Cheesy Pixie cohort.

[paigeoliver]

Ok, I have the opportunity to get a Pixie cohort in a very rules heavy game. The pixie gets the elite stat array with racial modifiers and can either be a sorcerer or have fey hit dice. I want it to have fey hit dice because I would get 4 of them for every sorcerer level I would have gotten otherwise. (ECL rules and all).

Ok, what can I do with this little guy to make him worthwhile? Eventually he will far surpass my own character in hit dice, but with no class abilities, and low STR I will have to rely on my feats and those innate pixie abilities to be useful.

This is a pixie without Otto's Dance.

[oriong]

Honestly I don't think giving up sorcerer levels was a good idea. Fey hit dice are probably the worst there is. Fey will get better skills and very slightly better hit points than the sorcerer (and reflex save) but there's not much to reccomend them.

On the other hand, as a sorcerer he'd get spells and actually be able to contribute.

And ECL rules would not have made it so you can get more fey hit dice than sorcerer hit dice, they're both treated exactly the same. There is absolutely nothing to reccomend fey hit dice over sorcerer hit dice. Heck, a better option than both would be to make him a rogue.

[Bears With Lasers]

Ummm, what on earth makes you think the pixie gets four hit dice for each sorcerer level? That's not what level adjustment means. Hit Dice are levels--they are just levels of your racial class.

[Mewtarthio]

Lessee... Tiny size, +4 racial bonus on Hide checks, fly speed of 60 ft with Good maneuverability, amnesia- and sleep-inducing arrows, various detection SLAs (all alignments and thoughts), plus permanent invisibility? Off the top of my head, I'd say "recon."

EDIT: I see oriong has already suggested Rouge levels.

[Bears With Lasers]

4 LA is way too much for a cohort, though.

[paigeoliver]

Crud, never mind, I went back and reread all the rules. I had caught the part about adding 4 hit dice to a pixie only adds one CR, but I had totally missed the part about it adding 4 to the ECL.

Won't be using the pixie now, it was only worthwhile when I thought it was getting 4 for 1 hit dice (which would have given it a lot of feats eventually).

[Thomas]

CR isn't ECL, yeah. Completely, wildly, radically different things.

My pixie sorcerer/pale master almost had a cheesy cohort. I was going to get a wizard/cleric/true necromancer with item crafting feats, blowing all the extra XP (a Leadership cohort can't advance past level, what, 17?) on magic items for me...

Campaign sort of died out.

[Quietus]

I'd still go for the pixie cohort, that's a hundred shades of awesome. Give her Reduce Person as one of her first level spells. What's better than a pixie that can go through keyholes? Why, one that can get through the cracks in walls, of course!

[paigeoliver]

Reduce person doesn't work on Pixies, they aren't humanoids, they are Fey. This is for the Living Greyhawk campaign, so they would be very rules lawyery about that sort of thing.

I may still take the cohort as a sorcerer , but I will wait until it would be high enough level not to auto-die if it gets caught in the average area effect spell.

If it was the sorcerer then it would certainly have enlarge person since it would be the cohort of a whip wielding character.

[Yuki Akuma]

I'd still go for the pixie cohort, that's a hundred shades of awesome. Give her Reduce Person as one of her first level spells. What's better than a pixie that can go through keyholes? Why, one that can get through the cracks in walls, of course!

Pixies aren't subject to Reduce Person. They're Fey.

Also, they can't fit through keyholes, being around eighteen inches tall.

[Quietus]

Then have them research a version that works on fey - and then being shrunk they might be able to fit through keyholes then. After all, it's possible to worm your way through a space that's large enough to fit your head, and if you're all of nine inches tall, your head isn't much bigger than an inch across. Ranks in escape artist + dex ftw!

[paigeoliver]

Nothing custom is possible, no house rules are possible.

