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Hello all,
I have a player who is obsessed with the upcomming MMO Aion. Well in the game he wants to play a winged/ part angel. Well Half-Celestial fits the bill ( +4LA per MM, +2LA Per BoED ) either way I was looking for a way to handle this.
Since I know there is no more LA, not sure what I should do about this. Give him experience debt? Tone down the template? Create a more balanced race? Any suggestions?
Parts of Half celestial
High ability mods
DR
SR
Wings
SLA
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Here's my personal idea on more powerful races; note that it *isn't* a playtested solution.
Basically, tell the character he must take his first N levels in NPC classes. N is equal to what you'd consider to be a fair number, considering the power of the race.
If he wants to play a spellcaster it's a trickier proposition. My suggestion then would be to have him take levels in Adept and use their spell list, but once he gains a level in a PC casting class, have the two stack for spell slots, spells known and caster level. This might end up too strong, but with the new class abilities in Pathfinder that he'll be losing out on, hopefully it'll work out.
Oh, and don't allow him a favoured class. You may also want to stagger the gaining of his SLAs in some way.
This was an idea I've been wanting to test out under 3.5, but I've never had players try and play LA races, the ingrates. :P
Apart from that, I would say that you shouldn't start him off with less hit dice that the other players; that was the real killer of LA under 3.5. It just makes you too fragile and has you failing saves right left and center.
I'm afraid that's all the ideas I can offer.
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High ability mods
DR
SR
Wings
SLA
I would use a feat tax.
At level 1 give him
+2 +2 -2 stat adjustments
low DR (1/Magic ?)
Adolescent wings (gliding only ?)
Let him spend his feats to gradually improve (1 feat for fly 30, another to take it up to 40 or 50, feat to improve DR and SR...) eventually he'll be the full half-celestial.
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another option is to allow the extras in over time.
High ability mods are available second level as he is growing into his race. Or have one ability be modified by 1 point at level 2, and each level thereafter another is modified by a point until all points are accounted for.
The SLAs manifest one SLA per level starting at level 4.
DR and wings manifest at level 5 or 6, with DR increasing by 5 every other level until it caps out.
SR begins to develop at around level 8 or 10, again growing by 5 every other level until it caps out.
You can decide to spread these out more if you prefer, should you feel he should be even higher than level 8 or 10 before he is fully developed, and it won't overpower the game or be substantially more powerful than the other players.
I would also limit his magic items to a degree for the entirety of the game.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Suggestions given in the CoT PG include giving the level adjustment character a -xp debt, giving the other characters a boost, or the commoner class.
Now these are for Tieflings, with a +1 LA (personally I don't think they need it now, but that's a topic for elsewhere).
Taking their suggestions, and extrapolating them outward, I'd suggest...
XP Debt: Maybe twice what's needed to hit second level? That would be 4k XP for medium advancement Would put everyone into 3rd while he'd just be reaching second, but is barely a blip at higher levels. Maybe 8K instead. By the time the party hits 8th level, he's only a level behind. This might work best for a spellcaster. Disadvantage is swingy. At 1st level, he'll be dominating the party (figureatively) with an 8K debt by the time he hits second level, he'll be somewhat of a glass cannon (especially if he's a caster)
NPC classes, I'd guess 2-4 levels of the NPC class should provide balance. This works for warrior/rogue types. Downside is that he misses out on class abilities (Though if he wants to be a caster, Warrior qualifies him for EK)
Boons for everyone else. For the Tiefling, they suggest everyone else get an additional +2 or 500 GP. No idea how to scale up for a half-celestial. Problem is, if you're looking at a half celestial, you might be looking at 3 or more +2s or 2-3k GP minimum. Suddenly everything is out of wack.
Oh, one not mentioned but might work in this case. If you're using point buy, cut his points by a third.
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Decent suggestions. An alternative I just found ( oh and tieflings are covered in bastard of erabus ), would be to use the feat "outsider wings" from races of faerun and have him start out as an assimar....sort of achives the same thing, with minimal customization.
Still I know somebody is going to want to play a centaur or minotaur and I will need a system for them.
Suggestions given in the CoT PG include giving the level adjustment character a -xp debt, giving the other characters a boost, or the commoner class.
Now these are for Tieflings, with a +1 LA (personally I don't think they need it now, but that's a topic for elsewhere).
Taking their suggestions, and extrapolating them outward, I'd suggest...
XP Debt: Maybe twice what's needed to hit second level? That would be 4k XP for medium advancement Would put everyone into 3rd while he'd just be reaching second, but is barely a blip at higher levels. Maybe 8K instead. By the time the party hits 8th level, he's only a level behind. This might work best for a spellcaster. Disadvantage is swingy. At 1st level, he'll be dominating the party (figureatively) with an 8K debt by the time he hits second level, he'll be somewhat of a glass cannon (especially if he's a caster)
NPC classes, I'd guess 2-4 levels of the NPC class should provide balance. This works for warrior/rogue types. Downside is that he misses out on class abilities (Though if he wants to be a caster, Warrior qualifies him for EK)
Boons for everyone else. For the Tiefling, they suggest everyone else get an additional +2 or 500 GP. No idea how to scale up for a half-celestial. Problem is, if you're looking at a half celestial, you might be looking at 3 or more +2s or 2-3k GP minimum. Suddenly everything is out of wack.
Oh, one not mentioned but might work in this case. If you're using point buy, cut his points by a third.
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Decent suggestions. An alternative I just found ( oh and tieflings are covered in bastard of erabus ), would be to use the feat "outsider wings" from races of faerun and have him start out as an assimar....sort of achives the same thing, with minimal customization.
This. Use the racial feats from Races of Faerun.
Start them as an Aasimar with no LA as per the Pathfinder Tiefling (in the bestiary preview and should see the aasimar in the upcoming bestiary). Allow them to take Celestial Bloodline (effectively a 3rd level) followed by Outsider Wings which grants them a flight ability with big bulky wings (effectively a 6th level feat). There are other fun feats to increase their celestial (or fiendish) tendencies as well.
Minotaurs and centaurs can both be handled similarly. I believe 3e dragonlance produced a +0 LA playable minotaur race in their setting book. The same can be done for centaurs. Add in a few racial specific ability feats and you're golden.
If you don't like going that route you can always take a page from WotC's old Savage Progressions article series (that I loved) that turned +LA races into racial classes of so many levels to take and the abilities broken up across the levels so the characetr can take racial class levels instead. If you don't like the feats (probably the simplest and easiest to implement) then I highly suggest going this route.
Alternatively, you could use the old WotC Savage Progressions levels to get the character where he wants to go.