Believes way too heavily in the idea of “eye for an eye,” in that others have to EARN her respect. As a field medic, Lucy Ambermann is not there to judge who lives or who dies. She helps everyone as long as they’re not trying to kill her or her allies, even to the point of helping former enemy combatants. But if you’re rude to her, she’ll have some choice words to say about you in her native tongue of lizardfolk. None of them will be very nice.
My character is a textbook hedonist. He's the king of a continent, and everyone beside/below him he loves all the same, but he loves his enemies more because it means he can throw all of his experience at them. He always does good things but almost never for a good reason, but for an almost entirely selfish reason. He once met an archfey who was not shy about how powerhungry she was. His response? "That's hot."
Pretender Syndrome. My Aarakocra Grave Cleric, Acias, was chosen by the god Habakkuk after being a gravekeeper and undertaker most her life. She doesn't understand what the heck this god who hasn't chosen a Cleric in over 300 years saw in her. She's too good of person to ignore the calling and does her best, but she basically has pretender syndrome, feeling she doesn't deserve this honor and trying to find exactly what Habakkuk saw in her that made her worthy. No matter how many times the rest of the party TELLS her she's worthy or why, she can't bring herself to accept it and doesn't really know who she truly is. Her theme song was even 'Who Are You?' from Balto 2 for that exact reason. She was also socially timid and tends to hide behind the Paladin and let him do the talking. It was actually fun to play, as by the end of the Campaign she'd grown out of her flaws and accepted Habakkuk chose her because she's a good person and literally told the Red Dragon Army to f-off after the final boss, and they listened. That's the fun of flaws: it's so satisfying when your character has grown past them by cammpaign's end.
Currently GMing a One Piece dnd campaign using the Dungeons and Devils fruits homebrew set. One of the players plays a fishmen rogue called Slug Shark. For those who haven’t watched One Piece, Fishmen are humanoids with features from aquatic creatures (sharks, manta rays, octopuses, etc), and their whole deal is that the avarage fishmen is naturally stronger than the avarage human, and they get stronger in large pools of water, since they can swim REALLY fast and don’t have any difficulties fighting underwater. And Slug Shark; a FISHman, based on a SHARK, who can BREATH UNDERWATER… doesn’t know how to swim. Like, at all, he never learned; so everytime he goes to the sea he just sinks to the ocean floor (or in some cases, he just hangs on a ship’s hull) and has to call for help or try and go to an elevation to go back to the surface or climb his way up.
"Doctor" Staszrich is a medical expert with several flaws. His first flaw is that he has a no-killing oath. He'll absolutely throw a few haymakers, but he doesn't deal lethal damage. HIs second flaw is that he has a thirst for pursing research even into dangerous territory. He is also prone to abandoning his ethics in his pursuit. It's gotten him nearly killed a few times, but he's patched himself up. His third flaw is that he has extremely low dexterity on a class that doesn't have proficiency in medium or heavy armor. His final flaw is that he has low charisma. That locks him out of deescalating violent situations, convincing people to sit down for interviews, or be a friendly face in general.
I played an Aarakocra that got easily distracted by shiny things. He got knocked unconscious by knock out gas because the jar was shiny. I also played a devotion paladin that loved dad jokes. Needless to say the DM was always giving him permanent disadvantage.
Mur’darr Ilphelscient Cratermaker, Orc Spirit Guardians Barbarian, with 17 Int and the ability to weave his own suits, has a simple flaw: He doesn’t think he’s strong enough. He already proved his worth to his adoptive Elven family, his friends, his party, and yet… So far, he just can’t prove his own worth to himself.
Right now my greatest character flaw belongs to my homebrew warlock kobold who vehemetly requires permission for things. He wasn't a vampire kobold, he just didn't like to do things if his friends didn't want him to
Vo Kënsmith, little winged kobold who was an arcane trickster rogue/gunslinger fighter (basically an artificer, but before artificer got published). Basically, he was very nervous and paranoid almost all the time, and had a bit of a trigger finger. (Was kicked out of his tribe when he was like 6 because they didn't like he was winged, then got into a disagreement with his adoptive father figure.) He also did his best to help the party via his arcane tinkering, but his priority was to avoid dying, or at least postpone being stuck in the earth forevermore. It became a running joke that if he *wasn't* nervous, then you should be concerned. Wasn't great at picking up if someone was suspicious in a conversation, but his expert eyesight picked up on a lot of other possible threats. Did shoot someone that wans't a threat on accident, thought, because he was on edge.
any attempts at revealing what he is will see him completely shutting down in a panic attack long story short, he's got PTSD from a combination of xenophobia being instilled on him as a child and a bandit raid burning it down justifying that xenophobia
My Hill Dwarf ice Sorcerer, Brodan Frostbeard, has horrible fear of fire (believe it or not). I dont want to spoil backstory in case my fellow players sees this vid, but he will constantly stay a far distance from any type of fire, to the detriment of his allies. If there is any type of enemy in a battle with any type of fire ability, he would stay away from that enemy at all costs and run if they try to get close. It will be quite a while until he can somehow overcome this fear.
Varius Umbrilla (blue dragonborn storm sorcerer) is an absolute adrenaline junkie who loves to play games with his life. He has claustrophobia (it's was a space-travel campaign) and basically stayed *altered* whenever they weren't on solid ground. Before the campaign died, he was starting to explore his draconic heritage and what that meant. Sad I'll never get to see him grow out of that.
My barbarian/warlock is like the Demoman from TF2, and is such an alcoholic that he shifts between patrons because he gets drunk and does something so stupid and chaotic that a demon or Cthulhu steps in like; ‘maybe you shouldn’t have this kind of power’
My current character is from an entirely different universe and is a Christian crusader of the Knights Templar. He has no clue how he got to this strange land, doesnt know about the differences of this new universe to his and has ZERO concept of other Humanoid races... He is also very stubborn and his hatred towards his enemies is blind & irrational... So when he saw tieflings for the first time, yeeea.. 😅
Mine seriously has a thing against harming animals. In a gladiatorial arena, I tamed a Lion instead of fighting it. In a cave where a giant Croc got sent after us, I got a Nat 0 trying to eldritch blast it.
being an honest and dutiful rogue. being the responsible party member can be a strain playing any character, though. a dodge build helps a bit against backstabbing on the physical level, at least. if the party collectively decides to partake in tomfoolery, that mainly leaves the choice to abandon all cooperation in the first place and sacrifice half your characters assets to fulfill the mission or to fail horribly and provide first aid for your party members bodies.
My Circle of Spores Noble Human Druid has a Narcissism Complex, believing she's 'the most beautiful woman in the world', taking it to Highlander levels if someone tried to contest it (There can only be one). One time a princess tried taking that title while calling her an old hag, so she poisoned her before turning her into a fungal zombie. My Path of the Beast Lizardfolk Barbarian would refer to himself in the 3rd person when speaking Common, and would give nicknames to his party members. (Human Ramger with an insignia on his leather armor = Tit Patch, Aasimar Circle of the Stars Druid = Wings, and an armored Human Battlemaster Fighter that he failed to toss up a ledge = Fatso). He's also working on finding a dragon for a mate as he wants a bigger and stronger mate (His mother died after laying his egg). My Arcane Trickster Loxodon Rogue has a knee jerk reaction to hearing about taxes, usually resulting in the death of the one implementing the ordanance. He's part of a Gentleman's Thieves Guild that is heavily anti-tax as it can cut into their trade deals. Lastly there's the friendly NPC for Storm King's Thunder, a Half Hill Giant Healer Variant, and she has a fear of Dwarves. After hearing the story from her Hill Giant mother of how the rivalry between Hill Giants and Dwarves began, she feared that she'd be hated simply for that reason, and that stuck since childhood. When she encounters a dwarf NPC or PC, she'll try hiding behind something to hide from it, sometimes with the other party members.
In the last campaign, I played a moon elf druid who takes everything literally. She was also very naive and trusting. This caused some pretty funny situations for the party. Making all of the other player characters careful what they said to her. For example, if someone said "spill the tea," she would spill a cup of tea. Since she was overly trusting, if someone asked her to do something nicely she would do it without a second thought. The funniest situation she got into was when she and the bbeg were having a nice little chat, while the other players were engaged in combat in the other room. He was trying to convince her to sell him her soul. Over time, she learned that things can have more than one meaning and not everyone can be trusted.
It's a good day to die is Shamash Silverclaw's catchphrase. He runs combat even if it takes turns to get there on his own, accepting that he will be attacked by ranged damage. He is the last member of his Samurai clan, but seeks an honorable death in combat. He also wounds himself for each loss, leaving a scar. So self-harm and recklessness is his personality. He only self preserves if an ally could be rescued. Saved my Brother's Barbarian many times. Surprisingly he survived a lot of stuff. DM actively tries to kill us with insane combat.
My character in Anima is a Nephilim Dukzarist, and a princess from what is essentially Japan. She became extremely untrusting of pretty much everyone after losing her family and status (Mom being killed, Dad of old age, forced to flee the country at an early age), especially companions whom she only trust if she has no choice. This lead to situations where she would take the initiative to do something drastic to make things faster. For exemple, when dealing with natives in a faraway place for a mission of retrieving a magic stone, and since talking lead to nothing and she was already annoyed, she assassinated the leader at night in cold blood so they could steal a precious stone (She's a sword fighter). She also got her heirloom stolen (a katana turning into a bracelet and holding the spirit of a witch that look like another "her" and can communicate with) so she's even more pissed. Considering she can throw sonic boom at 1 km of distance with enough force to cut through stone (at level 4), suffice to say... better be on her good side.
I rolled stats on my first ever barbarian and got godly numbers for all his physical stats, but a dumpstat of 6. I decided I wasn't in the mood for the typical dum-dumb INT dump, so I decided to dump CHA instead, and used that to inform his character flaw. I played him as ridiculously socially inept as I could. Here's this huge barbarian guy, shrinking away shyly from a short grumpy dwarf, verbally coaching himself through introductions: "oh, right, my name, I forgot." "Now we shake hands" as he extends his huge arm to about an inch away from the other person's face. But if he really got to like you, he'd regale you with his long, droning stories about the philosophical and combat lessons he learned living in the forest and studying bears for a decade. Also, due to his upbringing before his bear-whisperer sabbatical, he was a very morally upstanding guy. Unfortunately for him, it was a very morally grey campaign. So to remain the party conscience while also not being That Guy causing severe campaign conflicts, I used his flaw to make him easily manipulated by the high-CHA, morally flexible Bard leading the party. A wink, a winning smile, and an assurance that the Bard had everything under control, and my guy was begrudgingly on board. Sadly, real life interferences stole away too many players and that campaign died early. But I am about to reprise the character in a new campaign. Rolled a much more balanced stat block this time, but you'd better believe I'm still RPing him with an honorary 6 CHA. He just wouldn't be the same any other way!
My Warlocks biggest flaw was he never took anything seriously, he had escaped imprisonment early in his life and pretty much just tried to enjoy life to it's fullest after that, not letting any of the very serious world ending stuff around him bring his mood down, even when it rubbed the party the wrong way.(Which it did a lot) My wizard however never let slip his secrets, he was very much a quiet guy who prefered to listen and just went with the partys plans even if he had thought of a better one just because he'd rather not reveal his abilities even to his allies, it rubbed the party the wrong way when he revealed things later that could have made their lives much easier earlier.(Also didn't help he was a double agent for the BBEG at first who later turned for real and spilled everything to the party)
one of the characters i played in my campaign had been a "burn ward victim" from a house fire that killed his whole family, except his little sister that he had sacrificed his body to save leaving mostly unharmed but him mentally and phytologically wounded for life and forever had pyrophobia as he could not start a fire, be near fire, or feel fire at all without entering a state of panic
I always like building my characters either with some inherent quirk, mentality, or flaw. Every character I ever have has some gimmick of some sort even if its not obvious. I just feel it makes the RP so much better especially if I have to work around some handicap. Like having a character with a deep phobia to fire or running water due to some past trauma, or a mute who has to find simpler ways to communicate with others. A magician who's spellcraft is horribly unstable n more likely to blow up in her face but can still craft powerful tools Maybe they always tell the truth not bc of some code but bc lying takes too much effort but not as much as silence. Or what if they are so snared in incompetence n insecurities that they self sabotage themselves constantly. As much as I adore subtle twist characters, flawed ones have their charm, especially in games where people try to min/max or power fantasy, having a character that is intentionally nerfed in a regard just helps highlight their other aspects
Amar, bearer of the violet lights- Chaos mage in a SotDL game Amar was a gambler- not in the sense that he'd constantly gamble away the party funds, but in the sense that he was constantly gambling with his own life & powers. In any situation where there was a high-risk, high-rewards choice, Amar went all in. Obviously this had some dire consequences- from sparking gang wars to getting involved with dangerous politics all the way to striking a deal with a demon. Amar was truly the most chaotic chaotic-good character I've ever played
My first DND character was a dragon born paladin of light. He had anger management issues and a thing for recycling. Fang was his name. He kept getting pissed off at villagers and would try to eat them. So, he'd have to give a shopping list and his gold to someone in the party and wait outside of town. When we'd get attacked by bandits he'd want to save the "non parish able" (jerky and such). So, bandits were on the menu. First time it happened the party freaked and asked what the hell (but more colorfully). I (in character) replied without thinking "recycling, want some?" 😂 Oh, how I love that big lizard boy....miss playing him.
