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Coming from the Summoner rule exception thread, I was lead to look into monster stat blocks and the applications of certain feats to certain abilities. The details are thus:
In 3.5, anything that was offensive was a special attack: Ex, Su, and Sp abilities. This was the point of the Ability Focus feat which added +2 to the DCs for "special attacks." This also bolstered classes that got special abilities from class levels (as far as I can tell). Metamagic (and assumingly other spell focused feats like Augment Summoning and Spell Focus) only applied to spells (per Skip Williams).
Now in Pathfinder, the stat blocks are written out differently. SLAs seem to have their own section separate from Special Attacks. But what does this make SLAs? If offensive SLAs are not special attacks, they are not subject to Ability Focus, which was copied verbatim from 3.5. But, unless a rule exception is going to be errata'd in, they are not subject to Spell Focus, etc.
The questions are as follows:
- Are SLAs now their own section of monster abilities?
- Are SLAs no longer special attacks or qualities?
- Are Supernatural abilities now separate from special attacks and qualities?
- Are spell-like abilities subject to metamagic and spell-only non-metamagic feats?
Coming from the Summoner rule exception thread, I was lead to look into monster stat blocks and the applications of certain feats to certain abilities. The details are thus:
In 3.5, anything that was offensive was a special attack: Ex, Su, and Sp abilities. This was the point of the Ability Focus feat which added +2 to the DCs for "special attacks." This also bolstered classes that got special abilities from class levels (as far as I can tell). Metamagic (and assumingly other spell focused feats like Augment Summoning and Spell Focus) only applied to spells (per Skip Williams).Now in Pathfinder, the stat blocks are written out differently. SLAs seem to have their own section separate from Special Attacks. But what does this make SLAs? If offensive SLAs are not special attacks, they are not subject to Ability Focus, which was copied verbatim from 3.5. But, unless a rule exception is going to be errata'd in, they are not subject to Spell Focus, etc.
The questions are as follows:
- Are SLAs now their own section of monster abilities?
- Are SLAs no longer special attacks or qualities?
- Are Supernatural abilities now separate from special attacks and qualities?
- Are spell-like abilities subject to metamagic and spell-only non-metamagic feats?
I guess that would be correct. No more SLA with ability focus anymore, unless that SLA is listed as a special attack.
I'd say that you've found a significant change between 3.5 and PF that I wasn't aware of.
A 3.5 trumpet archon has:
Special Attacks: Spell-like abilities, spells, trumpet
A PF trumpet archon has:
Special Attacks trumpet
I think it's clear that the intent of what is considered a special attack is more narrow in PF. Spells and spell-like abilities are not considered monster special attacks and thus not subject to the Ability Focus feat (a poorly worded feat in several ways).
I think it's clear that the intent of what is considered a special attack is more narrow in PF. Spells and spell-like abilities are not considered monster special attacks and thus not subject to the Ability Focus feat (a poorly worded feat in many ways).
It was rather straightforward in 3.5 where abilities were straight forwardly defined.
It was rather straightforward in 3.5 where abilities were straight forwardly defined.
Except how is an ability necessarily a special attack? You can apply this feat to a lantern archon's continual flame sla -- which is neither an attack nor an ability that has a saving throw. Yet, the feat boosts its DC. It's also ambiguous that the feat applies to one or more spell-like abilities since the entry in the Special Attacks section simply reads "spell-like abilities". If I apply Ability Focus to "spell-like abilities", then that should apply to all spell-like abilities. Furthermore, it should also apply to all spells as well (since spells were listed the same way in the monster entry).
It was rather straightforward in 3.5 where abilities were straight forwardly defined.Except how is an ability necessarily a special attack?
Well they were listed explicitly as special attacks...
You can apply this feat to a lantern archon's continual flame sla -- which is neither an attack nor an ability that has a saving throw. Yet, the feat boosts its DC.
This is more of a problem with classification laziness than with the feat. The SLAs were considered special attacks but arn't particularly offensive. But so? They have no DC, the feat doesn't increase the non-DC. You are nit picking because it doesn't have the phrase "This feat cannot increase the DC of an ability without a saving throw." It's not like Wizards of the Coast didn't make a habit leaving out obvious modifications all the time or anything.
The questions are as follows:
- Are SLAs now their own section of monster abilities?
- Are SLAs no longer special attacks or qualities?
- Are Supernatural abilities now separate from special attacks and qualities?
- Are spell-like abilities subject to metamagic and spell-only non-metamagic feats?
In the Universal Monster Rules in the back of the Beastiary, it lists each ability and where it should appear in a creature's stat block. SLA's have their own category in the stat block now and apparently aren't supposed to be attacks or qualities.
Special attacks and special qualities can be (Ex) or (Su), but Supernatural Quality isn't a category of it's own.
SLAs are supposed to be treated like spells in every way, except for the lack of components and possible change of casting time. Therefore Spell Focus (of the appropriate school), Spell Penetration, Augment Summoning, etc. should work with SLAs just like it works with spells. The only thing you can't do is apply a metamagic feat that would make the spell use a higher level spell slot, since there are no higher level slots for it to be moved to.
Forgive me for double posting.
Just keeping to the Pathfinder rules, seems like Special Attacks and Spell Like abilities are separate. You can check the intro to the bestiary it describes the stat block and lists Special Attacks and Spell Likes separately. To be honest I'm not sure what it was under 3.5 and it doesn't really matter, seems to me they are separate now. Personally it makes sense to me that spells like stinking cloud are managed by different rules/ feats than innate creature abilities like breath weapons and poisons. I'm not sure how it's a serious nerf on Ability focus, you can still take Spell Focus to bump the spell DC. I guess it's a +1 instead of the +2 it would be from ability focus.
Special Attacks: The creature's special attacks. Full details for these attacks are given at the end of the stat block or in the universal monster rules appendix.
Spell-Like Abilities: After listing the caster level of the creature's spell-like abilities, this section lists all of the creature's spell-like abilities, organized by how many times per day it can use the abilities. Constant spell-like abilities function at all times but can be dispelled. A creature can reactivate a constant spell-like ability as a swift action.
So Special Attacks are the things listed in that section.
The language is quite different from the 3.5 PRD so it seems like a deliberate split.