Better Characters through Career Planning

After reading Yax's comments to my previous "Better Characters" post, I realize that while I love planning my characters' career paths, not everyone thinks that far ahead. So, I've simmered down my enthusiasm to share a few quick options for building a better character through career planning.

Option #1: Pick a Feat Ladder

Want to be a spectacular archer? A master of two weapons? A dazzling spell-caster? Take a look at the feats to see if there's a feat ladder that will help you achieve your goals! By taking a look ahead at where you want your character to be, you can make sure you have the prerequisites you need when you're ready to take those feats! For instance, if you want to work your way to the Manyshot feat, you'll need to have at 17 Dex, as well as several feats, starting with Point Blank Shot. By identifying early your desire to take Manyshot, you can start taking the necessary feats and place additional stat points, if needed. Plus, you can use your goal for roleplaying: after setting up camp in the evenings, before your watch, you attempt to shoot two arrows at once... to improve your skills and learn the technique required before you officially gain the feat.

Option #2: Pick a Prestige Class

Another option for career planning is to find a prestige class that really intrigues you. Most prestige classes have prerequisites, and if you don't plan for them, you'll find yourself wanting to start the prestige class but missing that one feat or those 2 skill points. There are lots of places to find prestige classes: the DMG has a handful to offer, and most supplements will offer prestige classes that complement the book's subject. I found a great one recently in Races of the Wild, and I built my fighter to ensure I had all the prereq's covered.

A little foresight and planning will pay off in terms of achieving your character goals. I enjoy planning these early, as it give me time to roleplay my character's development, as well as a non-game goal to achieve; it's a lot of fun to finally attain that really awesome feat or prestige class... just wait 'til you get to use it on the Big Bad!

How extracurricular activities helped me to slay the dragon.

There are many, many valid reasons for practicing the fine art of roleplaying. I think that it is one of the few recreational ventures that you can accomplish via several different paths, or through a process that is uniquely your own.

Quick, come up with something!

When I was in high school, I was on the speech team. I was picked for two of the most disparate types of speech, impromptu speaking and extemporaneous (extemp) speaking. Preparation for the previously unknown topic was short: 4-8 minutes in impromptu and up to 45 minutes for extemp.

Once given the topic, you had to prepare thoughts and deliver the speech in an authoritative way. That usually meant talking out of your hindquarters if you didn't know much about the topic, or lacked information in your citation box to adequately provide sources for your thoughts. Its a very stressful situation to place yourself in week after week, however it did teach some lessons in preparation and antacid use.

Wow, that sounds kinda boring. How does this apply to roleplaying, Dante?

I'm glad you asked that question. Preparing for roleplay in an impromptu way can help you get out of a roleplaying rut, blaze a new trail, or give your character more depth than you previously thought possible.

Instead of "going with the flow" or spending a lot of time trying to get inside the head of the character you created, try envisioning the situation the character is in and decide what stance they will take in short order.

Next, take a few key points that your player needs to act upon or discuss with the other characters nearby. Be sure to take enough time to relate these key points to your character's outlook.

The final step in the process is for you (the player) to act on these key points. If you get the DM or another character interacting with you, it is just fine to speak to your personal strengths on behalf of the character.

Get into your characters head just enough to understand his or her motivations in a certain situation, but then use your own strengths and experiences to flesh out the rest. In time, it will become a more comfortable exercise and it will become second nature.

Practice, practice, practice.

You can practice this approach on your own by dreaming up situations that your character is commonly in. It may even help to write down some of these common situations if you're one of those planner types. I used to use note cards for my speeches, with bulleted lists of my speaking points.

Do you have a marketing background? Negotiate with the shopkeeper for a better price based on the condition of that ratty old spellbook you want to buy. Politics? Sweet talk that justice into releasing your friend who got caught sharing the gold from someone else's pouch. It is perfectly fine to superimpose a little (or a lot) of yourself into your character. In fact, it tends to make roleplay situations much more lively since its easy to get passionate about things that you are really passionate about.

Exercise a little discretion by consulting your character sheet as you go. Your 2nd level barbarian with a 9 Wisdom and 10 Intelligence doesn't get to have an intimate understanding of astrophysics just because you do, but he might know that star right there is always north!

To summarize my point...

By using some of these tips lifted from the world of speech and forensics, you may just be able to craft a more satisfying roleplaying experience without having to spend a lot of time thinking hard about it.

