Solid races/templates/etc. for mundanes that lets you still look/act "normal"?

[47948201]

I get it, it's fun to be a permanently enlarged half-minotaur mineral warrior lesser aasimar paladin, wading into the thick of battle knowing none can stand up to your sword arm or overcome your tremendous defenses. Or maybe a Lolth-touched white dragonspawn human warblade with the troll blooded and (Flame's Blessing) martial stance feats, swooping at high speed to strike for massive damage while being practically immortal.

But sometimes you don't want to be some 20-foot-tall monster minotaur with rocky skin. Sometimes you don't want the massive roleplay implications of being Lolth-touched, or a template from Dragonlance plus a feat that requires your character be from Greyhawk.

This is pretty subjective, but what's a reasonably "safe" sort of creature, that can look and act at least close to like a "normal" fantasy adventurer, while still having a bit more fighting power than "literally just a human"? Half-dragon on a core race is... Not the best use of such a huge LA (especially on a medium creature) but it's not terrible, and apparently it is possible to be half-dragon without looking the least bit draconic. But can we do better?

[Doctor Despair]

It's tough to give solid suggestions based off of that. There are tons of templates that don't significantly change your appearance. The same goes for non-monstrous-looking races. I suppose I'll start by saying that Changeling has a ton of fun options for builds, and will always look exactly how you want it to look no matter what templates you apply.

[47948201]

There are templates, for sure, but I know of very few that don't significantly impact appearance or personality which are worth even half their printed level adjustments.

Changelings help a lot, yeah. Basically any template that only affects appearance but doesn't change size can be covered up by them. But again, of the ones I've seen, there aren't a lot that give more to your mundane fighting ability than just grabbing another class level. That's not a bad thing, mind. But I'm here wondering if there are good-enough-to-warrant-using alternatives to the in-universe flavor that a character with all class levels but no HRD or LA has, the "I'm not strong because I'm strong, I'm strong because I studied the blade"

[Doctor Despair]

So you want a STRONG template with level adjustment that doesn't show on the outside? Look no further than the Phrenic template. LA +2, no outside changes, but one of the strongest templates in the game.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The Ghost savage progression is fantastic on the right build. One level gets you incorporeality, etherealness, Weapon Finesse for free with every weapon as part of those, bonus to AC, and a perfect fly speed. The second level gives you a cool power at-will; one particularly great use of this is at-will telekinesis going into Master of the Unseen Hand. And the third level gives you an ever-increasing chance to come back automatically after being destroyed. You're a bit see-through, and your personality and memories may get warped anywhere from a little to a lot, but aside from that you're still basically like you were before death.

For one step further, if you can get yourself hit with the haunt shift spell (or just ask your DM if you can become a haunt shift ghost instead of a regular one) you get all sorts of cool abilities; just make sure you're haunting something mobile and ideally capable of relatively normal interactions, like a suit of armor. Or a sailing ship (animate the figurehead).

[Saintheart]

Lycanthrope? You can act completely normal, and then quite literally turn into a beast for combat. DR 10/silver ain't anything to sniff at, particularly when playing at lower levels.

[Maat Mons]

I don't know if Phrenic counts as a template "for a mundane." The template is good because it makes you a spellcaster-lite. It's sort of a mundane-to-spellcaster conversion template. I'd think we'd be looking for more of a mundane-to-better-mundane template.

If we rule out things that make you less mundane, that mostly only leaves things that give you bigger numbers. Most of the people responsible for assigning LA were terrified of letting players have big numbers. And at higher levels, you can buy a Skin of the Proteus to get big numbers regardless of your race.

On the topic of things with alternate form, shinom naga are humanoid (but a little scaly) from the waist up. And females can transform their lower-portions from giant snake tails into (still a little scaly) legs. Greensnakes are +1 LA, and have 1 racial HD that gets traded for their first class level. They're mostly not that impressive, +2 Str, +4 Dex, +4 Con, +2 Int, +2 Wis, and innate poison that you can apply to weapons, but have no natural attack to deliver. If you can convince your fellow players to do an all-shinomen-naga party, you get 30-foot telepathy, and no one is flanked or flat-footed unless everyone is. … Yeah, this doesn't feel like a great sales pitch.

