Feywing

[ideasmith]

Feywing
Based on the popular idea of a fairy, as influenced by Disney’s Tinkerbell.
Note that this is a revision of my previous dweomerwing (found at http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?242944-Dweomerwing-3-5-Kindred), based on suggestions made on another website.

https://openclipart.org/download/221378/Fairy.svg


This artwork was found at https://openclipart.org/detail/221378/fairy and is public domain as indicated at https://openclipart.org/share.

Racial Traits
-6 Strength (minimum 1), +4 Dexterity, -2 Constitution (minimum 1), +2 Charisma
Fey ():
Tiny: As a Tiny creature, a Feywing gains a +2 size bonus to Armor Class, a +2 size bonus on attack rolls, a –8 size penalty on special attack (bull rushes, grapples, overruns, and trips) checks, and a +8 size bonus on Hide checks, but she uses smaller weapons than humans use, and her lifting and carrying limits are one-half of those of a Medium character. Furthermore, as a tiny creature, a Feywing has a default space of 2 and 1/2 feet and 0 feet of reach.
Feywing base land speed is 5 feet: Climb speed 5 feet
Sporadic Flight (Su) ): 20 feet (perfect). A feywing can fly at a speed of 20 feet (perfect maneuverability) for one round at at time. Once the feywing has done so, she can’t do so again until one minute later. (Note that Medium or Heavy Encumbrance will reduces flight speed in the same manner that it reduces ground speed.)
Featherlight (Su): A conscious feywing who is being perched on and/or being carried by an creature does not count against the creature’s encumbrance limits. Similarly, a conscious feywing who is perched on an object or surface is ignored when determining the amount of weight on that object or surface. They also fall as if under a feather fall spell
This ability may be turned on or off as a free or immediate action.
Low-Light Vision: A feywing can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
Aura (Su) : A feywing has a moderate aura of magic, discernable by detect magic and other such means. This assumes 2 hit dice from her racial HD. If her effective hit dice for this purpose are increased to 5 or higher, the aura becomes strong; if they are increased to 11 or higher, the aura becomes overwhelming; if they are decreased to 1, the aura becomes faint; if they are decreased to 0, there is no aura. Most class levels do not count towards this aura. She may choose the school of this aura, and may change the school as a free action.
Faerie Glow(Sp): As the 0th level spell Faerie Glow (see below), usable at will.
Light Eater: Feywings consume only a 20th as much food as a human to avoid starvation, only a 20th as much water as a human to avoid dehydration, and only a 20th as much air as a human to avoid suffocation.
Iron Vulnerability (Ex): A feywing who takes damage from a cold iron source suffers the following penalties until the end of her next round:

 She takes a -4 non-cumulative penalty to Dexterity (to a minimum of 1).
 Her supernatural ability to fly is suppressed for 1 round.
 Her featherlight, faerie glow, and spell boost abilities are suppressed for 1 round.
A feywing who actually wears cold iron (such as cold iron manacles) suffers these penalties for as long as the cold iron is worn.
Fragile (Ex): When a feywing takes damage that includes a Strength bonus, the damage is increased by an amount equal to half the Strength bonus. If such an attack uses a weapon (including an improvised weapon, but not a natural weapon or unarmed strike), it is further increased by half the weight of the weapon in pounds. A projectile weapon (such as a sling or mighty bow) uses the weight of the projectile for this purpose.
Spell Boost (Su): A feywing can boost a spell as a swift or immediate action. Once the feywing has done so, she can’t do so again until 5 minutes later. This boosts a single spell or spell-like ability, either one which the feywing is casting or one of which the dweomering is the target or one of the targets. A spell so boosted has its spell level increased by one (to a maximum of half the feywing’s total level, rounded up), and its caster level increased by two (to a maximum of the feywing’s total level).
Automatic Languages: Common and Sylvan.
Bonus Languages: Auran, Aquan, Terran, Gnome, Goblin, and Elven.
Racial Hit Die: A feywing’s fey levels provide her 2d6 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +1, and base saving throws of Fort +0, Reflex +3, and Will +3.
Racial Skills: A feywing’s fey levels give her skill points equal to 6 x (2+Int modifier). Her class skills are Concentration, Escape Artist, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Spot.
Racial Feats: A feywing’s fey levels give her one feat.
Favored Class: Sorcerer
Effective Character Level: 2

Vital Statistics
TABLE: FEYWING RANDOM STARTING AGES
AdulthoodSimpleModerateComplex [/th]
150 years+8d6+12d6+20d6

TABLE: FEYWING AGING EFFECTS
Middle Age1Old2Venerable3 Maximum Age [/th]
275 years415 years550 years4+5d% years

1 At middle age, −1 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
2 At old age, −2 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
3 At venerable age, −3 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
TABLE: FEYWING RANDOM HEIGHT AND WEIGHT
GenderBase HeightHeight ModifierBase WeightWeight Modifier
Female0’ 10”+1d34 lb × (1) lb.
Male0’ 10”+1d34 lb × (1) lb.


