I am not sure if this counts as a rules question since this isn't about the interpretation, but rather asking how other DM's would adjust this feat.
I really like the Kitsune race, for many reasons, but also my GF really liked the idea of playing one. (So do some of my LoL playing friends, go figure) but the 'extra tails' feat seems like an ENORMOUS feat sink for something that does not pay out in the long run.
I was wondering if anyone had house ruled a 'fix' for these feats? I mean I like the idea of getting new tails based off of feat abilities, but I was thinking perhaps instead of what it does (which feels rather lackluster for the otherwise cosmetic change) that it could be set a little like one of the feat chains I remember from my old 3.5 days.
Instead of 'each feat taken gives 1 more tail and x spell like ability 2/day', the initial feat "Extra Tails" is an opener that says something like you gain 1 extra tail + x spell like ability 1/day, plus you gain an additional tail and the next ability for Every Kitsune-specific feat you take. (Like Fox Shape, Realistic Likeness, Fast Kitsune Shapeshifter) And probably make a few others, like one that specifically increases the number of spell like ability uses per day for your tails by one. That way the more you master your overall Kitsune-ness, the more tails you have to represent that.
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Please, tell me what you have done about this, if you think it is balanced the way it is, could you explain to me why? It seems rather lackluster and detracting from many valuable feats as they are now.
There's a 3rd party thing addressing this.
Nine-Tailed Inheritor: The kitsune is a wellspring of magical energy that manifests as additional tails. The kitsune gains Magical Tail as a bonus feat at 1st level. In addition, he adds Magical Tail to all class lists of bonus feats as initial feat choices for those lists, including all ranger combat styles and all sorcerer bloodlines. For example, a monk can select Magical Tail when he gains his first bonus feat at 1st level while a ranger can select it when he gains his first combat style feat at 2nd level. Additionally, the kitsune treats Magical Tail as all types of feats (except teamwork) when determining which feats he can select with a class's bonus feats feature. A kitsune with this racial trait cannot select Magical Tail as a class bonus feat and as a feat from character advancement during the same level. This racial trait replaces natural weapons.
There's a 3rd party thing addressing this.
Nine-Tailed Inheritor: The kitsune is a wellspring of magical energy that manifests as additional tails. The kitsune gains Magical Tail as a bonus feat at 1st level. In addition, he adds Magical Tail to all class lists of bonus feats as initial feat choices for those lists, including all ranger combat styles and all sorcerer bloodlines. For example, a monk can select Magical Tail when he gains his first bonus feat at 1st level while a ranger can select it when he gains his first combat style feat at 2nd level. Additionally, the kitsune treats Magical Tail as all types of feats (except teamwork) when determining which feats he can select with a class's bonus feats feature. A kitsune with this racial trait cannot select Magical Tail as a class bonus feat and as a feat from character advancement during the same level. This racial trait replaces natural weapons.
Thanks for the shoutout!
This trait is from Everyman Gaming, LLC's Kitsune Compendium. I included a slew of cool archetypes and class options that allow you to make grabbing Magical Tail multiple times easier for many different characters. Monks, Oracles, Sorcerers, and Shaman get the most help in this product, but anyone can take the aforementioned trait, and I think I gave rogues the ability to pick a kitsune feat as a rogue talent, which helps.
Regardless, Magical Tails is pretty fair as it is now. Most other feats that grant spell-like abilities only grant one use (see most of the drow feats in the Advanced Race Guide) and of all the races in the game, no feat goes as high as Magical Tails does. Based on the cost of a spell-like ability compared to the cost of a feat using the race-building rules as a rough guideline, Magical Tails is actually a steal if you invest in it, at the cost that you don't have feats for more mundane things.
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There's a 3rd party thing addressing this.
Nine-Tailed Inheritor: The kitsune is a wellspring of magical energy that manifests as additional tails. The kitsune gains Magical Tail as a bonus feat at 1st level. In addition, he adds Magical Tail to all class lists of bonus feats as initial feat choices for those lists, including all ranger combat styles and all sorcerer bloodlines. For example, a monk can select Magical Tail when he gains his first bonus feat at 1st level while a ranger can select it when he gains his first combat style feat at 2nd level. Additionally, the kitsune treats Magical Tail as all types of feats (except teamwork) when determining which feats he can select with a class's bonus feats feature. A kitsune with this racial trait cannot select Magical Tail as a class bonus feat and as a feat from character advancement during the same level. This racial trait replaces natural weapons.
