Community thoughts on Seela race/paragon ( War of the burning Sky campaign )

[ciopo]

Greetings

I'd like to hear you awesome people thoughts/opinion on this race and paragon class , introduced on the EN publishing big campaign "War of the burning Sky"

LA 0
type is fey
medium size
30ft base land speed
Low Light vision
automatic languages: common, elvish, sylvan
+2CHA -2CON
+2 to listen and perform
+1 use of bardic music/day
SLA ghost sound 1/hour, message 1/hour
Fallow touch(su):unarmed deals 1 extra damage, continous contact deals 1d6 damage (flavor text is "A seela saps life with the touch of her bare flesh")
Glide(ex): ignore first 20ft of fall damage if conscious



the class is d6, 6+int Skill points, class skills are :
Balance(Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Spot (Wis), and Survival (Wis).

medium or low BAB progression (probably medium, but having only 2 levels it is not clear from the progression), high ref and will progression

1st level special features:
Personality(su) :A paragon Seela uses CHA mod instead of CON mod for the purpose of bonus HP, fort save and concentration checks, levels of paragon stacks with level of bard for access to bardic abilities, but not number of uses of bardic music/day

Fallow healing(su): damage done by the Fallow touch heals the Seela for an equal amount, max CHA mod*2/day

2nd level special features:
+2 CHA
Limited flight(ex): fly speed equal to land speed for rounds*CHA MOD/ten minutes,average manouverability, Glide increased to 60ft
Fallow Healing increases to a max of CHA mod*3/day
Longwalker(su): no CON damage form sogn of the form

Song of the form is a bardic performance specific to this campaign, the user take 2 CON ability damage on starting the song, the effect is making incorporeal listener corporeal for the duration


It is, of course, a campaign specific race.

for those familiar with the setting, Our main party just reached Seaquen and is faffing about there after saving the flaming forest ( party sorcerer diplomanced the indomitable in letting the Seela live, druid cloudbursted the dryad tree), DM asked us to prepare some 6th level characters for a side adventure that takes place near Gate pass after the events of Imnenodthar.
I'm considering a Seela paragon2/bard 4, feats I was thinking Force of personality (use CHA instead of WIS for most will saves), Charm the arrow( use CHA instead of DEX for bow attack roll, has fey prerequisite) and perhabs heart of the song from Eberron campaign setting (+1 to the bonus provided by the various bardic performances ), I'm purposelly avoiding Word of creation here, despite thematically fitting well with the race. It's unlikely this character will ever be used past the one-shot

[Fizban]

It's a -con/+cha race, which would compare poorly for optimization purposes if there were any other LA +0 +cha options that didn't penalize con, but if there are I've forgotten them. Spellscales are really gimmicky, but their gimmick is still essentially a whole menu of bonus feats and stacking skill bonuses, which is a lot more than Seela get- +1 bardic music per day is 1/4 of a feat. I find Glide speeds that don't turn into flight disingenuous, as the whole mechanic was essentially invented to allow LA +0 fliers- and this is a fey with fairy wings, not a monkey with glide flaps. Racial Paragon class? Don't care- and it's not great for one of those either.

The Song of Forms is indeed a campaign gimmick, one which I think may have had some influence on why their custom incorporeal monsters are so buff (watch yourself in the future, though you've evaded the worst use of them so far), despite it doing little to reduce their power and hurting you for the privilege. And you don't even have to be a Seela to learn it- if you do make a Seela Bard to use it, you're basically just guaranteeing that you won't be able to use your normal bardic music if you actually use your "racial" ability. If access to published spells that do the same thing is allowed, it's even more superfluous once those are available. Basically a perfect example of how bardic music is a bad mechanic for magical music if you ask me, and in a book that has the superior replacement for Inspire Courage mechanics along with a dedicated class for them.

All in all, it reminds me of a lot of 3rd party races, deliberately Different and then hamstrung in every direction. But without the excuse that they had no template, because there are plenty of mechanics in WotBS which are deliberately "serial numbers filed off" copies of 1st party stuff. The Seela didn't have to be a worse than Spellscale race that requires a racial paragon class, but someone liked racial paragon classes so. . .

As for the bonus adventure itself- it's probably best as a one-shot, and being a one-shot, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you want to try walking around as a Seela for a bit, go ahead.

[ciopo]

Thank you for the analysis.

I'm assuming you mean the commander class and it's associated mechanics, I indeed thought "isn't this basically "really not Inspire courage, I swear!"

[Fizban]

The Commander, yes. It has a better version of inspiration mechanics in their pre-use/auto-trigger feats, and the class itself is solid (and has "no they're totally not the Marshal's auras I swear!")