Post/Author/DateTime	Post
EvilVegan 01-01-08, 02:09 PM	Greetings! I think that LAs in general tend to be too high, especially on fey. Satyr is the worst (IMO), and typically this is due to unbalanced stats, so here's what I changed for the pixie: Reduced crazy racial bonus to dex and other racial bonuses. Removed Natural Armor. That's pretty much it. I ran it through Soldarin's ECL calc and it came up with +3 LA, which is what I figured it would be. To sum up: Pixie Racial Traits • -4 Strength, +4 Dexterity • Small size. +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, -4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits ¾ those of Medium characters. • A pixie’s base land speed is 20 feet. It also has a fly speed of 60 feet (good). • Low-light vision. • Skills: Pixies have a +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. • Racial Feats: A pixie receives Dodge and Weapon Finesse as bonus feats. • Spell-like abilities: 1/day—lesser confusion (DC 14), dancing lights, detect chaos, detect good, detect evil, detect law, detect thoughts (DC 15), dispel magic, entangle (DC 14), permanent image (DC 19; visual and auditory elements only). Caster level 8th. The save DCs are Charisma-based. One pixie in ten can use irresistible dance (caster level 8th) once per day. • Special Qualities (see above): Damage reduction 10/cold iron, greater invisibility, spell resistance equal to 15 + class levels. • Automatic Languages: Common, Sylvan. Bonus Languages: Elven, Gnome, Halfling. • Favored Class: Sorcerer. • Level adjustment +3 Look good? Another change I was thinking about was reducing the flight speed to 30' but increasing the maneuverability to Perfect.
YamiShinobi 01-01-08, 07:35 PM	Greetings! I think that LAs in general tend to be too high, especially on fey. Satyr is the worst (IMO), and typically this is due to unbalanced stats, so here's what I changed for the pixie: Reduced crazy racial bonus to dex and other racial bonuses. Removed Natural Armor. That's pretty much it. I ran it through Soldarin's ECL calc and it came up with +3 LA, which is what I figured it would be. To sum up: Pixie Racial Traits • -4 Strength, +4 Dexterity • Small size. +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, -4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits ¾ those of Medium characters. • A pixie’s base land speed is 20 feet. It also has a fly speed of 60 feet (good). • Low-light vision. • Skills: Pixies have a +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. • Racial Feats: A pixie receives Dodge and Weapon Finesse as bonus feats. • Spell-like abilities: 1/day—lesser confusion (DC 14), dancing lights, detect chaos, detect good, detect evil, detect law, detect thoughts (DC 15), dispel magic, entangle (DC 14), permanent image (DC 19; visual and auditory elements only). Caster level 8th. The save DCs are Charisma-based. One pixie in ten can use irresistible dance (caster level 8th) once per day. • Special Qualities (see above): Damage reduction 10/cold iron, greater invisibility, spell resistance equal to 15 + class levels. • Automatic Languages: Common, Sylvan. Bonus Languages: Elven, Gnome, Halfling. • Favored Class: Sorcerer. • Level adjustment +3 Look good? Another change I was thinking about was reducing the flight speed to 30' but increasing the maneuverability to Perfect. remove the spelllike abilities, spell resistance and damage reduction and it should be la+1, if you use raptorian flight and remove greater invisibility, L.A.+0 a Pixie you could play at 1st level.
Tedronai 01-01-08, 07:50 PM	remove the spelllike abilities, spell resistance and damage reduction and it should be la+1, if you use raptorian flight and remove greater invisibility, L.A.+0 a Pixie you could play at 1st level. of course, you wouldn't actually be playing a PIXIE at that point, but rather just some small sized fey of indeterminate quality.
Killy 01-01-08, 09:37 PM	Wow, I just had to create a tiny fey for a game, since one player wanted to play something like a fairy, using the pixie as a base I came up with: Fairy Tiny Fey -4 Strength, +4 Dex, +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma. Tiny size. +2 bonus to Armor Class, +2 bonus on attack rolls, +8 bonus on Hide checks, -8 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits are one half those of Medium characters. A fairy’s base land speed is 10 feet. It also has a fly speed of 40 feet (good). Low-light vision. Fairies have a +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. Fairies can use any of the following spell-like abilities a number of times per day equal to 3 + their charisma modifier: light, ghost sound, dancing lights, open, mage's hand, charm person, silent image, ventriloquism, message and color spray. The fairy's caster level for this spell-like abilities is equal to it's hit die and the DC is 11 + the fairy's charisma modifier. Fairies have a racial bonus of +2 to will saving throws against mind-affecting spells and spell-like abilities. Damage reduction equal to 3 / cold iron. Spell Resistance equal to 5 + class levels. Automatic language: Sylvan. Bonus languages: Common, Elven, Gnome and Halfling. Favored Class: Sorcerer. Level Adjustment: +2 Is it too powerful or is it ok for it's adjustment?
