Don't worry - be reincarnated!

[ThirdWizard]

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.

So the Troll/Fighter2 becomes a human Fighter1 with no racial abilities?

 

[stevelabny]

again, im not an expert, but yeah.
and its still ok balance wise...because hey, how often do trolls get reincarnated?

i would guesss that 90% of PCs are LA 0. 8% +1, and 1 % +2 or +3.
and one of the detriments of playing the LA race is that reincarnation will not work as well on you as it will on other creatures.

so neither myself, or the druids, should care if the troll gets hosed.

when youre being brought back to life, beggars cant be choosers.

 

[Yair]

Ehm... I'm going against the stream here, but I say no LA. Not all qualities either. To quote,

A reincarnated creature recalls the majority of its former life and form. It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores depend partly on the new body. First eliminate the subject’s racial adjustments (since it is no longer of his previous race) and then apply the adjustments found below to its remaining ability scores. The subject’s level (or Hit Dice) is reduced by 1. If the subject was 1st level, its new Constitution score is reduced by 2. (If this reduction would put its Con at 0 or lower, it can’t be reincarnated). This level/HD loss or Constitution loss cannot be repaired by any means.

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. Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be reincarnated. The spell cannot bring back a creature who has died of old age.

The reincarnated creature gains all abilities associated with its new form, including forms of movement and speeds, natural armor, natural attacks, extraordinary abilities, and the like, but it doesn’t automatically speak the language of the new form.

As I understand it, the reincarnated creature does not really become a membner of the new race. It gets its body and associated extraordinary or physical features, including physical ability scores modifiers. But it does not gain mental racial ability modifiers, and as a DM I would not approve supernatural or spell-like abilities either, in general. (That's iffy, as "gains all abilities associated with its new form" is vague, but that's my reading of it.) If you keep this in mind, a LA in most cases is not needed. At any rate, I will not add LA as a result of reincarnation to the races given in the spell description.

It is maddening that this spell does not consider LA. That was acceptable at 3e, but you would think that by 3.5e they would start to actually integrate the rules together.

Oh, and BTW by the RAW the spell cannot bring back a creature that died of old age, so a rencarnated chain is not viable, unless they kill each other... hmmm, now there is a thought...

 

[Iku Rex]

So the Troll/Fighter2 becomes a human Fighter1 with no racial abilities?

(A troll should be rolling on a special table for trolls, created by the DM.)

 

[Legildur]

I play an elf druid in a table top campaign and noticed that Reincarnate was only a 4th level spell (compared with Raise Dead at 5th level).

Our human paladin got it in the neck and Raise Dead wasn't yet available to us (only 7th level). It took some convincing (and the expensive material components) of an initially reluctant player with a metagaming argument that it wasn't all bad to be reincarnated - particularly under 3.5E where the table is guaranteed to at least bring you back as a humanoid (not like 3.0E).

He eventually agreed to it and rolled himself as a half-elf - which gives him some nifty bonuses to paladin-type skills (Diplomacy etc).

I think it is a good spell for those who can't access Raise Dead. As for LA, I'd let it slide. The more powerful humanoids should normally have integration problems at the front gate of any city. "The rest of you are fine to enter, but not the goblin - he'll spook the populace. He stays outside."

 

[Evilhalfling]

(A troll should be rolling on a special table for trolls, created by the DM.)

This makes the most sense, as the table assumes you are a humanoid, not a gaint to start with, I could see a troll keeping its racial HD unchanged and ending up in a gaint body that was supposed to have more or less racial HD -
ogre, minotaur, hill gaint, ettin would all be possible.

the 3.5 reincarnation table is a problem for me, as my hombrew has a limited number of humanoids nearly indistigushable from each other, I had to make minor adjustments to the 3.0 and rewrite it completely for 3.5

 

[Thanee]

Here's how I'd see it:

If you are reincarnated as a race with more than 1 HD, you do not gain BAB, HP, or anything from those HD, in fact you do not even gain the HD associated with the race. I guess you basically treat it just like a 1 HD race, where you simply replace the racial HD with the class HD. It's somewhat similar to polymorph there, where you are just put into a new body. You gain all racial abilities associated with your new race, which are not dependant on HD (like racial feats are sometimes, i.e. the bugbear normally has two racial feats from HD, or the human gains a bonus feat at 1st level, those you would not get IMHO) and therefore you would also have to apply any level adjustment, since this is purely derived from these abilities, I believe. You do not gain automatic languages, favored class, skills, or anything like that, just purely physical abilities.

