4th Edition- Player wants to play as an animal

[Moondog]

Huh. I had no idea 4e was so limiting. Or maybe I'm reading into things wrong.

[SageNytell]

In 3.X the rules are very attached to the fluff - if you want something brand-spanking new, chances are you're going to have to stat it out, figure out rules for it if it's really out there, and then hope it's balanced.
In 4E, since classes work much more similarly on a fundamental level, but the fluff is easily divorced from the mechanics, it's much easier to take something already in the system and 're-skin' it. For example, 4E fighters are usually defender types. They hit hard, leave a few status effects, and are very hard to kill. Their main mechanic is the 'mark' - they choose an enemy, then that enemy has the choice of either targeting the fighter in his every attack until it wears off, or at the very least taking a penalty to all other attacks, and at worst triggering extra attacks from the fighter. One of the cooler ideas I've seen is to have the fighter reskinned as a necromancer - the mark is flavored as a floating curse, the fighter's myriad abilities that allow him to heal while attacking are flavored as spells draining life, the greatsword/halberd is now a magically controlled, floating sharpened femur, and maybe your crossbow shoots fingerbones instead of bolts. I didn't change any of the fundamental mechanics, so it's still part of a very balanced character, but it behaves muuuuch much differently.

Think of it as the anti-Vashyk!   

[Moondog]

In 3.X the rules are very attached to the fluff - if you want something brand-spanking new, chances are you're going to have to stat it out, figure out rules for it if it's really out there, and then hope it's balanced.
In 4E, since classes work much more similarly on a fundamental level, but the fluff is easily divorced from the mechanics, it's much easier to take something already in the system and 're-skin' it. For example, 4E fighters are usually defender types. They hit hard, leave a few status effects, and are very hard to kill. Their main mechanic is the 'mark' - they choose an enemy, then that enemy has the choice of either targeting the fighter in his every attack until it wears off, or at the very least taking a penalty to all other attacks, and at worst triggering extra attacks from the fighter. One of the cooler ideas I've seen is to have the fighter reskinned as a necromancer - the mark is flavored as a floating curse, the fighter's myriad abilities that allow him to heal while attacking are flavored as spells draining life, the greatsword/halberd is now a magically controlled, floating sharpened femur, and maybe your crossbow shoots fingerbones instead of bolts. I didn't change any of the fundamental mechanics, so it's still part of a very balanced character, but it behaves muuuuch much differently.

Think of it as the anti-Vashyk!   

Assuming the 4th edition Fighter is balanced, sure. :p

[Robot Master]

So...Here's my situation.
A player of mine just came to me with a question about a character for my flagship 4th edition game. She wants to play as a Leopard, or similar animal, but alas, with the core three books, I do not see how I can make this possible for her.
Is she SOL, or has someone actually done this...?

No offense to your player but that sounds...ugh.

D&D has never really focused on an animal character as a hero, it's always been some sort of animal/human hybrid because as you go up in level equipment becomes a huge issue. The 4ed attacks are based on 2W damage or "ranged attack to 2w" damage. Stuff like that. The equipment slots are designed for humanoid characters.

Like Dom's idea, maybe use the shifter stats and then tell her the best the system can support is a humanoid leopard person that can drop to and run on all fours? Because she's going to be fucked if she doesn't partake in weapons/armor/equipment.

[Dom]

Frankly, for me it's more of an issue behind the roleplaying aspect of the game. Sure, 4th ed is fairly easy to re-skin a character or a class to be completely different and it is feasible to create a animal character such as a leopard by re-skinning the druid or creating an NPC follower template. The problem comes from how the roleplaying aspect will be affected.

I am from the school of thought that characters that are deep and have more details are fun to roleplay. Conversely, I think that the more exotic a character is, the more shallow he becomes.

Imagine for example, a human wizard compared to a Gnoll barbarian. The human wizard is definitely the more plain-looking character, but he can be fun to roleplay if  details are added to him. Perhaps he is nihilistic, or is overly happy, or is magically insane. All these will imediately make the character more interesting to roleplay.

However, how can the Gnoll barbarian be roleplayed? He is more easily stereotype, he likes blood and killing and death. What does he like? Gnoll things. What does he think? He thinks like a Gnoll. What does he wear? A Gnollish outfit. Suddenly, because you wanted to create a really exotic character, he becomes so completely one-dimensional that he becomes boring.

Of course, the Gnoll can be made interesting, say if the Gnoll was raised as a pup by dwarven parents, or if he is trying to prove that Gnolls can be peaceful creatures. But it's far more easy to fall into the common Gnoll stereotype than to break from it. I would be very wary of characters trying to create exotic PCs simply because they want to and not for the roleplaying aspect of the game.

One of the reasons I enjoy the New World campaign so much is because the characters are all deep and break away from molds. The Orc leader is actually very intelligent, the lich seeks the greater good, the Kobold calls himself an engineer... few of the characters, whether PCs or NPCs, are so exotic that they never develop a personality of their own.

Playing a leopard that has no human intelligence and thinks like a leopard and acts like a leopard seems to me like a very boring character, created solely for the reason of being exotic, and I would actively discourage my players from playing it.

[Tadanori Oyama]

This is getting made out to be a much more complex problem than it needs to be.

If the character is built like any other character, uses the same rules for equipment, weapons, and armor, then nothing has to be changed. No special accomidations must be made and the game stays balanced. The GM can run a game without having to worry about more rules.