Better Characters through Cherry-Picking

Though I'm continuing in the spirit of the "improving your character" theme, I thought I would take a step back tonight and share an option best explored during the early days of your character: cherry-picking, picking the best level(s) of a class in order to advance your character's development. Cherry-picking is a subset of multi-classing: you will be taking levels in a class other than your primary class, though usually only for one or two levels. Not everyone is interested in multi-classing, so cherry-picking isn't for everyone. But it can be an interesting twist when you want to develop a character that's a little different.

Picking your Cherry-Pick

Some classes lend themselves to being cherry-picked. Fighter L1 is one of the best: you gain all those lovely weapon and armor proficiencies, as well as the bonus Fighter feat. This makes it a wonderful option if you want to play a class that doesn't have the weapon or armor proficiencies you would like; you won't waste your first level feat on basic proficiencies. I have cherry-picked Fighter L1 to create a Human Cleric who could power attack with a broadsword at first level. Silvia's backstory : she was a member of her town's militia until she received her divine calling. I have also cherry-picked Sorcerer L1 (for the Mage Armor spell) for Sprinkles, my Gnome Bard; I took the Sorcerer level at my Sprinkles' second level to take advantage of the Bard's d6 hit die at first level.

Planning your Cherry-Pick

The combinations are definitely intriguing, but don't just rush into cherry-picking without doing a little bit of homework first. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble - multi-classing can lead to experience penalties if you're not paying attention. That's why I feel cherry-picking is a technique best employed when planned and implemented during character creation. Be aware of your race's favored class: this will help reduce the effects of cherry-picking since the favored class is not considered when determining experience penalties. Humans and half-elves are the most flexible when making these decisions, as their highest-level class (whatever it happens to be) is their favored class. If playing a human or half-elf doesn't suit you, take a look at the favored class for your favored race.

If you haven't found yourself in a multi-class situation before, you might want to grab your PHB; the beginning of Chapter 2 has a table with the favored class for each race, and the end of Chapter 3 is full of useful information regarding multi-classing. If you're still seeking inspiration, D&D For Dummies also has a great section on cherry-picking; I don't have my copy within arm's reach to tell you what chapter, but it's in there.

Above all, have fun and cherry-pick responsibly!

This Was A Great Idea On Paper

Have you ever had a great idea for a character only to find that four sessions into the campaign that it just wasn't working out? There is a difference between good characters and good player characters.

Lionel Pureheart, Master of the Gentle Necromantic Arts

A couple years ago, I got the great idea that I wanted to play a Lawful Good-aligned necromancer. He'd let people talk to dead relatives, make a zombie mule for Grandma so she could keep the farm going, and help evil people atone for their sins after they died by fighting for truth and justice (as zombies).

It was an interesting take on the eeeeevil Necromancer stereotype, I thought it was funny, and it offered me a lot of chances to roleplay because I figured people would be a combination of grateful and horrified at the acts of kindness Lionel would perform. Hell, I even tried to talk our DM into letting me make "positive energy undead" that weren't evil or bloodthirsty in the slightest!

The Problem Is.....

I made a really stupid decision in the name of Roleplaying. I decided that I would have him specialize in the magic school Necromancy and chose Evocation and Transmutation as my restricted schools. I would like to take this moment to caution all would-be mages that cutting these schools out of your diet will basically turn your wizard into an arcane punching bag for all practical purposes. No magic missile, no light, no fireball, no acid arrow..... not a whole lot of attack spells unless you're some kind of kung-fu master with vampiric touch. This is especially not good when just about anything he does will cause somebody to get scared and summon the city guard.

Part of it was also that our DM at the time had some very strong beliefs about necromancers and how people would treat them -- with intense fear and disgust -- even if they were being nice. While I don't necessarily agree with some of what he thought, the fact of the matter is I was in his world and I decided to be a Gentle Necromancy Evangelist and pass out flyers to the villagers whether he liked it or not. Maybe not the brighest idea, in restrospect.

So How Do I Fix This?

• Do some research.
  
  We eventually found this obscure spell called "Chill Blood" in some 3rd party expansion about necromancers. It allowed poor Lionel to go from somebody who couldn't attack, to someone who was doing more damage than both our fighters put together, and stunning the bad guy in the process. We think the spell was probably a bit unbalanced (15d4 from a 2nd level spell at 11th level?), but it at least got me back in the game.


• WORK WITH YOUR DM!!!
  
