[3.5] Half-Celestial

[Gorbash]

Is it just me, or is this template a bit too much?

- Stat bonuses to EVERY stat
- Good fly speed at twice the base speed (permanent Fly spell, basically)
- Darkvision
- Immunity to disease
- Acid/Cold/Electricity resists 10
- DR 5 and 10
- SR HD+10
- +4 on saves against poison
- Buttload of spell-like abilities

I realize that LA 4 is a lot, but considering what you get in return, it doesn't seems that much. Are there any known fixes? The player who asked me this will be human/half-celestial cleric 9 (ECL 13).

I'll remove SR for a start... Suggestions?

[monty]

LA +4 is a lot. It absolutely cripples any caster, and puts the fighter-types way behind on BAB and HD. Doesn't seem too much to me.

[Chineselegolas]

As monty said, the loss of BAB and HD for fighter types, skill points (And max ranks) for skill monkeys (Unless they only have a few skills, then the stat bonus' could improve them a tad)
As with casters, the highest level spell you can cast with 4 LA is two levels lower than a generic human caster.
Can you say ouch...

Yes, they have some nice benefits, but with the amount you are giving up to gain those small bonus's

Oh, and the SR is roughly ECL+6...
Meaning pretty a mere 6 is needed for an equal ECL caster to affect them. Can fail... But number of the scary spells that don't have SR or etc.
And having 4HD less, slightly squisher for fighter types (Yes, wings can keep him out the way a bit... But there are always arrow. And to do clerical duties on the party needs to come down into the danger zone)

[Douglas]

Yes, it's a lot of bonuses. It's also a lot of level adjustment. Pick a level, any level, and list out what four more class levels could get you with a decent but non-optimized build and compare. I will be very surprised if the template comes out on top. I think it's fine as is.

[AmberVael]

It's far from broken- in fact, the LA means it rarely sees use among players who optimize.

Spell Resistance is good, but unfortunately it is 10+HD SR. You have a +4 level adjustment. Assuming you're up against a full spellcaster (or a monster equivalent- and you're likely to come up against things with HIGHER caster level than your ECL...)

The equation is this: You have SR 6+ECL (assuming, of course, that you have not taken feats to improve it OR have more templates). The enemy caster will likely have a caster level of your ECL or greater. This means they only have to roll a 6 or higher on their checks to affect you with spells.
Granted, 25% chance to not be affected by spells is nifty- but it also isn't overly impressive. Furthermore, unless you lower it (foregoing your defense), it will affect allies as well.

Stat bonuses: These are essentially going to be nullified by your lack of level. If you're a melee type, your +4 strength bonus will be feebly attempting to make up for your lack of 4 BAB (it'll add slightly more damage... but you also lose out on power attack).
Dexterity will increase your armor class a bit since AC isn't level dependent.
Constitution, while nice, will not make up for HP from level loss.
Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma might help a caster, but you'll have lost 4 caster levels, meaning the spells you actually use will be far less effective.
Any skill bonuses you receive from stats will be negated by the fact that you'll have less ranks and max ranks to actually put IN to skills. All of your save bonuses will drop by one or two points, so you haven't gained there either.

Immunity to disease happens so infrequently that it is nearly a pointless ability.
Damage reduction/magic is going to commonly be overcome by the time you're ECL 5 (which is the minimum for your type of character). Even if it isn't, it's only making up for your HP loss (and only in some situations).
Energy Resistance is going to be in the same boat as damage reduction.

(note that even as a caster you're going to be losing out on four levels of HP from die rolling AND con bonus- that's a fairly significant amount. You're going to be hurting, though it will sloooowly even out at higher levels.

You do gain some nifty abilities like flying and spell like abilities (one point of natural armor is barely worth mentioning...), but by the time you get them, a cleric or paladin will have gotten them all first- four levels earlier, in fact, and will be able to use them more frequently. Your caster level for them will be lower to, so honestly you'd be just as effective (if not MORE effective) in terms of special abilities by playing a gish.


So pretty much everything you're gaining? The level adjustment causes you to lose it. What you do gain could be just as effectively represented by the four class levels you lost.
So don't nerf Half Celestial- it's bad enough as it is.

