Has anyone successfully played the savage species progression Succubus?

[magicalmagicman]

Or any high ECL creature really. Just curious.

If it's doable I might give it a try.

edit: From level 1 I mean.

edit2: From level 1-20 I mean!

[Zanos]

Someone played it coming in to a level ~10 or so game I was in.

They basically just spammed suggestion and charm the entire time. The DM had an extremely loose interpretation of a "reasonable" suggestion though, since the succubus was still successfully suggesting that enemies surrender after we had executed every other enemy that had surrendered to us. YMMV as to how far you can get with it.

Also mandatory reminder not to be creepy with this. Someone rolling up a succubus is kind of a red flag IMO.

[magicalmagicman]

I meant from level 1.


Also mandatory reminder not to be creepy with this. Someone rolling up a succubus is kind of a red flag IMO.

Virtually all the cool outsiders I would like to play are LA:-, or doesn't have an official progression from Savage Species.

It's just an example on the top of my head, since there is another thread for Erinyes. I have no intention of being creepy lol. If anything I was thinking of using her like a half magic half warrior character. Maybe I should've said incubus. I think being "creepy" in d&d is stupid because the game is clearly designed to be a dungeon crawler, nothing else, not even political. My DM tried really hard to introduce noncombat aspects of the game, but it just failed hard in the end due to too many reasons.

[Zanos]

I meant from level 1.
Sure. It's got 8+ int skill points which is pretty good. Skill list would make a good scout, but not much of tremendous interest other than that. Claws only do 1d3 damage, but they're both primary so if you buy high strength you could still do okay in melee. It isn't proficient with any armor and only has a +1 natural armor bonus, although you could still wear armor with no ACP with no penalty like anybody else. If you could find a humanoid form with good natural armor or natural weapons for your alternate form, that would help the early game a lot. Bonus if it's also discrete, since that's obviously going to cause some problems also. SLAs start kicking in at level 2, but don't really have enough uses of the good ones to be reliable until level 4. At some point you're going to not be able to melee well if at all, since by the end of the progression you'll be behind 6 hit dice, so your BAB, saves, and HP will be crippled.


It's just an example on the top of my head, since there is another thread for Erinyes. I have no intention of being creepy lol. If anything I was thinking of using her like a half magic half warrior character. Maybe I should've said incubus. I think being "creepy" in d&d is stupid because the game is clearly designed to be a dungeon crawler, nothing else, not even political. My DM tried really hard to introduce noncombat aspects of the game, but it just failed hard in the end due to too many reasons.
I don't think it's particularly surprising that a playable sex demon attracts some players that aren't mature enough to be anywhere near that kind of thing.

[Gildedragon]

I generally recommend:
A) ditching the savage species classes
B) looking for a homebrew progression where ECL equals CR
C) adjust special abilities (such as Summoning) ad-hoc to work within the game. (This is usually already addressed by the homebrew class)

Because in all honesty a succubus without class levels (6HD, 6LA) v a lvl 12 wizard... Jeez curbstomp; heck a lvl 12 fighter or barbarian can probably curbstomp the succubus

[magicalmagicman]

Sure. It's got 8+ int skill points which is pretty good. Skill list would make a good scout, but not much of tremendous interest other than that. Claws only do 1d3 damage, but they're both primary so if you buy high strength you could still do okay in melee. It isn't proficient with any armor and only has a +1 natural armor bonus, although you could still wear armor with no ACP with no penalty like anybody else. If you could find a humanoid form with good natural armor or natural weapons for your alternate form, that would help the early game a lot. Bonus if it's also discrete, since that's obviously going to cause some problems also. SLAs start kicking in at level 2, but don't really have enough uses of the good ones to be reliable until level 4. At some point you're going to not be able to melee well if at all, since by the end of the progression you'll be behind 6 hit dice, so your BAB, saves, and HP will be crippled.

Haha, I meant from 1-20.

Being 6hd, 6 levels behind and therefore BAB, saves, and HP being crippled is precisely why I made this thread. Is it possible to not be a total deadweight like with item choices or whatnot? Like Normal + High OP = High Op, where as crippled + High Op = normal?