Thanks for the shoutout!
This trait is from Everyman Gaming, LLC's Kitsune Compendium. I included a slew of cool archetypes and class options that allow you to make grabbing Magical Tail multiple times easier for many different characters. Monks, Oracles, Sorcerers, and Shaman get the most help in this product, but anyone can take the aforementioned trait, and I think I gave rogues the ability to pick a kitsune feat as a rogue talent, which helps.
You made that? Awesome I think I'll pick it up :3
I actually was thinking about this cause I made a White haired witch Kitsune and I wanted my hair attacks to come from my tails, which would have been pretty boss but I was having a hard time taking those feats because you kinda need them to do other things as you're leveling up, unless you're taking a Fighter or other bonus feat-heavy class.
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Thanks for the shoutout!
This trait is from Everyman Gaming, LLC's Kitsune Compendium. I included a slew of cool archetypes and class options that allow you to make grabbing Magical Tail multiple times easier for many different characters. Monks, Oracles, Sorcerers, and Shaman get the most help in this product, but anyone can take the aforementioned trait, and I think I gave rogues the ability to pick a kitsune feat as a rogue talent, which helps.
Also, you should totally make a book about changelings.
Perhaps! I just released my newest product, the Leadership Handbook, yesterday. It takes the Leadership feat and redesigns it (plus several Ultimate Campaign systems) as a new, passive Leadership statistic that every character possesses. After that, my focus is on a product that will allow characters to select dragons as animal companions (similar to Inner Sea Combat's Monstrous Mount feat).
I have a few other ideas on my plate, including at least two other racial compendium ideas, but I can certainly add Changelings to the list of "maybes."
Okay I read through it and I think the Kitsune Compendium is awesome!
The only thing I think I have a problem with is sheerely mechanical. And by that I mean the PDF itself. It tends to lag out when Scrolling the pages pretty often.
But the material within is gold.
It seems pretty balanced.
Also from the Kitsune Compendium. :-)
Also, you should totally make a book about changelings.Perhaps! I just released my newest product, the Leadership Handbook, yesterday. It takes the Leadership feat and redesigns it (plus several Ultimate Campaign systems) as a new, passive Leadership statistic that every character possesses. After that, my focus is on a product that will allow characters to select dragons as animal companions (similar to Inner Sea Combat's Monstrous Mount feat).
I have a few other ideas on my plate, including at least two other racial compendium ideas, but I can certainly add Changelings to the list of "maybes."
Oooh, I'm going to have to get that. It might be interesing to some of my players...
What we did in our home game is that everytime my Kitsune sorcerer gains a new spell level, she gains another (completely cosmetic, no mechanics) tail. This allowed my sorcerer to still get tails, without having to spend every feat on those tails.
Hmm
This is the approach i took with my campaign. A kitsune has a number of tails equal to the highest spell level they can cast.
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The series of feats is balanced already. As the creator said it is actually more powerful than most feats that are like it. I definitely would advise against making more spell like abalities more easily attainable than what that chain of feats already gives.
Also, Alexander: I rarely pick up third party resources. I am, however, interested in Kitsune and would like to compliment you on retaining balance in your products and keeping them close in theme to what is already existing. I find your products very appealing in that regard. It is too often that power creep happens with third party books but I think you have kept a tight handle on that while still giving other options and different features.
Alexander,
After going through the Kitsune compendium, my Girlfriend has decided she is going to play a Kitsune bloodline 9 tailed mystic sorcerer (Obviously a kitsune) in an upcoming game I'll be running next week. Overall I have to say I'm pleased.
How to fix it? Simple: Make it ONE SINGLE FEAT!
Magical Tails
You grow additional tails that represents your growing magical powers.
Prerequisite: Kitsune, character level 5th
Benefit: At 5th level, and every 2 levels beyond 5th, you gain a new spell-like ability, each usable twice per day, from the following list, in order: disguise self, charm person, misdirection, invisibility, suggestion, displacement, confusion, dominate person. For example, the first time you select this feat, you gain disguise self 2/day; At 7th level, you gain charm person 2/day. Your caster level for these spells is equal to your Hit Dice. The DCs for these abilities are Charisma-based.
That has to be the worst-designed feat I ever seeing. I'm okay with the 3-feat tree, like regular, Improved and Greater, but 8??? Ouch... good luck making a viable character with those.
