Characters

[Heracles]

So, I made Gideon (over in the Supporting Cast thread) and he seems capable. But after witnessing the widespread devastation and magic power of the LLWs/Mystics/Shifters/etc...I feel like my current 2 characters are both outclassed and Gideon would just be more of the same.

Should I make a magic-based character for my next character?

[High Command]

Nah, have you thought about Power Armor?

[Hans Greuber]

...or even a Grackle in the Power Armor

[Jackal]

Come on...the longest living character here is a Juicer

Nothing can kill him.

In fact he has been the only Juicer ever played.....well, regular Juicer. Iron Tic was a bad ass Titan Juicer.

[White Hoof]

My first character on the board is a Robot pilot that I chose the ultimate max for. Yeah it has a heavy rail gun but it's one of the smallest robots and can be blown to bits with with relative ease but he's still a robot. I just reskinned it so it would look different. That's why Ulrich has a robot scorpion.

Moira is a super strong and tough being who's main ranged attack is going to be to chuck heavy objects at her target. She is super useful in her current encounter because her mystical nature allows her to hurt murder wraiths with physical attacks but her lack of mobility and actual ranged weaponry limit her to a slow juggernaut melee type which I am fine with. It's the character I wanted to play that's why I made her that way.

Hoof is a tough as balls cyborg armed with really good ranged weapons but his focus is on survivability. I've got a few other upgrades I want for him but I need to get a few edges first so the strain doesn't kill me.

It's not about competing with other players, it's how you play you character. Envission the character and design their stats to reflect their abilities. When i made Hoof i wanted to basically make Jayne from firefly and whats awesome is the other player that joined the group basically made another character from the same show. Lol we've totally been bouncing off each other RP wise. It's a blast.

The nameless just got a rogue scholar a few months ago and he gets some good RP in. He's probably the lowest power level character of our group but he mans the ATV's gun battery so it would be unwise to piss him off not every character can be a dragon or glitter boy but even the lower powered characters or those out of their element can be made useful and fun.

[Radecliffe]

I would just add that I think for some character concepts you want to look closely at the group makeup. If the group ends up full of characters that have all have a similar focus to what your character concept was intended to be your attempt at a big gun can end up being a firecracker in a box of dynamite.

[Heracles]

Well, it was more of feeling like why am I in this combat with my 2nd character Ink, and thinking about how my 2 characters thus far are both pretty much 'magic-adjacent/psionic-adjacent' frontliners. Granted with Heracles, I could give a damn if he's useful in combat but it was ALL about making a character that was just fun to RP regardless. With Ink, I REALLY wanted to try out the True Atlantean and tattoo magic (which is a holdover love from classic Rifts), but that first fight, he is nearly incapacitated and the board was mostly wiped by the magic-users in the first round and a half. I made Gideon before that fight and was looking at him again, just wondering if maybe I am making too many characters focused on combat that don't contribute that much to combat. It's not the "But I need to be awesome and win everything" mentality, that's not me (don't get me wrong, I like to win and be awesome, but that's not the point). I like to make characters that are interesting to me and fun even if they're not effective, I guess I just had a fleeting moment of frustration with Ink.

Case in point, I someday want to play my concept in Pathfinder or D&D of an intelligent (likely cursed) magical weapon that is in charge of a barbarian or fighter. "My name is Vorthax, the bringer of death, the midnight inferno, the blade of eons...." long pause "and the human you see holding me is Keldor." The human suddenly stops looking so fierce, smiles dopily and waves a hand. "Hi, I'm Keldor!" Then the human's face changes to anger once more, "Oh, shut up, Keldor!"

Not for mechanical benefit, just for the fun of RPing that.

[Cantrell]

I think the issue in that particular combat with Ink was more "summoning-focused casters + on a ley line for free PPE" than a more general issue with casters. I do think summoning could use a closer look, both in terms of being potentially OP and also in terms of attention demand in a PbP environment. In the Pathfinder games I ran on the Paizo boards I tended to ban or strictly limit summoning and pets for that reason.

(Oh, and I'm Penitent in the vampire game. And to be honest, we'd have been in deeper doodoo if not for those summonses to wipe most of the wild vampires for us).

[Radecliffe]

I don't think it is an issue with casters in general but more along the lines of how concept that you like doesn't mean it is going to be of much use in a particular group mix.

[Kidemonas]

I think what that situation also defined is we definitely do not need to enhance Summon Ally.

Force Multiplication made us able to stand at the top in a moment of glory.

Ink will do much better in future battles where we may not be sitting next to a perpetual energy source.

[Jude Maverick]

Everyone can find their niche. Jude is a Vagabond. He has some decent combat abilities (d8s), but that's not his forte. In fact, he pretty much twiddles his thumbs in a fight against a shadow dragon, since nothing he had could hurt the thing. But damn if he isn't a lucky SOB and can talk you into buying beach front property in Nevada!

And sometimes dice just go cold. Even Ashlyn didn't do too much in that vampire fight. Mostly it was the sunlight marbles and the water elementals. Find a character hook and play it, regardless.

I like your sentient weapon idea