Improving the Stonechild or "Is this really worth +4 LA?"

[Cieyrin]

So the E6 Superhero thread made me look into Stonechildren (RoS 93-94) again and, while I really like them (best thing to come out of the Chainmail reboot), I'm not sure they equate to +4 LA. They're definitely worth some LA but I don't think they're Urdunnir-level. It's also not like I can just Lesser Planetouched them, since they have those Outsider HD, which I'd like to keep b/c, frankly, Outsider HD are NICE.

Basic outline of Stonechildren are big bonuses to Str and Con, Darkvision, +4 Nat Armor, Immune to Acid and Poison, Blindfighting as a bonus feat and Magic Stone 3/day. 2 RHD.

What's the Playground think on them? Experiences playing Stonechildren?

[Seerow]

I'd say just up the racial HD by 1-3 in place of the LA, and it's good enough for most melee types.

[Fax Celestis]

Honestly? I'd go with 2 RHD, +0 LA. There are far better things you can do with two levels than get some immunities, a weaksauce SLA, a sense, and a bonus feat mostly taken for prereqs. I mean, if the stat mods are zomfghueg, then I might bump them down to +2 Str/+2 Con, but still. 2 RHD is in many cases more painful than +1 LA, especially since you can't buy it off. Probably the biggest issue isn't with the race, but with the shenanigans it opens via alter self, a problem I solve in my own games by making alter self only capable of turning you into LA +0 races, regardless of type.

[Cieyrin]

Probably the biggest issue isn't with the race, but with the shenanigans it opens via alter self, a problem I solve in my own games by making alter self only capable of turning you into LA +0 races, regardless of type.

I don't think that's really going to be the core reason people go Stonechild when they could go Neraph, Aasimar or Tiefling and do that kind of thing at ECL 3-4, as opposed to 8 like the standard Stonechild gets. That's more an issue of Polymorphing in general, which is beyond the scope of what I'm after here. I realize there's crazy **** I could be doing instead of this but that's not what I'm pursuing here.

For reference, the stat mods are +8 Str, +8 Con, +2 Int, -2 Cha, so perhaps that qualifies as ZOMFGHUGE, as you put it? :smallwink:

[Fax Celestis]

I don't think that's really going to be the core reason people go Stonechild when they could go Neraph, Aasimar or Tiefling and do that kind of thing at ECL 3-4, as opposed to 8 like the standard Stonechild gets. That's more an issue of Polymorphing in general, which is beyond the scope of what I'm after here. I realize there's crazy **** I could be doing instead of this but that's not what I'm pursuing here.

For reference, the stat mods are +8 Str, +8 Con, +2 Int, -2 Cha, so perhaps that qualifies as ZOMFGHUGE, as you put it? :smallwink:

Yeah. I'd cut it down to +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Cha. The rest of teh features aren't that awesome.