Niche characters

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Baron
Every now and then I think, "Wouldn't it be fun to play ____?" where the fill-in-the-blank is some sort of niche character concept.

I am curious. Have other people had niche character concepts they would like to share? Either have played or would like to play? Not necessarily joke characters, but actual characters that could be fun to play for a while (which could be a joke character if that is your thing), yet are not something one would commonly see played by a PC.

Some of my concepts I think would be fun to try are:
  • A normal no-rez guy. I am talking about a farmer that just got into adventuring, who isn't special, but decided to pick up a sword and start swinging at some goblins (starting stats would be Fighter, OHE (or OHB), and the rest Craftsman: Farmer, then learn everything IG based on advice from "teachers"). Some chapters have the theme that "only special people can resurrect, and all adventurers are special, but not all NPCs" which basically means most NPCs don't go to the Earth Circle. This niche character would be one of those of the population that just will not resurrect, so he will be retired on his first "go rez" condition. I think it would be fun to find out how the character develops and how long the character would last before dying.

  • A Mystic Wood Elf Couples Councilor / Psychiatrist. This would be an Artisan Alchemist that detests conflict and would "prescribe" mind-altering substances to folks to help with their relationship issues ... whether they want it or not. It would be mostly RP-based, but the Alchemy would keep the character combat-viable. This could also possible work with a Stone Elf except using Mind Powers instead of Alchemy, but that doesn't provide as much combat usefulness, requires high Character Level in addition to Racials, can't be slipped to people unknowingly, and would be even more heavily RP-based.

  • A Barbarian Celestial Caster, punished by his people due to a previous transgression in his tribe and forced to learn and cast Celestial magic to disgrace him, therefore shunned by Barbarians. The outcast concept seems like it would be an interesting story and character development for a while, but I doubt I would be able to play it for more than 2 years. It could potentially work with other races, but Barbarian Celestial Caster is the most obvious to all races that he is not in his race's favor. I suppose a "declawed" Sarr could be a similar concept.
What are other concepts people have thought of?
 
Real talk: I have wanted to play a stone elf "companion" for years now and keep convincing myself not to do it.
I want to explore the role of not just sex, but sexual health, intimacy, and touch in a stone elven culture. I haven't found a packet I got super excited about, but if I did, I might still consider it. Healing arts, read/write, exclusively first level earth spells (to get people off the ground), and the rest - craftsman: consort or companion, whatevs.
I mostly worry about other players being super immature about it.
 
I once had this idea of playing a super nerdy and cowardly wizard who was a lot more interested in reading and talking things out than combat, and would actively flee from even the wussiest of goblins.
 
I love to write my characters as coming from a slice of life. But the game world needs to have enough realism to support that. That level of realism and consistency is hard to find. Ideally I love those moments when I get past reacting and past roleplaying and feel like I am reenacting someone out of Middle Earth or something to that effect. But sure, it's a thought from time to time.

Joe S.
 
My favorite niche character idea that I've come up with is a celestial scholar whose build goes into 1st level celestial spells (+prereqs and maybe a few related COs) because they're afraid of the dark. 70% of them would be mem'd as light spells, and the last 30% would be a combination of stone bolts and disarms to use as fast as he could if he felt like something was sneaking up on him.
 
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My niche character concept is the coin operated scholar. MWE with RW/RM and 4321. And 320 craftsmen or so depending on whether I go fighter for the extra body or scholar for the extra coin.
 
I currently have a niche character who is not so subtly showing signs of being a necromancer without giving direct evidence to the other PCs. I expect to be taken out by the town eventually, but I want to see how far an openly necromantic scholar can go.
 
Bryan Gregory has a super racist human character that is kind of a niche character. He basically thinks anything that doesn't look human is just a creature and that Kyn are animals/pets. I am curious to see how long he lives with some of the comments he makes to the other characters, because his opinion cannot be swayed. But, as an Earth Templar, he is just useful enough to keep around because he hates "deaders" and is real good at dusting them.

He is also extremely ... naive and conservative ... almost completely the opposite of his other character, Polare. It throws us all off because Polare has such a dirty dirty mind, but Peter just can't seem to understand innuendo.
 
