Gloura as a pc

[poorwhiteboy]

Hello all,
A player of mine has asked to be a gloura, the la 2 makes it seem like it's ment to be a playable race
Unfortunately we cant find any stat adjustments for it, if someone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

[MisterKaws]

Hello all,
A player of mine has asked to be a gloura, the la 2 makes it seem like it's ment to be a playable race
Unfortunately we cant find any stat adjustments for it, if someone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

Dex +10, Con +4, Wis +2, Cha +6. You just take the base stats and subtract 10 or 11, to get an even-numbered modifier. The stat distribution for most monsters is 10 10 10 11 11 11 before modifiers, so you just subtract that.

Gloura is one of the nicer playable monsters too, good choice. The starting ECL is fair for what it gives.

[poorwhiteboy]

Doesn't that seem a bit extreme for a la +2, I mean with the DR, free spells as a 7th lvl bard, flying, and cha to save and ac?
Forgive me but I find it hard to imagine that +22 worth of ability points would be given for a la+2
I mean a minotaur has +6 in total for ability points and has 1 racial hit die less as far as I can tell

[rrwoods]

It’s not extreme at all honestly. Two levels is a lot more than you might think it is. 7th level bard spells is bog standard — maybe even a little weak — for having 7 RHD, and you don’t get the bard class features to go with those.

EDIT: for comparison, consider a human bard 9. Remember those RHD are part of the deal.

[MisterKaws]

Doesn't that seem a bit extreme for a la +2, I mean with the DR, free spells as a 7th lvl bard, flying, and cha to save and ac?
Forgive me but I find it hard to imagine that +22 worth of ability points would be given for a la+2
I mean a minotaur has +6 in total for ability points and has 1 racial hit die less as far as I can tell

It's not just LA +2. It's +2 and 7 RHD. Plus Minotaur is horrible.

The Gloura is basically a Bard with flight(which at that level isn't that special), some boosts to defense, and the ability bonuses... Except the part where they get no Bardic Music until they take Bard levels, and even then it will always be 9 levels below other bards. I say it's a decent tradeoff. Slightly better than a Bard as a gish because of the potential with Snowflake Wardance, but nothing too absurd.

Unless your other players are horribly underpowered, it won't break your game. Maybe give them nice toys too :)

[poorwhiteboy]

If I may, the way I have the game set to run is you must pick a la +2 race, seems my player has found one. All racial HD are tossed out and you get la 2 for nothing my other players have chosen a suitable race where it lists the adjustments and dont come close to the gloura so the players are all starting at lvl 3. So gloura druid, drow cleric, and ogre shaman.

[Crake]

If I may, the way I have the game set to run is you must pick a la +2 race, seems my player has found one. All racial HD are forfeit and you get la 2 for nothing my other players have chosen a suitable race where it lists the adjustments and dont come close to the gloura

If you're the DM you may either want to reconsider that rule, or home a homebrew adjustment to remove some of it's abilities, probably starting with the bard casting. But more likely, i would just say, point the player toward half-fey, it's a +2 LA template, its strong, but nowhere near as broken as free +2 LA and ignoring the RHD on a gloura.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If I may, the way I have the game set to run is you must pick a la +2 race, seems my player has found one. All racial HD are forfeit and you get la 2 for nothing my other players have chosen a suitable race where it lists the adjustments and dont come close to the gloura

A +2 LA, 0 RHD race is ECL 2+class levels. A Gloura has 7 RHD and +2 LA, so it's ECL 9+class levels. If you're saying the Gloura at ECL 9+ is better than the other +2 LA races which are ECL 2+, then it's no surprise. Racial HD are not optional, and should never be made optional.

The Savage Progressions (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/sp) articles, and the ones found in Savage Species, detail how to gradually gain a high-ECL race/template by gradually gaining it over several levels. For this game, the group all gets a +2 LA, but any creatures that would normally have racial HD should still be forced to spend levels to gain those racial HD until they have the normal number. The Gloura would get one level of Bard spellcasting per level spent on Fey HD, and +14 worth of its ability score bonuses would be spread out among those seven racial HD. A Minotaur would need to spend six levels on Monstrous Humanoid, and it would likely start out medium size until it has three or four levels spent on those HD. Consider monsters with fewer than the normal number of racial HD as children or juveniles of that race.

[MisterKaws]

If I may, the way I have the game set to run is you must pick a la +2 race, seems my player has found one. All racial HD are tossed out and you get la 2 for nothing my other players have chosen a suitable race where it lists the adjustments and dont come close to the gloura so the players are all starting at lvl 3. So gloura druid, drow cleric, and ogre shaman.

Now that's information you didn't present before.

The Gloura is balanced as a level 9 monster race. At that level, it is a perfectly fine and balanced monster. At level 3? I don't even know how you're supposed to make an encounter for that. Anyway, You should probably balance it differently then, and do note that Incarnate Iron Colossus is also LA +0, with the only thing stopping it from turning in a complete mess of a playable race being the over 100HD.

[rrwoods]

A +2 LA, 0 RHD race is ECL 2+class levels. A Gloura has 7 RHD and +2 LA, so it's ECL 9+class levels. If you're saying the Gloura at ECL 9+ is better than the other +2 LA races which are ECL 2+, then it's no surprise. Racial HD are not optional, and should never be made optional.

The Savage Progressions (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/sp) articles, and the ones found in Savage Species, detail how to gradually gain a high-ECL race/template by gradually gaining it over several levels. For this game, the group all gets a +2 LA, but any creatures that would normally have racial HD should still be forced to spend levels to gain those racial HD until they have the normal number. The Gloura would get one level of Bard spellcasting per level spent on Fey HD, and +14 worth of its ability score bonuses would be spread out among those seven racial HD. A Minotaur would need to spend six levels on Monstrous Humanoid, and it would likely start out medium size until it has three or four levels spent on those HD. Consider monsters with fewer than the normal number of racial HD as children or juveniles of that race.
^^^^^^^^^^^ This right here, if your player wants the Gloura badly enough and you’re willing to play ball.

Though, given everyone is starting at LA+2, my preference would be to determine which piece of the Gloura’s kit I felt was budgeted there (the stat adjustments, honestly) and give it to them up front.

[KillianHawkeye]

If I may, the way I have the game set to run is you must pick a la +2 race, seems my player has found one. All racial HD are tossed out and you get la 2 for nothing my other players have chosen a suitable race where it lists the adjustments and dont come close to the gloura so the players are all starting at lvl 3. So gloura druid, drow cleric, and ogre shaman.

That's a bad idea.