How can I keep a pet lizard alive? I'm not a mage

[Darrin]

Create a new character: Muckdweller (Serpent Kingdoms) with wizard/psion/etc. levels. Tell your DM you're retiring your old character, then "hire" him as a hireling mercenary for 1 GP per day. If you want to be more formal about it, level up the muckdweller (or energy drain your old PC two levels) and take him as a cohort via the Leadership feat.

[eyebreaker7]

How about a dragonborn warforged with a breath weapon?

I like the half-dragon better. They seem to get more benefits. Especially stat wise. Plus I can take the feat:
DRAGON BREATH (Feat: Races of the Dragon 98)
You can use your breath weapon as often as a normal dragon.
Prerequisites: Half-dragon, 6 HD, breath weapon.
Benefit: You can use your breath weapon every 1d4 rounds.
Normal: A half-dragon’s breath weapon can only be used once per day.

Warforged don't heal very easily unless I'm missing something?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I like the half-dragon better. They seem to get more benefits. Especially stat wise. Plus I can take the feat:
DRAGON BREATH (Feat: Races of the Dragon 98)
You can use your breath weapon as often as a normal dragon.
Prerequisites: Half-dragon, 6 HD, breath weapon.
Benefit: You can use your breath weapon every 1d4 rounds.
Normal: A half-dragon’s breath weapon can only be used once per day.

The dragonborn with the breath weapon already gets that, and it gets any of the energy types you could want, and allows you to switch energy types any time you want. Plus, you don't have to deal with any Level Adjustment at all, and if you're willing to burn a feat on a substandard breath weapon, you could instead take dragonborn (heart) and use that feat for something more useful, like Entangling Breath Exhalation or Draconic Aura (Vigor) [see below].

Warforged don't heal very easily unless I'm missing something?

Healing is a bit of a downside, granted, but there are workarounds for this, such as using shapeshifting magic that replaces your type and any subtypes you have. Note that this is only for "spells from the healing subschool and supernatural abilities that cure hit point damage or ability damage," so healing based on other things, such as repair light damage, fast healing, or regeneration should bypass this.

You count as dragonblooded, so taking the feat Draconic Aura (Vigor) will heal you up to half hp on its own. Or you could give it to your mount to save you a feat and improve both your, and its, survivability?

You don't get that much from being half-dragon that going dragonborn and using that +3 LA for something else (such as class levels, or templates that give you other, better things) wouldn't do better. Half-dragon really isn't a good template.

[eyebreaker7]

Entangling Breath? Do you mean Entangling Exhalation? That looks pretty nice.

Shapeshifting? Other than the spell of that name how would that be possible?

I'm looking in Dragon Magic and see one feat called "Draconic Aura" that lists them on a separate page but there isn't a "vigor" one. There is however another feat called "Draconic Vigor" but it requires me to cast arcane spells to gain the healing. I'm not an arcane spell caster.

I've seen methods for gaining temporary fast healing, such as a wand of lesser vigor, and it just seems like it would take a really long time. Same with regeneration. The "Repair damage" spells require a mage that would rather use his/her spell slots for something different.

I'm not trying to bash every idea by any means. After looking over the Warforged I think it looks pretty cool. The Dragonborn template isn't bad either. Especially looking back at the breath weapon you mentioned. But what about seeing in the dark? I'd be just like a.... a.... a human! Yuck. lol. Or did I miss something again (hopefully)?

The things I like of the half-dragon over the dragonborn:

Armor Class: Natural armor improves by +4.

Full Attack: A half-dragon fighting without weapons uses both claws and its bite when making a full attack. If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack and its bite as a natural secondary attack. If it has a hand free, it uses a claw as an additional natural secondary attack. Bite attack.

Special Attacks: A half-dragon retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains a breath weapon based on the dragon variety (see table), usable once per day. A half-dragon’s breath weapon deals 6d8 points of damage. A successful Reflex save (DC 10 + ½ half-dragon’s racial HD + half-dragon’s Con modifier) reduces damage by half. Good damage and if I take that feat it's usable like a dragonborn.

Special Qualities: plus darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision. A half-dragon has immunity to sleep and paralysis effects, and an additional immunity based on its dragon variety.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +8, Con +2, Int +2, Cha +2.

Level Adjustment: Same as base creature +3. (ok I don't like this)

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Entangling Breath? Do you mean Entangling Exhalation? That looks pretty nice.

Yes, that. Sorry.

Shapeshifting? Other than the spell of that name how would that be possible?

Polymorph, polymorph any object, shapechange, metamorphosis, aspect of the wolf, aspect of the platinum dragon, various sources of the alternate form special quality, and items that grant any of the above. And that's just the ones I know about. And that's not to mention PrCs and stuff like bear warrior. Any low-LA template that grants the ability to change shape might do it, depending on the template. The divine minion is +1 or +2 LA (depending) and gives you at-will wild shape into at least one form. Definitely a better deal (along with dragonborn) for a divine dragon-type character than half-dragon.

The psychoactive skin of proteus is the king of awesome when it comes to at-will shapeshifting, but the phylactery of change from the A&EG is a 1/day polymorph that lasts up to 24 hours, and it's pretty cheap by comparison. 11,200 gp. An at-will version of it would cost 5x that, so 56,000 gp. Yeah, a bit expensive for lower levels, but it's something to keep in mind for later.

