Reincarnating as a Pixie

[Mean DM]

Here is a simple question for you all. Would a PC who is reincarnated as a Pixie get the Spell-like abilities, SR 16 and natural invisibility? The Reincarnate spell says, "The reincarnated character does gain any powers or abilities associated with his new form." My first reaction was no, and that the PC would only get the fly ability and other racial modifiers. But, I'm not sure.

Thanx!
Mark

 

[Dark Dragon]

By the wording of the spell, the PC would gain ALL powers and abilities of the new form, so, yes that would include SR 16 (which is quite low, especially in high-level campaigns), natural invisibility can be foiled quite easily (See Invisibility is a standard spell for mid to high-level mages, Blindsight, Invisibility Purge and Glitterdust would help, too). The spell-like abilities are not overpowered IMHO, although a clever player could use them for some nasty tricks. And only one in ten pixies has Otto's Irresistable Dance, you have to roll d10 to check this out.

As a DM, I would allow all abilities and powers of a pixie (the player of our fighter/rogue/deepwood sniper hoped that his PC will be reincarnated as a pixie after he was killed by a banshee, but the dices wanted only a human body ).

 

[Spatzimaus]

It's a strange situation. The more general question is, "If I'm reincarnated as a race with ECL greater than 0, am I penalized in any way to make up for this?"

By the letter of the spell, you're now wearing the body of a member of that race, with all the built-in abilities it bestows. But, if it ever came up IMC, I'd force the character to drop a number of levels equal to the ECL it bestows.

That way, you remove the roulette-wheel-o'-death effect, where people get reincarnated over and over until they get one of the "good" forms. After all, it's just like Polymorph Other, but no "adjustment" time and it can't be dispelled.

 

[Murrdox]

If you were suddenly reincarnated into a race with a +ECL, I guess you'd just need quite awhile to level up. I wouldn't remove class levels from a character.

If a level 5 character died, and was reincarnated as a +1 ECL, I'd say he basically becomes level 6. Thus, he needs as much experience to get to CLASS level 6 as a normal character would to get to 7. This could result in a LONG time before that next level is gained.

I'd never knock the character DOWN to level 4, and add in the +1 ECL to keep the character at level 5 though.

Savage Species might have specific rules on how things like this work... I'm kinda just making this up off the top of my head. Taking class levels away from players = bad.

 

[Dimwhit]

I wouldn't knock him down a level, either, particularly because he would have just lost a level from dying and being reincarnated. We actually had the same thing happen in our campaign. He even came back as a pixie. For purposes of party level, he's figured in as being one level higher (or whatever his ECL adds), but I think that's all the DM did with it.

 

[Gizzard]

By the letter of the spell, you're now wearing the body of a member of that race, with all the built-in abilities it bestows. But, if it ever came up IMC, I'd force the character to drop a number of levels equal to the ECL it bestows.

It won't come up in my campaign because I don't allow Reincarnation for this reason. ;-)

In other campaigns run by friends:

1) DM did not adjust for ECL. This makes his life very hard as there is a huge spread in the effectiveness of the various party members. The reincarnated non-humans dominate combat and its hard to challenge them without slaughtering the others. Medium level campaign; ECL spread from 4 to 9.

2) DM moved the reincarnated player's next level out to include the ECL. This was a bit frustrating for the player, who remained static for 4 levels while his friends caught up to him. High level campaign; near 20.

 

[Murrdox]

Unfortunately, a reincarnated player has to deal with option #2 I believe.

I just checked the SRD version of reincarnate, and it specifies that the user's class levels remain the same (except for the -1 level penalty associated with being Reincarnated to start with).

Thus, I'm even more inclined to go with #2.

A high level character who has been reincarnated could always get a Wish cast to return him/her to the original shape, though. Unless you really LIKE being a Badger...

 

[Artoomis]

My personal feeling is that it is better to only allow an ECL equal to what the character was before dying to prevent unbalancing the character relative to the rest of the party.

I'd stay away from the random chart, or produce my own with the choices balanced against the existing party.

You might note that using the random chart is only one of two options - random or DM choice.

 

[Crunchy Frog]

If you have Savage Species, you could start out the character as a 1st level pixie (with just some minor spell-like abilities), and make him gain the other abilities little by little as he gains levels in the pixie class. I don't think this is official, but it has the advantage of not giving a sudden jump in power.

 

[shilsen]

Or use the FRCS system for awarding XP, in which case the lower level PCs would catch up quite quickly.