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<blockquote data-quote="QuietBrowser" data-source="post: 6933034" data-attributes="member: 6855057"><p>Thank you very much for your kind words!</p><p></p><p>What I'm currently thinking of doing with the Dryad is tapping into the lore from both this edition, where Dryads are fae spirits punished by being bonded to trees, and the 4e lore. In essence, Dryad and Hamadryad PCs are both "wild" Dryads who have found a way to circumvent their curse; </p><p></p><p>Dryads have done so by physically fusing with their tree, melding their essence into it ever deeper until they've become permanently inextricable from it. This causes "PC Dryads" to look more like fae plant creatures than the generic "beautiful elfin girl who steps into/out of a tree".</p><p></p><p>Hamadryads have instead used loopholes, allowing them to stretch their essence to bind them to not just one tree, but to trees in general. A "wild" hamadryad would thusly be more of a spirit of the forest itself than a tree-spirit. Only problem with this is that it'd probably still be pretty close to the "wild elf druid/enchanter multiclass" angle.</p><p></p><p>I think I recall that problem being pointed out before... would it help if it explicitly said you only get to use the higher of the two for a pyre monk? So it's either d4+con bonus OR D4+dex bonus?</p><p></p><p>Depends... what do you mean by shifter type race?</p><p></p><p>See, a big problem with the "change from human to hybrid to animal" racial ability set, as I found out whilst working on the aranea, is that it's incredibly hard to balance it out and, in the end, it often works out as pointless. Human form usually costs you all your unique racial abilities bar spell-like ones, whilst animal form prevents you from using pretty much anything. So, really, I just acknowledge what the players would probably do even if they did have the ability to shift between and presume such PCs spend all their time in hybrid form.</p><p></p><p>As for the hengeyokai themselves... the whole "shove all the shapeshifting animals together into one race differentiated only by stats/what it turns into" angle of the past never really sat well with me. What I've gone with is treating each of the "hengeyokai type" creatures from mythology as its own race - kitsune, tanuki, mujina (badger hengeyokai), kawauso (otter hengeyokai), itachi (weasel hengeyokai) - and, if I did up racial fluff in greater detail, I would note that, collectively, these fae animal-folk are usually referred to as the hengeyokai.</p><p></p><p>Yeah, I think I must have gotten confused as to Firebolt's actual spell leve.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="QuietBrowser, post: 6933034, member: 6855057"] Thank you very much for your kind words! What I'm currently thinking of doing with the Dryad is tapping into the lore from both this edition, where Dryads are fae spirits punished by being bonded to trees, and the 4e lore. In essence, Dryad and Hamadryad PCs are both "wild" Dryads who have found a way to circumvent their curse; Dryads have done so by physically fusing with their tree, melding their essence into it ever deeper until they've become permanently inextricable from it. This causes "PC Dryads" to look more like fae plant creatures than the generic "beautiful elfin girl who steps into/out of a tree". Hamadryads have instead used loopholes, allowing them to stretch their essence to bind them to not just one tree, but to trees in general. A "wild" hamadryad would thusly be more of a spirit of the forest itself than a tree-spirit. Only problem with this is that it'd probably still be pretty close to the "wild elf druid/enchanter multiclass" angle. I think I recall that problem being pointed out before... would it help if it explicitly said you only get to use the higher of the two for a pyre monk? So it's either d4+con bonus OR D4+dex bonus? Depends... what do you mean by shifter type race? See, a big problem with the "change from human to hybrid to animal" racial ability set, as I found out whilst working on the aranea, is that it's incredibly hard to balance it out and, in the end, it often works out as pointless. Human form usually costs you all your unique racial abilities bar spell-like ones, whilst animal form prevents you from using pretty much anything. So, really, I just acknowledge what the players would probably do even if they did have the ability to shift between and presume such PCs spend all their time in hybrid form. As for the hengeyokai themselves... the whole "shove all the shapeshifting animals together into one race differentiated only by stats/what it turns into" angle of the past never really sat well with me. What I've gone with is treating each of the "hengeyokai type" creatures from mythology as its own race - kitsune, tanuki, mujina (badger hengeyokai), kawauso (otter hengeyokai), itachi (weasel hengeyokai) - and, if I did up racial fluff in greater detail, I would note that, collectively, these fae animal-folk are usually referred to as the hengeyokai. Yeah, I think I must have gotten confused as to Firebolt's actual spell leve. [/QUOTE]
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