| Wildfire Heart |
okay, so my pathfinder group has decided to run an 'emerald spire' module. I am no longer the GM (Woohoo!) and wanted to play a pixie character. After a few arguments and discussions about the overpoweredness of the pixie race, my GM and I decided that I could play a pixie with a few stipulations.
1. The pixie racial stat bonuses are as follows: +4 DEX, -2 WIS, -2 INT, +2 CHA and NOT the outrageous 3.5 stat boosts
2. The pixie gets none of the SLAs but the invisibility, AND it goes away if I hit something as per normal invisibility (so no sneaky attack pixie.
3. I still get the racial bonuses to fly and the 60 ft fly speed, but otherwise don't get the bonuses to skills, the extra feat otherwise in 3.5, or anything else.
4. I cannot play a rogue, inspector or anything that gets sneak attack. In fact, I must play a druid, which is the class that I wanted anyways. (yes, a minus to WIS, which druids need, but...I'm playing a pixie, so I don't care :D)
5. Usage of any voice sounding like Navi or Tinkerbell will get my character vetoed.
and 6. I am NOT a relation to said characters. (I suggested that as a joke, and my GM took that seriously. That was legit one of his conditions. No complaints here. A good character doesn't need constant references to other characters to make it come to life).
The resulting character (after a 4D6 take away the lowest stat roll) ended up with a tiny character with 6 STR, 14 CON, 26 DEX, 11 INT, 16 WIS and 16 CHA (after size bonuses/penalties). She took weapon finesse as her feat at 1st level, and does 1D2+8 damage with a dagger. She has 10 HP, 22 AC, 20 Touch AC, a whopping +10 to Init, and her animal companion (Bouncy AKA the 'elephant of surprise') is obviously an elephant. (it's also interesting that the only 2 skills that rely on STR (swim and climb) are the ones that she can bypass by flying.
Although she can turn invisible at will, her invis doesn't help her in combat, as the invis wears off after one hit. The invis is useful for stealth, esp since her stealth (her traits are sneaky and reactionary) is +13 normally. (+8 DEX, +1 rank, +4 bonus since it counts as class skill and sneaky's +1 bonus). She's got high stealth, so she is the perfect scout, but as far as combat goes, she's good for first level, but will likely wane as levels go up and other chars come into their stuff.
Her current spells prepared are as follows: 0th. Light, prestidigitation, and I forget the other two, 1st: cure light wounds and entangle.
Tell me what you think. Is this character overpowered for combat? will she remain overpowered? How annoying would you find this character as a GM or as a player?
Yours in Neverland, Wildfire heart
| Koshimo |
what size is your pixie?
how did you get 26 dex at level one?
small or less sized char with no minus to str
i understand that you don't want the crazy stat array that 3.5 had but yours is still way off if you want to keep the core of the race
you go from -4 +10 +0 +6 +4 +6 to +0 +4 +0 -2 -2 +2
it should be -2 +4 -2 , 0 int +2 wis +2 cha slightly more powerful than your stat array sure but much more in the flavor of the race.
if you got the 26 dex the way i think you did you don't apply size mods on top of racial mods thats why the racial are there
i think the invis should scale you don't have SA so you cant get crazy bonus damage because of being invis in battle and at higher levels things have see invis or trueseeing so at 5th level or so you should improve to greater invis
| Bioboygamer |
Hey, I'm the GM for this campaign.
what size is your pixie?
It's tiny.
how did you get 26 dex at level one?
small or less sized char with no minus to str
i understand that you don't want the crazy stat array that 3.5 had but yours is still way off if you want to keep the core of the race
you go from -4 +10 +0 +6 +4 +6 to +0 +4 +0 -2 -2 +2
it should be -2 +4 -2 , 0 int +2 wis +2 cha slightly more powerful than your stat array sure but much more in the flavor of the race.if you got the 26 dex the way i think you did you don't apply size mods on top of racial mods thats why the racial are there
Yeah, I kind of thought that might be the case, but I wasn't sure. Getting +8 to damage with Weapon Finesse with a Tiny dagger seemed a bit broken.
i think the invis should scale you don't have SA so you cant get crazy bonus damage because of being invis in battle and at higher levels things have see invis or trueseeing so at 5th level or so you should improve to greater invis
The only problem is, since we're using a Pathfinder Module, all the encounters are preplanned. I'm fairly sure most of the creatures/people in this huge campaign have neither See Invisibility or Truesight, and Flying + Tiny + Invisible + Stealth = Literally no surprises or unexpected events ever for the entire campaign.
Honestly, I kind of think it would work better to keep the magic arrow SLAs instead of the invisibility, but Wildfire Heart was adamant about being able to turn invisible at will, for RP reasons. In addition, Greater Invisibility basically means a constant 50% miss chance for anything trying to hit the character.
Any ideas?
| Sagiso |
I could of course be wrong, but I'm pretty sure weapon finesse only lends Dex to hit, not to the damage output.
| boring7 |
Agile is kind of expensive though. You could also whip out a tiny scimitar and use Dervish Dance. Still doesn't matter though...
As a Druid with At-will invisibility the play is to spend ALL your time invisible, focus on buff spells, and summon in all the actual damage-dealers. Rule of thumb: The best "bang for your buck" as a caster is buff spells on the party barbarian. Every time you actually do the atrociously long-running math you end up getting more damage out of making the Rogue's rapier glow red and cut through steel than throwing single-shot fireballs or save-or-die kill spells.
Honestly, if you're that worried about invisibility, just stretch your house rules a little further and make it that during times of stress and when the pixie's heart is filled with murderous intent (hereafter defined as, "after initiative is rolled, and until the combat ends or they start trying to run away") they are unable to maintain the focus necessary to remain invisible. You already house-ruled the Pixie in, so it's not that big of a step.
Now, if I were a combat-crazy pixie with those stats I would hijack tricks from this thread and use a Dervish Dance scimitar. Invisibility would allow me to close with nearly any enemy without provoking, assaulting from within their square with insane damage would rapidly win most "duels" and as each enemy dropped it would be a simple enough matter to turn invisible once more to move onto (and slaughter) the next opponent. Character class would only moderately affect style and choice since the key features would be using unholy dex, tiny size, and always getting to strike first to win most combats.
All of that said: is it broken? Probably not. The super-stealth scout is stymied by a closed door, the untouchable support/conjurer spellcaster is fairly normal and limited by the insanely short duration of summon spells, and even if your little monster became a little combat monster of dexterity the damage s/he'd be dealing is comparable to a raging barbarian. The Half-orc might start a bit lower, but BAB, Power Attack, and a bigger damage die grow faster than the little dex druid.
Not to mention dervish dance doesn't start until level 3.