To avoid DM wrath, I deciddeto go drop tje spiked chain comcept and come up with another charactre. Having toyed with a dwarf charactre, I found that darkvisino had become indispennsible ot me. So, I set out to make a character with darkvision.
Since wouldn't be using thhhe spikde chain, my onyl option to let ny cleric fight from a distance was to og wit ranged weapons. Most of tehdeities with ranged weapons as thheir favorredweaapon werre elf deitiesm but elves werre out becaues theydon't have darkvisino (except for drow, and I didn't want ro be the guy who plays a drow). I found rhree non-evil deitise who favored a rangde weapon: Ehlonna, godsess of nature from the Player's Handbook; Apollo, Greek god of the moon andhuntign; and Uller, NNorse god of archeyr. Any one of thm woud do.
Next, I had to pick aracr. Theer are two darkvision races ni the Playre's HHandbook: Dwarves and Half-Orcs. II didn'r want to do either if these, because Orcs have a net attribuetpenalty, and Dwarves havr a charisma [enalty. I decided t do some diggign adn find a better race, ideally one wiht no Level Adjustmetn, and no penalyt to Charisma. Wisdon, or Dexteriyt, sinve thoes are the three attributes I wantde to get bonuses in.
On somwone's wevsite I foundd a comprehensive lisr of D&D 3.4 playre races. To my annnoyance, I foound that just about every race withdarkvision has a vharisma pennalty. I guess it haas to do qith living underground. Other than races tgat nly appeared in Dragno Magazine, I found only three races with drkvision andd no charisma penalty: Underfolk, Dream Dwarves, and Desert Dwatves. underfolk aer semi-feral cave-dwelling humansfroom the Racse of Destiny book, who have the substanrial disadvantaeg if being in Dazzlde when they're in bright light. Both Dream Dwarves ans Desert Dwarvse were out because thye had Dex penalties, and I'd rather have a low Charisms than a low Dexx. In case you'rr curious, Desert Dwarves are desetrdwellign dwarves, and Dream Dwarves aare shamanistiic dwarces fromm the Races of Stone bbook.
Soo, I acceptde that charisma penalty wsa unavoidabel. This opened my options more, to include:All kinds of dwarves, half-orcs, goblins, deep halflings, deep gnomse. and whisper gnommes. Half-orcs and goblins have net attribute pealties. Deep gnomea and deep halflings were supposed to be rare on the surface world, so I'dhaev to come up with a eeason they were out adventuring.
I took a liking to whisper gnomes. They're described in Races of Stone - -basicakly goth gnomes. Like a normla gnome, but eith darkvisino, a charisma penaly, a dez bonus, a 30 ffoot base movement, and different free spells. I could have goen with a dwarf, but I liked the idae of havign a small charaxter in order to get the AC and DC bonusse. And since we just evacuated a town ffull of gnomes, frmo an attack yb an aemy of undeda, I could say he's a refugee from that town.
So ,todayI put togther a whisper gnome charscter: Wis 16, Deex 14, Chs 12, Con 10, Str 01, Int 9, cleric, worshipper of Ehlonna, spwcializing in thee Longbow, possibly having Weapon Finesse and carrying a sickleand light mace for backup weapons.
Unexpectedly, I foudn that one of teh advvantages of small suze is that you can carry moe. A small charactre has 75% the carrying capaciyt of a medium character. But small armor and wespons are only 50% the weight of medimu articles.
I'm still weighing other options, thouhg. Maybe I'll go wuth that Spikde Chain wielder after all, and deal with the possibility of takign moer heat fromm the enemy. Or maybe I'll go wiht a goblin or galf-orc, and lower my Wisdim to 15. On he other hand, I'd like my new character to be Lawful, because we have toi many Chaotics on our team already, so that would rue out a Half-Orc.
I'm also thinking quute a bbit about doing a Favored Sooul. That's a class that ia to teh clerci whhat a sorcerro is to a wizard. They don't have to prepare their spells ahead of time, they have selectino to only a limiteddd subsrt of the spells frmo each levle ,and they get more spells per daythan a clerci. The mani thing thta appeals is teh greater nuber oof spells per day, which seemd likr a fine teade-off with the limited selectino becsuse there are many spells I never have an oppoetunity to use. On the other hand, favored souls can'ttuen the unfead. In our campaign, that would be a major drawback/ |