Cyntalan
2018-08-28, 11:17 AM
A friend of mine suggested it may be a good idea to bring this here.
So, in the campaign I've participated in, it's contained a bit of inside jokes revolving around me, a Mystic/Druid. At the time of this story's culmination, I became 7 CotM Druid/3 Immortal Mystic, in which my character has spent her entire life trying to find her inner bear. The entire purpose has been to make myself the best bear I could be.
And it's been glorious. Mystic has been fun complimenting the drawbacks of being a bear for the most part (Brute Force, Giant Growth and Bestial Form being fun as all hell), and while it's sad that I can't play around with my druid spells nearly as often as I'd like, I'm still running around with a CR 2 bear with 23 AC most of the time from L9 on. I eventually was going to be a flying bear too thanks to Bestial Form.
However, the DM I believe has made a mistake in his enjoyment of my character's silliness. You see, he wrote a sidequest of sorts that allowed me to unlock my True Form. Throughout the quest I gained the ability to once a week turn into a werebear, which was most enjoyable in and of itself. Sadly, the rest of my party felt that, in a day I did not attend, to take down the baddie that was helping me achieve this, and while I knew this was an inevitability due to the main storyline basically insisting we kill it, it was still disheartening to hear they did before I could achieve whatever it was my True Form was to be. I saw other druids getting their Wild Shape basically reversed, where they were naturally the animal and Wild Shaped into human form. I thought that was a neat concept considering I wanted to just always be a bear anyway.
However, the DM took pity on me, and the party found a bottle with my name on it (literally) from the guy. I had thought "YES! I get to do this after all!" and proceeded to quickly chug the bottle.
Now here's where stuff got really amusing to me.
After drinking, I was unsurprisingly taken out of the fight for the night. The same thing happened when I drank what it was to give me werebear. However, rather than just give me the reverse wild shape I was thinking I was getting, upon emerging from my furry cocoon, I was given a choice.
I could either get the reverse wild shape, or I could go for door number 2. Become, as he described it, an Awakened Bear. I would reroll my character, with base stats and abilities based on the 5e Dire Bear as found on dandwiki) (being a sentient, bipedal, talking bear with opposable thumbs), with the added bonus of being able to restructure my stat points as needed. The first 2 points taken out of that enormous 22 STR would count as 2 points in any other non-CON stat.
I was floored. I have just been given what amounts to a L10 respec with about 12 ability points MORE than when I started, and given gnarly natural weapons on top of that. Anything outside of Bard is pretty well in my grasp.
Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed with options. However, I know I must make good use of this, and I figure the only appropriate approach to this is to make him regret this idea.
I'd like to know if anyone has some opinions/insight into how best to make use of this. I do want to keep the sheer incredulity that my character has become, but a couple ideas I've thought about have been:
Fighter/Rogue: the sheer idea of this has amused me to no end. Being a giant ball of sneaky tooth and claw sounds hilarious to me, and I'd probably start outdamaging our rogue out of the box. Would probably shift my Wis to my Dex and otherwise leave it as is.
Bear Totem Barbarian: 'cause of course. The "Me Totem" Barbarian. Gigantic sack of meat and a lot of raged natural weapons. Not very versatile, but I'd probably end up being more of a presence than our Paladin that way.
CotM Druid: 'cause what else is better than being a bear? Being a bear that can be other bears.
CotM Druid/Immortal Mystic: just reroll the same as I was. 'cause flying bear. That becomes other flying bears.
Open Palm Monk: 'cause if all else fails and my bite couldn't grapple 'em, I can still send 'em flying - maybe down the line dip into Rogue for a couple levels and get the extra movement option.
Blade Warlock/Rogue: plays off similar from how I would with Mystic in that I could make use of flight and other buffing, but oh so much more damage via sneaky ball of tooth and claw.
I am open for suggestions, however. Do your worst. :belkar:
EDIT: I have been given the following notices from my DM:
All listed stats/AP/feats/skills listed for Dire Bear are now mine. This includes the 17 natural armor (cannot easily wear armor anyway), and the hit dice replace a given class's hit dice. For the purposes of an unarmored defense class perk, my base AC is 16 instead of 10 (thus giving me a 22 AC out of the box from any class that gives this).
Aside from necklace, all gear must be custom created for my form.
Not exactly opposable thumbs, but I am capable of holding objects and opening doors, so this also means any action that requires a dexterous hand instead of clumsy paw is a-ok ("but using bows and crossbows would be weird").
