RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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| 21 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the errata. |
I am making a Tiefling character and I just want to make sure that I am reading correctly how the Scaled Skin Racial Trait (p.169) and the Armor of the Pit Feat (p.172) interact with one another.
If I take Scaled Skin (replacing Fiendish Resistance) I end up with:
+1 Natural Armor and (lets say) Cold Resistance 5.
If I then take Armor of the Pit, I end up with:
+1 Natural Armor, Cold Resistance 5, Electricity Resistance 5 and Fire Resistance 5.
As the Special Benefit of Armor of the Pit uses the word instead, which to me means that instead of getting an additional +2 Natural Armor (for a total of +3) to gain 2 more Resistances.
All I can say is that's a little wonky to me...
If I don't take Scaled Skin (just using the Tiefing's regular Fiendish Resistance) and just take Armor of the Pit, I end up with:
+2 Natural Armor, Cold Resistance 5, Electricity Resistance 5 and Fire Resistance 5.
Why would anyone take Scaled Skin if they plan on taking Armor of the Pit? To me, the Special Benefit line of the Feat is totally redundant. How can taking 2 benefits be less optimal than taking 1 benefit?
Just a quick recap:
Scaled Skin + Armor of the Pit = +1 Natural Armor, Cold Resistance 5, Electricity Resistance 5 and Fire Resistance 5
Fiendish Resistance + Armor of the Pit = +2 Natural Armor, Cold Resistance 5, Electricity Resistance 5 and Fire Resistance 5
I would have thought that:
Scaled Skin + Armor of the Pit = +3 Natural Armor, Cold Resistance 5, Electricity Resistance 5 and Fire Resistance 5
I'm a little confused... :/
I don't have the original, but merely being a suboptimal choice is hardly that far-out.
By definition, optimal feats (and feat combos) are not going to be ALL feats,
and suboptimal feats (and combos) MUST exist since 'optimal' is a relative term.
they don't SPECIFICALLY interact with each other, they both interact with the same generic game stats. i'm sure there are other examples of this. it isn't fundamentally different than two spells that both grant the same bonus type, which don't stack.
I'm betting there is a typo in there.
Maybe the trait is supposed to provide a trait bonus to Natural AC.
I fAQed it.
I don't really understand what you're arguing.
I guess it's my mistake, although I prefaced my first post with "I don't have the original".
I hit FAQ... This seems to be along the lines of a few other issues where there was over-sight on exactly what numeric bonuses were being modified. Paizo Crunch seems to do better when it's been re-heated a few times.
Has this been answered?
Definitely needs clarification. FAQ'd
- Gauss
Edit: Deleted my errors (the entire post)
"Armor of the Pit (Tiefling)
Your fiendish traits take the form of a protective scaly skin.
Prerequisites: Tiefling.
Benefit: You gain a +2 natural armor bonus.
Special: If you have the scaled skin racial trait, you instead gain resistance 5 to two of the following energy types that you don't have resistance to already: cold, electricity, and fire."
So if you have Scaled Skin (1 nat armor, 5 resist to one energy type), and you take Armor of the Pit, your receive 5 resist to the other two energy types instead of 2 more nat armor. That is how it's worded.
Smiling Shadow: DOH! I missed that peice. Thanks for the correction.
Definitely inferior to have Scaled Skin.
- Gauss
Piazo should errata the feat to make it a viable with or without the alternate racial feature. All they have to do is change the wording to:
Armor of the Pit
Your fiendish traits take the form of a protective scaly skin.
Prerequisite: Tief ling.
Benefit: You gain a +2 natural armor bonus.
Special: If you have the scaled skin racial trait, you
gain resistance 5 to ONE of the following energy types that you
don’t have resistance to already: cold, electricity, and fire.
By removing the instead and lowering the special to one extra resistance, the feat becomes viable to tieflings both with and without the Scaled Skin racial feature. They can choose to have either natural armor 2 and resist 5 to 3 elements, OR natural armor 3 and resist 5 to 2 elements. This seems like a sound alternate racial feature to me this way instead of a useless junk feature as it stands now.
Piazo should errata the feat to make it a viable with or without the alternate racial feature. All they have to do is change the wording to:
Armor of the Pit
Your fiendish traits take the form of a protective scaly skin.
Prerequisite: Tief ling.
