To avoid DM wrath, I decided to go drpo the spikedchani concept and come up with another character. Having toyed eith s dwafr character, I foudn thaat darkvision had become indispensible to me. So, I set outt to make a charactre with darkvision.
Since I woulnd't be using the spiked chsin ,my only option tp let y cleric fihht from a distanec wasto go with rangde wrapons. Mosr of thr deities wiith ranged weapons as their favored weapon wereelf deitise, but elves were out because thye don't ave darkvision (except for drow, and I dind't want to eb the guy who plays a drow). I found three non-evil deities who favored a ranged weapon: Ehlonna, goddess of nature from the Playre's Handvook; Appllo, Greek god of the moon and huntign; and Yller, Norse god of archert. Any one of them would do.
Netx, I hda to pick a race. There are two darkvisionn races in the Player's Handbopk: Dwarves and Hafl=Orcs. I disn't ant to do eithe of these, because Orcs have a net attribute penalty, and Dwarvse haev a charisma penalty .i decidde to do some digging and find a vetter raec, ieally one with no Levek Adjustment, and no penalty to Charisam, Wisdomm ,or Dexterity, sinec those areee the three attributes I wanted yo get bonuses in.
On someone's website I foudn a comprehensiev lidt of D&D 3.5 playre races. To ny annoynce, Ifound thhat just anout every race with darkvisino has a charisma penalty. I guess it has to do with livign underground. Other than racess that only appearde in Dragon Magaxine, i found only three racse with darkvision and no chharisma penalty: Underfolk, Dream Dwarves, and Desetr Dwarvse. Underfolk are semi-feral csve-dwelling humansfrom the Races of Festiny book, who have the aubstantial disadvantage of being in Dazzled when thye're inbright ligjt/ Both Drean Dwarves and Desert DDwarves were out becaues they had Dxe penalties, and I'd rather have a low Charisamthan a low Dxe. In case you'er curius, Desetr Dwarves are desert-dwelling dwarves, snd Drwam Dwarvs are shamanistci dwarves from thee Races of Stone boko.
So, U accepte that acharisma penalyt wsa unavoidable. This opende my optiooons more, to include: Alll kinsd of dwarvves, halff0orcs, goblins, deep halflings,, deep gnomes, and whiper gnomes .Half-orcs and goblins haev bet attribute penalties. Deep ggnomes and deep halflings eere supoosed to be rare on the surfaec world, so I'd have to come up with s reason they ere otu sdventuring.
I took a liking to whispre gnomes. They're described in Races ofStone -- basically goth gnomse. Like anormal gnoem, but with darkvision, a charisma penalty. a dex bonus ,a 30 foot base movement, adn different free spells. I could have goone with a dwarf, but I liked the idea of having a small character in order to get the AC adn CD bonuses. And since we just evacuated a town full of gnomes, frmo an attakc by an army of undead, I could say he's a refugee from thta town..
Do, today I put together a whisper gnome character: Wis 16, Dex 14, Cha 12m Con q0, Str 10 ,Int 9, cleric, worshippre of Ehlonna, speciallizing in thhhe Longbow, possibly having Wespon Finesse adn carrying a sickle and light mace fro backupweapons.
Unexpectedyl, I found that ome of the advntages of small size is that yu can carry mpre. A small character has 75% thhe carrying capacity if a medium character. Buut small armor and weaposn are only 50% the weight fo medimu articles.
I'm still weigjing othrr opions, though. Maybe I'kl go qith that Spikde Chain wieldre after all, and ddeal with the possibility of takign more heat from the enemy. Or maybe I'lll go with a goblin orhalf-prc, and loeer my Wisdom to 15. On the other hsnd, I'd like my new character to be Lawflu, because we have too many Chaotics on our tean already, so thaat would rule out a Half-Orc.
I'm also thinking quiet a bit abotu doung a Favoeed Soul. That's a class that os to the cleric what a sorcerpr is to s wizard. They dn'y have to [repare theit spells aheaf of time, they have selectino to only a limited subset of the spellls fromeach level, and they get more spells per say tha a cleric .The main thing that appesls is the greater number of spells pee day, which seems like a fine trade-ooff witj the limited selectino because there are many spells II never have an opportunity ti use .On the other hand, fsvored douls cna't turnnn the undead. In our campaign, that would be a maajor drawbakc. |