Let me tell you about my (4E) characters
This Tuesday, I'll get to play 4E (as opposed to DMing it) for the first time. My wife will be making irregular trips in the coming months, so I wanted someone else to run while she was away, so she wouldn't miss the regular campaign. I'd also wanted someone to take over from time to time so I don't burn myself out.
B, our Saturday host and the veteran gamer stepped up. The plan right now is he'll run the adventure path that WotC is putting in Dungeon. He'll probably run once every three weeks, or every other depending on how things go. To save him the trouble of downsizing encounters for a smaller group, I volunteered to run two characters (everyone else is already running two between two games, so this lets me catch up a bit). The DM was very generous with stat generation, so pretty much any option is within our reach; then again, if the WotC AP is as deadly as the Paizo Dungeon APs, we might need the high stats to survive. The others will be playing a tiefling infernal warlock, a dwarven cleric (of Bahamut, I think), and an elf ranged ranger.
Patrin, Dragonborn Fighter: Patrin is a runaway, just like his dad. A year after Patrin hatched, his father departed to parts unknown. His mother raised him until he was three, then turned him over to the priests of Bahamut. They wanted to make him a paladin, a living instrument of their god's will. He wanted the same, at least at first. As he grew older, he realized if he became a paladin, it wouldn't be his choice; he wasn't going to commit himself to a god because he was told to. So, he ran away. Now he makes his living with an axe. He still hears voices at night, and they aren't always from the Dragon God.
Patrin's a big guy with a big axe. He's pretty smart, but it's easy to hide that intelligence and play a role, and he's pretty good and playing the big dumb guy. He's not too sure about his new companions; the cleric makes him uncomfortable, he's suspicious of the tieflings, and he really has no frame of reference on how to deal with the elf. It's natural for him to be as cool as his breath, but they're as close to family as he has. He'll protect them, and maybe even warm up to them.
With the high strength and fight attack bonus, I felt safe taking the great axe as Patrin's weapon. He does lose out on a shield, but there'll be a cleric to help on damage, and I'm going to focus on exploits that either let me reduce damage or heal myself. With the high stats, I can easily multiclass with paladin, and I'm considering dabbling in that, but there are so many great fight exploits, I'm not sure I'd want to trade any out for a paladin's prayer. I'm looking at pit fighter as my paragon path.
Nowhere, Tiefling Wizard: Birth name Amon, Nowhere chose his current name during one of his fits of depression. A brilliant student, he is now getting first hand experience. Like his brother, he is blessed (or cursed) with the hellfire blood. While his brother seems to relish it, Nowhere hates it. He's tried to cleanse his body with fire (that didn't get too far thanks to his innate resistance) and on several occasions he's tried to bleed out the bad blood. This heritage prejudiced him to fire spells, which are quite potent when he can be roused to use them.
Nowhere isn't the character I set out to make. I've got about a dozen characters that I've stated up, just looking for a chance to be played. One of them was a wizard roughly based on Harry Dresden; being human, I could use the bonus feat to grab Leather Armor proficiency so I'd even have the coat. When I said I'd play two characters, I wanted to play a certain combination; either a fighter and wizard, or a two weapon ranger and tiefling tactical warlord. It was looking like I'd play the second combo, with the ranger's player trying a wizard, and the cleric's player would play a rogue... except that meant no defender. Quick shuffle, the other players switch to what they will be playing and I was... confused and was going to make the fighter and the warlord. My friend doing the warlock suggested our tieflings be brothers, which, great... except then I realized we had no controller (not a killer, but I assume a pre-written adventure path is going to expect all the roles). I had planned to multiclass the warlord as a wizard, but would that be enough? And then I started looking at the wizard and seeing just how cool some of their spells were... and the blood mage. So, I switched to wizard, but stuck with tiefling for the brother aspect and for the very useful hellfire blood.
Nowhere is a staff wizard; he's got a good constitution, so the extra AC once per encounter should save his butt (in the Keep on the Shadowfell game, the party wizard has made good use of Shield which works in a similar fashion). I went with Cloud of Daggers and Scorching Burst as at-wills, Burning Hands as an encounter, and Acid Arrow and Flaming Sphere for the dailies. Flaming Sphere I'm especially interested in seeing in action- sustainable, able to do a 2d6 fire attack every round for a standard action, and automatic fire damage to anything next to it. Sleep is the only other wizard daily I've seen, and while it can do wonders if it works, a DM rolling high for saves will cancel it PDQ.
