I would really like to play a Velociraptor that has been awoken, because who doesn't want to play an adorable toothy rooster than can jump 6 feet, carve out your eyes, and then hang onto you with its talons until you bleed out. However, even having read the Other Races page, I am unclear about several things.
1, Stats: Do I just use the Velociraptor stats modified by Awaken as is, e.g. Str 13 Dex 17 Con 17 Int 3d6 Wis 14 Cha 14+1d3? Or do i translate the Velociraptor stats into stat mods, and roll or point buy for stats as normal?
2, Hit dice: When adding class levels to my Velociraptor, the other races page specifies that the CR, not the HD, is what is matched to the class levels of the other players. In addition, after 2.5 levels, my raptor would get an additional class level, making its CR effectively 1 for this purpose. This means my raptor would have 4 more HD then the other players at level five onwards (4 class levels + 5 Velociraptor hit dice versus 5 class levels). Does that mean my maximum skill rank cap is 4 higher than the other players, making me a downright amazing trap finder with an effective +8 racial bonus to perception? Will I always have +1 more stat increase? Do I thereby have 2 additional feats from regular level progression?
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James Jacobs has played an awakened Deinonychus, so with that, and given his usual enthusiasm for the subject, it might be a good idea to ask him as well and see if he remembers what all rules the GM in that game used.
As for your questions,
1) The first seems reasonable, or if you and your GM agree with it you could do the second.
2) CR would determine (I guess) how many class levels you're matched with starting out but HD + class levels would be how you determine things like skills and abilities.
Clever girl...
While not a dinosaur, one of my most beloved PCs is an awakened animal. With the GM, I agreed that we would use the base animal stats, with fixed (average) values for the CHA and INT changes, for the character.
The character is statistically weaker than other party members (who were built on 15PB), but isn't so weak he doesn't get to contribute.
Plus, roleplaying him is a blast! It's interesting to explain things from a non-humanoid point of view.
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@ Rysky
Thanks for the suggestion, I have now posted the question to James Jacobs. As for your answers, I agree with you on 2, that does seem to be how it works.
@ Andre Roy
Hey, cool! Do not know if that is what I am after, but i will have to check those out later.
@ Saethori
Thanks for the story. What animal were you roleplaying, and what kind of role was your character filling in the party?
Glad to hear he was fun to play. I, myself, am looking forward to roleplaying a non-humanoid prederator.
Oh, absolutely. I enjoy having options.
Velociraptors were pack hunters, so I think you should consider playing a Hunter with a velociraptor packmate. My other thought would be a Slayer, works thematically and provides you some sneak attack five to improve damage for being small.
@ Saethori
Thanks for the story. What animal were you roleplaying, and what kind of role was your character filling in the party?
He was a fox U.Rogue. (I like foxes. Quite a lot.)
His role in the party generally acted as scout and spy (a task commonly impeded by his lack of understanding what humans find important, and inability to read), while in combat he's basically set up with the Underfoot line of feats, so he is virtually invulnerable to AoOs.
The base ability scores look pretty good, so I wouldn't roll.
In this case I would count the racial hit dice equal to class levels. As a level three character you will have two really high ability scores, 60 ft speed, three natural attacks (two of which have an expanded crit range), low-light vision, scent, +1 natural AC, evasion, leaping charge, and +4 to four skills. Good offense, good saves. This seems like a decent starting package. I might go barbarian or slayer.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions and support, it is appreciated. I now have several different ideas about how this could be done, and several different class progressions which all capture at least some of the feeling I would like for the character. I now feel ready to talk about this with my GM, and i feel like i could be quite flexible with the rules we decide to go with. Thanks again for the help!
@ Scott Wilhelm
Your suggestion took me a while to wrap my head around, but I do like the idea of being a regular Velociraptor with Shaping Focus, using the 5 hit dice to qualify for becoming a Huge Allosaurus with only 4 Druid levels, thanks for the suggestion.
@ LizardMage
Yeah, Druid, Hunter or Slayer are the obvious choices. I also like Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 10 though, and have an Iron Bull-esque relationship to dragons. "See... she has a great respect for dragons. But she also kind of wants to murder dragons. And she also kinda wants to f+@@ dragons..."
@ Saethori
Foxes are adorable.
@ Ciaran Barnes
Eeeeeh no. That is not how the rules work, and I am essentially already multiclassing, which in general is a bad idea in pathfinder. Therefore, making me feel the pain of 0.75/1 BAB with no casting to show for it, in a way that isn't just not in the rules, but also directly opposite of the rules suggesting extra class levels as you level because monster hit dice is worse than class levels, isn't something I am big on.
On the other hand, since I do get an additional +2 hit die for being Awakened, losing that +1 class level at level 4.5 I would be okay with.
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What I would do is what I usually do for my players when they want to play animals: Use the Race Builder.
Sure, my wife playing a penguin kineticist/monk gestalt would be AWFUL using the Awaken rules, but just flavor your velociraptor as awakened, and give it the racial traits you think it should get.
Small Size? Check. +2 Dex and Wis, -2 Int? Check. (I don't think you should be THAT smart. You are a dinosaur, after all)
Natural Weapons? That's where most of your Race Points go. Getting all 5 attacks costs you 5 RP, Low-Light Vision for another point, Jumper, Sprinter, and Fast are another 4, which gets you up to 10. You could probably weasel getting a couple more in there for something like making Acrobatics checks always be a class skill, etc.
