Need help choosing Race

[Nosta]

I am in the process of creating my character for a game
and I Was given The Feral Template for Free.
and I have La Buy off up to +3. So I am a little curious as to what Race to play. Part of me is thinking Goliath cause of powerful build to help effect my feral Ability like improved Grab. Though I am curious if there is a better race that meets the parameters.


The Game is ECL 12

and we Get Two 18s Two 16s A 14 and a 10 for stats

after this I need to search for class(es) to >.<

[The Viscount]

Just to be clear, the special attacks gained from the feral template go off of racial HD, so if you want pounce, rake, or rend, you'll need to select something with that many HD to start.

That being said Pounce is easily picked up by a 1 level dip in Barbarian with the Spirit Lion Totem ACF.

Does that LA buyoff include templates as well, or only races? Lolth-touched and Mineral Warrior (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e) can help beef up physical stats.

Goliath would help with grappling, and is pretty nice. An alternative to consider is Half-Ogre from Races of Destiny. It's +2 LA, and comes with larger Str boost at the cost of int and cha, but the big draw is Large size, which means reach. If you apply Primordial Giant from Secrets of Xendrik to it, you get a less extreme stat distribution and one of three SLAs (invisibility purge, levitate, or invisibility) at-will.

In terms of classes, what role do you want to fulfill? If you want some simple charging at an enemy and hitting them for a fistful of dice, then Barbarian is clean and effective. If you want more options in a fight, one of the classes from ToB might be more your speed.

[TallerSpine]

Just to be clear, the special attacks gained from the feral template go off of racial HD, so if you want pounce, rake, or rend, you'll need to select something with that many HD to start.

That being said Pounce is easily picked up by a 1 level dip in Barbarian with the Spirit Lion Totem ACF.

Does that LA buyoff include templates as well, or only races? Lolth-touched and Mineral Warrior (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e) can help beef up physical stats.

Goliath would help with grappling, and is pretty nice. An alternative to consider is Half-Ogre from Races of Destiny. It's +2 LA, and comes with larger Str boost at the cost of int and cha, but the big draw is Large size, which means reach. If you apply Primordial Giant from Secrets of Xendrik to it, you get a less extreme stat distribution and one of three SLAs (invisibility purge, levitate, or invisibility) at-will.

In terms of classes, what role do you want to fulfill? If you want some simple charging at an enemy and hitting them for a fistful of dice, then Barbarian is clean and effective. If you want more options in a fight, one of the classes from ToB might be more your speed.

A half-ogre has no racial hit dice, so the caster level for the Primordial Giant's SLA's would be 0 (it does not specify minimum caster level 1). In other words, the Half-Ogre may not gain the SLA's (your DM would have to decide).

Unless you play by a strict reading of RAW that says that only humanoids with one hit die replace it when taking class levels. In that case, you would have one racial hit die for Giant and the rest would be class levels.

Here is the quote from the SRD:


Humanoids and Class Levels
Creatures with 1 or less HD replace their monster levels with their character levels. The monster loses the attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, skills, and feats granted by its 1 monster HD and gains the attack bonus, save bonuses, skills, feats, and other class abilities of a 1st-level character of the appropriate class.

Characters with more than 1 Hit Die because of their race do not get a feat for their first class level as members of the common races do, and they do not multiply the skill points for their first class level by four. Instead, they have already received a feat for their first Hit Die because of race, and they have already multiplied their racial skill points for their first Hit Die by four.

This was interpreted by WotC at one point in one of their articles (long since lost):


When a creature of the humanoid type with one racial Hit Die or fewer gains its first class level, the racial Hit Die is dropped in favor of the class Hit Die. Creatures of other types simply add the class Hit Die to their existing Hit Dice, even if they have only one racial Hit Die. (The text dealing with monsters as races in the Dungeon Master's Guide doesn't make this clear, but the text in the Monster Manual does; see page 290). If the creature has levels from other classes, the Hit Die from the new class is added to the creature's total Hit Dice.

Most DM's I know ignore WotC's weird ruling and say all races lose their one racial Hit Die, but again, a strict interpretation of the rules may say you keep it, in which case your SLA would have a CL1.

[Dagroth]

A half-ogre has no racial hit dice, so the caster level for the Primordial Giant's SLA's would be 0 (it does not specify minimum caster level 1). In other words, the Half-Ogre may not gain the SLA's (your DM would have to decide).

