Animal Characters

[candidus_cogitens]

According to the spell description for Polymorph Other, you would not retain the ability to speak.

 

[Tonguez]

According to the spell description for Polymorph Other, you would not retain the ability to speak.

However it does not say that a spell requires the words to be spoken in a humanoid langauage

perhaps dogs have a language all their own made up of barks and growls.

I had a PC play a Dolphin ranger for a short while whilst we were fighting Sahuagin but since they have now gone inland the dolphin is on hold (NPC). IMC Dolphins are already intelligent (Porpoise with 3d6 int) and I ruled that the clicks and whistles constituted verbal components to a spell.

ps MMAsden I like the Faithful Hound idea

 

[mmadsen]

While I enjoy talking animals in the fairy-tale mold, they certainly don't have to be cutesy or cartoony. The new Lord of the Rings RPG, for instance has a section on Beast Speech in the Magic chapter:

In Middle-earth, many animals can think and even talk. Beorn's cattle and horses can speak with him. The spiders of Mirkwood have an evil hissing speech. The Dwarves of Erebor have long spoken with the local ravens and recognized the wisdom of thrushes. Foxes wonder about the wanderings of Hobbits through the Shire at night. The great Eagles can speak aloud. Sometimes, as with the Eagles, characters and animals can converse freely. At other times, spells are needed.

Talking animals like the Eagles seem far more regal than cute, and hissing, talking spiders are creepy.

 

[mmadsen]

Perhaps dogs have a language all their own made up of barks and growls.

Of course they do. Ask any eight-year-old!

I had a PC play a Dolphin ranger for a short while whilst we were fighting Sahuagin...

Two-Weapon Fighting?

IMC Dolphins are already intelligent (Porpoise with 3d6 int) and I ruled that the clicks and whistles constituted verbal components to a spell.

You have to treat whale songs and dolphin whistles as a verbal component.

MMadsen, I like the Faithful Hound idea.

Thanks!

 

[Moe Ronalds]

The NPC that supplies my characters with information and eventually magic items in my cross-genre campaign is an Awakened Deiyonichous (sp?) Loremaster. The rogue from the party that awakened him still hangs out with him and opperates as his outlet to the outside world (since a raptor with bifocals wearing a business outfit would come across as odd and perhaps frightening to the average viewer.)

 

[mmadsen]

Use the d20 Modern Physical-based basic classes!

I don't have d20 Modern, but those classes seem generic enough to work in a pinch.

All work well. Give a bull a couple levels in Strong Hero and it can break down any door. Give a badger couple levels in Tough and you have a tank. Give a squirrel a couple in Fast and you got a dodging machine.

Sounds pretty good.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

However it does not say that a spell requires the words to be spoken in a humanoid langauage

perhaps dogs have a language all their own made up of barks and growls.

I had a PC play a Dolphin ranger for a short while whilst we were fighting Sahuagin but since they have now gone inland the dolphin is on hold (NPC). IMC Dolphins are already intelligent (Porpoise with 3d6 int) and I ruled that the clicks and whistles constituted verbal components to a spell.

ps MMAsden I like the Faithful Hound idea

Alas, I wish you were right. But the Polymorph Other spell description specifically says "The subject . . . needs a humanlike voice for verbal components and humanlike hands for somatic components."

I take "humanlike" to mean anything that is normally capable of articulate speach. A dolphins voice is not humanlike.

However, while this is true for polymorphed creatures, it is not necessarily true for other intelligent animals. Who's to say that an awakened dolphin couldn't discover a way of using clicks to trigger spells? I don't know if the rules cover that.

 

[Tewligan]

I'd rule that you need to be able to form proper words to cast a spell with verbal components. Doesn't the Spellcraft skill let you identify other spells being cast because you recognize the verbal and/or somatic components? I think of verbal components as being a kind of "universal language" that's the same regardless of race.

 

[Aeolius]

I am beginning to work my "Nature of the Beast" (NoB) campaign concept into a 3e format suitable for a chat-based game via IRC. PCs will begin as small forest animals (no dire grizzly bears, thankyouverymuch), companions to the druidess Aerianna. Aerianna is a harridan; hagtouched offspring of a woodhag (a half-hag; offspring of a night hag and sylvan elf) and human (barkburr druid).

The campaign begins, with a group of more-or-less ordinary animals who discover that their two-legged friend has been murdered. While attempting to discover the identity of the assassin, the animals encounter a few surprises, along the way. Rules for awakened animals will be brought into play, at some point.

Tentatively placed in the Suss Forest, NoB will be a World of Greyhawk campaign.

Anyone interested?

 

[zouron]

aeo I am interested.... then again you knew that