My first 'proper' try at a character

[mattausten86]

Here's my first proper try at a character::

With the advent of Abbadons 13th crusade,the number of plague zombie outbreaks rose sharply,keeping the operatives of the Ordo sepultrum very busy,one of the individuals was Inquisitor Thelios,a hardline Horusian,if ever there was one,even so,he was never one to turn down the chance to turn the weapon of the great enemy upon itself!!!
During the dark days of the 13th crusade,upon Hydra minoris,one of the mjor hives had succumbed to the plague,rumoured to be started by the deamon,Ghul-anash,it was within this hive,that Thelios and his warband,battled deamon and zombie alike,after what seemed like hours Thelios and Gul-anash met in 'mortal' combat.
Blow after blow landed on the deamon,but thelios's sword could not slay the putrid beast,whereas ghul-anash's rusting sword met with the inquisitors flesh every time it struck.
As the wounds started to purify and started to sap Thelios's strength started to leave him,he made one last effort to try and rid the world of this foul deamon,he lunged with his sword,finally finding rotting flesh,as soon as the tip of the sword pierced the deamons skin,a mist started to form around the sword and Thelios,growing thicker every second,within seconds the deamon and his rotting army was gone.
As the mist started to dissipitate,a figure emerged,resembling Thelios,yet different,his facial features seemed sunken and guant,and his sword,that very sword that had banished the deamon,was now rusty,dripping with pus and with a dim green glow.
Thelios made his way offworld,to be debriefed at the Inquisitorial base,Nemesis Tessera,but never arrived..........................

His superiors had assumed that he had perished on his return to his headquaters,how wrong the had been................


Within months of his disapperance,whispers spread of a man that could raise and control the dead,a man that,where ever he travelled,death and pestillence followed,rumors persisted that within the ranks of followers of the undead,were beings of of total dread,beings that could not be described without going insane.

Ws Bs   S   T   I   WP Sg  Nv  Ld
69  45  42 79 60  87 73  85 84


stubber,with 2 reloads
Plague sword-Ghul-anash wp is 70 +2D10

rusted Power armour(armour value 6,(-1 speed)) on all locations except head
fearsome,true grit,,nerves of steel,nurgles rot

pestilent earth.effluent form,curese of the leper


ive modified the stats and his wargear a bit,because like everyone said,he was too powerful(although,all of his stats were rolled for,i even had to take some off the number that was rolled  ),with regard to leader,he was still an inquisitor,so i thought he had to have leader,but ive taken it off now,also because i want to use the mynarc model,he's in power armour,but because its so rusted ive downed the armour value.

im still not happy with him,i want to get across that he is carrying the mark of nurgle,and i don think ive achieved that!

cheers
matt

[biggreengribbly]

Sounds more like a plot-hook or GM-played antagonist to me Especially with the "sent dozens of operatives on missions to apprehend this individual,as of yet,none have returned!!!!" cliche.

[DapperAnarchist]

Playing villains is something we don't seem to do enough here, I think. I also think that we don't have enough weird, and this character has potential for some weird.... but!

1) Why is he so immune to fear and worry of any kind? Could that be better represented with a high Nv value?

2) Why does he have Leader, when he is now an accursed abomination of death?

3) More background detail on him would be good. What did he meet in the hive? What is the name of the Hive world? These places tend to require names, it not like a dust-blown rock orbiting a fading star.

4) More details on his equipment - simple stuff like, what sort of power armour is it? Is it, say, Martian Pattern Plate, issued only to the best, or something a little cheaper, like a Tolkhan Pattern Personal Protective Suit? This needn't make any rule difference, but it adds flavour.

5) this is a BIG one. A really really big one. It's not just a weapon if its a Daemonweapon. Its a character, that is held by another one. It needs a name, a background, a story. It also needs a Wp stat.

[Alyster Wick]

Neat character, but I'll echo that he sounds more like a plot hook.  He's also incredibly strong (WS and BS in the 70s and up combined with a daemon weapon and bolt pistol=potential for a VERY short game, not even mentioning his hard-as-nails toughness, heroic strength and the fact that he's a psychic monster.  Forgot to mention his power armor. Unless you want to steamroll everything or this guy actually is an end of campaign NPC boss type I would suggest modifying those).

Anyway, that aside turned into a paragraph in its own right.  Fair warning, you're probably going to hear A LOT of criticism (constructive, of course) aimed at the fact that your guy is an expert at everything.  Even if you turned him into some type of immortal necromancer who has studied the varied arts of death for 1000 years since his change I would still significantly modify his stats.  Maybe he wears the power armor because his body is finally reaching the apex of decay or his current goal is to engineer the slaughter of an entire planet so that he may drink their death scream and become rejuvenated, in either event you could keep his wargear but doc his physical stats (including WS and BS, decaying eyes would hurt his martial prowess) and he'd still be a monster.  Likewise he could walk around almost naked, frightening those near by with his putrid form (and maybe he has some kind of daemonic resistance).