I generally recommend:
A) ditching the savage species classes
B) looking for a homebrew progression where ECL equals CR
C) adjust special abilities (such as Summoning) ad-hoc to work within the game. (This is usually already addressed by the homebrew class)

Because in all honesty a succubus without class levels (6HD, 6LA) v a lvl 12 wizard... Jeez curbstomp; heck a lvl 12 fighter or barbarian can probably curbstomp the succubus

Thanks for the suggestion but my table likes to stick with RAW : )

[Zanos]

Haha, I meant from 1-20.

Being 6hd, 6 levels behind and therefore BAB, saves, and HP being crippled is precisely why I made this thread. Is it possible to not be a total deadweight like with item choices or whatnot? Like Normal + High OP = High Op, where as crippled + High Op = normal?
What I said holds for more or less the entire progression. You have to finish the racial class before you can do anything else, and the way the LA is broken up is such that by the time you're falling behind in melee, your SLAs start becoming more viable. So you'll probably rely on melee for the first couple levels and then fall back on SLAs.

They're might be a way for feat and item choices to optimize that, but I don't think any more than any other natural attacker, which I don't have a ton of experience with.

[RoboEmperor]

What I said holds for more or less the entire progression. You have to finish the racial class before you can do anything else, and the way the LA is broken up is such that by the time you're falling behind in melee, your SLAs start becoming more viable. So you'll probably rely on melee for the first couple levels and then fall back on SLAs.

They're might be a way for feat and item choices to optimize that, but I don't think any more than any other natural attacker, which I don't have a ton of experience with.

If someone went an Ubercharger build, with or without mount, as the succubus, how well would that go?

[lylsyly]

I don't think it's particularly surprising that a playable sex demon attracts some players that aren't mature enough to be anywhere near that kind of thing.

You know, I don't actually post alot, and I never will be a great optimizer because we just don't play that way, and I have really only been doing 3.X for about a year so I do learn a lot just by reading threads, BUT ...

... was the above really necessary, especially since the first part of your post was right on the topic.

[Zanos]

You know, I don't actually post alot, and I never will be a great optimizer because we just don't play that way, and I have really only been doing 3.X for about a year so I do learn a lot just by reading threads, BUT ...

... was the above really necessary, especially since the first part of your post was right on the topic.
Considering I've had more problems than successes with it, yeah.


If someone went an Ubercharger build, with or without mount, as the succubus, how well would that go?
You have martial weapon proficiency. Grab a two-hander. You'll be a feat starved between power attack leap attack, you won't have as much BAB to power attack away and won't have iteratives, your HP will be low etc. etc, but you'll still do hilarious damage because of ubercharging.

[Malroth]

So how would succubus fare against a tiefling bard 12 with buyoff?

[RoboEmperor]

Considering I've had more problems than successes with it, yeah.


You have martial weapon proficiency. Grab a two-hander. You'll be a feat starved between power attack leap attack, you won't have as much BAB to power attack away and won't have iteratives, your HP will be low etc. etc, but you'll still do hilarious damage because of ubercharging.

You forgot shocktrooper, but the BAB is a problem since shocktrooper requires 6 BAB.

x2 power attack x3 leap attack = x6 damage, with 6 BAB that's at most 36 damage at level 10. I guess if you use a mount and a lance, that's 72 damage, more actually to factor in lance damage and double str bonus damage. That's not bad actually, but far from "ubercharging". You probably need to get wraith strike to hit anything though, but then you know, +9 natural AC should allow her to survive.

[Telonius]

Not an actual Succubus, but I entered this "fake succubus" build in a villainous competition a while back: Desideria (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19121436&postcount=65). The "Alterations" section has some options for if you need to remove the (very expensive) ritual of alignment. It could be adapted as a Tiefling Beguiler, especially if level buyoff is involved.

[manyslayer]

My wife played a trumpet archon from level 1 to 24 (so she actually had some class levels at the end). She was fairly effective but then we are generally fairly unoptimized in our play style (the other PCs were a dragonfire adept/scout and crusader).

As with so many other things, it is very group/DM dependent on how well such a character can fare.