Faerie Glow
Evocation [Light]
Level: Drd 0
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Area: One creature or object
Duration: 1 minute
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
A pale glow surrounds and outlines the subjects. Outlined subjects shed light as candles. Outlined creatures do not benefit from the concealment normally provided by darkness (though a 1st-level or higher magical darkness effect functions normally), blur, displacement, invisibility, or similar effects. The light is too dim to have any special effect on undead or dark-dwelling creatures vulnerable to light. The faerie fire can be blue, green, or violet, according to your choice at the time of casting. The faerie glow does not cause any harm to the objects or creatures thus outlined.

Feywing Paragon
Race: Feywing
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d6.
Class Skills
The feywing paragon's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Escape Artist, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Spot.
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.


TABLE: THE FEYWING PARAGON
LevelBABFortRefWillSpecial
Spells per Day
1st+0+0+2+2
Strengthened aura
+1 level of existing class
2nd+1+0+3+3
Improved flight (1d4 rounds), improved spell boost
—
3rd+1+1+3+3
Improved flight (always on), share flight
+1 level of existing class


Class Features
All of the following are class features of the feywing paragon class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Feywing paragons gain no proficiencies with any weapons or armor.
Spells per Day: At 2nd and 3rd level, a feywing paragon gains caster level and new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class she belonged to before adding the level. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus metamagic or item creation feats, bard or assassin abilities, and so on). This essentially means that she adds the level of feywing paragon to the level in the spellcasting class, then determines spells per day, spells known, and caster level accordingly.
If a character had more than one spellcasting class before he became a feywing paragon, she must decide to which class she adds each level of human paragon. If a feywing paragon has no levels in a spellcasting class, this class feature has no effect.
Improved Spell Boost (Su): Starting at 1st level, a feywing paragon’s spell boost can increase the caster level by three, rather than 2. The other parameters of the ability are unchanged.
Strengthened Aura: Dweamerwing paragon levels count towards the strength of the feywing paragon’s aura.
Improved Flight (Su): At 2nd level, a feywing paragon’s sporadic flight can be used 1d4 rounds (rather than one minute) after last being used
At 3rd level, the feywing paragon has a flight speed of 20 with perfect maneuverability, although this flight is still a supernatural ability.

Share Flight (Su): A 3rd level feywing paragon who is able to cast spells can treat the following as a spell on the feywing paragon’s class spell list(s).
Share Flight
Level: See above 3
Components: V, S,
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 15 ft.
Area: Creatures and objects within a 15-ft.-radius burst
Duration: 1 hour./level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
For one round, all creatures and objects in the area glow as if affected by faerie fire.
Thereafter, all creatures in the area affected at the time of casting have a fly speed of 20 (good maneuverability) for 1 hour per caster level.

CHANGE LOG

2/13/2016 Pronoun Consistency Check
2/13/2016 Corrected ECL to 2 (Thank you, Debihuman.)
2/17/2015 Named Share Flight Pseudospell (Thank you, Debihuman.)
2/17/2015 Fixed Share Flight Duration (Thank you, Debihuman.)
2/17/2015 Added Feather Fall Ability to Featherlight (Thank you, Debihuman.)
2/17/2015 Reduced Range and Increased Area of Share Flight
2/17/2015 Added Encumbrance Reminder to Sporadic Flight (Thank you, Debihuman.)
2/17/2015 Halved Effects of Fragile (Thank you, Zaydos.)
2/17/2015 Multiplied Flight Frequency by 5 (Thank you, Zaydos, Debihuman.)
2/17/2015 Adjusted Feywing Paragon in Light of Above Changes

[Debihuman]

I think you mean LA +3 not effective levels; they measure different things. Race should have LA +1. In order to be a starting race, the minimum you can have is 3 not 1 in Strength. Flight absolutely stinks. At least allow them to fly for 1d4 rounds. The last item is missing key information. What exactly is being treated as a spell. It's name is missing.