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A single feat that gives 8 spell like abilities usable 2/day? You don't think that is a wee bit over powered?
I think that perhaps it was designed the way that it was to prevent power creep. I think the way that it was designed is FAR more balanced than presenting it as a single feat. THAT seems like something that would be poorly designed to me.
A single feat that gives 8 spell like abilities usable 2/day? You don't think that is a wee bit over powered?
I think that perhaps it was designed the way that it was to prevent power creep. I think the way that it was designed is FAR more balanced than presenting it as a single feat. THAT seems like something that would be poorly designed to me.
Not if it's scaled according to levels.
Look, it's already underpowered if you need to sacrifice 8 feats, out of 10. Why? because your character, regardless of most classes, is gonna suck badly gameplay-wise.
The only way that would be balanced is if all SLAs are usable 1/day instead of 2/day... which... wouldn't be so bad.
No, I am sorry. You are incorrect, Jici.
As the designer of the feats posted further up in this very thread:
Regardless, Magical Tails is pretty fair as it is now. Most other feats that grant spell-like abilities only grant one use (see most of the drow feats in the Advanced Race Guide) and of all the races in the game, no feat goes as high as Magical Tails does.
What you are presenting is that a single feat give you more power than any other race in the game gets. That is too powerful for a single feat.
No, I am sorry. You are incorrect, Jici.
As the designer of the feats posted further up in this very thread:
Regardless, Magical Tails is pretty fair as it is now. Most other feats that grant spell-like abilities only grant one use (see most of the drow feats in the Advanced Race Guide) and of all the races in the game, no feat goes as high as Magical Tails does.What you are presenting is that a single feat give you more power than any other race in the game gets. That is too powerful for a single feat.
The other problem is that it's too restrictive and costly to make any viable build. I've made a topic a while back asking for good builds using all 8 feats... the general consensus was that only the fighter makes it possible. The rest? Forget it. You're giving up too much options or almost mandatory feats for SLAs.
You can talk about balance, it won't change the fact that you cannot have a 9-tailed kitsune which also excels at the class it has chosen.
You can. You have not read this thread thoroughly enough to make that statement it seems.
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You can talk about balance, it won't change the fact that you cannot have a 9-tailed kitsune which also excels at the class it has chosen.
This is false. Fighter, Warpriest, and Zen Archer monk have enough bonus feats to make it easy to take the tail feats with normal feats.
Kitsune can excel at all three classes by investing in weapon finesse and slashing grace, fencing grace, or an agile weapon, or by using their bite attack and fox form.
Ughbash: Actually it is more like one feat is overpowered and so is 8 feats. Seriously. Compare it to other existing racial feats. Read what the developer said:
Regardless, Magical Tails is pretty fair as it is now. Most other feats that grant spell-like abilities only grant one use (see most of the drow feats in the Advanced Race Guide) and of all the races in the game, no feat goes as high as Magical Tails does.
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That's not an accurate description of the Drow line. All but one grants multiple uses/day and/or multiple different SLAs.
1) Detect magic at will, plus feather fall and levitate 1/day
2) +1 use dancing lights, faerie fire, levitate, feather fall, deeper darkness
3) Detect magic constant, all above at will.
4) Choice of detect magic, suggestion, divine favour 1/day
5) Other two of above
The first three drow feats together are clearly better than three Magical Tail feats. The last three Magical Tail spells are pretty great, but I'd expect a decent payoff from the longest feat tree in the game. It is OP for a single feat, but it's really not for 8.
5th level spells as SLAs are pretty powerful in their own right. I'm not sure it really needs much. It's giving a 15th level martial the spells of a 9th level caster...
No, it's not. A 9th level wizard with Int 20 or higher gets at least as many spells at every level slot compared to Magical Tail, and they can select optimal spells (and uses/day of those spells) rather than picking from a fixed list. Many characters will not find all the SLAs useful, turning some of the lower feats into a feat tax. Playing a kick-in-the-door campaign where Disguise Self and Misdirection will be useless? Playing an arcane bloodline sorcerer and get Invisibility as a bloodline spell? Too bad.
Also note that the drow SLAs mostly do not have saving throws, but the kitsune SLAs mostly do. A kitsune with Magical Tail will need a decent Cha for the saves - which is usually a dump stat for the fighter, warpriest, and zen archer.
