One of my Players wants to play a Pixie...

[Ravingdork]

Hopefully, the fact that this is coming from ME will add extra weight:

Pixie PCs are broken as hell. I've both played them, fought against them, and run them as NPCs. If you are asking if it will be a balance issue, the answer is "YES!" Oddly enough, not for the reasons you describe. It's the DR, invisibility, and flight (aka the ability to auto-kill half of all encounters) that really makes a mess of things. They are SO nasty they make rogues viable.

Just kidding about that last part (rogues are fine as is).

[blackbloodtroll]

Gnome with the young template. Reflavor as needed. Maybe alter the spell-like abilities a bit. Now you have it.

[Lord Tsarkon]

wraithstrike wrote:

Lord Tsarkon wrote:

Go Ahead and let her play the Pixie..

This is what happened when I played my first Pixie.. .and unfortunately.. Last Time

For those that are too lazy to click link:

Funniest Death Ever : Hackmaster

I made a pixie fairy with mASSIVE physiologic and physical flaws.. I had
like 119 building Points (average character has 20 or 30).. after
rolling up the character and stuff.. I went thru training ( I was a
thief)..3 years... I was incarcerated(prison) for 5 years.. and the max life expectancy for a pixie fairy is 8 years . I got out of prision on
7th year.. Dmed rolled my max Life of 7 years.... so I died when I got out of prision.. During Character Creation..

That is a different system and other than the name it is probably hard to compare them. I am sure pixies in PF live longer than 7 years.

I was just saying that its still up to the DM to determine how long every PC can survive... and even in character creation you can die (well ... at least in Hackmaster).. everyone had a good laugh when that happened.

How long DO Pixie's live? Is there an ecology on them from Pathfinder?

Also I do not think a Sprite and Pixie should be interchangable... they are different sizes and in Folklore totally different... but I understand the need to nerf the normal monster Pixie for a PC Pixie

[GeraintElberion]

You could also re-skin a pseudodragon, replace the sleep poison tale with a fingernail, replace the telepathy with speech (permanent tongues?)

[Mathmuse]

A highly regarded expert wrote:

Maybe an atomie or an azata would be okay for your player. They're little, cute, and not so powerful. Make them grow into their abilities by their hit dice, then they can take regular classes. Or, do it like 3.x: add the hit dice and CR to determine starting level.

Tiny or diminutive creatures have huge advantages for stealthy or spellcasting classes that benefit from flying real fast, not needing to be tough, etc. Way too easy.

cdglantern wrote:

#1

I second Atomie. The race is cool. The write up on their personality is cool. Their look is that of a pixie. Everyone in the campaign could constantly assume the character was a pixie and it could be her/his little secret.

I had a player who wanted to play a Pixie. I suggested Lyrakien Azata instead and it has worked out. Be warned, the stealth and mobility of a tiny fast-flying creature is impressive.

The circumstances for this player were special:

• She had been the GM of the campaign until she had to take a month off for medical treatment. She had foreknowledge of the rest of the adventure path but would keep it to herself.
  
• Continuing medical problems meant she would randomly miss gaming sessions, so she wanted a flighty character.
  
• She has a reputation for trustworthiness among local GMs, using character quirks and perks to make the campaign more fun for everyone rather than exploiting them for personal glory.
  
• I have been married to her for 26 years.
  

Her Lyrakien bard character Moonrider is one of the goddess Desna's official messengers. Because the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path started at a Swallowtail Butterfly Festival in honor of Desna, a good number of existing player characters worshipped Desna. The goddess told Moonrider to keep an eye on the party inbetween being called away randomly for messenger duty.

I gave the character a -2 level adjustment for the lyrakien abilities. (We also automatically level her to that -2 applied to the lowest level of other party members, because she missed too many game sessions to accumulate experience points smoothly.) She started as a 7th-level bard in a 9th-level party.

In combat these days, she first flies to the center of the party and casts Haste. The other party bard sings Inspire Courage, so that would be redundant. Then she uses Dirty Trick maneuvers to try to blind the opponents--using the Ring of Blink that she wears as an armband, she flies through the faces of characters. The party has five other characters to deal out damage, so she does not need to try to damage foes herself.

Scouting ahead is where she excels. Even the stealthy rogue with the Ring of Invisibility cannot match her because she is much faster. The paladin also likes that her constant Detect Evil ability is faster than his move-action Detect Evil ability, so she spots the evil characters for him.

