In general, I have no problem allowing a player to play a character or race that they want to play, hell I even have a player playing as a half dragon. But I think Pixie is where I will draw the line.
The idea of a player being invisible by default and being able to attack while invisible isn't so bad.
The idea that a player has the ability to cast the following spells 16-20 times per day is freaking terrifying:
Charm: The target must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or be affected as though by a charm monster spell for 10 minutes.
Memory Loss: The target must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or be affected by a modify memory spell (this effect can only eliminate the previous 5 minutes of memory—a pixie typically uses this ability to make the target forget it encountered the pixie so it won't chase the pixie when he flees).
Sleep: The target must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or fall asleep for 5 minutes.
In addition there are the spell like abilities that they get each day.
To quote a horse. "No sir, I don't like it.
I suppose that I missed the DR 10/ Cold Iron too.
If you are asking for advice I would say no. Some things are not meant for players even if you penalize them with levels.
My current stance is no way in hell. Even with a 4 level penalty. I am a firm believer that a single pixie controlled by a creative DM can easily wipe a party out.
I have seen a pixie rogue who played in a 2E game with an all elven party.
He was just the most awesomely effective rogue conceivable.
Until he got caught in a fireball and was reduced to negative HP while in his naturally invisible state.
It took the rest of the party nearly a whole minute to realize that they had not heard the pixie speak. It took them another two minutes to figure out which bloodstain was the one pooling around his invisible corpse.
They were only about 35 rounds too late to do him any good.
Keep in mind in 2E the pixie had to concentrate to turn visible. I do not know if that is so in pathfinder.
Had a player of mine play a pixie as her first ever character in an RPG tabletop 2E game a few years ago. She had an absolute blast. Granted, 2E pixies--while still quite powerful--don't get to use their abilities near as much as they seem to in PF, and there wasn't any damage reduction at all, but she was a rogue and got backstab attempts on pretty much every hit! It worked out fine for my campaign, and she played a character that to this day was one of her favorite personalities! Was a win-win in that campaign.
For a PF game, however, it looks like pixies might be a tad bit too potent, though that DC 15 will save will probably only be good for a few levels at best (and you could stipulate that it can never be raised).
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hell I even have a player playing as a half dragon.
To quote a guy. "Lucky!"
I always wanted to make a TWF-Wizard Half-Dragon... Even though it's far from optimal.
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Only if he plays a Pixie Barbarian! Go Go Pixie Rage.
why not? just say he does not have those spells until such and such level. the invisible part make it so it only works CL+1 rounds per day. if he wants to play it he going to have to accept a heavy nerfing with it.
Is Pixie going to be released in the advanced race guide?
I am just of the opinion that the ability to do All of the following is a bit much.
Fly
DR 10/Cold Iron
Cast Charm Monster (Charisma Score X per day)
Cast Sleep (Charisma Score X per day)
Cast Memory Loss (Charisma Score X per day)
Permanent Invisibility even when attacking
Create a host of illusions that are permanent. (Only one time per day, but given a week you can make a whole host of traps. Including a copy of yourself as a humanoid to be a target while you are invisible.)
A 1 in 10 chance to cast Baleful Polymorph 1x a day.
Keeping in mind that this is all before character levels are added.
For a Player this is Candy Land, for a DM this is a nightmare.
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Is this player specifically asking for a pixie, or does he/she just want to play a tiny fey like Tinkerbell? Maybe there's another type of fey that this player would be happy with that isn't pure Pecorino Romano cheese?
Grigs, for example, look far more reasonable, though they still have DR 5/cold iron, can cast invisibility on themselves 3/day, and have a 40 foot fly speed (having a racial fly speed at level 1 could cause problems). They're also tiny, which gives them a pretty sweet AC and Stealth bonus but a pathetic Strength score.
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Can I ask what the purpose of the thread is? Are you looking for ways to make the Pixie a playable race, or do you want confirmation that saying "no" is okay?
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Is the player looking for the powers or is it just a fluff thing?
No, no, a thousand times no. Half-dragon is bad enough - if the pixie player can't "make do" with something equivalent to half-dragon, shoot him in the 'nards with a nerf gun.
Is the player looking for the powers or is it just a fluff thing?
This is the main question here.
2nd ed pixies were fine as a playable race, not so the PF version sadly...
I would lower the power down of the race so it could be played without a level adjustment. Take something like a strix as the base template and work from there.
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.
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Sit down with the player, explain why the pixie might not fit your campaign and try to come up with some alternative ideas. The idea of a small Fey companion is a pretty traditional role for fantasy and mythology.(Legend, Peter Pan, etc) Gotta be some way to figure out something that might be a cool addition to your game but not a game breaker in terms of ability.
Make it a Racial Class. Make it a Half-pixie maybe so that she has to grow into her fey powers.
Instead of taking class levels, can take levels of pixie to get those abilities.
With the DR being around level 10 or so and the invisibility being something she has limited rounds of. It's doable.
