Succubus Paladin - Yes or No

[Nail]

...a succubus has an ECL of 12 (6 HD + 6 LA)?

....making that Paladin Succubus a really...ahem....sucky paladin. Max class level is 8. Look out, the 20the level character gets to cast a 2nd level spell!

at ECL 20 (Succubus 12/Paladin 8)

• HD: 14 (say goodbye when the Blasphemies start flying!)
• BAB: +14 (even the cleric has a better BAB than you do!)
• Attacks per round: only 3, rather than 4 for normal fighters
• Base Saves: Fort: +19 Ref: +15 Will: +15 (these, at least, aren't sucky! Yay Divine Grace! And with at least a 28 pt buy for stats, these can be much higher.)

Other than saves, I'm not sure this is a very effective character. Anyone wanna take a stab at a good build? Let's not peg it at ECL 20; games tend to stop there anyway. How about where my group is playing right now....ECL 14 or so?

 

[Fieari]

My group has a succubus bard (CN, working towards CG but struggling with it), using a slightly modified Savage Species progression (don't remember the exact modifications at the moment, but they weren't big things) at ECL 9, and she's been highly effective in the party. Those suggestions have saved their butts on more than one occasions (they're traveling through an area which has a high draconic population... meaning that every ingame week or so they run into a chromatic) and the charisma boost has been a help as well. Since she's been taking alternating levels of bard and succubus, she'll have energy drain next level... so far, she hasn't been very combat-dealing-damage effective, but her utility has been nice enough otherwise that the party welcomes her thankfully. I expect her combat effectivness to go up much higher once that energy drain becomes available.

She takes her sheet home with her, so I don't have stats on me...

 

[AuraSeer]

Since she's been taking alternating levels of bard and succubus[...]

I thought you had to take all levels in the monster class all at once. That is, you'd be a succubus with no class (heh) until you hit level 12, then at level 13 you could take your first bard class level.

I don't own SS though, so I may misunderstand the rule.

 

[Krafen]

I thought you had to take all levels in the monster class all at once. That is, you'd be a succubus with no class (heh) until you hit level 12, then at level 13 you could take your first bard class level.

I don't own SS though, so I may misunderstand the rule.

Rather than starting with all the monster HD and the LA, Savage Species introductes the concept of "racial levels". You take them just as you would class levels, but instead of class abilites, you gain the abilites of the race. This allows you to start a monster race in a much lower-level party than you otherwise could. You can also space out when you take the racial levels so your PC class progresses as well.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'd let the succubus keep the energy drain ability... but would completely forbid its use, lest the paladin wish to kiss her status good-bye.

That "kissing" her status good-bye would be as literal as the Fall of High Netheril.

And, just for the record: energy drain doesn't have the [evil] descriptor, so it's just another weapon, not worse than hurting people with sharpened metal.


As for our succubus paladin (of honor): It's one of those really wacky builds out there, but I think it represents great roleplaying opportunities. It is possible for them to become LG, and in the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, there's bound to be one LG succubus - and she's written the collected works of Shakespeare by accident


I am playing a succubus (or rather incubus - gender is a matter of mood, anyway) right now (gestalt rules, the other half is soulknive/elocater), and I have been thinking about adding two levels of paladin of slaughter. Just for the saves. And that's because the DM seems to test the characters to destruction (said succubus had to be brought back). I will probably do this - if I don't change the character. The thing is this: he died and thus everyone saw his real shape. That was not supposed to happen. The fact that the DM messed up big time and the death wasn't my characters fault (well, he did true res us for that), the character isn't the same any more (to elaborate the messing up: DM let us fight a frost wyrm and overlooked the death throes when he chose the monster. We had no way of knowing of said death throes, we were already injured by the beast's breath weapon and had no way to know about the death throes. And the save was very hard. So I was dropped to -11, while the wizard/sorcerer was outright killed (and would have even if he had full hit points. He was doomed the second we met that frost wyrm) But I'm ranting again.

 

[saucercrab]

Rather than starting with all the monster HD and the LA, Savage Species introductes the concept of "racial levels". You take them just as you would class levels, but instead of class abilites, you gain the abilites of the race. This allows you to start a monster race in a much lower-level party than you otherwise could. You can also space out when you take the racial levels so your PC class progresses as well.

Unless SS has been errata'ed, that's incorrect. Page 152, left-hand column, second paragraph, expressly forbids multiclassing beofre the monster class progression is finished.

 

[Endur]

For what's it worth, I have several Succubus Blackguards in my campaign. No need to change the alignment and the charisma bonus is just as useful for a Blackguard.

 

[Lord Elric]

I see no problem with a succubus Paladin. Use the Redeamed rules from The Book Exalted Deeds.

 

[Alzrius]

By the raw, if the succubus were LG, she could become a paladin. She'd just have to refrain from using her summon ability, as that'd be inherently evil.

As was pointed out, her energy drain itself isn't inherently evil, so she could use that. Likewise, I'm sure I read somewhere (can't recall where though) that Supernatural ability can be turned off at will, so she can kiss someone and not drain their levels.

Likewise, in terms of roleplaying, the succubus could have reformed and sworn off carnal activities. Or she may still sleep around, but for genuine pleasure (for herself and others) instead of to drain souls. Even the Book of Erotic Fantasy says that paladins can have rich and varied sex lives, after all.

 

[apesamongus]

I see no problem with a succubus Paladin. Use the Redeamed rules from The Book Exalted Deeds.

You can even use the ritual in SS to switch out the Chaotic and Evil outside sub-types for Lawful and Good.