Need help with characters?

[Warren Castille]

I just wanna go on the record and say that it's great that you're open to criticism on these sorts of things.

 

Regarding Rena, I think your homage to Monkey King is a bit... turned up. While the prehensile tail is a bit much depending on the user you ask (feline tails are far from prehensile), the depowering when grabbed and dampening-circlet push lore by the wayside. Super Modes are generally difficult to work in when most of your compatriots are playing normal mortals, and this line in particular raises my eyebrow:

 

Without her circlet on, Rena's power and agility increases fivefold, making her almost like a demi-Primal, but she is not overpowered, as it is still possible for her to be stopped by people like Nik, who makes sure to put a new circlet on her to calm her down.

 

Define "people like Nik?" If Niklas is the pinnacle of human potential, then you run into the problem of her not being OP by Warrior of Light standards, which still means she would crush normal fighters by the bucketloads.

 

Regarding Doma, tangling that sort of backstory with an Ala Mhigan would take some tricky dancing. Also, writing this makes me realize you did say "hyur" when you were rerolling her.

 

This sort of thing got addressed a lot in the Retconning thread. Rena's already established as having been around, and she's interacted a bit with people (didn't she fight at Otto's thing recently?). Suddenly retooling her into an entirely different character will be jarring for them, especially because there's a race change on top of a background change on top of a character shift. You need to be very careful when transplanting someone like this, because a lot of folks who know her might just not get it.

 

My general advice is stay away from innate hidden powers. Let the character speak for the character, not the templates and super moves. As always, take everything I suggest with a grain (or a shaker) of salt; My advice hardly represents the majority opinion here.

[SM Nick]

I just wanna go on the record and say that it's great that you're open to criticism on these sorts of things.

 

Regarding Rena, I think your homage to Monkey King is a bit... turned up. While the prehensile tail is a bit much depending on the user you ask (feline tails are far from prehensile), the depowering when grabbed and dampening-circlet push lore by the wayside. Super Modes are generally difficult to work in when most of your compatriots are playing normal mortals, and this line in particular raises my eyebrow:

 

Without her circlet on, Rena's power and agility increases fivefold, making her almost like a demi-Primal, but she is not overpowered, as it is still possible for her to be stopped by people like Nik, who makes sure to put a new circlet on her to calm her down.

 

Define "people like Nik?" If Niklas is the pinnacle of human potential, then you run into the problem of her not being OP by Warrior of Light standards, which still means she would crush normal fighters by the bucketloads.

 

Regarding Doma, tangling that sort of backstory with an Ala Mhigan would take some tricky dancing. Also, writing this makes me realize you did say "hyur" when you were rerolling her.

 

This sort of thing got addressed a lot in the Retconning thread. Rena's already established as having been around, and she's interacted a bit with people (didn't she fight at Otto's thing recently?). Suddenly retooling her into an entirely different character will be jarring for them, especially because there's a race change on top of a background change on top of a character shift. You need to be very careful when transplanting someone like this, because a lot of folks who know her might just not get it.

 

My general advice is stay away from innate hidden powers. Let the character speak for the character, not the templates and super moves. As always, take everything I suggest with a grain (or a shaker) of salt; My advice hardly represents the majority opinion here.

 

Thanks for the advice. As for becoming Hyur, I'm thinking of putting in that she finds a potion somewhere, drinks it, and suddenly becomes Hyur, ala Kage. But you're right I gotta be careful. This is almost like doing surgery: one mess-up, and I'm done for. Sometimes I can't handle the pressure like this.

[Warren Castille]

Thanks for the advice. As for becoming Hyur, I'm thinking of putting in that she finds a potion somewhere, drinks it, and suddenly becomes Hyur, ala Kage. But you're right I gotta be careful. This is almost like doing surgery: one mess-up, and I'm done for. Sometimes I can't handle the pressure like this.

 

Pshaw, roleplay isn't so serious that you'd be in any real trouble. Just takes some getting used to when someone is suddenly someone else. Fantasia's been used enough and if you wanted to go that route, not many folks would have room to argue.

 

If you're wanting her to have been Doman, though, that's still tricky. You could have her as having been secreted away as a baby and her heritage drawing back to there, but Domans have only extremely recently arrived on Eorzean soil so trying to explain her as having traveled years ago is a bit questionable. It's not unreasonable to have her being raised in Ala Mhigo but unaware of the place of her birth, but that also won't really make her "doman" in the traditional sense of the word.

 

Your options seem to be either gently nudging the history (Oops! She was a secret Doman baby the whole time!) and letting it alter very little of your story or going whole-hog and smashing it to pieces (Rena as we knew her is retconned entirely, New Rena is a wholely different person who now comes from Doma).

[SM Nick]

Thanks for the advice. As for becoming Hyur, I'm thinking of putting in that she finds a potion somewhere, drinks it, and suddenly becomes Hyur, ala Kage. But you're right I gotta be careful. This is almost like doing surgery: one mess-up, and I'm done for. Sometimes I can't handle the pressure like this.

 

Pshaw, roleplay isn't so serious that you'd be in any real trouble. Just takes some getting used to when someone is suddenly someone else. Fantasia's been used enough and if you wanted to go that route, not many folks would have room to argue.

 

If you're wanting her to have been Doman, though, that's still tricky. You could have her as having been secreted away as a baby and her heritage drawing back to there, but Domans have only extremely recently arrived on Eorzean soil so trying to explain her as having traveled years ago is a bit questionable. It's not unreasonable to have her being raised in Ala Mhigo but unaware of the place of her birth, but that also won't really make her "doman" in the traditional sense of the word.

