jchrisobrien | Time Travel: alas poor Ari...

Sunday was another day of rest and relaxation, of leisurely doing laundry and moving the gaming table back to the attic. The intent was to visit a friend and drop off some Buffy tapes, maybe watch an episode or two, then head over to my DND game. But alas, time stole away from me. Off to the game then, another session of searching for the missing King's son, which was cut abruptly short by my character's demise.
I haven't had a character killed in a game in ages, and it was a little sad. I've only played Ari for a few games, but I already had the personality down, and foresaw great and interesting things for the character. Now her looted body is zombie food. As per our group's pact, I rolled up a cleric for the party (which we sorely needed) but I have yet to get into the character. I was getting very tired as the game was winding down, but also a little surly. Clerics are, more often than not, not as much a character but a walking source of healing. They don't get to do much else. Perhaps I'll scrap the character, or try to make it a little more interesting. Or start expecting a little more religion from the players if they want to get healed. See the light, heathen!

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Clerics rock dude!

There is so much more to them. Just because there God has a certain ethos, don't make them a conformist. Look at all the different ways people woship Allah alone, or Jesus.

And if you pick the right god, you can get away with being a cock to the party. For example, I once had a cleric of a war god that wouldn't heal minor wounds in the party. They were badges of honor for a battle well faught and should heal naturally if they weren't life or limb threatening. He'd launch himself into combats as if he was a fighter and start wailing people with his mace until they were dead or he was dragged back from the front line by the party. And he drank like a fish! Holy crap. I started so many fights in bars with that drunken lout.

Don't let the class define the character, let the character defne the class.

-sarcy

The right god can make things interesting. Right now, though, the party is treating the cleric like a walking healing machine. And that's how I'm thinking of him. And I don't feel like getting into major theocratic discussion with them over issues.

Guess I'll have to think of some ways for the character to be more heroic. I should just not put any thought into a character's backgroud or history until after they reach 2nd level or get at least 10 hp. :)

I think it's because we were so long w/o a cleric, we just went a bit healing crazy. *sheepish look* We were at least being good about thanking you, it seemed to me anyway. :)
It's up to you how you play the character, don't let us push you around, or take you for granted. If you're really not having fun, I can dual class as a cleric like I was planning to, and I'm pretty sure another inspiration is going to hit in the party, so we won't be so without regenerative skills if you want to scrap him and start over. And next time I'll call a stop when I start getting tired and not let it go on quite so long.

I've talked with Forest, I will put my head into it and see what I can come up with. At the very least, since he's a cleric of Pelor, he will want the palading to be returned to town for proper burial. And for future resurrection? Or maybe with Ari gone, another Sla... I mean, paladin is called and he can go on a quest to find her.

There's stuff to do, I was just in mourning. :)

J. tends to have the same problem with her cleric in the occasional (practically bimonthly) D&D game I run (you'll perhaps be happy to know that John the Fighter is still around as "that NPC guy that shoots arrows and sometimes hits but otherwise does little"). As a cleric of the halfling god of death (in an appropriately "eat, drink, and be merry" sort of way), though, the ale-swilling little guy has some leverage he could apply if need be. They're crawling through catacombs lousy with the undead (so her character gets a little extra respect for making skeletons cower left and right), and the cleric has so far bit back most criticism of the attendant grave-robbing his pals have been engaging in so long as they get to clear out the unnatural abominations that have cheated death. But he could always hold back a healing spell in exchange for a promise not to disturb the burials of the true dead, I suppose. And it wouldn't be too much of a leap to let a mortally injured character die naturally. (I also doubt that the cleric would cheerfully go along with a Resurrection attempt...)

On the other hand, this is largely straight old-school hack-n-slash dungeon crawling, and by mutual agreement actual character development hasn't entered much into it. We're regressing to middle school.

That about sums John up to a T.

He's also very mediocre statwise. Most of the rest of the party is running around with 18's here and there, and the best I can muster is a 14 wisdom.

Now I'm the first to argue that having an interesting background and personality is the best thing about role-playing, but just like in mirror life, it's easier to get things done when you have high stats. :)

Well, at least John is coming up on third level, so his THACO will improve soon and he'll perhaps be able to hit things better. (It would have been fourth, but the party ran into a wraith, and as "red shirt security guy" he got to serve as an object lesson to the rest of them to show them how much trouble they were in.)

Also, I've been running him and often forget to give him a turn when I'm also doing all the monsters. J. has suggested I have his character sheet float around to whichever player isn't so busy at a given moment, which is what I'll do next game.

(The other main NPC, Marie the Cavalier, has been transmogrified into a player character in the hands of Mr. Hsieh. Oh, and Woody the Wood Elf betrayed everyone and has gone missing. He'll probably be back as a villain at some point.)

E.

Time Travel: alas poor Ari...

BAH!

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