Pixie playable? Looking for quick (!) advice for a PbP game

[Popinjay]

Hi!

I am about to get involved in one of my first play by post games.

I am considering playing a pixie, which means that through the thirst five levels I would be advancing through monster levels instead of character levels.

Alternatively I might just roll up a druid.

My question is whether anybody knows if it is worth playing a Pixie as a PC--e.g. if it is worth taking that 5 level hit and being vulnerable at low levels for the Pixie special powers.

I am not interested in making the most powerful character possible--but I would like a character that is powerful enough to be useful to the party. If the character is always effectively 3 levels behind in people's opinions it might be too weak to be worth while.

I thought a pixie would be fun. I didn't quite know how the level progression worked when I originally considered it because I originally considered it for a game starting at 5th level that I was denied from---and this game is starting at 1st level.

Anyway, I need to have a character in my Saturday, so I need quick advice.

Thanks for your time,

Pop

[ngilop]

AS the DM of said game

I want to point out that i am an for lack of better term a null optimizer

and in addition to what the savage species pixie gets i also granted him dr5/cold iron and 1st and again at 5th level. and IF popinjay chooses to be a sorcerer (he epxressed interest in a DnD wiki witch first) Id give him vitrual sorcerer levels.

I did try hard to help him out, but not getting a character concpt and just a list of ' X looks cool' has made it rather difficult for me to find something popinjay would be happy with playing class OR race wise.

[Popinjay]

I think you have taken this as a complaint. It was not.

I don't know what you mean by virtual sorcerer levels.

I was just wondering what general opinion was about playability was from those who have experience.

You seem defensive. My intention was not to go back to our forum and, if people here thought a pixie wasn't play able, demand the pixie be made better. I would never do that. I haven't once asked for the DM to change what he wanted to give or was willing to give or ask for anything extra. I don't want anything he would think unfair---it is just another form of cheating. I had asked if a couple things were acceptable in his system because, given my newness, and given the fact that it was impossible for the introduction to cover all possibilities, it was not clear if they were or not.

I am not unhappy. Whether I play a pixie or druid I am happy to be playing and finally into a game, and I never said anything that I think could, under any stretch of the imagination or interpretation be considered a complaint.

Pop

[ngilop]

I did not take this as a complaint, sorry fi it came across that way.

i was just letting the GiTP forum goers know that I was not an optimizer in the least and also let them know what I was offering you as a Pixie

so you wouldn;t get teh inevitable "bwargh" that most will give you becuase 99% of all answers you would get are about optimization.

what I meant by virtual sorcerer levels was you add those onto your actual sorcerer levels and that how youd cast spells so for example you would be at 8th level a pixie (5) and sorcerer (3) only You have 3 'bonus' sorcerer levels ot attach to that so you be casting your spells as a 6th level sorcerer.


I just posted to give a bit more background info. because I know fromf irst hand experience most like all of your answers are going to be' pixie suck why be a pixie" and other such along those lines, but only becuase they are coming from a optimization stance. and basically going 5 levels to get 2 levels worht of stuff in their eyes is not good.

really the only levels Id see you being a liability would be 3rd. only becuase by that time your oppoents would be capalbe of dealing with flying targets and its 1 level before you are perma-invisible.

once 4th level comes online you are for the most part untouchable as hardly anything is going to have true sight being avaialbe and even then its only there at the very end of this campaign.

[Archmage1]

er... pixie has either 4 or 6 la. It has no rhd(any race with 1 hd, that hd gets replaced by class level)

[Popinjay]

Okay, sounds good. I didn't understand the sorcerer VLs before.

I think I will go with the pixie.

I might still need help with the rules as I level up, but level 1 sounds simple enough. :)

Pop

[Archmage1]

Now, in terms of power... pixies are quite nifty...
But...
Anything with more than 2 la is generally a poor choice for casters.

However, with the right spells, your dc's will be high enough anyway.

