NPC character concept - half-orc cleric-thief

[SixOfSpades]

How Eldarian came by his thieving skills is explained in considerable detail in the first post in his Bio and Quest sections.

Actually, the only mention that I can see is "For one year prior to departing in his quest, and periodically during return visits to Purskul, Eldarian has received training from Purskul's Shadow Thief Guild Master [now Silhouette] in the arts of moving silently amidst the shadows and disarming traps, both necessary to exploration of any ruins Eldarian could find."

That doesn't sound like a thorough regimen of training to me--it seems roughly equivalent to what Nalia & Imoen have. Certainly not enough to turn Eldarian into a Backstabbing, Trap-setting, Using-Any-Item powerhouse at later levels, which he would inevitably become if he's a Multiclassed Cleric/Thief. In addition, I just don't see "he knows he's going to go underground, so he needs to be like the ninja" as sufficient justification for making him half Thief. I mean, Lathander hates Undead, and all of his Priests know that they will very likely have to go root out underground hives of Undead as part of their service, but that doesn't mean that the Priest of Lathander kit includes the advantage of granting skill points in Find/Disarm Traps.

 

Bad Suggestion: Consider making Eldarian a Monk. Although they cannot cast spells, Monks are extremely dedicated to their Temple and faith. Their selection of Thief skills meshes perfectly with what you want Eldarian to be able to do. And if you were sending somebody to investigate something that had already killed and entire Temple full of annointed Priests, whom would you select for the mission: A wet-behind-the-ears Cleric, or somebody prepared to go kick ass?

 

Good Suggestions: 1. Make Eldarian's Thief half a much, much bigger part of his biography, persona, and faith. Yes, this would require somehow reconciling Chauntea and Thievery. It must be much more involved than "Thief skills would be useful, therefore he's a Thief."

2. Tweak Eldarian so that he's Dual-classed instead of Multi, thus correctly approximating a guy who's really a pure Cleric, he just happens to have a few levels of Thief under his belt. Care must be taken to avoid duplicating Imoen & Nalia, though.

 

Eldarian has become a kind of self-styled archeological sleuth who eagerly seeks out any ancient underground ruins he can find.

Missed this earlier--nice fleshing-out of the character. Jan the storyteller, Eldarian the archaeologist, Finch the librarian--NPCs are so much better with non-adventuring-related skills to banter about.

[Lemernis]

I understand what you mean Six. Thanks for those constructive criticisms.

 

As we know, unfortunately the game isn't really set up to have characters have continued training in a master-apprentice relationship, which they really ought to have. The game ignores the fact that party members soar through all these various levels within months, and gain an array of incredible new skills. No explanation of any kind is given for that. And it's not just the two Bhaalspawn, but all the party members who become god-like. All the party members in SoA/ToB reach insanely high levels for D&D characters, it's something you'd not typically see in a PnP game. And to code training for each NPC just isn't feasible in terms of time and effort required. To a large extent we're simply forced to accept the game's departure from PnP conventions on its own terms.

 

The portrait for Eldarian makes him older than I had originally written him, roughly middleaged. And I think I'm going to rewite him accordingly. Giving him some age works better for someone with his high wisdom anyway. And I'm considering emphasizing the counsellor role, which is a standard for a cleric. He will have spent years searching ruins by the time the game begins.

 

As a more mature character he'll have had more time to have acquired his level 7 or 8 skills, and also to have acquired lore about ancient ruins. He'll discuss his explorations of Lost Xandar, the Lake Weng ruined cities, Orlsfall, etc. He'll have spent considerable time looking for caves in the Cloud Peaks. I'm in the process of rethinking how he gets that theif training.

 

The spelunking is dangerous activity, given the types of monsters that inhabit such caves and subterranean ruins. So I kind of disagree that it somehow rings hollow that he would want to learn stealth, de-trapping, lock picking, and backstabbing abilities. These are absolutely essential survival skills for his quest. Now it's true that all that is ultimately a contrivance to make him a multiclass. But it doesn't feel particularly far-fecthed (for this fanatsy setting) to me compared with other multis or duals in the game.

 

Indeed, what I've written for Eldarian is probably one of the more plausible ways of reconciling thieving skills with a cleric of Chauntea. The main conflict that I see amongst his thieving skillset is backstabbing--which, let's face it, is the funnest aspect of playing a cleric-thief! Chauntean clerics are supposed to avoid harmful behavior, they're really into nurturing, making things grow, etc. But I think the fact that he has been tasked with his own particular quest goes far enough in supporting that particular skill. Being able to strike as a 'ninja' is a vital asset to explore ruins teaming with evil monsters. Those are incredibly hostile environments.

 

I'm playtesting Eldarian as a PC, now just beginning ToB, and I'm really impressed with the character's performance. He's getting plenty of plumb backstabs, of course. But anyway, he finished SoA with 31% of the kills (second best) and 41% of the total experience value for the party, which was tops. Only Korgan did better, with 34% of the kills (and 28% of total XP value for the party, second best). It is a really, really fun character class to play, and it works well for BG2 party composition.