Now, I'm planning a roguish-type character, specifically an Unseen Seer-based build, though I'm open to suggestions on that front. Basically, I want a jack-of-all-trades character that's actually good at more than one thing rather than being average all around, as this is primarily a solo campaign. For a race, I've been looking at the Naztharune Rakshasa from MMIII, mainly because the Sneak Attack ability seems to scale up with any hit dice, racial and class alike. I'm still awaiting DM adjudication on that, though. Coming back to the main point, I'd like any suggestions for race/template combinations that work particularly well for a city-based rogue-type and add up to LA +5. Any help is appreciated.
In an upcoming campaign, characters must be built with a LA of +5. Pretty much any race and template from all WoTC sources can be used, with a few restrictions: no human-feeding undead, no evolved undead, no saint, no trolls, no incorporeal creatures, and half-fey has their Charm Person ability nerfed (only 3/day). Other sources available on a case-by-case basis, pending DM approval. Racial hit dice can be ignored, only LA matters. Also, there is a campaign-specific template called Well-Trained that costs LA +1, and gives +4 to one ability or +2 to two abilities, either a +5 bonus to skills split between 1 to 5 skills or a feat, and any 2nd level (or lower, I would assume) non-damaging spell as an at-will ability, subject to DM approval. The template may be taken twice, with the restriction that if the bonus feat was taken the first time, the skill bonus must be taken the second.
Now, I'm planning a roguish-type character, specifically an Unseen Seer-based build, though I'm open to suggestions on that front. Basically, I want a jack-of-all-trades character that's actually good at more than one thing rather than being average all around, as this is primarily a solo campaign. For a race, I've been looking at the Naztharune Rakshasa from MMIII, mainly because the Sneak Attack ability seems to scale up with any hit dice, racial and class alike. I'm still awaiting DM adjudication on that, though. Coming back to the main point, I'd like any suggestions for race/template combinations that work particularly well for a city-based rogue-type and add up to LA +5. Any help is appreciated.
Take a look at the racial HD of that thing. IIRC, it is an ECL of 12 or 17. You have to count the racial hit dice, not just the level adjustment, when picking a race.
Thus, you would be screwed by going with the Rakshasa.
... Racial hit dice can be ignored, only LA matters. ...
To repeat and clarify, the DM has ruled that we may drop, ignore, and otherwise do away with any and all racial HD. Thus, we need only be concerned with LA.
Get Ghostly Grasp from Libris Mortis tho - so you can open locks and disable traps (not that you need to pesonally, just if the rest of the party expect you to do it).
How about a pixie? Hard to go wrong with them as a rogue. Take that Well-Trained template once and you're all set.
With a level adjustment of +4, it gives:+15 natural AC, +8 dexterity, +30 intelligence, immunity to 6th level spells and under, casts spells as a lvl 17th Wizard (excellent if you wish to become an Unseen Seer, Arcane Trickster or Shadowcraft Mage) and much more. And you have access to the 9th level spell shapechange to change your appearance.
Then put any +1 LA template to add to your sneakiness. Dark creature from Tome of Magic gives Hide in Plain Sight, +10 to speed and more minor bonuses.
From the Shadowcraft Mage handbook:
Planar Bubble from the Planar Handbook creates a 10-ft. emanation that emulates a creature's native plane. A Dark creature is a native of the Plane of Shadow. The effects of the Shadow Plane are as follows:Enhanced magic. Spells with the shadow descriptor are enhanced on the Plane of Shadow. Such spells are cast as though they were prepared with the Maximize Spell feat, though they don't require the higher spell slots.
Furthermore, specific spells become more powerful on the Plane of Shadow. Shadow Conjuration and Shadow Evocation spells are 30% as powerful as the conjurations and evocations they mimic (as opposed to 20%). Greater Shadow Conjuration and Greater Shadow Evocation are 70% as powerful (not 60%), and a Shades spell conjures at 90% of the power of the original (not 80%).
Impeded magic. Spells that use or generate light or fire may fizzle when cast on the Plane of Shadow. A spellcaster attempting a spell with the light or fire descriptor must succeed on a Spellcraft check (DC 20 + the level of the spell). Spells that produce light are less effective in general, because all light sources have their ranges halved on the Plane of Shadow.
