RP Made Simple

Tinkering With Ablities

Section: Enhancing RP | 4 Comments »

If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour…
you’re gonna see some serious #!@$.
- Dr. Emmett Brown

One of the things that can get static is the same old skills, powers and abilities we have with a character. I was playing one of my alts and I thought, “Let’s change this up a bit!”.

The basic concept was to take the “standard” abilities and give them a twist for both creative and immersion reasons. Worth a shot!

So, you have my frazzled Gnomish inventor/engineer… or “Gearsmith” as he prefers to be called.

Over the years he’s got A LOT of hit or miss inventions that he’s been tweaking and refining since his exile from Gnomeregan, the former Gnomish capital.

I used the Rogue class for this character due to the “everydayish” quality of the Rogue class. I find it very versatile, like the warrior – for a “everyman” sort of template. Of course, I took Engineering readily for more goodies to make later on.

Here’s an overview of what I did with him:

This is a view of his macro panel when I started the idea.

I made custom specific macros for him and replaced them in my action bars. I kept the tooltips visible for ease of remembering – in case I forgot. Hey… it happens! :)

Taking the basic abilities I got at different levels, I came up with ideas for different gadgets, tools and gimmicks to both “rationalize” the Rogue abilities.

I also picked new icons to help immerse myself into the character – and to give the illusion of playing a “different” class.

Class-wise, yeah – he’s “still” a Rogue, but I don’t play him like that while in character. He’s just a very crafty inventor, or “Gearsmith” in this case. His gadgets have a heavy steampunkish quality – with a Azeroth/Gnomish Engineering flair.

Take the Cloak macro, for example as a replacement to his Stealth ability.  He carries a handheld gadget that when he pushes the button, he’s bending the light around him, based on “highly experimental” mirrored thread in parts of his clothing. It’s very unstable, but it can allow him to sneak in and out of places.

The Boots! macro is a set of “Rocket Spurs” he has on his boots that allow his to accelerate his movement. It replaces the Rogue ability Sprint that makes you run really fast for a few seconds.

Ah! What did I tell you? 88 miles per hour!
The temporal displacement occurred exactly 1:20am and zero seconds!
- Dr. Emmett Brown

As you can see, I experimented with alot of the Rogue abilities. Basically, he’s pulling a “Batman”, using a Utility Belt. “Holy Monkey-Wrenches!” - You can also pull a Booster Gold, by “acquiring” tech or magic to help you on your adventures.

Other ideas: His [Mechanical Squirrel] is a portable lab – similar to K-9 from the Doctor Who series. I also use the various goggles for different uses, luckily I got a pair of [Ruby Shades] before they poofed from the vendors. I use those as a “lens” change when I spot something or focus on a area - could use it when I have Longsight using my [Ornate Spyglass] . [The Bright-Eye Goggles] are for studying things. My “normal” specs are the [Gnomish Goggles]!

The great thing about this is that it helps get you in character. Get creative with your spells as a Mage, or powers as a Druid. Also for powers as magical items – magical rings, cloaks and offhand items could be a physical focus or representation of an abilty. Fetishes of odd items for Druids and Shaman types as well. Priests and Paladins can use weapons and offhand items to “use” abilites – like for resurrection spells.

Examples (with nods to D&D fans):

• Rings or Cloaks of Invisibility for using Stealth or [Invibility potions]

• Swords of Quickness (+haste “explanation” or use of Slice and Dice)

• Ring of Freedom, Ring of Free Action using [Living Action Potions] or [Free Action Potions]

• Boots of Speed (using Sprint, or [Swiftness Potions])

• Using a Loot Card item from the collectible card game as a prop to do a spell- but that can be expensive.

• An [Aboriginal Rod] can double as a Voodoo Fetish for a Troll Witchdoctor.

• For Warlocks, Shaman and Shadow Priests a [Laughing Skull Orb] can be a device used for some of the nastier spells.

• Trinkets like the [Nifty Stopwatch] can also give you a magical or device to use.

You get the idea. It adds “flavor” to your adventures and role-playing.

The main things to keep in mind are these:

• Don’t use anything to metagame.

• Don’t God-mode or ruin folk’s roleplaying.

• Do be creative and have fun!

• Don’t overdo it or really showy things, use sparingly – spamming an effect is just plain annoying and can disrupt RP in a group.

So it’s all limited to your imagination what props you can use and how you “rationalize” or make them fit the game world and your role-playing. See what’s around in your MMORPG of choice and try to spin it a different way. See what could work for your character and have fun.

I hope this gives you some ideas to use on a character you have or on a future one.

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
- Dr. Emmett Brown

Until next, keep RPing!