ECL for a Blink Dog?

[Barendd Nobeard]

I have a player who wants to play a blink dog. Any thoughts on the ECL for this creature? I was thinking ECL 5, but is that too generous? Too strict?

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[Murrdox]

Ummmm.... aside from that being really freaking WEIRD... I mean, how are you going to play a blink dog? Sure they're intelligent, but aside from killing the occasional Displacer Beast... do they care about adventuring at all?

ANYWAYS, get Savage Species for more specific info... but you would need to have as many monster levels as the blink dog has hit dice, and then the ECL for the blink dog itself I would probably place at +2, since it has two spell like abilities that are fairly powerful.

So if a blink dog has 3 hit dice, you'd be looking at a +5 level adjustment basically.

 

[Yeoman]

Well I'm not about all of it, but as a quick look I'd say

4d10 hit dice= +4
Unbalanced Ability Scores= +1
Spell Like Abilities: +2?
Scent: +?

ECL of 7 or 8 I'd guess, but I do not have Savage Species with me at work.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Yeah, it's weird, but the player really wants to play one. He just has a thing for Blink Dogs.

I think he's gonna go Rogue, and he'll have a collar of telepathy (variation of the helm) for communication.

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[Murrdox]

Rogue Blink Dog: ARF! ARF! ARF!

Party Hears: [Attention! There is a magical "Implosion" trap on this doorway. Wait while I disarm it]

*Blink dog pokes the door with his nose a few times and scratches at it a bit*

Rogue Blink Dog: ARF!

Party Hears: [Okay! All safe!]

Party: HUH??

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Rogue Blink Dog: ARF! ARF! ARF!

Party Hears: [Attention! There is a magical "Implosion" trap on this doorway. Wait while I disarm it]

*Blink dog pokes the door with his nose a few times and scratches at it a bit*

Rogue Blink Dog: ARF!

Party Hears: [Okay! All safe!]

Party: HUH??

Well, we (the player and I) already decided that the whole "disable traps" Rogue function is out of the question for this PC.

But Dimension Door once per round as a free action? Much flanking goodness....


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[DerianCypher]

I'm not really sure on this one. If he is just majong a blinkdog (taking stats, abilities etc but not hd) I'd say +3 or +4.

DC

 

[Hawkshere]

I have worked up a blink dog as a possible cohort for a PC in my group. Since it's an NPC, I don't have to figure an ECL, I just had to balance the HD + added character levels to the PC's leadership score. Since the base creature is 4 HD, and the PC can have a 7th level cohort, I added 3 levels of Rogue to the blink dog. It works out to be a pretty good character; blink and dimension door + finessed bite + sneak attack adds up to decent damage potential, but the hit points are mediocre at best and AC is awful.

That's okay for an NPC cohort, but a PC is going to need a better AC. I don't think an ECL of 7 is taking all the disadvantages into account. I definitely wouldn't go lower than 5, though.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Thanks for all the input. Maybe I'll post a story hour on this game if it ever takes off.

 

[Mark]

Soldarin has them at ECL +4

http://csserver.evansville.edu/~jc84/DD3/Monster_ECL.htm

Here's the parameters he uses for his calculations-

http://soldarin.tripod.com/rpgpages/id5.html

Good stuff this.