Benefit: You gain a +2 natural armor bonus.
Special: If you have the scaled skin racial trait, you
gain resistance 5 to ONE of the following energy types that you
don’t have resistance to already: cold, electricity, and fire.By removing the instead and lowering the special to one extra resistance, the feat becomes viable to tieflings both with and without the Scaled Skin racial feature. They can choose to have either natural armor 2 and resist 5 to 3 elements, OR natural armor 3 and resist 5 to 2 elements. This seems like a sound alternate racial feature to me this way instead of a useless junk feature as it stands now.
That exact phrasing wouldn't work, due to the way natural armor bonuses stack(they don't). You would need to phrase it as (If you have the scaled skin racial trait, your natural armor bonus increases by +2, and you gain resist 5 to one energy type you don't already have resistance to).
Sounds like a winner to me Sean! :D
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I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I play a Tiefling currently, and chose Armor of the Pit over Scaled Skin. That means I chose to take a feat to improve my armor class. Not everyone is willing to do that. For those that aren't, there's Scaled Skin. They had to include the clause "instead" because, as BBT pointed out, racial bonuses stack, and the potential for a race to have a +3 natural armor right off the bat is too unbalanced.
so Having natural armor 3 and resist 5 to 2 elements is unbalanced, but having natural armor 2 and resist 5 to 3 elements right off the bat isn't?
Design Manager
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Actually, racial bonuses stack.No they don't.
Please locate a ruling that says otherwise, because the standard rule of "same type bonuses don't stack" applies here. Dodge bonuses are the only exception I'm aware of (aside from corner cases where an ability specifically states that it stacks with similar bonuses, like a Paladin's Divine Bond).
You know, I could have sworn I'd seen the same rule BBT was referencing about racial bonuses stacking but now I'm having trouble finding any such rule...
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Actually, racial bonuses stack.No they don't.
Please locate a ruling that says otherwise, because the standard rule of "same type bonuses don't stack" applies here. Dodge bonuses are the only exception I'm aware of (aside from corner cases where an ability specifically states that it stacks with similar bonuses, like a Paladin's Divine Bond).
Wrong. Dodge bonuses, most circumstance bonuses, and racial bonuses stack.
See here.
Actually, racial bonuses stack.
If it is a racial bonus to Natural Armor, then it stacks.
Neither Armor of the Pit nor Scaled Skin give a racial bonus to natural armor. Rather, they both give a natural armor bonus to AC. In the same way that a Chain Shirt and Mage Armor don't stack, neither would AotP and Scaled Skin.
As a matter of fact, I can't actually think of anything which gives a racial bonus to a natural armor bonus to AC. The enhancement bonus granted from Barkskin is the only natural armor mod I know of which stacks.
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so Having natural armor 3 and resist 5 to 2 elements is unbalanced, but having natural armor 2 and resist 5 to 3 elements right off the bat isn't?
Having access to a feat that gives you a +2 to your armor class, especially one that stacks with other AC-boosting feats like Dodge and Shield Focus, when no other race has anything similar, is already powerful. Adding a trait for another +1 (if it worked, which it doesn't) would be going too far.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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so Having natural armor 3 and resist 5 to 2 elements is unbalanced, but having natural armor 2 and resist 5 to 3 elements right off the bat isn't?Having access to a feat that gives you a +2 to your armor class, especially one that stacks with other AC-boosting feats like Dodge and Shield Focus, when no other race has anything similar, is already powerful. Adding a trait for another +1 (if it worked, which it doesn't) would be going too far.
You mean like taking armor proficiency (medium) to go from Chain shirt to breast plate?
I use that specifically because Dexios (my tiefling Inquisitor) used the feat to run around in a leather brigadine until he could afford a mithral breast plate. I'm also looking at a lore warden/shadow dancer build that will take the feat as well.
Edit: It's equal to dodge in that you get a +2 against some attacks, but +0 vs a lot of 'high power' stuff (touch attacks, incorporeal attacks, etc). Dodge gives you a +1 to all AC situations (except flat footed) and to your CMD, IIRC. So they're about equal.
And the 'spend a feat, spend a trait, profit' combo already exists in several forms. (Reactionary + Improved initiative, Indomnitable Faith + Iron Will, etc)
Just to be clear, it's a Racial Trait, not a trait. Like the Dwarves ability to move while encumbered, or the Half-Orc's Ferocity. It's not a half-feat bonus, but a racial quality that replaces several 'Resist Energy 5' effects.
