Playing an angel

[Invader]

What's the most cost effective way of playing an angel. I'm familiar with the MM angels but their hit die and LA are just to ridiculous to consider playing.

[Nihilarian]

Take a look at Savage Species.

Alternatively, you can play an Aasimar and pick angel themed classes.

Aasimar Racial Class (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a).
Aasimar/Half-Celestial Transition Class (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040319a).

[Red Fel]

As I recall, there is a Lesser Aasimar variant with a +0 LA. Not all that impressive, but technically there, and free.

If you want to juice it up, take an Aasimar with a Celestial Bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm#celestial) (Major), which isn't an LA but rather costs xp over the course of gameplay. You basically get a being born bearing distant traces of Celestial genetics, whose Celestial ancestry becomes more and more manifest as he levels.

[Urpriest]

As always with this sort of question, it depends entirely on what you mean by "play an angel". You need to specify that, since there is no obvious meaning that we can assume.

[Invader]

Actually the savage progression looks pretty good. You give up 3 levels but it looks like you get a lot of the flavor of an angel.

I guess I'd be looking for a way of playing the typical kind of celestial agent of a good god. Preferably something as strong as the angels listed but at a reasonable cost.

[Malimar]

I could have sworn there was a decent archon or something without too much LA or RHD, and without any of that silly animal fluff or anything, in one of the later books. I was thinking it was Justice Archon (MM4), but no, that's got 10HD and LA+5.

Movanic Devas (FF) are 6HD, but no listed LA, so you'd have to get your DM to assign an LA to them. (And if you're going to do that, you could just go and draw up a monster class for Justice Archon or Movanic Deva according to the SS rules.)

[Runestar]

Actually, if you go with the savage species monster progressions, the various angel classes (astral deva, ghaele, trumpet archon) are actually pretty strong and fun to play at lower levels. This is because the designers front-loaded many of the outsider HD and special abilities to aid with survivability. This means full bab and rogue-like skill points. The only downside I can see is a lack of armour proficiency.

For example, I believe the ghaele archon gets full HD progression for the first 5 lvs, in addition to spell casting progression and SLAs. So up to lv14, his spell casting capabilities is every bit as powerful as a cleric of his level. Then at 8th lv, you get cool powers like aid and cure-light-wounds at will, so you are a pretty effective healer.

It's only at the later levels, when more of the LA starts weighing in, that your character starts to feel weaker and more ineffectual. But if you know that say, your campaign is going to wrap up at around lv10+, then the drawback is moot anyways.

[Phelix-Mu]

There are some other devas in um...Fiend Folio. Monadic and movanic, I think. Movanic might be more playable, but not really sure. I used one and made a badass npc, but that was clearly my purview as DM. In any case, it gives you more selection to choose from.

[Jergmo]

Protectar
Miniatures Handbook, pg. 66-67

2 RHD
+3 LA, has wings.
Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Wis +2, Cha +4

A few minor magical abilities...

[Fax Celestis]

I could have sworn there was a decent archon or something without too much LA or RHD, and without any of that silly animal fluff or anything, in one of the later books. I was thinking it was Justice Archon (MM4), but no, that's got 10HD and LA+5.

Anger of Angels is a third party book with some ECL 4-5 archons in it.

[Deaxsa]

not an angel, but isn't there a glowy outsider with an unattached head? who make excellent clerics? i think they are called luminar or somesuch.

[Malimar]

not an angel, but isn't there a glowy outsider with an unattached head? who make excellent clerics? i think they are called luminar or somesuch.

Lumi, from Monster Manual III. 2HD, LA+2. Not terrible.

[Invader]

Protectar
Miniatures Handbook, pg. 66-67

2 RHD
+3 LA, has wings.
Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Wis +2, Cha +4

A few minor magical abilities...

That's better that the MM but they only have tongues at will and cure light 3/day at ECL of 5 that's still pretty steep.

[Invader]

Lumi seem like they could be fun to play in certain builds.

[Yogibear41]

There are feats in, races of faerun I believe that can give an aasimar wings.

[Ruethgar]

Protector- +1 LA Outsider, +1 LA Stats, +1 LA Wings. Steep but somewhat accurate to Savage Species.

I would also suggest Lesser Aasimar. If the DM lets you pick your wings, Unseelie Fey can get you bird wings, the evil bit can be worked around with a good backstory. I'm not sure about any Aasimar feats for wings, though it wouldn't be unreasonable to make one similar to Dragon Wings for outsiders and lesser outsiders. The Priest and Cleric are obvious choices for class, Paladin could benefit from the Unseelie Cha boost and Crusaders are always good. There is some support for Celestial Sorcerers, but it pales in compare to Dragons.

What is it you want from an angel?

[DMVerdandi]

Lesser aasimar with celestial bloodline and outsider wings.

Progress it as an Archivist. Spells out the yin-yang, prepared casting, divine. It's all good.
Quests could be searching out mysteries and spells to from a compulsion to do holy acts, and perhaps from a deity directly.

[classy one]

I've ran an all upper planes campaign before. The HD and LA didn't really matter since almost everything was just as high. Basically level 15 was the new level one and my players picked classes to put on top of it. If everything you are fighting is ECL 15+ then it's fairly easy.
There was a AD&D book that also had the progression/evolution table for archons and assimons. So once you hit say the max HD for one you can promote it to an even higher form. I think the book was called Warriors of Heaven or something. Great book if you are planning on playing any celestial.

[atemu1234]

I homebrew an entire campaign setting to let me make a angel character. In retrospect it was a lot of problems for a small benefit, now that I'm the DM and that character is a seventieth level character who now sits in a library in a city owned by an eighteith level dwarf fighter pc run by another player. I wound up saying the original angels were just essentially servants and constructs, made by the deities to do a specific job, but my character was from an actual race, family bits and all. In a way I recommend it, it gives you a lot of creative freedom.

[Invader]

I homebrew an entire campaign setting to let me make a angel character. In retrospect it was a lot of problems for a small benefit, now that I'm the DM and that character is a seventieth level character who now sits in a library in a city owned by an eighteith level dwarf fighter pc run by another player. I wound up saying the original angels were just essentially servants and constructs, made by the deities to do a specific job, but my character was from an actual race, family bits and all. In a way I recommend it, it gives you a lot of creative freedom.

Unfortuantely I'd say that's a fairly unreasonable solution :smallconfused: