Negative ECL??

[Stone Angel]

So in an upcoming ebberon campaign in the character concept stage, I decided that my character would be a paladin/fighter a warrior of an ancient age almost a thousand years ago. But he was abducted by the fey or Ebberon variant, and tortured for their pleasure, in a sort of dream like horrible existence his body lived on his mind broken and welded back together by the cruel seelie that dwelled their time and again.

Enter now, the warrior finds himself in the thick of Ebberon, reality lurches and twists. He is never sure of the real or if it is another trick of the fey.

All this I have told you to get to a mechanincs question. He is sort of like an extreme Rip van Winkle that essentially has to "re-learn" all his skills and such. The DM and I had talked about it, she loved the idea. So we needed to create the feeling for him. He is extremely aged but his mind is bent. He is still strong, but his stamina is lacking he is wise but his intellect is fissured and anarchic.

So in all of this I suggested a sort of negative ECL so I would still be lvl 1 but I would still have retained some of the naturelness that my body has remembered how to accomplish, i.e. duck a blow, roll with a punch, parry a strike. So essentially I would have like a negative 3-5 ecl in exchange for a few hit points bab and improved saves. My exchange is the age penalties and such with limited bonus to wis.

So what do you guys think is this a fair exchange or do you think it is unbalanced? Has anyone done anything like this?


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[der_kluge]

What level is he starting at? 1st? I don't see how you could properly implement a -3 ECL for a 1st level character. What are you thinking, penalties-wise, that would justify a negative 3-5 ECL?

If you're wanting him to recapture his abilities that he had long ago as he goes up in level, then I would suggest some sort of prestige class, or base class variant that you and your DM can tailor together. That might make more sense in this case.

 

[RandomPrecision]

I still don't know the stats on your character, but it sounds to me that something is awry. It's as if your balancing your character's advantages by giving him a negative ECL. The ECL isn't a postive quality that can be lowered as a disadvantage, it's a measure of how strong a character is. If you have penalties with advantages that balance them, you should have an ECL of whatever you'd normally have. If you have a negative ECL, you're going to be behind the rest of the party, and if it's in the range of 3-5 (which seems like far too much for what you're discussing), you could potentially add the half-celestial template to get back up to the level of the rest of the party, which isn't right. You should just dicuss the issue with your DM. I don't think there would be any level adjustment for it, but if there is, you're going to have to have some significant disabilities due to your past.

I wasn't aware the fey were like that...