Its seems like the Lockadin is a pretty contentious multiclass because they seem like opposites. That duality is part of the reason I like them so much. There's a really strong, almost Ying Yang feeling you get from the super traditional, stereotypical ideas. However, Its very clear that Paladins aren't exclusively good, neither are Warlocks exclusively evil. Undying Light locks get their power from the an essence of radiance. Fey locks and Ancients Paladins can be very ambiguous. Oathbreakers, Conquest, and Treachery definitely lean more towards the evil spectrum than your average Devotion Paladin. There are so many interesting concepts you can try out that aren't your stock, vanilla options.
Likewise, there's more to multiclassing than just the Lockadin. Sorcerers are also great parings to many Charisma based classes, and they open a whole Arcane world. Monks and Barbarians can alleviate the need for armor and pair well we various classes. Barbarian Rogue is pretty nifty that you wouldn't normally think of as a good pairing. Eldritch Knight, Wizard, and Arcane Trickster can all mesh well with each other, and even though you could just go straight EK or AT, sometimes you might want to expand your horizons a little beyond a 1/3 caster or something. There's just so much you can tinker around with, its incredibly enticing.
Paladins get their power from their Oath, it has nothing to do with a god. And also, Falling doesn't really exist for paladins. You do things because you habeeb it, not because the DM decides to take your class features away.
Actually, according to the section called Breaking Your Oath within the Paladin section of the Player's Handbook, falling does in fact exist for paladins in 5e.
Breaking Your Oath
A paladin tries to hold to the highest standards of conduct but even the most virtuous paladin is fallible. Sometimes the right path proves too demanding, sometimes a situation calls for the lesser of two evils, and sometimes the heat of emotion causes a paladin to transgress his or her oath.
A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a cleric who shares his or her faith or from another paladin of the same order. The paladin might spend an all-night vigil in prayer as a sign of penitence, or undertake a fast or similar act of self-denial. After a rite of confession and forgiveness, the paladin starts fresh.
If a paladin willfully violates his or her oath and shows no signs of repentance, the consequences can be more serious. At the DM's discretion, an impenitent paladin might be forced to abandon this class and adopt another, or perhaps to take the Oathbreaker paladin option that appears in the Dungeon Master's Guide.
I would also like to point out that the Death Knight description in the Monster Manual also implies the existence of a "falling" mechanic.
Death Knight
When a paladin that falls from grace dies without seeking atonement, dark powers can transform the once-mortal knight into a hateful undead creature. A death knight is a skeletal warrior clad in fearsome plate armor. Beneath its helmet, one can see the knight's skull with malevolent pinpoints of light burning in its eye sockets.
Eldritch Power. The death knight retains the ability to cast divine spells, However, no death knight can use its magic to heal. A death knight also attracts and commands lesser undead, although death knights that serve powerful fiends might have fiendish followers instead. Death knights often use warhorse skeletons and nightmares as mounts.
Immortal Until Redeemed. A death knight can arise anew even after it has been destroyed. Only when it atones for a life of wickedness or finds redemption can it finally escape its undead purgatory and truly perish.
While it is a separate point, you also went on to quote the Creating a Paladin section. Which, I believe also heavily implies that the source of a paladin's divine spells and spell-like abilities come from the gods (or from long ancient ancestors). So, I would hardly say that a paladin's oath, from which they draw their power, has "nothing to do with a god", in most cases. Just saying.
Paladins are religious - end of - they have chosen to focus their life dedicated to their Oath. A Holy Warrior bound to a sacred oath....(Holy means God.)
I will inform the game designers they are wrong about the subject. They have been fairly precise that paladins can operate with or without worshiping a deity. Obviously your home game you can require them to worship a deity (and to speak only celestial!) but as a general rule, they don't have to.
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Actually, according to the section called Breaking Your Oath within the Paladin section of the Player's Handbook, falling does in fact exist for paladins in 5e.
