(3.5) making a werebear/warshaper

[alisbin]

hey mates,
i've been toying with the idea of a werebear/warshaper for awhile and i've finally decided to make him. so my question to the forums, what is the minimum ECL that i can make him at? as i read savage species and the MM it looks like the minimum is 10 (7 HD + 3 LA) but that seems awful high. can i get some input on that? also, any good build tricks i should know about?

[Pluto]

hey mates,
i've been toying with the idea of a werebear/warshaper for awhile and i've finally decided to make him. so my question to the forums, what is the minimum ECL that i can make him at? as i read savage species and the MM it looks like the minimum is 10 (7 HD + 3 LA) but that seems awful high. can i get some input on that? also, any good build tricks i should know about?

That's outrageously high.

Is Bear Warrior (CWarrior) an option instead? It can be presented similarly to Werebear and, with Extra Rage, it can reliably change into a bear and tear things apart.

[Ecalsneerg]

Black bear'd be 3HD+3LA. Still not great, but better.

[Abd al-Azrad]

The main build trick here is to not use a Werebear. Because, you know, of the whole ECL adjustment. Use a Druid.

If you wish to be creative, there are plenty of ways to add more Bear than you can imagine to your character, all of which recently came up on these boards in a flurry of Bear-related posts. They're like four or five pages back. But be warned: the puns are unbearable.

[alisbin]

i am kind of attached to the idea of him being a werebear. the idea is for him to have been something of an evil man beforehand, but when he got bit by a werebear and became one himself, he became lawful good and he's decided to "spread the word" IE spread the bear version of lycanthropy to as many evil people as possible in hopes that they too will become good.
is there some sort of reduced HD werebear that i could use? i don't mind a few LA, i was planning on him taking warshaper immediately anyway so some is inevitable, i just would rather have it be as little as possible so i could play him in lower level pick up games.

[Sophismata]

They're like four or five pages back. But be warned: the puns are unbearable.

You are a bad, bad man.

[Abd al-Azrad]

You are a bad, bad man.

Sigged! Bwahaha...

[DragoonWraith]

You are a bad, bad man.

You clearly haven't read those threads, then. There's actually quite a few, really.

Spoiler

Show

My favorite bit:

Wearbear Barbarian/Bear Warrior. It's more than you can bear!

Figure out if you can squeeze some wildshaping druid or ranger in there with a bear animal companion, also. Two bears just aren't enough.

He's already a bear that turns into a bear that gets so angry it turns into a bear, worships bears, and commands bears, all while riding a bear. He has enough bear.

There's never enough bear.

[Pluto]

You could tweak the Wereboar Template class to use Black Bear as its base.

Should be playable from level 1 2.

edit: Whoa. Looking over that, it is not what I remembered.