There's a table right at the end which lists various anthro animals, level adjustments, ability score adjustments and what you get from them.

Found it. That is wicked cool! And mildly terrifying.

Well, I'm slapping a War Hulk on that body, so my description to the right of this is apt: I do one thing really well, and at that thing I am probably one of the best at it. Unfortunately, my Crafting, Knowledges, and Performs are effectively zero rank as a result. I feel I am a good herald to a full caster - a warning that what is following me is far more dangerous.

Sadly, what follows is not a full caster -- just little ol' me, a halfling stumbling over her petticoats as she wields three wands in each hand between her fingers, shouting ridiculous half-remembered command words.

... I'm not sure if that's more or less dangerous than a full caster, especially to myself and my allies, but it's certainly more fun!

I went the Cloistered Cleric, Saint, DMM Persist route. I can Persist 4 spells right now and once I gain another level I get a feat which is going toward Easy Metamagic. That'll allow me to persist a fifth.

Triple wand claws when?

In reply to Candidus Sanctus (msg # 22):

  That's a lot of feats with no flaws allowed.

I wish I had more feats too.

I used my bonus domain to take the Planning Domain giving me Extend Spell for free. And I'm human so an extra feat. Plus the three I have for being level 8.

Extend Spell
Persistent Spell
Divine Metamagic
Extra Turning x2

I took the LA buyoff so I'm only 1,000 xp away from level 9 and another feat which I'll use to get Easy Metamagic applying it to Persistent Spell.

Regular turning pool, Greater Turning pool, Nightstick, special reliquary holy symbol= 24 turn attempts per day.

If flaws were allowed I'd take two and already have Easy Metamagic and another dose of Extra Turning.

  You need at least three exalted feats for the Saint template (see page BExD 29) and I don't think the gods would be impressed by them being retrained. As the book says, the LA for the template is artificially low.

We should have five feats at this point if you are human, but I'm certain there are ways to finagle more of them beyond flaws if one cares to do so.

As noted by Poppy, three of them would have been spent simply becoming a saint in the first place, although I note with some amusement that the sample saint in the Book of Exalted Deeds expressly does NOT have that limitation. So, the book is not following its own rules - curious, for a book supposedly about virtue. That, or it was written up by someone who didn't know what was going to be in an earlier part.

Either way, I don't feel a need to push on that point and call hax. If the book isn't playing by its own rules, I don't see why they should expect anyone else to.

In reply to Poppy (msg # 27):

The DM signed off on it. I showed him my character concept and he approved. Also its easy enough to argue that DMM and Extra Turning should qualify one for the template anyway. They're feats meant to help combat evil. Unless you're a real RAW stickler then that's good enough.

Thankfully the DM seems to share my philosophy of Story>rules everytime.

 It seems this game is too cheesy for me, so I'll bow out, but I hope you all have fun.

How is there already drama and the game hasn't even officially started yet? Over my character's right to exist. Rules lawyer i guess?

I get where Poppy's coming from, as the Saint template has a bit of a rep, and Divine Metamagic/Persist Cleric is almost a meme among min/max types. Since I come down shamelessly on the side of powergaming, I'm not bothered. I'm more curious about discovering who your character actually is.

There is a bit of wisdom I'll pass to anyone who cares for it: if you want to find out who someone is, make them believe they are omnipotent, or at least beyond meaningful consequence.

Since we haven't started, I cannot judge anyone. Besides, I suspect copious amounts of cheese around me anyways. I can smell the cheddar in the air, and not just from you - it's 3.5, and I expect it.

3.5 is my favorite iteration. Mainly because you can create exactly what you want. Let's the imagination run wild ya know?

Well, full disclosure: Avalanche is a Dragonborn Goliath Barbarian / Fighter. He was supposed to be the big guy, but I guess Lev'at'an does that better than him :p

Um...whoops? Although to be fair, the next question might be what kind of-

Battering ram, I can answer my own probable question just on the class combination and race. I mean, doubling up isn't bad. I just didn't intend to step on someone else out of character.

No, no, I'm not bothered by it. Our characters have their niches and if nothing else at least they can always double team people (like Sieg and Major Armstrong in FMA)

That we can. Also, you have a few more actual levels then I do - three of mine are racial by necessity. So, you might be able to do some tricks I can't.

In reply to Lev'at'an (msg # 37):

LA buyoff. With an original LA of +0 it will be fairly cheap for you to get most of that back.

Can't buy RHD off, and La Balena has 3 of them. However, it's way better than some other races who have RHD AND LA.

Yeah Lycanthropes are like that. Makes them almost unplayable without some house ruling. I usually let people drop the RHD and just keep the regular LA. Tweak the stats and bonus feats a bit to balance things out.

No one wants to play as a werepanther with an effective LA of +9

Honestly, given the sheer stats I get from AnthroWhale, it's comparable to a Barbarian reduced to a simple stat stick. I'm good.

I'm a halfling. Just regular old vanilla mostly-only-core-book halfling. I like having an effective character but don't have the patience to cheesedick things. The only time I tend to stick my nose out of the core book is for a particularly thematic class or some feats that make me better at what I already wanted to do; whether it's something useful like optimizing my wand use, questionable like specializing in poisons as a pixie rogue, or blatantly silly like getting a walrus mount for my goblin soulknife. My policy can be summed up as "if I need to open more than three books to figure out how my character works, I'm probably overdoing it."

This limitation does not apply if I, for example, outsource all my equipment shopping needs to someone who does have the patience to look up a bunch of random items, so long as he gives me clear and concise notes on what it all does. I'm curious to see what Lev buys me!

I don't like the smell of cheese, but I knew it was going to be pretty stinky up in here when I applied. I made a conscious recognition that I'll probably be underpowered compared to the rest of ya'll, but at least I'll have a rocket skirt and dual-wield revolvers that fire wands instead of bullets. It'll sure make Russian Roulette interesting!
This message was last edited by the player at 13:09, Thu 10 Dec 2020.