Raising a Succubus

[Keldin]

(*Where do you see profane gift? I'm looking at the 3.5 MM and the SRD and I'm not seeing that.)

Profane Gift is part of the Pathfinder version of the Succubus:

Profane Gift (Su)

Once per day as a full-round action, a succubus may grant a profane gift to a willing humanoid creature by touching it for 1 full round. The target gains a +2 profane bonus to an ability score of his choice. A single creature may have no more than one profane gift from a succubus at a time. As long as the profane gift persists, the succubus can communicate telepathically with the target across any distance (and may use her suggestion spell-like ability through it). A profane gift is removed by dispel evil or dispel chaos. The succubus can remove it as well as a free action (causing 2d6 Charisma drain to the victim, no save).

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/succubus

 

[dragonfriend7738]

Profane Gift is part of the Pathfinder version of the Succubus:

Profane Gift (Su)

Once per day as a full-round action, a succubus may grant a profane gift to a willing humanoid creature by touching it for 1 full round. The target gains a +2 profane bonus to an ability score of his choice. A single creature may have no more than one profane gift from a succubus at a time. As long as the profane gift persists, the succubus can communicate telepathically with the target across any distance (and may use her suggestion spell-like ability through it). A profane gift is removed by dispel evil or dispel chaos. The succubus can remove it as well as a free action (causing 2d6 Charisma drain to the victim, no save).

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/demon/succubus

And the good aligned version does the same thing? What is the effect on the receiver when the gift is removed in that case? (Since giving a gift that permanently damages someone isn't exactly a nice thing to do.)

 

[Sunseeker]

This is awesome stuff, especially if I was planning on making a divinely converted succubus (a succubus version of a redeemed lich, per se) but I don't think the story allows for that kind of drastic changes.

I wasn't sure how "holy" you were making her, so I figured I'd go over everything.

The energy drain and profane gift* are a bit more tricky, though. (*Where do you see profane gift? I'm looking at the 3.5 MM and the SRD and I'm not seeing that.) The energy drain seems to be a racial thing- Succubi can choose to draw sustenance in the form of life energy from people they kiss (or more.) If you look at it a certian way, this isn't a taught thing- it could be similar to Rouge's energy drain ability- it's just a natural thing that they can't control. Turning that into a positive energy ability would be altering the very being of the succubus- which would probably require lots of divine energy/intervention and probably a lengthy ritual.

I sourced it off the Pathfinder SRD, 'cause I always mangle Pathfinder and 3.5 into one big mish-mash in my games. Pathfinder has a lot of nifty fixes to stupid broken things in 3.5, at least in my opinion.

Succubi gain a resistance to spells- makes sense that she'd keep that, as her outsider/demon type remains the same.

They also gain Fire/Cold/Acid resistance 10 and Electricity/Poison immunity. How much of this could you say is a result of racial strengths, and how much would be a result of the horrendous tortures and trials that a young demon must go through to reach maturity in the abyss?

Depends on your perspective, but I would leave them alone, mostly for simplicity's sake.

I do think that the natural summon demon ability should go- either because she is unable to name any demons to call, or because she never learned how to do it in the first place.

The church could have taught her how to call upon the power of good-aligned creatures. But it's not a huge deal.

Basically, I'm trying to see what I can do to strip a level or two off of the CR of the Succubus and make it feasable to be introduced as a neutral-ish NPC, under the storyline logic posted above. I will take a look at the SS level increments, but by the time that she's showing up to break the party free, I'm hoping that she's going to be high enough level to have gotten through her racial leveling. (Which is a bit brutal going through the SS version of the Succubus levels, as seen from a previous thread about succubi leveling.)

Racial levels...bleh, kill me now please. Highly creative but really one of the most horribly under-powered, unbalanced things to ever come out of anything.

Here's my opinion. She's an NPC, she can be literally WHATEVER you want her to be. Even if call her a "succubus" that doesn't mean she actually has to BE a by-the-book stat succubus. Not to mention that a CR7 Succubus is intended to be a challenge for an entire level 7 party of 4-5.

IMO, don't make her a succubus. Make her YOUR succubus.

I mean basically a succubus is what, a human with some super-natural abilities right? Flight, Energy Drain, claws. +2 cha, +2 dex -2 con(by pathfinder rules anyway), that's not really all that spectacularly more awesome than most 3.X races. You can basically take the tiefling template and call it a succubus, then just slap a class on her, maybe an extra power or ability and run her as a special NPC.

Really what is a succubus if not just a hot woman with wings with the magical ability to pleasure someone to death?

 

[Alzrius]

I remember reading a Dragon or Kobold article about the society and making of a Succubus.

It was from Kobold Quarterly #21, and it was in reference to the 4E succubus, which is quite different in a number of ways from the 3.X/Pathfinder succubus.

 

[Dozen]

IMO, don't make her a succubus. Make her YOUR succubus.

I can't decide whether I should feel ashamed of the fact I laughed out loud after reading this or not.

