That's a good point. I can see the reasoning for allowing it. But dragons are very magical beasties. I wouldn't through a fit if my GM decided to allow it. But I wouldn't if I was the GM. I look at as Awaken is just enough of a change to give it intelligence which makes it a magical beast. In my opinion it isn't enough to make a complete new and much improved species.A Faerie Dragon is Tiny and has a whopping 16 Int.
You can say that it's magic, but this magic breeds true as his offsping doesn't suddenly drop to 2-3 int because Tiny. An Awakened Raccon is a Magical Beast. Its biology is mutated to include magical enhancement as baseline. His offspring can very well be a Magical Beast too.On Earth, some birds (including crows/ravens) are reportedly much smarter than you would expect for their brain size, meaning that they manage to get more mileage out of their brain matter than we do. A Faerie Dragon could be like this, with enough additional brain matter compared to a bird (and/or maybe even higher brain efficiency) to be able to outsmart the average Humanoid. (Or maybe they've figured out how to overclock their brains safely.)
Awaken is only a 5th level spell. That is not that far out of the 'quite a few people in the world have had it counting all of history' kind of thing. Golarion isn't buried in intelligent swarms of mosquitoes, alligators, etc...Intelligent swarms of mosquitoes? Having been down to Florida, THAT'S A SCARY THOUGHT. (Interesting observation: In the boat rental/dock tourist zone on the edge of the Everglades, the mosquitoes and larger biting flies were a vicious swarm worthy of Creeping Doom, but flying. But once we got into the Everglades on the rented houseboat, the mosquitoes and other biting flies became nearly absent.)
All I can say about the mosquitos is that they go where the food is more likely to be.
As for the other things, I think that the whole trying to apply sheerly *our earth* science and logic to it is somewhat half-baked. In a world where Goblins haven't wiped themselves out, humans are apparently made out of genetic silly putty and can almost cross-breed with anything, and you can quite easily make a living for yourself with the ability to cast a level 1 spell once per day (crafter's fortune anyone?), assuming everything we know about our world to be true is cold hard fact in the other is a fallacy.
(not to mention the fact that science isn't the belief of things being exactly the way we've discovered it, but rather that we believe that what we know is true unless we are able to prove what we knew was false.)
Perhaps there's something about magic that bridges the, for all we know, tiny genetic gap that allows for smaller brains to gain equivalent sentient ability or performance? With the changes that comes with becoming a magical beast, I could see them breeding true, but then again, most people don't go making highly intelligent species in enough numbers to create a potential true breeding scenario. Overall, I suppose that a little maintenance would be needed to increase their numbers. Perhaps one of the smart ones started taking levels of druid?
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{. . .} As for the other things, I think that the whole trying to apply sheerly *our earth* science and logic to it is somewhat half-baked. {. . .}
Now, don't be so quick to dismiss Earth science. For instance, if you only overclocked a stupid brain, it would just be stupid faster, BUT in interactions with other people, it could then make use of the Dopeler Effect, which has as its primary definition the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly (although do note that this runs the risk of invoking the second definition).
For a fun thought based exersize I tried to figure out a way to start play as a bear using just the rules, without needing GM rulings.
I didn't manage to succeed yet but I did figure out how to start as a squirrel, turtle, rat, raven, owl and a Bunch of other small animals.
You start as a normal character take the rich trait for 900 gold to start, buy a scroll of baleful polymorph (700), and have someone cast it on you, chose to fail the fort save and hope to succeed on the will save.
You could see if you can find someone who already has the spell will cast it on you costing only 450gp.
Downsides are you start unable to communicate other than maybe writing in sand or something like that, (hire a minion to translate), its the only character that maybe be useless at chargen if you fail the save.
You'll need a ring of elocution to talk to others in a normal language unless you get turned into a parrot.
But hey I get to start a game as a squirrel paladin.
