Reincarnation and ECL/racial hit dice

[Gnome]

I've recently had a character die in my campaign, and the PCs have access to a druid who can cast reincarnation, but not raise dead.

For those who have had a character brought back through reincarnation, how was it handled if the character got a race with a level adjustment and/or racial hit dice?

 

[Nail]

As the DM, I just scratched off the > ECL +0 races, and added new ECL +0 ones.....before we rolled the dice.

 

[seans23]

That's part of the fun of spinning the wheel... sure you might come as a bugbear, gnoll, lizardfolk, or troglodyte, but you might also come back as a goblin or kobold. That human fighter with the awesome gear is gonna be a wee-bit upset by that possibility. Also, think of the cultural issues associated with coming back as one of those races, especially if you don't know the language.

I wouldn't add any racial hit dice, though.

 

[smootrk]

I treat the situation a little like Lycanthropy... when the change occurs the character gains the appropriate racial HD, and is suddenly treated as if they are higher ECL... although I would require the character to gain XP at the normal rate... so basically the character will not again level up for a while. That is the price of the sudden boost in power.

And I agree that overall it is probably easier to limit to +0 LA races with no racial HD to avoid that situation. If the dead character was already a race with LA and or racial HD, then I expanding/modifying the the list to match the character's existing LA/RHD might save you some headache as well --- and your player will be less likely to feel ripped-off if the racial qualities match up well.

 

[TheYeti1775]

I can speak from a player side for ya.

World - Dawnforge
Levels 14-16
Characters involved -
Morigath(Me) - Wizard
Didius - Sorceror/Wild Mage
Donnie - Fighter Cohort to Didius
Lots of other combatants and what not of the party and monsters.

Middle of Combat, I'm struck dead as a doornail.
Donnie yells back to Thorn-Disciple(think Cleric) and Didius. "Morigath is down and hurt bad." Donnie has no heal skills, he is a tank. Thorn can't get to him, so Didius being the Chaotic Wild Mage he is says "I wish Morigath felt better" thereby casting Limited Wish. Well since he didn't know I was dead, he figured it was the best wish he could come up with to get me back into the fight. So the DM rolls randomly between Reincarnate / Raise Dead / Revivify (Spell Compendium) and comes up with the Reincarnate.
Has Didius roll %% without telling him why, consults chart and now the Trueborn Human Wizard is the Dawnforge World's first Half-Elf. All and all it worked out great for me 'stat-wise'. I was playing a Middle-Age Character, and because of the race change it made me barely an Adult in Half-Elf years, and with Reincarnate you gain all the physical (Str/Dex/Con) properties of the new race but retain your mental (Int/Wis/Cha).

Notes for those that play Dawnforge.
After some talking with the DM, we went with that Half-Elves would be a mix of Dawn-Elves and Lowlander Humans. With this change to my PC, and the fact you can't unlearn things we went with the Racial Transformations were the only changes. So it has been interesting so far.
We have a 'tenative' theory of Talents coming from 'Mother Race' and Transformations coming from 'Father Race' but that is still somewhat up in the air.

And for those that 'repopulate' the chart, if we had done that with playable races I would have come out a Minotaur Wizard with none of the Mental Penalties for such. But it did cross our mind for a half-a-sec.

 

[Nail]

"I wish he felt better" = "the spell kills him and then reincarnates him"?

Bizarre.

 

[Bad Paper]

That's part of the fun of spinning the wheel... sure you might come as a bugbear, gnoll, lizardfolk, or troglodyte, but you might also come back as a goblin or kobold. That human fighter with the awesome gear is gonna be a wee-bit upset by that possibility. Also, think of the cultural issues associated with coming back as one of those races, especially if you don't know the language.

I wouldn't add any racial hit dice, though.

yes, qft. when I made a custom reincarnation chart (for sean's character, ha ha), i even had one LA+2 character on there, just in case. he wound up with a hobgoblin, but it didn't impose an LA. it was fine. and a hobgoblin monk is quite sneaky

 

[Gnome]

What are some good ECL0 choices to replace the ECL +X races in the chart. This takes place in the Forgotten Realms, 3.5, with most supplemental material allowed.

 

[smootrk]

What are some good ECL0 choices to replace the ECL +X races in the chart. This takes place in the Forgotten Realms, 3.5, with most supplemental material allowed.

The easiest replacements would be to expand the Dwarf/Elf/Halfling/Gnome subraces. To add to that, Kenku (MM3), Goliath (RoS, Raptorians (RoW), Illumians (RoD)... etc.

 

[seans23]

What are some good ECL0 choices to replace the ECL +X races in the chart. This takes place in the Forgotten Realms, 3.5, with most supplemental material allowed.

how about if you roll any of those races, you just keep your current race?