What Was I Saying...?

( The difference between me and that guy at Compleat Strategist who traps you in the corner and won't stop talking about his character is... )

I dunno! What do you think?

-The Gneech

I've been working for a while now on making an elven archer to replace Theran, my warrior-mage, in jamesbarrett's D&D campaign. Basically, Theran's pretty much achieved everything he went out adventuring to do, and there's no real reason other than "he's a PC" for him to continue, so he's going to retire.

Thinking about who to replace Theran with, I originally came up with a monk, sort of a cross between Donnie Yen and Jeeves, called Whispering Dragon. WD was a neat character, but he's more of a concept than a long-term character for play, so I rooted around my "cast of unplayed archetypes" for something else and came up with Celedras, who I admit freely is pretty much a Legolas clone. I've had "elven archer" on my list of characters I'd like to play for years now ... I have a miniature that I painted for the role back in 1990 or so, although I've picked up more since then that might suit him better. I played Celedras as a Ranger/Rogue in Neverwinter Nights, which was enjoyable but the story -- particularly all the tromping around cities -- wasn't really suited to him. (I did love that "Elven Court Bow" however! Fthwap! Fthwap!)

The main thing that makes this Celedras different from the original idea is that, inspired by the MegaLegolas! of the Lord of the Rings films, I took levels of Thief-Acrobat (from Complete Adventurer) so he could do all those crazy "run up the troll's chain / surf down the stairs on a shield" type stunts. (Although to be fair, in the books Legolas takes down a fell beast [those pterodactyley things the ringwraiths fly around on] with a single shot on a moonless night -- so Peter Jackson's portrayal of Legolas as the hottest thing since Green Arrow isn't really such a stretch.) I've made something like four versions of Celedras now, trying to get him just right (man, I miss the HERO System!), and I think now I've finally got it.

( Game mechanics'n'stuff. Cut for nerdiness. )

Phew!

-The Gneech