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I'm sort of having an RPG-related identity crisis.

VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
So
for the longest time I've been in love with the dark magicks of Necromancy. I mean, I still am in love with it. Though, I'm finding myself more and more attracted to Bards and support classes. I'm actually thinking of making the Bard my main class over the Necromancer. Like

In Baldur's Gate:EE on my iPhone I'm playing a Blade Bard that only learns Necromancy spells and am super enjoying it. More-so than my Cleric or Wizard Necromancers. In NWN2 the Bard is the most fun I've ever had with a class.

If I can combine Necromancy and the Bard style I will like with the Dirgesinger prestige class in 3.5 or the Dirge Bard archetype in Pathfinder. In 5e I think loremaster Bards can pick up animate dead so I'm covered there.

Should I go through with this conversion to maining Bards in games from now then? I adore their versatility and support playstyle.

Comments

  • jesterdesujesterdesu Member Posts: 373
    Only you know if its right for you but imo bards are certainly very cool characters. The down side would be losing the best necromancy spells, as that book more than most is very much better later on. Bards, especially blades also do very well with buff type spells and necromancy seems a strange fit to me but if you're feeling it then that's great.
  • Lezard_ValethLezard_Valeth Member Posts: 70
    The beauty of Baldur's Gate and other games like it is that it gives you the option to do whatever you'd like within the framework of the game. Bard is a very cool class, and severely underrated in my opinion. I personally like Bards as well, as I like the idea of a "Jack of All Trades" class, but haven't played one yet. I was actually considering making a Bard for my next playthrough of Baldur's Gate.

    Basically what I'm trying to say is that you should do what you'd like to do. If you have fun playing as a bard... then play as a bard!
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Vallmyr said:

    I adore their versatility and support playstyle.

    Well, that sounds like a pretty darn good reason for playing a class!
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,760
    All I can say is that you don't need to always play with one character concept. Sometimes it is worth to try something completely new, something not what you "gravitated towards" before.

    I'm a huge fan of rogues, thieves especially. Several years ago I couldn't imagine how I learned to like a completely different class. But thanks to my Totemic druid run through both games I now like druids just as much as I like thieves.

    So, I wouldn't call it the identity crisis. It's just a new chapter. Embrace it!
  • joluvjoluv Member Posts: 2,137
    Have you thought about why your more childlike characters are female? Would you be comfortable playing a "derpy" male character?
  • jesterdesujesterdesu Member Posts: 373
    It sounds to me like you've not yet narrowed down your favourites very much, so experimenting seems the way forwards. I mostly play thieves/ rogues but still have momentary pulls towards almost all other classes, which can be confusing... Bard is certainly a great class to play if you aren't wanting to specialise too much in any one direction.

    You've mentioned it already for other games but did you ever feel like trying an evil cleric in bgee? They make pretty awesome necromancers.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Fascinating story, @Vallmyr, although I'm almost tempted to protest "too much information".

    Your approach is almost opposite to my own. I play a wide variety of classes to experience the game-world in different ways, playing roles which are usually very different from my real-life persona (and usually different from anything I might even want to be). Not projecting myself into the game, but instead an exercise in thinking differently.

    Nevertheless, as the years of playing RPGs roll by, I've found myself particularly enjoying playing as a support character, just as you have. In my case, I think it's mainly because support characters are usually more subtle and complex to play effectively.
  • spacejawsspacejaws Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 389
    The idea of having only 1 school of magic learned intrigues me. I might possibly go through the game as a specialist mage and only use the spells for their school. There is alot of spells that I have thrown off as useless and this sounds like an interesting way to shake it up a bit. Tgen I have scrolls and wands as backup :p

    If anything ot makes thay school define the wizard much like you jave done with your bard.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @Vallmyr , I enjoyed reading your thoughts and self-analysis. I also use my gaming hobby for psychological and even spiritual self-analysis, and I self-insert into every game I play, so I really know what you're talking about with that. You're the first other person I've met who apparently feels as deeply about it as I do, and you articulate it very well.

    I like to imagine, if I had special powers, and I was in this imaginary world, who would I be, and what would I do? I find it a very rewarding activity to do that, and I've done it almost every day of my life, for as long as I can remember, through books, comics, movies, television, and of course, gaming. From early childhood, I always imagined myself into every story in every possible medium. I gave myself a role, wrote myself into it, and imagined acting out my own episodes and stories with the characters from the book, or the TV show, or whatever it was.

