atomn said:
In the Midnight setting many dire animals grew intelligent and have joined in the big fight against the evil races. So I was trying to figure out how to make dire animal player characters. So a few questions:
1. Is there an "Awakened" template or should they get the benefits of the spell with no LA?
2. Is there a "Dire" template or is there a better way about making dire animals that aren't already available (such as a Dire Viper)?
3. Is there a translating calculation for giving a LA to creatures that have a CR but no LA? (i.e., what LA should be given to a Dire Bear, CR 7?)
Ok, I think that'd get everything set. Thanks for any input!
1. No, the awakened animal is a magical beast (augmented subtype). For the LA, I'm torn. I'd say LA +0 on this one. An awakened animal (with full int) should be played more intelligently than a standard animal (limited to int 1-2), including using all those bonus skills. Remember, an awakened animal that has grown up that way is likely to have access to accumulated wealth or posessions. However, this is confounded by the general difficulties the awakened creature is likely to have such as unable to use many items (would they wear armor? or barding?), no opposable thumb(!), likely persecution, and other drawbacks such as not being able to use many class features (such as martial or any weapons, again due to lack of thumbs)
2. I haven't seen one, but my books are at home (not in d20srd.org) and I'm not
3. Just applying the LA (for me, +0) for the awaken spell. Without the awakened state, the Dire Bear (with int 2) is inappropriate for a character class (and hence associated ECL for determining how to handle experience). LA isn't a direct calculation, it generally depends on how "broken" or "appropriate" the various game/creature designers feel a creature's powers would be compared to the base races. There are various methods (unofficial) that can be found by a web search if you want to try your hand at an LA.
Thus, an awakened dire bear (by my above CR7, 12HD + 2 HD for awakened = 14 HD, LA +0) Fighter 1, would be ECL 15 (and equipped as an ECL 15 character).
Looking through the archives, I found this discussion:
http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-307.html
I generally agree with the last comment by LightPhoenix, who indicates that the disadvantages of being an animal outweigh the advantages, given that the base HD will already make for very high ECLs in general.