You can make a decent nine-tailed fighter or zen archer, but it's not going to be OP. A nine-tailed swashbuckler would I think be the optimal choice without the Kitsune Compendium since it has cha synergy and gives free finesse - and if you also have decent Int the inspired blade archetype sets you up nicely to take Fencing Grace as your 4th level bonus feat.
But, thematically, if I want to play a kitsune who is so overflowing with magic that they need to grow extra tails to hold it all, I might want to play a class with actual innate magic (like the sorcerer or oracle) for which the feat line is relatively costly compared to its benefits. That's why I like the Kitsune Compendium's solutions. The Nine-tailed mystic and Nine-Tailed Inheritor make it easier to play a range of characters with the Magical Tail Feats without erasing the investment necessary.
What we did in our home game is that everytime my Kitsune sorcerer gains a new spell level, she gains another (completely cosmetic, no mechanics) tail. This allowed my sorcerer to still get tails, without having to spend every feat on those tails.
Also a good idea if the flavour is more important to you than the actual mechanics.
But, thematically, if I want to play a kitsune who is so overflowing with magic that they need to grow extra tails to hold it all, I might want to play a class with actual innate magic (like the sorcerer or oracle) for which the feat line is relatively costly compared to its benefits. That's why I like the Kitsune Compendium's solutions. The Nine-tailed mystic and Nine-Tailed Inheritor make it easier to play a range of characters with the Magical Tail Feats without erasing the investment necessary.
This is what we're going to do with our upcoming game. My gf's going to play a Nine Tailed Mystic Kitsune bloodline sorcerer. I am going to have to get used to my NPC's getting brainwashed soon enough @_@
You can talk about balance, it won't change the fact that you cannot have a 9-tailed kitsune which also excels at the class it has chosen.This is false. Fighter, Warpriest, and Zen Archer monk have enough bonus feats to make it easy to take the tail feats with normal feats.
Kitsune can excel at all three classes by investing in weapon finesse and slashing grace, fencing grace, or an agile weapon, or by using their bite attack and fox form.
A single feat that gives 8 spell like abilities usable 2/day? You don't think that is a wee bit over powered?
I think that perhaps it was designed the way that it was to prevent power creep. I think the way that it was designed is FAR more balanced than presenting it as a single feat. THAT seems like something that would be poorly designed to me.
Not if it's scaled according to levels.
Look, it's already underpowered if you need to sacrifice 8 feats, out of 10. Why? because your character, regardless of most classes, is gonna suck badly gameplay-wise.
The only way that would be balanced is if all SLAs are usable 1/day instead of 2/day... which... wouldn't be so bad.
Not all SLA's are equal. The current Tail progression makes sense. You go for all nine tails if you're trying to make a character that's like a nine-tailed character in mythology, a mysterious magical character that's not a combat bruiser. A nine-tailed Kitsune is perfectly viable if taken with a class build that synergises and builds on the strengths such a feat chain has.
And maybe you don't need to go all the way. Maybe two or three tails is good enough for a bard or rouge type character.
Ok, look... a kitsune is better suited for Dex-based classes such as rogues and Cha-based clases such as bards and sorcerers. Now... can you make effective builds of these classes with all 8 feats? I honestly doubt it. Yes, you can make a fighter, warpriest and zen archer monk with all 8 feats... but that really goes the opposite way of using a kitsune's potential to its fulliest, tails' SLAs included. Getting a Cha-based fighter... is going to lead you nowhere, compared to a rogue or bard.
Even if some of you keep defending the mecanics, you might want to remember that the feat tax is incredibly heavy and that almost every class will suffer greatly from not having key feats.
The idea of trading 1 known spell per level for a bonus tail feat... is pretty clever, and for classes who don't have 9 levels, the feats can help.
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Being a 15th level character qualifies you as a rare legend in my books.
If nine-tailed kitsune are not thematically combat bruisers, then why should a nine-tailed kitsune have the fighter class?
The test of a good feat progression is not whether it's useful to some character somewhere, it's whether it's useful in creating the character concept it's intended to represent without being unbalanced. Imagine if Weapon Finesse worked with two-handed weapons instead of light weapons, or Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack required heavy armour proficiency, or the Mounted Combat line could only be used while wearing light or no armour. They would still be workable paths for more than one class, but I'd say they needed fixing because they failed to represent the nimble dagger-wielder, or the classic knight.