It doesn't remove your class abilities, which is the key part. Its no longer a way for DM's to tip their fedoras or otherwise bully players for whatever reason the meme exists for. So while technically falling exists, its not a mechanic. Falling is purely a roleplaying portion of the game. And ancient ancestors aren't Gods themselves, so that would be a non-God source of power. Paladins are Diety ambivalent in 5e, and that allows them for much more flexibility and party synergy.
Well quite frankly, a combat role is a 'role' you can play in a role playing game- and might even have been the original intent given that the original concept for what would become Dungeons and Dragons was as a war game where each play controls a single soldier instead of an army. But ultimately it's semantics, in the modern age the RPG refers as much to the Video game genre and it's systems(which themselves have come down from tabletop) than it does anything else, levels and classes, dice rolls and items and dungeons and so forth- it's ultimately self-referential for DND, where an RPG can be anything that an RPG has been (or will be.) The entire point there is sort of a moot one- because we know for a fact that Dungeons and Dragons is a tactical fantasy war gaming experience, and a narrative collaborative storytelling experience both, you could try to strip out the other side ad play half the game, but Dungeons and Dragons itself is both, full stop- that means that the interests of char-op (RPG as wargame) and the interests of Storytelling (RPG as participatory narrative experience) are both fundamental parts of the experience.
I would go so far as to say that the real problem has to do with a misunderstanding of what goes into a good narrative, or rather, what does it mean to 'roleplay' (moving into the internal, "playing a character in a story sense" most people mean). More than anything else these days I tend to see a deficit of discussion on whatto do and instead see an extreme focus on purity testing choices and motivation, or in summary: what not to do. I don't see discussion on the pros and cons vignettes, or story structure, or how to plan an interesting character arc, or how to connect character backstories to create an organic sense of intra-party relationships. I don't see people hashing out guides on the right and wrong ways to create romantic sub-plots, or any interest in any of the interesting things we could talk about when it comes to having an interesting story. Quite frankly all I seem to see these "roleplayers not rollplayers" do is bellyache about people whom enjoy the mechanical side of the game- insisting that unless you reject the very idea of enjoying the mechanical side of this game, and minimize it as much possible you can't really consider yourself to be roleplaying, and someone (the DM) ought to correct you.
In fact, as someone that takes both the story and mechanics of this game quite seriously this seems to be a declaration that I don't exist, or that I'm some kind of rare specimen, or that I would be better yet without the mechanical side of my engagement. I find this offensive, offensive enough to warrant something of a hard line, controversial, dickish-but-hopefully-thought-provoking-response: If you subscribe to the idea that Char-Op is objectively bad in roleplaying games, you are without question, bad at roleplaying.
I mean that both in the objective sense, and in the sense that you are probably much worse at it then I am. Let me elaborate: I am a Char-Op always have been, always will be- part of how I play Dungeons and Dragons is by delving it's options and finding interesting, exciting, and powerful builds. I almost always start with mechanics when creating a character, my tiefling enchantress from 4e, Elyessa Lightblinder, was created because I thought that the optimized enchanter wizard build that the creator of the 4e wizard guide "Archmage's Ascension" proposed seemed like a blast to play, and i didn't want to abandon that character, or the play style her build represented when we moved to 5e. In 5e my main character, Kazuma, was created because the optimized Monk/Warlock ninja build sounds both powerful and tactically interesting to me- he's a half-drow because that awarded me the tri-stat boosts i needed to deal with having a Dex/Wis/Cha dependent character, but also gave me Drow Magic- a free cast of darkness (and faerie fire for situations in which it's useful) to act as a resource buffer to make my ki and spell slots less scarce. Everything about his initial design was curated around his mechanics, his combat loops, and the suite of powerful tools he offers in play all the way down to what skills i determined him to be proficient in.
