Unused Character Abilities

Wyrmrest Accord
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Whilst filling out a guild app for one of my other characters I found myself recalling a few abilities that I’ve given characters in writing but, for one reason or another, have never been able to use in rp. The most common reasons I’ve found were lack of opportunity or the ability in question being overpowered (usually in a meta sense) in most applicable interactive situations.

So, with the lore out of the way…

Have any of you experienced anything similar with your characters; some spell, secret technique or what have you that could only feasibly be used outside of roleplay due the limitations within? Tell me all about it.

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Versca used to be a rogue and used to have a false eye that was enchanted with shadow magic. It glowed with a spooky shadowy aura instead of the usual spooky Forsaken glow. So she kept an eye patch over it because it stood out and I didn’t want to look like a Mary Sue with two different eye colours. The development of the eye actually came about in an RP session that was really fun.

The false eye allowed Versca to see magical auras and it functioned similar to the sight demon hunter’s have. This was all before DHs where in the game so looking at it now, it’s not that OP anymore.

Otherwise the eye for the most part let her see if a blade was enchanted or if a magical booby trap was set. Doesn’t mean she knows what the enchantment on the blade does but at least she can see it’s got magic tainted all over it.

I eventually phased the whole thing out, I was worried it might be to God Moddy. Yet I tried to balance it with things like, Versca isn’t good at magic so maybe she doesn’t notice but it eventually stopped being relevant to the character.

Also anyone see that movie Doomsday? Versca could also pop it out and see things with it. That movie rules, its like a gurps campaign. It goes from zombie outbreak. cyberpunk cop thriller, mad max post apoc punks, medieval sword fighting knights and then back to mad max car chase.

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I think this is a very interesting question/topic for multiple reasons.

First and most obvious, we have the various classes in the game. Every class (ideally) has a unique set of spells and abilities inherent to their particular archetypes, but I feel it’s a difficult exercise to really compare their power levels “in lore,” so to speak. In the context of roleplay, then, we can consider how our characters relate (or don’t relate) to the particular class archetype they embody, be it a Paladin or Warrior or what have you, and also in relation to everyone else.

Using Karnum here as an example, he’s a Death Knight. In lore, the “third generation,” that is to say the Death Knights of Acherus, are powerful in their own right, but are viewed more as disposable shocktroopers rather than the undead generals of the Third War. However, ICly, Karnum is not from Acherus. He was active during the Third War, and as such, it can be argued that he has superior ‘raise dead’ and ‘command undead’ abilities while also lacking the inherent ‘bloodlust’ weakness of his Acherus counterparts, relating back to the Death Knights of the Third War being the ‘undead general’ archetype I mentioned. Granted, the Unholy Spec now is a bit more in line with the Warcraft 3 hero unit, with Army of the Dead specifically giving the impression of commanding an army of undead minions, but this is after the fact, at least for me. Then we have the situation of him possessing a distinct runeblade that is specific to him, with a direct link to the Lich King, all in the Warcraft 3 fashion. Which, of course, if handled improperly in terms of storytelling can stray right into ominous lore-bending territory, nevermind the potential for “special snowflake syndrome.”

All that being said, there aren’t many opportunities for such magic to even arise in roleplay, and even then I don’t really go for it, at least without prior approval of the people I’m roleplaying with.

On a semi-related note, I find that not everything that exists in lore is feasible in terms of “balance” in roleplay, such as Saronite Plate doing its old-god corruption thing. I suppose the one hand, I enjoy the notion of certain characters being inherently stronger than others, especially if given proper context. But on the other, when you start thinking in such relative terms, I feel the roleplay can be muddled and bogged-down by power levels and such.

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Greyah is a spirit champion and could let herself be overcome by a spirit she’s close to, using their spirit to become stronger, faster, more intelligent, knowledgeable etc depending on the spirit she’s championing. I don’t use it often or really at all cause it seems OP to me but I’d like to imagine it happens only in really dire circumstances

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Figured I’d go ahead and share some of my own examples, for…reasons. So overtime, mainly between WoD and Legion, I came up with a few chi related powers for Ju. Out of those only two really remain, primarily because I have since forgotten the others and never put them to writing.

