Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Last night saw the second death of Pelajran Goroshkova, my beloved druid character who keeps being in the wrong place (the Temple of Elemental Evil) at the wrong time (pretty much whenever). Born a male dwarf and reincarnated once as a female elf, Pelajran will probably be reincarnated once more at some point in the next session or two.
We don't roll randomly on the reincarnation tables; instead, we (player and DM) talk about what might be appropriate storywise for a character, and choose a new form based on those conversations.
I've been wanting to take the character in a much more cavey, earth-element-oriented direction, and I think this could be a good opportunity to do so. I've got some ideas about different possible new forms, but I wanted to get some more feedback from y'all. What do you think of these ideas below (pulled from an email to my DM)? Is my analysis right? Am I forgetting about some obvious form?
Here are the ideas:
Gnome: Gnomes are kinda like dwarves, only more stewardlike than dwarves are. That might be a possibility.
Svirfneblin: Deep gnomes are, flavorwise, very appropriate. Powerwise, they're a little scary. Spell resistance=11+character level; +4 dodge bonus to AC (versus all creatures); 120' darkvision; continuous nondetection; blindness, blur, and change self each once/day; -2 Str, +2 Con, +2 Wis, -4 Cha. Plus a few diddling abilities.
I like the idea of being svirfneblin, but don't want to be unbalancing about it; if this is where the PC goes, maybe I can map out a few levels of svirfneblinosity, through which I'd come into my powers? Maybe I'd start without magic resistance and spell-like abilities, and with only a +1 dodge bonus, and with no +2 to Wis, and with only a -2 to Str (and no penalty to Cha), and gain the other abilities (and penalties) only if I took a few levels of being a svirfneblin, or something like that? Or maybe there's a subrace of gnomes that live underground but don't have all the magical abilities of svirfneblin? If this can work, it'd probably be my first choice. [If anyone has Savage Species, can you tell me if Svirfneblin abilities are covered in there? Thanks!]
Deep Dwarf: another appropriate possibility. +2 Con, -4 (!) Cha, +3 Will saves vs. spells and spell-like abilities, +3 Fort vs. poisons, 90' darkvision, -1 to attack when in bright sunlight or radius of a daylight spell, and otherwise like any other dwarf.
Drow: please no drow.
Animals: some animals might prove interesting. Because of my attachment to caves, a bat or dire bat might work (although then you get into the constant blindsight problem, which is more problematic than just me wildshaping into a bat because if I wildshape into a different creature, I'd retain my blindsight). Because I died while healing someone with a serpent wand, a viper might work (although that'd be difficult to play -- "Look, ma! etc."). Drawing from my first animal companions, perhaps I come back as a mountain goat or an eagle. Bears live in caves, and although normally reincarnating people as a bear makes them uber, the only benefit I'd really gain from the reincarnation would be a fat old Con bonus -- a big benefit to be sure, but not as significant as, say, a barbarian reincarnated as a bear. In any case, were I to come back as an animal, I'd probably look to study the Shifter prestige class: the first-level ability of the class is to, once per day, shift into the shape of a humanoid.
Ideas? Thoughts?
Thanks!
Daniel
We don't roll randomly on the reincarnation tables; instead, we (player and DM) talk about what might be appropriate storywise for a character, and choose a new form based on those conversations.
I've been wanting to take the character in a much more cavey, earth-element-oriented direction, and I think this could be a good opportunity to do so. I've got some ideas about different possible new forms, but I wanted to get some more feedback from y'all. What do you think of these ideas below (pulled from an email to my DM)? Is my analysis right? Am I forgetting about some obvious form?
Here are the ideas:
Gnome: Gnomes are kinda like dwarves, only more stewardlike than dwarves are. That might be a possibility.
Svirfneblin: Deep gnomes are, flavorwise, very appropriate. Powerwise, they're a little scary. Spell resistance=11+character level; +4 dodge bonus to AC (versus all creatures); 120' darkvision; continuous nondetection; blindness, blur, and change self each once/day; -2 Str, +2 Con, +2 Wis, -4 Cha. Plus a few diddling abilities.
I like the idea of being svirfneblin, but don't want to be unbalancing about it; if this is where the PC goes, maybe I can map out a few levels of svirfneblinosity, through which I'd come into my powers? Maybe I'd start without magic resistance and spell-like abilities, and with only a +1 dodge bonus, and with no +2 to Wis, and with only a -2 to Str (and no penalty to Cha), and gain the other abilities (and penalties) only if I took a few levels of being a svirfneblin, or something like that? Or maybe there's a subrace of gnomes that live underground but don't have all the magical abilities of svirfneblin? If this can work, it'd probably be my first choice. [If anyone has Savage Species, can you tell me if Svirfneblin abilities are covered in there? Thanks!]
Deep Dwarf: another appropriate possibility. +2 Con, -4 (!) Cha, +3 Will saves vs. spells and spell-like abilities, +3 Fort vs. poisons, 90' darkvision, -1 to attack when in bright sunlight or radius of a daylight spell, and otherwise like any other dwarf.
Drow: please no drow.
Animals: some animals might prove interesting. Because of my attachment to caves, a bat or dire bat might work (although then you get into the constant blindsight problem, which is more problematic than just me wildshaping into a bat because if I wildshape into a different creature, I'd retain my blindsight). Because I died while healing someone with a serpent wand, a viper might work (although that'd be difficult to play -- "Look, ma! etc."). Drawing from my first animal companions, perhaps I come back as a mountain goat or an eagle. Bears live in caves, and although normally reincarnating people as a bear makes them uber, the only benefit I'd really gain from the reincarnation would be a fat old Con bonus -- a big benefit to be sure, but not as significant as, say, a barbarian reincarnated as a bear. In any case, were I to come back as an animal, I'd probably look to study the Shifter prestige class: the first-level ability of the class is to, once per day, shift into the shape of a humanoid.
Ideas? Thoughts?
Thanks!
Daniel
