A journal about a character’s creation and career. Ryan Costello starts at the ground floor of his latest character, Daitora, the sumo brawler.

Part 1

Previously, I established the following decisions I have made for this character:

1.It will be a male;

2.He will be a PFS character;

3.He will be a brawler, a new class from the Advanced Class Guide playtest;

4.He will use this Reaper Chronoscope miniature;

5.He will be human.

Some of these are specific decisions for this character, some have broader reasons. Looking at them individually:

1.It will be a male

I’m reminded of Maxim & Cosmo, a one-hander written and directed by TJ Dawe about the significance of gender. He opens explaining that he found most plays about gender were by women and were about the female experience. He set out to write a play about gender that would be gender neutral. His original plan was to cast a woman, whom he would direct, but eventually he realized that if gender didn’t matter, he could cast himself.

All this to say that I don’t believe the gender of my characters matters 90% of the time. In fact, both Jaymon my teifling staff magus and mauven my Halfling cavalier at one point were female characters. However, as a deep-voiced male, I find speaking in a convincing female voice difficult. Having a different voice (both tone and inflection) for character speak versus player speak helps me get into character and is fun. When I find the voice challenging or unimmersive, I have less fun. Jeralyte is the exception, but I am so into her character that it scares my wife.

2.He will be a PFS character

You ever open a door expecting a closet and find a huge room? Or Narnia? That door was Pathfinder Society. As a fan of Pathfinder, I’ve been aware of Pathfinder Society since its inception and followed it as an outsider. I joined the occasional game, no big deal. When I realized it was the best tool for promoting Pathfinder locally, I got more into it. That’s when I realized how massive, and awesome, and extensive, Pathfinder Society is. The player base is huge and extremely loyal. It goes into more areas of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting and at a quicker pace than any other campaign setting support. The adventures have variety but are reliably diverse, with XP and WBL nicely stream-lined. It also allows me to game at an individual pace. I can’t just start a new home campaign unless I have a group ready and willing, a GM, and time, but I can play PFS every week for a month if I want and then take two weeks off if I need to. So PFS is the most new-character friendly option here. Added bonus, 5-08 The Confirmation is out now and been expanded to allow for 2^nd level characters. I have enough GM credit to start a 2^nd level character. I get to try a few more class features out of the gate and have enough hit points that I don’t have to worry about my character’s full potential stolen by a lucky critical hit.

3.He will be a brawler, a new class from the Advanced Class Guide playtest

The current Advanced Class Guide playtest continues Paizo’s tradition of balancing options and marketing books by involving their fanbase in smoothing the rough rule edges. For those out of the loop, August 2014’s hardcover will be the Advanced Class Guide and will introduce ten new base classes, each a hybrid of two existing base classes. A lot of the hybrid classes hold my interest, but even before reading the document I decided to play a brawler, an unarmed fighter who is more MMA and less monastic student. I felt choosing a class based on concept before mechanics would be better for the playtest since it meant choosing based on what I want the class.

I like the monk, and I’ve been itching to try the new style feats, but I already played a monk. The class isn’t less diverse than most other classes, with mad multi-ability dependency and rigid class features meaning two monks wouldn’t be that different, archetypes notwithstanding. Brawler lets me explore some of the mechanics I wanted to try (style feats) while allowing me more variety in backstory. He doesn’t have to be an eastern-inspired martial artist. Which may make my next point seem strange.

4.He will use this miniature from Reaper’s Chronoscape line:

          Tina was not thrilled that I came home with a new mini when I’ve only painted one figure from my first batch of Bones, but this mini turned the bunch of disconnected circles that was my brawler concept into the detailed portrait that is my character concept.

A sumo. Sumo wrestling mixes repeated successive blows with grappling and throws. It is the perfect brawler. And yes, it’s taking the brawler concept a few steps back towards monk (heck, if I made a qinggong monk, by 5^th level I could be E. Honda), but I’ll be making other choices to separate him from the monk.

5.He will be human.

Boring, yes, predictable, yes. I play a lot of humans, largely because I feel the race is a blank slate whereas the other races need their race integrated in some way into their character. That, and it would be hard to use that mini as many other races. Half-orc, probably, but my monk was a half-orc. Yep, this sumo’s a human.

To spice up the bland race choice, I’m going with a Golarion ethnicity that I’ve never played: Shoanti. Frankly, I’m not well versed in that particular ethnicity beyond the Ask a Shoanti advice comics in Wayfinder, but they left a good enough impression on me to give it a try. Now to read the Pathfinder Wiki article to see how far fetched a Shoanti sumo really is.

Part 3