This is a bit vague and strange question to ask, but have you ever found out, after playing for awhile, that your character plays differently than how you wanted to play them?

___

Let me explain by telling my own experience as a bit of a newbie to Oblivion:

For example, I just found out that my so-called Altmer "Enchantress" (my custom mage class with all magic classes as major skills and blade) is... kind of an incompetent mage.

I wanted to make her a pure mage... but I cannot play her that way.

She only uses basic spells and just only recently learned how to make potions. She relies more on a plain iron sword (or whatever she can scavenge) and some alchemy items than anything else. I don't know how to enchant anything or make/combine? spells at all, not to mention I can never afford anything anyway. (She's like me, scared of caves and dungeons for fear of the undead, so she wanders the wilderness and does above-ground quests/chores for people).

Most of the time, I found out that she plays more like an assassin (which was what Baurus the guard practically recommended in the first place!) or a warrior (with only basic spells) than a straight-up mage, lol.

She plays very differently than my previous mage character and practically lives on whatever items or weapons that dead bodies leave behind. She's like... a scavenger-warrior than a sophisticated pure mage, lol. Uh, whoops?

She also wears more practical light armor than pretty dresses and is a little more tougher than my previous girly-girl mage character.

I really enjoy discovering my character's way of life and fighting style. It gives her a bit of a ...weird charm and personality, I guess.
_____

So:
1) Have you played a character that suddenly played differently than whatever class you may have originally planned for him/her to be?
2) Or plays differently than what the guard, Baurus, expects?
3) Or does your character plays exactly how you (or Baurus) expects him/her to be?

I think it's wonderful that you are able to listen to your character and allow her to develop her own style - whether it matches your concept or not. I know the feeling.

Sometimes my character listens to my advice, sometimes she doesn't. She is definitely a product of her own will and dances along her own path however. I did envision her as an archer who would rely on illusion magic instead of melee as a backup, and from that perspective she did not surprise.

I was in no way however prepared for her appetites that range quite a gamut: Tamika's wine, waterfalls, her precious black mare, shoes, dressing for fashion only, Savlian Matius *sigh*, reading every book she finds, cultivating dear friends throughout Cyrodiil, . . . .

So far, I've got two characters, one who was planned to be a cold, studious mage, and the other an old, grizzled Imperial ex-Legion Captain. Though these characters have roughly turned out how I planned them, their personalities surprise me, especially when I take a step back to anolyze them. For example, I use several companion mods with both chars, and they've been affecting each character differently.

Elinthure, my mage, has begun to open up quite a bit, mostly due to her companions. She's never been much of a "friend" person, focusing on her studies at the expense of her social skills and health (She's got around... oh... 70 health at level 8? That said, she does a ton of damage with her stave. She's much like Buffy in that sense; a glass cannon). Now though, I'm finding I'm chatting with NPC's a bit more.

Lexidius, my ex-captain, has really evolved from my idea of grumpy old Imperial, to something more. He's still grumpy, but I'm beginning to feel he might have more of a reason for adventuring besides wanting to right wrongs and fight for Cyrodiil. It seems that he wants to relive his glory days, of back when he was in the Legion (without actually joining it; I know there are mods for that, but Lex earned his retirement.). His companions are kind of helping him in this regard; he looks at them as if he's got yet another group of recruits under his wing. Not bad character development for a character who was made so I could finally finish the Main Quest!

An appetite for Savlian Matius, lol! =D
That's cool that you roleplay your character as well. An archer with illusion magic? Sounds interesting. =) Oh, my previous character LOVED dressing up as well.

It's good that at least your character follows, at least, your vision for her class.



Gosh, playing a glass cannon must be easy AND tough at the same time, heh. =)
Wow, I haven't even touched the main quest beyond the prison, lol!

I find that the game itself will force you a bit to develop skills in order to get a specific capability you need. E.g you can't enchant a weapon with soul trap until you can cast the spell, so you have to raise your Mysticism to Apprentice by casting something or nominating it a major. So that example can move a pure melee character over to being more of a magic-user than originally intended. You can hunt for one that already has the enchantments you like and never do your own, but that's limiting. Enchanting your own, of course, means joining the Mages Guild and you'll be given a few spells on the way to getting the recommendations, too.

The opposite is also true, a pure mage can't raise strength and carry more loot, or raise endurance for more health.

I agree. For Buffy, destruction magjc exists only for 'drain speed' and 'weakness to poison' because those two effects help render her a more lethal archer. Although she cares not about the destructive elements of fire, frost and shock, she had to struggle and practice quite a bit of destruction magic to learn and effectively wield the two effects she wanted. I also ascribe to limiting attrubutes. Similar to the pure mage ghastley describes, Buffy has never added a single point to endurance or strength. Ignoring those two attributes help sharply define her glass cannon nature.

I decided to make a marksman based Nord Barbarian that would attack at a distance with a bow and arrow and then charge in with a Claymore-but I spent too much effort into training Marksman/Sneak to gain a high agility. My character was not very good for a face to face melee battle, but turned out to be great for the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines. I ended up focusing on Miscellaneous quests and completing all of the Daedric quests before rescuing Martin arouind level 23. This character is the only evil one I ever really played, but is responsible for one of my highest levelled saves and I will revive her with a level eight save to play over with new builds of my game.

Wait, I thought any character can become whatever they want at a certain level (or if they keep trying)? If I was a fighter and I joined the Mages Guild, wouldn't I have the same access to the spells and magic materials as a mage character? I thought that was something people complained about in Oblivion? *confused*

The biggest problem with a character is usually caused by playing toward one specific goal, I was aiming for a Barbarian who used Marksman for a ranged attack. My Character was very weak in a standup fight and totally unplayable for the idea I had when I made her, because I did not give her enough strength and endurance early on to have enough health to survive trading blows with a Dremora. Having said this, that same character has played through SI,KOTN with no problems at levels past twentyfive, but I intended her to be able to complete the main quest much sooner. Regarding the complaints about the Mages Guild, I could complete the entire Mages guild questline with a Warrior or Barbarian who can ONLY cast a fireball and runs out of Magic castng heal spells as the Archmage of Cyrodill.

