Need suggestions on how to make the PC's "special"

[themourningstar]

Im wanting to make the PC's in a new campaign obviously more powerful than the common man. Im going to use the high powered point buy method for ability scores, but, Im wanting them to have the equivalent of a +2 LA. The logic being that they are all "god touched" (certain npcs will be as well). Any suggestions on how to achieve this would be awesome. I was thinking of doing:
4 pts to put towards any single ability score, and 2 to put towards a second one
One (or two?) Bonus feats- player's choice
A
Spell like abilities- player's choice (2 1st level spells usable 3 per day, and 1 2nd lvl spell usable once perday?)

Im not sure that is enough... And Im worried about how well it will scale up with them- will that stuff still be a +2 LA when they reach 20th level? Thanks people!

[OzymandiasX]

Im wanting to make the PC's in a new campaign obviously more powerful than the common man. Im going to use the high powered point buy method for ability scores, but, Im wanting them to have the equivalent of a +2 LA. The logic being that they are all "god touched" (certain npcs will be as well). Any suggestions on how to achieve this would be awesome.
Why not just start them at level 3 (and let them pick a +2LA race if they want or just start at level 3)? This way they have tons of choices and everything scales as expected without additional rules.

Making level 1 characters with a 'un-numbered' +2LA just means that they'd be essentially 3rd level for intents of what challenges are appropriate. It seems like just starting them at higher level and calling a 3 a 3 is the best solution.

[themourningstar]

First- nice user name. Secondly, I wanted to make them have extra abilities in order to.separate them from other npcs. A third level fighter is a third level fighter, no matter what. Im wanting to add a little bit of flavor and.. Ability? At the same time

[Deaxsa]

to make things REAL easy, just lower all of everything around them by 2

it'd be like you gave them a +2 on every roll ever.. and the best part is, you can modify it so that certain other NPCs (say, for instance, the other god-touched) do NOT have their ac/saves/attack rolls lowered.

of course, then you get into "inb4 this boss is god-touched..." and "this game is only tough against the god-touched", but hey, you can't have everything.

i know i would certainly not do that case^

another idea would be to tell everyone that they have to be ECL 3, RHD 0, and HD 1. you then tell them that if they want, they can take the EFFECTS of any of their options and stick it onto a human body, so that they are not a walking zoo.

[themourningstar]

another idea would be to tell everyone that they have to be ECL 3, RHD 0, and HD 1. you then tell them that if they want, they can take the EFFECTS of any of their options and stick it onto a human body, so that they are not a walking zoo]

I thought about going that way. The only reason I didnt was because I wanted something more consistent, something where they are all similar. Or just making them all half dragons lol. Still, I supposed you could rationalize it with "they were all chosen by different gods"

[Hyena]

Allow them to make gestalts. This is really _all_ they need to be powerful or, at the very least, feel powerful.

[mcbobbo]

I'd suggest finding and applying an appropriate template to them.

[cerin616]

God Blooded Templates anyone?

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Just giving them high ability scores should be good enough. Make sure you design your NPCs to all have ability scores that average out to 10, which will make it especially obvious. I'm sure it will become apparent when one of the PCs says, "wait, that bandit only did 2 damage with a longsword?"

As others suggested, there's a lot of ways to do this. One option is gestalt, which is intended for high-powered campaigns. Templates and monster races would work, though that may create a mish-mash of odd abilities in your party. Another more magical option (which you can blatantly crib from the Final Fantasy series) is to give each of the players their choice of spell-like abilities they can use a few times per day.

[ArcturusV]

Another thing to consider that would really change things up and really mark the Unlocking of their Full Potential, would be changing the stat ups. Making it as simple as instead of +1 to a particular stat, but +1 to ALL stats instead at every 4th level, will result in a marked increase in power.

The side benefit is that such a stat up will provide more mileage to classes that normally need more mileage. For the Druid or the Wizard? Eh. Nice, but not exactly earth shattering that they got a point in everything else other than Int. For a Paladin, Ranger, Monk, Fighter? Epically good because they wanted to boost up 4 or so stats anyway.

[themourningstar]

Bunch of good ideas here- thanks all. For the record, the players, and npcs, will know they are God Touched. It is going to have cosmetic effects as well, it is a.. Well, not "common", but recognized, trait. Maybe I could allow them to have the effects of a bloodline of their choice?

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Bunch of good ideas here- thanks all. For the record, the players, and npcs, will know they are God Touched. It is going to have cosmetic effects as well, it is a.. Well, not "common", but recognized, trait. Maybe I could allow them to have the effects of a bloodline of their choice?

I would say that the UA bloodlines are too minor compared to what you're trying to do. They also don't scale well with level.

[JusticeZero]

The other thing is to take a page from E6. People think E6/8 is about low power. It really isn't, it is also so the game doesn't break when you have all of the best NPC Warriors in the realm show up, and the toughest one of the lot is a third level. Whole armies come boiling out and they have 4 hp. The enemies everyone fear are CR 1/2. If you try that on a standard game, lots of stuff has to get inflated and it removes a lot of specialness. Oh the guy at the bar is level six, duh... And you get a feeling that you were sent on your first adventure only because it was too trivial for anyone else to deal with.

[lsfreak]

Personally, I'm inclined to think you're going the wrong direction. Instead of making them more powerful, make the world less. Highly trained and notorious mercenary groups are 5th level NPC's, the majority of humans cap out at 3rd level, and most bandits, raiders, or armies are no more than 1st level commoners (1st level warriors at best). Anyone above 6th or 7th is known across the region, and by 10th level there's stories about them across the whole continent.

If you would prefer making the PC's more powerful, I'd suggest a very high point buy (say, 52) and/or gestalt.

[I'm_On_A_Broom]

The rules already make the PCs special. Most of the NPCs in any given world have NPC class levels (Commoner, Expert, Warrior, etc..) Being able to take a standard PC class level in itself is a feat. But outside of that, you as a DM are allowed to do whatever you want, so do what you see in your mind's eye. Unless you go crazy, you're probably not going to break the game. Nobody ever wants a cake walk.

[Gavinfoxx]

"You have a free level adjustment of +1 that won't negatively affect you in any way, and I want to encourage you to play classes of tier 3 and more powerful, and you have max hit poitns on level up, and you start at level 3, and you are 34 point buy."

[ksbsnowowl]

Give them all the Saint template from BoED. If there are evil God-Touched, just invert any of the "good" aspects and spells into evil. Viola!

[OzymandiasX]

Based on what you're looking for, then, I think the best suggestion is to let them be a race (their actual race) and get the racial bonuses of a +1LA or +2LA race for free. Whether they get to pick the extra race or you pick some for them is up to you.

The Planetouched races that would work perfectly for the flavor you're describing:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Planetouched%E2%80%94Aasimars_%28Race%29
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Planetouched%E2%80%94Tieflings_%28Race%29