It also places all of the responsibility for making the character "feel" like the animal squarely on the player, which is where it should be.

[Dom]

True, the question of how it can work in the campaign mechanics-wise is the original question. I'm just bringing up the topic of whether it would work in the campaign story and roleplaying-wise.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Oops. My apologies.

Well, addressing that it could again be very simple or very difficult.

Simple is my favored approach and I see two options.

1) The animal is magic and can speak. This lets the player interact normally with PCs and NPCs and presuming the animal is an exotic type for the reigion, probably doesn't require any explaination as the sight of the creature alone is unusual so it talking is just another element of it's strangeness.

2) The animal can not talk. The player is effectively cut off from any in-character roleplaying. Rather than deal with things like the animal typing to use body language or write, complex communication is simply impossible.

[Mckma]

Yeah, looking at this topic, I'm starting to wonder:

What exactly is the setting/campaign and why does the player want to play as an animal?  Is there any real reason beyond "I want to be a leopard because leopards are cool!"?

[doctorscraps]

Yeah, looking at this topic, I'm starting to wonder:

What exactly is the setting/campaign and why does the player want to play as an animal?  Is there any real reason beyond "I want to be a leopard because leopards are cool!"?

Oi, leave a topic unattended and look what gets caught in the net...

The setting is a roughly typical Nation based scenario...The Stereotypical idyllic kingdoim...the Dragonborn Empire on a little island...A nation of magicians who commune with the Feywild...An arrid wasteland populated by tribal races...a lawless expanse that once served as the seat of an ancient empire...and the dark Mordor ripoff where a lot of evil things live.

Campaign premise is during a change of power [daughter takes the throne after the father passes, with no male heir apparent], the new Queen initiating a call for Adventurers to come to the aid of the Kingdom during a time jsut after a terrible war that saw most of their army destroyed, leaving the realm unprotected from the various plagues upon civilized folk.

The reason being, she wants to be the companion to her Husbands character.

[Shallazar]

Yeah, looking at this topic, I'm starting to wonder:

What exactly is the setting/campaign and why does the player want to play as an animal?  Is there any real reason beyond "I want to be a leopard because leopards are cool!"?

Oi, leave a topic unattended and look what gets caught in the net...

The setting is a roughly typical Nation based scenario...The Stereotypical idyllic kingdoim...the Dragonborn Empire on a little island...A nation of magicians who commune with the Feywild...An arrid wasteland populated by tribal races...a lawless expanse that once served as the seat of an ancient empire...and the dark Mordor ripoff where a lot of evil things live.

Campaign premise is during a change of power [daughter takes the throne after the father passes, with no male heir apparent], the new Queen initiating a call for Adventurers to come to the aid of the Kingdom during a time jsut after a terrible war that saw most of their army destroyed, leaving the realm unprotected from the various plagues upon civilized folk.

The reason being, she's wants to be the companion to her Husbands character a furry.

Edit:
Ooooohhhhh. That's a little mean. But now we know.

Double Edit:
But Animal companions in 4E are not what they used to be. It is pretty much one action split between the ranger and the beast. So she has only the skills of an animal companion, thats how you fix it.

[Tadanori Oyama]

She is his animal companion. She's an animal. She's in the same adventuring party and cooperating with him, ie a companion.

Problem solved!

Of course, you still have the problem of a member of the party being unable to speak and having no thumbs. Also there's a element of potential creepiness for the other players when two people are engaged in an in-character relationship.

[beej]

While I've never experience this in my games, a player in one of my games has experienced a similar situation.   The GM said the animal player was a spirit animal tied to the other player's family/bloodline.  The animal spirit was intellgence and could speak or not speak as it wished.   After a few sessions when the animal player got ticked with other players' decisions, he decided he wanted to talk after all.   

[doctorscraps]

One of my players went ahead and ordered PH2 for the Druid bit, because she said she'd be damned if she was going to play in a campaign with a useless character that can only attack and then mill about and not offer much else. How generous of her.
Granted, this is the same player whom declares herself a 2nd edition Vet and Rawrs and spits fire out of her mouth whenever she mentions some rule that got changed in 4th edition.
It's really funny to watch.

So basically it's come town to two of my players telling me outright that they'll walk out if she's just looking to bite things and then roll around be cute without contributing.
Sort of sorts itself out.

[Robot Master]

You know...I've known 4-5 girls in my adult life that liked pretending that they were cats of some kind. They liked to purr at people, meow alot, and most of them later became "furries". Gods help you man if she's one of those chicks.

OH WAIT! Brain just went off. Level with me, message me or whatever, I gotta know if this is what's going on here....

1. Is this chick attractive?
2. Is her husband typically the guy regularly at your games and is this wife of his new to gaming?
3. Are you afraid that both or either of them will get upset if she can't play a leopard character?
4. Do you think this chick's gonna turn being a leopard into a sexual thing?

Honestly, though, if I were the DM I'd just say that character race selection has to be one of the character races from the books, and if she wanted to be a humanoid leopard person the shifter race could be re-tooled. My spider senses are tingling for you that this "playing as a leopard" might be a big distraction from the "casting spells, killing orcs, disabling traps, healing wounds, shooting arrows" aspect of D&D.

....and then I see you posted a reply while I was typing this...

+1 Robot Master clairvoyance power.