Animal Characters

mmadsen · May 10, 2002

Has anyone used animals (Awakened or otherwise) as characters in their games?

I thought an Awakened Dog or a Wizard's Familiar might be fun to play, but what would you recommend for PC Animals that should advance with the rest of the party? Animals "get the shaft" when it comes to advancement (no Skill points, no Feats), and character classes don't seem like a good fit. Suggestions?

Kurtz Tote · May 11, 2002

I've never played an animal, although I gave a lot of thought to a imp pscion though. I would think pscion would be a great fit for an animal, and any animal with working hands (for gestures and the likes) would make a cool sorcer.

Good luck with it. The strangest thing I've ever played was an intelligent sword. Very fun to play and has gotten worked deep into the history of the world in which I play.

hong · May 11, 2002

Cow: "Rule 1: no more tipping."

PenguinKing · May 11, 2002

mmadsen said:
Animals "get the shaft" when it comes to advancement (no Skill points, no Feats), and character classes don't seem like a good fit. Suggestions?

There's where you're wrong. Fighter and rogue work for absolutely anything with minimal or no rationalization, and it's not all that unlikely that an Awakened animal could advance as a sorcerer*.

- Sir Bob.

* (yes, spell components might be an issue, until you realize that since a sorcerer is assumed to have any non-priced component automatically as long as he has his spell component pouch on him, the component pouch is essentially the wizard/sorcerer version of a cleric's divine focus - in a purely metagame sense, anyway. Allowing a sorcerer to substitute a different focus item (one that better suits the character's theme) for the component pouch makes little or no game-mechanical difference in the vast majority of situations.)

Eternalknight · May 11, 2002

Re: Re: Animal Characters

PenguinKing said:
There's where you're wrong. Fighter and rogue work for absolutely anything with minimal or no rationalization, and it's not all that unlikely that an Awakened animal could advance as a sorcerer*.

How about barbarian? I can see a lot of raging animals. Ranger might also work; Track and favored enemy are fine and are right up an animals alley (although I'm not too sure about Ambidexterity or two-weapon fighting)

Falcon · May 11, 2002

I ran an all animal campaign once. The evil ranchers and developers killed them off really early on.

Regdar · May 11, 2002

Bah, marketing

Regdar says why don't you just make a marketing thread and have everyone post their wants and desires there. Says bandwidth.

reapersaurus · May 11, 2002

hong said:
Cow: "Rule 1: no more tipping."

but for large parties, they require 15% tipping...

Templetroll · May 11, 2002

When my daughter wanted to try D&D the DM allowed her toplay a talking cat. It had few abilities although nine lives was one of them! She worked through about 5 of her lives by the time the entire party got wiped out.

She has since played a faerie dragon, a an owl sorceror and a wolf with druidic abilities. the wolf was Awakened by a treant and given an amulet that allowed spells to be cast by verbal only. That character is a 2 HD critter and Druid 3 currently. Fits in well with the group and her movement and trip ability have been very useful!

The one time she tried to play a human it was a wizard named Sabrina and she died at the Moathouse in the ToEE module during our first run there.