Reincarnation

[James McMurray]

Hey folks, a thread on another board about Resurrection got me wondering about reincarnation. The party in my game only has access to True Reincarnation and Reincarnation via the party druid. However, I can easily see how that could become unbalanced, given the way you are supposed to determine the new form's stats.

With True Reincarnation the party's Psychic Warrior could come back as a brown bear and get +15 Strength, +2 dex, and +8 con. That could get pretty nasty, especially considering he has Polymorph Self, which would remove most of the social negatives.

What do people think about reincarnate as a means of returning from the dead, and should it be changed to preserve game balance?

Thanks!

 

[Mordane76]

Technically, if you're reincarnated as creature with such power, then ECL should also be applied, making much more difficult for the reincarnated character to gain levels for the power he gains. But then... I think characters would be committing suicide to get reincarnated...

 

[Caliber]

When the Psychic Warrior Polymorphs into a Human, he gets baseline Human physical stats.

That means, of course, 10s and 11s all around.

As a Bear he can't use weapons.

Sounds cool to me.

ECL shouldn't ever be applied after a character is genned, but really Reincarnation does cause some problems. Most of the time it isn't the fact that the character becomes too powerful ... more often its the exact opposite.

All just my opinion though.

 

[James McMurray]

When the Psychic Warrior Polymorphs into a Human, he gets baseline Human physical stats.

True, but physical stats don't matter much in social situations. If the party gets ambushed in a social situation, a single standard action is all it takes to go back to bear form.

As a Bear he can't use weapons.

True, but he uses Claws of the Vampire, meaning the added Strength is all he cares about. Of course, if he finds himself in a situation requiring missile weapons, then he will be a bit out of luck, as he'd be restricted to any ranged attack powers he knows.

Most of the time it isn't the fact that the character becomes too powerful ... more often its the exact opposite.

Not when talking about Psychic Warriors and Monks. Even many spellcasters will be unhindered, so long as they took Eschew Material components (which nearly every spellcaster in my campaign has done). The massive boosts you can get to stats sem like they could be very overpowering.

Of course, my campaign features quite a lot of combat, meaning +15 to strength is even more useful.

Anyone have ideas on toning it down? I like the ECL idea.

What about giving the characer average stats for that animal type? Would that make it underpowered?

 

[Caliber]

Hmm ... you do present good points James.

I guess I hadn't considered it thouroughly, although I still consider it an underpowered choice.

Once someone on the board said that the stat bonuses Reincarnation bestows fails to actually correspond to the stats the animals receieve.

If you look at the animals, subtract 10 from an even stat and an 11 from odd stats. The resulting number is the plus to that stat. If they don't match up with what Reincarnation gives, maybe try using those stats instead? (assuming they are lower, of course)

 

[James McMurray]

If we go by the MM stats, we get the following adjustments. Modifiers in italics are changed ones. The bold (for Brown bear strength) actually goes up a bit.

Animal: Strength / Dexterity / Constitution

Badger: -2 / +6 / +4
Bear, black: +8 / +2 / +4
Bear, brown: +16 / +2 / +8
Boar: +4 / 0 / +6
Centaur: +8 / +4 / +4
Dryad: 0 / +4 / 0
Eagle: 0 / +4 / +2
Elf: 0 / +2 / –2
Gnome: –2 / 0 / +2
Hawk: –4 / +6 / 0
Halfling: –2 / +2 / 0
Human: 0 / 0 / 0
Leopard: +6 / +8 / +4
Owl: –4 / +6 / 0
Pixie: –4 / +8 / 0
Satyr: 0 / +2 / +2
Sprite: –4 / +6 / 0 (Not in SRD) Could be Nixie?
Wolf: +2 / +4 / +4
Wolverine: +4/ +4 / +8

It certainly seems to lessen the impact that most of the overpowering changes have. Of course, if I remember correctly, True Reincarnate has the option of automatically being DM's Choice.

Perhaps I'll have them roll percentile.

• 41-60 is re-roll on the Reincarnate table.
• 01-40 is a bad form for the character, with lower numbers being even worse (for instance, a brute fighter rolling an 01 might come back as a porcupine, while a wizard would come back as a Cave gecko (hard to read your spellbook when you are naturally blind).
• 61-00 is a useful form for the character, with higher rolls being more useful. A 100 could bring the brute fighter back as an ogre, or the wizard as some form of lfying humanoid with blindsight (there's a bat-race out there somewhere).

What do people think of that idea. It leaves a lot more power in the DM's hands, but has the built-in safegaurd of leaving the power in the DM's hands.

 

[Caliber]

Sounds pretty cool really. Kinda like, if your Karma is good, you'll come back in a more powerful form next life or something.

A character would have to be a risk taker to consider it though. I'd hate to be a 20th Fighter Porcupine.

By the by, I think Sprite ended up being a classification for three monsters, the Nixie and two others. I could be mistaken however.

Speaking of the Sprite, one of the problems I often hear of (on these boards mind you) is a character being Reincarnated into a form with somewhat significant spell-like abilities, like Sprites or Dryads. That could be unbalancing in its own right. Just wanted to alert you to it.

 

[The Iron Mark]

You can weild weapons in bear form if the weapon has the Opposable enhancment. It's in MotW, and lets the enhanced weapon be used by a creature that can't normally use it if they have proficiency in the enhanced weapon.

 

[ichabod]

I don't have a problem with it. If they become more powerful, I just assign an ECL, and they have to wait longer to start progressing in levels again.

 

[demon_jr]

Way back in 2nd Edition they had a book called Legends and Lore. Under the section for Indian mythology, they had rules for reincarnation, using karma, how well you stayed to your chosen alignment, etc. If you could get a copy of that book, you might find that useful.