    Meeting my D&D group in high school in 1982-1983 was like coming home for me. I thought, "Wow, I can actually get together with other people and do this? Awesome!"

    And then in 1998 I discovered I could have almost the same experience of catharsis using computer technology, with the Might and Magic games and with Baldur's Gate.

    So, thank you very much for sharing your ideas and feelings. It's nice to know someone else who sees the potential for serious psychological benefit from creating self-projections of "sides" or psychodynamic elements of their real life psyche into roleplaying and computer games.

    I think @Son_of_Imoen might be interested in this discussion, because he's a friend of mine from the forums who I think also uses gaming as a form of psychological self-help.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    @BelgarathMTH I've done the same thing will the self-inserts when it comes to settings of books, movies, shows, etc. I especially love IWD-like games since I can insert my whole head-canon party into a game. In those situations this dilemma is solved because I have both a Necro and a Bard in the party.
    joluv said:

    Have you thought about why your more childlike characters are female? Would you be comfortable playing a "derpy" male character?

    Well, I've done so in the past with a Jester Bard named Van Songblade. He wore a jester outfit and I used a portrait from the Jester in Darkest Dungeon. He started as CE but I couldn't find myself to play an evil character and he switched to CN eventually to finally CG. He went from "dangerously funny" to just wanting to make people happy because he derived enjoyment from other people's happiness. They mostly tend to be female because I enjoy the aesthetic of a tiny pink haired gnome girl. The initial design was derived from Lulu of whom is a derpy childlike character that happens to be female.

    @Gallowglass
    I agree, I probably did insert too much information. I was typing at 4 am on my phone because I couldn't sleep and I kind of just kept typing and typing XD
    My goal was to provide information about my growth in an RPG environment and how I switched from a damage-dealing mage to a support-styled one.
    jesterdesu said:

    You've mentioned it already for other games but did you ever feel like trying an evil cleric in bgee? They make pretty awesome necromancers.

    As stated before I have issues RP-ing evil characters. I just don't have the heart for it unless it's the idea of a "misguided" character that fully believes they are doing good. Fortunately Viconia can serve that role in my party and I can derive the fun of that kit from her. I plan on using her all the way through BG:EE and BG2:EE on my current Bard run.
  • jesterdesujesterdesu Member Posts: 373
    Necromancy seems a bit evil to me.

    @BelgarathMTH
    So what do you like to play in bg?
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    Well, that depends both on the ruleset and subjectivity of it.

    In 2e Necromancy includes healing spells which don't seem to be evil. In 3e only animate dead and create undead had the "evil" descriptor. Other Necromancy spells didn't. I believe in 5e now animate dead has dropped the evil descriptor as skeletons are treated like golems.

    I've played necromancers that abhor using animate dead (Doomguides of Kelemvor) and others that have fully embraced it. Vampiric Touch is no more or less evil than a fireball is. Unless in the setting ALL arcane magic has the evil descriptor then it's simply neutral.
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @Vallmyr is a kickass name for a necromancer, and that is a darling portrait for a gnome.
  • DragonKingDragonKing Member Posts: 1,979
    I have the exact same problem when not playing a, wizard/summoner or arcane caster in general in any type of game I play. I tend to never make far in Those games.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    semiticgod said:

    @Vallmyr is a kickass name for a necromancer, and that is a darling portrait for a gnome.

    Awwww, thank you n_n
  • DragonspearDragonspear Member Posts: 1,838
    My paladin is my alter-ego in most games. One reason why I try to lean towards (and fail often) with a Paladin of Mystra or some sort of Paladin/Wizard hybrid. On some basic, carnal level, I actually fully identify with being a paladin. Righting wrongs, bringing justice, attempting to fix things through the law whenever reasonable possible. That said, I do have some latent anger issues, which is where Wizardry, particularly a focus on fire magic comes in.

    I don't mind talking my way through situations, and I have very clear markers on certain issues (at work and as a whole) that I'm quite stringent about.

    That said, I have 2 real opposites I've learned that fit.

    The second is a ranger personality, stemming from my love of the outdoors, and also from a beg forgiveness not permission philosophy. It's trying to squeeze in more good now, or bending some rules that I don't feel are equal.