Dark Black Ethergaunt sounds perfect.
However, if he decides to drop that idea due to it being rediculous, then you might want to consider playing a Shadow Dark Skulk for extreme stealthiness.
JaronK
Seriously, your DM is making a huge error and it will make your game real fun to play for about one battle, and then everyone will get bored.
Here's a good challenge for the COers...
Racial HD - LA = X
What race has the highest X?
Here's a good challenge for the COers...
Racial HD - LA = X
What race has the highest X?
Some kind of lycanthrope based on a super high HD animal, like a dinosaur, maybe?
Afflicted Legendary Were-Tiger.
26 HD, +2 LA
+22 STR, +8 DEX, +14 CON, +10 Natural Armor (+2 more from Lycan template)
50' Land Speed
Hard to go wrong with that one.
Edit: Just joking of course... Mostly... ;)
Wow, I didn't even think of the Ethergaunts, though I'd always wanted to play one. Now I have all sorts of ideas for a rogue (both class- and social order-wise) Black Ethergaunt, and why it would be native to the Plane of Shadow. I'm not sure the DM will allow it; I'm fairly certain the only reason it's not banned is that no-one's ever tried. I'll have to fix that :p
I was looking at the Skulk, though I wanted to play the one found in Monte Cook's Ptolus book since it's a normal Skulk on steroids, but it has a LA of +7. A Dark Shadow Skulk with Darkhunter is almost as good, though. It only has a LA of +4, though, so what would you recommend to fill it out? Well-trained?
We don't get the benefit of any racial HD, so simply playing a race with really high HD doesn't really do anything for us.
+22 STR
+8 DEX
+14 CON
+12 NA
50 Speed
All for LA +2...
Doesn't really do anything for you?
It seemed that you were suggesting to get as many HD as possible because of the various benefits that come with HD (hit points, BAB, saves, etc). That's what I was replying to when I said that HD doesn't benefit us.
Dark - Shadow - Shadow Walker (Unapproachable East, +1) - Shadowswyft (Planar Handbook +1)
That certainly does, but none of that is a function of HD. Or, well, it is, but only because Lycanthrope is a weird template that uses HD to balance it rather than just LA.
ALL playable races (template or otherwise) with more than one HD are balanced based on the fact that they have said HD. The Racial Abilities that you are attributing to the LA are basically the class features of the racial HD. In addition to HP's, BAB, BSB's, and Skillpoints, a druid also gets Wildshape, spellcasting, and all the other tastey druid abilities. Similarly, any creature with lots of HD gets the basic atributes of HD (HP's, BAB, etc), but they also get their racial abilities as the "special" column of their racial "class" chart. (To make a comparison).
It seemed that you were suggesting to get as many HD as possible because of the various benefits that come with HD (hit points, BAB, saves, etc). That's what I was replying to when I said that HD doesn't benefit us.
No, we are all suggesting that you take something with as many HD as you can, because with the rules as you presented them, you'll get more class abilities due to those HD, without having to pay for the class abilities.
Let me illustrate it this way:
If you could choose to be either a Fighter 4 or a Wizard 17 for free, but you ignore the HD and the cost of the levels, only gaining the class abilities (bonus feats, spellcasting), which would you choose? Gain 3 feats for free, or gain 17th level casting for free. Your choice. Which are you going to choose? Are those choices balanced against eachother?
Now, compare a Centaur and a Black Ethergaunt. To make it even, put a +2 template of some kind on the Centaur to give them equal LA.
Which one is more powerful under your rules? Are they even close in power? If you were playing the centaur, and one of your party mates was playing the ethergaunt, would you feel cheated? According to your rules, they are equal choices.
Show
Hint: they aren't in any way equal...
How about a pixie? Hard to go wrong with them as a rogue. Take that Well-Trained template once and you're all set.
i agree with Ithamar.... this is the way to go....