After I've worked out the build, I create the character's narrative: Kazuma Namare (who's name is a reference to both the japanese ninja-esque inspiration of the character, and to Tolkien's Sindarin) is the prodigal heir in a clan of mystical ninja, spies, and assassins. He was trained from a young age in the shadow magic his clan uses, and their lethal brand of martial arts and indeed was himself the product of many generations of selective breeding, and brokered agreements between this clan and those families deemed useful for their various qualities. He became a reaper in the night, wearing a frowning mask of tragedy as all the members of his clan do when operating. This gave him a narrative in which his high level of competence and power is justified. I wanted him to be a hero, so as he began to work for the clan, I wanted him to have a number of experiences carrying out his missions that gave him a growing discomfort with the morality of his actions. Knowing my setting, a minor deity was probably responsible for making this possible. Eventually he came to realize that the clan that he is to inherit has lost it's way (it was originally meant to guard a major shadowfell crossing near it's estate), and sought to break from the clan and his father (the head of the clan's) will. But as he escaped he was confronted with his father, whom forbade him from leaving, the two of them clashed and Kazuma's mask was damaged in his escape (I leave how he escaped open to accommodate a potential relationship with another player.) he remains on the run from his clan, using his skills for himself for the first time, determining for himself his own justice, now wearing a harlequin mask to represent his act of rebellion- he even became something of a folk hero, with an identity shrouded in urban myth.
When I play him (and Elyessa, whom has a similarly involved backstory of having been the daughter of a succubi and a paladin born and raised by her father as his god required him to both steal her away and raise the child to redeem himself ) I think of mannerisms for how they might speak, Kazuma for example is very formal, but has a streak of arrogance. This changes by design when he puts on his mask, becoming cold and quiet, a natural disaster that speaks impassively as he dispenses his justice and dispatches his foes. His character arc will be one about resisting the ties of family, learning to be normal, and finding friends he can trust without the paranoid extremes of his clan. Perhaps he'll end up having to take them all out, or perhaps they'll kill him, perhaps he'll reconcile with them, or kill his father to inherit the clan and assume authority over them as a method of bringing about change- it all depends on what I choose in play, the DM, and the Dice. Elyessa is shy and feminine, scared by years of abusive tutelage at the hands of red wizards of thay- whom treated her terribly as a result of her heritage, as her paladin father unknowingly enrolled her in a an effort to help her control her natural powers as a succubi. She is however fiercely intellectual, and considers herself a scholar first and foremost- her prodigious skill with enchantment magic is for her both art and science. She left the Red Wizards (not easily) and set out, trying to find true friends she can trust and a place where she can be proud of her skills as scholar and mage, without her blood taking her achievements away from her.
The reason I discuss the characters I have, is because I want to make something clear: I role play them to the hilt- I always look for opportunities for them to have a narrative impact and to show their qualities, or allow them to grow. But each and every one was a character I started upon finding desirable build options for them, and as I mentioned before I suspect that I role play them considerably better an have more concern for them as characters in a story than much of the opposition that tries to paint the act of character optimization as being a sin against role playing. What a lot of the people in this thread deride as being the opposite of the way it should be (a character's story determining their abilities) I build a character's story around their abilities. Because for me, I take pride in my characters- and I put a lot of work into them so that i can enjoy their story and mechanics, they aren't something, mechanically or narratively that i could do quickly, I sometimes put more work into my characters than I do the sessions I prep as a GM. I am a fan of DND, that means I am a fan of it both as Wargame, and as Collab storytelling- this division doesn't exist for me, and it seems to be perpetrated by people that are altogether missing the point (or would be much happier playing a different type of game- and yeah I've done that too, there are games that are all about full on "follow the fiction" collab storytelling, very little 'wargame' DND is not one of them.)