OrcFighterFTW said:
I currently have a niche character who is not so subtly showing signs of being a necromancer without giving direct evidence to the other PCs. I expect to be taken out by the town eventually, but I want to see how far an openly necromantic scholar can go.
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My main PC is actively doing it, too. If your manipulation game is on point, you can make a pretty darn good go of things.
See also: Hey, I'm the earth guild mistress! How did I get here? How did anyone LET me get here?
 
I don't think, from my experience, that pc necromancer is a niche concept. Or at least there sure are a lot of them... :p
 
I also generally don't expect that PC users of necromancy get treated the same way as NPC users of necromancy.
 
Muir said:
I don't think, from my experience, that pc necromancer is a niche concept. Or at least there sure are a lot of them... :p
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No, but somebody that embraces the necromancer stereotypes and doesn't put in much effort to hide their necromancy is pretty rare. I'm curious to see how @OrcFighterFTW's experiment works out... Especially since I'll probably be the guy putting him down if he's caught. Dude wears dark robes and a bone breastplate.
 
I've got a lobster-kin "Claude" kicking around in the back of my brain. I want to play him as hyper-territorial and without social graces to the point that I don't plan on "clothing" him, instead making a full armor suit and wearing a zentai suit/under armor beneath it. I personally hate confrontation, so I want to play him so that I am forced to get into confrontations with other players in the safe space of gaming. I'm also interested to see just how abrasive a character other PCs are willing to put up with before putting him down.
 
I always laugh when I think of the mayfly-kin that perms out every logistics period, even if that is not practical. Same thing with loads of other 'unusual' kin. Water bear kin? Amoeba kin?

Also I've been around enough abrasive and/or necromantic characters to know that nobody is going to put you down because that would be not a particularly nice thing to do. All you'd do is create a customer service nightmare and people would avoid roleplaying with you* because it's not fun :eek:

Will Wheaton's great advice applies to LARP as well.

*other than other necromancers/abrasive characters, so if that's what you're going for best of luck to you!
 
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My version of the Mayflykin concept (maybe a different species) would be to play out the character's entire life over the course of one year. He'd start out incredibly young the first game, basically a teenager on the second, adult, middle age for an event or two, and practically on his death bed for the last game of the season. It'd make sense for him to charge headlong into everything because practically nobody from his species dies a violent death - they perm of old age.
 
Speaking of water bear kin I've had one kicking around in my head for a while. The idea is since water bears really don't care what they live around that it has deffensives for everything. Racials are resist element and either resit necro or resist magic. Earth Templar but only up to 5th level spells. Will always have a sheild up for everything. The most indestructible PC is a kyn of a microscopic animal.
 
Ragnarok said:
Speaking of water bear kin I've had one kicking around in my head for a while. The idea is since water bears really don't care what they live around that it has deffensives for everything. Racials are resist element and either resit necro or resist magic. Earth Templar but only up to 5th level spells. Will always have a sheild up for everything. The most indestructible PC is a kyn of a microscopic animal.
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Costuming is just one of those blow up suits and something for their weird little proboscis. Whenever bad stuff comes through you just completely ignore it because you know your species will outlive anything.
 
nothingtoseehere said:
Also I've been around enough abrasive and/or necromantic characters to know that nobody is going to put you down because that would be not a particularly nice thing to do. All you'd do is create a customer service nightmare and people would avoid roleplaying with you* because it's not fun :eek:

Will Wheaton's great advice applies to LARP as well.

*other than other necromancers/abrasive characters, so if that's what you're going for best of luck to you!
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Same problem the IG authorities have. Is taking out that popular PC who is a dirty necromancer worth the risk that the Adventurers (ie the playerbase) will just throw a coup?
 
Muir said:
Same problem the IG authorities have. Is taking out that popular PC who is a dirty necromancer worth the risk that the Adventurers (ie the playerbase) will just throw a coup?
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This is thoroughly off-topic to this thread, but I disagree that this is a problem. I've seen this situation occur a couple of times, and I've never seen, nor heard, of there being a PC coup when one of "their own" was executed for necromancy. Sure, there were unhappy characters, but the players understand it's part of the game and they roll with it.
 
Another niche character design, that I forgot was a niche character, is a Slothkyn Earth Caster that cannot run or move fast unless given an Awaken effect. When given an Awaken he will operate normally for 10 minutes, otherwise he will be really slow. He won't be coming into game until I have the ability to Rebirth.

Below is some inspiration for my character.

 
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