  Remember when we talked about working with your DM on your backstory? This would have helped prevent a lot of problems. Even if I didn't talk him into getting my way, it would have at least let me know what I was in for so that I didn't get as far into the campaign as I did before feeling helpless, necromantically persecuted, and generally frustrated.
  
  
• Get under the hood and fix it.
  
  Chapter 8 of WoTC's Player's Handbook 2 is all about "Character Rebuilding", and has rules on how to exhange feats, skills, and lots of other stuff -- so you may be able to atone for some of the mistakes you made in the beginning.
  
  
• Don't forget that you have to do other things besides roleplaying.
  
  Lionel would have made a great character in a novel or a comic, but as a PC he just didn't cut it. You have challenges to face and monsters to defeat, and sometimes the best roleplaying in the world isn't going to get you out of it. Remember you have to actually USE this character, and keep him (and the party) alive!
  
  I feel in some respects that this is the player equivalent of being a Dungeon Novelist. These sort of characters have their place -- and it probably isn't in your D&D game!
  

All this said, don't be afraid to step out of the box. It is better to have gone out of the box and created a monster, than not to have stepped out of the box at all. Just don't be afraid to tame the beast if it's not fun to ride it anymore.

The Evolution of Your Character

As your character gains experience and continues to explore the great wide world, you may notice the need to evolve. Not to worry, it's completely normal for your character to evolve. There have been many, many campaigns in which I developed a character only to realize that some facet of my character doesn't fit with the group dynamics.

Evolution for the Good of the Many

I originally intended for Skythorn to be more of a background character, there for the battles but nearly invisible during NPC interactions. However, the realization that Lumbar had a tendency to make things more... chaotic meant that Skythorn had to take a more hands-on approach with some NPC's to ensure the party survived the interaction long enough to actually accept the quest. Skythorn did became more of a negotiator and spokesperson than I had originally planned, but she didn't go out and introduce herself to everyone in town or seek additional attention. She evolved for the good of the party without betraying the underlying Skythorn-ness that made her unique.

Evolution for your Own Sanity

Recently, I found myself in another situation in which my original character concept was in contrast with the rest of the group. We started a new campaign, and I build a multi-class Fighter/Cleric since most of the rest of the group were not combat-types. I didn't have a lot of time to develop my backstory , so I fell back on one of the classics: country bumpkin. Silvia was from an unknown outlying community, brought to the group because she could offer support in battle and with healing; she didn't appear to be highly educated and seemed very naive. Unfortunately, the rest of my group all hadbackstories placing them in wealthy families from town or other lines of nobility. My country bumpkin just wasn't working out, and it was making life difficult for me to keep Silvia on good terms with the rest of the group. So, when we were dismissed from our meeting with the king's representative, I dropped the hokey accent and explained to the rest of the group that while I was from a small community, I only played the "simple country lass" around the authority figures to avoid having to deal with their stupidity. She now has two personae: one for the bureaucrats and one for the group.

Evolve Modestly and Logically

If you're having difficulties with something about character after a few sessions, try examining the problem. If it's just that the guy across the table has decided that his character will be in perpetual conflict with yours, nothing you do will change that. However, if your character's personality could be tweaked for the better good (where better good = you having more fun), start identifying a few small steps that would improve your character. Once you've decided on a change, don't just stand up and announce your intentions; find some in-game roleplaying opportunities to introduce your newly evolved character traits.

I do believe, however, that you shouldn't change just for the sake of changing. Evolution doesn't just occur because everything is going great; some catalyst sparks change for the best. Examine the circumstance. Review your character's personality, backstory, profession, race. Take a look at everything carefully before deciding if you really need to change. Then, if you feel that a slight evolution would be for the best, start planning how to implement that change. Remember, this is all about having fun, and if you're not having fun, maybe it's time to change.

Good Characters Grow

One secret to good roleplaying is empathy. How would your character, with his background and experiences, feel about what is going on? Once you've decided that, then decide how he'd react.

Crug SMASH!

Let's start with a very simple example: a headstrong barbarian type who likes to swing first and ask questions later. This sort of character is very easy to "roleplay" -- at first. "CRUG SMASH ORCS! CRUG HATE GUARDS! SMASH!" His actions are pretty much set in stone and there's not a whole lot to empathize with (unless you've had a hard day at work). You don't roleplay this character, you follow a rule - CRUG SMASH. However -- as this character continues to survive, he might note that the number of incidences of his rash behavior seem to correlate directly with the number of out-of-body experiences he's had. A player who continues doing this may well "roleplay" his character into a pine box.