I believe Primordial says Caster Level = HD, not Racial HD.

Phrenic is a very nice template for +2 ECL. I second Mineral Warrior for +1 ECL.

A Primordial Half Ogre Mineral Warrior for +3 ECL is pretty powerful. Even more so with Feral.

Most GMs I know would say that the Feral special abilities key off HD (Level)... but you should check with your GM.

[TallerSpine]

I believe Primordial says Caster Level = HD, not Racial HD.

No, it says Racial HD. But, it does get an ability saying it uses all SLAs it has at +1 caster level (Magical Knack). So, your DM may say that the CL is one anyway.

[The Viscount]

With a spell like invisibility that lasts a minute and is usable at will, even a caster level of 1 from magical knack is sufficient to do most of what you need. There's no components to it, so you can refresh it to stay invisible.
I don't see how a DM could rule any way other than a caster level of 1 for a half-ogre. Caster level of 0 from HD +1 from knack is 1.

As for the bit about humanoids replacing the first HD, that's an interpretation based off of rules from the PHB before the introduction of playable races other than humanoids. Ignoring the question of the article's power to change rules, this would require us to ignore every single sample provided of nonhumanoid races. The older version of half-ogre presented in Savage Species, in the chart for HD says "by class." DMs ignore this ruling because it's not one with any sort of support, and isn't actually followed by the designers themselves.
The planetouched (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/planetouched.htm) are both first level warriors with 1 HD, and the same goes for the dromite (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/dromite.htm),
elan (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/elan.htm), and half-giant. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/halfGiant.htm)

[TallerSpine]

With a spell like invisibility that lasts a minute and is usable at will, even a caster level of 1 from magical knack is sufficient to do most of what you need. There's no components to it, so you can refresh it to stay invisible.
I don't see how a DM could rule any way other than a caster level of 1 for a half-ogre. Caster level of 0 from HD +1 from knack is 1.

Or, playing devil's advocate, you only have the SLA if you have at least one racial hit die. A caster level of zero does not exist, so you cannot even have the SLA for Magical knack to apply to it. Personally, I would rule as you suggest, but I certainly see the argument against it.

As far as the ruling about the racial hit die, I was merely pointing out the precedent for keeping the hit die if the OP's DM requires at least one racial hit die to possess the SLA at will.

[Dagroth]

Or, playing devil's advocate, you only have the SLA if you have at least one racial hit die. A caster level of zero does not exist, so you cannot even have the SLA for Magical knack to apply to it. Personally, I would rule as you suggest, but I certainly see the argument against it.

As far as the ruling about the racial hit die, I was merely pointing out the precedent for keeping the hit die if the OP's DM requires at least one racial hit die to possess the SLA at will.

Some races simply do not get Racial Hit Dice, but qualify for the templates that give abilities that scale based on Racial Hit Dice.

For Example... Half Giant does not get Racial Hit Dice, but they do qualify for Primordial.

Humans do not get Racial Hit Dice, but they do qualify for Feral.

Sure, a Half Giant could take levels in Giant... but a Human can't take levels in "Humanoid", because no such thing exists!

[The Viscount]

I'm not sure what you mean by no such thing existing for levels of humanoid. There are monsters, like the bugbear, that have more than 1 HD of humanoid. Are you referring to the fact that all humanoids advance by character class? That's something that I don't know of any explicit rule for, but every example seems to follow the trend.

Half-Giants cannot take levels in giant, though. Their advancement is by character class, not by HD.

[The_Jette]

I'm not sure what you mean by no such thing existing for levels of humanoid. There are monsters, like the bugbear, that have more than 1 HD of humanoid. Are you referring to the fact that all humanoids advance by character class? That's something that I don't know of any explicit rule for, but every example seems to follow the trend.

Half-Giants cannot take levels in giant, though. Their advancement is by character class, not by HD.

You are absolutely correct. There is such thing as humanoid racial hd. However, if a DM wants to rule that a character is advancing their HD for the purposes of a template, they can do that. And, all the people here have been saying is that he should ask his DM if that's how he rolls with it.

Also, point of interest, while Feral calls out "monster hit dice" for adding the Special Attacks, it only calls for increased Hit Dice to gain extra Special Qualities. So, RAW, he'd still get the increased Dark Vision and Fast Healing.