I made a Dwarven Barbarian DMpc named Untgrääd the Intelligent. He was short, a massive drunk and had a Russian accent. He got his name as a cruel joke by the townsfolk in the town he resides in because he is all brawn, no brains. Untgrääd was a glass cannon, extremely strong but lacking in the brains aspect and spoke in a broken (English) common language. He also had a crippling character flaw. Untgrääd was terrified of the dark and anything he perceived as a ghostly apparition (mage hand, certain magic spells, someone turning invisible, anything his small brain considered spooky) and would have to succeed on a wisdom saving throw in order to not become frightened. I made this character flaw overide his natural ability to not become frightened when raging. Let's just say it was the most memorable character I've ever played. Laughter, and sighs of frustration and anything in between around the table as Untgrääd became terrified at every encounter. He also had a dagger of warning, which he kept with him to use as a night light and he also used it in caves because he was terrified leading to some pretty unfortunate encounters where we were caught. My players ended up choosing the evil ending of our homebrew campaign and now Untgrääd is the idiot Jarl NPC of a hold that the players will have to kill in a sequel campaign. I am sad to see him die but he has committed too many war crimes to survive.
Loyalty. It was the core idea of my first character and every single time I've remade them. Loyalty his greatest strength... and worst flaw. He never saw the betrayal coming. His whole job was to root out evil, put corruption to the sword, and he never suspected one of his allies to ever betray the Empire or him personally. Tristan was a interesting character. He was my character Lucas's colleague. A fellow Knight Commander, unlike my character whom handled things with a personal touch Tristan had a spy network he managed and was our spy master. He also was a blubbering coward praying to every god he could think of... But he had skills. I had initally suspected it was strange how quickly he arrived to help when my character's family estate was infiltrated by the green haired killer who terrorized my character's parents and siblings by I threw away those suspicions upon seeing how fearlessly he was handling the situation having apparently rushed to my call for aid with barely anytime to dress. I said to him. "I do not care what the other commanders say, you are no coward Knight Commander Tristan, thank you for coming to my family's aid." He left with tears in his eyes. For those words where all he ever wanted to hear. For in truth he was the green haired killer, he slew former Order Knights, slaughted a passenger train around me and the party without us realizing it and attacked and terrorized the estate all in a ploy to get the wish scroll the Empire kept in their back pocket. His next plot a demon lord summons went off without a hitch because we the party where shit at priotizing things. That day a city of 1 million souls where damned half the party was killed and the Empire lost a son far too damn loyal for his own damn good. The only person to truly and sincerely acknowledge Tristain and his efforts to safeguard our homeland. His plot worked. He got the wish scroll. His wish? To be recognized in the Empire as a hero. He was, and he never betrayed the empire again, in honor of fallen fallen friend. He wanted to be stopped by sometimes DnD parties a too fucking stupid for their own good. He was my first and best character, made in pathfinder, and the only time I ever surpassed him was getting to remake him for another go at that campagine. A little wiser and more knowledgable about the system I was in. The remade Lucas was a fucking trainwreck of ptsd, alcholism, drug use, and pain killers, but still so unbreakingly loyal. And in that campagine atleast he got to see the end by the skin of his teeth, redeemed, honor restored, and looking forward to a bright future hopefully with a certain resurrected hero of legend at his side. Combining bond and sherlock holmes was a great idea.
My Bugbear Divine Soul Sorceror was a Jack of All Trades, Master of Healing. He has proficencies in about everything, while he doesn't have offensive spells he has a combination of Divine and Arcane Support spells for his allies, and he is capable of healing people from near death with Metamagic and Beacon of Hope... there is just, one problem... He appeared extremely lazy... and when I mean lazy, I mean, session zero, asking my new D&D group. "Look, I have this idea for a character, but he isn't going to likable at first." Kind of lazy. He just started following the party after he heard things that he really should not have heard, and basically been completely useless while they were watching... but when they were not watching... He was solving a lot of problems. He discovered where the Mcguffin was, convinced an entire Magical Forest to help him, and convinced the three of the antagonists at the time to join the party. The players knew the my character was doing these, but their characters were not which made for an interesting dynamic. Even the aformentioned antongisted were instructed not to reveal I convinced them to help. You see, my character did not want people knowing what he was really capable of, thus he pulled strings from the background with a combination of Charisma and Stealth Checks. If people knew he could do all of what he could, he would have been pestered all the time, never being allowed to rest. Hell, his whole goal in life is trying to find the deity who forced his magic onto them to punch them in the face for roping him into their goals.
My main character is a mad chaotic neutral bard with a messed up form of immortality. She often flips between manic and numb &/or depressive states based on IRL coin flips. This is due to being stuck in a loop of life & death that skips around the timeline and spans from the fall of Netheril to whenever the current campaign is set. All thanks to a semi-botched wish. For lack of a better way of putting it she's got a "glitchy phoenix curse". She can die like anyone else but unlike most entities she'll respawn. But the time, place, and even world she spawns in are random.(based on campaign for IRL mechanics) This also prevents her from being resurrected or being claimed by gods or infernals for any form of afterlife. (If she dies in a game I roll a new character with no option of playing her again in it) This has understandably driven her quite insane. Resulting in the previously mentioned mood swings as well as extreme recklessness and a general apathy towards other beings. She can cooperate with a party and others but it becomes clear that she has no real regard for them in most instances after long. In her manic state she also has no self preservation instinct to speak of and acts closer to a barbarian in a rage state than a bard often to her own detriment. About the only times she isn't in such states is when she's performing. She's not a singer type bard but a storyteller who mixes illusion and acting into her works. Telling more or less accurate tales of times past. Her performances are effectively her coping mechanism.
My drow fighter/barbarian, Roger, has had slightly different backstories in each game I play him in but something that always slips into his character regardless of what I intend to do is that he strongly lives by the "Treat others how you would want to be treated" rule. This translates in game as him refusing to judge people by how they appear, whether it be what species they are or if something they are doing looks shady. Which normally wouldn't be a bad thing except the DMs I played him with found ways to exploit it. In his first game, he almost got turned to stone by a gorgon after finding her garden of statues and only avoided that fate because he kept assuming that she was an amateur artist. Granted, she did have a good reason for all the changed people but she did a very bad job of making that clear at first. Game two had him show mercy to a dream demon (I forget what kind) because it cried out for help which resulted in him being labeled the enemy of the harpy empire and the creature lived to terrorize the country once more (this was the point I realized exactly what was going on with him). Game 3 was where I tried to give him a more standard backstory where he's the son of 2 famous adventurers who were killed suddenly when he was still young. Unfortunately my addition that he was somehow born with no magic at all (including standard drow cantrips) meant he felt he had to be useful and likeable at all times to make up for his defect and his inability to live up to his parents grand legacy. After that, I've felt very uncomfortable playing him because his struggle hits too close to home for me and I'd kinda like my escapist fantasy to be less me and more the better, cooler version of me. My best friend loves Roger though for some reason. He keeps trying to get me to play him again any time we start a new campaign. He says he wants to see what happens when Roger is allowed enough time to experience character growth. Even I'm not sure what he'd be like given enough time and support but I'm kinda scared to try.
I played a Cleric of Aasterinian (3.5e), with Trickery and Life domains. A hardcore pacifist. Would not hurt a fly, and actively try to heal fallen enemies. All life is precious and all that. A true bleeding heart. However there was a "timer". My DM and I made the arrangement of a 1d100 countdown, on Human or Dragon kills the party was the cause of. When the timer would reach 0, my cleric would flip the switch, and come to the realization that "If I can't save them from death, I will make them all undead". The group was very very puzzled while that campaign ran.
Our DM gave us pre-made characters for a one-shot he made that was supposed to end in us all dying like Disney's Rogue One. My character was a warforged rogue whose flaw was that he wanted to find his purpose, even at the cost of the mission. However, when an NPC gave him a bomb and told him to blow up a device that was preventing a strike team from overthrowing an evil empress, I decided he interpreted the mission and his purpose as one and the same. You'd think that would mean there'd be no problems then. You'd be wrong. When it came down to choosing between helping the party kill the reptile/insect things that were attacking us or finishing the mission as quickly as possible, I had him sneak out of there and plant the bomb while two of the other party members were being torn to shreds. Credit to them for surviving that, though. In fact, we all did somehow, and the DM was forced to make the one-shot a two-shot. Even then, he still couldn't kill my character and had to end the story mid-combat via a narrative since we were almost out of time for the session. 11:23 Does that person not know what the term means? "Nepo" is short for "nepotism." It means you get by with your parents' connections. It doesn't mean you're good at everything without trying. In fact, it means the opposite.
My current character in a campaign that recently started, a Half Orc Boxer (Champion Fighter) with the combatant name of Jackrabbit Jane, has gotten het name thanks to one of her flaws. She’s constantly hopping on her feet, or just moving in general, similar to her father who used the Jackrabbit name before. That’s less of a flaw than her major one is though, her father had died shortly after he had given her a pair of boxing gloves that she has refused to take off since. Literally, one of the party members asked if she had slept in her gloves…which she did, she refuses to take off the gloves because she has a fear of forgetting her dad
I have a repeating character. Backstory is he is cursed to reincarnate instead of move on when he dies. The bad version of Reincarnate where he is reporn as an infant somewhere else. Only manifests while his magic awakens, he is stricken with nightmares and hates sleeping, absolutely convinced the nightmares will excape his dreams. He is also muses randomly about numerous deaths when making plans or bringing up counterpoint ts to bad plans. The character is often viewed as extra weird/crazy This also means he leaps at things that reduce the need to sleep, coffee, rings of sustenance, that sort of thing, also means he usually is first watch, despite his wisdom/sanity being questionable... Most the incarnations are prone to mild hallucinations. I always have fun but due to the nature of his magic he tends to be blamed a lot for the party's misfortunes. He is hell for rigid campaigns too
One of my favorite character flaws was that of my sorcerer. His mother was actually Eris the Greek goddess of discord and strife. His character flaw was that he was a walking jinx every time he would walk into a new town or building the gm would have me make a roll to see what if any misfortune would befall the locals.
i had a fairy who had 3 flaws (2 of which didnt really come up because i joined near the end of tge campaign and didnt get much in rp as most sessions were combatcat that point) flaw 1: he had absolutely no sense of time. this only came up at the start when he was introduced. he was asked how long he'd been on the planet and he just shrugged and said "oh idk.. few days? or was it years... ah well, doesnt matter. there was a sun here when i got here though" (the star was gone.. idk why). 2: he was super obsessed with magic and magical items.. i was going to have him zone out in social situations and at the start of combat if ever there was some interesting magic or enchantment going on but sadly it never really came up.. 3: he was a coward. well.. more so, he was a farmer who had no desire for combat and little actual combat knowledge. this actually came up because i'd always take off into the air as far away from combat as he could while he cast spells (he was a sorlock). funny thing is, i always rolled really low with eldritch blast (only hit once out if 6 casts) so most the spells i used were utility (gust of wind, enlarge/reduce, vortex warp, etc). my other character was a crystal fungus that had only been alive for a month.. his flaws included being overly curious about everything and having no true concept of danger.. (lets just say he touched *everything* and started at least half the combats in that short campaign)
1 - rogue tina, forced into it before the age of 10, master of engineering and lockpicking, great stealth but not one bit of strength. it´ll be interesting to see an innocent little healer / therapist have to steal, harm and maybe even kill. 2 - warlock (no name), has dissociative identity disorder. who´s the patron? he´s the patron. specifically, a great wizard part that developed before his trauma, the others have varying knowledge and different connections with the wizard.
