Trading in a few levels

[Rabidmuskrat]

Here is my situation. Like a complete idiot, I started a Fighter character in my campaign. I then proceeded to NOT optimize it for combat (I did party face and boat captain on the side), eventually getting a level or two in Legendary Captain (yes, I have a boat).

Regardless, I am now Fighter 7/ Legendary Captain 1/Undecided level 1 (leveled last adventure) and between the Crusader and the Conjurer Wizard in my party I am completely outclassed. The DM has agreed to let me use Savage Species to try to bring my character in line with the others and my plan is to use the Ritual of Vitality (the one where you trade in xp, anyway) to change my race and/or apply templates.

This leaves me in the rather unique position of trying to get rid of as many levels of Fighter using this as possible. What races/templates are good for this?

So far I'm considering becoming an Aranea and leveling in Warshaper in the future. This would cost me 3 levels of fighter, but I would prefer to shake off even more of them. Any ideas? I'm seriously at the point where I would GIVE those levels away just so I can level quicker in the future.

[eggynack]

Could you just do that one thing where you fundamentally change all of your class levels to something else, and keep the actual personality of the character the same? The usual fighter swap is warblade, so maybe you should just make yourself be that. Instead of being a fighter 7, be a "fighter" 7. I'd suggest crusader, because it fills the face role better, but you've already got one of those, and some people don't like that. Doing a straight class trade is probably the best option, when you get right down to it, and it won't cause you to overpower your team mates at all.

[Slipperychicken]

There are rules for retraining levels in.. either PHB2 or DMG2. It costs some gold and a few weeks of work, but you can do it.

Also, yeah, I'd suggest either Crusader or Warblade instead of Fighter. White Raven maneuvers are strong and leadership-flavored. Also, you'll be actually good at fighting.