Well trained Pixie =+5 LA
Well trained boosts:
+2 Dex, +2 Cha
+2 bonus to Spot
+3 bonus to Search
????? as an at-will ability.... pick one:
Instant Locksmith(CAdv p153)1 Swift Action– The caster may make one Disable Device or Open Lock check this round as a Free Action. The check receives a +2 Insight bonus.
Instant Search(CAdv p153)1 Swift Action, Personal– The caster may make one Search check this round as a Free Action. The check receives a +2 Insight bonus.
Wraithstrike(CAdv p158) 1 Swift Action – The caster’s melee and/or natural weapons become translucent, allowing the caster to make attacks with a melee touch (instead of a normal attack).
total boost:
–4 Strength
+10 Dexterity
+6 Intelligence
+4 Wisdom
+8 Charisma.
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 3/4 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:
+4 Listen(+2 Racial +2 Alertness)
+6 Spot(+2 racial +2 Well trained +2 Alertness)
+5 Search(+2 racial +3 Well trained)
Bonus Feats: Dodge, Weapon Finnesse, Alertness
+1 natural armor bonus.
Greater Invisibility (Su): A pixie remains invisible even when it attacks. This ability is constant, but the pixie can suppress or resume it as a free action.
Spell-Like Abilities: Caster level 8th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.
At Will: ??????
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)
weeeeeee Pixies Rock:D
ALL playable races (template or otherwise) with more than one HD are balanced based on the fact that they have said HD. ...
In this case, I was discussing only templates, not races. As far as TEMPLATES are concerned, Lycanthrope is the only one I can think of that gives HD, and thus uses them to balance the bonuses the template gives. I guess Vampire and Death Knight are similar, in that they require a certain number of HD before being added, but it's not really the same thing.
No, we are all suggesting that you take something with as many HD as you can, because with the rules as you presented them, you'll get more class abilities due to those HD, without having to pay for the class abilities.
Thus far it has only been you and one or two others suggesting this. Hardly "all."
If you could choose to be either a Fighter 4 or a Wizard 17 for free, but you ignore the HD and the cost of the levels, only gaining the class abilities (bonus feats, spellcasting), which would you choose? Gain 3 feats for free, or gain 17th level casting for free. Your choice. Which are you going to choose? Are those choices balanced against eachother?
Now, compare a Centaur and a Black Ethergaunt. To make it even, put a +2 template of some kind on the Centaur to give them equal LA.
Which one is more powerful under your rules? Are they even close in power? If you were playing the centaur, and one of your party mates was playing the ethergaunt, would you feel cheated? According to your rules, they are equal choices.
Not according to my rules they're not. However, you've missed the point. In the post that started all this, Orenmir said (or seemed to say, rather) that I should look for the race with the most HD and least LA. Not to look at what "class abilities" that HD gave me and weigh it against the "class abilities" of a similarly LA'd creature, but to simply choose the creature with the highest racial HD.
This said, to me, that he took my statement that we ignore HD to mean that we simply don't count them for ECL, but that we still gain all other benefits (hit points, BAB, etc), which was incorrect and I replied to clear up any confusion. What I said was true: we do not gain the benefits of racial HD. For clarity, the following are benefits of racial HD: hit points, BAB, base saves, skill points, feats, and 1 ability point/4 HD.
Yes, creatures with higher HD will likely have better abilities, I never said they didn't. What I said was that choosing a creature with the highest racial HD I could find was not in itself the most prudent course of action. In fact, according to the original suggestion, which you are supporting, a were-legendary tiger is in fact a better choice than a black ethergaunt, as it has more racial HD.
ShowHint: they aren't in any way equal...
However, you've missed the point. In the post that started all this, Orenmir said (or seemed to say, rather) that I should look for the race with the most HD and least LA. Not to look at what "class abilities" that HD gave me and weigh it against the "class abilities" of a similarly LA'd creature, but to simply choose the creature with the highest racial HD.
And you are blatantly ignoring the point he was making. More HD means a higher chance of "cool abilities;" more HD also means more of them. More abilities you are getting for free, because it's more HD that you are ignoring. Yes, each choice will need to be weighed against the others, but in general, in this instance, more HD = better.
