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Indeed, thats one hell of a powerfull template to give to low lvl chars,and that message u wrote your DM is quite good.
But one of the advantages of D&D is that u can adjust it to your campaign needs, for example, the constitution bonus could be reduced to +2 or even be unlocked as one lvl's(like 1 point per 2 lvls) and the same with the spell-like abilities, just give the character access to them when she reaches specific lvls or u could even tie a quest to them so that she has to prove herself in the eyes of Mystra before she gives the player access to them.

Thats whats makes the game fun, and a good DM should know that.

That's sort of what happened, but the template wasn't meant to be used that way. A Chosen either is or is not, there's not supposed to be a "apprentice Chosen". But, well, the game master is "always right".

Adamas wrote:All one has to mention to make most GM's realize just how powerful Chosen is as a Template is...Elminster and the Seven Sisters

And Khelben 'Blackstaff' Arunsun.

Forgot Blackstaff was a Chosen. But than Blackstaff wasn't boffing the Goddess of all magic!

There is also Sammaster, the former (fallen) chosen of Mystra aswell.

Retiarius wrote:That's sort of what happened, but the template wasn't meant to be used that way. A Chosen either is or is not, there's not supposed to be a "apprentice Chosen". But, well, the game master is "always right".

He could've used a method similar to the race level Variant that could be used for races with a Level Adjustment of +2 and up. IIRC, Basicly 3Xcharecter lvl and then every 3 lvls afterward you take an "adjustment lvl" instead of a class lvl, (No Hp, skill points or spells,) until you have as many ALs as needed for the race (for a Drow you'd take an AL at 6 and at 9 for example, if I remember how it was done). In this case say maybe get a Chosen ability instead of the usual things you get from a Lvl?

As previously indicated, that's sort of what happened.

Had a fun incident in last night's gaming session. Using Mutants & Masterminds, we've had an Amalgam Universe idea going on for super heroes off and on for a couple years now. While my friend Zeus contributes to an Avengers-themed storyline, my friend Paul adds to it with a X-men themed group. In Paul's take, we're running the group with several inspirations from the movies. Borrowing from the first couple of X-men movies, there is a small school of mutants at the institute but this is the first real team that's come out of it all. And drawing from 'First Class'... Erik Lensherr is still a friend of Charles Xavier, and one of the teachers. But it's very clear the two have different goals.

He's running the game very story oriented, because the pacing of comic book adventuring is far different from fantasy adventuring. There's a lot of comments about the mundane aspects of life, but even the mundane is different when you're an X-man. I'm currently running Colossus (one of my two favorite X-men) and Theresa Cassidy - often known as 'Siryn', but in our universe her father never was an X-man so she was the one who adopted the mantle of Banshee. Since he's so straight laced and she's this hot tempered troublemaker who's still adapting from her lifestyle with her Uncle Tom raising her, it allows a lot of variation in personality.

At the very beginning of the session, Banshee was very upset with Professor Lensherr for a Danger Room routine that he ran that she felt was inappropriately themed because of how personally upsetting it was to one of the other students. Professor Xavier sided with her... but she was still going to serve detention because of some colorful language she aimed at Prof. Lensherr. And we had a bit of fun with it, saying that she complained in detention to Dr. McCoy that all the extra work she was being supplied with was stupid because it was all ridiculous science-y stuff that she would never use. And in his good natured fashion, Dr. McCoy shifted the focus of her detention classwork to focus instead on sound waves and how they interact with the world. It led to some chuckles amongst the group.

Well, last night we were playing the climactic final fight scene in which the team was fighting a giant mechanical drone that was really sweeping the floor with us. Even when Jean Grey through Colossus at it and he 'power attacked' a punch at it, he dented it but didn't seem to seriously damage it. But I have an idea. Asking to confirm that that mechanized thing seems to be mostly made of the same metal material, I'm told that it is. So, I declare that Banshee is going to try a 'power stunt' off of her sonic scream. Using her extra sharp hearing, she's going to scream at the enemy seeking from low to high until she finds its resonant frequency, and hope to help rattle itself apart. This will work as a 'weaken toughness' effect. Cyclops, the team leader, catches on to what she's trying and joins in with his optic blasts to 'aid another'. We both roll well, and large portions of the drone are blasted and shaken off. It's weakened at that point that the rest of the team take it out before the turn is over.