[Gorbash]

Also, he has VoP and never enters combat, he just heals and buffs. His stats on 9th lvl are (base 14/14/16/15/19(+2 from levels)/15):

Str 18
Dex 16
Con 20
Int 17
Wis 23
Cha 19

Considering his high con, he wouldn't stay behind with HP, I think on average he'd have about 90. The only reason why I'm considering allowing this is because he's far from an optimizer and totally against combat, so he spends his fights buffing and healing, a sub-par role for a cleric. Thing is, on paper it looks just a bit too much. Just look at those scores!

[Douglas]

- Stat bonuses to EVERY stat

None higher than +4. With strength, it's not enough to make up for 4 points of BAB lost, dex it's a 1 point AC boost if you're not already at max dex, con is nowhere near enough to make up for 4 hit dice, and none of the mental stats are enough to make up for your spells being 2 levels lower. For skills, none of them are enough to make up for a skill cap 4 points lower.

- Good fly speed at twice the base speed (permanent Fly spell, basically)

A nice perk, certainly, but not that incredible.

- Darkvision

Plenty of LA +0 races get this. Not a major ability.

- Immunity to disease

This matters so rarely it's laughable.

- Acid/Cold/Electricity resists 10

Resist Energy is more powerful and more flexible. This may help if you're not expecting energy attacks, but not all that much and it's missing fire resistance. Plus, you're missing 4 hit dice worth of hp.

- DR 5 and 10

/magic. This is trivial to defeat.

- SR HD+10

A simple caster of equal ECL will beat that 75% of the time, and that's without Spell Penetration and the like. Against a higher level "boss" enemy it's truly worthless.

- +4 on saves against poison

Not especially powerful unless you're facing poison constantly, in which case it's not hard to get immunity.

- Buttload of spell-like abilities

And here's the big one. Or rather, it would be if it didn't have to compete with 4 levels worth of spells per day. I'll take the four class levels any time I'm powergaming, thank you very much.

Edit:

Considering his high con, he wouldn't stay behind with HP, I think on average he'd have about 90.

With half-celestial: 8 + 8*4.5 + 5*9 = 89 average. Without: 8 + 12*4.5 + 3*13 = 101. Yes, he is still behind on hp.

The only reason why I'm considering allowing this is because he's far from an optimizer and totally against combat, so he spends his fights buffing and healing, a sub-par role for a cleric. Thing is, on paper it looks just a bit too much. Just look at those scores!

You're overreacting. A lot. Seriously sit down and think about what four more levels of cleric would give him and how that compares. Taking the template exactly as written is making him less powerful, not more.

[AmberVael]

Also, he has VoP and never enters combat, he just heals and buffs. His stats on 9th lvl are (base 14/14/16/15/19(+2 from levels)/15):

Str 18
Dex 16
Con 20
Int 17
Wis 23
Cha 19

Considering his high con, he wouldn't stay behind with HP, I think on average he'd have about 90. The only reason why I'm considering allowing this is because he's far from an optimizer and totally against combat, so he spends his fights buffing and healing, a sub-par role for a cleric. Thing is, on paper it looks just a bit too much. Just look at those scores!

With those stats, I can calculate that on average rolls he has 12 less hit points than a normal person of his ECL going straight cleric with the same stats (and he's getting to the higher levels where it should be balancing off due to his constitution gain, so that's about right).

And if he's totally against combat, Half-Celestial is an even worse choice for him. Having higher level spells would be far more effective for a non combatant than having the Half Celestial template.

And seriously, yes, his ability scores are higher, but everything else is lower than what it should be, and the ability scores are just making up for that (and NOT entirely succeeding). If he buffs and heals, he practically has no use for higher wisdom, since he doesn't use it too boost saving throws, so he loses out on the ONLY true benefit a caster would get from this template.

[KillianHawkeye]

Like a lot of templates, prestige classes, and abilities, Half-Celestial looks better on paper than it really is.

[FinalJustice]

Failbait at its finest, in my opinion. Sure it looks really neat and it's really cool as a concept (IMHO). But I can think of no build that Half Celestial isn't detrimental, and a lot that it is outright gimpy.

[Gorbash]

Well, when you put it that way, I guess I was overly concerned. I'll let him keep it as it is. Thanks for the info!

[hamishspence]

at what LA would the template cross line into cheese? Would making it LA 3 rather than 4 make it a reasonable choice, but not a must take, for certain builds, or not?

[TheCountAlucard]

Of course, the half-celestial template is still much better than the half-fiend template. Apparently possessing natural attacks was more than enough to merit halving its fly speed compared to the half-celestial, as well as not boosting Wisdom... (grumbles to self)