An idle thought that occurred me, wondering if anyone else does this.
Probably not applicable to anyone who gets into any kind of serious content. For those of you who think about your character’s fighting style… do you ever allow it to bleed into how you spec and play your actual character in ACTUAL gameplay, even if it’s effectively a small handicap?
For example, this character, Jonathan Harmarth. I consider the Outlaw ability “Killing Spree” to be his signature move. Straight up. If it is physically possible to have the ability, I rule that I must spec into it, no matter how sub-optimal it is. It his his move.
Or my Tauren Death Knight, who absolutely refuses to use any minions. Mounts and such are fine, but no ghouls, no Blood Worms, no Frostwyrms, nothing. Absolutely refuses.
I do this. Since I play on an RP server I really get into character with my toons and thier abilties. I’m a returning player a former lvl 79 Mage (highest level achieved) and with all the new features I like a design my toon and playstyle to specific abilites. The new hero talents should let us play with this concept further.
Since I have zero and bupkis martial training, I don’t think of it… I"m not Roger Zelazny so you’re not going to see his kind of epic writing of battles in my stories. I focus more on my actions and motivation then the nuts and bolts.
Zelazny could write his stuff becaudse he knew it as refereced below.
Two other personal characteristics that influenced his fiction were his expertise in martial arts and his addiction to tobacco. Zelazny became expert with the épée in college, and thus began a lifelong study of several different martial arts, including judo, aikido (which he later taught as well, having gained a black belt), tai chi, and baguazhang . In turn, many of his characters ably and knowledgeably use similar skills whilst dispatching their opponents. Zelazny was also a passionate cigarette and pipe smoker (until he quit in the early 1980s), so much so, that he made many of his protagonists heavy smokers as well. However, he quit in order to improve his cardiovascular fitness for the martial arts; once he had quit, characters in his later novels and short stories stopped smoking too.[5]
So pick up a copy of Nine Princes in Amber if you want to see textbook examples of the kind of writing you’re asking about.
Oh yes… very much so. My Shaman doesn’t use pets, beyond Totems, and while I’d love to never have any of them out, because of not wanting to hold back my guild I use the S3 gear which causes me to summon a lightning wolf. I just ignore it, and pretend it’s anything else…
On top of that my shaman runs a nightmare of an elemental/storm hybrid build that I feel reflects on their personality, she bonds more easily with the magma/lava and storm elementals then she does their “purer” counter parts.
When applicable I like to build my characters to reflect how they’d fight ic. My Pandaren Shaman, Xiangu, is one of the most authentic examples of this; I gave her pretty much every frost-based ability Enhancement and Elemental offer to reflect her affinity towards that element.
Many of my characters I can’t or otherwise don’t want to connect with the spec I play with them. This is especially the case with Mages, as I feel the specs are far too limited in scope (compared to the lore) to base a character’s entire skillset on; and none of my current Mages are the kind to hyperfocus on the conjuration of primarily one element. Some characters, like my shamanic assassins Zhihao and Song, have skillsets that simply can’t be reflected by the present class structure and still others may use weapons that aren’t fully represented or represented at all in-game. Examples of the latter include my Steam Warriors, for reasons I hope are obvious enough not to have to explain.
One of my Pandaren Warrior characters, Ju Moonblossom, is an example of me retroactively adapting the character’s fighting style to reflect gameplay. I had switched from Arms to Fury with her in WoD, and later, following a particular milestone in her story, gave her an ability that would justify her dual wielding without having to carry two primary weapons with her. This was, granted, more of a side effect of that particular situation rather than a deliberate effort on my part.
My character can’t really be constrained to one class. He’d have to be something like a multiclass Frost DK, Ret Paladin and in some cases, Outlaw rogue rolled into one. So… I have three different versions of him PLUS an Alliance side proxy.
My whole thing with him is that he attempts to be as much the Paladin as he was in life. Even at times successfully calling on the Light, though that comes with great pain. He refuses to use any plagues or pestilences, the only Blood spells he will use are to heal himself, since unfortunately, while in RP he can use the Light offensively (if I roll a nat 20), and sometimes even shield himself with it, he cannot be healed by it.
I haven’t gone so far as to avoid using minions in gameplay, though he absolutely will not summon them in RP. I also have a tendency to forget to use my Death and Decay, Death Coil, or some other darker effects, preferring to use purely Frost abilities on his DK version.