Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Skindancer

Spoiler: Rejected art

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The skindancer is yet another creature with a weird name translation. And the reason why is twofold. First, the way english (and, to a greater degree, german) can just combine one noun and one verb to create a new word like "skindancer" doesn't exist in french, and forces translator to go through hoops to have a semi-literal translation sound good. Skindancer would translate to "danse-peau" or "danseur de peau", neither of these being particularly appealing. And the second reason is, it's a garbage name. Seriously. The skindancer is a kind of frog-reptile-thing that doesn't dance, and has no ability related to skin (its hide does shift in response to attacks, but that's more like a shell or a carapace than skin). Something like "adaptationer" or "shellshifter" would have been much better in my opinion. It's hard to pinpoint what part of the current name is important, if any. In the end, the skindancer is called "Peaussier" in french. That's the job name of the guy who prepares and dyes animal skins to make various kinds of leathers for multiple uses. Once again and like for the hag, pretty niche choice of word, but I feel like the name is spot on, keeping the reference to skin while making more explicit the fact that the skindancer's skin changes to fit various uses. Better than "dancer", at least.


The skindancer, at its core, is a big beatstick (15 RHD Large Monstrous Humanoid) with expected stats (+12 Str, +6 Dex, +18 Con, -6 Int, +6 Wis, -4 Cha) and exactly one interesting ability: it gains DR 15 and resistance 20 to respectively the last kind of weapon and energy damage it took. Combined with sky-high Constitution, AC (7 NA, 6 deflection) and saves (great stat repartition for saves overall higher than even some outsiders with similar amounts of HD), the skindancer is made as a tank, and nothing much else. Its offense is limited to 2 slams with Trip, that will get replaced most of the time by a weapon (having hands and full BAB tends to lead to that). Which means that even if its DR and energy resistance were continuous and always applicable, it would still have gotten LA-0 in the original thread. As everyone on this forum should know by now, contributing as a PC is more than not dying. I honestly think that one level of sorcerer (if you invest a bit in charisma, or if you are playing with pathfinder and you can use the Wis-based variant sorcerer there), one level of swordsage/crusader, then Abjurant Champion would be an interesting advancement. You increase your already absurd AC, gain new ways to contribute (maneuvers are good, crusader maneuvers can make you a forced target to use your impassable defense, swift action Dispel with CL=BAB too), and you perpetually have a cat familiar on your shoulder that can nibble you each round for 1 slashing, piercing and bludgeoning damage, refreshing your DR 15/- for the round. All in all, the skindancer is interesting, but requires to dig deeper to make something out of it.

Spoiler: People who do my job for me

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They've got maybe twice the RHD they should, I think.

Having such weak net abilities just seals the deal: the Skindancer has appropriate net for around 8 RHD, and the Crab is hovering around 5 RHD if you gave a free Int of 10. No thank you.

Skindancer is -0 in my book mostly due to the number of HD. If it had less I'd easily say it's a +0(7-9) or +1 (6>).

Let's go for 7 RHD and DLA-6, and see you next time for the Slaughterstone constructs, two bloodthirsty constructs that I could see in Gunnm: Last Order without any problem.