 

Your options seem to be either gently nudging the history (Oops! She was a secret Doman baby the whole time!) and letting it alter very little of your story or going whole-hog and smashing it to pieces (Rena as we knew her is retconned entirely, New Rena is a wholely different person who now comes from Doma).

 

Oh wow. I would rather do the first option. I did hint that she came from the Far East, but she did not remember her origin in the years gone by. (Read Rena's wiki for the story I have) Maybe there are some things I should change about her backstory, like MINOR details, not like retconning everything.

[Warren Castille]

Rena is a unique Miqo'te from Doma in the Far East, born there with no parents, and then found a family in the Opo tribe who found her alone. She was raised there until she was 12, where she went berserk and wiped out most of the Opo tribe with her excruciating aether. The Nunh of the tribe decided to seal her away in a mountain in Coerthas for years where she stayed there for 8 years until she was saved by a 20-year old Niklas, who, unlike today, was a hardass back then.

 

I'd need to flag down Sounsyy for this, but I'm fairly certain that Doma doesn't have traditional tribes like Eorzea does. Their names certainly don't seem to reflect it, and I'd again make mention that Chosen One storylines are be rattling for those you interact with.

[SM Nick]

Rena is a unique Miqo'te from Doma in the Far East, born there with no parents, and then found a family in the Opo tribe who found her alone. She was raised there until she was 12, where she went berserk and wiped out most of the Opo tribe with her excruciating aether. The Nunh of the tribe decided to seal her away in a mountain in Coerthas for years where she stayed there for 8 years until she was saved by a 20-year old Niklas, who, unlike today, was a hardass back then.

 

I'd need to flag down Sounsyy for this, but I'm fairly certain that Doma doesn't have traditional tribes like Eorzea does. Their names certainly don't seem to reflect it, and I'd again make mention that Chosen One storylines are be rattling for those you interact with.

 

Now that you mention it, there are some things that are too much. I will go change them later to make it appropriate. Like what should I change?

[Warren Castille]

Me personally? I'd stay away from anything regarding aether-explosions, family decimation and mysterious birth conditions. There are plenty of ways to make someone special without needing to load them down with a series of unique events, and it becomes less and less plausible the more you tack on. Being hidden away in a mountain for years is one such plot point. Being found without parents and raised is one plot point. Having unstable aetheric frequencies is one plot point. When you mash them all together it makes the character less important and cheapens their personality.

 

There's nothing wrong at all with having unique traits. When you've got a dozen of them, though...

[Aldotsk]

Having unique talent is nice, but if it's too unique to have the ability like Nael van Darnus or Warrior of Light is just a bit too extreme for any characters. While we understand that one are always concerned that someone will kill off their character that they worked on - we are all players. We will not insta kill anyone unless the player agrees to it.

 

Besides the point, I've mentioned privately to you that Rena started off with Eorzean character and if you want Rena to be Doman just to become a Ninja by changing off the entire story... then that's just not a good excuse There are now plenty of Doman characters (who created their characters from the start to be Domans). So you can either learn from them and Doman culture if that's what you wish.

 

Even White Magics are confirmed to learn and use by breaking the rules and cast them outside of Shrouds and elements.

 

Family decimation is fine. There are plenty of families that were killed probably in Ala Mhigo anyways and chances are that your family is one of them. Or Calamity too.

 

What Warren said, aether explosions and mysterious birth conditions can be avoided. Aether explosion in theory... characters will degenerate into multiple molecular cells if that happened.

 

Edit: Retconning is nice and all, but if Rena -did- meet a lot of characters too much. It'll be hard for everyone to be adjusted. I did say that retcon should be allowed, but depending on how big the retcon is. Anelia being retconned regarding her position as a Sultansworn (formerly captain) was because we Sultansworns in LS agreed that we'd leave it as equal position. Which is an okay retcon. But if we retcon entire story of Anelia, like she never met anyone - it'd be like A Realm Reborn 2.0 beginning where no one can remember who the Warriors of Lights' names are. We'd just refer to them as WoL.

[Mosly]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but There is only ONE white mage other then the padjaal in game history, and that is /your/ character.  I saw that in Niklas' bio his mother was a white mage.  In the story quest it tells you that your character is the only one outside of the Padjaal race that was allowed to learn to become a White Mage.  It would make more sense to say that she was a Conjurer since that is more widely accepted the White Magic is.

 

I'm not sure how it was handled in 1.0, but according to this game I don't think its possible for his mother to be White Mage...

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Shoshopu]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but There is only ONE white mage other then the padjaal in game history, and that is /your/ character.  I saw that in Niklas' bio his mother was a white mage.  In the story quest it tells you that your character is the only one outside of the Padjaal race that was allowed to learn to become a w White Mage. 

 

I'm not sure how it was handled in 1.0, but according to this game I don't think its possible for his mother to be White Mage...

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

The Lore Panel at Fanfest certainly implied there are other ways to learn white magic, and other groups are also trying to bring it back. Your character is unique in that it's the only person learning white magic in that specific way. The "true" way, I guess, there is only one, and that is the player character. But there are other ways. Who? How? We don't know that yet, unfortunately.

[Mosly]

Right, I had heard of that.  In my opinion, until we know what those methods are, it might not be best to really put it to something.  A White Mage is too specific because that are what the Padjaal and your player character are, at least at this point in time.

 

Once that new lore has come out and we know the other methods, i'd still stick with Conjury.