Anthro-cheetah in an horror game - am I crazy?

[ImperatorK]

There's a PF game that's supposed to be a horror game. My concept is a Young anthropomorphic cheetah Ranger. The DM is sceptic about it. He said that he will accept it, but only if I meet his astronomical demands (he wants a backstory that sweeps him from his feet).
Am I crazy for thinking that this character idea is perfectly okay for a horror game? Because honestly I'm personally more okay with anthro-cheetahs then halflings. The later just doesn't look good in an horror game, IMO.

[CodeRed]

If you want to play an anthro-cheetah, why not just play a catfolk? They are only LA +1 while I'm sure anthro-cheetah has some racial hit dice in there. SPD 40 base with +4 Dex makes them good archers, scouts, rogues and the like.

As to the halfling? I would rock one in a horror game so hard. +2 saves vs. fear effects in a horror game? That sounds like cheating almost to me.

[Talya]

That sounds like cheating almost to me.

But...cheetahs never prosper.

[ImperatorK]

If you want to play an anthro-cheetah, why not just play a catfolk? They are only LA +1 while I'm sure anthro-cheetah has some racial hit dice in there. SPD 40 base with +4 Dex makes them good archers, scouts, rogues and the like.
I don't mind the racial HD and in PF anthro-cheetah is CR 2 (so equivalent of 2 class levels). I wanted to play Monk 1/Rogue 2, but I changed it to Ranger 3 (the game is on ECL 5), because the DM is already accusing me of munchkinery for the race, so I toned down a little with the class setup.


But...cheetahs never prosper.
:smallconfused:

[Tvtyrant]

I don't mind the racial HD and in PF anthro-cheetah is CR 2 (so equivalent of 2 class levels). I wanted to play Monk 1/Rogue 2, but I changed it to Ranger 3 (the game is on ECL 5), because the DM is accusing me of munchkinery.

...I know Pathfinder is more balanced then 3.5, and upgrades the lower tier classes somewhat. But what is this I don't even...

[ImperatorK]

...I know Pathfinder is more balanced then 3.5, and upgrades the lower tier classes somewhat. But what is this I don't even...
What do you mind?

[Greenish]

What do you mind?Calling monk1/rogue2 "munchkinery", I should think.

[Tvtyrant]

What do you mind?

Nothing. I just find the idea that a Monk1/Rogue 2 is greatly superior to Ranger 3 puzzling. I fully endorce the anthro-cheetah, and Ranger 3 is perfectly fine, I just don't understand where the Morgue is better then the Ranger.

Edit: Greenish, I fear your right behind me everytime I post. Cursed swordsages....

[ImperatorK]

Well, we have 32 pb (in PF :smallamused:), I've got the Young and Advanced templates and anthro-cheetahs have very good stats. All this added together: Str 20, Dex 34, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 22, Cha 14 makes a superb Monk (at least as a 1 level dip). The Rogue levels are for Evasion and skills.
EDIT: One thing to add: the game is in FR (which doesn't make a big difference, IMO).
EDIT2: It just boggles my mind how the DM can say "I'm okay with wemics, because they're featured in FR books, but anthro-animals are too exotic". :smallannoyed:

[Greenish]

Edit: Greenish, I fear your right behind me everytime I post. Cursed swordsages....Have no fear, I'm right ahead of you. :smalltongue:


Well, we have 32 pb (in PF :smallamused:), I've got the Young and Advanced templates and anthro-cheetahs have very good stats. All this added together: Str 20, Dex 34, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 22, Cha 14…And it were the class levels that were supposedly munchkiny? :smalltongue:

[ImperatorK]

No, the entire character, not only classes.

[CodeRed]

No, the entire character, not only classes.

Yeah dude. I'm sorry but those are some bull**** for starting stats. I'm surprised your DM is letting you get away with that really.

[Acanous]

I think the problem we're all having is that someone inferred that Monk can be Useful
Now, your DM didn't say it in the same sentance, he just inferred it, so we can suspend disbelief a little here.
I'd actually reccommend going Barbarian over ranger for a horror game, the things you fight aren't likely to employ your favored terrain or stick to one enemy type. (I played a ranger in one of these types of games, and with favored: Ooze, Construct, Undead and Evil Outsider, the DM STILL kept throwing things that weren't any of the above, just to deny my bonus. Plants and Aberrations, anyone?)
Barbarian gets better Hit Dice and the new Rage powers are pretty awesome.
You need to hit lv 10 before you can employ Pounce, but you no longer have to sack fast movement for it ;)

YMMV, and I applaud you for going with a class trained in Survival.

when the wightpocolypse hits, retreat to your family's old hunting cottage in the mountains, accessable only by that one rope bridge...