[cupkeyk]

Pixies are Small. Key holes are arguably Fine. A Reduced Pixie will still be Tiny. Barbie (the doll) would be Tiny being exactly a foot tall, her head don't fit in any keyhole I know. G. I. Joe is Diminutive, being six inches tall, his head doesn't fit in any key hole I know. Them Little Green Plastic Soldiers are Fine Being an Inch tall. Their heads fit in a key hole and if I warm them up with my lighter, I can mush them into the key hole too, and ruin my door in the process.

[Fax Celestis]

Pixies are Small. Key holes are arguably Fine. A Reduced Pixie will still be Tiny. Barbie (the doll) would be Tiny being exactly a foot tall, her head don't fit in any keyhole I know. G. I. Joe is Diminutive, being six inches tall, his head doesn't fit in any key hole I know. Them Little Green Plastic Soldiers are Fine Being an Inch tall. Their heads fit in a key hole and if I warm them up with my lighter, I can mush them into the key hole too, and ruin my door in the process.

Excuse me. I have to go die laughing now.

[Wippit Guud]

Medieval-style keyholes are significantly larger... diminutive might squeeze though with escape artist...

[cupkeyk]

That doesn't change the fact that Pixies will never fit into a keyhole unless it was a giant's house.

[Ramza00]

Have you looked up Petal from Monster Manual 3? They have a LA of 2 (cohort). +10 Dex, +4 Con, +4 Int, +8 Cha, -8 Str. Dr 5/Cold Iron, Fly Good 60. No Pixie Greater Invisibility though.

[Woot Spitum]

Pixies are Small. Key holes are arguably Fine. A Reduced Pixie will still be Tiny. Barbie (the doll) would be Tiny being exactly a foot tall, her head don't fit in any keyhole I know. G. I. Joe is Diminutive, being six inches tall, his head doesn't fit in any key hole I know. Them Little Green Plastic Soldiers are Fine Being an Inch tall. Their heads fit in a key hole and if I warm them up with my lighter, I can mush them into the key hole too, and ruin my door in the process.

Now I want to use some sort of spell to create a plastic army man, use Animate Objects on him, then use Awaken Construct to bring him to life so I can have a plastic army man familiar.

[Fhaolan]

I've been contemplating dropping the size of the pixies, sprites, etc. down a few notches in my campaign. Just because when I think of a pixie, I think of something barely the size of my thumb. A 2' tall pixie just seems wrong, somehow.

[Wippit Guud]

Pixies are bigger than imps. There's something wrong with that.

[fireinthedust]

a-ha! there you go. and if this guy is getting a pixie cohort, he may run into giants.

Actually, btw, I just went to a medieval church here in England (woo!), and the key we used was massive. I havn't seen keys that big (proportionately) since kindergarten. It was the size of my, er, ruler. Barbie could fit through.

However, keep in mind that barbie's head is dispropotionate to her body. She is a negative image type for young girls because of that to-scale issue. Pixies, I presume, would have a much more proportionate skull, especially if somehow able to shrink. Not that they can, as they are fey.

and why would you want more fey hd? go for class levels!

heck, go for a lovable monkey familiar. they're adorable! Add half-celestial template and you can get it to fly, kidnap puppies and little girls, unstuff scarcrows, spook lions, and rattle tin cans.

[cupkeyk]

The reason why Pixies are Actually Playable is because they have no racial hit dice. Racial hitdice are useless. A pixie can buy off her absurd LA at level 12. Afterwards she is massively "weaker" than her party and will be awarded more xp than everyone else..

Pixie Rogues. Pixie Ninjas. o_0

[The_Snark]

A pixie can't finish buying off LA until level thirty, though, and not all campaigns allow LA buyoff; I've no idea if Living Greyhawk does or not, but my inclination is not.

Also, kudos to Ilovefire for the winged monkeys! I'll get you my pretty, and your little pixie, too!

[Quietus]

You can buy off one point of level adjustment at twelve, then another at 21, followed by one at 27, and the last at 30. You can't buy off all four at level 12.