It's not some weird purity test of anti-power-gaming that makes me a good roleplayer, in fact the two are entirely unrelated (aside from the pride i take in both halves of my character)- I've had people make their otherwise generic characters much more interesting as they took options they didn't expect to (so their character became stronger), and they sought to justify those choices narratively. A relatively boring straight laced Eladrin Wizard from a noble family trying to live up to their expectations had a breakdown and began using blood magic in an effort to live up to the pressure (when in 4e they chose the blood mage path for it's strength, rather than the more obvious, but also terrible wizard of the spiral tower)- he began to understand the character with more nuance and it added to the game. I think you guys need to stop with the anti-char-op crusade, and start discussions about roleplaying outside of this singular issue of mechanics- what goes into a good character backstory? How can that be shown in everyday play? What are some good ways to do voices? Hwo should characters change over the course of the story? How to approach a DM with your ideas, It would probably make you capable of actually engaging in it. More than this One-True-Wayism does at any rate.
I mean if you guys are fine with me playing a druid barbarian who wild shapes for the first part of battle then rages for 1/2 damage when I run out of wild shape hit pointers.
I mean if you guys are fine with me playing a druid barbarian who wild shapes for the first part of battle then rages for 1/2 damage when I run out of wild shape hit pointers.
...why would that be a problem?
In multi-classing you are giving up one set of character traits for another set, usually one that is useful in more varying ways but is less potent in each compared to what staying single-classed would give you. And then in using your wild-shape for battle you are again trading one set of capabilities for another - but having a ton of effective HP at your disposal doesn't actually accomplish anything by itself because the obstacles your character needs to overcome are pretty much never going to boil down to "take X damage."
I mean if you guys are fine with me playing a druid barbarian who wild shapes for the first part of battle then rages for 1/2 damage when I run out of wild shape hit pointers.
...why would that be a problem?
In multi-classing you are giving up one set of character traits for another set, usually one that is useful in more varying ways but is less potent in each compared to what staying single-classed would give you. And then in using your wild-shape for battle you are again trading one set of capabilities for another - but having a ton of effective HP at your disposal doesn't actually accomplish anything by itself because the obstacles your character needs to overcome are pretty much never going to boil down to "take X damage."
Earth elemental for 126 ho (effectively 252 hp against no magical damage.) + can blow spells to heal. Then an additional 100 hp from regular form (assuming average hit points + high dex) or 200 against non magical attacks.
So at level 11 you could have 452 hp during a fight.
yeah I really should add a level of monk so I can take a bonus attack in elemental form (you are technically unarmed).
I feel like I could come up with a reasonable explanation and enough fleshing out to make the PC not one dimensional. And maybe even give the dm an even bigger headache.
Honestly it was the first thing I came up with off the top of my head that could potentially really ignore a dm and possibly the other players depend on how the dm deals with it.
I just need to become a werewolf on top of all that :)
yeah I really should add a level of monk so I can take a bonus attack in elemental form (you are technically unarmed).
I feel like I could come up with a reasonable explanation and enough fleshing out to make the PC not one dimensional. And maybe even give the dm an even bigger headache.
Honestly it was the first thing I came up with off the top of my head that could potentially really ignore a dm and possibly the other players depend on how the dm deals with it.
I just need to become a werewolf on top of all that :)
Druid in Wild Shape are not using an unarmed strike. So you can't benifit from the Monk's Martial art.
About the discussion about the Paladin's power coming for a god or not.
I believe that mechanically it does not matter if you are worshipping a god or just your oath. The critical point that your DM must answer is: Are there consequences on breaking the Oath/betraying the god?
So at level 11 you could have 452 hp during a fight.
Which isn't, in itself, a way to overcome challenges and achieve goals. It might help with a specific sort of challenge, but it doesn't actually make the character problematic - or at least, no more problematic than the character would be with whatever character resources were given up to pick up other class traits (i.e. the single-class druid having 6th level spells, which are a little more versatile at what sort of challenges they can overcome than a single character having a huge pile of hit points is).