An experienced warrior is not just called that because they have more feats and HP, you know. They understand battle and teamwork. They do not typically SMASH until the time is right. They know why it's good to be the cleric's wingman at the tavern -- dibs on the support spells. And the character at the end of the campaign acts a lot differently than the character who started.

Challenge Their Beliefs

That's how you can apply character growth in battle, but what about roleplaying? It's perfectly OK to give your characters strong beliefs. It makes them interesting, and gives them very real reasons to act the way they do. It is also perfectly OK to allow those beliefs to be challenged along the way. In my Nascrag games over the last couple years, I played an aging fighter who hated magic -- and had a sorceror for a son. In last year's adventure, he did nothing but question his son's manhood for not being a warrior and wielding 'unnatural' forces. This year, he still hated magic, but realized he was reaching the end of his life and loved his son. So he was trying to reconnect with him, while still hating magic. I was completely engrossed with trying to figure out how to make my character embrace both concepts, and I had to put myself in his shoes to do it.

Thusly, I found my character encouraging his son and praising his accomplishments, but trying to get him to do things the non-magical way. It made me invest myself in the adventure much more. This character, despite having very strong beliefs, had grown. Nascrag is a little different in that they pre-write your characters' motives from year to year, but there is nothing stopping you from doing it on your own.

If you're tired of playing the same old characters over and over again, let one grow outside the confines of what you've decided he'll be. You'll likely enjoy the results.

Playing outside the character box...

One of the reasons I love rules-lawyering is that it sometimes is affords me the opportunity to true something unique; I truly enjoying bending perceptions of what a specific class is capable of being. It's one thing to lawyer the rules.... it's entirely something else to mine the rules for alternatives that most people haven't noticed.

For instance, in my various D&D groups, clerics have nearly always been human or dwarven... nice, sturdy races that have lots of hit points. As we began a new campaign, no one else was volunteering for the role of cleric, so I decided to give it a go. But I refused to play a human or dwarf; I would play an elf, as that is the race with which I am most comfortable. So I rolled up my character as an elf dedicated to Corellon Larethian. As I started to review the domains associated with my Corellon, I discovered that with the War domain, if I chose to wield the preferred weapon of my god, I gained the associated weapon proficiency and weapon focus feats. The thought of having my cleric wield a longsword, the favored weapon of Corellon, was appealing, so I went for it. In the end, while Yfinia was no Lumbar, she was definitely outside the standard of clerics my group had seen and definitely fun to play.

Another character that stuck out as being slightly outside the norm was Silvarie, an elven sorceress. Having seen several other sorcerers in combat, I didn't want her to be delegated to casting spells then hiding when she ran out. So I played to the elven weapon proficiency with the longbow; Silvarie used her spells as a complement to her archery, instead of using her weapon only as a last resort when she ran out of spells. She shot more arrows than spells and still remained an effective part of the group.

I present these characters merely as encouragement for those of you seeking something a little different from the norms which you have played for so long. Take your favored race or class, and research something to add a little twist to it. You might be surprised how much fun you have when you're outside the character box.

Behind the Screen: Fudging for Fun and Profit...

While I was at the Mastering Your GM-Fu seminar this year, the topic of how to right-size your encounters came up. I had some thoughts on the matter, but the seminar was a little chaotic so I didn't get a chance to say my piece.

The way I handle this in my campaigns is by Dante's Patented Fun Barometer (patent pending, this means you!). Essentially, it all boils down to whether or not the fighter of our group is yelling "oh yeah!" as they slay opponents, if I see smiles or not, and if our wizard is still sizzling bad guys.

A perfect example of this happened in the campaign that I am co-DMing with my friend, Eric. We were both coming up dry on ideas for the coming week's session, so he found a module in his archives that we decided to dust off. This module took our group several sessions (it got old fast, but that's another topic), but in the end there was a puzzle that would teleport party members that chose wisely into the final confrontation with this possessed wizard. The other teleportation options would result in disintegration or massive skull trauma.

I wasn't that surprised when the progress of the party ground to a halt when one of our members chose poorly twice and got heavily damaged THEN disintegrated on his second try. What did surprise me was that our fighter, whose player was mild mannered and tended to drift to the background, launched out of his shell and said "screw this, I'm not standing here and thinking about it all day long" and ran toward one of the other teleportation panels.

