well, let me give a bit of history of the development. the character in question is a beloved character of mine (as a side bit of trivia-my wife like the character name so much she let me give it to my son as his middle name!) one which i have worked on for years.
he is Path (of Ursalia), which for those who don't get the reference is an ancient lost city, a mountain-top citadel made of stone, and thought to be a repository of secrets long lost. he is from this city, which in the campaign world, is still inhabited-if by grey elves-rather than the race from the reference. ^^
now these grey elves are typical of the sub-race, even other elves think them snotty, uppity, reclusive, and exclusive to the extreme-if not outright xenophobic; rather anti-social, and full of airs of superiority. Path grew up in a community of these elves. however, he managed to avoid the superiority complex due to reasons you will read and does not look down on others, even if those others may assume or think that he does.
how, you ask? well, it's really his great-grandfathers fault. you see, his grandfather had the audacity and poor judgement to go "insane" and marry outside of the community.... and to a grugach (wild elf) no less. how uncivilized! oh, what scandal! they still talk about it to this day, if behind Path's back. it would not have been so bad, if Path had not a ravenlock of hair, deep deep black among the otherwise golden strands of his hair. a clear sign of his grugach heritage....
so poor Path, shunned and ostracized by his own... picked on and tormented by the others in his generation kept him rather humble. his developing combativeness and strength eventually put an end to the outright physical abuse.
but his peace was short lived. new torments were in store for him. as with every grey-elf child, he was tested for magical ability, and being found possessed of at least a tiny spark of arcane connection (or so he was told), was placed with the rest of the young adults set to learn the arcane arts. and failed. miserably. over and over again. Path seemed completely incapable of learning even the simplest cantrip.
magical abuse is much harder to trace and catch, especially when one seemed to have no magical talent in and of themselves. when the time for the trials of adulthood came, he was left till last. this humiliation was only salved by the fact that many of the other celebrating families had already left the arena, and did not see his last failure. unable to cast even a simple spell, he could not become an arcane archer-his childhood dream. in anger and humiliation, for even the judges had begun to leave, he pronounced the last words he ever spoke, "i will not speak nor utter another word till the day i die, unless and until that word is to cast a spell!"
of those that remained, all laughed him to scorn, save his family, and one judge. the one who had tried him for arcane ability, and been forbidden to tell Path the results. this judge assigned him to the outriding guardians, those few who had any sort of contact with the outside world, and were responsible not only the imports and exports that the hidden city had, but for keeping all strangers at a lethal bowshot's length away from the city. the guardians were the least prestigious of the organizations within the city. they were thought of by most as the dumping ground for the failed arcane archers-the elite city militia tasked with the defense of the city and surrounding lands in times of strife or danger.
to this day, he has not uttered a word. he seeks to hone his archery skills, to become a better archer than any arcane archer.
guardians are a more combat oriented class, honing what skills they can and focusing on the physical aspects of protecting their mountainous home. bound by a sacred tie to the land, they become fierce and loyal defenders of their homes.
so, that's the flavor and some of the history of one of my favorite characters. i was needing something that could meet the requirements for a cragtop archer (in keeping with his mountainous terrain) and a deepwood sniper (for the forests that cloak his mountain home. also something that would be good at fighting. so lots of skills, lots of feats-cause archers really need a lot to be effective, and lots of combat ability. and reasonable saves. ranger had the saves and combat and decent skills....
i didn't want him to gain any form of spellcasting-more for storyline's sake than anything else. so i nixed the spellcasting entirely. i wanted more skill points, so i bumped it up, figuring that this class would concentrate entirely on the physical. i didn't think i could justify lots of feats, so i settled for the rangers combat style progression, and noticed that the ranger had the good BAB and two good saves, so i went with a ranger variant template. so, basically, this was a blending of a munchkinly desire for "just the perfect class for my character", tempered by a healthy dose of "now let's make this interesting, but balanced".
Community Supporter
Homebrew Classes. We all have them. This is your 15 minutes of fame...
Thoth-Amon, Lord of the Underworld and the Undead
Reply With Quote
not sure if thats good or bad. Never made my own Vampire or whatever either. The closest thing is we aways just used the priority system rather than picking an archtype in shadowrun but we didnt name them or anything.
Originally Posted by nijineko
Bookmarks