Even in a social campaign - the best case scenario for a character who has spent all their feats on Magical Tails - a kitsune sorcerer or bard is better off taking the tail spells as spells known and investing in other feats like Spellsong, Still/Silent Spell, Persistent Spell, Realistic Likeness (impersonate specific individuals!), maybe Fox Shape for spying, etc. That's what we mean when we say that the Tails are not effective for the classes which thematically make most sense to take them.
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Silent Spell is for the sorcerer if having components on your spells is harshing your mellow (one reason to prefer SLAs). The bard takes Spellsong instead for stealthy spellcasting. Alas they would still have to deal with being gagged/silenced the... once or twice it comes up in a typical campaign. Actually, first bard I played with was a combat dancer who used spells for out of combat stuff. On being deafened in battle: "That's cute, she thinks I need verbal components."
I'm currently running a heavily social game: our last two sessions had 6 social encounters (some high-stakes) and 1 combat. I've also played a kitsune bard in a social game. Skills do a lot of heavy lifting, and a little magic goes a long way. I don't think the character ever felt the need for just one more Charm Person or Suggestion - and very rarely ran out of spells, period.
Realistic Likeness allows a kitsune to do something no spell can duplicate - transform into a specific person. Ditto Spellsong, and Fox Shape, which despite being based on Beast Shape is at-will and indefinite duration. You can do all kinds of fun things with those. Or you can have some SLAs that are on your spell list and available several levels before you qualify for the feats.
A single feat that gives 8 spell like abilities usable 2/day? You don't think that is a wee bit over powered?Not even a little bit.
Look at it this way: If all it took to get all those spell like abilities was a single feat, would there be a single Kitsune Character who didn't take it? Doubtful. That's a sign that it is overpowered.
I do agree that it is lacking in comparison to the Drow Noble/Umbral Scion feats. I'd say make it a 4 or 5 feat line, like Ughbash suggested above, and following the Drow feat pattern of making the bottom 3 spell usable at will, but the higher levels only once a day.
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Look at it this way: If all it took to get all those spell like abilities was a single feat, would there be a single Kitsune Character who didn't take it? Doubtful. That's a sign that it is overpowered.
Yeah, but that's not all it takes. You still have to wait for levels to gain the rest of them. And if you're starting at 17th level or whatever it is that gets you everything right off the bat, you're such an outlier that I don't find it a compelling argument against it.
That is nice, TriOmegaZero. Can you point out a feat that gives you more SLAs of higher levels more times per day then? If not then I guess I would wonder what you are basing your scale on.
TriOmegaZero: Don't worry about the scale. Answer the question, please.
Maybe condense it into 3 scaling feats? First one gives SLA os 1st, 2nd and 3rd level once you reach the levels a Sorcerer would get access to spells of that level... 2nd one does the same for 4th~6th level SLA. And the alst one does it for 7th~9th level SLAs?
9 feats is too much... 1 feat is too little... 2 or 3 would work nicely, IMO.
You actually quoted the question that you still hadn't answered. Here, I will repost it, I know it is hard to find that pesky "?" sometimes. ;)
Can you point out a feat that gives you more SLAs of higher levels more times per day then?
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The thing is Weirdo, everyone who's posted seems to limit themselves to nine tails or none. There are stories of three, five, tailed kitsune as well.
Yes, but the first 2-4 tails are the least exciting. A hat of disguise costs only 1,800gp.
also keep in mind that the SLA's build off your total character level, not class level. for saving throw DCs as well. So if you wanted to multi-class your bard, having charm person as an SLA is a more effective choice than a bard's known spell.
If I'm multiclassing, sure. A multiclass bard/fighter would probably do pretty well with Magical Tails. But a multiclass bard/fighter is a relatively weak starting point, and it doesn't address the problem that the feats don't work well with the (single-classes) classes that thematically should have them.
Maybe condense it into 3 scaling feats? First one gives SLA os 1st, 2nd and 3rd level once you reach the levels a Sorcerer would get access to spells of that level... 2nd one does the same for 4th~6th level SLA. And the alst one does it for 7th~9th level SLAs?
They don't grant SLAs above level 5 (Dominate Person). Kitsune typically are said to have odd numbers of tails, so if you want to reduce number of feats involved I think it makes sense to give two tails/SLA a feat. Then you would have 3-tailed, 5-tailed, 7-tailed, and 9-tailed states. However, I think it would be a bit powerful in that case so I would also reduce the number of uses of each SLA from 2 to 1.