But here's the funny part. As soon as we get the description of how our joined efforts pay off, in character I have Banshee say "Dr. McCoy is going to have kittens when he finds out I actually applied the lessons he gave me from detention." Paul, running the game, was so pleased at having me tie in that little story element from the beginning of the adventure several weeks before that I earned a 'hero point'.

Most often, when I'm gaming it's just me and my friends Paul and Zeus. But we have another pal, Ben, who's another fellow geek... but Ben has a family with two kids, so his ability to participate is rare. However, he's been Jones-ing to play a bit, so last weekend Zeus had us create a group of 1st level characters for whenever Ben has a chance to game with us. I made a human Alchemist named Alestair, and when rolling him up I rolled a pathetic amount of money for Alestair. We kept joking that he was the poorest alchemist around, grounding all of his chemistry supplies from scratch.

Then, in our first ever encounter of the game, my luck came into play. Exploring an underground cavern, we come across a group of half-starved wolves within the cavern. Alestair rolls a fair initiative, where as the rest of the group rolled extremely poorly. He doesn't have bad hit points, and looking at the tactics of the positioning Alestair needed to move up and help block the wolves from pouring over the group for the sake of doing well in the fight. So he runs up to help block off their advance while throwing one of his bombs into the front ranks of the wolves... and when rolling his attack roll, gets a natural "1". I'm asked to re-roll, and get a second natural "1".

It's decided that because of Alestair's poor income, he's been relegated to using second hand glass beakers for his alchemical bombs. Ones that might have a few flaws and cracks in them before hand. It blows up just as he's releasing it, and he torches himself. When the wolves come in to attack, they immediately trip him and start chewing up on him. I spent the entire fight getting chewed on by wolves and healed by the druid in the group without contributing as anything better than a meat shield. Not an auspicious beginning, let me tell you.

I'm just hoping things turn out a bit better in the new campaign Zeus is starting up today... while we're starting out at 1st level, once we've leveled up to 4th we're beginning the "Expedition to Ravenloft" campaign set in Eberron.

Dude, as a guy who has ended up being a "tank" while playing a charecter who should be FAR AWAY from hand to hand combat....

Well, thats one way to keep the adds busy

The thing was, I had outstanding roles for my attributes for Alestair - good enough that at 1st level, he could easily have been a serviceable melee combatant for the situation. It was just me and my damned luck kicking in again.

Now, as I've mentioned I mostly play with the tiniest of RPing groups - me, my pal Zeus, and my pal Paul. And we play nearly every weekend. After having known each other for 27 years, we've played A LOT of games between us. To the point that we don't always have fresh character ideas, and from time to time we re-invent a character and bring them back around into a game. We try to make sure we don't play them again in the same setting, change up this little detail or that detail to keep it fresh... it's not much different than what the comic book companies are doing with their own characters, in my eyes.

So, we were picking characters out for Zeus' Ravenloft game set in Eberron, and I realize that I'd really like to give my character Ghost another try. Ghost was a great character concept for me that I really enjoyed running, it was just the ending to his story wasn't one that I enjoyed at all and I'd like to give him a better chance at things turning out for him. He's a changeling rogue... who long ago decided that he didn't like the view that most people had of his kind. If he could be anyone, he chose to be a good person that was loyal and trustworthy - the exact opposite of most views of his kind.

Now, Ghost is a bit on the short side, and he's all about using finesse as opposed to force. The last campaign he was in, he had a good friend in the ranger that Zeus ran, named Drake. Drake was big and brash and anything but subtle. However, he and Ghost were the closest of friends. While choosing our characters out, I picked Ghost... and as his last choice, Zeus decided to bring back Drake. It was the first time either of them had been around since the last campaign, but it took us about half an hour into character creation for me to have that click in my head.

And that's when it hit me... I'm running a smallish rogue who's all about finesse that uses a nickname rather than his own name. His best friend is a tall strong brute that's far more civilized and intelligent than one might suspect. Drake and Ghost are our little role playing trio's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Hey!

Dirty n Evil wrote:Now, as I've mentioned I mostly play with the tiniest of RPing groups - me, my pal Zeus, and my pal Paul.

Since summer 2012, my role-playing group has consisted of me and my pal Lars. No one else.

Dirty n Evil wrote:And we play nearly every weekend.

And we play just a few times a year because he lives half the country away.

So be happy.

DM: A brightly-colored bird is sighted to port
paladin: “ugh more sensual enchantments”
DM: It flies gaily above the boat, seeming to promise laughter and good cheer
wizard: “it’s lying”

Barbarian: Pretty birdy.. me eat?