Character Creation Advice

[Arkham8]

Okay, so I just got the DFRPG book in the mail. I'm having a little trouble figuring out the logistics of my character, because there are so mayn things I want to do with him. So, I broke it down into a few different builds I could roll with and I'll go with the one that will be the least complicated in the long run.

-I was thinking of a gun-slinging character. My main inspiration for this character comes from Dante of the Devil May Cry series, but I'm afraid his Aspects and Powers will come too close to Kincaid's. Especially since Scion is the only way I could think of him being able to have the powers to pull off the stunts I would like him to.

-An Alchemist. Someone who is either Crazy Prepared or has the Aspect of Macgyver, in order to simplify his potion making and make him actually useful in confrontations. Possibly, the orphan son of a witch who was kind of a Nevernever biologist. Raised by a tree spirit, giving him a strong connection to nature, that aids him in his on the spot potion making.
 
-A Thaumaturgist. Same deal as the alchemist. Going with the crazy prepared or Macgyver skill for on the spot rituals. My practice scenario for him was that he was in a group that was in the winter area of the Nevernever. A giant snow beast is attacking the party, and as they hold off the beast, he creates has one of the party members create a snowman while he focuses and prepares a thaumaturgic ritual connecting his snowman and the snowbeast. Once the ritual is complete, he has someone melt the snowman or kick it's head off, thus destroying the snowbeast. I was thinking that I could possibly combine him with the Alchemist, to create one character.

-A dual-sword wielding teleporter. For all my reading through the book I can't figure a way to make this convincing. I was thinking that he is a World-Walker that specializes in opening portals quickly enough to do some nifty battlefield teleportation, on top of his sword prowess.

-I was wanting an Outsider themed character, due to my love of Lovecraft, but I hear these are kind of hard to pull off.

[devonapple]

-A dual-sword wielding teleporter. For all my reading through the book I can't figure a way to make this convincing. I was thinking that he is a World-Walker that specializes in opening portals quickly enough to do some nifty battlefield teleportation, on top of his sword prowess.

The game system makes Teleportation prohibitively expensive, and requires Thaumaturgy. That said, if you are just using it on a small scale, you may opt to buy existing powers (Inhuman Speed, maybe Inhuman Toughness to reflect it being harder to damage you) and re-skin them to get the game effects of Teleportation you want, without having to create a new and possibly broken power. Add in an Aspect that you can Invoke to make some other teleportation-related things happen, and it might work. Also, dual-sword wielding is going to be a mostly cosmetic effect unless you end up creating Stunts to simulate their increased effectiveness. The Spray Attack maneuver is going to be the rule for hitting multiple people in a single exchange.

-I was wanting an Outsider themed character, due to my love of Lovecraft, but I hear these are kind of hard to pull off.

Not hard to pull off so much as hardwired into the setting as a source of evil, corruption, and the end of everything as we know it. Outsiders are anathema to reality in the Dresdenverse. It is like wanting to be a lit match in a gunpowder factory, and completely inappropriate for any but the most intentionally evil/chaotic games.

-I was thinking of a gun-slinging character. My main inspiration for this character comes from Dante of the Devil May Cry series, but I'm afraid his Aspects and Powers will come too close to Kincaid's. Especially since Scion is the only way I could think of him being able to have the powers to pull off the stunts I would like him to.

Nothing wrong with emulating Kincaid. I'm sure you could find a way to differentiate the two. Also, he wouldn't necessarily need to be a Scion - he could just be a Minor Talent who has magical gun powers.

[Haru]

he could just be a Minor Talent who has magical gun powers.

I just read this as "magic gun powder" and now I want to create a gunslinging alchemist. That's gonna be fun

The Alchemist character is very easy to make. There is already a rule for on-the-fly potions: if you have free potion slots you can ask your GM for a lore roll to have the right potion at hand. Might involve a FATE point, but I'm not sure. Add in a stunt for that lore roll and you can pull a potion out of your hat for every occasion. Give him Ritual (Crafting) so he can create potions and has his potion slots available.

A giant snow beast is attacking the party, and as they hold off the beast, he creates has one of the party members create a snowman while he focuses and prepares a thaumaturgic ritual connecting his snowman and the snowbeast. Once the ritual is complete, he has someone melt the snowman or kick it's head off, thus destroying the snowbeast.

That is going to be an enormous ritual involving a hell of a lot of shifts. I'm not sure if anyone could just pull off something like that. Look at the book, the spell to kill a human being involves something along the lines of 30+ shifts, so what is it going to be on something like that? It would probably be easier to try something different in this case, taking away a toughness power or something like that, so the rest of your group can hack away.

