in order, then decide what class would best fit your stats". It is a lot faster, and kind of interesting, but I'm not sure the players are enjoying it too much =)


_________________
I'm looking for Someone to change my life. I'm looking for a Miracle in my life.


Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

23 Jul 2018, 4:14 pm

SabbraCadabra wrote:
Those are some mighty impressive rolls...
Really? If you average-out Bog's rolls, you'll find that he is slightly below average on 3d6. He was rolled up using 3d6, and then arranging each of the 6 rolls as I saw fit. I wanted a "big, dumb fighter", and that's exactly what I got.

(18 + 13 + 14 + 5 + 7 + 3) / 6 = 10
The average value for 3d6 is 10.5

By the way, there's a website called "AnyDice". You can plug in various dice combinations and see the average, the standard deviation, the bell curve, and the "skew" -- the change in the bell curve from 3d6 to 4d6 minus the lowest.


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


SabbraCadabra
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Apr 2008
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,694
Location: Michigan

23 Jul 2018, 5:06 pm

I figured it was straight 3d6. Just impressive to have an 18 and a 3, I thought. Three decent rolls, and three really bad rolls =)

One nice thing about rolling the stats in order, is that it makes players a lot more likely to be human, which is what Gygax had intended. Demihumans were supposed to be a bit more rare, but when given the freedom, they always seem really popular in games that I play.


_________________
I'm looking for Someone to change my life. I'm looking for a Miracle in my life.


Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 May 2008
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 59,750
Location: Stendec

23 Jul 2018, 6:47 pm

SabbraCadabra wrote:
I figured it was straight 3d6. Just impressive to have an 18 and a 3, I thought. Three decent rolls, and three really bad rolls.
They weren't 'bad' rolls, as far as game-balance was concerned. I had come into the campaign many weeks after the others. When I asked what kind of character was needed, they said, "Battering Ram". They already had clerics, mages, thieves, and multi-classed characters. So I put the highest roll into strength (for BB / LG), and the lowest into Charisma.
SabbraCadabra wrote:
One nice thing about rolling the stats in order, is that it makes players a lot more likely to be human, which is what Gygax had intended. Demihumans were supposed to be a bit more rare, but when given the freedom, they always seem really popular in games that I play.
The Great E.G.G. also said that the rules weren't carved in adamantium.

I like playing humans, even if it means being single-classed. Of course, this is under 2e rules, and not the video-game-on-paper rules of 3e or greater.

My favorite game is Traveller -- "Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future" (about 3600 years in the future...).


_________________
 
No love for Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian Leadership, Islamic Jihad, other Islamic terrorist groups, OR their supporters and sympathizers.


SabbraCadabra
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Apr 2008
Age: 40
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,694
Location: Michigan

23 Jul 2018, 7:30 pm

Fnord wrote:
The Great E.G.G. also said that the rules weren't carved in adamantium.


Sure, but sometimes it's interesting to read through the OD&D LBB and try to play the game the way it began. I made my own "Outdoor Adventures" replica map, and I'd like to try running it a bit more "by the books" some day.

According to Gary's house rules, when he returned to running the three LBBs (no Greyhawk) later in life, he went with "Ability scores rolled as best 3 out of 4d6. Arrange scores to taste.", which was first mentioned in the 1E DMG somewhere, tucked away from the other options he offered in the PHB (which 2E "fixed").

But I assume a lot of his OD&D houserules were because he was running games at conventions, and wanted to speed things up a bit. It's really hard to say what was in his head.

http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... rules.html

Quote:
I like playing humans, even if it means being single-classed. Of course, this is under 2e rules, and not the video-game-on-paper rules of 3e or greater.

4E is definitely more like a video game. 3E is just a lot more reliant on miniatures, and too many fiddly bits that seemed like change for the sake of change.

...and annoying things like "attacks of opportunity" :roll: Okay, fine, I take a five-foot step and then disengage.


_________________
I'm looking for Someone to change my life. I'm looking for a Miracle in my life.