Fuzzy wittle wizard bunny - a character concept

[Spore]

Greetings playground,

there are several restrictions onto which templates, races and feats can be taken but what about some kind of backfired accident? Particularly I am interested in the most innocent of wizard backstories: The misfired spell.

Basically I want to play a spellcasting animal with wizard levels. How do you make this rules legal while also making the physical change permanent enough for even an experienced wizard to not be able to break it? What is the fluff (HA!) I aim for?


Oliver was always a sloppy student of the arcane arts. He estimated amounts of magical ingredients, slurred the words of power and instead of practicing his art, he slept on the academy campus. Until one day his spell backfired miserably turning him into some kind of bunny.

http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/watson.jpg

Normally this would be the introduction to one of the world's most cliché sidequests, but not here. If it only weren't for the following problems:
1) RAW a bunny can't vocalize spells, nor could it make the necessary gestures. You could refluff Natural Spell for arcane classes but is there a 100% RAW way?
2) If it comes to higher level equipment, I gotta have to have a robe. And a wizard hat, maybe a monocle. Is there a RAW way to stop my magical mammal from using "Create Wondrous Item"?
3) How would you produce a powerful enough (baleful) polymorph spell to turn you into a wizard but lack the power (of dispel magic or similar) to break said enchantment? Are there ways to produce an enchantment powerful enough for the character being forced to exist several levels as bunny?
[4) How would you write a characteristic that keeps his power to transform back secret because he LOVES BEING A FUZZY WUZZY BUNNY?!]
5) It's a terrible choice optimizationwise but what's your stance on a tiny wizard hat for bunnies without which the bunny can't cast his spells?

My group is PF only (with the core line of books) but if there is an exact feat or rule from 3.5 I can get I would also be thankful.

[jjcrpntr]

Greetings playground,

there are several restrictions onto whic5h templates, races and feats can be taken but what about some kind of backfired accident? Particularly I am interested in the most innocent of wizard backstories: The misfired spell.

Basically I want to play a spellcasting animal with wizard levels. How do you make this rules legal while also making the physical change permanent enough for even an experienced wizard to not be able to break it? What is the fluff (HA!) I aim for?



http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/watson.jpg

Normally this would be the introduction to one of the world's most cliché sidequests, but not here. If it only weren't for the following problems:
1) RAW a bunny can't vocalize spells, nor could it make the necessary gestures. You could refluff Natural Spell for arcane classes but is there a 100% RAW way?
2) If it comes to higher level equipment, I gotta have to have a robe. And a wizard hat, maybe a monocle. Is there a RAW way to stop my magical mammal from using "Create Wondrous Item"?
3) How would you produce a powerful enough (baleful) polymorph spell to turn you into a wizard but lack the power (of dispel magic or similar) to break said enchantment? Are there ways to produce an enchantment powerful enough for the character being forced to exist several levels as bunny?
[4) How would you write a characteristic that keeps his power to transform back secret because he LOVES BEING A FUZZY WUZZY BUNNY?!]
5) It's a terrible choice optimizationwise but what's your stance on a tiny wizard hat for bunnies without which the bunny can't cast his spells?

My group is PF only (with the core line of books) but if there is an exact feat or rule from 3.5 I can get I would also be thankful.

I'd just home brew stuff. The tiny hat is what gives him the arcane version of natural spell. As for stopping the breaking of said enchantment, I look to final fantasy 5 when the twins turned themselves to stone. Because you cast the spell and you actually like it this way you are able to resist attempts to reverse it against your will from any but a deity.

[Segev]

There's this template/race/thing in the d20 PFSRD: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/manimal

I'm not sure what source it's from; it might be third-party. That's a result of a google search.

Alternatively, you could re-fluff the gnome race. Maybe trade out the bonus to smelling for a bonus to hearing-related perception. Either accept being Small rather than Tiny, or see if your GM will let you be Tiny (maybe in return for giving up one or more other racial powers).