At this moment, I sent the rest of the group with our other DM to puzzle over the panels some more, or to sweep up the dust of their disintegrated comrade. The fighter had chosen wisely and was about to battle the Big Bad all by himself (unless anyone else decided to run for that same panel).

No one did.

When he made for the wizard in unexpectedly heroic fashion and pulled off back-to-back criticals (he made his die rolls right in front of me, I couldn't believe it) I had decided that this wizard had met his match. Normally, this encounter should've been able to floor a single PC but when I saw our fighter's player light up and literally roll up his own sleeves to fight this guy I wasn't about to let him die trying.

I did, however, fight him to the brink of unconsciousness and never let it show one bit that I was doing anything but fighting it out with everything at this guy's arsenal. I even summoned a giant spider to aid the wizard in his efforts.

Right before the end of the battle, our other DM messaged me via AIM and told me that the rest of the group had elected to wait and see what happened and was considering going back to town to look for a ressurrection for their buddy, so I allowed them down to watch the end of the encounter after they all decided they weren't going to pursue the teleportation options any longer.

The fight was so good that the rest of the group was cheering our fighter with every strike, and even the players that were disengaged from the actual encounter were excited and involved.

In the end, our fighter staggered his way back into town to find his friends and was met like a true hero for having dispatched the evil wizard all by himself. It was one of those great D&D moments, and it wouldn't have been possible if I stuck directly to my NPC's character sheet and made all my die rolls in the open.

In short, reward your players when they get out of their comfort zone even if that means deviating from the plan. I really wish situations like this happened more often, because it was one of those rare moments of group cohesion and excitement that make it fun to be behind the screen.

My Nerd Dream comes true!

This year's GenCon was filled with some pretty staggering moments of Nerd Zen. You've already been regaled by Vanir's brush with D&D Celebrity, and now I would like to tell my own.

The tale begins the Christmas before last, when my good buddy Dave from eScapes Photo gifted me his set of original D&D sourcebooks, including four supplements. I was ecstatic at the gift, and was happy to show them off to all of my roleplaying savvy friends whenever possible.

This year, upon seeing the announcement that Gary Gygax was going to be an Industry Guest of Honor I knew that I had to try to get him to sign my books. Imagine my surprise when I was able to walk right up to his table and fulfill this goal while only having to wait behind one person in line. Because I didn't want to be That Guy, I originally only had him sign my three core rulebooks however later on in the convention I did make a second trip to get my supplement books signed.

I found Gary to be extremely good natured, taking the time to pose for pictures and chat. For some reason I was imagining a long line with signing limits and him being largely frustrated at having to have the same banter with generation after generation of nerds. I was very impressed at how kind he was in person and how eager he was to sign my stuff.

When I went to get my supplements signed, I was wearing our Save The Owlbears t-shirt. Gary seemed to like it quite well and told me a story about a friend of his that used to wear "Save The ..." shirts of various kinds. He asked if we had a card, so I quickly reached into my pocket and pulled out a card. We had made 100 cards with various t-shirt design slogans on them, and the one I handed to Gary was "Gnomes are mining my butt for coal". I didn't realize this until I saw that Gary was laughing at the card, and I wanted to die a little when I realized which one it was. Despite that, it was really cool that Gary enjoyed the shirt design and that really made my day.

The story doesn't end there, however. The guy I was standing behind was also getting some books that looked VERY close my edition signed and Gary told him "hm... looks like the third printing so this is one of 3300 copies." Since I didn't exactly know the pedigree of my books, I decided to go and ask the knowledgeable folks over at Crazy Egor's (I'd link them, but they don't appear to have a web presence) and ask. I got about three questions in with Mrs. Egor when I mentioned that I had just got Gary to sign the books, and she said "oh, why didn't you get Dave [Arneson] to sign them too? He's sitting five feet behind you!"

So I turn, and lo and behold there was Dave Arneson, author of the excellent Blackmoor setting and co-author of Dungeons and Dragons. He was equally kind and eager to sign my books. He even signed my Blackmoor supplement, which was very cool because he was selling an updated edition of the Blackmoor setting at the convention. He was recovering from foot surgery and did not want to have pictures taken, but the experience was so great that I doubt I will need photos to remember it by!

A true nerd's dream come true, and all in the first half-hour of GenCon! Here's a shot of (r to l) Stupid Ranger, myself, and Gary Gygax (you'll notice that we're wearing a few of the StupidRanger.com shirts, available in our shop)!!



And here's Gary signing my books!