[ImperatorK]

I'd actually reccommend going Barbarian over ranger for a horror game, the things you fight aren't likely to employ your favored terrain or stick to one enemy type.
I've changed to Ranger specifically to tone down my characters power.
The campaign intro suggests that the game will be undead heavy. Knowing that I intentionally won't take FE: Undead.


Yeah dude. I'm sorry but those are some bull**** for starting stats. I'm surprised your DM is letting you get away with that really.
The DM has only a problem with how exotic the race is, not its stats per se. He didn't state what level of optimization he's allowing. And I asked.


You need to hit lv 10 before you can employ Pounce, but you no longer have to sack fast movement for it ;)
There won't be any level ups.

[flumphy]

All build issues aside, I think your DM is perfectly justified in not allowing the race. If he's going for a serious tone, then it's understandable that he wouldn't want "cartoony" PCs. And I'm sorry, but if you, despite overwhelming cultural pressure, have somehow managed to escape seeing anthropomorphic animals as cartoony, then you are in the minority.

This is not to say I would never let someone play an animal. I actually once ran a game where all of the PCs were anthropomorphic animals escaping from an Island of Dr. Moreau scenario. However, there are certain settings where certain concepts just don't fit. And even if I didn't agree with the GMs concept of what fit, I wouldn't give him a hard time about it. It's his setting, after all, and he has a right to have fun with it too.

[ImperatorK]

Cartoony... :smallannoyed: Maybe also too anime, eh? I can't understand such people. How is it cartoony? Too catgirl-like? :smallconfused: Any race/class can be cartoony.

[krai]

Cartoony... :smallannoyed: Maybe also too anime, eh? I can't understand such people. How is it cartoony? Too catgirl-like? :smallconfused: Any race/class can be cartoony.


It may not be fair that some people think in this way but some people have trouble taking things that are not normal character races seriously. Your DM probably has some notion that they are weird and possibly silly. This is no problem in a normal campaign (as a character being silly or weird is going to get in the way of the mood), but in horror there are different requirements for the DM to relate to the PCs and their Character. It is in part the DM's problem that he can not take the character seriously (he may be hoping that the character background will help him to understand and relate to the character better) but it is his campaign so if he feels that the difficulty in dealing with the character will harm his ability to DM it may be best to come up with a new character.

[ImperatorK]

EDIT2: It just boggles my mind how the DM can say "I'm okay with wemics, because they're featured in FR books, but anthro-animals are too exotic". :smallannoyed:
That is just funny.

[Salanmander]

I can totally see an anthropomorphic cat fitting in in horror. I once had a dream end in an absolutely /terrifying/ scene in which I put out the only remaining light in a pitch-dark basement in order to have some modicum of hope of hiding from a bow-wielding catfolk-like creature.

All you need is the right image. Remind everyone that cats aren't cute fuzzy things. They are finely honed predators, and rule the night. They see better than you, they hear better than you, they move faster than you, and they make less noise than you.

Bring up images like these (courtesy of google image search):
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mmiii_gallery/83040.jpg
http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/images/155714/CATFOLK.jpg
http://files.g4tv.com/ImageDb3/253894_S/Details-On-The-New-ThunderCats-Series.jpg
http://greywolf.critter.net/images/gallery/critters/2009-01-15-wampus-cat-sasta.jpg

Obviously pick images that speak to you, I just picked some that give me the sense of "catfolk in horror game". Hopefully they will help convince people that anthropomorphic cats can fit in in a darker, more serious game. (As long as you play them that way, of course.)

[Silus]

Cartoony... :smallannoyed: Maybe also too anime, eh? I can't understand such people. How is it cartoony? Too catgirl-like? :smallconfused: Any race/class can be cartoony.