Constrictor shinomen naga are huge size with 4 HD. And they're +4 LA if you don't use the OA update in Dragon 318. So, at ECL 8, you can have the ability to switch between a medium form of humanoid shape, and a huge form with the lower body of a snake. … Though by ECL 8, you could be using Expansion to become huge without having to halve your HD.

If you do use the Dragon magazine update, chameleon and asp shinomen naga are +2 LA. … But +2 LA and some racial HD for the ability to change between a normal-ish medium form and weird-looking large form is just kind of off-brand lycanthropy.

[Particle_Man]

Wait you can have half-dragon without looking the least bit draconian? Well that makes my silver brow human (with disguise as a permanent class skill to cover up any non-mundane features) seem a little *too* mundane for you.

[Troacctid]

Quasilycanthrope is +1 LA for DR 10/silver, and it gives you the ability to do minor cosmetic shapeshifting to look like a particular animal (e.g. cat ears and a tail). That's enough to get you into warshaper if nothing else.


On the topic of things with alternate form, shinom naga are humanoid (but a little scaly) from the waist up. And females can transform their lower-portions from giant snake tails into (still a little scaly) legs. Greensnakes are +1 LA, and have 1 racial HD that gets traded for their first class level. They're mostly not that impressive, +2 Str, +4 Dex, +4 Con, +2 Int, +2 Wis, and innate poison that you can apply to weapons, but have no natural attack to deliver. If you can convince your fellow players to do an all-shinomen-naga party, you get 30-foot telepathy, and no one is flanked or flat-footed unless everyone is. … Yeah, this doesn't feel like a great sales pitch.
Greensnake stat adjustments are +2 Str, +4 Dex. They're basically the snake version of catfolk. Not sure where you got those other numbers.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Get a Hat of Disguise, or the ability to cast Alter Self, or put all those silly templates on a Changeling.

Or play something that doesn't appear mundane, but is definitely socially acceptable, like an adamantine dragon (Dragonborn Warforged with Adamantine Body) or similar.

[Maat Mons]

The statblock in Oriental Adventures says a Greensnake has Str 12, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 11. And unless I'm mistaken, OA is statting it out as a monster with no class levels or ability score customization. It's just got 1 humanoid racial hit die and not even the non-elite array for ability scores. So that makes it's racial modifiers just listed stats -10 or -11.

It is true that the Dragon magazine update for Oriental Adventures changed some things. It changed it to an Expert with the non-elite array. It changed the final stats to Str 10, Dex 14, Con 9, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 13. And from how it says the non-elite array was distributed, we can tell the racial modifiers are +2 Str and +4 Dex.

Anyway, if you're using the update in Dragon, yeah, the ability score bonuses are much less than I listed. But I wasn't figuring that in except in the places where specifically mentioned it.

[Troacctid]

Anyway, if you're using the update in Dragon, yeah, the ability score bonuses are much less than I listed. But I wasn't figuring that in except in the places where specifically mentioned it.
How did you get +1 LA without using the update? 🤔

[Maat Mons]

It's often overlooked, due to being in a nonsensical location, but Oriental Adventures does give level adjustments for some monsters. It's on page 203, right in the middle of a discussion of which prestige classes from other sourcebooks are a good fit for an OA cmpaign, and next to a big list of weapon names translated into various languages. Because, I guess, having it be in even the same chapter as the monsters themselves would have made too much sense?

[SnugUndies]

Admittedly it is probably best for someone who has access to spells as it gives their save DCs a free boost, but the Saint template from Book of Exalted Deeds is a hefty stack of bonuses for all facets of combat, enough to the point where it's considered potentially worth it for +2 Level Adjustment. In terms of not standing out, the description of the template states that "a saint looks no different than she did before achieving sanctification" asides from a semi-palpable aura of holy roller mojo.

[47948201]

Interesting stuff in here! I don't really know much about OA or 3.0 in general, but those pre-update greensnake stats are honestly really solid by LA+1 standards, and without getting too monstrous (appearance or personality). Shame the DrMag update probably kinda ruins it with its slightly more "expected" level of modifiers. Quasilycanthrope is also a neat one to know about, both because that's some good damage reduction plus access to a PrC I'm quite fond of, and also because WHOA KEMONOMIMI IN FORGOTTEN REALMS?