Character Race Alteration

[Grescheks]

Hello all,

I'm starting a campaign with my family. I'm new to DMing (but a veteran player) and they are all new players. The campaign would be fairly simple, and 3.5 edition. One of my sisters would like to play a pixie (or some other small, cute race), and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about how I could adjust the race to get rid of the +3 level adjustment bonus so things are less confusing for her as a fist time player.

Thanks in advance!

[monty]

It's +4 LA, and there's no way that I know of to get rid of that short of DM fiat. Just have her play some other small, cute race - gnome maybe?

[Demons_eye]

Give it human stats and just have it la 0?

[Thurbane]

A halfling with permanent Reduce Person and the Winged template?

[Ravens_cry]

Give it human stats and just have it la 0?

I would say it would be better to give the pixie gnome stats as a) gnomes can cast certain illusion spells automatically, so that could fit the pixie fluff better and b)pixies are small creatures, humans are medium. Gnomes are small.

[Lord Zentei]

Have everyone else start at 3rd level, then she won't have to worry about the LA, indeed things will be less complex for her than for everyone else, since she won't have to worry about her build.

On a more serious note: Just about every fey has a LA due to magical powers. So have her play some other small and cute race. What's wrong with using halflings? This is their kind of role, after all.

[monty]

A halfling with permanent Reduce Person and the Winged template?

Winged template is +2 LA. And both halflings and pixies are Small, so they're practically the same size anyway.

[Eldariel]

You could give her Raptoran-like Flight (so that at first, you can only glide being able to fly at 6HD), more reasonable stat adjustments (+4 Cha, +2 Dex, -4 Con seems good - the Con-penalty is vast enough to allow for asymmetric bonuses) and no racial spell-likes. Make the special arrows and invisibility racial feats. And really, starting at a bit higher level helps. Playing level 1 game is like Russian Roulette - fun until someone gets shot (not to mention, the lack of variety and ability to affect your abilities inherent to level 1 game). I suggest starting on level 3 - it's still gritty fantasy, but one critical doesn't immediately mean "start rolling a new character" and Fighter/Wizard actually plays out like a Fighter/Wizard, rather than a strong Wizard or a smart Fighter.

[UserClone]

Alternately, you could consider doubling or even tripling starting hp.

[Eldariel]

Alternately, you could consider doubling or even tripling starting hp.

Doesn't address the point of inability to present most character concepts though.

[Proven_Paradox]

It may be starting things out a bit less basic that you'd like for beginners, but Pixies have a racial progression that allows them to be played from level one in Savage Species.

[Grescheks]

Thanks for all the ideas, everyone! I'm kinda set on making this a first level campaign, since this is their first time playing any kind of roleplaying game, and starting at first level is always a good starting place. I think I might just modify the gnome stats slightly to fit with a winged gnome at level 1, but I'm still open to suggestions for anything else if people want to keep posting them!