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7) A creature uses either the iterative attacks offered by their BAB from their HD or class levels, or all its natural attack. A humanoid's natural attack sequence is only made of one [Slam] attack. I would add "unless that humanoid is given natural attacks from another source." Think the half-dragon template, which gives 2 claws and a bite, and can be applied to humanoids. I think it's a good attempt, what you've put together here.
The rules specifically state that: a (from the beasteary) if monstrous characters are playing the GM should select a CR and let all players start at that CR. Thus, if I was to play a level 1 fighter half-fiend, the party would start at character level 2, or b (from the players guide concerning playing a stronger race) if a player is starting as one of the stronger races (there's a list but it's only in the print copy, I cannot find it in the PRD) the rest of the party should start at level 2. In either case, the rules make provision for this kind of thing.
Yes thats correct, but as soon as the character hits his 11th class level his CR adjustment jumps straight from CR+1 to CR+2. Literally meaning he goes from character level 11 (class 10, CR+1) to character level 13 (class 11, CR+2). The table is very clear that the CR is an instant boost, not something which is worked towards via a half-fiend level, nor is it in any way a choice. That said, I do like your idea, and in 3.5 if I remember correctly you had half-fiend options for LA+1, LA+2 and LA+3, depending on how far you wanted to go. This was great since you could decide the benefit / sacrifice yourself. This, however, is my attempt at following the rules to accomplish what we are told has to happen. In effect I am trying to work out how this would look in an official suppliment, not a house rule situation, and to that end I believe I have done pretty well.
They are getting those 3 levels because of the template, but since they effectively lose class levels its a bad thing. In 3.5 if you took a race with a LA+3, you would start at character level 4, effectively gaining your first 3 levels for free. It is exactly the same here, but spread out through your levels instead of all at the beginning. In fact, at character level 20 you will have a CR mod of +3 and 17 class levels. In 3.5, if you started at LA+3 you would be, surprise surprise, character level 20 with 17 class levels. So from the rules point of view, this works exactly how it was meant to.
Also, a half-fiend's template increases in power as he gains levels, so it is fair that at some points he jumps ahead. It would be unfair if he gained all his extra powers while not taking extra penalties. And yes, his level gain would be a penalty to him. He earns less XP, has longer to go to his next level, and the other members of his party earn more XP.
Where does it say that a party has to all be the same level? And in 3.5, if 4 players were at level 5 and one of them would acquire a template with LA+1, that would make him a level higher than the party. Would you then not allow it ever? And thus errata out all the acquired templates in the entire game for non-new characters?
Page 297 refers to 'determining creature role', 'advancing monsters by adding class levels', and 'determine cr'. This is great for advancing monsters as opponents, but we are talking about advancing a PC. Either way comments for each section of that page: * Determine the role - easy enough and I'm sure not what you were reffering to.
Also remember that in 3.5 with LA you are also being 'given' XP. A level 1 fighter with a LA+2 adjustment starts out at character level 3 with 3,000 XP. He never earned that XP, it was 'given' to him because of the LA. This is the exact same, but it is spread out through the game instead of all right at the start.
Tanis, and anyone who's interested, I have attempted to map out the progression for those templates. Please see this post, also in the Rules Questions forum. Once again, if you look at my thread here, I have attempted a full mapping out of how this relates to a PC as he progresses in character levels. It may not be perfect but it is a step by step guide on how I understand it to work, and would appreciate constructive criticism, maybe even an official opinion?
You really should not think of it as gaining XP but gaining a character level as part of the template. The XP is the means by which you achieve the result which has to happen in order to follow the rules. If it helps, think of it like this. At level 4 you get an ability point, because as a character you are progressively getting stronger. This is simple you getting something because your character is getting stronger. Although it is in ALL ways a bad thing. You are now a class level behind everyone, while receiving MUCH less XP so your progression takes LONGER. And you are a character level ahead because you are stronger than everyone else.
It can??? Yeah I guess I missed the forrest for the trees on that one. Then there really is no point in banning that feat for monks, an extra point or two on average is not game breaking. This does bring up another pet peave though, one which I have with two-handed fighters as well. There are really very few feats for such characters, natural attacks and two-handed weapon wielders. I would have loved some kind of feat tree for them, something similar to the TWF tree, maybe not as big, but something. How would one progress either of those two characters as compared to TWF, PBS, even mounted combat feat trees? </rant>
Please ignore that, I forgot to look at the BAB requirement for the feat. Either way, the progression of the feat is better than simply linear. Hypethetically, if the feat were legal, you would probably have to keep track of your monk's unarmed damage, use it as the base, and keep track of how many times you took the feat. Everytime your base damage increases you consult the feat's progression list and adjust accordingly. It could get complicated and in my opinion a little over-powered.
