You're planning to turn me into a What?

[hong]

No, you don't. You may have encountered someone using this as a house rule. You can do 2000 pts of damage to a troll, and as long as none of it is acid or fire damage, it's all still nonlethal damage.

It becomes a grim fight to the finish: player stubbornness vs DM obstinacy. We'll see who rusts first.

 

[James McMurray]

Or the players can just deal a few thousand damage to it and then walk away. If needbe, one of them keeps bashing while the others collect the loot. They still get the XP and treasure, and might even get to earn XP again later if it wants to hunt them down.

 

[Fieari]

Honestly, I've always found Fast Healing to be nicer than regen, because it always works. It won't keep you alive if they do enough to you, but then again, if you're fighting a troll, easiest thing to do is knock it out normally, then set it on fire. So getting it down can still be done with other weapons, and if you have fire weapons, the regen does NOTHING for it anymore. Fast Heal doesn't have that problem. It always works, until you're dead.

Of course, Fast Heal and Regen combined would be fantastic.

 

[shilsen]

Dude, you were so totally p0wned by my awesome speed!

Although, you post was made in between the time I clicked submit and the page refreshed, so I guess it might not have been "totally."

You've beaten me this time, Mr McMurray, but my time will come!

*shakes fist impotently and escapes in secret rocket ship*

 

[irdeggman]

Use the template advancement system presented in the Savage Progressions article at WotC. They were written with this specific situation in mind. {gaining a LA template mid career}



http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/sp

 

[TheGogmagog]

Since, the OP hasn't replied since post 4, I guess he decided not to go with the transformation.

Thanks for the post irdeggman, I'll have to see what they suggest. Another cruder way to handle it is how I handle permanant level loss. The same as temporary level loss, so the character in question would have -8 to all rolls and -40hp until it would raise a level, then all the penalties drop to -7 and -35hp, and so on untill the 8 levels are paid off.

 

[lukelightning]

Don't forget how powerful a vampires slam is. Two negative levels per hit, and unlimited number of times a day (but only once per round).

Which doesn't make much sense to me...vampires are famous for biting and draining blood. They don't sneak into maidens bedrooms and sucker-punch them.

 

[IcyCool]

It becomes a grim fight to the finish: player stubbornness vs DM obstinacy. We'll see who rusts first.

The DM has rust monsters.

 

[sirwmholder]

So I would gain enough XP to level up twice but never really level up...

Ouch.

Pardon but this is not correct... you would advance levels without gaining any experience from aquiring the template.

So for example:

Level 5 with 10000 Xp... add LA +8... you are now Level 13 with 10000 Xp... you'll need a lot of Xp to advance to Level 14... but on a side note you should *Ding 14 with the rest of your party if you all are awarded the same Xp per encounter from now until then.

Good gaming,
William Holder

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

He is looking at the math I was - which referred to CR. That was the whole problem.

A 5th level human vampire with the template in the MM is CR 7. That would lead you to believe that it is the equivalent of a 7th level character.

Level 5 with 10000 Xp... add LA +8... you are now Level 13 with 10000 Xp... you'll need a lot of Xp to advance to Level 14... but on a side note you should *Ding 14 with the rest of your party if you all are awarded the same Xp per encounter from now until then.

You are saying that it isn't, it is a 13th level character. I don't get it. I read the linked "savage species" articles... but what I don't understand is that if you do things that way... are those creatures gaining hit dice for each of those levels as well?