    I used to think that my evil alter ego would be an assassin, but if I'm honest, I think its probably closer to a blade. Trying to be a flashy, likely joking trickster. Using an at times silk tongue, and incredibly honest, if not always innocent demeanor to disarm those around me towards my true intentions.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    edited November 2015
    Idea that could combine the elements RP-wise. Maybe a Bard that's interested in forbidden and forgotten lore? Seeks out cursed weapons and armor along with dark sorceries. That way I can keep both themes of both classes.

    Also, @Dragonspear , as for your Paladin/Wizards I'm curious how you would build one in IWD2 or another 3e game. Is it just a splash of wizardry? Also, is it specifically wizard or are you also interested in a Sorcadin, Sorcerer/Paladin, since they both scale well off Charisma?
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    jesterdesu said:

    Necromancy seems a bit evil to me.

    @BelgarathMTH
    So what do you like to play in bg?

    @jesterdesu , I'd say I play neutral good or lawful good clerics about 70 percent of the time, mages about 20 percent of the time, and paladins about 10 percent of the time. Sometimes I like to combine these preferences into a mage-cleric, a druid, or a bard. One time I played a barbarian just to shake things up and try something different. Then I went right back to playing clerics most of the time.

    Part of my preference for clerics comes from my youth, when I was very religious, and I even got my advanced degree in religious studies. (I've since become a pretty hard skeptic in middle and old age.) My first tabletop D&D character started at first level as a mage, and then, I projected my own real life religious guilt into the character, and immediately dualed him to a cleric who wanted to atone for forsaking his deity for the promise of personal power from arcane magic, and then being redeemed into one of his deity's most devoted followers.

    I played the part of the angsty, guilt-ridden cleric, constantly tempted by the lure of his talent for arcane magic but rarely practicing it, so well that my friends started having trouble accepting me as anything else. A couple of them even started calling me by my character's name "Barnabas" (based on the Dark Shadows character - I was channeling Jonathan Frid's performance) in real life as a nickname.

    I was always the party cleric after that, in all of our campaigns.

    Years later, when I got into computer D&D in 1998, I continued the same character preferences. I also discovered that I preferred healing as my play style mechanically, a point that really got brought home to me when I got into World of Warcraft for a time. I found that I much preferred just following the tank around on a leash and concentrating on taking care of her health bar, pretty much ignoring the dungeon and all the monsters, and nobody caring much about how much damage I was doing, which could very well be none, and I was fine with that.

    In my fantasies, I'm usually much more interested in imagining having great powers of shielding, protection, healing, and impregnable defense, rather than in powers of attacking or hurting enemies.
  • jesterdesujesterdesu Member Posts: 373
    Cool. I see an attraction to mental and force of mind/ spirit over physical in that too, which is how I see magic over weapons.
  • jesterdesujesterdesu Member Posts: 373
    I often think of these things too and found it fun recently to work out with my wife what she best identifies with. We settled on barbarian dual classed to mage (would be wild mage if allowed).

    Shows even people without the history of d&d involvement can still enjoy it.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    @Son_of_Imoen , I will have to run a Dirgesinger eventually. Probably after my Blade run on my iPhone I'll play again on my PC and get the mod. If it works with Siege of Dragonspear then it might be the char I take through that.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    edited November 2015
    I think this is sort of a crappy solution but

    both are me. I can't decide between two because it's like choosing between my left or right arm. Neither is "more me" than the other.

    Edit: now if I can choose a Necro-Bard like in Pillars of Eternity's chanter I'll go with that but if that's not an option then I'll just choose either or.
    Post edited by Vallmyr on
  • DragonspearDragonspear Member Posts: 1,838
    edited November 2015
    @Vallmyr

    Since IWD2 doesn't have epic levels, I'd likely go Paladin 10/Invoker 20 for the actual theme. Likely mostly though through paladin first (prolly 7 paladin, 5 wizard, finish paladin, finish wizard).

    Although Dragon Disciple would also fit me, the paladin of Mystra multi-class allows free multi-classing into Wizard.

    Edit: If you want more exact detail, let me know and I'll provide them after work tomorrow.
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,459
    So little update the Necro-Bard concept is working wonders. I've found in most RPGs I play I can replicate this build and in PnP games it's SUPER easy to replicate. I'm playing a bard in NWN2 atm as some know and they actually get access to quite a lot of necromancy spell + with UMD can cast animate/create undead
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