The dual-sword wielding teleporter would, as devonapple suggested, best be emulated by supernatural speed or higher. Maybe cut away some of it's benefits and make it a bit cheaper, but actual teleporting just isn't possible in the dresdenverse (as far as I understand it, of course). Which doesn't mean your character shouldn't believe he is teleporting, maybe he is just jumping between his positions in an enormous speed, more an act of will than it is an act of actual movement, so from his point of view it still would be teleporting.
If you take Supernatural Speed, I would modify it like this:
Remove "Faster than the Eye" and change Supreme Initiative so you might spend a FATE point to go first once a scene. The rest pretty much sums up the remaining benefits, I think. I would then price it at 3 Refresh, maybe 2 if you restrict it further (like "only when wielding the two swords in combat).

[devonapple]

but actual teleporting just isn't possible in the dresdenverse (as far as I understand it, of course).

It is possible - just incredibly limited, and true teleporting is discouraged, in favor of such dodges as the targets turning into air, or some other transmutative effect. In fact, if Arkham8 chose to instead take on Air as the special effect of the "teleporting" then things would be simpler to fit into the system (using Inhuman Speed and such).

As Arkham8 correctly gathered, the Nevernever is the preferred method of getting places faster, but it can be as easy or as hard as the story needs such journeys to be. And the Dresdenverse implications of a "blink"-style character (using the D&D terminology) constantly dipping in and out of the Nevernever can be quite a headache. Imagine the surface of a sea in which a shiny bit of meat was continuously dangled: eventually predators would catch the scent and come looking for a bite. Which can be handled as a Compel on the teleportation concept Aspect, of course.

[Arkham8]

I'm not sure if this is in the book (it's a big book and I just got it today), but can you take stunts out of your skill categories? My character would probably have Affability as opposed to Intimidation, but I still want the Infuriate stunt.

[Tedronai]

Such a character (frequent short-range 'teleportation' by way of brief journeys in the Nevernever) would be an utter BANE on the veil between worlds...

[Haru]

As Arkham8 correctly gathered, the Nevernever is the preferred method of getting places faster, but it can be as easy or as hard as the story needs such journeys to be. And the Dresdenverse implications of a "blink"-style character (using the D&D terminology) constantly dipping in and out of the Nevernever can be quite a headache. Imagine the surface of a sea in which a shiny bit of meat was continuously dangled: eventually predators would catch the scent and come looking for a bite. Which can be handled as a Compel on the teleportation concept Aspect, of course.

I like the idea, when you put it like that. If you use the surface of the sea idea, you could add a "hunger" track or something similar. Every teleport (or rather every exchange a teleport was used) the hunger track would raise by 2. A consequence would then be some critter from the nevernever wanting a piece of the meat and coming after him through the weakened barrier between the worlds. Although a hunger track might not fit. Maybe just a roll against the teleports added up, if it fails, you woke something up, if you succeed you can simply walk away.

Affability is not a skill in the system, I think presence/rapport would be what you are looking for, so you might take a stunt there. However, intimidate is the social attack skill, so you would have to explain what exactly you are trying to do. Piss them off with kindness? Might work on some people for sure.

[devonapple]

I'm not sure if this is in the book (it's a big book and I just got it today), but can you take stunts out of your skill categories? My character would probably have Affability as opposed to Intimidation, but I still want the Infuriate stunt.

Well, yes and no. You generally want to take Stunts which extend the usefulness of any strong Skills, or which allow strong skills be used as a "substitute" for the Trappings of weaker ones (Trappings being the useful components of a given skill). Either way, you want a strong skill behind them for them to be worthwhile. There is a section explaining how to make your own, and you should find plenty of weapon-themed Stunts.

Also note that Powered characters generally have precious few Refresh left to spend on Stunts (and for Pure Mortals, the community attitude seems to be that anything more than 3-4 Stunts centered around a strong character concept is a waste of Refresh).

[Arkham8]

Shoot, I meant Rapport, yeah. My issue is that I keep trying to make the character an expy of myself. And I would really like a lot more stunts 

[ways and means]

I think time manipulation is possible in the Dresden verse which can be almost the same thing as teleportation (slowing down time or stopping it) but it would be ridiculously expensive power and using it could have all sorts of unforseen concequences. 

[Sanctaphrax]

You could use a stunt to move the provocation trapping of Intimidation to Rapport. Then you could get another stunt giving +2 to that trapping.

The teleporting swordsman, by the way, can be built as a pure mortal.* A stunt removing the penalty for supplemental movement actions, a stunt that adds half the weapon rating of a second wepon to that of the first, and whatever other stunts you feel like adding. The teleportation could just be a poetic description.

Also: you should go to the Resources board. There's three threads full of characters and one thread full of stunts there. They ought to be helpful.

*This is dependent upon a certain distinction between flavour and mechanics in the mind of your GM.

[Arkham8]

Thus far I have

-Xarol the Alchemist
-Nightside, Son of a Fire Demon
-Jason, Mortal Bad-ass