Ki’d Up
Reading through our own backlog in preparation for our upcoming Bestiary of Characters, we came to a startling realization. Poor Monk has only ever featured in a single comic. The indignity! Surely the punchiest of the core classes deserves better.
Aside from this comic’s overwhelming need for more martial arts content, today’s strip comes courtesy of one of the dankest D&D memes to ever grace the net. If you’ve never encountered Muscle Wizard, go ahead and hit that link. Dude cracks me up every time.
I love the idea of one class masquerading as another. From the “wizard” in the all-barbarian party to the hatless inquisitor, the idea of the carefully guarded character sheet has long been a source of amusement for me. Cunning characters like the bard or the rogue can pull it off easily (some more than others), but the core of my infatuation lies with the big dumb guy.
Too dumb to know he’s just a fighter and too intimidating to get called out, this character concept lives his life throwing Molotov cocktails while shouting “FIREBALL!” He waves his hand in front of the guard’s face, then whispers “Suggestion!” before punching him in the head. He breaks into a run and calls it expedition retreat, keeps a pet parrot and insists he knows speak with animals, and (as in today’s example) can’t tell the difference between stunning strike and daze. I’ve never had the opportunity to play such a marvelous idiot myself, but I’m guessing some of you guys have.
So how about it? Have you ever rolled up a druid that believed she had a future as a dancing poodle/bard? How about a warlock that thought all wizards got their magic from eldritch patrons? Let’s hear your stories of confused PCs in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
I’ve played with a few characters like that; a Paladin as Fighter, a Wizard as Rogue, a Rogue as Wizard. My own was a Warlock as Ranger, but sadly I had to play my hand in the first session of the campaign to save the group from a TPK.
I wish I had an interesting story about it, but all of them were just an “ooooh” moment as they revealed their abilities, then not much else. We were most impressed with our Paladin, who had successfully masqueraded as a Fighter until level 5, but ultimately it was just a fun prank by a veteran player.
Nowadays I think i’d probably spoil anyone’s class disguise by accident. They’d do something “wrong,” i’d tell them how it should work to be helpful, they’d have to explain, and the joke would be ruined.
I’m on the receiving end of this at the moment. I’m slow-playing a cursed character, and as the dude’s Wis gets converted to Str he is A) becoming inexplicably short-tempered and B) hitting WAY harder than he has a right to. It didn’t even occur to me that this could be interpreted by the other players as cheating until a buddy of mine hit for slightly too much damage in another game. I was about to ask him how he was calculating his damage when I realized what that would mean for my own situation. In consequence, I’m wondering if it’s the veteran player’s job to shut up and give the other players the benefit of the doubt. I guess it’s one of those situations where metagaming really can get in the way of story.
You could even explain this in-character though. “What an amazing hit! Didn’t know you had it in you. Have you been working out?”
I think that RPing the interaction is the ideal. At some point though the dice have to enter into it as well. I actually asked another player to roll Sense Motive against my character. It was an unconventional move, but I feel like it effectively conveyed “yes there’s something up with my character.”
Well, I did have a con artist rogue who ran his own “dojo” of magic. He called himself Rutherford the Red and lived in a wizards tower in the middle of town. When people would come to ask him to cast spells, he’d tell them he was doing something too important for their little minds to grasp and delegate it to his students. Then he would take a cut of the profits. Ah, the cushy life.
All this (and more!), thanks to the Rumormonger ability, my favorite ability in the game. Also let me say that bluff is way overpowered in Pathfinder.
That looks like exactly the sort of silliness that Rumormonger was designed for. Moderate benefits, good quest hooks, and lots of shiggles. Well done that rogue!
Dr. Colin recommends a heaping spoonful of, “Some lies are so improbable that it is impossible to convince anyone that they are true (subject to GM discretion).”
I think I’ll just leave this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F74mBRjwTc
The “RPG lie,” man. It’s shenanigans.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/charm-anything
Hey, all those sorcerous bloodlines have to come from somewhere!
Not quite the same, but I have a character planned (but never enough games to play all the characters I want to) of a high level druid that never un-wildshapes and pretends his default form is an awakened animal.
Nice! That totally counts! If noble wild species are a thing…
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/caedwyr-s-lab/noble-wild-species/
…then that’s one class masquerading as another. And now that you mention it, spying druids is actually an interesting point for my extremely hypothetical “everybody plays as familiars” campaign.
