Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Misaru 05-16-07, 11:49 PM	Could you make an animal PC? I can only think of 2 reasons how this could come to be: 1) Awaken Spell. Problem here is the 2HD addition. 2) Reincarnate Spell. Before 3.5, you could reincarnate into anything, not just Humanoids. Any thoughts about this?
M1kh43l_P4r4d1s0 05-16-07, 11:52 PM	you could use shapeshift druid variant in PHBII and stay in animal for forever.
ElberethSilverleaf 05-17-07, 07:53 AM	I can see a lot of problems RPing an awakened animal. How will you communicate, open doors, etc? Remember that even species with somewhat prehensile hands like a raccoon or ape even have trouble using every objects. No other animals except for some birds have vocal cords that can approximate coherent speech.
YabaTheWhat 05-17-07, 09:04 AM	While the Tibbit isn't technically an animal, it has an animal form. Depending on what you want, that may count. The same concept applies to lycanthropes. Awakened animals acquire the Magical Beast type, so it is technically no longer an animal. Again, whether this counts depends on whether the playable creature must have the animal type, or just the animal form. Similarly, any animal with an intelligence score higher than 2 becomes a magical beast by default. As noted, the Reincarnate spell only allows humanoid forms now.
HammerSmashed 05-19-07, 02:53 AM	Where is awakened animal template?
HeWhoIs 05-19-07, 02:58 AM	Awakened isn't a template, it's a spell from the PHB.
Tetsubo 05-19-07, 06:24 AM	Awakened animal with Psion levels? That could make-up for having no verbal language or hands...
Ovistavin 05-19-07, 02:50 PM	I can see a lot of problems RPing an awakened animal. How will you communicate, open doors, etc? Remember that even species with somewhat prehensile hands like a raccoon or ape even have trouble using every objects. No other animals except for some birds have vocal cords that can approximate coherent speech. Awakened animals or trees can speak (I just checked the spell), so communication isn't a problem. The rest could be fun to work around.
Gingerbread Guy 05-20-07, 06:42 PM	Hey gang, I just want to add a suggestion.. though it isn't one of the rules that carried over to 3.5e (as far as I'm aware), there isn't any reason why the "death of a master" rule presented in Tome and Blood (p.12) couldn't supply you with an interesting animal character. For those of you who don't have it or don't want to bother looking it up (don't blame ya), according to Tome and Blood, when a character with a familiar dies, the familiar retains most of its powers indefinetly. It is treated as though it were the familiar of a character 2 levels lower than its previous master, but is otherwise unaltered. Assigning this kind of character an ECL would be a tough one, and dealing with the transition from fixed hitpoints to hit dice would be equally unpleasant, but I don't see why a "liberated" familiar can't gain class levels under some sort of lenient house rule. ~Ginger
HammerSmashed 05-23-07, 08:23 AM	Why nnot just be reincarnated????
Ecalsneerg 05-23-07, 08:57 AM	The closest I can think of is a telepath using true mind switch to put himself in an animal's body, then killing his previous body to stop an animal running around in a human form! The telepath could then use telepathy to communicate, and as D&D is pretty much a team game, opening doors technically shouldn't be a problem. You could psionically blast it open I suppose.
Ogg 05-23-07, 09:56 AM	I was thinking about possibly role playing an awakened familar. I was going to use the Anthropomorphic Animal template from Savage species though & say the magic that killed my master transformed me. :D