Of course, you still lose BAB, HP, etc according to the level loss, which you suffer.

But what happens with your old racial abilities? For example, the human's extra skill points per level. Do you keep getting those? Or the gnome's cantrips? Keep or lose?

I guess for simplicities sake you will lose any such abilities, and only retain those, which you gained fix (which are not a bonus to something), like the human feat and skill points gained so far.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Laurel]

My DM doesn't go by the chart of chance to determine what you come back as, even the players agree though that it makes sense to figure out what is there and hand when the spell is being cast.
Unfortunately my character is one of those recently returned -only thing available at the time was the body of our recently killed enemy...
Since this happened last game we are actually looking at these same questions, so I'll see if I can't get my DM to come on over

 

[The_Universe]

My DM doesn't go by the chart of chance to determine what you come back as, even the players agree though that it makes sense to figure out what is there and hand when the spell is being cast.
Unfortunately my character is one of those recently returned -only thing available at the time was the body of our recently killed enemy...
Since this happened last game we are actually looking at these same questions, so I'll see if I can't get my DM to come on over

And since I have been summoned, I have appeared!

When I use reincarnate as opposed to one of the more powerful "resurrection" spells, I like to try to play up the essentially random aspect of the spell in a slightly different manner than the core rules.

Rather than have the spell create a body for the disembodied spirit from a random intelligent species, I make my players use the resources around them - other recently dead bodies. While this does allow a small chance that the character could return in her own body with a lower level spell, the chance of being reincarnated in the body of an enemy is usually somewhat daunting.

The spell has been attempted twice, and both times the character has been brought back in another body. In one case, a dwarven bard was reincarnated as an elf. More recently, a half-elf was reincarnated in the body of a Yuan-ti Pureblood villain.

Although I don't think it really goes to the heart of the original question, but since my presence was requested by a player, I hope that this wasn't just a waste of letters.

As far as specific mechanics - I make changes as per the spell, but disallow racial hit die and bonuses derived from them. Even racial hit die represent experience gained, and a reincarnated character cannot have those experiences - they have their own. Should it come up, I allow characters access to innate spell-like and supernatural abilities of the new body, as well.

Racial "social" bonuses (like an elf's proficiency with the longsword and/or rapier, or a dwarf's stone sense/cunning) are not applied, since they represent upbringing rather than breeding.

Just my 2 cents, of course.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

My 2 cents..

SRD quote from above. " It retains any class abilities, feats, or skill ranks it formerly possessed. Its class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and hit points are unchanged. "

It does not mention anything about Racial abilities, feats, skill ranks, BAB, etc...

Here is my take on it:
The spell creates/summons/whatever new body for the target of the spell.
Lose 1 level, or 1 HD if no levels or 2 CON points if at 1 level/HD.
Remove all racial stat modifiers based on the old form.
Remove all racial abilities based on the old form, including racial HD.
Adjust the HPs due to change in CON/HD
Leave any cultural ablities based on the old form, such as the Human bonus feat and Elvish weapon proficiencies.
Add all racial stat modifiers based on the new form
Add all racial abilities based on the new form. You do not gain skill points or cultural abilities.
Roll any added racial HD and adjust HPs based on the new CON score.
Add any LA based on the new body

Ideally, the table should reflect only +0 or +1 LA different from the target creature. The 'win' of gaining a 'better' body is offset by gaining the LA. I would not think it would be broken to allow even a +3 LA on the table, as the XP spent to catch up can be described as the character taking time to adjust to a radically different body.

I agree that this one is not very well defined.. but IME the use of the spell is not that common.

An interesting thought that struck me as I wrote this.. using Sean Reynolds 'lycanthropic as class levels' rules, a reincarnated lycanthrope would retain the disease!
I guess as long as you define the disease as a spiritual/soul disease instead of a physical one....hmm, interesting. Now I feel like using a 3.0 table and getting a Were-Rat Bugbear!

Heres an idea.. would anyone be willing to submit thier idea for alternate tables for different races?