The first is a technique called the Merciful Mists Cut, alternatively the Merciful Mists Stroke. This move was born of a desire to make some use out of Ju’s backstory as a duelist; picking up knowledge from her opponents. This technique was acquired after one of the greater challenges of her career before the Mists of Pandaria receded.

The cut itself is largely driven by the wielder’s chi. It allows the blade to bypass physical defenses, leaving behind a small trail of mist covering the resulting wound. The mists promotes a soothing/numbing sensation, meant to at worst mitigate and at best obfuscate the exponential pain caused by the lingering chi within the wound gradually destroying the victim from within.

I never had any specific counter to it, apart from the victim’s own chi overpowering that of the cut; which is how Ju survived originally after initially receiving the cut herself. I suppose with that said it may be obvious as to why I rarely use it in rp. Its absolute nature and details make it inconvenient for combat in events and I’ve yet to encounter a situation elsewhere in which it would be prudent.

The other one has far less behind it. During Legion I decided I’d try and develop Ju a bit by having her left on the Broken Shore after the initial assault; connecting spiritually with ancient ancestors and learning a few new special powers. The one that I remember the most entailed invoking an ancestor to fire an arrow that becomes a massive volley. It and whatever others I planned at the time either never got finished or never even had an opportunity to be put into use in the first place for various reasons. The aforementioned development was mostly planned to be in narrative but I never got very far into it. I kind of want to finish it now but I can’t for the life of me remember anything that past me was seeking to do, but I digress.

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Vanndrel’s “friends” are often sensitive to other creatures of the Void or those they’ve touched. This means he often has insider knowledge of a potential void-touched individual or Void user.

But, seeing as how the first rule of the Ren’dorei is ignore the whispers, he by and large disregards whatever insight this ability would give him because those voices are just looking to use his body as a gateway into the physical world.

Coincidentally and totally unrelated (but I’m never going to come up with a better opportunity to bring it up), Vanndrel also fully ignores any Warlock summoned Voidwalker. He’s convinced it’s just a hallucination.

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Gen’tarn used to be a Hunter back when he was just starting out with almost all of his Shamanistic potential being stolen, so he’s skilled with bows, guns, spears and swords in addition to maces, axes and daggers, but mechanics got in the way of that.

His Ghost Wolf form was also large enough for a Human or Sin’dorei to ride as a mount, but not so large that another Orc or Kaldorei could mount.

Most other characters of mine had weirder little quirks, like Krenk being great with kids but absolutely awful luck around them, and in the short stories, my Troll Druid uses a Crocolisk as her tanking form and a giant cobra as her cat-form equivalent because those were the Loa she associated with.

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Way back when I was dumb and stupid, my dwarf hunter created a war elekk with one of those quest miniguns mounted on its back.

It only ever got used once, and was never mentioned again.

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I seE deAd peOple….

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sint has a power called Dragonfire that already is pretty wacky for WoW, it’s basically her soul being harnessed to empower her body to make her faster, stronger, etc. she had some powers of precognition as well as the ability to kinda see fate.

well she could also basically go super saiyan, a state called “White” or “Pure” Dragonfire, which doubled her previous abilities and allowed her to nullify some pretty powerful magic. like, a dangerously powerful enemy she faced and achieved this power against was practically immortal due to a connection to the Shadowlands. A connection she severed.

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marsoor was a draenei from a well off family on Argus and has 200 years of arcane studies on his belt and can use it if he needs to

but the hammers and lasers and swords of being a paladin used on demons is much more satisfying to him

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I recently remembered a disease I once wrote for Sinothyr, Blood Sickle; loosely based on Sickle Cell. Essentially it would rapidly develop sharp shards of ice in the victim’s blood that would inevitably rip and tear at them from the inside.

There was one time were I had her almost use it but ultimately the situation ended up not requiring it.