The Advanced Race Guide has rules for constructing races, too. I don't like it because there's no actual way to measure how many "Race Points" a given character should have (the closest it comes being adjusting the entire party's effective party level, not actually adjusting the PC's relative level compared to the rest of the party...which sort-of penalizes those who don't have the higher RP total by making them EVEN WEAKER compared to "even level" challenges), but it's still there for making races.

[Spore]

The tiny hat is what gives him the arcane version of natural spell.


I guess this is the most elegant way of working in actually using spells. Now for that pesky polymorph


There's this template/race/thing in the d20 PFSRD: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/manimal


The problem is that this template makes a human(oid) out of an animal. By RAW it's intelligence is capped on 10.

I would want this guy to be a transmuter himself (so he will be using transformations) but he will be content with being a bunny. If a standard baleful polymorphed creature would be target of another polymorph effect and this effect would end, "should" the bunny revert to its human form?

The other choice would be illusionist in order to "look more like a human", with casting Disguise Self and all that.

[avr]

The Lepidstadt Shifter exploit (Advanced Class Origins) lets an arcanist cast a spell while under a polymorph spell, not excluding hostile spells like Baleful Polymorph. It does cost an arcane reservoir point each time though. Either you need to chow down on scrolls each day using Consume Magic Items (or livestock or something if you're a twilight sage) or you need to homebrew something to reduce the cost.

Edit: if it's the wizard class exactly that you want then exploiter wizards are a thing of course.

[Miscast_Mage]

An alternative to Wizard could be Psion; you don't require vocal or somatic components to use powers, and the telepathy powers help with communicating with party members/NPCs. I'm currently trying to build a Psion cat at the moment myself who, funny enough, can actually be quite the diplomat/charmer when he can communicate with people.

[Spore]

The Lepidstadt Shifter exploit (Advanced Class Origins) lets an arcanist cast a spell while under a polymorph spell, not excluding hostile spells like Baleful Polymorph. It does cost an arcane reservoir point each time though. Either you need to chow down on scrolls each day using Consume Magic Items (or livestock or something if you're a twilight sage) or you need to homebrew something to reduce the cost.

This approach is expensive but it would incentivise an high Cha, medium Int Arcanist, using exploits and the arcane pool for combat and crafting scrolls to nibble on, supporting the group (2-3 spells and then watch the party rock out) and it would give the high Charisma I want to give him a purpose.

The Twilight sage would ride into battle on a cow and then go all Rabbit of Caerbannog on it.


An alternative to Wizard could be Psion; you don't require vocal or somatic components to use powers, and the telepathy powers help with communicating with party members/NPCs. I'm currently trying to build a Psion cat at the moment myself who, funny enough, can actually be quite the diplomat/charmer when he can communicate with people.

A levitating cat with glowing laser eyes that tries to kill you. But psionics are not part of our settings sadly =/

[avr]

On the unremovability bit - there are curses which are hard to remove (e.g. Major curse, remove curse caster level check DC = save DC+5 to remove, or greater bestow curse, requires at least break enchantment, or some tomb curses which require wish/miracle). Exactly how a slacker got so terribly cursed I leave to your imagination.

[Spore]

On the unremovability bit - there are curses which are hard to remove (e.g. Major curse, remove curse caster level check DC = save DC+5 to remove, or greater bestow curse, requires at least break enchantment, or some tomb curses which require wish/miracle). Exactly how a slacker got so terribly cursed I leave to your imagination.

The backstory grows as we speak. Maybe he wanted to get to magical prowess without learning. Opening forbidden tomes and whatnot. And well, ancient forbidden tomes are often cursed. Perhaps his master even tried to help him but could only alter the curse to change his appearance from a despicable worm or slug to a more fluffy animal.

[SimonMoon6]

I guess this is the most elegant way of working in actually using spells. Now for that pesky polymorph

The problem is that this template makes a human(oid) out of an animal. By RAW it's intelligence is capped on 10.

I would want this guy to be a transmuter himself (so he will be using transformations) but he will be content with being a bunny.

Well, for magical experiment gone awry, assume he was working on trying to get an arcane version of "true mindswitch" and got true mindswitched with the anthro bunny that also got created in the experiment. And then his human body died, leaving him in the bunny body.