So, in the campaign I've participated in, it's contained a bit of inside jokes revolving around me, a Mystic/Druid. At the time of this story's culmination, I became 7 CotM Druid/3 Immortal Mystic, in which my character has spent her entire life trying to find her inner bear. The entire purpose has been to make myself the best bear I could be.
And it's been glorious. Mystic has been fun complimenting the drawbacks of being a bear for the most part (Brute Force, Giant Growth and Bestial Form being fun as all hell), and while it's sad that I can't play around with my druid spells nearly as often as I'd like, I'm still running around with a CR 2 bear with 23 AC most of the time from L9 on. I eventually was going to be a flying bear too thanks to Bestial Form.
However, the DM I believe has made a mistake in his enjoyment of my character's silliness. You see, he wrote a sidequest of sorts that allowed me to unlock my True Form. Throughout the quest I gained the ability to once a week turn into a werebear, which was most enjoyable in and of itself. Sadly, the rest of my party felt that, in a day I did not attend, to take down the baddie that was helping me achieve this, and while I knew this was an inevitability due to the main storyline basically insisting we kill it, it was still disheartening to hear they did before I could achieve whatever it was my True Form was to be. I saw other druids getting their Wild Shape basically reversed, where they were naturally the animal and Wild Shaped into human form. I thought that was a neat concept considering I wanted to just always be a bear anyway.
However, the DM took pity on me, and the party found a bottle with my name on it (literally) from the guy. I had thought "YES! I get to do this after all!" and proceeded to quickly chug the bottle.
Now here's where stuff got really amusing to me.
After drinking, I was unsurprisingly taken out of the fight for the night. The same thing happened when I drank what it was to give me werebear. However, rather than just give me the reverse wild shape I was thinking I was getting, upon emerging from my furry cocoon, I was given a choice.
I could either get the reverse wild shape, or I could go for door number 2. Become, as he described it, an Awakened Bear. I would reroll my character, with base stats and abilities based on the 5e Dire Bear as found on dandwiki) (being a sentient, bipedal, talking bear with opposable thumbs), with the added bonus of being able to restructure my stat points as needed. The first 2 points taken out of that enormous 22 STR would count as 2 points in any other non-CON stat.
I was floored. I have just been given what amounts to a L10 respec with about 12 ability points MORE than when I started, and given gnarly natural weapons on top of that. Anything outside of Bard is pretty well in my grasp.
Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed with options. However, I know I must make good use of this, and I figure the only appropriate approach to this is to make him regret this idea.
I'd like to know if anyone has some opinions/insight into how best to make use of this. I do want to keep the sheer incredulity that my character has become, but a couple ideas I've thought about have been:
Fighter/Rogue: the sheer idea of this has amused me to no end. Being a giant ball of sneaky tooth and claw sounds hilarious to me, and I'd probably start outdamaging our rogue out of the box. Would probably shift my Wis to my Dex and otherwise leave it as is.
Bear Totem Barbarian: 'cause of course. The "Me Totem" Barbarian. Gigantic sack of meat and a lot of raged natural weapons. Not very versatile, but I'd probably end up being more of a presence than our Paladin that way.
CotM Druid: 'cause what else is better than being a bear? Being a bear that can be other bears.
CotM Druid/Immortal Mystic: just reroll the same as I was. 'cause flying bear. That becomes other flying bears.
Open Palm Monk: 'cause if all else fails and my bite couldn't grapple 'em, I can still send 'em flying - maybe down the line dip into Rogue for a couple levels and get the extra movement option.
Blade Warlock/Rogue: plays off similar from how I would with Mystic in that I could make use of flight and other buffing, but oh so much more damage via sneaky ball of tooth and claw.
I am open for suggestions, however. Do your worst. :belkar:
EDIT: I have been given the following notices from my DM:
All listed stats/AP/feats/skills listed for Dire Bear are now mine. This includes the 17 natural armor (cannot easily wear armor anyway), and the hit dice replace a given class's hit dice. For the purposes of an unarmored defense class perk, my base AC is 16 instead of 10 (thus giving me a 22 AC out of the box from any class that gives this).
Aside from necklace, all gear must be custom created for my form.
Not exactly opposable thumbs, but I am capable of holding objects and opening doors, so this also means any action that requires a dexterous hand instead of clumsy paw is a-ok ("but using bows and crossbows would be weird").