House rules discussion

[Steel Warrior]

Yeah, It had occurred to me about having a monster character with spellcasting, I had assumed you would have to pay for the LA and the Spellcasting levels also. No different than taking Druid and NOT being a spellcaster just for the class features of the UA Variant. You get rage, fast movement of barbarian/monk and AC bonus. So you lose wild shape, armor access and not much else.

[dalamb]

For now I will assume folks are content with this (pay for both LA and spellcasting) and update the rules and remove the ban on Lammasu and suchlike, probably in a couple of hours because of immanent Real Life obligations.

[TheFred]

Yeah it's rough for those creatures, but it's rough for spellcasters generally kinda (at least, you're not taking a lot of LA and a spellcasting class any other way and not paying through the nose for it). At least this errs on the side of "not too powerful". There's probably a more tuned solution, but then I think there's a little tuning that could be done for the character points generally.

[dalamb]

I would be delighted if someone would play around with this system in their own campaign and try a few tweaks, but I think that is very unlikely. I am surprised and please that so many were willing to try them out, but I really doubt any GM is likely to want to go to the effort.

[Avaday Daydream]

Lammasu might just be worth the CP; you'd only be able to get 3 levels of spellcasting (the other 10 CP would need to go to LA), but you're getting a massive ability score boost, innate flight, something like 4 attacks on a charge, a giant chunk of natural armor, and immunity to charm/compulsion.

...Could be worse. Unicorn paladin. Nothing is getting past those saving throws.

[Nameless Void]

The strange thing is, in a RL game I use the same Feat rules (selected first feats gain you the feats that come after it when you qualify for them) and I use one feat per two levels. Works for my group and makes non-spellcaster types slightly more attractive.

I balance spellcasters differently however, their spells cost them non-lethal health and they can go different layers of exhaustion. Keeps them from throwing spells around needlessly and they think about the cost of their spells more.

[Steel Warrior]

53 minutes ago, Avaday Daydream said:

Lammasu might just be worth the CP; you'd only be able to get 3 levels of spellcasting (the other 10 CP would need to go to LA), but you're getting a massive ability score boost, innate flight, something like 4 attacks on a charge, a giant chunk of natural armor, and immunity to charm/compulsion.

...Could be worse. Unicorn paladin. Nothing is getting past those saving throws.

Chaotic Good Succubus || Paladin of Freedom. I've played one in the past. She used her demon abilities to actually prevent fights.

[TheFred]

1 hour ago, Avaday Daydream said:

Lammasu might just be worth the CP; you'd only be able to get 3 levels of spellcasting (the other 10 CP would need to go to LA), but you're getting a massive ability score boost, innate flight, something like 4 attacks on a charge, a giant chunk of natural armor, and immunity to charm/compulsion.

Unfortunately I believe the LA buyoff is capped at +4? It means you start a level behind so you can't get L5 spells anyway but you still can't afford L4s. I think I'd rather just boost my point buy and perhaps nab some kind of more modestly-priced race or template with a Wis bonus.

59 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

Chaotic Good Succubus || Paladin of Freedom. I've played one in the past. She used her demon abilities to actually prevent fights.

Succubus can be kind of bonkers for a lot of things, but if you're limited to buying off +4 then you start this game at L7, and six of those levels are HD (of the better variety, full BAB and all good saves, but still not class levels). You are short on CP for spellcasting or Sorcerer would be obvious and probably worth the lost levels even, and you could use Thunderlance to gish it up... now that Frostburn is allowed perhaps Snowflake Wardance is the way to go, and actually high-DC Bladeweave and Sudden Stunning are great even if your damage is poor. Of course you also get sky-high DCs on your Charm Monster and Suggestion, as well as at-will Teleport and Etherealness. Frankly Succubus is I think a very underrated monster race even at full LA in a standard game.