Not me, but one of my players. He is playing a kobold wizard named Darxun. He is a chaotic good... Necromancer. In his bacstory, he discovered the powers of necromancy and attempted to resurrect a couple of spiders to practice his craft. That backfired on him as Lolth didn't like her precious spiders being animated like that. She set the spider bodies on fire and set them on the kobold. Now he has arachnophobia. Also, he won't shut up about being a necromancer, often saying that he wants to use his magic to let families be reunited with their departed. It's got him into a lot of trouble thus far, including getting him kicked out of his own clan and later a town he helped protect. Every NPC that hears him talk about it kicks him out of the area, and even the party has a hard time convincing the thing to shut up about it. In the next session or two, he's gonna get the spell Animate Dead, and I believe the shenanigans are going to get even worse. All while he is attempting to use his powers for good.
Innocence and memory loss. My character Coddiwomple constantly looses his memory, and doesn't understand the concept of death. He constantly gets himself into dangerous situations, but tends to wonder out of danger with child like Innocence.
a former journalist that has long since retired due to getting on the wrong side of the wrong people, he is very paranoid. This isn’t great, because he is also a very well known professor at the local university. very fun to roleplay him distancing himself from the party and slowly growing attached to various members. (one of the members is a magic garden gnome)
My Gnome Monk had a major character flaw that could have been devastatingly detrimental - he was a recovering gambling addict. Where is a great place to gather information and learn of side quests? In a tavern. What is a common thing to find in taverns? Gambling. Every time we went to a bar/tavern/inn I had to make a con save to resist the urge to jump in and go for broke
My current character, a human wood kineticist raised by Ratfolk, is pretty snarky, but only in regards (so far) to the *other* white-haired Prince far from home that also has a divine bloodline. We didn't plan or discuss anything and came up with two very similar back stories. The big difference? Mine is out exploring the world with permission, the other is running from their duties.
Magnus Arkandi, from the sessions of the weird mix of DnD/FE system of homebrew he existed in, was greatly flawed as a person and character. He grew up knowing that his father was transformed into a full-on dragon, driven insane and locked within their species' former home continent, rendered otherwise inhospitable to them. From an early age his hotheaded nature and lack of exceptional magic or intellectual talent got him in trouble a lot, and ended up convincing his mother to devote plenty of time in honing his body and martial skills. He's simply a morally bankrupt meathead who even delves into devouring his foes. He's also last in line to become the next king, so despite being a prince he sheds any sense of manners around most people. Over several sessions, he's been a Barbarian, Fighter and once a Monk, though more recently our DM was gracious enough to set up classes for the shifter races. If one knows FE 9/10, they'll know some of the races, though there are separate types of humans(not Beorc) based on kingdom origination.
My character was designed entirely around rolling a 6 on my Wisdom score. I role play this as him being extremely gullible and naive, but having the charisma to pull off a "lovable idiot" trope and nobody holds it against him. It's always fun to roll a -1 on a perception check and listen to the DM describe how he "forgets to open his eyes" when looking for something.
My Githyanki Sorcerer's biggest flaw is that he's very sadistic with his enemies. Capture a goblin? He'll torture for information if he somehow fails to intimidate. It's definitely led to some in-game wtf dude moments.
Hagus, the artificer from Barovia (sp?) anything not building related goes up on a D20 to see if wild magic is involved what nobody seems to have figured out yet is that because he’s from Barovia is that he’s aw werewolf he just can’t control when he ships but most magic goes through the animals side, causing it to go wild
Crag, the barbarian is too trusting, once. He trusts most people freely, often even those he should not, but once that trust is broken, he is incredibly difficult to get back on side.
Had a group of characters where we all had to comeup with a reason y our characters were even in the tavern at the start, everyone's characters were basically introverts
Oh, I have a few My current character: Superiority complex(thinks no one can outwit him) My monk: Paranoia And my warlock is extremely timid I'll add more if I remember To add onto my current one, he doesn't act arrogantly, he just believes that when it comes to deception, none can best him
Well my favorite character flaw is my Shadar-Kai warlock with the fiend patron. So basically his backstory is his people were murdered by a bunch of high elves, and so now he wanders around the world as a bounty hunter with a huge vendetta against high elves. That plus the fact I have the fiend patron, which makes him very aggressive anytime we run into elves in our campaign, which the DM has made sure that has happened been plenty of times and the party has gone nuts over me going on a murder frenzy.
My characters flaw is "will go to extremes to avoid letting friends and family down/ protect them" My dwarf druid is about to get timless body, so gonna live upwards of 3000 years His GF is a human wizard to try and fix this life-span gap/issue My druid is looking into finding vampires, recipies for lichdom, clone spells, Simulacrum, soul jar while also looking for ways to reduce his life span, such as pissing of a Androsphinx, find or create a poison that will reduce his lifespan Heavily considering moving in with her and making a home in the Astal Sea to stop aging anything and everything to even the lifespan but also his family is usually getting targeted by bad guys as a way to get to my druid, so my druid has made safe houses, thought of ways to give them magical gear, a full armory and weapons stash, 100 PLATINUM of funds, A full storage room of rations and water and has considersd the thought of PLANE SHIFTING THEM TO A DIFFRENT PLANE JUST TO KEEP THEM SAFE even if they protest If the wizard GF found out about my druids research it may go bad, family might hate him but anything and everything my Dwarf does, he does solely for them (but also for himself too, he doesn't want to loose anyone he cares for)
I like simple flaws: My bard? - Laziness, hilarious for roleplaying being carried around on the paladins shoulder like boombox My monk? - Gluttony, party members exploited that more then once got her to do stuff by offering food in return My fighter? - Gullible, imagine her day-to-day interactions with NPC's.
It was unintentional because I didn't know how to play and when to mention I was talking OOC, but because of it, I accidentally gave my first DND character the flaw where she didn't know when to keep her mouth shut. What would've been an easy ticket to the source of that mushroom hivemind turned into a dangerous trek because Tui Lu didn't know how to shut up and not say that if they got inside, they would just kill him and be done with it... What makes it even FUNNIER, is that Tui Lu managed to roll a 24, convincing a Wisp to not kill them and thus sparing it's life. This ultimately lead to the infected squirrel being willing to help them because of that Paladin's chosen god. And it blew up in her face. Typical Artificier behavior.
Mine is an utgardt shaman from the blue bear tribe She's been living in hiding with them through her entire life, so it's safe to say that she doesn't REALLY know how the world works, and WILL antagonize any sorcerer
Garg (of the Al Mainads clan) is a goliath half orc barbarian (orc father and frost giant mother.) who's biggest flaw is being a pacifist. he was captured and sold into slavery at a young age and was forced to fight in the arena from about age 15 after about a decade of being forced to fight against his will he obtains his freedom and vows never to harm a living thing again. that doesn't mean he won't get involved in a fight though. he's more than happy to dive in front of the first attack and then try to defuse the situation (usually through intimidation.)
Kerkad Kherkhylan has a few flaws, such as his over eager nature to study magic, his preference to self realiance, and his anger. But his biggest flaw? Not comprehending what he does and sayus can be weird and off putting to strangers. We refer to him as to Rolf of dnd, but with high land scottish accent. To him, it is all just different shades of normal. So, for context, Kerkad comes from a tribe of isolated dragonborn that live in a far off mountain range. In these mountains, you will find a small village centered around a massive dragon skull. The skull acts as the homestead of the village elder. This group of dragonborn, usually blue in scales with the occasional variant, from marriage and resulting preganacy, live off the land, and trade with a few other neighborring settlements. They practice odd cereonies on random days, parade the newly dead corpses of loved ones around in funeral parades, fight rival suitors and people who besmirch their honor in gladitorial combat in the dragon bone octagon, raise giant agressive goats for meat, and lives lives people assume acts of fancy. They are not exaggerated, just conveyed differently. Among his tribe, Kerkad is the firstperson obrn to them with sorcerous abilities. As such, he was prided well. Him and his brother were largely raised by the mother after their father died in a incident involing a snake, laxatives, and a very cold mid summer day. The parade was an odd one, even by their standards. His borther was a man known to travel to the nearest towns, flirt with the married women, and come home, only for his mother to have fight the angry husbands in hand to hand combat. She made a good few widows this way. And his mother handles the families goat farm. His brother was raised to inheirate, as his magic abilities primed him for al ife of adventure. he left one days with tales to tell, and magic to learn. Amoung the tales of his village, there was the tale of how the former village cheif was killed and eaten by their scared bettle. How the local strongwoman Doe once killed a bear with nothing but a wishbone, five pounds of lard, and a greatax. The haunted trees that scream orcish at intruders every thrid saturday of the month. Of the five legged goat that once ate their grandparents. And, the hilarious tale of when one of the neighboring villages sought justice on hius borther, only to have 78% of their male population die in single comab against his mother. To Kerkad, this is nomral, and only the more notworthy events in his youth. So, he will tell the tales very caually, to the horror of people he meets.
I have played a character who once accidentally summoned a demon with some cultist, because "blood is the simplest way of transferring energy in magical rituals, it doesn't make them evil". Nobody except for the party (and the cultist) got hurt, but still. It's not that he was too naive in general, but he was positively inclined to everything he didn't understand (something like Xenophilia in GURPS, but not quite to that extent; he probably wouldn't befriend the enemy soldier knowing that they are the enemy). Knowledge clerics 🤷
Byakko, my open sea paladin pirate, has that leap first, look never mentality. If he hears a whisper of adventure, sees something out of place, hears any rumor, he is going to be dragging everyone else along with him. He is inspired by One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy with a mix of Jack Sparrow, so you know he is going to get both into and out of trouble PLENTY.
Mine is my characters rage, both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness. It’s lead her into some situations that she really should not have been able to get out.
I had a minotaur wizard his biggest flaw was his poor charisma or more specifically his overinflated ego in thinking he could kill anything with relative ease just short of a dragon.... And for most situations that was true. He only rolled two Nat ones in that whole campaign.... He did not roll after that. R.I.P. Bovi Known-strider.
My Dragonborn Warlock currently asking to random people if they have petrified eye of newt. I asked this for the first time playing on Rime of the Frostmaiden in the middle of a tavern and everyone (nobody knew I was playing Warlock except DM) looked dumbfounded. I rolled low, and even more people looked dumbfounded.
He is, and I put this literally, a coin-toss between being either STUPIDLY BRAVE or TRAUMATICALLY PYROPHOBIC; there is no in between. He could stare down the God of Death and think he'll beat it down. But when they use fire, oh boy he will nope the hell outta there!
I’ve an idea for a bard I want to play, he and his old team beat the bbg. However he ends up with a dragon child because you know bard and the dragon mum wants child support so all the gold he already has is gone. So now he’s on a new adventure just to pay for his kid. So the bards typical flaw of sleeping with everything bites him massively, and once in a while the party has a bit annoyed dragon come down demanding her money for the kid as they’ve a trip or something else.
My second character is "Ambiguously Evil" but is either one of the few or the only one with common sense. She is selfish, greedy, and she is the physical manifestation of profit/losses (i forgot what it's called). It doesn't help that I turned her into a dhampir now vampire.
In a cyberpunk campaign, with rules built from the ground up based on xcom, i play a tinkerer/technomancer based on one of the cult mechanicus from warhammer, with an anthropomorphic fox form. Abhores AI in all forms in a universe chock full of robots and mechs, full aversion to sexual acts and themes in cities full of prostitution and pornography (all within player bouneries, don't worry), and rediculously socially blunt. At one point, he found a dead body within a shipping container, did not check it past scanning for technology, and sold it off to a butcher for corpse starch. Turns out the body was acting as an incubation chamber for a draconian egg. After ensuring the safety of the egg, he inquired on the reproductive cycle of dracoians to the eggs mother, who promptly dragged him out to reclaim the egg and kick his ass. He got out of the encounter with mominor scrapes, and was later thanked for finding the security flaws around the protection of the kid. While he has no interest in the process of reproduction, he has become fascinated by the interaction, and has learned about those with stronger instincts than him.