Basically, I'm trying to see what I can do to strip a level or two off of the CR of the Succubus and make it feasable to be introduced as a neutral-ish NPC, under the storyline logic posted above. I will take a look at the SS level increments, but by the time that she's showing up to break the party free, I'm hoping that she's going to be high enough level to have gotten through her racial leveling. (Which is a bit brutal going through the SS version of the Succubus levels, as seen from a previous thread about succubi leveling.)

Racial levels...bleh, kill me now please. Highly creative but really one of the most horribly under-powered, unbalanced things to ever come out of anything.

Here's my opinion. She's an NPC, she can be literally WHATEVER you want her to be. Even if call her a "succubus" that doesn't mean she actually has to BE a by-the-book stat succubus. Not to mention that a CR7 Succubus is intended to be a challenge for an entire level 7 party of 4-5.

I mean basically a succubus is what, a human with some super-natural abilities right? Flight, Energy Drain, claws. +2 cha, +2 dex -2 con(by pathfinder rules anyway), that's not really all that spectacularly more awesome than most 3.X races. You can basically take the tiefling template and call it a succubus, then just slap a class on her, maybe an extra power or ability and run her as a special NPC.

Racial levels are really horribly underpowered. But that's why we had Frank and K around I might make use of myself in this thread after all...
The variant rules from Races of War for monster character creation might interest the lot of you. I have used these rules successfully in my games before. The basic idea is to reverse-engineer the creature's stats to find out the racial modifiers based on what we know of arrays, and (usually though not always, and in this case) use CR+1 as 'Minimum level', which also sets the maximum number of points in a given skill and the level req. for feats. Like so:

"Cha 26-15=+10(rounded), Int 16-14=+2, Wis 14-13=+0(rounded), Str 13- 12=+2, Con 12- 10= +2, Dex 12-8=+4 for a +10 Cha, +2 Int, +2 Str, +2 Con, +4 Dex."

So you get a bunch of stat bonuses, the aforementioned abilities, skills, feats, 6 Outsider HD and have her start as an 8th level character instead of set stats and otherwise indentical benefits for an ECL of 12 the SRD would whack at you or that Savage Species nonsense.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I do like swapping out Detect Good for Detect Evil- it makes sense in context and allows for a natural ability to be trained by those who would be teaching her. Same mentality for an anti-dominate person ability, however that would work. (Maybe something similar to a Freedom Paladin's boon for allies? *pondering*)

The energy drain and profane gift* are a bit more tricky, though. (*Where do you see profane gift? I'm looking at the 3.5 MM and the SRD and I'm not seeing that.) The energy drain seems to be a racial thing- Succubi can choose to draw sustenance in the form of life energy from people they kiss (or more.) If you look at it a certian way, this isn't a taught thing- it could be similar to Rouge's energy drain ability- it's just a natural thing that they can't control. Turning that into a positive energy ability would be altering the very being of the succubus- which would probably require lots of divine energy/intervention and probably a lengthy ritual.

I would leave her spell-like abilities alone, except for swapping detect good for detect evil, and maybe not even then. After all, even a good succubus could have justification for being able to sense the good in others. None of the other spell-like abilities are [evil], and that includes dominate person. There's not really any reason to change them. Besides, having power to compel others would offer a constant temptation to lure her toward evil, which could be a nice roleplaying hook. Perhaps she doesn't use those powers unless absolutely necessary to avoid the temptation.

Succubi gain a resistance to spells- makes sense that she'd keep that, as her outsider/demon type remains the same.

They also gain Fire/Cold/Acid resistance 10 and Electricity/Poison immunity. How much of this could you say is a result of racial strengths, and how much would be a result of the horrendous tortures and trials that a young demon must go through to reach maturity in the abyss?

I would think those are racial abilities. All demons get them, afer all.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I like the idea of a "risen" demon. Here's what I'd do.

Things I'd keep:
Demon Traits (Resistances, immunities, and telepathy)
Most of the SLA*
Natural Attacks**
DR***
Tongues
Change Shape

Things I'd probably fiddle with:
*I'd probably change Detect Good to Detect Evil
**I'd probably treat her natural attacks as only Chaotic Aligned
***I'd probably remove the "or Good" part of the DR and just leave it at Cold Iron

I'd also probably get rid of the energy drain ability. Or if she still has it, its something that she suppresses or does her best to never use. Maybe you could even change it be a modified version of the Pathfinder's Profane Gift. So that she can give someone a +2 bonus to a stat, minus the charisma drain effect.

 

[dragonfriend7738]

Is there anything that says that a detect alignment ability has to be a single alignment? Because it would kind of make sense for her to be able to use both Detect Good, and Detect Evil- so why not just throw it all into one Detect (Good/Evil) ability, and decrease it to, I dunno, 3/day or something?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And the good aligned version does the same thing? What is the effect on the receiver when the gift is removed in that case? (Since giving a gift that permanently damages someone isn't exactly a nice thing to do.)

It only does the harm if *SHE* chooses to remove it, not if it's dispelled.

As such, I see no reason a good version couldn't have the same thing without the "Profane". She just would never remove it.

My take on the summoning thing--I would say it would work but the summoned demon(s) would turn on her rather than aid her. Thus she's not going to do it.

 

[Tharkon]

The spell Protection from Evil protects from domination so could be some kind of opposite of Dominate.