Debby

[ideasmith]

I think you mean LA +3 not effective levels; they measure different things. Race should have LA +1. .
Intended LA is +0 and the ECL has been corrected to 2. (Thank you.) Someone on another site convinced me to use racial hit dice instead of LA.


In order to be a starting race, the minimum you can have is 3 not 1 in Strength. .
The DMG and the SRD both say that the minimum is 1. This is consistent with the Gnome and Halfling entries in the PH, which both specify a -2 Strength without specifying any minimum.


Flight absolutely stinks. At least allow them to fly for 1d4 rounds. .
Flight a low levels is something I am very cautious about, so I nerfed the flight as much as the concept allowed.


The last item is missing key information. What exactly is being treated as a spell. It's name is missing.
I haven’t thought of a name for it. Do you have any suggstions?

[Debihuman]

Intended LA is +0 and the ECL has been corrected to 2. (Thank you.) Someone on another site convinced me to use racial hit dice instead of LA. Racial HD are fine but it still has +1 LA because of its other abilities.



The DMG and the SRD both say that the minimum is 1. This is consistent with the Gnome and Halfling entries in the PH, which both specify a -2 Strength without specifying any minimum. Actually this: The minimum adjustment is 3 for intelligence, not strength. See page 11 of PH. However, I would never create a race with a Str 1 especially because you have to account for size adjustment to Str for equipment.

A Tiny creature with Str 1 can carry 1½ lbs. or less as a light load; 2-3 lbs. as a medium load, and 3½ to 5 lbs as a heavy load. Since these can't really fly, they probably can't even use sporadic flight if they carry even a light load (you should mention it). Items fitted for Tiny characters weigh 1/4 as much so an item that would weigh 6 lbs for a Medium character would weigh 1½ lbs for a Tiny character.


Flight a low levels is something I am very cautious about, so I nerfed the flight as much as the concept allowed.

Actually I think you nerfed it too much. I'd rather you gave it standard gliding than something it can only use once every 5 minutes. What if is higher than 20 feet? Would it just crash to the ground? That doesn't make sense for a creature with actual wings.

Gliding: A feywing can use its wings to glide, negating any damage from a fall of any height and allowing travel 20 feet horizontally for every 5 feet of descent. A feywing glides at a speed of 20 feet (poor maneuverability).


I haven’t thought of a name for it. Do you have any suggestions?

Why make up a new spell? It's just a rehash of a Faerie Fire spell.

[Zaydos]

I'm going to disagree that it's LA +1. I am going to agree though that the flight was over nerfed.

Let's acid test this (i.e. the thing Savage Species says to do to actually determine LA)

2 Fey Hit Dice and 1 level of Rogue

vs 3 levels of halfling rogue.

It gets +7 to hit (+1 BAB from Fey Hit Dice, +2 from size, +4 from Dex) which beats out the traditional rogue by 1 (+2 BAB +1 from size +3 Dex), though halflings tie with thrown weapons.

AC again it's winning by 2.

Damage: It gets a -3 compared to halfling, -6.5 with sneak attack.

HP: -3. But Fragile adds up quick, they take +15 or +16 (2 hander gets +1-1/2 strength would fragile add that again or just the +Str? What about with off-hand and secondary natural weapons?) damage from a level 1 orc warrior, at 3rd level they have 13 + Con x 3 hp (and -2 Con) so they're not just in 1 hit range from CR 1/2 orc warriors they're in 'I will be KO'd in one hit from them automatically' range (for a CR 3 creature Ogre goes from dealing 2d8+7 to 2d8+28, Dire Wolf goes from 1d8+10 to 1d8+17 or 1d8+20).

Saves +2 to Ref +1 to Will, -3 to Fort it comes out behind and with a -1 to Fort at 3rd level (Con penalty, probably comes out to a +0 total modifier but still). Halflings tie on saves vs fear.

Skills: -10 skill ranks.

Sporadic Flight: It's a benefit but not equal to Evasion for example, or Uncanny Dodge. It means you can get around some very specific obstacles but it's not really that useful.

Aura hurts, faerie glow helps but you need a way to see the target yourself.

Spell Boost helps... if you're a caster who is losing spell levels and gains no more than our hypothetical rogue and doesn't even really need the flight (heck at 9th level they have Greater Reduce Person if they want to be tiny and are a halfling). I mean I guess it could be used to get into Arcane Trickster with only 1 level of spellcasting, but I'm not sure that's an improvement anyway.

