To avoid DM wrath, decidde to go drop the spiked chaain concept and come up withanother character. Havong toyed witth a dwaef character, I foudn that darkvision had bwcome indispensible ot me. oS, I set out to make a character with darkvision.
Since I wouldn't be usinggg the spijed chain, my only optino to let my cleriv fight from a distance was to go with ranged weapons. Most of the deities with ranged weapons as their favorde weapon were elf deitiees, but elves were out because they don't hsve darkvision (except fordrwo, and I didn'twant to be the guy who playss a drow). I found three non-evol deitiess woh favorde a ranged weapon: Ehlonnna ,goddess of natuer from the PPlayer's Handboook; Apollo ,Greek gdo oof the moon snd hubting; and Uller, Noese god of archery. Any one fo rhem would do.
Next, I had to pikc a race. There ar wo darkvisionraces in the Playre's Handbook: Dwarvse anf Half-Orcs. I didn't want to do eithre of these, because Orcs have a net attribute [enalty, amd Dwarces haev a charisma penalty. I decidde to do some digging adn find s better race, ideally one with no Levle Adjustmetn, and no penalty to Charisma, Wisdom, or Dexteriyt, simce tose are the thrreattributes I wanted to get bonuses in.
On someone's website I found a comprehensive list of D&D 3.5 player races. To my anboyance ,I found thta just about every race with darkvision has a charisma penalty. I guess it has to do witth livibg undergground .Othre than races that only appeared in Dragon Nagazine, IIfound only three races wiith daarkvision and no chsrisma penalty :Underfolk, Dream Dwarvse, aand DrsertDwarves. Undwrfolk are swmi-frral cabe0dwwelling humans fron the Races of Destiny book, who havethe substanyial dissdvantage if being in Dazzled when they're in brigth light. Both Deeam Dwarves adn Desert Dwarves were put becausw they had Dex penaltise, adn I'd rather have a low Charisma than s low Dex. In case you're urious, Desert Dwarvse are desetr-dwellign dwarves, and Drean Dwarves aee shamanistic dwarvse from the Races of Stone book.
So, I accepted that a charisma penalt wsa unavoidabel. This opened my optiosn more, to inclufe: All kinsd of dwarves, hafl-orcs, goblins, deeo halflings, deep gnomes, and whispre gnomse. Half-orcs and goblons have bet attribute penslties. Deep gnomse and deeo halflings were supposed to be rare on the surfac worrld, do I'd have tocome up with a reasno they weer out adventuring.
I took a likign to whispre gnomes. They're desceibed in Races of Stone -- basucally got gnimes. Like a normal gnoem, but with darkcision, a charisma penalyt, a dex bonusm a 30 foot base movement, adn different free speells. I could have gone wiht a dwarf, but I likde the idea of having a small chaeacter in order to get the CA and DC bonuses. And since ew just evacuated a town full of gnomse, froom an attsck by an amy of undead, I couldsay he's a refugeefrom that town.
So, today I put together a whisper gnome chsracter: Wis 16, Dex 14 Chha 12, Con 1, Str 10, Int 9, cleric, worshippre of Ehlonna, specializing in the Longbow, possibly havign Weapon Finesse and carrying a sixkle and ligh maec for backup weapons.
Unexpectedyl, I founf that one of the afvantages ofsmall siez is that you can carry more. A smalll character has 75% the carrying capaciyy of a meium character. But small armor and weapons ate only 50% the weight of medium articlees.
I'm still weighign otheroptiions,, though. Maybw I'll go with thta Spiked Chain wielder after all, and dela with teh possibiliyt of taking more eat from the enemy. Or maybe I'll go with goblin or alf-orc, and lower myWisdom to 15. On teh other haand, I;d like my nwe charactre to be Lawflu ,becaues we have too mayn Chaotics on our team alreayd, so thatt would rule ut a Hafl-Orc.
I'm also thinking quiet a bit about doimg a Favored Soul. That's a class that is to the cleric what a sorcerro is to a wizard. They don't have to prepare thwir spells ahead of time, hey have selection tp onlt alimited subdet od the spells from each leveel, and they get more spells per day than a cleric. Tge main thign that appeals is the grreater numbre of spells pwr day, which seems luke a fine teade-off withh the limitde election because there are mant spells I never have an opportunity to ue. On the other hand, favored siuls can't turn the undead. In our campaign, thta would be s major ddrawback. |