Pixies tend to make great scouts.

Really, though, this is a discussion to have with your dm.

Can you be useful? Sure.
Are there more useful option? Sure.
But those are not the questions to ask.
Will you have fun?
And will others have fun?

[ngilop]

remember I am also willing to teak a sorcerers spell list for you as well, like for instacne that D&D wiki witch spells list you were looking at first.

[ngilop]

A spell list like this one.


0th — arcane mark, dancing lights, daze, detect magic, detect poison, ghost sound, mending, read magic, touch of fatigue

1st — animate rope, bane, cause fear, change self, charm person, command, comprehend languages, curse water, faerie fire, magic mouth, message, ray of enfeeblement, reduce person, remove fear, silent image, sleep, speak with animals, ventriloquism.

2nd — augury, blindness/deafness, calm emotions, command undead, create food and water, delay poison, enthrall, false life, hideous laughter, reduce animal, remove paralysis, scare, speak with animals, summon swarm, touch of idiocy, warp wood, whispering wind.

3rd — alter self, charm monster, clairvoyance/clairaudience, contagion, deep slumber, dispel magic, plant growth, ray of exhaustion, remove blindness/deafness, remove curse, remove disease, secret page, sepia snake sigil, shrink item, suggestion, tiny hut.

4th — baleful polymorph, bestow curse, blight, charm monster, command plants, confusion, fear, insect plague, neutralize poison, phantasmal killer, poison, mass reduce person.

5th — animal growth, awaken, crushing despair, dream, feeblemind, mirage arcana, repel vermin, symbol of pain, transmute rock to mud, transmute mud to rock, waves of fatigue.

6th — animate objects, greater command, commune with nature, eyebite, flesh to stone, stone to flesh, symbol of fear, wall of thorns.

7th — animal shapes, animate plants, creeping doom, insanity, power word stun, symbol of insanity, symbol of stunning, symbol of weakness, waves of exhaustion.

8th — antipathy, ,binding, control undead, horrid wilting, irresistible dance, mage's magnificent mansion, maze, symbol of death, sympathy, trap the soul.

9th — control plants, foresight, imprisonment, wail of the banshee.

[jedipotter]

I thought a pixie would be fun.

It's a bad idea. Pixie's just ruin games, unless it is a game of life long (20 years +) best friends.

The first problem is the power of the pixie. Lots of magical abilities, and worst of all permanent invisibility. The invisibility just about ruins the game by itself. So, the pixie can never be attacked, targeted or even really effected by the whole world. And sure it is great as the player to do anything, but it sucks to be the DM or another player.

And sure the DM can have like everyone in the world have See Invisibility....but few players will stand for that all the time. Even as little as two foes that can detect invisibility and a player will cry unfair.

But lets say you only want the ''funny and happy'' pixie thing. Well, that is the second thing that will ruin the game. Sure a joke or two is fun, but endless hours of the goofy pixie is not. And it is worse if you target the other players. But it is still bad if you target every NPC in the world. Few things can derail a game faster then four players trying to hunt down a lich and one player going to the market ''to paint all the red apples green..ahahahah".

So you might want to ask yourself....why do you want to play a pixie? You don't want to just to just play the stats, right? You want to play some type of idea, right? Well, break down the idea. What do you want? To just be a funny, little guy? Ok, then why ''must'' you be a pixie? Can you not be a funny halfling, for example? Or does your ''funny character'' need to be ''always invisible'' and ruin the game for everyone else.

[ngilop]

well to solve the alwasy invisible issue would be to just not turn on the invisibility.

[jedipotter]

well to solve the alwasy invisible issue would be to just not turn on the invisibility.

This is what makes Pixie's a bad race: The invisibility is always on. The pixie has to will it off. So unless they will it off all the time, they are invisible.

And it is such, such bad anime/cartoon to do the ''I have an awesome at will ability, but I won't use it all the time, except when it wold be cool or useful all the time but not like all all the time''.