I'm playing a CG Half-Elf Charlatan Bard and having trouble getting into the character. Here's the background stuff that came up
Personality Traits : Sarcasm and insults are my weapons of choice.
Ideals: Friendship. Material goods come and go. Bonds of friendship last forever.
Bond: I fleeced the wrong person and must work to ensure that this individual never crosses paths with me or those I care about.
Flaws: I can’t resist swindling people who are more powerful than me.
We're currently running Price's of the Apocalypse (no spoilers plz) and I just don't want to turn into the typical "drunken con man" bard. I was thinking about pushing more on the idea of using the "False Identity " in some interesting ways. I decided my charlatanism focuses more on forgery and impersonation than straight thievery.
Anyone have some good suggestions for ways to run this character? (part of the problem might be that we're only 3 sessions in and haven't had a whole lot of social situations to really chew on yet)
Read "Lies of Locke Lamorra" to see how to play a false identify charlatan.
If you can't find a hat of disguise, consider taking 2 levels in Warlock to get the disguise invocation.
I love the Gentleman Bastards. Great characters, great stories, great everything. But I was trying to avoid "con man thief". Locke and his boys are always trying to steal something, and I was trying to think up a concept that's more about deception as a tool for something other than just lining my pockets. Besides, I don't want to drown in a barrel of piss!
Maybe I need to go back and rewatch some Mission Impossible movies/episodes...
I think the obvious question is “Why are they forging documents and impersonating people?” If not for money, then what for? That might help you.
I've started moving the idea of this character closer to a Varys type . He's a liar and a thief but he's doing bad things so that good people can live better lives. I just hit level 3 and went for College of Whispers.
The part of the adventure we just finished had several important townfolk under the sway of an evil priest who was trying to bring up some elemental evil. I'm going to use this to sorta catalyze the character's feelings that the greater good isn't always about running in with a sword and killing a bad guy. Sometimes it's about making sure that the little guy is protected from the powerful, and he can use subterfuge to find out what they're doing and then find out how to root out the bad guys.
My charlatan in LMoP ended up forging documents to implicate the mayor of Phandalin in the plot of the Redbrands and "The Spider". The reason was the DM was playing him like an inept leader who didn't care for the people so my character was setting up Sildar Hallwinter to be the new leader of the town (without him knowing). This was a long con that took the whole campaign to pull off (regular performing songs and heroic tales about Sildar in the inn, planting evidence in the mayor's bedroom, arranging for the evidence to be found weeks later, etc). Fun times.
I'm playing a CG Half-Elf Charlatan Bard and having trouble getting into the character. Here's the background stuff that came up
Personality Traits : Sarcasm and insults are my weapons of choice.
Ideals: Friendship. Material goods come and go. Bonds of friendship last forever.
Bond: I fleeced the wrong person and must work to ensure that this individual never crosses paths with me or those I care about.
Flaws: I can’t resist swindling people who are more powerful than me.
So you already said you have earned the ire of someone that you wish to never cross paths with again. Perhaps you have been frantically creating and stealing identities to throw off his hunters, leaving false trails in paperwork so as to be nearly untrackable without sorcerous means. If you use this talent for others occasionally so be it, sometimes you need money to grease the right pockets of influential people to spread the right kind of misinformation. How many of your own 'death certificates' have you created while running from your past? So what if you made an extra one for that widow so she could collect the life insurance from her missing husband. She truly deserved the money.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I'm playing a CG Half-Elf Charlatan Bard and having trouble getting into the character. Here's the background stuff that came up
Personality Traits : Sarcasm and insults are my weapons of choice.
Ideals: Friendship. Material goods come and go. Bonds of friendship last forever.
Bond: I fleeced the wrong person and must work to ensure that this individual never crosses paths with me or those I care about.
Flaws: I can’t resist swindling people who are more powerful than me.
So you already said you have earned the ire of someone that you wish to never cross paths with again. Perhaps you have been frantically creating and stealing identities to throw off his hunters, leaving false trails in paperwork so as to be nearly untrackable without sorcerous means. If you use this talent for others occasionally so be it, sometimes you need money to grease the right pockets of influential people to spread the right kind of misinformation. How many of your own 'death certificates' have you created while running from your past? So what if you made an extra one for that widow so she could collect the life insurance from her missing husband. She truly deserved the money.
This I like!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm playing a CG Half-Elf Charlatan Bard and having trouble getting into the character. Here's the background stuff that came up
We're currently running Price's of the Apocalypse (no spoilers plz) and I just don't want to turn into the typical "drunken con man" bard. I was thinking about pushing more on the idea of using the "False Identity " in some interesting ways. I decided my charlatanism focuses more on forgery and impersonation than straight thievery.
Anyone have some good suggestions for ways to run this character? (part of the problem might be that we're only 3 sessions in and haven't had a whole lot of social situations to really chew on yet)
Read "Lies of Locke Lamorra" to see how to play a false identify charlatan.
If you can't find a hat of disguise, consider taking 2 levels in Warlock to get the disguise invocation.
I think the obvious question is “Why are they forging documents and impersonating people?” If not for money, then what for? That might help you.
-- Arms are for hugging The Dandy Warhols --
The part of the adventure we just finished had several important townfolk under the sway of an evil priest who was trying to bring up some elemental evil. I'm going to use this to sorta catalyze the character's feelings that the greater good isn't always about running in with a sword and killing a bad guy. Sometimes it's about making sure that the little guy is protected from the powerful, and he can use subterfuge to find out what they're doing and then find out how to root out the bad guys.
My charlatan in LMoP ended up forging documents to implicate the mayor of Phandalin in the plot of the Redbrands and "The Spider". The reason was the DM was playing him like an inept leader who didn't care for the people so my character was setting up Sildar Hallwinter to be the new leader of the town (without him knowing). This was a long con that took the whole campaign to pull off (regular performing songs and heroic tales about Sildar in the inn, planting evidence in the mayor's bedroom, arranging for the evidence to be found weeks later, etc). Fun times.
So you already said you have earned the ire of someone that you wish to never cross paths with again. Perhaps you have been frantically creating and stealing identities to throw off his hunters, leaving false trails in paperwork so as to be nearly untrackable without sorcerous means. If you use this talent for others occasionally so be it, sometimes you need money to grease the right pockets of influential people to spread the right kind of misinformation. How many of your own 'death certificates' have you created while running from your past? So what if you made an extra one for that widow so she could collect the life insurance from her missing husband. She truly deserved the money.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."