Tabletop Discussions – One of My Favorite Characters I've Played in Pathfinder

It's a character I wish I had more time with, but sadly the game ended preemptively. An old buddy was running Rise of the Runelord, the first Pathfinder Adventure Path, and I created a Half-Orc Inquisitor for the game. Since the backstories don't have too much effect on an adventure path it's not something that came up, but I came up with a backstory to explain my character's attitude and actions all the same.

We did roll stats, and overall I ended up with really good stats, so I decided he was a former slave. With his natural strength, intelligence, and Charisma, he was able to take advantage of some fairly lax security and the element of surprise, he managed to lead the other slaves to take over the complex.

Unbeknownst to him was the area he was in had a disdain for orcs, and by extensions half-orcs like himself and the other slaves. The owner had enslaved them to keep the half-orc tribe alive and to hopefully convince the nearby locals they were good people, something that resulted in the lax security and rules imposed upon the tribe compared to other slaves. As a result of the revolt, he was no longer able to offer protection to the half-orcs and soldiers came in to slaughter them, my character being the one to make it out alive.

He blamed the death of the rest of the slaves on his own more 'chaotic' elements and a misguided sense of righteousness. Turning to the teachings of Abadar, he swore to uphold order above all else, thus the Lawful Neutral alignment I ended up giving him.

While rules were lax, I figured something a slave might use as a sort of makeshift weapon given the strength was a Ball and Chain. Funnily enough, there is an alternate slave trait you can take with half-orcs to alter weapon proficiency, and while it wasn't included my DM allowed me to make use of the Dwarven Dorn-Dergar since it made sense considering the trait, and while an exotic weapon it's not something terrifying. It's also the most closely related to the Ball and Chain.

My cousin Cynthia was in the game, but she doesn't play a lot of RPG's, so it was a bit of work to get her into the initial group from a narrative sense. She was playing a rogue, and when the initial fight broke out she remained hidden, but the fight ended before she was able to join in, so there wasn't a lot of reason for her to be asked to join in the quest.

That said, my character is the only one to have spotted her in the battle, so I went with this justification for asking her to join. It was clear she was able to easily evade the goblin's eyes, so having her on hand would be handy if Goblins are what we were fighting, but at the same time, she wasn't skilled enough to evade my eye, meaning I could keep an eye on the outsider in case something fishy was going on. \

Makin our way through the initial complex, there are the issues of locked doors. You would think that having a rogue on hand would be good for these situations, but not once was that necessary, as our team had a goal of entering the building to rescue someone, and I saw little time for tomfoolery. Picking locks takes more time then smashing doors down after all. There were many broken doors once we were through. Those two aspects made up how I played this character, absolutely no-nonsense or shenanigans. Quick, efficient, and brutal.

Another fun aspect was the oddly cooperative relationship with my sisters' character (About the only game she's ever played was this one) where she was a gnome alchemist that took pretty much nothing seriously, she actually played a pretty solid Chaotic Neutral. She would constantly be gathering up all kinds of strange chemicals she could get her hands on, including water from Nora's Tank. See, Nora is a strange fish that had disgusting secretions, and there was a game they would play at the bar where you'd drink Nora's Water and try not to vomit. We needed information from this guy, and my sister had already tried mixing Nora's water in with all kinds of chemicals. When we were torturing this guy for information, both me and my sister looked at each other IRL knowing what must be done, and despite our characters in the game having absolutely nothing in common realistically found the common ground of 'Well let's just force-feed this guy whatever the fuck this mixture is to see if we can get him to talk'. The reasons may have been entirely different as too why we did this, but the strangest of characters can sometimes come together for great moments.

I was sad the game ended so early because the inquisitor was a lot of fun to play as from both a narrative and a combat perspective (Mechanically Inquisitor is my favorite class to play in Pathfinder). In a more open game outside of a Module, I could see having a lot more fun with the guy, especially depending on what kind of things a clever DM could come up with for a character like that.

What are some of your guy's favorite characters?