[lordzack]

Lord Tsarkon wrote:

Also I do not think a Sprite and Pixie should be interchangable... they are different sizes and in Folklore totally different... but I understand the need to nerf the normal monster Pixie for a PC Pixie

Actually most similar creatures that might fall under the aegis of "faeries" or "fey" are more or less interchangeable to some degree, especially since the attributes of such creatures vary widely from story to story.

[blackbloodtroll]

Gnome, young template twice, add 30ft fly speed.

[elvnsword]

It's simplistic, but a simple work around all ready in the RAW is present. She doesn't have pixie dust to sprinkle on her arrows and cast her spells. Be it a curse, or a geas on the character, let her know that is the cost of being allowed to have a pixie as a Player Character.

Result, No free spell handouts... She is still tiny winged with DR/Cold Iron and free invisibility.

Best Case: If she is in it to play for the crunch, for the spells and the power that the Pixie would bring to the group, she might let it go at that.
Worst Case: She plays a rogue, which is what I think Tinkerbell is in the movie Hook for that matter... Free invisible tiny rogue is a terror, DO NOT let her take assassin class levels!

Had a badguy in a campaign a long time ago that was an evil fae pixie assassin, used a hatpin as a sword... killed half a town before the PCs stopped him finally, and they were 19th level at the time.

[David knott 242]

If your player has sufficient patience to wait a few levels before becoming a tiny flying fey, this race (from Arcana Evolved) might work:

Faen

[Den4quest]

I have had 3 players make pixies in the 35 years I have been running my campaign. So, far only the latest incarnation has been a success.
The first rogue pixie was so annoying to the rest of the party that half way through the adventure a minotaur party member (another race that has so far been attempted a few times to no avail) got so pissed off that the next time the pixie tried a fly by he grabbed the pixie out of the air (since after having a very large bug buzz by you several times eventually you will catch it....with a natural 20) Then tore the pixies wings off. That pretty much ended the pixies career then and there.
The 2nd pixie was a fighter/rogue decked out with all the special bows and arrows and rickita-rackita. Once again a random smack with a large bastard sword after the pixie had taken some other incidental damage was enough to kill that pixie at 1st level.
Finally, the current and most successful pixie character is a female cleric/rogue/wizard. She has finally hit 7th level and is a lot of fun both to travel with and to fight against. Yes, she has a ton of tricks but still with only 30 or so hit points she does have to stay out of everyones (friend and foe alike) lines of fire. I know that this character will be a hoot to play and a great asset to the party until some uber-powered creature which should be coming up shortly at her level like a lich or beholder which will detect her and simply take her out with a death ray or power, word kill. It did almost already happen once just as another person had mentioned. No one knew she was in their fireball radius and she got blasted into unconsciousness (around when she was level 5). An ogre mage picked her body up and was going to keep her as a slave/trophy. Luckily a lizard man party member (who recently has been charmed by a swamp dragon and is no longer with us) was keeping an eye AND A NOSE on the pixie...kicked the crap out of the ogre mage and saved her life.
No, I think that those of you that think pixies are over powered are only looking at their strengths and not their obvious weaknesses.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Mogart wrote:

The player came to me and said "I wanna play a Pixie."

If that means a pixie for fluff or a pixie for power I have no idea. The husband of the player said "She doesn't like picking spells," so I am guessing that she wants to play the Pixie as is.

If she just picked a flying Fay I would be fine with it. However, when you add in all of those abilities, the answer is no.

If the pixie was given a week or two of down time, I am not even sure how to launch an attack against a pixie. One permanent image per day that requires a will save to disbelieve. You can effectively make the town of "Rock Ridge" (If you get the reference) and instead of roads dig pit traps for anyone who comes at you.

Since the images are permanent you can populate the town too, as long as you control only 1 person at a time.

Did she really say, "I want to play a Pixie."? How do you know she didn't really say, "I want to play a pixie."?

You have no idea: that's where to begin. Ask her to flesh out what kind of character she wants to play, and ask her what she likes about Pixies. It's entirely possible she just wants to play a Tiny Human with Wings.

The Pixie you linked to doesn't have rules for Pixies Characters. Perhaps you should invent some. You can do that: you are the Dungeon Master. I've seen some Fey PC Races that look reasonable that she'd probably be quite happy with. I was kind of thinking the Hackmaster Pixie-Fairy and the 3rd Edition Book of Half-Breeds: Kestrel.

[_Ozy_]

Well, I sure hope he figured something out in the almost 5 years since he wrote the OP.

[Daw]

Remember that an unconscious pixie is invisible.
A tiny, dying pixie is hard to find before death makes her visible.