I'm looking in Dragon Magic and see one feat called "Draconic Aura" that lists them on a separate page but there isn't a "vigor" one. There is however another feat called "Draconic Vigor" but it requires me to cast arcane spells to gain the healing. I'm not an arcane spell caster.

There are auras that can be taken with the Draconic Aura feat from...I want to say the PHBII. Vigor is among them. Fast healing while under half hp.

I've seen methods for gaining temporary fast healing, such as a wand of lesser vigor, and it just seems like it would take a really long time. Same with regeneration. The "Repair damage" spells require a mage that would rather use his/her spell slots for something different.

It takes a bit, but unless you want to dip into crusader and get healing that way (which is totally worth it, since you'd get full benefit from healing stances and maneuvers), in-combat healing is usually not worth bothering with, when killing enemies is faster and less resource-intensive.

I'm not trying to bash every idea by any means. After looking over the Warforged I think it looks pretty cool. The Dragonborn template isn't bad either. Especially looking back at the breath weapon you mentioned. But what about seeing in the dark? I'd be just like a.... a.... a human! Yuck. lol. Or did I miss something again (hopefully)?

The things I like of the half-dragon over the dragonborn:

Armor Class: Natural armor improves by +4.

Full Attack: A half-dragon fighting without weapons uses both claws and its bite when making a full attack. If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack and its bite as a natural secondary attack. If it has a hand free, it uses a claw as an additional natural secondary attack. Bite attack.

Special Attacks: A half-dragon retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains a breath weapon based on the dragon variety (see table), usable once per day. A half-dragon’s breath weapon deals 6d8 points of damage. A successful Reflex save (DC 10 + ½ half-dragon’s racial HD + half-dragon’s Con modifier) reduces damage by half. Good damage and if I take that feat it's usable like a dragonborn.

Special Qualities: plus darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision. A half-dragon has immunity to sleep and paralysis effects, and an additional immunity based on its dragon variety.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +8, Con +2, Int +2, Cha +2.

Level Adjustment: Same as base creature +3. (ok I don't like this)

Do remember that you have +3 LA to work with to get equivalents of that stuff, whether from class levels or templates to toss on. Going from Medium to Large, for instance, would give you +8 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con, and +2 to natural armor. You can get that with quite a few +1 templates that would grant you any number of other things, as well, including darkvision.

Honestly, I think warforged is worth it just for the immunities and type-change alone. I mean, you're immune to any X person spells like dominate and charm, because you're not humanoid, even though that's not a specifically mentioned immunity. Of course, you could always say you were built using human components (like bones) and take the Human Heritage or Human Blooded feats, so you could gain the benefits of things you want to be affected by (enlarge personcoughcough), while still remaining immune to the stuff you don't want. Then you could take the Troll Blooded feat for regeneration. And since you're immune to fatigue, the downsides won't do anything to you. That requires flaws, though.

Anyway, there are ways to get all this stuff and better. If you were higher level, you could just buy it all, because magic items can do damned near anything. Or maybe you could take Ancestral Relic and make your own magic item for this.

Your options are myriad and nigh-endless.

[eyebreaker7]

Warforged unlike other constructs, is not immune to mind-effecting spells & abilities.

+2 Con but -2 Wis and -2 Cha both needed for a Paladin. Of course I don't HAVE to make him/her a Paladin. I just wanted the bonuses they get for their mounts. Any class can have a mount though.
I guess I would choose a sex before the transformation into a Dragonborn since Warforged don't have a sex. lol.

I could go Psychic Warrior but they also rely on Wisdom. Would go good with my Psion lizard though and they can get Body Adjustment at 4th level as my 1st 2nd level psionic power. That heals 1d12 or more if you spend the points. Only problem is that it does depend on power points. The Warforged doesn't get any bonus points that I see is it cost 3 points for the initial activation and +2 for each additional 1d12 healing you want at the same time. A 4th level Psychic Warrior only has 5 points to begin with but at least it would be something. As long as I didn't use any other powers already. Plus Wisdom bonus power points.

On the other hand a Paladin gets Lay on Hands as well as access to healing lesser spells.

Don't see any draconic feats in the PHB2 :(

Where is the Crusader. I found 2 online and one has spells up to level 9? The other is a homebrew?


gonna make a new post. This one has gotten totally off topic :)
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...orn-of-Bahamut

[eyebreaker7]

If the lizard dies can it be reincarnated into some humanoid? or is it just lost?

[Nifft]

If the lizard dies can it be reincarnated into some humanoid? or is it just lost?

It can be replaced by visiting the pet store.

Reincarnate has a section on non-human targets; give the spell a look.

[Psyren]

If the lizard dies can it be reincarnated into some humanoid? or is it just lost?

If you make it a familiar or animal companion then it can be recovered with a ritual that takes a week, and a few hundred gold (in PF anyway, in 3.5 this would cost XP). Being one of these also greatly improves its odds of not dying in the first place.

[eyebreaker7]

It's an awakened, magebread, warbeast lizard. Something I'd like to get back somehow if it dies.

[el minster]

There are ways to automatically resurrect a creature when it dies