Also not sure how you become a Chaotic Good Paladin when you're literally made of evilness. 😃

[Steel Warrior]

28 minutes ago, TheFred said:

Unfortunately I believe the LA buyoff is capped at +4? It means you start a level behind so you can't get L5 spells anyway but you still can't afford L4s. I think I'd rather just boost my point buy and perhaps nab some kind of more modestly-priced race or template with a Wis bonus.

Succubus can be kind of bonkers for a lot of things, but if you're limited to buying off +4 then you start this game at L7, and six of those levels are HD (of the better variety, full BAB and all good saves, but still not class levels). You are short on CP for spellcasting or Sorcerer would be obvious and probably worth the lost levels even, and you could use Thunderlance to gish it up... now that Frostburn is allowed perhaps Snowflake Wardance is the way to go, and actually high-DC Bladeweave and Sudden Stunning are great even if your damage is poor. Of course you also get sky-high DCs on your Charm Monster and Suggestion, as well as at-will Teleport and Etherealness. Frankly Succubus is I think a very underrated monster race even at full LA in a standard game.

Also not sure how you become a Chaotic Good Paladin when you're literally made of evilness. 😃

Background, another succubus got her to constantly wear a helm of opposite alignment until it took effect. Although I think she was actually Lawful Good since Chaos to Law and Evil to Good. So maybe she was a normal paladin.

 

Strong transmutation; CL 12th; Craft Wondrous Item, creator must be 12th level; Price 4,000 gp;Weight 3 lb.

Edited March 6 by Steel Warrior (see edit history)

[TheFred]

Another Succubus did that? She thought that the best way to do evil was to turn one of her buddies into a paladin?

Anyway, I think we're digressing from the houserules a bit. In terms of LA, the options are pretty generous for +1 to +4 but do take a heck of a dive after that. Succubus is still pretty playable I think but it's one of those examples of a bunch of potentially-game-breaking stuff on top of an otherwise mostly-poor base. The spell point rules do at least stop casting races getting out of hand (the Sylph is my go-to example of something that breaks one people start houseruling LA).

[Steel Warrior]

4 hours ago, TheFred said:

Another Succubus did that? She thought that the best way to do evil was to turn one of her buddies into a paladin?

Anyway, I think we're digressing from the houserules a bit. In terms of LA, the options are pretty generous for +1 to +4 but do take a heck of a dive after that. Succubus is still pretty playable I think but it's one of those examples of a bunch of potentially-game-breaking stuff on top of an otherwise mostly-poor base. The spell point rules do at least stop casting races getting out of hand (the Sylph is my go-to example of something that breaks one people start houseruling LA).

Yeah, I thought of that as well. If you took the LA +5 down to LA +1, you add from 3d8? was it. Up it to 8d8 and you have a potential sorcerer casting of level 12, but you can't afford it since you spent 8 CP to buy off LA +4, you have 11 CP left for caster levels.

[TheFred]

Succubi have a +6 LA so you’d be L7 and only have L3 spells regardless. It’s a big hit, but your huge Cha boost means you get a lot of extra spell slots and sky-high DCs.

[TheFred]

Oh, you mean the Sylph. Yeah, you’d be theoretically entitled to L6 spells or whatever but the CP costs limit it.

[dalamb]

17 hours ago, Nameless Void said:

I balance spellcasters differently however, their spells cost them non-lethal health and they can go different layers of exhaustion. Keeps them from throwing spells around needlessly and they think about the cost of their spells more.

I used to have spellcaster nerfs in my house rules, but I decided I liked a system where you could build a completely standard spellcaster, but other people got boosts that spellcasters could get less of. I know some people have expressed sentiments roughly like "spellcasters are nerfed under these rules" but the way I look at it, that's only true because people think spellcasters ought to dominate.

[dalamb]

16 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

Chaotic Good Succubus || Paladin of Freedom. I've played one in the past. She used her demon abilities to actually prevent fights.

That requires a house rule that "always chaotic evil" (and "always alignment X" in general) goes away. One GM did let me get away with an "almost chaotic neutral" succubus character in some gestalt game or other, but I did feel that was sort of cheesy.