Savage Species has a 1-20 level progression that allows you to play a ghaele eladrin from 1st level. It's supposed to spread out the powers, granting them at appropriate levels.
My wife is going to play one.
Whilst auditing the class and making some changes to update it to 3.5 I noticed that at 7th level these things can become incorporeal globes of light. Incorporeal.
Plus, a gaze attack that affects 1 HD evil creatures that forces them to save or die. Save or die. And even if they save they are affected by fear.
Part of me screams "broken"! But the part of me that enjoys my wife's love is determined to forge ahead and make do.
My request for this post is A) I know that it's broken so don't go on about it; and B) Help me think of ways to deal with/overcome this challenge.
All input appreciated.
Not broken at all, actually. 10 racial hit die, and a brutal effective +10 level adjustment? I would personally say Gimped, but thats because I've seen the negatives of level adjustment come up frequently. A 10 hd at 20th level? Hello Blasphemy, goodbye PC.
Consider this, even with a slick ability like say, Dispel Magic at will, at 20th level, fighting 20th level caster enemies, you will be only caster level 12, which means relative to the DC 31 to dispel, you have to roll a 19 to make it. Ability severely restricted. Also consider the DCs of your other abilities, they are fairly restricted as well, due to being calcuated off of racial hit dice.
Hmm, interesting that it specifically allows you to use the gaze in globe form. I would have rules otherwise, considering gaze attacks generally require eyes, which blobs of light dont have.
I would put the gaze near the middle of the Ghaele's progression. It only works on 5hd or lower, so if the PC gets it while 5hd is still a potential threat, but not equal to level, it should be fine. It rewards the player for the power they have chosen, but doesn't overly break the game. I see a warlock taking the summon swarm invocation being more problematic, personally. Also consider, what makes for an "evil" monster. Goblins and orcs, yes, generally evil. But many human bandits, and other criminals, might be neutral, committing the crime out of need rather than actual nefarious intent.
The combo of incoporeal and gaze is nasty, but the 5hd cap will make it obsolete quite quickly. Beyond that, the incorporeal form ability is actually a nice pad against the weakness of level adjustment. It means the PC has a (relatively) safer form to adopt in the event of a bad physical situation (acid fog spell, etc). As long as it shows up at about the same time that a PC wizard could get gaseous form, clairaudience/clairvoyance, fly, etc, it should be fine. Again, a warlock with the Flee the Scene invocation is almost as bad, and they can get that quite early in their career.
Clarification: the gaze attack is usable only in the ghaele's humanoid form, not the incorporeal globe. Her primary attack in globe form is 2 light rays (ranged touch) that deal 2d6 damage each at 7th level. It can also use its SLAs in globe form.
While the ghaele begins to suffer from low HD around the mid levels my primary concern is that the incorporeality hits at 7th level which is low mid-level. That's a pretty big deal. Granted, its a highly visible ball of light, but that is overcome by its once per day greater invisibility SLA (which it picks up at 6th level..that's right...6th level; along with such gems as chain lightning and wall of force).
I can see so many potential pains in the ass it almost gives me a headache. But then my wife gives me the Bambi eyes and I totally fail my Will save (I'm pretty much forever charmed by her anyway).
Will this be a solo game for your wife, or will the Ghaele be part of a 4 man (or whatever) party?
It's looking like a 3 person party at the moment. Another guy in the group is making a githyanki psychic warrior using the racial class progression in the back of Complete Psionic. That class progression is a little different. The first few levels intersperse racial abilities and class abilities so he doesn't always get a hit die, etc. But by 20th level he's still the equivalent of an 18th level psychic warrior.
Don't know what #3 is going to be but he's already announced he want to be "something different".
Meanwhile I'm drastically revising some of my plans for this campaign.
I was genuinely hoping that my other two players were going to go with something more traditional. I'm running my campaign in Monte Cook's Ptolus and its looking like its going to be a group of "freaks".
Gads I hate it when my players make me work harder to justify their characters' existence.
So...incorporealism at 7th level. Anyone? Bueller?
I hate bumping myself. Help me out here guys.
Well, I can see incorporeality being a problem, especially at such a level, but heres some stuff to keep in mind.
Movement forms other PCs don't have are basically big neon signs that say "get separated from rest of group!" Smart PCs will be cautious with how they are used. Case in point: Warlock dimension doored to the other side of a locked door. Found himself within the reach of two stone giants and with 3 archers also taking aim at him. Obviously, his next response was to dimension door right back the way he came. If he hadn't won initiative, it could have been all over.
Incorporeality is actually less useful than effects like fly or dimension door. Because you have no physical presence. You can't pick up anything. You can't move anything. Want to grab the incriminating documents? Nope. Want to rifle through the notes for the one you need? Nope. You also can't really make much use of your own physical gear. At the very least, this makes it take extra time to return to normal, grab the item, then resume incorporeal. It may only be a move or a standard actions more time worth, but that can make a difference sometimes.
And here's a biggie. Good old world versimilitude. A shark can smell a part of blood in over a million parts of water. Consider cross-planar predators, such as ethereal marauders and phase spiders. Or even more "natural" predators, such as fiendish this or that, or even a small devil here and there. They can smell the ghaele from quite a distance, I'd wager.
|
I can't remember if this was carried over into 3.5 or not, but at least in the Planescape days a Ghaele was required to hide her true nature from mortals while on the Material Plane, going undercover to do her work, else she would be banished to Arborea for a thousand years. If she was found out, she could continue the mission she was on the Material Plane to perform, and then exile would kick in.
IIRC. It's been a while and the details are probably off a bit.
As a PC working alongside mortal PCs, that might be a little rough to go with through an entire campaign. But while it might be easiest to simply scrap that fluff, could it be worked into that character? Say, a reverse exile from Arborea to a mortal world for some misdeed(possibly performed with good intentions). The ghaele has also been stripped of many of her powers and memories, and is going through a sort of penance, eventually regaining lost powers and memories of who she was. There's also the possibility that she might not even remember what she was exiled for! Heck, it could be a self-imposed punishment!
I just realized this doesn't really answer any of your questions.