In my case it a homebrew Succubus race character who is way too confident in her charm and gets herself into trouble with going a little to far in pushing for the level of discounts she wants from shops, or the like or just getting completely distracted herself by trying to charm random NPC to be under her sway should she ever need a favor. Though being it is a Curse of Strahd campaign it has lead to a couple hysterical encounters with Strahd trying to use his charms on the party just to be counter charmed by a succubus that usually leads to Strahd returning to his castle frustrated by the fact his charm matched blow for blow distracting him from his plans to taunt the party.
Never actually played DnD myself, but I got a general character idea. A lot of his major flaws come from the fact he’s a nature-dwelling survivalist with a rough past with people. For one, he typically doesn’t follow orders unless they are given before he decides on an action himself, or what he does ends up backfiring. He also doesn’t trust easy, unless he’s convinced what you’re doing isn’t inherently bad. And while he’s a great survivalist, he’s also pretty blunt, and mostly just tries to brute force his way through situations. He’s also pretty much entirely illiterate and also isn’t super good with conversation, so he doesn’t talk much. Like I said before, this is just an idea, and I’m completely open to any feedback, and sorry if he comes across a bit edgy.
had a Goliath barbarian who was afraid of being called attractive, cause she thought someone would enslave her, ironically enough she did get enslaved for a short time, but was sent to the fighting pits
in my current session im a barbarian spectral summoner and my character is debuffed if i dont have any souls and if i only have souls of weak people (bandits goblins) they keep that same power. but then i also can summon tamed animals and i have strong weapons like a special grade glave that absorbs and holds souls if i get a "glory kill." so basicaly no soul=big debuff
Current character, a kolbold alchemist, is so motivated by revenge to the point of self destruction, willing to destroy himself to see his goals met, even working with a red wizard to make a potion to give him the strength of a dragon. it turned him into a dracolich and we still need to solve that new problem. My next character, a tabaxi warlock/paladin, is going to have the flaw of being overly ambitious, overly optimistic, and incredibly sheltered and inexperienced, which will be how he stumbles into his pact and why he doesnt recognize pact magic as potentially bad at first
Being far too optimistic, he sees the glass as half full, even when it's more like 1/8th full. oh yeah, also his social anxiety, somehow he has both of those at once
Though I haven’t made it , I have a dnd character idea: An eldritch being beyond comprehension got bored and limited themselves to the mortal plane, hence the character. Flaw: they are a bored eldritch being. If something stupid can happen, it will most likely happen. Any good?
My character is extremely narcissistic.... Im a reflavoured palidin (in a dragon age inspired game) so I only help heal an buff you as long as you keep being useful
Asmodeus bloodline Tiefling. Struggles with her fiend blood. They have a tendency towards scheming, controlling, manipulation, and hungers for power and control. It's subtle urges they fight and mostly flavor. They realize this and fight not to give into this nature, but can't help make deals, work angles, pull strings, hoard money, and work with factions like Xanithars and the Zhetirum when advantageous. She does most of this in secret to avoid involving another member of the party... That other person being, tha paladin. Sitting at the opposite end, the party has a Gnome Devotion Paladin that is VERY simple minded. Justice, being good/nice and helping others are their personality traits to a fault. They lean into the character being innocent, gullable, and caring. They donate their share from the missions we do to charity, immediately. And have even donated the entire groups take the few times they collected the payout. Neither of these characters do anything to spite players or party, most decisions are discussed before hand, and becsdue we have a cool DM, usually the endeavors end up benifiting the party.
My character is a Rakin(raccoon person) who started as a ranger. He has "cursed hands" that would steal anything he could. Will eventually he met his new goddess(a PC playing an amethyst Dragonborn) and was able to be "reborn" as a Paladin who doesn't steal anymore. Although NOW his flaw is that he never shuts up to be people about worshipping his goddess.
Easy, I have a commoner background Human variant "divination wizard" who was kicked out of a discount mage college after being accused of cheating. Turns out, while he does have a small amount of magical talent, most of his correct guesses actually come down to an insane level of intuition that he thinks is perfectly normal for a barely educated mage. His ability to sometimes send and receive messages "telepathically" is the result of a chunk of sending stone getting embedded in his wrist from an explosion caused by him actually trying (and failing) to cast a real spell, alone and unattended in a storage closet. He's basically a slum-dog Sherlock Holmes with absolutely no self awareness.
Paranoia and wizards go like cheese and wine therefore I had a level 14 wizard basically Enchanted a moderate amount of gold with a variety of spells set on different triggers after some was pilfered from him Fireball was not the only option
Being terrible with money/lack of understanding of how society works. My Druid is no longer allowed to carry money with her since she lost all her money in the first session paying for food we stole- since she didn’t understand how money works she just paid with everything she had.
Magical amnesia trope aside, the loss of my Aasimar's memory has made her very naive. She knows little about the world and can easily be manipulated because of it. This has consistently affected her decision making through the campaign, for better or for worse
I normally base my character's flaw on their backstory with a combination of their stat points. A human barbarian with low int who was born of a barbarian tribe? He is illiterate, not stupid, he just can't read. A dwarf bard with low wisdom who used to be a wizard's apprentice? He has low self-esteem and hides his true personality behind a false persona. A tabaxi fighter who used to be a sailor? He easily gets nauseous while either driving or riding on land, excellent at sea though. An elf warlock who used to be a noble? He has a lack of common sense on how to behave outside high-ranking society, and will often flatter and speak with manners to even the lowest of thugs and disgusting monsters. A lizardfolk ranger who used to be a crafter? They had a disturbing fascination with bones and making weapons out of bones, they evolved this fascination into a desire to cook the things they kill making fine dishes from not only monsters but humanoid creatures as well. Small Story About the Ranger: He earned the fantasy world's equivalence of a Michelin star with his Beef Wellington in his second cooking championship, he made third place in the past dish. He made his masterpiece dish using Mynoid Chanterels with golden onions for the filling, Hydra Eggs, Leshy Flour, Holy Milk and Demon Butter for the pastry. For the meat, he used only the highest-grade stock available. Judge Wellington the minotaur from the first contest, who had told him his Minced Goblin Balls with Mashed Mandrakes and Cream Gravy was too unsettling to eat.
My character, if he finds a clay pot, roughly big enough for him to fit inside, he is compelled to immediately stop everything, and put the pot onto his back, and try to bring it back to his home. It is life or death every time, there is no stopping for health, he will roll for exhaustion without care. Because you see. You need big clay pots as part of the "clone" ritual. He has a room, full of clones. If he dies, his consciousness is moved. I spent like 6 sessions setting up contacts etc. Sure, its a copout on making new characters if i die.... but i have 4 clone pots. I had six but died 3 times to get one pot. So... you see the problem? Middle of a necromancer battle, man had a big tall ornamental vase. Which looked close enough to a pot i was smitten. Well- i guess thats 3 pots and a large vase. Still- *edited because of one petter. I mean letter.
I play a lawful good paladin in one of my campaigns - don't worry, he's not Lawful Stupid, just a humble farm boy who genuinely believes strongly in just helping people and doing the right thing - however, because he's an amnesiac, and functionally like a five year old kid with the body and mental capacity of an adult, he has a very childish BELIEF in what's right and wrong, and is stubborn as hell to boot. He really struggles with nuance, and situations where there's no black and white answers stress him out and make him very snappy and irritable. He puts his whole heart into things, but the issue is that he believes he's making the right choice pretty much every time and takes it personally if people try to get him to understand that he's wrong about something. It might SOUND like lawful stupid, but I really put a lot of effort into making it feel less like a "I am doing this because I am good and you are evil, and I have sworn to kill evil!" and more like a childish "no that's stupid that's not how it should work, just do the right thing like THIS"
Mt half elf ranger is his partys scout acts as a big brother to everyone and fights to right the wrongs of the wold putting others before himself. His bigest flaw is being half elf he was picked on abd bullied as a kid so hes very slow to trust people and can come off as cold and uncaring to those hedoesnt know.
He's got almost no tactical instinct; he needs time to analyze and theorize before executing a strategy, and if that strategy doesn't work he needs to rethink. This will change as time goes on, but for now it's illustrated in his first turn always being spent on defensive spells, or just flat-out panicking if the party is ambushed.
She, kinda like a deamon has a true name. So, if anyone were to find it out, ... Yea no that would suck beacuse unless i'd roll really really high, the person or people could make me do basically anything.
Offically tho its not come up yet in gameplay is someone innocent is in orison so my character stayed out and she feels bad about it. more commonly her flaws are mine, despite my constant note taking, I forget npc names (im dyslexic and have damage to my short term memory centre of the brain). Shes also as shes a Warlock/Bard, obssessed with findng magic items/lore that furthers her knowledge, is distrusful of everyone we meet, not to the pointof murderhoboing just me giving the dm side eye and being able to tell when shes bluffing.
So i had a Sea Elf, Laukee Heigh, that abondoned the god of the sea elves and was cursed so he couldnt touch salt water anymore. BUT that was so funny to the goddess of humor that she made him survive by living inside a giant beer keg. A filled to the end giant beer keg. Yes he was always drunk. Also he had Pseudobulbar affect which is The Jokers mental illness. He doesnt have the personality of the joker, he is chaotic good, but combining the uncontrollable whining and laughing while being drunk in combat can be utterly hilarious.
Knight-Paladin Gilderoy Gradwell of the Order of the Glow is an Oath of Devotion Paladin, brought up as an orphan under the care of the Church of the Glow. The Church of the Glow is a rather 'look down their nose' religious organisation, and as such, Gilderoy's biggest flaw is he innocently looks down his nose at the civilians whom he is sworn to protect. He was taught from a young age that, due to his service of the realm, his strength, and being born under The Mother's Glow (The Sun) he is, by default, better than the rest. He knows his duties are to serve the people, and he does so, diligently. Unfortunately, akin to someone lacking appropriate social skills, Gilly behaves unintentionally cruelly to the peasantry. He often makes expectant demands, as if they're obligated to provide his service. He was taught to look unfavourably to those who would hoard wealth, also, with exception to the Church and himself, as the coin was needed to ensure that Knight-Paladins of the Church of the Glow could adequately carry out their duties for 'the good of the realm.' Essetnially, he's a prick, but he doesn't really mean it, nor does he realise he is. Recently, I specked him into Warlock, after he was tempted by a sentient blade. This Blade tricked him into believing that it was The Mother's Glow given physical form. Gilly will believe almost anything under the topic of his Divine Matron.
Psychotic breaks. He/I got attacked by inanimate objects regularly. So we ended up going a touch bonkers, paranoid as hell. Then we got attacked by psychic underground hunters brainfucking us to death. He broke, and started sawing their heads off and throwing them around (which was already canonically a special item that did special damages, idr. Great excuse to finally snap though) Now he's still the good guy. He just gives zero fucks when his friends are hurt or violence happens to be the only viable option. An open hand and a closed fist bearing chaos and pain in the palm. It is what it is 😂
I playd a homebrew as pc meet Finnigan the Fox the ohter player and i joind the cityguard of the starting town and he and me got partners of the same patrol tour, evry time we rollt for looking for sus thinks my char lookt alwasy on the wall of a agrro citicen, always scremming to me stoping watching his wall so juding , and starting screeming trough the entire town
I don't really þink of their flaws, so i usually forget about them. But even if i did, my brother bitches and moans whenever i do anyþing a little annoying so he'd probably just bitch and moqn more if i rp'ed actual character flaws
Believes way too heavily in the idea of “eye for an eye,” in that others have to EARN her respect. As a field medic, Lucy Ambermann is not there to judge who lives or who dies. She helps everyone as long as they’re not trying to kill her or her allies, even to the point of helping former enemy combatants. But if you’re rude to her, she’ll have some choice words to say about you in her native tongue of lizardfolk. None of them will be very nice.
My character is a textbook hedonist. He's the king of a continent, and everyone beside/below him he loves all the same, but he loves his enemies more because it means he can throw all of his experience at them. He always does good things but almost never for a good reason, but for an almost entirely selfish reason. He once met an archfey who was not shy about how powerhungry she was. His response? "That's hot."