For a fun thought based exersize I tried to figure out a way to start play as a bear using just the rules, without needing GM rulings.
I didn't manage to succeed yet but I did figure out how to start as a squirrel, turtle, rat, raven, owl and a Bunch of other small animals.You start as a normal character take the rich trait for 900 gold to start, buy a scroll of baleful polymorph (700), and have someone cast it on you, chose to fail the fort save and hope to succeed on the will save.
You could see if you can find someone who already has the spell will cast it on you costing only 450gp.Downsides are you start unable to communicate other than maybe writing in sand or something like that, (hire a minion to translate), its the only character that maybe be useless at chargen if you fail the save.
You'll need a ring of elocution to talk to others in a normal language unless you get turned into a parrot.But hey I get to start a game as a squirrel paladin.
Actually, there's some really cool feats for swashbuckler that would be really effective if you were, say, tiny size. I had a Swashbuckler turned into a permanently Tiny sized person with flight. It was hilarious, and actually kinda scary.
Thing is, you can play as a non-awakened animal. So there is no reason one could not play an awakened animal.
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Could just use this source book: Noble Wild
I've been trying to think up a campaign to utilize this. It's got some interesting stuff in it, like having humanoid familiars. One idea was to have the sister planet to Golarion, Castrolval, be a homeland of noble beasts and run something there or have them cross over through a inter-planetary gate
... before you are a full, badge carrying member of your society who can vote or whatever, for example, maybe you need to have paid off your own awakening costs.
Could go on for centuries. However, still due to the cost, it would never "overrun Golarion with awakened animals" or anything like that.
Good idea, I like it.
Had a player start a character at around level 7 who wanted to play an awakened cat sorcerer.
...
His obscene sneak modifier combined with liberal use of metamagic was. He liked to cast silent Invisibility, then go scouting. Let me tell you now, no module is prepared for this scenario.
I played a cat warlock(3.5) in an online game a few years ago. But in this game everyone was playing awakened cats, so it was made for the concept. I had a druid be reincarnated as a wolf in a 3.0 game I ran many years ago. He was very effective.
I appreciate all the debating about the validity and possibility of this discussion.
Now, since it seems that most of the responses are based in 'nothing in the rules, ask the DM', Of the things above, what would be some good arguments to make it more likely the DM would say yes?
Since it's been awhile, what happened, did you get to play an awakened animal or not? I would have advised; if you keep it "reasonable" you will have less of a problem.
I could easily see the development of a spell, however, to MAKE the acquired characteristics breed true.Because the sentience of an awakened animal has nothing to do with it's genes. Or are you going to argue for Lysenko?It is an intriguing idea.
The question of if Awaken would breed true came up on another thread and someone said it wouldn't. Can't say why they said that. Your argument that the type changes sounds valid to me... or rather its up to the GM.
Hmm...
Type: Divine Level: Alch 5, Drd 5, Rang 5
School:Transmutation
Components: V,S,M (See Below)
Casting Time: 1 Hour/Hit Dice of Target
Target: One Modified Creature
Range: Touch
Duration: Instant
This spell is whispered to have been created by the secretive sapient raccoons of the everwoods, though it is far more likely a druid that had become attached to an animal friend of theirs had developed it. This spell, when cast upon a creature that has been affected by the Awaken Spell or a Permanent Anthropomorphic Animal, will make those enhanced traits 'breed true'. That is, those traits become part of the creature's on a biological level and will pass on to any progeny they create.
Casting this spell costs 1000 GP in rare oils and herbs per hit die of the creature targeted. If the spell is cast without enough materials, half of them are consumed and the spell fails.
Whenever this creature reproduces with another of their kind, the DM rolls % behind the scenes for every 'child' they create. If they bred with a member of their species with none of the same enhancements they had (I.E. a normal member of their species before being awakened, etc.) the 'child' retains those enhanced traits on a 1-50%. If both parents have the same traits, the 'child' retains these traits on a 1-99%