Character idea

[Tragik]

I'm not sure where to put this, but I figured this would be the best place.  Less of a submission, more of a question.  I was without my copy of NWN for almost a year and, thus, have not been around for a while.  But, I have it back and am playing on Layo again (surely, you have all noticed the Return of the Buck~!)  However, while I was away, I got my roleplaying fix in by e-wrestling, something that I have done for years.  I have always wondered if I could do a character like that one, and I was curious to what more advanced D&Ders would think.

The character is Jean-Paul Lacklan.  He is a man who believes himself to be the Voice of God.  He believes that God came to him in a vision and told him that it was his duty, his and his alone, to change all of wrestling and rebuild it in God's image.  Obviously, Lacklan was mad.  Now, to accomplish this goal, Lacklan became a master politician, learning to use and coerce people to do things for him.  His main application of his charisma was to promise a person their wildest dreams and, for a price of their loyalty, defeating someone, their services, etc, he would use his vast wealth to grand them their dreams.  "We all have our vices," he was fond of saying.

While he was not inherently evil (he believed himself to be an agent of God; if some Paladins can get away with their vision of "good" working for them, why not him?), he was not exactly good, either.  So, in terms of alignment, I guess he would be more towards neutral on the Good/Evil axis.  And, considering that his entire character was about manipulating others, he would be more towards Chaotic than anything else.  But I just don't see him being Chaotic Neutral.  I often think of his fanatical faith in God and His vision akin to that of a Paladin, but maybe Chaotic is more towards that end.

The other difficult thing I have is Class.  As I have mentioned, I have often thought of Paladin, due to the fanaticism of his faith.  However, again, he's not exactly good.  Also it is difficult to think of Lacklan as anything but a "hands on" fighter, as he was a wrestler, thus I have thought of monk, as well.  But a Chaotic Neutral Monk?  The *idea* of Lacklan being a Monk works great for me (attention to body, being more of a thinker than just a fighter, etc), but it's difficult stepping away from the restrictive Chaotic Neutral alignment.

Any ideas?  Obviously, GMs are welcome, but if anybody reads this I would love to hear their thoughts.  I LOVE the idea of turning Lacklan into a D%D character (even tried it out while playing some modules to varying results), but I need help constructing it.

To sum up: Lacklan is fanatic in his belief that he is the Voice of God, that it is his job to rebuild (something) in God's image.  And to get these lofty goals realized, he uses persuasion and manipulation.  He offers others their vice for their service, always giving what they want, though often to their detrimate in the end.  He NEVER lies, only bending the truth some, as he is a man of the cloth, after all.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Manipulation does not imply a Chaotic Alignment. In fact, your standard Lawful Evil villain will spend almost his entire day doing nothing but manipulating the weak minds of his minions.

I'd say a Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil monk, though the latter is not CURRENTLY accepted upon character creation, and this would be a very difficult concept to pull off.

Since we're working with a polytheistic pantheon, as well, you'll need to pick a deity. Perhaps Pyrtechon? He's popular, nowadays. Sulterio? I'd love to see a follower of Mushroom Head, and I believe he's Lawful Evil.

Be mindful, though, that one's Wisdom score is a rough indication of their sanity - it's actually the base for the number of Sanity points a character gets in the sanity/insanity variant for PnP. You'd want to keep it lower than you might otherwise do for a Monk to help with this... Put the points into charisma.

Since your RP concept is already well-conceived, all that's really left is the build. I'd suggest 12/14/12/10/14/14... I think that adds up right. Assign skills as you see fit, heavily spending on Persuade.

[Weeblie]

Thread moved to a more proper forum.

[Tragik]

Bumping for any other thoughts?

[Faldred]

Tragik - 2/24/2007  10:54 PM  To sum up: Lacklan is fanatic in his belief that he is the Voice of God, that it is his job to rebuild (something) in God's image.  And to get these lofty goals realized, he uses persuasion and manipulation.  He offers others their vice for their service, always giving what they want, though often to their detrimate in the end.  He NEVER lies, only bending the truth some, as he is a man of the cloth, after all.

 This concept sounds on the whole very, very Lawful -- always keeps his word, determined to establish (or re-establish) a particular order or code.  I'd go with Neutral on the Good/Evil axis -- he's not quite either extreme... he uses people, but he does so for what he believes is for their own good, and he appears to deal fairly with others.  Yeah... LN sounds better and better the more I think about it, or, using my own terminology, Neutral Lawful (he's more Lawful than Neutral, and could more easily moved on the G/E axis than on the L/C axis).  As far as the class is concerned... never let your class choices override your character development choices.  The personality above can be used with any class combo.  However, you want this character to be an evangelistic brawler/wrestler.  The best choices I see for this in Layonara are:

Monk - This is the classic "unarmed" fighter in the base classes
Monk / Cleric - Of course, you can multiclass to Cleric at some point, though that's the end of your Monk levels
Cleric / Sacred Fist - This is more free for multiclassing purposes, and may be the best fit for the character concept
Fighter - Nothing saying you can't specialize in unarmed combat as a classic Fighter...
Fighter / Cleric -- ...and even toss in some actual Divine levels
[/list] Now, if you go the Cleric route, you have to have a Layonara Deity -- I'd recommend Grannoch (LN), or alternately Sulterio (LE) or Rofirein (LN).  The other option is to be a Druid instead of a Cleric, but that's a little harder to justify in the character concept.  I would not mix Fighter or Monk levels with a Sacred Fist build, as the feats/abilities do not stack with each other.  You should also make it very, very clear in your bio that although Jean-Paul believes himself to be a special agent of his god, by no means does this imply that he actually is, or that he has had any direct contact with any of the gods.

[Faldred]

One more thought... if you're willing to live with the ECL penalties and can "loosen up" the personality to be more true neutral than lawful neutral (because of starting alignment restrictions)... this would be a fun concept to play as a Half-Giant Cleric of Grannoch / Sacred Fist.

Though the CHA hit would be kind of nasty...