In the interests of full disclosure

[hong]

[h1]Exalted Creature[/h1]

Exalted creatures have achieved enlightenment in all of the 8 virtues of the Avatar.

“Exalted” is an acquired template that can be added to any good, living creature that is not an outsider or elemental. The exalted template’s benefits can be gained over time, as the creature attains partial avatarhood in each virtue and principle. Those benefits/changes without a listed prerequisite are gained when the creature attains full avatarhood.

Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to outsider. The exalted creature has the native subtype. Size is unchanged.

Special Attacks: An exalted creature retains all the character’s special attacks and gains those listed below.

• Holy Power (Su): The save DCs of all the exalted creature’s special attacks, including spells and spell-like, supernatural and extraordinary abilities, increase by +2. [Truth]
• Holy Touch (Su): The exalted creature’s melee attacks with any weapon (or unarmed) deal an additional 1d6 points of holy damage against evil creatures. [Valor]
• Spell-Like Abilities: At will — guidance, resistance, virtue, bless [all Humility], air walk.

Special Qualities: An exalted creature retains all the character’s special qualities and gains those listed below.

• Healing Touch (Sp): An exalted creature can lay on hands as a paladin of her character level. [Compassion]
• Damage Reduction (Ex): An exalted creature gains damage reduction according to the table below.
• Spell Resistance (Su): An exalted creature gains spell resistance equal to 5 + her levels/HD.
• Immunities (Ex): An exalted creature is immune to acid, cold, electricity and petrification effects. [Courage]
• Keen Vision (Ex): An exalted creature has low-light vision and 60-foot darkvision.
• Protective Aura (Su): As a free action, an exalted creature can surround herself with a nimbus of light having a radius of 20 feet. This acts as a double-strength magic circle against evil and as a lesser globe of invulnerability. [Love]
• Resistances (Ex): An exalted creature has resistance to fire 10 and gains a +4 racial bonus to saves against poison. [Honor]
• Tongues (Su): An exalted creature can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell cast by a 14th level cleric. [Spirituality]

HD	DR
1–3	—
4–7	5/magic
8–11	5/evil
12+	10/evil

Abilities: Modify the base creature as follows: Con +2 [Sacrifice], Wis +2 [Justice], Cha +2 [Honesty].

 

[BiggusGeekus]

How close are your players to achiving this and how do you plan to balance the game when they do?

I mean, other than dropping anvils on their head every time combat starts.

 

[hong]

How close are your players to achiving this

Close. The next session starts in about 10 hours, in fact.

Well, not _that_ close. Two of the PCs have 4 virtues done, and another has one. There were others, but they either retired or died.

and how do you plan to balance the game when they do?

It hasn't actually been that big a deal so far (with one exception, but the avatar powerups didn't have much to do with that). This is actually a rejigging of the avatar template/system on my Brit3E page, with some of the virtue-specific benefits modified.

The PCs don't die as much as they might otherwise, but that's fine by me. It means they also don't have to resort to resurrection all the time, which is a feature of high-level 3E gameplay I've never really liked.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Shouldn't the virtue of courage give immunity to fear?

Honor should prevent the creature from doing something against its code: resistance or immunities to compulsions and mind-affecting effects, maybe.

 

[hong]

Shouldn't the virtue of courage give immunity to fear?

Honor should prevent the creature from doing something against its code: resistance or immunities to compulsions and mind-affecting effects, maybe.

I was basically copying the Saint template in BoED, but yeah, that's probably a better fit.