Thoughts on Nixies

Nixies: the Pixies' soggy, overlooked cousins. Recently I've been pondering why exactly they get so little attention. They are clearly overshadowed by Pixies. Their overall stat adjustments aren't quite as good, no Fly speed, and they lack Greater Invisibility at will.

However - and here's the thing that really makes me pause - Nixies are only LA+3. That means it's possible to buy off the level adjustment pre-epic. Is there any other creature that gets +8 to a casting stat, at that LA, without racial hitdice? Seems to me that (in a campaign that offered buyoff) this could be a powerful option for a Sorcerer or Bard; or even a social Rogue.

Anthropomorphic Bats and Jermlaine (MM2) get +6 wis.

Evolved Undead get +2 Cha per evolution. Each evolution is +1 LA, so very easy to buy it all off.

You can buyoff the Leven Adjustment at level 18. And over all the years, I've seen only very limited evidence of anyone ever playing at such levels. And unless you start at level 20, you would likely have to play for quite some time with LA+2 and +1 before you get there and even then you still have one racial HD. And you also have to pay 49,000 XP to buyoff the LA.

When everyone has 190,000 XP and is 20th level, you have 141,000 XP as a Fey 1/Sorcerer 15. Since you're lower level and get more XP for every encounter, maybe Sorcerer 16.

Even +8 to Charisma might not be worth it.

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Originally Posted by Yora

even then you still have one racial HD. ...

you have 141,000 XP as a Fey 1/Sorcerer 15.

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Incorrect. Any creature with only a single racial HD exchanges it for a class HD if they take classes.

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Creatures with 1 or less HD replace their monster levels with their character levels. The monster loses the attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, skills, and feats granted by its 1 monster HD and gains the attack bonus, save bonuses, skills, feats, and other class abilities of a 1st-level character of the appropriate class.

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Originally Posted by Yora

... and even then you still have one racial HD.

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Originally Posted by ksbsnowowl

Incorrect. Any creature with only a single racial HD exchanges it for a class HD if they take classes.

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Please don't bring argue this, it only leads to a downward spiraling discussion. We start arguing whether the header that you omitted, ksbsnowowl, which is "Humanoids and Class Levels" is RAW text or not. Of course everyone knows that Nixies are type Fey, not type Humanoid, and lack the paragraph that Pixies explicitly have for exchanging the racial hit die. Please ask your DM whether they do or not.

:smalltongue: I'm assuming that it's a typo, and that they didn't subsequently make mistakes when they statted up Warforged, Planetouched, Goliaths, and Elans without including their racial hitdice (and without including the "exchanges its 1HD" disclaimer in their descriptions that Pixie has).

There's no other reference to it needing to be humanoid or any other type. The header is irrelevant.

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Creatures with 1 or less HD replace their monster levels with their character levels.

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Humanoids, Dragons, Fey, Oozes, Undead, Montrous Humanoids, Outsiders, Elementals, Plants, Animals, Magical Beasts... you name it, they're all creatures. And they're all Monsters. That line applies to everything.

It the monster manual entry in question has one racial/monstrous hit die, they get to replace it with character levels.

The example that proves the rule is the Pixie, itself, which is actually statted up for PC characters, and does not have that 1 racial hit die.