B, our Saturday host and the veteran gamer stepped up. The plan right now is he'll run the adventure path that WotC is putting in Dungeon. He'll probably run once every three weeks, or every other depending on how things go. To save him the trouble of downsizing encounters for a smaller group, I volunteered to run two characters (everyone else is already running two between two games, so this lets me catch up a bit). The DM was very generous with stat generation, so pretty much any option is within our reach; then again, if the WotC AP is as deadly as the Paizo Dungeon APs, we might need the high stats to survive. The others will be playing a tiefling infernal warlock, a dwarven cleric (of Bahamut, I think), and an elf ranged ranger.
Patrin, Dragonborn Fighter: Patrin is a runaway, just like his dad. A year after Patrin hatched, his father departed to parts unknown. His mother raised him until he was three, then turned him over to the priests of Bahamut. They wanted to make him a paladin, a living instrument of their god's will. He wanted the same, at least at first. As he grew older, he realized if he became a paladin, it wouldn't be his choice; he wasn't going to commit himself to a god because he was told to. So, he ran away. Now he makes his living with an axe. He still hears voices at night, and they aren't always from the Dragon God.
Patrin's a big guy with a big axe. He's pretty smart, but it's easy to hide that intelligence and play a role, and he's pretty good and playing the big dumb guy. He's not too sure about his new companions; the cleric makes him uncomfortable, he's suspicious of the tieflings, and he really has no frame of reference on how to deal with the elf. It's natural for him to be as cool as his breath, but they're as close to family as he has. He'll protect them, and maybe even warm up to them.
With the high strength and fight attack bonus, I felt safe taking the great axe as Patrin's weapon. He does lose out on a shield, but there'll be a cleric to help on damage, and I'm going to focus on exploits that either let me reduce damage or heal myself. With the high stats, I can easily multiclass with paladin, and I'm considering dabbling in that, but there are so many great fight exploits, I'm not sure I'd want to trade any out for a paladin's prayer. I'm looking at pit fighter as my paragon path.
Nowhere, Tiefling Wizard: Birth name Amon, Nowhere chose his current name during one of his fits of depression. A brilliant student, he is now getting first hand experience. Like his brother, he is blessed (or cursed) with the hellfire blood. While his brother seems to relish it, Nowhere hates it. He's tried to cleanse his body with fire (that didn't get too far thanks to his innate resistance) and on several occasions he's tried to bleed out the bad blood. This heritage prejudiced him to fire spells, which are quite potent when he can be roused to use them.
Nowhere isn't the character I set out to make. I've got about a dozen characters that I've stated up, just looking for a chance to be played. One of them was a wizard roughly based on Harry Dresden; being human, I could use the bonus feat to grab Leather Armor proficiency so I'd even have the coat. When I said I'd play two characters, I wanted to play a certain combination; either a fighter and wizard, or a two weapon ranger and tiefling tactical warlord. It was looking like I'd play the second combo, with the ranger's player trying a wizard, and the cleric's player would play a rogue... except that meant no defender. Quick shuffle, the other players switch to what they will be playing and I was... confused and was going to make the fighter and the warlord. My friend doing the warlock suggested our tieflings be brothers, which, great... except then I realized we had no controller (not a killer, but I assume a pre-written adventure path is going to expect all the roles). I had planned to multiclass the warlord as a wizard, but would that be enough? And then I started looking at the wizard and seeing just how cool some of their spells were... and the blood mage. So, I switched to wizard, but stuck with tiefling for the brother aspect and for the very useful hellfire blood.
Nowhere is a staff wizard; he's got a good constitution, so the extra AC once per encounter should save his butt (in the Keep on the Shadowfell game, the party wizard has made good use of Shield which works in a similar fashion). I went with Cloud of Daggers and Scorching Burst as at-wills, Burning Hands as an encounter, and Acid Arrow and Flaming Sphere for the dailies. Flaming Sphere I'm especially interested in seeing in action- sustainable, able to do a 2d6 fire attack every round for a standard action, and automatic fire damage to anything next to it. Sleep is the only other wizard daily I've seen, and while it can do wonders if it works, a DM rolling high for saves will cancel it PDQ.