Not exactly what you’re talking about, but my Iron Gods PC is a Daring Champion Cavalier from the Order of the Eastern Star, and he’s very secretive about it (he’s been assigned to investigate Numeria’s technology and the Technic League’s misuse of it, so he’s trying to be subtle). As far as the rest of the party (in-universe) knows, he’s just a Fighter who’s good at giving them instructions (Tactician), examining things (Psychic Sensitivity), beating down on guys who piss him off (Challenge) and who happens to know a lot of stuff (16 INT combined with the Local Ties trait and Comprehensive Education alternate racial trait to make all Knowledge skills class skills, eventually the Technologist feat). Who knows how long that’ll last…
Also not quite what you are talking about, but in another campaign we have a Kitsune Sorcerer that everyone believes is a human because she’s never shapeshifted out of her “human” form. The only real hint has been that she’s the only one who believes the dwarf-who-thinks-he-is-an-eagle (he’s not, he’s just insane) because that seems way more plausible to her than it seems to most people. My Half-Drow Magus has a Cloak of Human Guise, so the half of the party that joined after I got that (we had some player turnover) probably doesn’t realize that. Hopefully our new Paladin and Inquisitor don’t freak out when they learn…
Oh dude… You should 100% get your eagle dwarf to collude with you behind the scenes. He should start claiming that you want to “steal his eggs” and asking how you can “stand to be among the humans” and similar. It could be some very fun foreshadowing.
Not quite the same but I had a goblin ranger who was convinced for a long while that he couldn’t do magic. He thought hunters mark, his main spell was just him being a smart hunter and speak with animals just sorta happened sometimes.
I’m currently running a paladin transported to Ravenloft from Earth. She has no idea why she suddenly developed magic. She flings her Lay on Hands at allies like Venkman trying get ectoplasm off his hands:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBnnw_uMCZg&t=0m36s
Not quite what you’re going for, but I was once in a game that was going to involve different threads for multiple different changing groups of PCs in a city and the environs thereof. It didn’t matter that character goals weren’t aligned or they were of wildly different alignments or members of different organizations since the groups would probably shuffle around from one job to the next.
I had planned this behind the scenes thing where my changeling rouge was going to pretend to be a different character, possibly even different classes, with different groups as it suited them. And since the player groups were all mixed up and we all had our various secrets, most of the players would have been none the wiser for a long long time. (Unless they looked at spoilers and noticed I was doing Sneak Attack damage or something.)
Sadly the game didn’t get very far.
I feel like an episodic “adventures of the guild” type game is a solid solution for a large group of gamers. Unfortunately, running a game requires a GM to be really into a premise, and that’s hard to maintain with an episodic setup.
Changeling dude sounds like a blast though. Could have been cool to see different people from past adventures meeting your new personas and slowly figuring it out.
I’ve played a rogue pretending to be a wizard before (in the same 2-man party as a sorcerer pretending to be a cleric), but that’s not a very good or long story, and not why I’ve posted today.
I just wanted to thank you for linking that post about the all-barbarian party. That was a good story.
Well then hang onto your chainmail briefs, because here comes Part 2!
https://i.imgur.com/CByce.png
I played a Barbarian rogue:
Locked door? Two-handed double-sided lockpick.
Guards? Sneak past. “YOU DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING!!!”
Traps? I find them. With my d12 HP.
YEAAHHH! This guy knows what’s up!
Tell me that you’ve got character art to share. I need to see this guy in action!
I think I’ve mentioned him before one of my favorite characters that I’m currently playing is my Swashbuckler who was kicked out of fencing school for his huge ego leading to attitude problems. He claims to have moments where he enters intense focus to enhance his abilities, putting him above and beyond his peers, but in reality he just starts stabbing violently while shouting insults and curses enemy. Swashbuckler level 1 and the rest are in Unchained Barbarian.
A somewhat new addition to my roster is a Vanaran Evoker Wizard. He loves fire spells to the point where he casts them exclusively, as he only seeming to prepare Burning Hands spells when not flinging low damage bolts of fire. He also happens to have about twice as many hit points as a wizard his level has any right having, as well as a Fortitude save that could make a dwarf blush. Turns out he’s actually a Fire Kineticist who’s following his dreams of being the greatest wizard who ever lived, all of the detractors be damned.
“There is no problem that cannot be solved with cannons”
~ Generals in general on cannons. Also on fire mages.
I’ve had a similar idea for a 5e oneshot. I’d ask every player to create a 10th level fighter, but in a way that they can pretend to be another class. Between the different class features and number of feats they can have by then, it would be easy to pass off as a different class. At least to other Fighters
“No, I’m not an Eldritch Knight who took Magic Initiate and War Caster. I’m a wizard! Who can fight!” “What kind of fighter has proficiency with this many skills and tools, while being a defensive duelist? I’m clearly a rogue!”
Nice! Other than the amusement factor though, what’s the exigence? What kind of adventure calls for fighters pretending to be different things? I mean, is there some noble or other calling for a classically balanced adventuring party?
Muscle Wizard sounds link Major Armstrong from Full Metal Alchemist!
This is the only correct interpretation of the character.