Need help with new Dragonstar template

[kramis]

I've been working on a new template for Dragonstar and would like some feedback and ideas on it. It's a bit rough right now. I'm thinking something in the ECL +2 range.

The Sentient Symbiote template can be applied to most creatures with INT greater than 3.

The idea is sort of taken from some ST:TNG episodes, where you are a symbiote living together with another creature. Only willing creatures can become hosts, and the two creatures form a new joined being. You can attempt to "take over" an unwilling host, but you can never gain real control over it and the body will eventually reject the meld.

The Sentient Symbiotes (haven't come up with a good name yet) are a long lived race of explorers. They are rare in the empire, which is far from their home world, and not much is known about them. They are mostly explorers out for new knowledge and experiences. As they can be a range of alignements, the type of experiences they are after varies.

When a symbiote moves to a new host a lot of it's memories are lost. It retains most of it's knowledge but loses all of it's physical skills. When a host dies, the symbiote leaves the body and must find a new host within 24 hours or it will die. Once joined with a host it can not be separated without killing the host. A symbiote can essentially live forever as long as it moves from host to host.

General Benefits
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Host body becomes immune to disease and ceases to age.
Enhanced mental abilities (+x to INT and WIS).
All knowledge skills are class skills.
+30 ranks to be divided up among knowledge skills.
Possible ability to retrieve "random piece of information" from deep memory.
Lesser Body adjustment 2 x day (psionic ability)
Animal affinity 1 x day (as first level psion)
Acts as a Trauma Symbiote
+x vs. mind control effects

General Problems
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Can't be resurected.
Lose abilities and gain new physical stats when shifted to new body.
Host can't have another trauma symbiote.


That's about as far as I've gotten. I was trying to think of a good way to have them retain maybe some skills/feats/magic if they shift hosts so a character doesn't have to completely start over, though they do with soulmechs usually anyway, so maybe it's not necessary.

Anyway, comments welcome.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmm. The best idea I have:
Is is not "ECL", but it is real Class Level.

A character having such a symbiont (by the way: One of the DS9 Main Characters and one of the hottest startrek babes , Jadzia Dax, does have such a symbiont)

If you want to reflect this, how about that: Instead of being resurected by magic or similar effects, after the body dies, the symbiont is transferred into a new body.
This effect would be similar to the Reincarnation spell, but the body is not randomly chosen.

(If you use a system similar to the in Startrek, The Next Generation, the new bearer is chosen among the best of the species. This means, you don`t get a "commoner`s" body, but the one of a potential hero. Ruleswise this would mean that the DM or the player just rolls up new stats.)

It might be usable similar to "spellware" (costs would be like the ability to cast reincarnate at will - somewhere, the non-random choice of the body must be reflected), but as a template, this becomes really hard...

Hmm.
The ability bonus to the mental abilities should be only based on aging effects. The "Reincarnate at will" ability is still a tough thing. You could make the costs for the symbiont transfer similar to the cost of a True Resourection spell, thus making it a "non template" thing.
So, finally, I would go for +1 ECL for every aging category "step" that gives ability bonus to the mental abilities.
No penalties, and apply the usual racial adjustments...