Overall if you remove Fragile they're probably LA 0 even if you made the flight something more standardized.

[ideasmith]

I’ve revised the feywing again. See the change log for details.


Racial HD are fine but it still has +1 LA because of its other abilities.
The dweomerwing was LA +2, no racial hit dice. I think that I’ve nerfed it enough to avoid needing to increase the ECL.


Actually this: The minimum adjustment is 3 for intelligence, not strength. See page 11 of PH. However, I would never create a race with a Str 1 especially because you have to account for size adjustment to Str for equipment.

A Tiny creature with Str 1 can carry 1½ lbs. or less as a light load; 2-3 lbs. as a medium load, and 3½ to 5 lbs as a heavy load. Since these can't really fly, they probably can't even use sporadic flight if they carry even a light load (you should mention it). Items fitted for Tiny characters weigh 1/4 as much so an item that would weigh 6 lbs for a Medium character would weigh 1½ lbs for a Tiny character.

The feywing’s equipment problems are appropriate to the concept and were taken account in determining the ECL.
Encumbrance has the same effect on flight that it has on ground speed (per the rules for movement modes in the MM). That is worth indicating in the description: Thanks for the suggestion.

Actually I think you nerfed it too much. I'd rather you gave it standard gliding than something it can only use once every 5 minutes. What if is higher than 20 feet? Would it just crash to the ground? That doesn't make sense for a creature with actual wings.

Gliding: A feywing can use its wings to glide, negating any damage from a fall of any height and allowing travel 20 feet horizontally for every 5 feet of descent. A feywing glides at a speed of 20 feet (poor maneuverability).
Flying some of the time is a better fit for the concept than flying some of the time. Needing help to get into the air just … doesn’t work.
Thanks for catching the falling problem. Have added feather fall capability to the featherlight ability.



Why make up a new spell? It's just a rehash of a Faerie Fire spell.
Faerie Fire does not provide flight. Tentatively named ‘share flight’.


I'm going to disagree that it's LA +1. I am going to agree though that the flight was over nerfed.

Let's acid test this (i.e. the thing Savage Species says to do to actually determine LA)

2 Fey Hit Dice and 1 level of Rogue

vs 3 levels of halfling rogue.

It gets +7 to hit (+1 BAB from Fey Hit Dice, +2 from size, +4 from Dex) which beats out the traditional rogue by 1 (+2 BAB +1 from size +3 Dex), though halflings tie with thrown weapons.

AC again it's winning by 2.

Damage: It gets a -3 compared to halfling, -6.5 with sneak attack.

HP: -3. But Fragile adds up quick, they take +15 or +16 (2 hander gets +1-1/2 strength would fragile add that again or just the +Str? What about with off-hand and secondary natural weapons?) damage from a level 1 orc warrior, at 3rd level they have 13 + Con x 3 hp (and -2 Con) so they're not just in 1 hit range from CR 1/2 orc warriors they're in 'I will be KO'd in one hit from them automatically' range (for a CR 3 creature Ogre goes from dealing 2d8+7 to 2d8+28, Dire Wolf goes from 1d8+10 to 1d8+17 or 1d8+20).

Saves +2 to Ref +1 to Will, -3 to Fort it comes out behind and with a -1 to Fort at 3rd level (Con penalty, probably comes out to a +0 total modifier but still). Halflings tie on saves vs fear.

Skills: -10 skill ranks.

Sporadic Flight: It's a benefit but not equal to Evasion for example, or Uncanny Dodge. It means you can get around some very specific obstacles but it's not really that useful.

Aura hurts, faerie glow helps but you need a way to see the target yourself.

Spell Boost helps... if you're a caster who is losing spell levels and gains no more than our hypothetical rogue and doesn't even really need the flight (heck at 9th level they have Greater Reduce Person if they want to be tiny and are a halfling). I mean I guess it could be used to get into Arcane Trickster with only 1 level of spellcasting, but I'm not sure that's an improvement anyway.

Overall if you remove Fragile they're probably LA 0 even if you made the flight something more standardized.
Informative analysis, though I wonder why initiative and movement speed weren’t considered. Fragile hurts far more than I realized, I’ll cut it in half to start with. I’m also –tentatively - multiplying the flight frequency by 5.
Could this be toned down enough to reduce the ECL to 1?