Don't worry - be reincarnated!

[Scharlata]

Hi, fellow druids and freshly reincarnated ones!

Our party went to a druid to get two party members reincarnated. We got no alternative to Reincarnate...

The first one to come back from the dead was our gnome druid who got her a brand new lizardfolk body. The second in line was a human fighter/ranger who came back as a halforc. Both players were (it appeared so) happy with what they got.

First question that arose was: Does a reincarnated character have to consider Level Adjustment for any calculations? Is Reincarnate a legal method of getting "stronger" (by sheer luck, that is)? The bugbear and the lizardfolk do both have a LA of +1, if only a 1% chance to get at.

Second question came along: Does a reincarnated human which got a nonhuman form keep his human bonus feat? Does the reincarnated creature get the feat/s from its new form?

Third question squirreled up: Does the reincarnated creature have to reroll its hit points? May it keep its old results? What about if the new form has more than 1 HD to start with? Does the new form get full hit points for its 1st HD (i.e. 8), then roll 1d8 for every further HD and later roll for his character class/es?

Fourth question knocked aloud: Is it an "option" to get reincarnated as an elf to live (very) long and prosper? Maybe that qualifies as an alterntive to becoming a lich for any short-lived race?

Kind regards

 

[ThirdWizard]

1: Yes, you must apply the LA, in fairness. They're getting the benefits, after all. In some cases, as a DM, I might "bend" the rules here for those who would be severely hampered by an LA*, for example, a spellcasting class.

2: I would allow the feat to be kept. This is mostly because I wouldn't take away skillpoints, and it seems natural, thus, to leave the feat. There might be other abilities for other races that I would leave, for example battle training against giants, but I don't know if there's a RAW for this case.

3: This could go either way, depending on the DM's preference. I don't think it really matters, however.

4: My games usually had high level druids getting constantly reincarnated being spiritual leaders to their people for thousands of years before finding a proper replacement, who they would teach for thousands more before going on to their natural death.

EDIT: * By this I mean not give them a +LA race.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

(1) I would not apply LA at all. The 2% chance of getting something good is reasonably balanced against getting something not so great. The fighting types are the highest risk of getting something small/weak, so the chance of something good seems fair. The spellcasters do not care much.

Remember that the character is losing a level, so the PC is not actually going to come back better, although he might be just as good. Is it really a problem that the PC can get a lucky break?

BTW, ignore monster racial HD. A 6th level Fighter who is killed and returns as a Bugbear should be a Bugbear with 5 Fighter levels. The number of HD is unambiguous from the spell description. It is the easiest way.

(2) By the RAW the bonus feat and skill point remain.

(3) Keep the old rolls. Ignore racial HD.

(4) Yes, but it would usually be considered impractical to ditch a few levels to get the right kind of body for "bird in the hand vs. two in the bush" reasons.

 

[babomb]

Hi, Scharlata!

1.) Yes, I'd say so (but see 3).

2.) The (3.5) rules say the creature retains its feats. So, yes, he keeps the human feat. Does he gain a new feat? The rules say he "gains all abilities associated with [his] new form" but doesn't mention feats explicitly. I'd say probably not. Whether that's what's intended is a different story, but I think it makes more sense in most cases.

3.) The rules say keep the same hit points and reduce the HD by 1. I'd say don't give the extra HD and apply a reduced LA (-1 per HD removed from the new form). If you do add the hit dice, however, just roll the newly added ones and keep the previous ones.

4.) The rules don't explicitly say, but I say yes. The only problem with this as an alternative to lichdom is that there's only a 12% chance to reincarnate as an elf. In fact, since the new body is always a young adult, when the elf gets old, he can arrange to have himself killed (because creatures that die of old age can't be reincarnated), and reincarnated into another elf. Theoretically, as long as he gains a level between reincarnations, he could live forever (and maybe even gain multiple mental score bonuses for old age).

 

[ThirdWizard]

Actually all it says about returning to life is

A creature that has been turned into an undead creature or killed by a death effect can’t be returned to life by this spell.

You can return to life someone who has died of natural causes.

I don't see anything in the description about not getting HD either, so I have to say that by RAW, you get the HD of the creature reincarnated to, if they have any. This will affect BAB, Saves, and HD, as well as push your ECL up. But this leads to the problem....

