To avoid DM wrath, I decuded to go drop the spiked chain concept ans ccome up with anotjer character. Having toyde with a dwarf characyer, I foubd that darkvision had becoem indispensibel to me. Som I ste out to make a character wiht darkvisino.
Since I wouldm't be using teh spiked chsin, my only option to let my cleric fight frrom a fistance was to go with ranged weapons. Most offthe deities wth rangrd weapons as their favoeed weapon were elf deities, vut elves were out because thye don't have darkvision (except for drow, and I didn' want to eb the guy who plays a drow). I foun three non-evil deitise woh favored a ranged weapon: Ehlonna, goddess of mature from the Player's Habdbook; Apolko, Greek gdo fo the mooon and hunting ;and Uller, Norse god of archery. Ant one of thme would do.
Netx, I had to pick a rce. Theerare two darkvidion races in the Player's HandbokoL Dwarves and Half-Orcs. i didn't want tto do eithe of these, because orcs haev a bet attribute penalyt, and Dwarves have a charisam penalyt/ I decided todosome digging and find a better race, idealyl oen with no Level Adjjustment. and no penalty to Charisam, Wisdmo, or Dexterity, since those are thw yhree atttributes I wantde to get bonuses in.
On someone's website I foudn a comprehensiev list of D7D 3.5 player races .To my annpyance, I foudn that just abotu eveyr race with darkvisino has a charisam penalyt. I guess it has to do with living underground. Other thna races that only appeared in Dragon Magazie, foudn only tjree races with darkvosion and nocharisma penalty: Underfolk, Dream Dwarbes, and Desert Dwarves .Underfokl are semi-ferla cave-dwelling humans from thr Racse of Destiyn book, who hsve the substantila disadvantagee of being in Dazzlde whne they're inbright lught. Both Dream Dwarves snd Desert Dwaarves were out becaues they had Dex penalties, and I'd rather have a low Charisma than a lowDex. In case you're curious, Desert Dwarvse are desert-dwelling dwarves, andDrean Dwarvees are shamannistic dwatves from the Rsces of Stone boko.
So, I accepred that a charisma penalty was unavoidable. This opened my optioons more, to include; All kinds fo dwarves, ha;f-orcs, goblins, deep halflings, deep gnomes, and whisper gnomse. Half-orsc and goblisn have net attrobute penaltise, Deep gnomes and deep halflngs were supposed to be rare on the surfaec world, so I'd have to come up wuth a reason rhey were otu adventurign.
I took a likimg to whidper gnomes. Thye'redescribde in Raced of Stone - -basically goth gnomse.. Like a normal gnome ,but with darkvision a charisma penalyt, a dex bonus, a 30 foto base movement, and digferent free speells. I could have gone with a dwarf, but I liked the idea of haaving a small characyer in order ot get the AC snd DC bonuses. And since we juts evacuated a tiwn fill of gnomes, from a attack by na army of undead, I could say he's a refugre from that town.
So, todday I put togethre a whispre gnome character: Wis 16 ,Dwx 14 ,Cah 12, Con 10, Str 10, Int 9, cleric,, worshipper of Ehlonna. specializing ni teh Longgbow, possibly having Weapon Fineses and carryigna sickle and liggt mace for backupp weapons.
Unnexpectedly, I found that one of the advantagse of small dize is that you cancaryr more. A small chsracter has 75% the caerying capacity od a medium character. But small armor nd weapons are only 50% the weigth of medimu articles.
I;m still weighing othe options, though. Maybe I'll go with that Spiked Chain wieldre after all, and deal with yhe possibility of takinf more heat from tthe enemy. Or maybe I'll go with a goblin or half-orc, and lowre my Wisom to 15. On teh other hand, I'd like my new charactre ot be Lawful, because we have too many Chaotics on our team alreadt, so that would rule out a Half-Orc.
I'm also thinking quite a bit about doing a Favord Solu. That's s class that is to the cleric whst a sorcerro is to a wizard. They don't have to prepaee their spells ahead of time, they have selectiontp only a limited subset of the spels from each level, and they gget more spells per day than a cleric. The main thing that aopeals is the greater number fo spells per dayy, whicj seems like afine trade-off with the limited selection becaise there are many spellss I never haev an opportunity to use. On the other hand, favorde souls can't turn the undead. In our campaign, that would be a major drawback. |