Seeking advice on a conversion - Bear to Awakened NPC

[Argyle King]

With the bear's arcane background and evolution from animal to magical beast to fully sentient creature, I think it would be interesting to do something thematically appropriate to that. Perhaps a Paladin or Cleric of Boccob? With the low Cha, Divine Grace wouldn't do you any favors if you went pally, but the attack bonus is better. His wisdom is potentially good enough to make for a decent enough secondary divine caster.

Fighter 2/Cleric 7 or Fighter 4/Cleric 5



Alternatively, is there some what to get him to qualify for the Warhulk PrC?


I like the previous proposal to have the bear go monk. It could be that he's trying to contemplate his existence and decide what he should do with his life now that he's not a normal bear anymore. ...or maybe he did that at first, but then decided he was better off embracing his nature and becoming a barbarian? Monk/Barbarian.... he wouldn't lose his already gained Monk abilities; he just wouldn't be able to take any more monk levels.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Where are you getting the idea that the bear has rage just from being a bear? The SRD description has no such entry. Only badgers and wolverines get rage as far as I know.

If you're wondering about weapons for it, there's a weapon enhancement in Lords of Madness called Mouthpick, which is a +1 enhancement that allows any creature with a bite attack to wield a manufactured weapon and gain iterative attacks from it (and lose the bite of course, but the trade is totally worth it.)

The bear already has a good base speed, so the boost from barbarian might not be as appealing. Perhaps swap fast movement for Improved Grab via the Bear Spirit Totem ACF in Complete Champion? That is, if grappling is seen as an option for your game. It might not work too well since he's only a medium creature and grappling works best with bigger creatures especially late game.


Hmm, based on the Awaken entry, it looks like upon the spell taking effect the creature would have its stats recalculated because its type changed and there is no language saying not to recalculate its stats unlike some other templates such as Necropolitan (biggest type change template I can think of.) If indeed its stats are to be recalculated, then it would go like this:

5d10 HP
BAB +5 (magical beasts get BAB as fighters)
Good saves unchanged (At 5th its base saves would be Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +1).
Skill points unchanged
Gain darkvision to 60 feet (and retain low-light vision).


What kind of tank would you guys want him to be? Crusader does the typical meat shield tank best, but can also do denial and such.