Pretender Syndrome.
My Aarakocra Grave Cleric, Acias, was chosen by the god Habakkuk after being a gravekeeper and undertaker most her life. She doesn't understand what the heck this god who hasn't chosen a Cleric in over 300 years saw in her. She's too good of person to ignore the calling and does her best, but she basically has pretender syndrome, feeling she doesn't deserve this honor and trying to find exactly what Habakkuk saw in her that made her worthy. No matter how many times the rest of the party TELLS her she's worthy or why, she can't bring herself to accept it and doesn't really know who she truly is. Her theme song was even 'Who Are You?' from Balto 2 for that exact reason.
She was also socially timid and tends to hide behind the Paladin and let him do the talking.
It was actually fun to play, as by the end of the Campaign she'd grown out of her flaws and accepted Habakkuk chose her because she's a good person and literally told the Red Dragon Army to f-off after the final boss, and they listened.
That's the fun of flaws: it's so satisfying when your character has grown past them by cammpaign's end.
Currently GMing a One Piece dnd campaign using the Dungeons and Devils fruits homebrew set. One of the players plays a fishmen rogue called Slug Shark. For those who haven’t watched One Piece, Fishmen are humanoids with features from aquatic creatures (sharks, manta rays, octopuses, etc), and their whole deal is that the avarage fishmen is naturally stronger than the avarage human, and they get stronger in large pools of water, since they can swim REALLY fast and don’t have any difficulties fighting underwater.
And Slug Shark; a FISHman, based on a SHARK, who can BREATH UNDERWATER… doesn’t know how to swim. Like, at all, he never learned; so everytime he goes to the sea he just sinks to the ocean floor (or in some cases, he just hangs on a ship’s hull) and has to call for help or try and go to an elevation to go back to the surface or climb his way up.
That's actually hilarious. I love this concept and may steal it for a character of my own at some point. Maybe a depressed merman.
"Doctor" Staszrich is a medical expert with several flaws. His first flaw is that he has a no-killing oath. He'll absolutely throw a few haymakers, but he doesn't deal lethal damage. HIs second flaw is that he has a thirst for pursing research even into dangerous territory. He is also prone to abandoning his ethics in his pursuit. It's gotten him nearly killed a few times, but he's patched himself up. His third flaw is that he has extremely low dexterity on a class that doesn't have proficiency in medium or heavy armor. His final flaw is that he has low charisma. That locks him out of deescalating violent situations, convincing people to sit down for interviews, or be a friendly face in general.
@@synashilp Well my own lil’ field medic disagrees with that first one being a flaw. That’s just following the oath of the medical field.
I played an Aarakocra that got easily distracted by shiny things. He got knocked unconscious by knock out gas because the jar was shiny. I also played a devotion paladin that loved dad jokes. Needless to say the DM was always giving him permanent disadvantage.
Mur’darr Ilphelscient Cratermaker, Orc Spirit Guardians Barbarian, with 17 Int and the ability to weave his own suits, has a simple flaw: He doesn’t think he’s strong enough. He already proved his worth to his adoptive Elven family, his friends, his party, and yet… So far, he just can’t prove his own worth to himself.
Right now my greatest character flaw belongs to my homebrew warlock kobold who vehemetly requires permission for things. He wasn't a vampire kobold, he just didn't like to do things if his friends didn't want him to
Vo Kënsmith, little winged kobold who was an arcane trickster rogue/gunslinger fighter (basically an artificer, but before artificer got published). Basically, he was very nervous and paranoid almost all the time, and had a bit of a trigger finger. (Was kicked out of his tribe when he was like 6 because they didn't like he was winged, then got into a disagreement with his adoptive father figure.) He also did his best to help the party via his arcane tinkering, but his priority was to avoid dying, or at least postpone being stuck in the earth forevermore. It became a running joke that if he *wasn't* nervous, then you should be concerned. Wasn't great at picking up if someone was suspicious in a conversation, but his expert eyesight picked up on a lot of other possible threats. Did shoot someone that wans't a threat on accident, thought, because he was on edge.
any attempts at revealing what he is will see him completely shutting down in a panic attack
long story short, he's got PTSD from a combination of xenophobia being instilled on him as a child and a bandit raid burning it down justifying that xenophobia
PANR has tuned in.
My Hill Dwarf ice Sorcerer, Brodan Frostbeard, has horrible fear of fire (believe it or not). I dont want to spoil backstory in case my fellow players sees this vid, but he will constantly stay a far distance from any type of fire, to the detriment of his allies. If there is any type of enemy in a battle with any type of fire ability, he would stay away from that enemy at all costs and run if they try to get close. It will be quite a while until he can somehow overcome this fear.
Varius Umbrilla (blue dragonborn storm sorcerer) is an absolute adrenaline junkie who loves to play games with his life. He has claustrophobia (it's was a space-travel campaign) and basically stayed *altered* whenever they weren't on solid ground. Before the campaign died, he was starting to explore his draconic heritage and what that meant.
Sad I'll never get to see him grow out of that.
My barbarian/warlock is like the Demoman from TF2, and is such an alcoholic that he shifts between patrons because he gets drunk and does something so stupid and chaotic that a demon or Cthulhu steps in like; ‘maybe you shouldn’t have this kind of power’
My current character is from an entirely different universe and is a Christian crusader of the Knights Templar. He has no clue how he got to this strange land, doesnt know about the differences of this new universe to his and has ZERO concept of other Humanoid races... He is also very stubborn and his hatred towards his enemies is blind & irrational... So when he saw tieflings for the first time, yeeea.. 😅
At my school game my character was an extreme racist toward dwarves, he was a Dragonborn by the way, and we had a dwarf in the party, that was fun.
Mine seriously has a thing against harming animals. In a gladiatorial arena, I tamed a Lion instead of fighting it. In a cave where a giant Croc got sent after us, I got a Nat 0 trying to eldritch blast it.
being an honest and dutiful rogue. being the responsible party member can be a strain playing any character, though. a dodge build helps a bit against backstabbing on the physical level, at least.
if the party collectively decides to partake in tomfoolery, that mainly leaves the choice to abandon all cooperation in the first place and sacrifice half your characters assets to fulfill the mission or to fail horribly and provide first aid for your party members bodies.
My Circle of Spores Noble Human Druid has a Narcissism Complex, believing she's 'the most beautiful woman in the world', taking it to Highlander levels if someone tried to contest it (There can only be one). One time a princess tried taking that title while calling her an old hag, so she poisoned her before turning her into a fungal zombie.
My Path of the Beast Lizardfolk Barbarian would refer to himself in the 3rd person when speaking Common, and would give nicknames to his party members. (Human Ramger with an insignia on his leather armor = Tit Patch, Aasimar Circle of the Stars Druid = Wings, and an armored Human Battlemaster Fighter that he failed to toss up a ledge = Fatso). He's also working on finding a dragon for a mate as he wants a bigger and stronger mate (His mother died after laying his egg).
My Arcane Trickster Loxodon Rogue has a knee jerk reaction to hearing about taxes, usually resulting in the death of the one implementing the ordanance. He's part of a Gentleman's Thieves Guild that is heavily anti-tax as it can cut into their trade deals.
Lastly there's the friendly NPC for Storm King's Thunder, a Half Hill Giant Healer Variant, and she has a fear of Dwarves. After hearing the story from her Hill Giant mother of how the rivalry between Hill Giants and Dwarves began, she feared that she'd be hated simply for that reason, and that stuck since childhood. When she encounters a dwarf NPC or PC, she'll try hiding behind something to hide from it, sometimes with the other party members.
In the last campaign, I played a moon elf druid who takes everything literally. She was also very naive and trusting. This caused some pretty funny situations for the party. Making all of the other player characters careful what they said to her. For example, if someone said "spill the tea," she would spill a cup of tea. Since she was overly trusting, if someone asked her to do something nicely she would do it without a second thought. The funniest situation she got into was when she and the bbeg were having a nice little chat, while the other players were engaged in combat in the other room. He was trying to convince her to sell him her soul. Over time, she learned that things can have more than one meaning and not everyone can be trusted.
It's a good day to die is Shamash Silverclaw's catchphrase. He runs combat even if it takes turns to get there on his own, accepting that he will be attacked by ranged damage. He is the last member of his Samurai clan, but seeks an honorable death in combat. He also wounds himself for each loss, leaving a scar. So self-harm and recklessness is his personality. He only self preserves if an ally could be rescued. Saved my Brother's Barbarian many times. Surprisingly he survived a lot of stuff. DM actively tries to kill us with insane combat.
My character in Anima is a Nephilim Dukzarist, and a princess from what is essentially Japan. She became extremely untrusting of pretty much everyone after losing her family and status (Mom being killed, Dad of old age, forced to flee the country at an early age), especially companions whom she only trust if she has no choice. This lead to situations where she would take the initiative to do something drastic to make things faster. For exemple, when dealing with natives in a faraway place for a mission of retrieving a magic stone, and since talking lead to nothing and she was already annoyed, she assassinated the leader at night in cold blood so they could steal a precious stone (She's a sword fighter). She also got her heirloom stolen (a katana turning into a bracelet and holding the spirit of a witch that look like another "her" and can communicate with) so she's even more pissed. Considering she can throw sonic boom at 1 km of distance with enough force to cut through stone (at level 4), suffice to say... better be on her good side.
I rolled stats on my first ever barbarian and got godly numbers for all his physical stats, but a dumpstat of 6. I decided I wasn't in the mood for the typical dum-dumb INT dump, so I decided to dump CHA instead, and used that to inform his character flaw. I played him as ridiculously socially inept as I could. Here's this huge barbarian guy, shrinking away shyly from a short grumpy dwarf, verbally coaching himself through introductions: "oh, right, my name, I forgot." "Now we shake hands" as he extends his huge arm to about an inch away from the other person's face. But if he really got to like you, he'd regale you with his long, droning stories about the philosophical and combat lessons he learned living in the forest and studying bears for a decade.
Also, due to his upbringing before his bear-whisperer sabbatical, he was a very morally upstanding guy. Unfortunately for him, it was a very morally grey campaign. So to remain the party conscience while also not being That Guy causing severe campaign conflicts, I used his flaw to make him easily manipulated by the high-CHA, morally flexible Bard leading the party. A wink, a winning smile, and an assurance that the Bard had everything under control, and my guy was begrudgingly on board.
Sadly, real life interferences stole away too many players and that campaign died early. But I am about to reprise the character in a new campaign. Rolled a much more balanced stat block this time, but you'd better believe I'm still RPing him with an honorary 6 CHA. He just wouldn't be the same any other way!
My Warlocks biggest flaw was he never took anything seriously, he had escaped imprisonment early in his life and pretty much just tried to enjoy life to it's fullest after that, not letting any of the very serious world ending stuff around him bring his mood down, even when it rubbed the party the wrong way.(Which it did a lot) My wizard however never let slip his secrets, he was very much a quiet guy who prefered to listen and just went with the partys plans even if he had thought of a better one just because he'd rather not reveal his abilities even to his allies, it rubbed the party the wrong way when he revealed things later that could have made their lives much easier earlier.(Also didn't help he was a double agent for the BBEG at first who later turned for real and spilled everything to the party)
one of the characters i played in my campaign had been a "burn ward victim" from a house fire that killed his whole family, except his little sister that he had sacrificed his body to save leaving mostly unharmed but him mentally and phytologically wounded for life and forever had pyrophobia as he could not start a fire, be near fire, or feel fire at all without entering a state of panic
I always like building my characters either with some inherent quirk, mentality, or flaw. Every character I ever have has some gimmick of some sort even if its not obvious. I just feel it makes the RP so much better especially if I have to work around some handicap. Like having a character with a deep phobia to fire or running water due to some past trauma, or a mute who has to find simpler ways to communicate with others. A magician who's spellcraft is horribly unstable n more likely to blow up in her face but can still craft powerful tools Maybe they always tell the truth not bc of some code but bc lying takes too much effort but not as much as silence. Or what if they are so snared in incompetence n insecurities that they self sabotage themselves constantly.
