Player needs unicorns in her life

[Tajerio]

I'm about to run Red Hand of Doom for a party of almost wholly newbie players, setting it in the Forgotten Realms. One of my players loves horses and their various mythical variants unto death, and really wants unicorns to be part of her character. As far as I can figure, there seem to be five ways to do that: be a unicorn, wild shape into a unicorn, polymorph into a unicorn, have a unicorn animal companion, or ride a unicorn. And I'm pretty sure Mielikki's going to be involved somehow.

My players aren't going to be able to manage much more than the core ruleset themselves, I don't think, but I'm happy to pull stuff from other sources to make their character concepts work.

What does the Playground think?

[Elderand]

Well, there's always beloved of Valarian from the book of exalted deeds

[johnbragg]

I think you could power down the SRD "unicorn" to SRD "horse", paint it white and stick a horn on it, and roll with it as her Animal Companion.

If, in a major upset, she's not playing a Druid, the Wild Cohort feat (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) lets her have an animal companion.

[The Insanity]

Healer base class from Miniatures Handbook gets a Unicorn companion, but at 8th level.
Beloved of Valarian (which should be okay to reflavor as Mielikki) prestige class also gives a Unicorn and can be entered at 8th level.

[Blackhawk748]

Paladin's Special Mount could totally be a Unicorn

[johnbragg]

Paladin's Special Mount could totally be a Unicorn

Wild Cohort at 1st, swap out the feat at 5th? That works.

[Blackhawk748]

Wild Cohort at 1st, swap out the feat at 5th? That works.

RHoD starts at 5th, so you dont even have to, though if i was playing from 1st, thats what id do.

[johnbragg]

RHoD starts at 5th, so you dont even have to, though if i was playing from 1st, thats what id do.

I was thinking of some other campaign. So PAladin, RAnger, Druid all work from the beginning. Caster with the Improved Familiar feat, maybe not by RAW but close enough.

[Tajerio]

Good stuff guys--thanks. Beloved of Valarian, with a few tweaks, looks like it'll be the way to go but I'll show her the thread, explain it, and see what she thinks.

[Aleolus]

If, for whatever reason, she decides to go with a Healer, may I suggest changing it from a preparatory caster (as the Cleric) to a spontaneous caster who knows all the spells on her class list (a la Warmage)? I feel that makes the class more playable

[Blackhawk748]

If, for whatever reason, she decides to go with a Healer, may I suggest changing it from a preparatory caster (as the Cleric) to a spontaneous caster who knows all the spells on her class list (a la Warmage)? I feel that makes the class more playable

I speak from experience. Making it a Spont Caster improves it greatly.

[DrMotives]

There's a 5 level PrC in dragon mag #307 called "white horn" available to CG females with mounted combat, the ride skill, and a note in their backstory that they've ridden a unicorn at least once in their life. They act like basic warriors with 2 good saves, and they grow a unicorn horn that can act as a natural weapon & use unicorn SLAs. Capstone is changing type into magical beast. Not at all powerful, but very fluffy.

[Tvtyrant]

Give it to her in exchange for a 900 GP donation to a charity. That is the cost of one as a slave, it seems fair.

[Sayt]

THe Leadership feat, may also work, as IIRC, Unicorns are intelligent?

[ATHATH]

I speak from experience. Making it a Spont Caster improves it greatly.
Actually, this might reduce its power. Spontaneous Casters don't normally get access to Sanctified Spells.

Can't Unicorns be cohorts?

[Keltest]

Heres a crazy though. She could just be friends with a Unicorn. You, the DM, can control it and make it run around doing unicorn stuff, but have it show up semi-frequently as long as the party doesn't offend it overmuch. They are, by my understanding, intelligent, if not notably so, and therefore can have motives beyond "eat grass and run around".

[eggynack]

Use a druid. They get all the unicorns. Beloved of valarian only gets like one unicorn. Use exalted wild shape to become a unicorn, use exalted companion to get a unicorn friend, use the spell valiant steed to get a third basically permanent unicorn, and then use summon nature's ally to get more unicorns. That gets you three permanent unicorns, and a stack of temporary unicorns. Plenty for any normally unicorn equipped character, but then you get to go really deep, with unicorn themed spells like alicorn lance (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20020719a), as well as the unicorn spells from complete mage, and there's just so much unicorn it's insane.

Could one have more unicorn? Sure, take a level of beloved on top of all that (assuming your unicorn stack doesn't interfere with the call unicorn ability's one unicorn provision). Should one have more unicorn? Probably not. That's so much unicorn, after all, and my figuring is that you should become better at the unicorn you have. After all, besides the complete mage unicorn spells, and maybe taking unicorn form over celestial animal or blink dog, this setup doesn't do anything remotely suboptimal in pursuit of perfect unicorn. I'd push towards animal companion optimization, cause that's the aspect most open to optimization. Toss on natural bond and companion spellbond and you've got a lot of additional unicorn potency. Full companion advancement is nice for that goal, and you really want to advance your spells so you can get unicorn summoning, celestial charger summoning, valiant steed use, and everything else as fast as possible. I suppose you could use halfling druid substitution levels to get a unicorn riding subtheme, but I don't really like those substitution levels, and they don't work too well with the unicorn form component anyway.