In fact, as someone that takes both the story and mechanics of this game quite seriously this seems to be a declaration that I don't exist, or that I'm some kind of rare specimen, or that I would be better yet without the mechanical side of my engagement. I find this offensive, offensive enough to warrant something of a hard line, controversial, dickish-but-hopefully-thought-provoking-response: If you subscribe to the idea that Char-Op is objectively bad in roleplaying games, you are without question, bad at roleplaying.
I mean that both in the objective sense, and in the sense that you are probably much worse at it then I am.
::In a Steve Irwin accent:: "Oy, as you can see, right here is where he jumped the 'gator. I'm gonna try an' get closer so I shove me thumb up his bum!"
You had some fairly good points, but when you said that not only was your style of play the right way, but that you were BETTER at table top RPGs than someone else, that's when you lost ALL credibility. I did finish reading it, but after that line, I didn't take anything you said seriously. Which is a shame, because like I said, you had some valid points early on and I'd probably like to have a role-player like you at my table, because my group (for the most part) is still fairly new to this, and they do most of their stuff through dice rolling rather than RPing; with the exception of the guy I've been playing with since high school: he's always a good RPer (although he usually sticks to one-of-two types of characters). But that line right there where you said you were better than others is an indicator of the type of person you are (I've seen it in sports team locker rooms, at table top groups, and in MMO guilds) and it always ends up being a cancer.
Now, admittedly, I could be wrong, and you could just have gotten exceptionally peeved at the topic, or have an object hatred for it, and lashed out. Maybe you were having a bad moment and this just irked you more than it normally would. But, you at least came off sounding like more of an elitist than those your post seemed to object to.
“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
yeah I really should add a level of monk so I can take a bonus attack in elemental form (you are technically unarmed).
I feel like I could come up with a reasonable explanation and enough fleshing out to make the PC not one dimensional. And maybe even give the dm an even bigger headache.
Honestly it was the first thing I came up with off the top of my head that could potentially really ignore a dm and possibly the other players depend on how the dm deals with it.
I just need to become a werewolf on top of all that :)
Druid in Wild Shape are not using an unarmed strike. So you can't benifit from the Monk's Martial art.
You can make an unarmed strike using regular rules in wildshape however, All creatures are capable of making an unarmed strike (Str based attack, prof, damage 1+str), and as you don't lose your class features, if you were a monk/druid you could gain multiple unarmed strikes, using your martial arts die. You just would not get the bonus of multiattack or bite or slash attack damage.
yeah I really should add a level of monk so I can take a bonus attack in elemental form (you are technically unarmed).
I feel like I could come up with a reasonable explanation and enough fleshing out to make the PC not one dimensional. And maybe even give the dm an even bigger headache.
Honestly it was the first thing I came up with off the top of my head that could potentially really ignore a dm and possibly the other players depend on how the dm deals with it.
I just need to become a werewolf on top of all that :)
Druid in Wild Shape are not using an unarmed strike. So you can't benifit from the Monk's Martial art.
You can make an unarmed strike using regular rules in wildshape however, All creatures are capable of making an unarmed strike (Str based attack, prof, damage 1+str), and as you don't lose your class features, if you were a monk/druid you could gain multiple unarmed strikes, using your martial arts die. You just would not get the bonus of multiattack or bite or slash attack damage.
The intent of the original post was to use the transformed shape's natural attacks (bite, claw, etc...) as unarmed attacks. So, Filcat's explanation that those attacks aren't considered an unarmed strike isn't saying that an animal CAN'T use an unarmed strike. I don't think anyone was arguing that an animal can't paw you (my dog likes to punch when we play-fight and that still hurts like hell).
“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
Its seems like the Lockadin is a pretty contentious multiclass because they seem like opposites. That duality is part of the reason I like them so much. There's a really strong, almost Ying Yang feeling you get from the super traditional, stereotypical ideas. However, Its very clear that Paladins aren't exclusively good, neither are Warlocks exclusively evil. Undying Light locks get their power from the an essence of radiance. Fey locks and Ancients Paladins can be very ambiguous. Oathbreakers, Conquest, and Treachery definitely lean more towards the evil spectrum than your average Devotion Paladin. There are so many interesting concepts you can try out that aren't your stock, vanilla options.