The description is quite... paradoxal. You lose a Hit Die but you keep your BAB, Base Save bonuses, and hit points. These two things are contradictory. Obviously something is wrong here, or you could keep killing yourself, get reincarnated, and level to gain +50 BAB at level 10 theoretically.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

1) I would apply level adjustment. This could go in reverse, too -- a troll being reincarnated as a human may get a lot of levels really quickly. Whether or not you keep any racial hit dice is an open-ended question. Frankly, I'd probably remove all of the multi-HD creatures from the list to keep things simple.

2) Feats are learned. Racial feats are expected to be learned by virtue of the culture you grew up in. Thus a reincarnated character should retain the feats from their previous life, but not get the feats of their new species because they didn't grow up like that. (Same with languages and, IMO, Favored Class).

3) HP revision is why multi-HD creatures shouldn't be on the reincarnate list. Offhand, I would say that Con is the measure of any given body's capability to soak damage; HP is a measurement of the character's ability to soak damage. So they adjust HP for any Con change, but don't reroll because they're still the same character.

4) Let's RP this situation. "Here's 10,000 gp -- I want you to kill me and then reincarnate me while praying that I come back as an elf." "But I don't want to kill you, I'm a neutral guy who doesn't want to hurt you" "Psst, hey buddy, I'll kill you! I'm Evil!" "Well, I can't trust the evil guy, so I guess I'll have to make the neutral guy not like me -- fireball that Spotted Owl!" <Neutral guy gibs suicide-freak for 20000pts of woodland-defending damage> "Well, he's dead and I've got his $10K. He wanted to be reincarnated, but he also was a crazy suicide freak that fireballed an innocent spotted owl -- so I'm not so sure he should come back. Maybe I'll just invest this in a nature preserve instead."

So as you can see, while theoretically possible, it's probably easier and safer to just become a lich instead.

HiH,
::Kaze

 

[Scharlata]

Hi y'all!

Very interesting opinions. Reincarnate is paradoxal with the LA +1 / 2 HD races on the list. And I forgot to mention that 2 racial HD mean more skill points, too.

I'm still reading

Until later

 

[ThirdWizard]

You don't have to be killed to be reincarnated. You can die of natural causes. Just make sure that there's a Druid willing to cast the spell on you when you die naturally. If you're an adventurer and on good terms with the Druids, then I'm sure they won't mind.

And for the Troll being reincarnated to a human, would it make sense for him to keep the ECL or lose those ECL? Lets say he's a Troll/Fighter2 (just to make it simple). Would he become a simple Fighter2? Would it make sence for him to become a FighterX to make up for the ECL? What about a FighterX/BarbarianY? Or a FighterX/WizardY? Where do you draw the line? To the player it mightn't be fair if they used the Savage Species progression and actually leveled that character up using all that xp and you made him a Fighter2. But, would it be right rules wise?

The moral is: don't reincarnate a troll.

 

[Paragon Kobold]

It seems strange that with the sheer amount of rules WotC have been producing the last few years they have never given us a clear set of rules for reincarnation. Have anyone seen such a thing?
Perhaps no-one at WotC plays druids...

Thing are a bit easier in 3.5 simply because the table is more restricted. When I was playing 3.0 we had a (half-orc) monk come back as a wolf.
That necessitated quite a few rulings on such subjects as speed,
'stunning bite', flurry of bites, etc.

 

[stevelabny]

i'm under the impression that they come back as they were, minus 1 level...
subtract the PHYSICAL traits of their old race, add the PHYSICAL traits of their new race. (attribute mods, racial skill mods, racial abiltieis such as darkvision, lowlight vision, natural armor etc) the end.

no LA. no racial HD. no bonus feats. no loss of feats.

you get a lizardfolk or bugbear? well, congratulations. you "won"
if being persecuted by most civilized peoples constitues winning.

you get a goblin or a kobold? oh well, sucks to be you, at least youre not dead.

the GM can balance this spell as he sees fit by making lizardfolk or bugbears into serious bad guys as far as regular people are concerned, or making the next magic item the party finds be a kobold or goblin only item of decent power level.