I have an argonian named Sun-Scale, who I intended to mainly be nothing more than a forest dwelling alchemist/bow wielding hunter who would only go into cities to sell potions he made or meat/hides he collected. One day though he did head up to the city of Kvatch, and after seeing first hand what happened there to the city, and after helping the guards take back the city, he decided he actually wanted to help the empire out, and ended up becoming the most noble and compassionate character I have.

You are generally correct, but it is possible that the choices you make can make some future avenues very hard. A fighter deciding later in life to augment with magic is not bad, but for a mage who has made RP choices to emphasize brains over brawn, switching to fighter can be tougher. For example, in Buffy's case:
- Even if she wanted to increase her strength (which she doesn't), it would be very tough since she won't touch h2h, blade or blunt.
- She has never added a point to endurance. If all of a sudden she wanted to start trading hits with orcs up close, she could never gain the hp to safely do so since endurance gains are not retroactive.

Ah, okay. Thank you very much for the info. =)

Oh, and I read some of Buffy's journal. She's a pretty cool character.

Maybe not as strange as you think. Since there was a recent thread on exactly that subject

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1151327-have-you-ever-had-your-own-character-surprise-you/

And yes that seems to happen to me a good amount. Particularly with bad or evil character. One example, is I have difficulty playing evil characters. So I start one to explore all the evil stuff in the game, and then he or she ends up being kind of good.

Yes. I set out with an "evil" character, and then am surprised when he/she refuses to follow some quest that I hadn't even considered a "problem."

One of my characters balked at an early point in the SI main quest, when you're faced with the choice or either killing some NPCs or driving them mad. Just stood there and refused to make either choice. Left me with the only alternative: reloading an earlier save, and abandoning the quest.

Indeed, my current character, Helena, plays rather differently than I intended.

I'd hoped for her to join the Mages Guild the moment she got to Chorrol. But she wanted to travel to Anvil and join there. She has great respect for all the Guild Hall leaders, but Carahil is a very close friend and Anvil's Guild Hall specialises in Restoration.

She's begun having rather dark thoughts too. Which I was very surprised about. I understand her logic, but it's not at all how I'd imagined her to be.

Most definitely, especially with Vilhen.

Who would think that a humble Nord alchemist, who wouldn't hurt a soul, would suddenly have the urge to begin an epic journey to glory? After living a rather uneventful young life without many friends, it was a rather refreshing change when he felt what it was like to help someone -- not because of that particular person's feelings towards him, but because of the fame he gained, and the riches showered upon him.

Of course, being an alchemist, his life revolved around leaving the comforts of cities and braving out the harshness of the wilderness. Over time, Vilhen began to realise his potential; bandit after bandit and beast after beast fell at the strike of his blade.

Vilhen, driven by the desire for power and wealth, joined the Imperial City Arena. He's still alive, but his ability to rationalise has died. Fuelled by his obsessive ambition for fame, he fights on, but any modicum of compassion and kindess has been lost, and to regain these attributes (which were once the crux of his personality) would he a heroic task in itself.

Oh, wow! Those are all great stories! :foodndrink: I'm glad that I'm not the only one whose character plays differently in personality and class. =) So I'm not so strange, lol! :laugh:

This could why I am sooooo excited that Skyrim is getting rid of classes! :happy: My characters rarely play the classes they are supposed to be, lol.

This is making me want to try out another character of another race for awhile to experiment and explore with.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/subrosa_florens/oblivion/Oblivion206.jpg is one example for me. She was my first evil character, and went around scowling at everyone in the game. So I quickly realized that she basically hated everyone in the world. Then she met Raminus Polus, and always had the biggest smiles for him. She was in love! Or at least had a major crush on him. I so did not see that coming!




This happened to me recently when I was playing http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/subrosa_florens/oblivion/Oblivion518.jpg. I created her to explore every nook and cranny of the Shivering Isles with, and possibly do the SI main quest with afterward. She got to Fellmor and started the quest to overthrow Cindanwe. But once she read Cindanwe's journal, she felt so sorry for her that she could not do it. So she left the village in Cindanwe's control and never went back. It was the first time Morrigan ever showed the slightest bit of empathy for another person, and amazed me.

I was playing a Dunmer Warrior named Drelas Omaran, he was captured by a Nordic raiding party a few kilometres outside of Blacklight, after escaping them, he fled to Cyrodill, he couldn't return to the Redoran after that.

Drelas wandered Cyrodill trying to find a way to restore his honour. A month later, Drelas was captured by the Legion after killing some Nords that looked very similar to his captors. One day the emperor came to Drelas' cell and escaped from the assasins through the secret exit in the prison. Baurus told Drelas to take the Amulet of Kings to Weynon Priory, when Drelas arrived, Jaufree told him to go to Kvatch to see if Martin was still alive.

After closing the Oblivion Gate and killing the remaining Daedra, Drelas escorted Martin to Weynon Priory. After Drelas, Martin, and Jaufree reached Cloud Ruler Temple, Drelas went to Bruma to rest, when he was there someone said the Daedra attacked Ald' Ruhn. That changed him. He had to destroy any and all Daedra to avenge the destruction of Ald' Ruhn. He travelede across Cyrodill closing every Oblivion Gate.

So, I had a character that had no intention of even playing the Main Quest end up closing every Oblivon Gate in the game and finishing the MQ.