Likewise, there's more to multiclassing than just the Lockadin. Sorcerers are also great parings to many Charisma based classes, and they open a whole Arcane world. Monks and Barbarians can alleviate the need for armor and pair well we various classes. Barbarian Rogue is pretty nifty that you wouldn't normally think of as a good pairing. Eldritch Knight, Wizard, and Arcane Trickster can all mesh well with each other, and even though you could just go straight EK or AT, sometimes you might want to expand your horizons a little beyond a 1/3 caster or something. There's just so much you can tinker around with, its incredibly enticing.
PHB. 109 gives info under the great old one that they are not necessarily aware of the warlock.
While it is a separate point, you also went on to quote the Creating a Paladin section. Which, I believe also heavily implies that the source of a paladin's divine spells and spell-like abilities come from the gods (or from long ancient ancestors). So, I would hardly say that a paladin's oath, from which they draw their power, has "nothing to do with a god", in most cases. Just saying.
Paladins are religious - end of - they have chosen to focus their life dedicated to their Oath. A Holy Warrior bound to a sacred oath....(Holy means God.)
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe....
I will inform the game designers they are wrong about the subject. They have been fairly precise that paladins can operate with or without worshiping a deity. Obviously your home game you can require them to worship a deity (and to speak only celestial!) but as a general rule, they don't have to.
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/02/23/the-source-of-paladin-power-is-a-god-or-oath/
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/10/23/are-paladins-required-to-follow-a-deity/
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/10/26/do-paladins-have-to-choose-a-deity/
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And ancient ancestors aren't Gods themselves, so that would be a non-God source of power. Paladins are Diety ambivalent in 5e, and that allows them for much more flexibility and party synergy.
Well quite frankly, a combat role is a 'role' you can play in a role playing game- and might even have been the original intent given that the original concept for what would become Dungeons and Dragons was as a war game where each play controls a single soldier instead of an army. But ultimately it's semantics, in the modern age the RPG refers as much to the Video game genre and it's systems(which themselves have come down from tabletop) than it does anything else, levels and classes, dice rolls and items and dungeons and so forth- it's ultimately self-referential for DND, where an RPG can be anything that an RPG has been (or will be.) The entire point there is sort of a moot one- because we know for a fact that Dungeons and Dragons is a tactical fantasy war gaming experience, and a narrative collaborative storytelling experience both, you could try to strip out the other side ad play half the game, but Dungeons and Dragons itself is both, full stop- that means that the interests of char-op (RPG as wargame) and the interests of Storytelling (RPG as participatory narrative experience) are both fundamental parts of the experience.
I would go so far as to say that the real problem has to do with a misunderstanding of what goes into a good narrative, or rather, what does it mean to 'roleplay' (moving into the internal, "playing a character in a story sense" most people mean). More than anything else these days I tend to see a deficit of discussion on what to do and instead see an extreme focus on purity testing choices and motivation, or in summary: what not to do. I don't see discussion on the pros and cons vignettes, or story structure, or how to plan an interesting character arc, or how to connect character backstories to create an organic sense of intra-party relationships. I don't see people hashing out guides on the right and wrong ways to create romantic sub-plots, or any interest in any of the interesting things we could talk about when it comes to having an interesting story. Quite frankly all I seem to see these "roleplayers not rollplayers" do is bellyache about people whom enjoy the mechanical side of the game- insisting that unless you reject the very idea of enjoying the mechanical side of this game, and minimize it as much possible you can't really consider yourself to be roleplaying, and someone (the DM) ought to correct you.