Well, it seems to me that you be basing the character off a certain Werecheetah from a certain Antarctic Press comic :smallwink:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/SilusCrow/220px-GoldDigger1.jpg

[Zaq]

Cartoony... :smallannoyed: Maybe also too anime, eh? I can't understand such people. How is it cartoony? Too catgirl-like? :smallconfused: Any race/class can be cartoony.

Well, there's this. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FunnyAnimal) (Warning: TV Tropes.)

[ImperatorK]

Well, it seems to me that you be basing the character off a certain Werecheetah from a certain Antarctic Press comic :smallwink:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/SilusCrow/220px-GoldDigger1.jpg
Not really. That's the first time I hear about such comics.

[Silus]

Not really. That's the first time I hear about such comics.

Ooh, you should read them. Guy's been making them for like 20 years.

[ImperatorK]

Ooh, you should read them. Guy's been making them for like 20 years.
I'm doing it right now.

[Ravens_cry]

The thing with horror is it is personal.
You can take away a lot, or all, of the blood and gore, and you can still have perfectly good horror if it hits you in a primal way.
Playing a rather odd race in such a game could put a barrier between yourself and the horror, which could potentially lessen the impact. Personally, if I was playing in a horror, I would play a fairly low point buy human, try to make me or at least a human I can relate to on a basic level.
More Clark Kent than Superman.
Oh and 32 point buy in Pathfinder?
Redonkulous.

[flumphy]

Cartoony... :smallannoyed: Maybe also too anime, eh? I can't understand such people. How is it cartoony? Too catgirl-like? :smallconfused: Any race/class can be cartoony.

I have nothing against anime, nor did I say anything derogatory about it. For what it's worth, I watch it myself on occasion, although don't know what that even has to do with the discussion. I assure you that I do not reflexively ban everything I deem to be influenced by asian media, and outside of the Playground, I have never actually heard of anyone who did. My view of anthropomorphic animals as cartoony originates entirely from western animation (the stuff I, and probably your D&D group, was raised on), where anthropomorphic animals are, with virtually no exceptions, the stuff of comedy and/or children. Even lycanthropes are more funny than frightening these days. Asking people to eschew a firmly-planted, mostly-subconscious cultural mindset for a D&D game is a bit much, don't you think?

To be fair, I do agree that once you allow a wemic PC in a non-FR setting, all bets are off as far as restricting exotic races on the basis of their exoticness. I just don't think banning certain races to enhance the flavor of a setting is a bad thing, and I think vetoing any character that will probably break people's immersion, be it through their race or something else entirely, is a good thing.

[BlueInc]

The thing with horror is it is personal.
You can take away a lot, or all, of the blood and gore, and you can still have perfectly good horror if it hits you in a primal way.
Playing a rather odd race in such a game could put a barrier between yourself and the horror, which could potentially lessen the impact. Personally, if I was playing in a horror, I would play a fairly low point buy human, try to make me or at least a human I can relate to on a basic level.
More Clark Kent than Superman.


Relation is important; attachment is, too. You don't care when stupid teen party-goers die in slasher films because they're soulless stereotypes, even if they're biologically human. You do care when your favorite alien dies in a sci-fi story; you like them and they're human enough to relate to.

If you're attached to the character, you'll be just as scared to see it die.

On a side note, if you just want to be a cat person (all fluff no crunch) ask if you can use human starting stats but be a cat person. I do this with players all the time.

Unrelated:

Oh and 32 point buy in Pathfinder?
Redonkulous.

I'm DMing a 40 point buy Pathfinder game. Why? Because my players almost always roll the equivalent of a 40-45 point buy; for some of the players, it's a tough switch.

[BlueInc]

Edit: Double post

[nyarlathotep]

Hmm if there are already weird races in the gameworld like goblins, gnolls, and the like I'd see no problem with a catperson (personally I consider cheetah, lion, and domestic catpeople on the same level of weird) but if the DM is going for something more grounded with regards to races you might want to reconsider.

[ImperatorK]

In FR, even if you stick to one little region on the map, you WILL run into some weird race, intentionally or not. :P

[Keld Denar]

Actually, Anthro-Cheetah sounds like a smart idea for a horror game. Remember, you don't have to run faster than the Eldritch Horror of Doomy DoomTM, you just have to run faster than your allies. Anthro-Cheetah sprint GO GO GO GO!