As much as I adore subtle twist characters, flawed ones have their charm, especially in games where people try to min/max or power fantasy, having a character that is intentionally nerfed in a regard just helps highlight their other aspects
Amar, bearer of the violet lights- Chaos mage in a SotDL game
Amar was a gambler- not in the sense that he'd constantly gamble away the party funds, but in the sense that he was constantly gambling with his own life & powers. In any situation where there was a high-risk, high-rewards choice, Amar went all in. Obviously this had some dire consequences- from sparking gang wars to getting involved with dangerous politics all the way to striking a deal with a demon. Amar was truly the most chaotic chaotic-good character I've ever played
My first DND character was a dragon born paladin of light. He had anger management issues and a thing for recycling. Fang was his name. He kept getting pissed off at villagers and would try to eat them. So, he'd have to give a shopping list and his gold to someone in the party and wait outside of town. When we'd get attacked by bandits he'd want to save the "non parish able" (jerky and such). So, bandits were on the menu. First time it happened the party freaked and asked what the hell (but more colorfully). I (in character) replied without thinking "recycling, want some?" 😂 Oh, how I love that big lizard boy....miss playing him.
I made a Dwarven Barbarian DMpc named Untgrääd the Intelligent. He was short, a massive drunk and had a Russian accent. He got his name as a cruel joke by the townsfolk in the town he resides in because he is all brawn, no brains.
Untgrääd was a glass cannon, extremely strong but lacking in the brains aspect and spoke in a broken (English) common language. He also had a crippling character flaw.
Untgrääd was terrified of the dark and anything he perceived as a ghostly apparition (mage hand, certain magic spells, someone turning invisible, anything his small brain considered spooky) and would have to succeed on a wisdom saving throw in order to not become frightened. I made this character flaw overide his natural ability to not become frightened when raging.
Let's just say it was the most memorable character I've ever played. Laughter, and sighs of frustration and anything in between around the table as Untgrääd became terrified at every encounter. He also had a dagger of warning, which he kept with him to use as a night light and he also used it in caves because he was terrified leading to some pretty unfortunate encounters where we were caught.
My players ended up choosing the evil ending of our homebrew campaign and now Untgrääd is the idiot Jarl NPC of a hold that the players will have to kill in a sequel campaign. I am sad to see him die but he has committed too many war crimes to survive.
Loyalty. It was the core idea of my first character and every single time I've remade them.
Loyalty his greatest strength... and worst flaw. He never saw the betrayal coming. His whole job was to root out evil, put corruption to the sword, and he never suspected one of his allies to ever betray the Empire or him personally. Tristan was a interesting character. He was my character Lucas's colleague. A fellow Knight Commander, unlike my character whom handled things with a personal touch Tristan had a spy network he managed and was our spy master. He also was a blubbering coward praying to every god he could think of... But he had skills. I had initally suspected it was strange how quickly he arrived to help when my character's family estate was infiltrated by the green haired killer who terrorized my character's parents and siblings by I threw away those suspicions upon seeing how fearlessly he was handling the situation having apparently rushed to my call for aid with barely anytime to dress. I said to him. "I do not care what the other commanders say, you are no coward Knight Commander Tristan, thank you for coming to my family's aid." He left with tears in his eyes.
For those words where all he ever wanted to hear. For in truth he was the green haired killer, he slew former Order Knights, slaughted a passenger train around me and the party without us realizing it and attacked and terrorized the estate all in a ploy to get the wish scroll the Empire kept in their back pocket. His next plot a demon lord summons went off without a hitch because we the party where shit at priotizing things. That day a city of 1 million souls where damned half the party was killed and the Empire lost a son far too damn loyal for his own damn good. The only person to truly and sincerely acknowledge Tristain and his efforts to safeguard our homeland. His plot worked. He got the wish scroll. His wish? To be recognized in the Empire as a hero. He was, and he never betrayed the empire again, in honor of fallen fallen friend. He wanted to be stopped by sometimes DnD parties a too fucking stupid for their own good.
He was my first and best character, made in pathfinder, and the only time I ever surpassed him was getting to remake him for another go at that campagine. A little wiser and more knowledgable about the system I was in. The remade Lucas was a fucking trainwreck of ptsd, alcholism, drug use, and pain killers, but still so unbreakingly loyal. And in that campagine atleast he got to see the end by the skin of his teeth, redeemed, honor restored, and looking forward to a bright future hopefully with a certain resurrected hero of legend at his side.
Combining bond and sherlock holmes was a great idea.
My Bugbear Divine Soul Sorceror was a Jack of All Trades, Master of Healing. He has proficencies in about everything, while he doesn't have offensive spells he has a combination of Divine and Arcane Support spells for his allies, and he is capable of healing people from near death with Metamagic and Beacon of Hope... there is just, one problem...
He appeared extremely lazy... and when I mean lazy, I mean, session zero, asking my new D&D group. "Look, I have this idea for a character, but he isn't going to likable at first." Kind of lazy.
He just started following the party after he heard things that he really should not have heard, and basically been completely useless while they were watching... but when they were not watching...
He was solving a lot of problems. He discovered where the Mcguffin was, convinced an entire Magical Forest to help him, and convinced the three of the antagonists at the time to join the party.
The players knew the my character was doing these, but their characters were not which made for an interesting dynamic. Even the aformentioned antongisted were instructed not to reveal I convinced them to help.
You see, my character did not want people knowing what he was really capable of, thus he pulled strings from the background with a combination of Charisma and Stealth Checks. If people knew he could do all of what he could, he would have been pestered all the time, never being allowed to rest. Hell, his whole goal in life is trying to find the deity who forced his magic onto them to punch them in the face for roping him into their goals.
My main character is a mad chaotic neutral bard with a messed up form of immortality.
She often flips between manic and numb &/or depressive states based on IRL coin flips.
This is due to being stuck in a loop of life & death that skips around the timeline and spans from the fall of Netheril to whenever the current campaign is set.
All thanks to a semi-botched wish.
For lack of a better way of putting it she's got a "glitchy phoenix curse".
She can die like anyone else but unlike most entities she'll respawn. But the time, place, and even world she spawns in are random.(based on campaign for IRL mechanics)
This also prevents her from being resurrected or being claimed by gods or infernals for any form of afterlife.
(If she dies in a game I roll a new character with no option of playing her again in it)
This has understandably driven her quite insane. Resulting in the previously mentioned mood swings as well as extreme recklessness and a general apathy towards other beings.
She can cooperate with a party and others but it becomes clear that she has no real regard for them in most instances after long.
In her manic state she also has no self preservation instinct to speak of and acts closer to a barbarian in a rage state than a bard often to her own detriment.
About the only times she isn't in such states is when she's performing. She's not a singer type bard but a storyteller who mixes illusion and acting into her works.
Telling more or less accurate tales of times past. Her performances are effectively her coping mechanism.
My drow fighter/barbarian, Roger, has had slightly different backstories in each game I play him in but something that always slips into his character regardless of what I intend to do is that he strongly lives by the "Treat others how you would want to be treated" rule. This translates in game as him refusing to judge people by how they appear, whether it be what species they are or if something they are doing looks shady. Which normally wouldn't be a bad thing except the DMs I played him with found ways to exploit it. In his first game, he almost got turned to stone by a gorgon after finding her garden of statues and only avoided that fate because he kept assuming that she was an amateur artist. Granted, she did have a good reason for all the changed people but she did a very bad job of making that clear at first. Game two had him show mercy to a dream demon (I forget what kind) because it cried out for help which resulted in him being labeled the enemy of the harpy empire and the creature lived to terrorize the country once more (this was the point I realized exactly what was going on with him). Game 3 was where I tried to give him a more standard backstory where he's the son of 2 famous adventurers who were killed suddenly when he was still young. Unfortunately my addition that he was somehow born with no magic at all (including standard drow cantrips) meant he felt he had to be useful and likeable at all times to make up for his defect and his inability to live up to his parents grand legacy. After that, I've felt very uncomfortable playing him because his struggle hits too close to home for me and I'd kinda like my escapist fantasy to be less me and more the better, cooler version of me. My best friend loves Roger though for some reason. He keeps trying to get me to play him again any time we start a new campaign. He says he wants to see what happens when Roger is allowed enough time to experience character growth. Even I'm not sure what he'd be like given enough time and support but I'm kinda scared to try.
Approaches every problem with violence
Give me a beer you filthy taverner!!
Huh, what was that? Those are fighting words!
@@eternallyotaku1289 You wanna go bro!?
I played a Cleric of Aasterinian (3.5e), with Trickery and Life domains. A hardcore pacifist. Would not hurt a fly, and actively try to heal fallen enemies. All life is precious and all that. A true bleeding heart. However there was a "timer". My DM and I made the arrangement of a 1d100 countdown, on Human or Dragon kills the party was the cause of. When the timer would reach 0, my cleric would flip the switch, and come to the realization that "If I can't save them from death, I will make them all undead". The group was very very puzzled while that campaign ran.
Our DM gave us pre-made characters for a one-shot he made that was supposed to end in us all dying like Disney's Rogue One. My character was a warforged rogue whose flaw was that he wanted to find his purpose, even at the cost of the mission. However, when an NPC gave him a bomb and told him to blow up a device that was preventing a strike team from overthrowing an evil empress, I decided he interpreted the mission and his purpose as one and the same. You'd think that would mean there'd be no problems then. You'd be wrong. When it came down to choosing between helping the party kill the reptile/insect things that were attacking us or finishing the mission as quickly as possible, I had him sneak out of there and plant the bomb while two of the other party members were being torn to shreds. Credit to them for surviving that, though. In fact, we all did somehow, and the DM was forced to make the one-shot a two-shot. Even then, he still couldn't kill my character and had to end the story mid-combat via a narrative since we were almost out of time for the session.
11:23 Does that person not know what the term means? "Nepo" is short for "nepotism." It means you get by with your parents' connections. It doesn't mean you're good at everything without trying. In fact, it means the opposite.
My current character in a campaign that recently started, a Half Orc Boxer (Champion Fighter) with the combatant name of Jackrabbit Jane, has gotten het name thanks to one of her flaws. She’s constantly hopping on her feet, or just moving in general, similar to her father who used the Jackrabbit name before. That’s less of a flaw than her major one is though, her father had died shortly after he had given her a pair of boxing gloves that she has refused to take off since. Literally, one of the party members asked if she had slept in her gloves…which she did, she refuses to take off the gloves because she has a fear of forgetting her dad
I have a repeating character. Backstory is he is cursed to reincarnate instead of move on when he dies. The bad version of Reincarnate where he is reporn as an infant somewhere else. Only manifests while his magic awakens, he is stricken with nightmares and hates sleeping, absolutely convinced the nightmares will excape his dreams. He is also muses randomly about numerous deaths when making plans or bringing up counterpoint ts to bad plans. The character is often viewed as extra weird/crazy
This also means he leaps at things that reduce the need to sleep, coffee, rings of sustenance, that sort of thing, also means he usually is first watch, despite his wisdom/sanity being questionable... Most the incarnations are prone to mild hallucinations. I always have fun but due to the nature of his magic he tends to be blamed a lot for the party's misfortunes. He is hell for rigid campaigns too
One of my favorite character flaws was that of my sorcerer. His mother was actually Eris the Greek goddess of discord and strife. His character flaw was that he was a walking jinx every time he would walk into a new town or building the gm would have me make a roll to see what if any misfortune would befall the locals.
i had a fairy who had 3 flaws (2 of which didnt really come up because i joined near the end of tge campaign and didnt get much in rp as most sessions were combatcat that point)
flaw 1: he had absolutely no sense of time. this only came up at the start when he was introduced. he was asked how long he'd been on the planet and he just shrugged and said "oh idk.. few days? or was it years... ah well, doesnt matter. there was a sun here when i got here though" (the star was gone.. idk why).
2: he was super obsessed with magic and magical items.. i was going to have him zone out in social situations and at the start of combat if ever there was some interesting magic or enchantment going on but sadly it never really came up..
3: he was a coward. well.. more so, he was a farmer who had no desire for combat and little actual combat knowledge. this actually came up because i'd always take off into the air as far away from combat as he could while he cast spells (he was a sorlock). funny thing is, i always rolled really low with eldritch blast (only hit once out if 6 casts) so most the spells i used were utility (gust of wind, enlarge/reduce, vortex warp, etc).
my other character was a crystal fungus that had only been alive for a month.. his flaws included being overly curious about everything and having no true concept of danger.. (lets just say he touched *everything* and started at least half the combats in that short campaign)
1 - rogue tina, forced into it before the age of 10, master of engineering and lockpicking, great stealth but not one bit of strength. it´ll be interesting to see an innocent little healer / therapist have to steal, harm and maybe even kill.
