SimonMoon6
2023-04-21, 03:27 PM
Lately, I've been spending some time searching through templates trying to figure out how to make a viable version of a particular character or two. This is all theoretical as I'm not playing in any games or likely to be playing in the future. But I wasn't sure how certain things actually worked.
If you want to know what kind of character I'm thinking about, it's in spoilers.
I was inspired by a thread about trying to make a tiny giant. So, I went and looked at things. I start with the idea of using a Jermlaine (tiny fey, LA+0). I tried adding templates but couldn't get him to be a giant and still stay tiny (due to silly prerequisites on certain templates like you can't be a fey and you also can't be tiny if you want to apply either the half-ogre or half-minotaur templates). But I then wondered if I could apply enough templates to (a) keep the good WIS and DEX of a jermlaine so he can become a swordsage, (b) improve the STR and CON up to a playable level, since that -8 to STR is a real bummer, and (c) not have a huge LA, though I was willing to settle for +1 or maybe +2.
What I've chosen is this:
(1) First, the Unseelie Fey template (which I assume to be inherited, though it doesn't say, so it has to come first).
(2) Then, the usual trick of Dustborn and Incarnate Construct.
(3) Then, Lolth-Touched.
The only problem there is that the character ends up being CE which most DMs wouldn't let in their campaigns. So, I can solve that by switching steps 2 and 3 and ending up with a Neutral character, though he loses 6 CON and immunity to fear. But I'd rather solve that by changing my alignment by story-telling stuff in my background, like meeting a guy with 5 levels of Evangelist who used his special power and turned me CG and I liked it, so I stayed CG.
In my ideal order, we end up with the following stat modifiers:
STR: +0, DEX: +6, CON: replaced by 4d6+6, INT: replaced by 4d6, WIS: +6, CHA: -4, all for LA+1, with other neat stuff like Natural Armor +3.
I've also been playing with Hairy Spider, but I can't get him to work at all (maybe Vivacious template at +3 LA to get INT (or a similar but less fun template at LA+2), then go into Warlock?).
So, here are two things I'm not clear on:
When Dustform says, "Change all current and future Hit Dice to d10s", does that only mean racial Hit Dice or does it apply to class Hit Dice as well? If I was a barbarian, does my d12 hit die become a d10 hit die? And what happens when another template overwrites this by saying "change Hit Dice to d8"? How would this affect class hit dice? And also, would the later template overwrite the "all future Hit Dice" part of Dustform or not; would current Hit Dice be d8 but future ones would be d10?
Also, when Incarnate Construct says, "An incarnate construct has no feats when it becomes a living creature, but if it gains levels, it acquires feats normally", does that eliminate feats that I already have from levels or is it just trying to say that I don't gain feats from the Incarnate Construct template? So, if I was a 1st level character (nonhuman) with one feat and then I become a construct and then an incarnate construct, do I lose my 1st level feat? Or do I keep it because it's from levels? (I don't think I would lose the feat when I became a mindless construct since some mindless constructs do have feats.)
If you want to know what kind of character I'm thinking about, it's in spoilers.
I was inspired by a thread about trying to make a tiny giant. So, I went and looked at things. I start with the idea of using a Jermlaine (tiny fey, LA+0). I tried adding templates but couldn't get him to be a giant and still stay tiny (due to silly prerequisites on certain templates like you can't be a fey and you also can't be tiny if you want to apply either the half-ogre or half-minotaur templates). But I then wondered if I could apply enough templates to (a) keep the good WIS and DEX of a jermlaine so he can become a swordsage, (b) improve the STR and CON up to a playable level, since that -8 to STR is a real bummer, and (c) not have a huge LA, though I was willing to settle for +1 or maybe +2.
What I've chosen is this:
(1) First, the Unseelie Fey template (which I assume to be inherited, though it doesn't say, so it has to come first).
(2) Then, the usual trick of Dustborn and Incarnate Construct.
(3) Then, Lolth-Touched.
The only problem there is that the character ends up being CE which most DMs wouldn't let in their campaigns. So, I can solve that by switching steps 2 and 3 and ending up with a Neutral character, though he loses 6 CON and immunity to fear. But I'd rather solve that by changing my alignment by story-telling stuff in my background, like meeting a guy with 5 levels of Evangelist who used his special power and turned me CG and I liked it, so I stayed CG.
In my ideal order, we end up with the following stat modifiers:
STR: +0, DEX: +6, CON: replaced by 4d6+6, INT: replaced by 4d6, WIS: +6, CHA: -4, all for LA+1, with other neat stuff like Natural Armor +3.
I've also been playing with Hairy Spider, but I can't get him to work at all (maybe Vivacious template at +3 LA to get INT (or a similar but less fun template at LA+2), then go into Warlock?).
So, here are two things I'm not clear on:
When Dustform says, "Change all current and future Hit Dice to d10s", does that only mean racial Hit Dice or does it apply to class Hit Dice as well? If I was a barbarian, does my d12 hit die become a d10 hit die? And what happens when another template overwrites this by saying "change Hit Dice to d8"? How would this affect class hit dice? And also, would the later template overwrite the "all future Hit Dice" part of Dustform or not; would current Hit Dice be d8 but future ones would be d10?
Also, when Incarnate Construct says, "An incarnate construct has no feats when it becomes a living creature, but if it gains levels, it acquires feats normally", does that eliminate feats that I already have from levels or is it just trying to say that I don't gain feats from the Incarnate Construct template? So, if I was a 1st level character (nonhuman) with one feat and then I become a construct and then an incarnate construct, do I lose my 1st level feat? Or do I keep it because it's from levels? (I don't think I would lose the feat when I became a mindless construct since some mindless constructs do have feats.)