You do lose pounce, which hurts a bit from an optimization perspective, but not only is it more balanced at lower levels, it opens up more options for what you want to do with your abilities. Maybe go Eldritch Guardian fighter and get a Compsognathus familiar with the Mauler Archetype, Evolved familar to give it claws, and BOOM you've got a charging, hunting buddy to go along with your mostly fighter levels. Maybe a ranger for the companion, or perhaps going Hunter could work if you want some spellcasting as well as REALLY hammering home the pack-hunter mentality.
I mostly prefer to use the race-builder rules to do this kind of stuff, because CR doesn't translate to levels very well, and it's easier for the DM to balance.
What I would do is what I usually do for my players when they want to play animals: Use the Race Builder.
Sure, my wife playing a penguin kineticist/monk gestalt would be AWFUL using the Awaken rules, but just flavor your velociraptor as awakened, and give it the racial traits you think it should get.
Small Size? Check. +2 Dex and Wis, -2 Int? Check. (I don't think you should be THAT smart. You are a dinosaur, after all)
Natural Weapons? That's where most of your Race Points go. Getting all 5 attacks costs you 5 RP, Low-Light Vision for another point, Jumper, Sprinter, and Fast are another 4, which gets you up to 10. You could probably weasel getting a couple more in there for something like making Acrobatics checks always be a class skill, etc.
You do lose pounce, which hurts a bit from an optimization perspective, but not only is it more balanced at lower levels, it opens up more options for what you want to do with your abilities. Maybe go Eldritch Guardian fighter and get a Compsognathus familiar with the Mauler Archetype, Evolved familiar to give it claws, and BOOM you've got a charging, hunting buddy to go along with your mostly fighter levels. Maybe a ranger for the companion, or perhaps going Hunter could work if you want some spellcasting as well as REALLY hammering home the pack-hunter mentality.
I mostly prefer to use the race-builder rules to do this kind of stuff, because CR doesn't translate to levels very well, and it's easier for the DM to balance.
Though it didn't come up in this thread until now, it is indeed something I considered. However, the Race builder doesn't actually have the Animal or Magical Beast types as options, which is baffling. It also annoys me that the bite costs 2 rp and is still 1d4, one size too small, but the gore costs 1 rp and is 1d6. This makes no sense.
Nevertheless, I did consider it.
I'd prefer Small size/ +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Int/ 1d2 Bite, 1d3 Talon, 1d3 Talon (3rp)
Which is only 3 points. Then the rest of the points in making the raptor faster, giving it senses and possibly Advanced Strength if the points given are 11 or more.
The reason for that is because i like the idea of a Str based creature with small size, and the Velociraptor would certainly fit that idea. In addition, Sprinter might be Dex based, but acrobatics checks to jump are Str based in Pathfinder Unchained, giving ever more credence to that version of the custom race.
Thanks for the familiar and class suggestions, the Mauler archetype was new to me, that is a pretty crazy familiar archetype.
@ Ciaran BarnesEeeeeh no. That is not how the rules work, and I am essentially already multiclassing, which in general is a bad idea in pathfinder. Therefore, making me feel the pain of 0.75/1 BAB with no casting to show for it, in a way that isn't just not in the rules, but also directly opposite of the rules suggesting extra class levels as you level because monster hit dice is worse than class levels, isn't something I am big on.
Eeeeeh yes. If you want to quote the "rules" then you need to pick a playable race. By playing a magic dinosaur you've already stepped outside of the rules. CR is s guideline and doesn't apply to player characters. Ask your GM if you can have more Hit Dice than your party members. Nothing said in the forums amounts to anything if the GM says no.
Eeeeeh yes. If you want to quote the "rules" then you need to pick a playable race. By playing a magic dinosaur you've already stepped outside of the rules.
This is simply factually incorrect. The Other Races page I linked in my first comment does have rules for playing a monster with hit dice, and the awaken spell is a buff spell with instantaneous duration, which, albeit subject to availability and cost by the necessity of having it cast by someone else than the player character, is still most definitely within the rules, and it was these specific rules, which both exist and which I linked to, which I wanted clarification on.
Playing as a non-humanoid starting the campaign with an instantaneous buff spell applied to them is unusual, yes but the race, the spell, and playing a monster pc all have rules. It being unusual doesn't make these rules stop exist.
CR is s guideline and doesn't apply to player characters. Ask your GM if you can have more Hit Dice than your party members.
Not only can a monster as pc have more Hit Dice, the rules for that circumstance suggest increasing the disparity in Hit Dice further by giving extra class levels every 3 levels.
Nothing said in the forums amounts to anything if the GM says no.
This is true of this case. It is also true in every case. In my initial post, I did not ask for advice on what you believe my gm would or would not say no to - I asked about existing rules which I were unsure about.
The existing rules in this mater are fuzzy. Hence, you get people's opinions. Which you're going to get anyways because this is an Internet forum - wanted or unwanted.
Awoken is Awoken. It is now a functional "person" who with consideration of the DM could take class levels in say, Gunslinger. Work for a couple years getting his PHD in Paleontology now that he can critically think about "Dinosaurs". Then run him through Iron Gods where he will either acquire or create a horribly powerful gun.
Dr. Deathgun
You should RP it just like Dr. Dinosaur!
Well however it turns out, it sounds like a fun character.