racial stats for a housefly

[mr.pink]

So im in the process of starting a new campaign and one of my characters wants to play an awakened housefly. I need some help with the stats.

any suggestions?

 

[slwoyach]

Yeah. 1 hit point, no damaging attack, no hands for spellcasting. If he just wants to be a buzzing knowledge factory that's fine, but outside of that he can't be a viable character.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

RAW, it can't happen. You could, of course, HR things differently (which is why its in this thread, natch).

Even though we all know flies are animals, D&D distinguishes between animals and bugs/insects, etc., calling the latter vermin.

Types & Subtypes :: d20srd.org
Types & Subtypes :: d20srd.org

And this matters because Awaken only works on Animals and trees.

Awaken :: d20srd.org

Yeah. 1 hit point, no damaging attack, no hands for spellcasting.

This, however, isn't entirely correct either.

For whatever reason, at least some magical animals without hands are capable of casting spells- why is up to the DM. I could see it either as they don't need to use somatic components, or their somatic components differ slightly.

Example, The Celestial Charger Unicorn- a Uni with 7 levels of cleric...and all he has is hooves and a horn.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/unicorn.htm

 

[Celebrim]

So im in the process of starting a new campaign and one of my characters wants to play an awakened housefly. I need some help with the stats.

any suggestions?

Nice one.

Can't really do it with RAW D&D. D&D has never handled scale all that well. 3rd does it better than earlier (and later) editions, but more than a size class or two from 'standard' it starts breaking down.

Here is a stab at it anyway, assuming a fly that also has increased in size by an order of magnitude in the process of becoming intelligent (size fine is actually a significant advantage in and of itself).

Awakened Enlarged Fly
Size Diminutive
STR -12*, DEX +6, CON -12*, INT +0, WIS +0, CHR +0
Move: climb 5', fly 20' (good)
Drawbacks: No hands (can't pick up or hold anything, no hand/ring/glove slots, automatically fails craft, disable device, forgery, open lock, sleight of hand, and use rope skill checks), Can't Swim (automatically fails swim checks), poor vision (-6 spot checks), squishy (dies at -6 h.p., massive damage threshhold 30 h.p.), disgusting (-5 penalty on all charisma related skill checks when interacting with non-vermin),
Benefits: Natural climb speed (+14 racial bonus), natural fly speed, natural Armor +1, all around vision (can't be flanked), low-light vision, scent, blind sight 5' radius, vermin traits, racial feat (lightning reflexes), agile (jump and climb are dexterity based skills)
Attacks: none

*Character must buy at least 12 base strength and con before modifiers.

And that isn't even really screwing the player over. You are perfectly within your rights to declare that a fly can cast no spells that require a somatic component.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Remember, if you allow it to work, Awakened turns the target animal into a "Magical Beast"- which could matter for the purposes of spells or templates.

You are perfectly within your rights to declare that a fly can cast no spells that require a somatic component.

While I agree, IMHO, you'd really need to be able to justify it to the player, especially in the light of other the fact that the other spellcasting magical beasts don't need to. The aforementioned Celestial Charger has no Still Spell feat, for instance. Nor does the Androsphinx, the Lammasu or Aranea- and that's just in the SRD. None of them have hands, either.

My guess is that they've done things that way so that magical beasts can do in the game what they could do in myth, legend and faerie tale.

 

[Ashtagon]

An awakened fly would be allowed to use spells if it had any. Under RAW, animals with spells can use whatever animal body parts it has to perform somatic components of spells. This does not necessarily apply to shapechanged druids or other casters, but does apply to animals and monsters in their natural shape.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thanks for the backup, but do you have a cite for that?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Not trying to ninja Ashtagon, but here's that cite for spell-casting beasties: Special Abilities :: d20srd.org

(Recently worked all this out for an evil awakened mule. Don't ask.)

 

[Nellisir]

(Recently worked all this out for an evil awakened mule. Don't ask.)

What's to ask? Sounds like a normal mule.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, the real difficulty for a spellcasting fly would be material components, not somatic ones.