2 - warlock (no name), has dissociative identity disorder. who´s the patron? he´s the patron. specifically, a great wizard part that developed before his trauma, the others have varying knowledge and different connections with the wizard.
Not me, but one of my players. He is playing a kobold wizard named Darxun. He is a chaotic good... Necromancer. In his bacstory, he discovered the powers of necromancy and attempted to resurrect a couple of spiders to practice his craft. That backfired on him as Lolth didn't like her precious spiders being animated like that. She set the spider bodies on fire and set them on the kobold. Now he has arachnophobia. Also, he won't shut up about being a necromancer, often saying that he wants to use his magic to let families be reunited with their departed. It's got him into a lot of trouble thus far, including getting him kicked out of his own clan and later a town he helped protect. Every NPC that hears him talk about it kicks him out of the area, and even the party has a hard time convincing the thing to shut up about it. In the next session or two, he's gonna get the spell Animate Dead, and I believe the shenanigans are going to get even worse. All while he is attempting to use his powers for good.
Innocence and memory loss. My character Coddiwomple constantly looses his memory, and doesn't understand the concept of death. He constantly gets himself into dangerous situations, but tends to wonder out of danger with child like Innocence.
a former journalist that has long since retired due to getting on the wrong side of the wrong people, he is very paranoid. This isn’t great, because he is also a very well known professor at the local university. very fun to roleplay him distancing himself from the party and slowly growing attached to various members. (one of the members is a magic garden gnome)
My CL draconic sorcerer was psychologically unable to be sad. He was always in denial and optimistic to a fault.
My Gnome Monk had a major character flaw that could have been devastatingly detrimental - he was a recovering gambling addict. Where is a great place to gather information and learn of side quests? In a tavern. What is a common thing to find in taverns? Gambling. Every time we went to a bar/tavern/inn I had to make a con save to resist the urge to jump in and go for broke
My current character, a human wood kineticist raised by Ratfolk, is pretty snarky, but only in regards (so far) to the *other* white-haired Prince far from home that also has a divine bloodline. We didn't plan or discuss anything and came up with two very similar back stories.
The big difference? Mine is out exploring the world with permission, the other is running from their duties.
Magnus Arkandi, from the sessions of the weird mix of DnD/FE system of homebrew he existed in, was greatly flawed as a person and character. He grew up knowing that his father was transformed into a full-on dragon, driven insane and locked within their species' former home continent, rendered otherwise inhospitable to them. From an early age his hotheaded nature and lack of exceptional magic or intellectual talent got him in trouble a lot, and ended up convincing his mother to devote plenty of time in honing his body and martial skills. He's simply a morally bankrupt meathead who even delves into devouring his foes. He's also last in line to become the next king, so despite being a prince he sheds any sense of manners around most people. Over several sessions, he's been a Barbarian, Fighter and once a Monk, though more recently our DM was gracious enough to set up classes for the shifter races. If one knows FE 9/10, they'll know some of the races, though there are separate types of humans(not Beorc) based on kingdom origination.
My character was designed entirely around rolling a 6 on my Wisdom score. I role play this as him being extremely gullible and naive, but having the charisma to pull off a "lovable idiot" trope and nobody holds it against him. It's always fun to roll a -1 on a perception check and listen to the DM describe how he "forgets to open his eyes" when looking for something.
My Githyanki Sorcerer's biggest flaw is that he's very sadistic with his enemies. Capture a goblin? He'll torture for information if he somehow fails to intimidate. It's definitely led to some in-game wtf dude moments.
Hagus, the artificer from Barovia (sp?) anything not building related goes up on a D20 to see if wild magic is involved what nobody seems to have figured out yet is that because he’s from Barovia is that he’s aw werewolf he just can’t control when he ships but most magic goes through the animals side, causing it to go wild
Crag, the barbarian is too trusting, once.
He trusts most people freely, often even those he should not, but once that trust is broken, he is incredibly difficult to get back on side.
Had a group of characters where we all had to comeup with a reason y our characters were even in the tavern at the start, everyone's characters were basically introverts
My DMPC's flaw was that he obeys pretty much anyone
Oh, I have a few
My current character: Superiority complex(thinks no one can outwit him)
My monk: Paranoia
And my warlock is extremely timid
I'll add more if I remember
To add onto my current one, he doesn't act arrogantly, he just believes that when it comes to deception, none can best him
Well my favorite character flaw is my Shadar-Kai warlock with the fiend patron. So basically his backstory is his people were murdered by a bunch of high elves, and so now he wanders around the world as a bounty hunter with a huge vendetta against high elves. That plus the fact I have the fiend patron, which makes him very aggressive anytime we run into elves in our campaign, which the DM has made sure that has happened been plenty of times and the party has gone nuts over me going on a murder frenzy.
A druid who gets airsickness. Can't wild shape into a flying creature and fly without getting violently nauseous.
My characters flaw is "will go to extremes to avoid letting friends and family down/ protect them"
My dwarf druid is about to get timless body, so gonna live upwards of 3000 years
His GF is a human wizard
to try and fix this life-span gap/issue
My druid is looking into finding vampires, recipies for lichdom, clone spells, Simulacrum, soul jar
while also looking for ways to reduce his life span, such as pissing of a Androsphinx, find or create a poison that will reduce his lifespan
Heavily considering moving in with her and making a home in the Astal Sea to stop aging
anything and everything to even the lifespan
but also his family is usually getting targeted by bad guys as a way to get to my druid, so my druid has made safe houses, thought of ways to give them magical gear, a full armory and weapons stash, 100 PLATINUM of funds, A full storage room of rations and water and has considersd the thought of PLANE SHIFTING THEM TO A DIFFRENT PLANE JUST TO KEEP THEM SAFE even if they protest
If the wizard GF found out about my druids research it may go bad, family might hate him but anything and everything my Dwarf does, he does solely for them (but also for himself too, he doesn't want to loose anyone he cares for)
I like simple flaws:
My bard? - Laziness, hilarious for roleplaying being carried around on the paladins shoulder like boombox
My monk? - Gluttony, party members exploited that more then once got her to do stuff by offering food in return
My fighter? - Gullible, imagine her day-to-day interactions with NPC's.
It was unintentional because I didn't know how to play and when to mention I was talking OOC, but because of it, I accidentally gave my first DND character the flaw where she didn't know when to keep her mouth shut. What would've been an easy ticket to the source of that mushroom hivemind turned into a dangerous trek because Tui Lu didn't know how to shut up and not say that if they got inside, they would just kill him and be done with it...
What makes it even FUNNIER, is that Tui Lu managed to roll a 24, convincing a Wisp to not kill them and thus sparing it's life. This ultimately lead to the infected squirrel being willing to help them because of that Paladin's chosen god. And it blew up in her face. Typical Artificier behavior.
Mine is an utgardt shaman from the blue bear tribe
She's been living in hiding with them through her entire life, so it's safe to say that she doesn't REALLY know how the world works, and WILL antagonize any sorcerer
Garg (of the Al Mainads clan) is a goliath half orc barbarian (orc father and frost giant mother.) who's biggest flaw is being a pacifist. he was captured and sold into slavery at a young age and was forced to fight in the arena from about age 15 after about a decade of being forced to fight against his will he obtains his freedom and vows never to harm a living thing again. that doesn't mean he won't get involved in a fight though. he's more than happy to dive in front of the first attack and then try to defuse the situation (usually through intimidation.)
Kerkad Kherkhylan has a few flaws, such as his over eager nature to study magic, his preference to self realiance, and his anger. But his biggest flaw? Not comprehending what he does and sayus can be weird and off putting to strangers. We refer to him as to Rolf of dnd, but with high land scottish accent. To him, it is all just different shades of normal.
So, for context, Kerkad comes from a tribe of isolated dragonborn that live in a far off mountain range. In these mountains, you will find a small village centered around a massive dragon skull. The skull acts as the homestead of the village elder. This group of dragonborn, usually blue in scales with the occasional variant, from marriage and resulting preganacy, live off the land, and trade with a few other neighborring settlements. They practice odd cereonies on random days, parade the newly dead corpses of loved ones around in funeral parades, fight rival suitors and people who besmirch their honor in gladitorial combat in the dragon bone octagon, raise giant agressive goats for meat, and lives lives people assume acts of fancy. They are not exaggerated, just conveyed differently. Among his tribe, Kerkad is the firstperson obrn to them with sorcerous abilities. As such, he was prided well.
Him and his brother were largely raised by the mother after their father died in a incident involing a snake, laxatives, and a very cold mid summer day. The parade was an odd one, even by their standards. His borther was a man known to travel to the nearest towns, flirt with the married women, and come home, only for his mother to have fight the angry husbands in hand to hand combat. She made a good few widows this way. And his mother handles the families goat farm. His brother was raised to inheirate, as his magic abilities primed him for al ife of adventure. he left one days with tales to tell, and magic to learn.
Amoung the tales of his village, there was the tale of how the former village cheif was killed and eaten by their scared bettle. How the local strongwoman Doe once killed a bear with nothing but a wishbone, five pounds of lard, and a greatax. The haunted trees that scream orcish at intruders every thrid saturday of the month. Of the five legged goat that once ate their grandparents. And, the hilarious tale of when one of the neighboring villages sought justice on hius borther, only to have 78% of their male population die in single comab against his mother.
To Kerkad, this is nomral, and only the more notworthy events in his youth. So, he will tell the tales very caually, to the horror of people he meets.
I have played a character who once accidentally summoned a demon with some cultist, because "blood is the simplest way of transferring energy in magical rituals, it doesn't make them evil". Nobody except for the party (and the cultist) got hurt, but still.
It's not that he was too naive in general, but he was positively inclined to everything he didn't understand (something like Xenophilia in GURPS, but not quite to that extent; he probably wouldn't befriend the enemy soldier knowing that they are the enemy). Knowledge clerics 🤷
Byakko, my open sea paladin pirate, has that leap first, look never mentality. If he hears a whisper of adventure, sees something out of place, hears any rumor, he is going to be dragging everyone else along with him. He is inspired by One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy with a mix of Jack Sparrow, so you know he is going to get both into and out of trouble PLENTY.
Mine is my characters rage, both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness. It’s lead her into some situations that she really should not have been able to get out.
I had a minotaur wizard his biggest flaw was his poor charisma or more specifically his overinflated ego in thinking he could kill anything with relative ease just short of a dragon.... And for most situations that was true. He only rolled two Nat ones in that whole campaign.... He did not roll after that. R.I.P. Bovi Known-strider.
My Dragonborn Warlock currently asking to random people if they have petrified eye of newt. I asked this for the first time playing on Rime of the Frostmaiden in the middle of a tavern and everyone (nobody knew I was playing Warlock except DM) looked dumbfounded. I rolled low, and even more people looked dumbfounded.
He is, and I put this literally, a coin-toss between being either STUPIDLY BRAVE or TRAUMATICALLY PYROPHOBIC; there is no in between. He could stare down the God of Death and think he'll beat it down. But when they use fire, oh boy he will nope the hell outta there!
I’ve an idea for a bard I want to play, he and his old team beat the bbg. However he ends up with a dragon child because you know bard and the dragon mum wants child support so all the gold he already has is gone. So now he’s on a new adventure just to pay for his kid. So the bards typical flaw of sleeping with everything bites him massively, and once in a while the party has a bit annoyed dragon come down demanding her money for the kid as they’ve a trip or something else.
My second character is "Ambiguously Evil" but is either one of the few or the only one with common sense. She is selfish, greedy, and she is the physical manifestation of profit/losses (i forgot what it's called). It doesn't help that I turned her into a dhampir now vampire.