EvilVegan 01-03-08, 08:28 AM	Wow, I just had to create a tiny fey for a game, since one player wanted to play something like a fairy, using the pixie as a base I came up with: Fairy Tiny Fey -4 Strength, +4 Dex, +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma. Tiny size. +2 bonus to Armor Class, +2 bonus on attack rolls, +8 bonus on Hide checks, -8 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits are one half those of Medium characters. A fairy’s base land speed is 10 feet. It also has a fly speed of 40 feet (good). Low-light vision. Fairies have a +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. Fairies can use any of the following spell-like abilities a number of times per day equal to 3 + their charisma modifier: light, ghost sound, dancing lights, open, mage's hand, charm person, silent image, ventriloquism, message and color spray. The fairy's caster level for this spell-like abilities is equal to it's hit die and the DC is 11 + the fairy's charisma modifier. Fairies have a racial bonus of +2 to will saving throws against mind-affecting spells and spell-like abilities. Damage reduction equal to 3 / cold iron. Spell Resistance equal to 5 + class levels. Automatic language: Sylvan. Bonus languages: Common, Elven, Gnome and Halfling. Favored Class: Sorcerer. Level Adjustment: +2 Is it too powerful or is it ok for it's adjustment?That's at least +3, maybe +4. First of all, unbalanced ability scores is +1 LA by itself. Second, I'm pretty sure everything with flight is at least +2. Color spray & charm person each 3+cha per day? Those by themselves would be +1 together. I ran it through Soldarin's ECL calculator (http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/shadows/Handbook/ECLcalc.html). Got a solid +4 LA. I ran the standard pixie through and got a +4.9 though, so it isn't always 100% accurate. . .
Killy 01-03-08, 08:59 AM	Not each spell-like ability, she can use 3 + cha mod spell-like abilities from the given list. Anyway I erased the bonus to Wisdom and got 3.1 on Soldarin's ECL calc.
Sinfire Titan 01-03-08, 09:46 AM	You are forgetting that they are naturally invisible.
Balthanon 01-03-08, 09:52 AM	Level adjustment +3 Look good? Another change I was thinking about was reducing the flight speed to 30' but increasing the maneuverability to Perfect. I don't think it's going to cause issues at +3 LA like this, though if I had the choice I would pick the +4 LA original pixie every time. Part of what makes the pixie survivable with such a massive level adjustment is the enormous stat boosts that substitute somewhat for the various stats being lost to the level adjustment. The original pixie may have 10 or so fewer hit points, but it's also going to be getting hit quite a bit less between the natural armor and additional Dex (Wisdom as well, if it happens to be a Swordsage, Ninja, or Monk).
EvilVegan 01-03-08, 10:59 AM	I don't think it's going to cause issues at +3 LA like this, though if I had the choice I would pick the +4 LA original pixie every time. Part of what makes the pixie survivable with such a massive level adjustment is the enormous stat boosts that substitute somewhat for the various stats being lost to the level adjustment. The original pixie may have 10 or so fewer hit points, but it's also going to be getting hit quite a bit less between the natural armor and additional Dex (Wisdom as well, if it happens to be a Swordsage, Ninja, or Monk). I agree with the sentiment, I just really hate the DMG guide for making monster's into PC races. If a monster has a 16 intelligence, great, but that shouldn't automatically mean that all creature's of that race gain +6 to intelligence. Especially when it isn't their "schtick". I mean, satyr get +2 to every stat except strength. Does anything about "half-goat that frollicks and cavorts" lead you to believe that they need +2 intelligence or wisdom? The most I could see them having is dex, con, and maybe charisma, and even then it's a stretch. They aren't superhuman, they're inhuman. Pixies get +6 int! WHA?! That means that the average pixie is smarter than 99.99% of everyone I've ever met and the smartest 1st level pixie has intellect that completely dwarfs Stephen Hawking and Marilyn vos Savant. They're freaking bugs with sleep arrows that like to play tricks on people!
Balthanon 01-03-08, 11:13 AM	I agree with the sentiment, I just really hate the DMG guide for making monster's into PC races. If a monster has a 16 intelligence, great, but that shouldn't automatically mean that all creature's of that race gain +6 to intelligence. Especially when it isn't their "schtick". That is pretty much what 4th Edition is likely to do to monsters as a PC race-- personally, I like the formalized process for conversion myself. That 16 intelligence is intended to represent a completely average representative of the species. So if you don't feel like the monster should be that smart, then you would change the monster, rather than the PC race. Intelligence is one of those stats that it's difficult to look at high values and not say, "no one but a god should have that." Mainly because we value it so highly-- and think that we're the top of the food chain. A creature that does routinely play tricks and out thinks the average person should probably have a boost to intelligence though, how much of one just depends on how clever you really see the tricks that they play being.
EvilVegan 01-03-08, 01:43 PM	That is pretty much what 4th Edition is likely to do to monsters as a PC race-- personally, I like the formalized process for conversion myself. That 16 intelligence is intended to represent a completely average representative of the species. So if you don't feel like the monster should be that smart, then you would change the monster, rather than the PC race. Intelligence is one of those stats that it's difficult to look at high values and not say, "no one but a god should have that." Mainly because we value it so highly-- and think that we're the top of the food chain. A creature that does routinely play tricks and out thinks the average person should probably have a boost to intelligence though, how much of one just depends on how clever you really see the tricks that they play being. Well. They're permanently invisible. They don't have to be that clever to pull off a trick. Personally I think "6 Int" would be the minimum required to pull of a good trick while permanently invisible with flight and polymorphing abilities. :D So yes, I think their stats are unneccesarily good in the MM to fill their niche.