[Vhaidara]

I would make it a proto-tibbit. Tibbits are cats that turn into people who were supposedly the descendents of wizard familiars.

So make a rabbit that used to be the familiar to an epic wizard. someone who did a lot of familiar buffing. Eventually, some of the magic stuck, and the rabbit became a wizard in its own right. Then the wizard decided to get a puppy by taking Improved Familiar, abandoning the now intelligent rabbit.

[Red Fel]

Normally this would be the introduction to one of the world's most cliché sidequests, but not here. If it only weren't for the following problems:
1) RAW a bunny can't vocalize spells, nor could it make the necessary gestures. You could refluff Natural Spell for arcane classes but is there a 100% RAW way?

I know of no PF equivalent, but Savage Species (which was 3.0) had Surrogate Spellcasting, allowing a non-humanoid to substitute its native sounds and gestures for human speech and gestures, for spellcasting purposes. If the DM lets you proceed with this concept, trading away a precious feat to be able to use your class features isn't unreasonable. And unlike Silent or Still Spell, you're not obscuring your casting; you're just squeaking and waving your paws madly. It's pretty conspicuous.


2) If it comes to higher level equipment, I gotta have to have a robe. And a wizard hat, maybe a monocle. Is there a RAW way to stop my magical mammal from using "Create Wondrous Item"?

Crafting Wondrous Items simply requires having the requisite CL and feat, and a skill check. Note that the absence of thumbs might result in a substantial penalty to that skill check - ask your DM.


3) How would you produce a powerful enough (baleful) polymorph spell to turn you into a wizard but lack the power (of dispel magic or similar) to break said enchantment? Are there ways to produce an enchantment powerful enough for the character being forced to exist several levels as bunny?

DM fiat. Basically, it would have to be a spell that fundamentally changes the creature, down to the core, including Type. Given that there are spells that can do that (e.g. Polymorph Any Object (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/polymorph-any-object), although it doesn't specify a type change), it means both that the concept isn't too far-fetched, and that high enough level magic can break it. Of course, that's true of everything where high-level magic is concerned.


[4) How would you write a characteristic that keeps his power to transform back secret because he LOVES BEING A FUZZY WUZZY BUNNY?!]

As in, an actual mechanical characteristic? Or a conceptual one? Conceptually, consider the character of Ryouga Hibiki, aka P-Chan, from Ranma 1/2. Although he loathes turning into an adorable pig (unlike your character), he relishes the fact that being P-Chan (his pig form) is the only way for him to be close to Akane, on whom he has a crush, and who absolutely adores the little piglet. Take that latter characteristic and run with it - he loves the attention being a floofy bunny gets him.

If a mechanical characteristic, you could make it a Race Trait (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/race-traits) (not a Racial Trait, terminology is annoying): Fuzzy Wuzzy Bunny: You love being treated like an adorable animal, and use your appearance to your advantage. Gain a +1 trait bonus to Diplomacy checks when employing fluffy cuteness.


5) It's a terrible choice optimizationwise but what's your stance on a tiny wizard hat for bunnies without which the bunny can't cast his spells?

Ask your DM.

[Spore]

I would make it a proto-tibbit. Tibbits are cats that turn into people who were supposedly the descendents of wizard familiars.

That's a good idea too. Having had sentience for quite a while (how is age working for familiars anyway?), being tossed aside for something like a Silvanshee or similar. What happens with poor rejected familiars once the wizard takes improved familiar? Huh? HUH? :D


Or a conceptual one? Conceptually, consider the character of Ryouga Hibiki, aka P-Chan, from Ranma 1/2. Although he loathes turning into an adorable pig (unlike your character), he relishes the fact that being P-Chan (his pig form) is the only way for him to be close to Akane, on whom he has a crush, and who absolutely adores the little piglet. Take that latter characteristic and run with it - he loves the attention being a floofy bunny gets him..

I wanted an conceptual one. And Ryougas usage of his animal form is a good example of what I try to convey in terms of motivation.