And remember where I said that HD often pay for a large majority of the abilities a monster has? Well, a high HD, low LA creature will pay for most all of those abilities via HD, rather than via LA, allowing you to add MORE cool abilites by adding templates (up to your max allowed LA, of course).
Although my comment about the DM possibly not knowing what he was doing was a bit snarky, my suggestion to double-check the rules with the DM was in all seriousness. Either there is some caveate to the rules that the DM forgot to inform you of, or he has players that have never tried to test the boundaries of these rules (and thus, the DM doesn't quite realize the extent to which the rules as presented can be pushed without breaking them). Thus my illustration about the disparate power levels that could show up in the same party under these rules.
It could well be that the group has a gentleman's understanding to not take things too far, but that would fall under the purview of the unmentioned caveate I spoke of earlier.
(S)he just tried to bring across the point that many races with high HD also have a lot of great stuff going for them, with very low LA. LA is (supposed to be) balanced based on the fact that there are racial HD.
A Fire Giant has an LA of +4. It also has 15 racial HD. Meaning that normally you'd have to play a character with an ECL of 19 to play one, or 20 for a Fire Giant Barbarian-1. Now a Fire Giant has +20 Str, +10 Con and +8 NA, is of size Large, has the (Fire) subtype and other stuff. None of these are "functions" of the Fire Giant's racial HD, and the modifiers stay in existence if you just scrap those. So for LA+4, you get a nice bundle.
The Black Ethergaunt is an even more terrifying example, and we could all name countless other creatures whose LA is balanced with regard to the fact that, normally, players would have to take the racial HD to play such a monster. Ignoring racial HD doesn't take this into account - or rather, it takes it into blatant disregard. No way in hell can the game stay stable and well-balanced if there're no other, tacit rules against abuse in place. One final example to show that this is so:
The Nightmare has 6 racial HD, with an LA of +4, getting Large Size, NA+13, Str+8, Dex+4, Con+6, Int+2, Wis+2, Cha+2, among other stuff that isn't relevant here. A Cauchemar, the Nightmare's big brother, has 15 racial HD, an LA of +4 (!), getting Huge Size, NA +16, Str+20, Dex+4, Con+14, Int+6, Wis+2, Cha+2.
Disregarding the racial HD leads to some serious strangeness here. Obviously the racial HD must be taken into account if there's to be anything resembling mechanical balance in the game.
To sum up: the DM really doesn't know what (s)he's doing. At least, (s)he doesn't now, wait till you walk in with a Dark Ethergaunt Wizard-1, for an ECL of 6, with the ability to cast two Time Stops and a Gate a day...
EDIT: And if the fact that the game's been going for over a year is of any relevance, it is in that it should warn you not to play with a group either that strange, or that unimaginative.
It seemed that you were suggesting to get as many HD as possible because of the various benefits that come with HD (hit points, BAB, saves, etc). That's what I was replying to when I said that HD doesn't benefit us.
No, I wasn't talking about BAB, Saves, HPs... I was talking about Str +22, Dex +8 and all that other stuff. All for LA +2!
What I'm really trying to point out is that your DM doesn't understand how racial HD work and that you should exploit his ignorance so that he realized he can't just ignore the racial HD. A race with HD also has other bonuses built into it -- like Str +22 and Dex +8, etc. The reason those bonuses are so so high is because the racial HD is so high. Just ignoring the HD is absurd, because you then get to retain a ton of bonuses for free!
(like stated in above posts)
As for the other stuff, thanks for clearing that up, Orenmir. Looks like I misunderstood your meaning. Empirate, ksbsnowowl, I've never denied that higher HD monsters are, on average, more powerful than lower HD monsters, nor that they often have more and more powerful abilities. What I did say was that I was not concerned with numbers of HD, merely LA and what abilities I could get for it. The issue I took with your posts came from my misunderstanding of Orenmir's suggestion. As that's been cleared up, I'm dropping it.
Oh, and Empirate, clearly I made the decision to join the game knowing what the rules were and what they meant. Therefore I am, in your words, as "strange" as the rest of the group, so your final point falls flat. And I have no idea how you get "unimaginative" from all this, as you can have no idea what the other players are playing or how they are playing them.
