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Denamort
2012-09-29, 10:21 AM
A friend of mine has a character concept for our next game, and I'm having trouble with what race would fit the idea. The character is the daugther of a celestial and an elf. The idea is that her celestial blood gives her the ability to channel divine power to obtain the following effects:
Fast Healing/Regeneration (This is suposed to be in effect all the time)
A sort of "Lay on Hands" or similar healing effect
A sort of "Smite Evil" attack or similar attack boosting effect.

Aside from this powers, the character is a melee combatant, most likely a Swordsage.

My current solution is to use one level of Cloistered Cleric (is there anything it can't do?:smallwink:)
Sacrifice one domain for Healing Devotion (that's both the Fast Healing and the "Lay on Hands") and get Pasion Domain (gives a sort of Smite).

My only problem with this solution is that the character is supossed to be really bad at magic (in fact, that's a central point to her story) and I want her powers to feel diferent from regular cleric powers. We can "pretend" those are racial traits, but any other cleric with those domains can do the exact same thing.
In addition, those abilities will probably not age well and in later levels the Cloistered Cleric will probably become a penalty rather than a benefit (since the character is supposed to be bad at magic it makes no sense that it uses the other benefits the Cleric provides, such as use of magic items. Again, I can hand wave that those abilites are manifestations of her Divine Powers, but I don't want her powers to feel just like those of a cleric).

So, I ask the Playground, is there any race that has all or most of this powers? If not, are there any rules to create a Homebrew race? What kind of fast healing/regeneration would be apropiate? FH 1 can be useful in level 3, but is useless by level 7. Smite and Lay on Hands are both weak abilties, but I'm not sure how to balance them. Would you give the race other powers?
I use LA buy-off, so even an LA of +2 won't be much of a problem. They'll start the campaing around lvl 10, so the character could start with level 8 an +0 LA at that moment (tough I wouldn't give any LA to a race with only those three abilties).

BowStreetRunner
2012-09-29, 11:46 AM
First of all, consider that normally the daughter of a Celestial and an Elf would be an Elf with the Half Celestial Template (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/halfCelestial.htm).

Read this through before you start changing things.

Waddacku
2012-09-29, 11:49 AM
Fast healing is always useful, but rarely in combat. Unlimited out of combat healing is good, though. Regeneration, on the other hand, is quite powerful. You probably want to stick with fast healing unless you want her to be nigh-invulnerable.

I'm not familiar with a race or template that fits all of these, and I doubt you'd get all of those and not a ton of other unrelated things. Easiest way I can think of is to either just modify the Celestial creature template, or simply applying the traits you want with a suitable LA.

Fast Healing 1 and Lay on Hands and Smite Evil as a Paladin of your HD is probably worth like 1 LA. Maybe 2 at the most, with buyoff.

Waddacku
2012-09-29, 11:52 AM
First of all, consider that normally the daughter of a Celestial and an Elf would be an Elf with the Half Celestial Template (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/halfCelestial.htm).

Read this through before you start changing things.

Half-Celestial doesn't fit what he's after at all, though.

theUnearther
2012-09-29, 12:03 PM
Your player wants some particular abilities, and no more. If you are alright with the player having those abilities, why not just grant them to the character?
Sorry but it IS the simplest answer. Caveats are for players, not for game masters.

Or if you insist that it be somehow grounded in existing rules, can't you just invent a race that gets those two domains' granted power as a bonus? Healing Devotion is just a feat, and I think there is a feat that grants a domain's granted power (but not the spells). If so, just two bonus (preselected) feats is not out of line for a race's traits.

KillianHawkeye
2012-09-29, 08:47 PM
This might be kinda out there, but a minor modification to the Evolved Undead template (Libris Mortis p.99-100) will get you pretty close. It's +1 Level Adjustment, but you get +2 Str and +2 Cha, +1 natural armor, Fast Healing 3, and a choice of spell-like abilities usable once per day.

Of course, we're removing the undead requirement. And you can substitute something like divine power or holy sword instead of the evil/death-themed options for your 1/day spell-like ability. It should be of an equivalent power level. You can call the new template "Divine Conduit."

That covers everything but the Lay on Hands effect, but that shouldn't be too hard to come by.

Medic!
2012-09-29, 11:41 PM
You could go with the Celestial Bloodline out of Unearthed Arcana, and do a few tweaks to it, like replacing the Energy Immunity bonuses with a cummulative Fast Healing 1 or 2 each and replace Protection from Evil with Lay on Hands.

Or redesign the bloodline completely, there are some guidelines in UA for making your own bloodline. Flavor-wise the bloodline sounds closer to the mark than class levels or templates to me.

Belril Duskwalk
2012-09-30, 12:45 AM
Your player wants some particular abilities, and no more. If you are alright with the player having those abilities, why not just grant them to the character?
Sorry but it IS the simplest answer. Caveats are for players, not for game masters.

Or if you insist that it be somehow grounded in existing rules, can't you just invent a race that gets those two domains' granted power as a bonus? Healing Devotion is just a feat, and I think there is a feat that grants a domain's granted power (but not the spells). If so, just two bonus (preselected) feats is not out of line for a race's traits.

I skimmed my way through most what I know about 3.5 and quite a bit of pathfinder besides and couldn't find much that lines up with what you're looking for. I think this is the best bet. If your player knows what he wants and it's not really out there, just Homebrew him what he needs. Tweak from something that exists or even just make it up out of whole cloth.

gooddragon1
2012-09-30, 01:26 AM
Take the saint template and barter away everything but the fast healing for what you want maybe?

kardar233
2012-10-01, 11:55 PM
Refluffed Troll-Blooded Killoren (Destroyer Aspect) with a Serenity Paladin dip. Keep Wisdom SAD for Swordsage levels later, gets regeneration from Troll-Blooded and a 1/hour Smite from Killoren and Paladin.