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What about a Sprite instead? They seem pretty easy to convert to a playable race, have some magic abilities but are not overly powerful. Hell, a Sprite Sorceror with Fey bloodline would be right up your players alley. Easy to keep track of spells, spells are innate, but with a little leeway in power development for usefulness. Just a thought. Here's the link.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/sprite.html#sprite
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I by accident reincarnated my team member into a pixie. He was a two weapon fighter so now there was a male pixie doing two battle axes and two hand axes in one turn. It was crazy...
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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.
Or, just tell her to play a gnome and be done with it.
Wait to see what Advances Race's Guide has in order to make it a balanced character.
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Honestly, I have always been an all or nothing type, and see the difference between the balance issues inherent in the half-dragon and pixie as splitting hairs. If you aren't going to allow one then don't bother with the others. And if you are worried about balance stick to the player's handbook races.
P.S.-OK, so that sounded more vindictive than intended. If you are worried about balance then play the Core Races until the Advance Race Guide comes out is all I am trying to say.
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If the player wants to play a pixie just because they want to powergame it, then I'd suggest they go for a murderous gnome instead. HOWEVER!
I've had players new to the game desire to play a violent little tinkerbell. Several times! The archetype has appeal. So if it's a relativity new player, this might be a good opportunity to hook them. Explain to them that the pixie out of the Bestiary isn't really made for players, but you'd be happy to make a version that works well.
This can be as simple as stripping away some powers (and adding them back as she levels), or by using another PC race entirely - the old 3.0 Legends and Lore: Mythic Races (by Fantasy Flight Games) has a PC farie race in both selee and unselee flavors that I always turned to in this situation.
Advances Race's Guide is another option. If you can wait a little while, the race building rules should be out, or if you need one now, the beta rules are still available on the website.
Played a game where another player wanted to play a Pixie. This was in the old 3.5 days and the DM used the Savage Species book rules to let her play. Had a few changes but overall worked alright. Was a fun character.
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..
Played a game where another player wanted to play a Pixie. This was in the old 3.5 days and the DM used the Savage Species book rules to let her play. Had a few changes but overall worked alright. Was a fun character.
I was just going to bring Savage Species up myself. I think it's still a 3.0 book but written at the very end of it and with 3.5 in mind already.
I think the pixie race gets split up into 5 racial levels, granting the different abilities as she goes along.
For example at 1st or 2nd level she only gets invisibility (goes away when she attacks) while she gets greater invisibility only at 4th or 5th racial level. The at will SLA etc where also split up all over the place and so on.
I think you had to take all racial levels before you can dive into an actual class, so that means 6th level. Or maybe you could mix and match, but that means she gets the powerful racial abilities later, obviously.
Thats all just from memory now, if you're really interested you'll have to find a copy of Savage Species somewhere and check for yourself.
In my current game one of the players is a pixie. We agreed to strip her down a bit and she agreed. She liked being able to fly and is a wizard as well. It has its advantages and disadvantages. If you can agree to limit the pixie abilities and have that character fly then I think you can come to a good compromise!
I agree, sadly. I loved playing a pixie in D&D 3.0 / 3.5, and one of my gripes about PFRPG is that some of the monsters, notably the pixie, have been made too powerful for PC suitability.
But for those of you who really want a PFRPG "Savage Species" book, I can certainly understand the desire. And so I refer you to zerzix's PFRPG conversion of _Savage_Species_. He's been working hard on that thing. Just look at this thread on the subject. Or just look at the book itself (link) which includes dozens and dozens of monsters, including pixies.
Just say "no." =)
#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.
#2
Whenever I DM and a race gets racial Spell-like abilities or spells I enforce the witch's Hex limit upon them. Once someone has succeeded on a save they are immune for 1/Day. It doesn't fix the problem but lessens it. I also now allow them to take the feat to effect people one additional time per day.
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You basically have only three serious options that I see:
1 - If the player is simply after the flavor, find a weaker equivalent for them to play or massively house-rule tone-down the pixie. You're right to be concerned about allowing the as-written one. One can just say this pixie was born with weaker magic, or was perhaps always a bit sickly, etc.; a flawed spectacular creature.
(This is incidentally why I like the Celestial Sorc bloodline so much. You get most of the flavor of angels and similar creatures, but it's in a toned down, humanoid, mortal form that's quite acceptable to the GM)
2 - Allow it as-is, which will require other players to upgrade their own characters and you to seriously step up the encounter difficulty to keep parity with them. This is a lot of work.
3 - Simply explain, as others have suggested, that this creature presents too many problems for the campaign and they'll need to play a standard PC (or at least a less fantastic one) instead.
Your current assessment is right; you have every reason to be uneasy about allowing an as-written Pixie into the party. You'll need to find some other solution.
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I would allow it if the racial mod was different.
Size mods of any type should add 1 CL
Flight - 1 CL
Invisibility - 1 CL
Every other SU - 1 CL each.
So if they wanted to play a Pixie in my CL 10 campaign I would say sure. Otherwise, no. Each ability I would allow as a per level increase (in other words, if they wanted to take a pixie ability, they can, but it costs them an entire LEVEL). As GM I would also list them from weakest to strongest in order of level required, so they couldn't just pick the best three abilities at 4th level (1st level is size, stats and wings... I would give them a freebee).