I'm playing a Kyton-Blooded Tiefling Paladin basically rebuilt with the Racebuilder rules (ARG) with this combination and it seems to be balanced just fine, even having moved up to +1 full-plate. Tieflings are significantly less powerful than Aasimar, so it's not as if there's an imbalance going on.
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Design Manager
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Wrong. Dodge bonuses, most circumstance bonuses, and racial bonuses stack.
See here.
Nice link BBT, I couldn't find that reference for the life of me but I knew I'd seen it somewhere.
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so Having natural armor 3 and resist 5 to 2 elements is unbalanced, but having natural armor 2 and resist 5 to 3 elements right off the bat isn't?Having access to a feat that gives you a +2 to your armor class, especially one that stacks with other AC-boosting feats like Dodge and Shield Focus, when no other race has anything similar, is already powerful. Adding a trait for another +1 (if it worked, which it doesn't) would be going too far.You mean like taking armor proficiency (medium) to go from Chain shirt to breast plate?
I use that specifically because Dexios (my tiefling Inquisitor) used the feat to run around in a leather brigadine until he could afford a mithral breast plate. I'm also looking at a lore warden/shadow dancer build that will take the feat as well.
Edit: It's equal to dodge in that you get a +2 against some attacks, but +0 vs a lot of 'high power' stuff (touch attacks, incorporeal attacks, etc). Dodge gives you a +1 to all AC situations (except flat footed) and to your CMD, IIRC. So they're about equal.
And the 'spend a feat, spend a trait, profit' combo already exists in several forms. (Reactionary + Improved initiative, Indomnitable Faith + Iron Will, etc)
You completely missed my point. Armor of the Pit is something that only a Tiefling can take. The examples you gave are options that any race can go with. Including Tieflings.
I'm not arguing that it's overpowered. It's powerful. But, as I was addressing someone else earlier, combining the trait and feat for a +3 AC bonus off the bat would be too much. A +3 that you could then combine with everything else you just mentioned.
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
My apologies for bumping this thread, but I'm a bit confused. The first post in this thread is flagged as "Answered in the errata", but I went here, and I don't see any errata for the Advanced Race Guide. Is there errata somewhere else?
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It's likely because the fine people at Paizo don't think that you should have +3 to natural armor with one trait and one feat and that is not so unusual a situation.
After all natural armor is one of the best forms of defense, it stacks with other kinds of armor (so its not the same a a feat giving better armor proficiency say).
So in this specific case instead of more NA you get 2 resistances which is also pretty cool. It doesn't seem strange to me.
Though suboptimal, I guess its an option for people who do not really care for resistances, want an extra AC, and want to save a feat.
I know it might seem a bit wonky... but I kind of like the idea of how this works out.
Do you take the short path that gives you some of something now, or do you wait and get all of it, but only when you have the resources to spend. Do you go for short term return, or long term reward?
Or do you just take armor of the pit at first level if you are playing something that doesn't have much to actually pick at that level (a 3/4 BAB class that is just waiting it out for power attack and better mid game feats).
This is either something you take now, or you are so feat starved that you might never take it (And as such just take the AC and the better resistance... probably fire, since it has utility in things like burning buildings)
Huh. I stand corrected.Wrong. Dodge bonuses, most circumstance bonuses, and racial bonuses stack.
See here.
Necroing this, but actually that link proving that natural bonuses stack links to Spells.
So no, natural bonuses don't stack. Natural bonuses FROM SPELLS stack.
Huh. I stand corrected.Wrong. Dodge bonuses, most circumstance bonuses, and racial bonuses stack.
See here.
Necroing this, but actually that link proving that natural bonuses stack links to Spells.
So no, natural bonuses don't stack. Natural bonuses FROM SPELLS stack.
Um, I'm just going to point out here that prior to the Advanced Race Guide, there wasn't any way to gain a Racial Bonus other than via your actual race.
Also
Stacking Effects: Spells that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves. More generally, two bonuses of the same type don't stack even if they come from different spells (or from effects other than spells; see Bonus Types, above).
That is of course referring to the list of bonus types.
i cant find an errata entry on this. I think something is gone wrong.