Erlewis
Lord of Altera
For the last, erm... maybe 3 months, I've been playing as the character Lament. Lament is a sort of ghost of my previous character, Erlewis Jzarga. (I'll get into why he's only "sort of" a ghost in a bit.) I thought I'd post this thread, as help to anyone who might consider making another character like this.
Something that has become very apparent to me through extended role-playing as this character, is that it is SO easy to slip into playing as an OP, can't die, can't be harmed, can do anything ghost character. THIS IS BAD. I've posted this thread to try to explain how to avoid this.
First of all; I am often put in situations where staying in character is difficult as a ghost. For example, one day as I went into the SW to explore a bit, a pair of bandits stopped me at the gate. I, realizing they were clearly the good kind of bandit who legitimately role-play, rather than just killing people off randomly, decided that it would be good to role-play. However, slight problem; I'm a ghost. Due to me already being dead, there is no way they could actually kill, me and their threats mean nothing. HOWEVER; a simple way to avoid the general annoyance about OP characters, is to just do whatever you would have to do if your character was still alive. SO, in the end, turns out Lament was just in a good mood, and gave the bandits the money they wanted. Everyone's happy, the admins were not called. The end.
Now, a great thing to do is create a ton of weaknesses for your ghosty. Using my character, again, as an example. He is limited in his movement around Altera. In order to walk around an area, he must have some sort of ethereal anchor. To begin with Lament had two anchors; the place where he died (in the Laughing Lamb in Port Silver) and the place where he was buried (the graveyard on the Gemstone Isles). Throughout the rest of Altera, Lament could not "speak", and could not use his extremely limited telekinesis (I'll get to those two later as well). He could teleport between these two places, as well.
Recently, Lament discovered that there is a way to create other anchors for himself. If a chunk of any sort of thing with a strong bond to the earth (for example, any minerals, or a magical object) is placed in an area, and Lament puts a little bit of his spirit in it, it will work as a new anchor. However, continuing with the idea of under-powering your character, I have decided that doing this tires Lament greatly, and he has to wait for an extremely long time (three weeks, IRL, I have decided) before doing it again.
More weaknesses I've come up with are his limited abilities to connect with this term. As Lament is actually just a manifestation of the way he is, he actually resides in a separate level of reality. He can still interact with objects in this level as well. First of all, he is able to use telekinesis to move objects, but there are limitations, like with everything else. He can only use them if two things occur; one, if Erlewis used that sort of object while he lived. In example, if he used a sword when he lived, he'd be able to move around all types of swords as Lament. And secondly, he may only use this power if Lament's representation in this term was within a certain distance of the object.
As well as being limited in his use of objects, Lament is also limited to telepathy for communication. While this may seem not too bad, there are downsides. The first and formost of which being that most magic-users can defend their minds well against any sort of mental "attack", this being how they view it. As well, it makes people less willing to speak with Lament, as any form of telepathy is an invasion of the mind, and this makes many feel uncomfortable.
I do hope this has helped anyone trying to develop a character they are finding to be over-powered. Thank you for taking the time to read this as well!
Something that has become very apparent to me through extended role-playing as this character, is that it is SO easy to slip into playing as an OP, can't die, can't be harmed, can do anything ghost character. THIS IS BAD. I've posted this thread to try to explain how to avoid this.
First of all; I am often put in situations where staying in character is difficult as a ghost. For example, one day as I went into the SW to explore a bit, a pair of bandits stopped me at the gate. I, realizing they were clearly the good kind of bandit who legitimately role-play, rather than just killing people off randomly, decided that it would be good to role-play. However, slight problem; I'm a ghost. Due to me already being dead, there is no way they could actually kill, me and their threats mean nothing. HOWEVER; a simple way to avoid the general annoyance about OP characters, is to just do whatever you would have to do if your character was still alive. SO, in the end, turns out Lament was just in a good mood, and gave the bandits the money they wanted. Everyone's happy, the admins were not called. The end.
Now, a great thing to do is create a ton of weaknesses for your ghosty. Using my character, again, as an example. He is limited in his movement around Altera. In order to walk around an area, he must have some sort of ethereal anchor. To begin with Lament had two anchors; the place where he died (in the Laughing Lamb in Port Silver) and the place where he was buried (the graveyard on the Gemstone Isles). Throughout the rest of Altera, Lament could not "speak", and could not use his extremely limited telekinesis (I'll get to those two later as well). He could teleport between these two places, as well.
Recently, Lament discovered that there is a way to create other anchors for himself. If a chunk of any sort of thing with a strong bond to the earth (for example, any minerals, or a magical object) is placed in an area, and Lament puts a little bit of his spirit in it, it will work as a new anchor. However, continuing with the idea of under-powering your character, I have decided that doing this tires Lament greatly, and he has to wait for an extremely long time (three weeks, IRL, I have decided) before doing it again.
More weaknesses I've come up with are his limited abilities to connect with this term. As Lament is actually just a manifestation of the way he is, he actually resides in a separate level of reality. He can still interact with objects in this level as well. First of all, he is able to use telekinesis to move objects, but there are limitations, like with everything else. He can only use them if two things occur; one, if Erlewis used that sort of object while he lived. In example, if he used a sword when he lived, he'd be able to move around all types of swords as Lament. And secondly, he may only use this power if Lament's representation in this term was within a certain distance of the object.
As well as being limited in his use of objects, Lament is also limited to telepathy for communication. While this may seem not too bad, there are downsides. The first and formost of which being that most magic-users can defend their minds well against any sort of mental "attack", this being how they view it. As well, it makes people less willing to speak with Lament, as any form of telepathy is an invasion of the mind, and this makes many feel uncomfortable.
I do hope this has helped anyone trying to develop a character they are finding to be over-powered. Thank you for taking the time to read this as well!