Just like any other multiclassed character, they would be able to learn other classes, but their main class would be "Pixie" and it would also be the only favored class they have, and I would limit the class skills also (until they take rogue and get 70% of them anyway).
Hate to toot my own horn, but seriously, the Sprite is pretty damn close to a gnome in spell-like ability, glows like Tinkerbell or Oona,(can serve as a mobile light source) requires little-to-no changes to be a playable race, and is a small fey with wings incredibly similar to a pixie. I doubt there would even be any kind of CL changes. Add the Sorceror class with the Fey Bloodline and you can basically obtain spells to get the spell like abilities of a pixie without the second guesses, ability modification, or trying to get your hands on older race rules. Plus the monster description is here on this site.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/sprite.html#sprite
I made up a pixie musket master for fun, to see how well the CR system works for adding classes to creatures. Yeah, CR was really low for a TPK capable monster, CR 8-9 for an invisible creature that hits against touch AC (and usually flat footed touch) that had an attack pattern of 14/14/9 with rapid shot and cartridges. Damage per shot was 1d10 + 14, so not too shabby. That was using the heroic NPC gear and stats, so with PC wealth would even be worse.
So as a result I'm inclined to not even consider that race for PCs. In fact I generally disallow fey races out of principle (in RP highly disruptive without even getting into some peoples issues with special snowflakes ect)
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 would probably allow it, but I can understand why you are nervous about letting it in.
I would nerf it some but not too excessively.
The illusions, I'd say only 1 permanet illusion active at a time. You create a new one the old one fades.
The charm and memory loss, I agree with cdglantern. If saved, immune to the same for a day.
The character is going to be a VERY fragile character with a 4 or 5 level penalty and low con. Failing a save on even a crappy area affect spell and she will be dead even faster than the normal squishies. And everyone fails a save sometimes.
Pretty soon, creatures that can see invisibility become fairly common.
Honestly, I have always been an all or nothing type, and see the difference between the balance issues inherent in the half-dragon and pixie as splitting hairs. If you aren't going to allow one then don't bother with the others. And if you are worried about balance stick to the player's handbook races.
P.S.-OK, so that sounded more vindictive than intended. If you are worried about balance then play the Core Races until the Advance Race Guide comes out is all I am trying to say.
The characters are only level 6 at this point.
As far as the power differences between a half dragon as versus a pixie.
Half-Dragon
Flies
Natural Armor +4
Ability score boost (Non-ideal stats Mix of Str, Con, Int, Cha)
Immunity to sleep and paralysis
Darkvision
Pixie
Flies
Damage Reduction 10/Cold Iron
Constant effect - Improved Invisibility - Endless Duration
Many spells that can be cast once per day (Cast as an 8th level Caster)
Can fire magic arrows which bestow spell like abilities ~16-25 times per day depending on Cha Score. (Charm monster, Sleep, and Modify Memory)
Low-Light Vision
As a DM I am not at all afraid of ability score boosts, but the prospect of a player casting charm spells 16+ times per day as well as having some of the best defensive abilities in the game is unacceptable.
Spell Resistance
Hate to toot my own horn, but seriously, the Sprite is pretty damn close to a gnome in spell-like ability, glows like Tinkerbell or Oona,(can serve as a mobile light source) requires little-to-no changes to be a playable race, and is a small fey with wings incredibly similar to a pixie. I doubt there would even be any kind of CL changes. Add the Sorceror class with the Fey Bloodline and you can basically obtain spells to get the spell like abilities of a pixie without the second guesses, ability modification, or trying to get your hands on older race rules. Plus the monster description is here on this site.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/sprite.html#sprite
This indeed seems to be the perfect choice. They get something like, str-6,dex+4,con-2,int-2, which isn't particularly great and a set of spell-light abilities that are pretty much in line with anything a low level spell caster would have. (At will level 0 spells and a 1/day level 1 spell)And flight isn't all that unbalancing. Everyone is jumping, levitating and whatnot a few levels in and a diminutive creature with a -6 str won't be carrying party members across chasms.
In fact, these guys are so meh in terms of power, that they are available as familiars.
I have no idea why everyone is so hung up with the pixie, when there is a viable option right there.
Just reskin the Sprite and call it a Pixie.
Done.
In my current game one of the players is a pixie. We agreed to strip her down a bit and she agreed.
Kinky.
Just reskin the Sprite and call it a Pixie.
Done.
This is another good idea.
I had a character in 3.5. The story was he had been a palidin but reincarnated. As such had no idea how pixies made their arrows. Also because he was reincarnated he did not have complete control of his invisibility so it worked like the spell invisibility not improved invisibility.
The Advanced Race Guide Playtest rules version of a pixie isn't completely terrible as a player race. It doesn't get invisibility, or special arrows and gets only 3 levels worth of spell-like abilities. So it could probably cast entangle 1/day, lesser confusion 1/day and shield 1/day. It's still quite powerful, but it doesn't get some of the pixie's more powerful abilities.