In fact, as someone that takes both the story and mechanics of this game quite seriously this seems to be a declaration that I don't exist, or that I'm some kind of rare specimen, or that I would be better yet without the mechanical side of my engagement. I find this offensive, offensive enough to warrant something of a hard line, controversial, dickish-but-hopefully-thought-provoking-response: If you subscribe to the idea that Char-Op is objectively bad in roleplaying games, you are without question, bad at roleplaying.
I mean that both in the objective sense, and in the sense that you are probably much worse at it then I am. Let me elaborate: I am a Char-Op always have been, always will be- part of how I play Dungeons and Dragons is by delving it's options and finding interesting, exciting, and powerful builds. I almost always start with mechanics when creating a character, my tiefling enchantress from 4e, Elyessa Lightblinder, was created because I thought that the optimized enchanter wizard build that the creator of the 4e wizard guide "Archmage's Ascension" proposed seemed like a blast to play, and i didn't want to abandon that character, or the play style her build represented when we moved to 5e. In 5e my main character, Kazuma, was created because the optimized Monk/Warlock ninja build sounds both powerful and tactically interesting to me- he's a half-drow because that awarded me the tri-stat boosts i needed to deal with having a Dex/Wis/Cha dependent character, but also gave me Drow Magic- a free cast of darkness (and faerie fire for situations in which it's useful) to act as a resource buffer to make my ki and spell slots less scarce. Everything about his initial design was curated around his mechanics, his combat loops, and the suite of powerful tools he offers in play all the way down to what skills i determined him to be proficient in.
After I've worked out the build, I create the character's narrative: Kazuma Namare (who's name is a reference to both the japanese ninja-esque inspiration of the character, and to Tolkien's Sindarin) is the prodigal heir in a clan of mystical ninja, spies, and assassins. He was trained from a young age in the shadow magic his clan uses, and their lethal brand of martial arts and indeed was himself the product of many generations of selective breeding, and brokered agreements between this clan and those families deemed useful for their various qualities. He became a reaper in the night, wearing a frowning mask of tragedy as all the members of his clan do when operating. This gave him a narrative in which his high level of competence and power is justified. I wanted him to be a hero, so as he began to work for the clan, I wanted him to have a number of experiences carrying out his missions that gave him a growing discomfort with the morality of his actions. Knowing my setting, a minor deity was probably responsible for making this possible. Eventually he came to realize that the clan that he is to inherit has lost it's way (it was originally meant to guard a major shadowfell crossing near it's estate), and sought to break from the clan and his father (the head of the clan's) will. But as he escaped he was confronted with his father, whom forbade him from leaving, the two of them clashed and Kazuma's mask was damaged in his escape (I leave how he escaped open to accommodate a potential relationship with another player.) he remains on the run from his clan, using his skills for himself for the first time, determining for himself his own justice, now wearing a harlequin mask to represent his act of rebellion- he even became something of a folk hero, with an identity shrouded in urban myth.
When I play him (and Elyessa, whom has a similarly involved backstory of having been the daughter of a succubi and a paladin born and raised by her father as his god required him to both steal her away and raise the child to redeem himself ) I think of mannerisms for how they might speak, Kazuma for example is very formal, but has a streak of arrogance. This changes by design when he puts on his mask, becoming cold and quiet, a natural disaster that speaks impassively as he dispenses his justice and dispatches his foes. His character arc will be one about resisting the ties of family, learning to be normal, and finding friends he can trust without the paranoid extremes of his clan. Perhaps he'll end up having to take them all out, or perhaps they'll kill him, perhaps he'll reconcile with them, or kill his father to inherit the clan and assume authority over them as a method of bringing about change- it all depends on what I choose in play, the DM, and the Dice. Elyessa is shy and feminine, scared by years of abusive tutelage at the hands of red wizards of thay- whom treated her terribly as a result of her heritage, as her paladin father unknowingly enrolled her in a an effort to help her control her natural powers as a succubi. She is however fiercely intellectual, and considers herself a scholar first and foremost- her prodigious skill with enchantment magic is for her both art and science. She left the Red Wizards (not easily) and set out, trying to find true friends she can trust and a place where she can be proud of her skills as scholar and mage, without her blood taking her achievements away from her.