In a cyberpunk campaign, with rules built from the ground up based on xcom, i play a tinkerer/technomancer based on one of the cult mechanicus from warhammer, with an anthropomorphic fox form. Abhores AI in all forms in a universe chock full of robots and mechs, full aversion to sexual acts and themes in cities full of prostitution and pornography (all within player bouneries, don't worry), and rediculously socially blunt. At one point, he found a dead body within a shipping container, did not check it past scanning for technology, and sold it off to a butcher for corpse starch. Turns out the body was acting as an incubation chamber for a draconian egg. After ensuring the safety of the egg, he inquired on the reproductive cycle of dracoians to the eggs mother, who promptly dragged him out to reclaim the egg and kick his ass. He got out of the encounter with mominor scrapes, and was later thanked for finding the security flaws around the protection of the kid. While he has no interest in the process of reproduction, he has become fascinated by the interaction, and has learned about those with stronger instincts than him.
In my case it a homebrew Succubus race character who is way too confident in her charm and gets herself into trouble with going a little to far in pushing for the level of discounts she wants from shops, or the like or just getting completely distracted herself by trying to charm random NPC to be under her sway should she ever need a favor. Though being it is a Curse of Strahd campaign it has lead to a couple hysterical encounters with Strahd trying to use his charms on the party just to be counter charmed by a succubus that usually leads to Strahd returning to his castle frustrated by the fact his charm matched blow for blow distracting him from his plans to taunt the party.
Never actually played DnD myself, but I got a general character idea.
A lot of his major flaws come from the fact he’s a nature-dwelling survivalist with a rough past with people. For one, he typically doesn’t follow orders unless they are given before he decides on an action himself, or what he does ends up backfiring. He also doesn’t trust easy, unless he’s convinced what you’re doing isn’t inherently bad. And while he’s a great survivalist, he’s also pretty blunt, and mostly just tries to brute force his way through situations. He’s also pretty much entirely illiterate and also isn’t super good with conversation, so he doesn’t talk much.
Like I said before, this is just an idea, and I’m completely open to any feedback, and sorry if he comes across a bit edgy.
My character is afraid of towers. Not heights. Just towers.
had a Goliath barbarian who was afraid of being called attractive, cause she thought someone would enslave her, ironically enough she did get enslaved for a short time, but was sent to the fighting pits
in my current session im a barbarian spectral summoner and my character is debuffed if i dont have any souls and if i only have souls of weak people (bandits goblins) they keep that same power. but then i also can summon tamed animals and i have strong weapons like a special grade glave that absorbs and holds souls if i get a "glory kill." so basicaly no soul=big debuff
Current character, a kolbold alchemist, is so motivated by revenge to the point of self destruction, willing to destroy himself to see his goals met, even working with a red wizard to make a potion to give him the strength of a dragon. it turned him into a dracolich and we still need to solve that new problem.
My next character, a tabaxi warlock/paladin, is going to have the flaw of being overly ambitious, overly optimistic, and incredibly sheltered and inexperienced, which will be how he stumbles into his pact and why he doesnt recognize pact magic as potentially bad at first
Being far too optimistic, he sees the glass as half full, even when it's more like 1/8th full. oh yeah, also his social anxiety, somehow he has both of those at once
Though I haven’t made it , I have a dnd character idea: An eldritch being beyond comprehension got bored and limited themselves to the mortal plane, hence the character. Flaw: they are a bored eldritch being. If something stupid can happen, it will most likely happen. Any good?
My character is extremely narcissistic.... Im a reflavoured palidin (in a dragon age inspired game) so I only help heal an buff you as long as you keep being useful
Asmodeus bloodline Tiefling. Struggles with her fiend blood. They have a tendency towards scheming, controlling, manipulation, and hungers for power and control. It's subtle urges they fight and mostly flavor. They realize this and fight not to give into this nature, but can't help make deals, work angles, pull strings, hoard money, and work with factions like Xanithars and the Zhetirum when advantageous. She does most of this in secret to avoid involving another member of the party...
That other person being, tha paladin. Sitting at the opposite end, the party has a Gnome Devotion Paladin that is VERY simple minded. Justice, being good/nice and helping others are their personality traits to a fault. They lean into the character being innocent, gullable, and caring. They donate their share from the missions we do to charity, immediately. And have even donated the entire groups take the few times they collected the payout.
Neither of these characters do anything to spite players or party, most decisions are discussed before hand, and becsdue we have a cool DM, usually the endeavors end up benifiting the party.
My character is a Rakin(raccoon person) who started as a ranger. He has "cursed hands" that would steal anything he could. Will eventually he met his new goddess(a PC playing an amethyst Dragonborn) and was able to be "reborn" as a Paladin who doesn't steal anymore.
Although NOW his flaw is that he never shuts up to be people about worshipping his goddess.
Easy, I have a commoner background Human variant "divination wizard" who was kicked out of a discount mage college after being accused of cheating. Turns out, while he does have a small amount of magical talent, most of his correct guesses actually come down to an insane level of intuition that he thinks is perfectly normal for a barely educated mage. His ability to sometimes send and receive messages "telepathically" is the result of a chunk of sending stone getting embedded in his wrist from an explosion caused by him actually trying (and failing) to cast a real spell, alone and unattended in a storage closet. He's basically a slum-dog Sherlock Holmes with absolutely no self awareness.
Paranoia and wizards go like cheese and wine therefore I had a level 14 wizard basically Enchanted a moderate amount of gold with a variety of spells set on different triggers after some was pilfered from him Fireball was not the only option
Being terrible with money/lack of understanding of how society works. My Druid is no longer allowed to carry money with her since she lost all her money in the first session paying for food we stole- since she didn’t understand how money works she just paid with everything she had.
Magical amnesia trope aside, the loss of my Aasimar's memory has made her very naive. She knows little about the world and can easily be manipulated because of it. This has consistently affected her decision making through the campaign, for better or for worse
I normally base my character's flaw on their backstory with a combination of their stat points.
A human barbarian with low int who was born of a barbarian tribe? He is illiterate, not stupid, he just can't read.
A dwarf bard with low wisdom who used to be a wizard's apprentice? He has low self-esteem and hides his true personality behind a false persona.
A tabaxi fighter who used to be a sailor? He easily gets nauseous while either driving or riding on land, excellent at sea though.
An elf warlock who used to be a noble? He has a lack of common sense on how to behave outside high-ranking society, and will often flatter and speak with manners to even the lowest of thugs and disgusting monsters.
A lizardfolk ranger who used to be a crafter? They had a disturbing fascination with bones and making weapons out of bones, they evolved this fascination into a desire to cook the things they kill making fine dishes from not only monsters but humanoid creatures as well.
Small Story About the Ranger: He earned the fantasy world's equivalence of a Michelin star with his Beef Wellington in his second cooking championship, he made third place in the past dish. He made his masterpiece dish using Mynoid Chanterels with golden onions for the filling, Hydra Eggs, Leshy Flour, Holy Milk and Demon Butter for the pastry. For the meat, he used only the highest-grade stock available. Judge Wellington the minotaur from the first contest, who had told him his Minced Goblin Balls with Mashed Mandrakes and Cream Gravy was too unsettling to eat.
My character, if he finds a clay pot, roughly big enough for him to fit inside, he is compelled to immediately stop everything, and put the pot onto his back, and try to bring it back to his home.
It is life or death every time, there is no stopping for health, he will roll for exhaustion without care.
Because you see. You need big clay pots as part of the "clone" ritual. He has a room, full of clones. If he dies, his consciousness is moved.
I spent like 6 sessions setting up contacts etc. Sure, its a copout on making new characters if i die.... but i have 4 clone pots. I had six but died 3 times to get one pot. So... you see the problem?
Middle of a necromancer battle, man had a big tall ornamental vase. Which looked close enough to a pot i was smitten.
Well- i guess thats 3 pots and a large vase.
Still-
*edited because of one petter. I mean letter.
I play a lawful good paladin in one of my campaigns - don't worry, he's not Lawful Stupid, just a humble farm boy who genuinely believes strongly in just helping people and doing the right thing - however, because he's an amnesiac, and functionally like a five year old kid with the body and mental capacity of an adult, he has a very childish BELIEF in what's right and wrong, and is stubborn as hell to boot. He really struggles with nuance, and situations where there's no black and white answers stress him out and make him very snappy and irritable. He puts his whole heart into things, but the issue is that he believes he's making the right choice pretty much every time and takes it personally if people try to get him to understand that he's wrong about something. It might SOUND like lawful stupid, but I really put a lot of effort into making it feel less like a "I am doing this because I am good and you are evil, and I have sworn to kill evil!" and more like a childish "no that's stupid that's not how it should work, just do the right thing like THIS"
Mt half elf ranger is his partys scout acts as a big brother to everyone and fights to right the wrongs of the wold putting others before himself. His bigest flaw is being half elf he was picked on abd bullied as a kid so hes very slow to trust people and can come off as cold and uncaring to those hedoesnt know.
He's got almost no tactical instinct; he needs time to analyze and theorize before executing a strategy, and if that strategy doesn't work he needs to rethink.
This will change as time goes on, but for now it's illustrated in his first turn always being spent on defensive spells, or just flat-out panicking if the party is ambushed.
She, kinda like a deamon has a true name. So, if anyone were to find it out, ... Yea no that would suck beacuse unless i'd roll really really high, the person or people could make me do basically anything.
Offically tho its not come up yet in gameplay is someone innocent is in orison so my character stayed out and she feels bad about it.
more commonly her flaws are mine, despite my constant note taking, I forget npc names (im dyslexic and have damage to my short term memory centre of the brain).
Shes also as shes a Warlock/Bard, obssessed with findng magic items/lore that furthers her knowledge, is distrusful of everyone we meet, not to the pointof murderhoboing just me giving the dm side eye and being able to tell when shes bluffing.
So i had a Sea Elf, Laukee Heigh, that abondoned the god of the sea elves and was cursed so he couldnt touch salt water anymore. BUT that was so funny to the goddess of humor that she made him survive by living inside a giant beer keg. A filled to the end giant beer keg. Yes he was always drunk. Also he had Pseudobulbar affect which is The Jokers mental illness. He doesnt have the personality of the joker, he is chaotic good, but combining the uncontrollable whining and laughing while being drunk in combat can be utterly hilarious.
Knight-Paladin Gilderoy Gradwell of the Order of the Glow is an Oath of Devotion Paladin, brought up as an orphan under the care of the Church of the Glow. The Church of the Glow is a rather 'look down their nose' religious organisation, and as such, Gilderoy's biggest flaw is he innocently looks down his nose at the civilians whom he is sworn to protect.
He was taught from a young age that, due to his service of the realm, his strength, and being born under The Mother's Glow (The Sun) he is, by default, better than the rest.
He knows his duties are to serve the people, and he does so, diligently. Unfortunately, akin to someone lacking appropriate social skills, Gilly behaves unintentionally cruelly to the peasantry. He often makes expectant demands, as if they're obligated to provide his service. He was taught to look unfavourably to those who would hoard wealth, also, with exception to the Church and himself, as the coin was needed to ensure that Knight-Paladins of the Church of the Glow could adequately carry out their duties for 'the good of the realm.' Essetnially, he's a prick, but he doesn't really mean it, nor does he realise he is.
Recently, I specked him into Warlock, after he was tempted by a sentient blade. This Blade tricked him into believing that it was The Mother's Glow given physical form.
Gilly will believe almost anything under the topic of his Divine Matron.
My characters greatest flaw is that I'm collecting explosive items and I'm going to "heroic death" the bbeg and nobody knows.
Psychotic breaks. He/I got attacked by inanimate objects regularly. So we ended up going a touch bonkers, paranoid as hell. Then we got attacked by psychic underground hunters brainfucking us to death. He broke, and started sawing their heads off and throwing them around (which was already canonically a special item that did special damages, idr. Great excuse to finally snap though)
Now he's still the good guy. He just gives zero fucks when his friends are hurt or violence happens to be the only viable option.
An open hand and a closed fist bearing chaos and pain in the palm. It is what it is 😂
I playd a homebrew as pc meet Finnigan the Fox the ohter player and i joind the cityguard of the starting town and he and me got partners of the same patrol tour, evry time we rollt for looking for sus thinks my char lookt alwasy on the wall of a agrro citicen, always scremming to me stoping watching his wall so juding , and starting screeming trough the entire town
I don't really þink of their flaws, so i usually forget about them.
But even if i did, my brother bitches and moans whenever i do anyþing a little annoying so he'd probably just bitch and moqn more if i rp'ed actual character flaws