Post/Author/DateTime	Post
GingerbreadMan 05-13-06, 01:44 PM	My DM has recently decided to add as much RP into our game as possible, and to entice us asked that we create backgrounds and such for our characters which can provide bonuses to certain rolls, etc. For me, I have a lvl 4 human druid who is aged considerably. 54 years old to be exact. He lived alone in the woods for almost all of his life, and as such firstly: 1). has a house in a gigantic oak tree in his wood 2). recieves no Con penalty for age because he has had to work on his own. To balance this out he recieves double the str penalty. (I want to keep it fair, so please let me know if something is too powerful or not) 3.) recieves +6 Charisma vs animals, but -6 toward humanoids (<--correct term?) and finally 4.) speaks VERY broken common as he hasnt had to speak it in ages, but knows Terran, Auran and Ignomen (languages of the elementals which seem to frequent his magical wood) He walks with a gnarled quaterstaff made from an ancient thorny tree, so the staff gains spikes for attacks. (-2 str mod after age means he wont be fighting hand to hand... like... ever) mostly used as a walking stick and a symbol for the character He wears aged leather armor under a large, draping cloak made from a magical melding of fallen leaves every autumn. Perhaps there could be a magical quality to it? I have said he knows the locations of all berry/fruit bearing plants, springs/streams, and treants around his oak tree home, and has recently ventured out due to a crippling disease that has invaded the water source (this fits into our campaign perfectly, actually, I mentioned this one to my DM already and he has required me to add it for an adventure hook lol) He also gains +2 Knowledge Nature and +2 Survival for living in the woods for so long What do you all think? Any other ideas I could incorporate for some bonuses? ;) I was thinking maybe he could gain some sort of magical energy from living in such a magical wood for so long that he has the lifespan of an elf, as the rest of our group all have characters who are young with large lifespans. This character is going to be decently balanced, with slight focus on wildshape over summoning and casting, as staying in his old-man form isnt exactly advantageous. Current Stats: str: 7 (after -4) dex 9 (after -2) Con 18 (no penalty) Int 14 (after +2) Wis 18 (after +2) Cha 10 (after +2)
JulesCARV 05-13-06, 11:46 PM	Hmmm... that "no con penalty, double strength penalty" seems rather dubious to me, what with the strength penalty being wild shapable away, and the constitution penalty still mattering for hit points with the errata. Regardless, though, I would say that you're mainly looking for the Optimization Boards (http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21). They'll help you. Just ignore the crazies who think that you're nuts if you aren't in a prestige class by level 6, can't stick with a given prestige class for more than two levels. UPDATE: it occurs to me that one possibility for applying a +2 con, -2 strength bonus is to simply play a gnome. Forest gnome would fit very well as well. You lose a bonus feat and some skill points, of course.