The reason I discuss the characters I have, is because I want to make something clear: I role play them to the hilt- I always look for opportunities for them to have a narrative impact and to show their qualities, or allow them to grow. But each and every one was a character I started upon finding desirable build options for them, and as I mentioned before I suspect that I role play them considerably better an have more concern for them as characters in a story than much of the opposition that tries to paint the act of character optimization as being a sin against role playing. What a lot of the people in this thread deride as being the opposite of the way it should be (a character's story determining their abilities) I build a character's story around their abilities. Because for me, I take pride in my characters- and I put a lot of work into them so that i can enjoy their story and mechanics, they aren't something, mechanically or narratively that i could do quickly, I sometimes put more work into my characters than I do the sessions I prep as a GM. I am a fan of DND, that means I am a fan of it both as Wargame, and as Collab storytelling- this division doesn't exist for me, and it seems to be perpetrated by people that are altogether missing the point (or would be much happier playing a different type of game- and yeah I've done that too, there are games that are all about full on "follow the fiction" collab storytelling, very little 'wargame' DND is not one of them.)
It's not some weird purity test of anti-power-gaming that makes me a good roleplayer, in fact the two are entirely unrelated (aside from the pride i take in both halves of my character)- I've had people make their otherwise generic characters much more interesting as they took options they didn't expect to (so their character became stronger), and they sought to justify those choices narratively. A relatively boring straight laced Eladrin Wizard from a noble family trying to live up to their expectations had a breakdown and began using blood magic in an effort to live up to the pressure (when in 4e they chose the blood mage path for it's strength, rather than the more obvious, but also terrible wizard of the spiral tower)- he began to understand the character with more nuance and it added to the game. I think you guys need to stop with the anti-char-op crusade, and start discussions about roleplaying outside of this singular issue of mechanics- what goes into a good character backstory? How can that be shown in everyday play? What are some good ways to do voices? Hwo should characters change over the course of the story? How to approach a DM with your ideas, It would probably make you capable of actually engaging in it. More than this One-True-Wayism does at any rate.
I mean if you guys are fine with me playing a druid barbarian who wild shapes for the first part of battle then rages for 1/2 damage when I run out of wild shape hit pointers.
If a player makes their character into a total damage sponge like that - they become quite 1-dimensional.
That's a choice - it's not right, or wrong.
There's some interesting design philosophy in the latest Dragon Talk podcast btw (as well as an info dump about DNDB):
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/adam-bradford-leah-koons-dd-beyond
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yeah I really should add a level of monk so I can take a bonus attack in elemental form (you are technically unarmed).
I feel like I could come up with a reasonable explanation and enough fleshing out to make the PC not one dimensional. And maybe even give the dm an even bigger headache.
Honestly it was the first thing I came up with off the top of my head that could potentially really ignore a dm and possibly the other players depend on how the dm deals with it.
I just need to become a werewolf on top of all that :)
About the discussion about the Paladin's power coming for a god or not.
I believe that mechanically it does not matter if you are worshipping a god or just your oath. The critical point that your DM must answer is: Are there consequences on breaking the Oath/betraying the god?
::In a Steve Irwin accent:: "Oy, as you can see, right here is where he jumped the 'gator. I'm gonna try an' get closer so I shove me thumb up his bum!"
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“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
Click Here to Download my Lancer Class w/ Dragoon and Legionnaire Archetypes via DM's Guild - Pay What You Want
Click Here to Download the Mind Flayer: Thoon Hulk converted from 4e via DM's Guild
“It is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment.” ― Oramis, Eldest by Christopher Paolini.
Pretty sure the intent of min/maxing would require that I appeal that not using a weapon is in fact being unarmed regardless of what form you are in.
At the very least why can't my elemental punch?
Or what part of an earth elemental counts as a weapon?