Enough on that rant, I'll just say that I like him as an NPC boss type but right now he's too good at everything.  You've got a great base there and I'm personally a big fan of writing minimalist backgrounds with the hints of interesting stories and then allowing the characters to flesh themselves out on the board.  That said I think you should flesh it out a little bit more and definitely think about what direction you want to take this character in before revising the stats (psychic beast, close combat monster, gunslinger). 

[Adlan]

GM NPC end of campaign villan? Perfect.

Player Character: One man warband, and a tough one at that.

However, the idea, and the character concept are sound. And feels very suited to Inquisitor.
You want to use the Mynarc Model (can't say I blame you), but how about making the armour not just rusted, but an actual hinderance. Those touched by father nurgle are not noted for their agility, and so a -1 speed from the burdensome armour (or even -2) would go a long way to make him a fairer opponent.

Just because the mynarc model has a bolt pistol dosn't mean your guy has to. A weapon swap or removal is about the easiest conversion. Why not swap out the bolt pistol for his psychic focus ( a corrupted =][= seal?), or someother item.

With his psychic powers, I'm unfamiliar with them off the top of my head, but why not make them all touch based, or focus more on their affecting the dead (having less effect in game, while still retaining the fluff aspect).

As others have said, at the moment he's a Master of all trades. Stand off and shoot, he'll nail you with bolt rounds, or blast you with psychic powers, close with steel and he's in power armour, and has a deamon weapon. I general, you should have only a couple of specialities too excel in (Shooting and speed, psychic powers and being incredibly tough) and a drawback from the specialisation (a master psycher is rarely going to be a master of combat, almost certainly not both shooting and hand to hand).

From the description, I'm picturing this guy as Much tougher than he looks thanks to nurgles blessings, but slow. Little shooting ability, comptent in hand to hand and a good psycher (or good in hand to hand a comptent psycher, did he have psychic powers before he encountered the deamon?). With a few Cultist Mooks (maybe his remaining archivist or scriptor, and a plauge zombie he is fond of)

[Flinty]

Nice to see a follower of the dark powers for a change, and the lowered stats will make him a more interesting character to play with and against.

One minor suggestion is that his fluff makes him pretty much a legendary character - the sort of individual who is going to find it difficult to spread the blessings of Nurgle without attracting major Inquisitorial attention - imagine the kudos for the person who took his head as a trophy!

Perhaps you could take him back a step or two, maybe he was the favoured Acolyte of Thelios who is now continuing his masters work, Thelios himself having being consumed by the warp or elevated to higher things? That then means he could still be gifted with some of his masters kit, perhaps tweaked to fit the job in hand or depending if he is accompanied by any retinue... 

   

[MarcoSkoll]

Although all of his stats were rolled for, I even had to take some off the number that was rolled

What you'll find is that around here, we don't put much stock in random generators. Just because dice came up with the number doesn't automatically make it either representative or fair. Actually, more likely the opposite - the dice have absolutely no idea how skilled he's supposed to be, what his allies/opponents have for stats or what equipment he has!

[Kaled]

In the article on daemons there are rules for things like Nurgle's Rot and Plague Swords - not sure if it's available in the archive, but if not then I'm sure some kind soul will type out the rules for you...

EDIT: Ah, looks like it is in the archive after all...

[MarcoSkoll]

What luck. One of the two articles I just linked in the other thread: http://www.mediafire.com/?275bv80ihhc20nb

Am I good, or what? (Cue someone saying "You're what.")

[DapperAnarchist]

You're what.

Wa-hey!

[mattausten86]

in the article on daemons there are rules for things like Nurgle's Rot and Plague Swords - not sure if it's available in the archive, but if not then I'm sure some kind soul will type out the rules for you...


you must have read my mind!!!!



cheers
matt

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

Daemon's are characters too...

I would suggest that - although Thelios probably knows little of it - you need a significant background, history and characterisation for the sword. Why, for example, did it let itself become trapped in this hideous form which can barely experience the material world? What plan did that serve? what plan does Thelios serve?


My other primary concern is Thelios' WP stat...
For a start it's high anyway, but more importantly for a character using that form of weapon there is only a ten percent chance that the sword will come close to control.

[MarcoSkoll]

For a start it's high anyway, but more importantly for a character using that form of weapon there is only a ten percent chance that the sword will come close to control.

Normally, Daemonswords have a fixed Wp (usually less than their users, else they would probably have taken control long ago). They usually only are likely to dominate their user if their user suffers an unlucky psychic test.

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

Yep. and barring a 17 or more on two D10 the same is true here.

I confess that I saw the daemon sword and WP87 (Comes off crack because he decides to stop, doesn't quite get what other people make so much fuss about) before I'd fully read everything but I'd still like to see the WP dropped and the sword's WP increased by a point or two (no more than that) relatively (so if Thelios' WP drops to 77 (for example) the sword's would drop to 61-2 + 2D10. It may not seem like an important change but it suddenly increases the risks significantly.