I would agree that some form of official use only forum would be a great way to issue answers. Would Paizo be open to maybe archiving any solved FAQ's periodically and distributing them as a bare bones text only pdf? Much like was done for 3.5 a while back. It would make it a great tool for those who may GM from a laptop who wouldn't neccessarily have an internet connection at the table. Tanis, and anyone who's interested, I have attempted to map out the progression for those templates. Please see this post, also in the Rules Questions forum.
One reason it may have been omitted is that it can stack with itself. If a monk so chose he could burn every feat he had on this, although why would he in reality? Let us see... A human monk at 11th level would deal 12d6 per hit, assuming he burnt all his character feats on INA. That is pretty broken, so seeing it like that, I would tend to agree in banning the feat for monks.
Firstly, this is how I see it, and how I interpret the rules. I am probably wrong on a few counts, and if so constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. This may not be the best (or even legal) method, but it is simple, elegant, effective, completely in line with the template, and completely within the framework of the game. The end result, even if you don’t agree with certain methods, ends up as exactly what the template specifies. At 20th character level, for example, you will have 17 class levels, and have the CR+3 mod from the template. These are some concepts which I use. Please bear with me until the end before criticising, and use the point numbers in your flames :) Also, in all examples I am using the fast progression for XP. 1. Character level and XP are forever linked. You cannot gain a character level without gaining XP, and only gaining XP (one way or another) allows you to advance in character levels. I.e. Character level 6 can only be achieved by attaining 15,000 XP. 2. The term ‘gain a level’ is a result of gaining XP. If a level 3 character with 3,300 XP was told by a rule to ‘gain a level’, he would gain 2,700 XP. The XP gain is the means by which the result is achieved. Now, it doesn’t matter to the game mechanics wether at 8th level you are at the start of the level, halfway to the next, or 1 XP short of the next level, you are still at 8th level. Thus, the benefit from gaining a level shouldn’t take that into account either, it should always be enough XP to get you from the beginning of your current level to the next level. Effectively the XP difference between the levels. 3. This is for a character that will take class levels, with the template being inherited. 4. “Monsters as PCs” states in the 4th paragraph that you treat the monster’s CR as class levels when determining the PC’s overall levels. In the template the CR for a half-fiend is that of the base creature plus either 1, 2 or 3 depending on hit die. It does not say racial HD, just HD. 5. Class levels provide 1 HD each. Using this and point 4 above, a character with 3 fighter levels (3HD) would be a character level 4 half-fiend fighter. 6. This is an important one. When a player gains enough XP to push him to 11 class levels (11 HD) he goes from character level 11 (10 class levels + 1 from the template) to character level 13 (11 class levels + 2 from the template). As stated in point 1, you can only gain character levels by gaining XP. The only way to facilitate this then is by granting him a bonus to XP, equivalent to one level. Treat this as a template bonus, or an earned bonus, just like ability point increases. It is a direct result of the half-fiend template and results in the PC effectively skipping a class level. This is why at level 1, 6, and 13 the table gives the PC XP. 7. The same monsters as PCs section from point 4 goes on to state what amount to “buy back” rules. A half-fiend’s CR modifier will, at it’s peak, be +3. By the rules we need to effect the buy-back a number of times equal to half this number rounded down, which is 1. This in effect lets us do this once in our career as a half-fiend. 8. This bit is open to interpretation: When to apply the buy-back. My choice is to start the procedure every time our CR modifier increases. Let me explain... When we have 4 or less HD our CR mod is +1. 1 halved rounded down is 0. We do the buy-back zero times. When we reach 11 HD our mod becomes +2. This halved, rounded down is 1, so now we start counting our levels. Between the 2nd and 3rd levels gained from this point, we do the buy-back which entails gaining a level halfway, which for us is between 8th and 9th levels, or more precisely, when we reach 42,000 XP. The reason we gain 16,000 XP is because that is how much XP a baseline 8th character level PC needs to get to 9th level, remembering points 1 and 2 from above. Since we can only “buy back” once in our career as a half-fiend, we never have to worry about this again. OK, so on to the table. Character levels 1, 6 and 13 are the XP increases, 2, 7 and 14 are the skipped class levels, according to points 4, 5 and 6 above. The 8.5 character level is an abstraction of the buy-back process. Please forgive the crude formatting. Character
So please let me know what you think, hopefully I have not waisted the better part of a week on this :)
Nah I'm good. I do think this thread evolved a little more than I had hoped since I was initially interested purely in the natural attack aspect, but it definately took a logical next step well within the context of the topic. Although I genuinely would appreciate an example as stated in my previous post. If someone later comes across one please feel free to necro this thread. Thanks for the help / patience :)
My 2cp in this Monk discussion are as follows: * INA has been errata'd out as Abraham Spalding said
What all that boils down to is that saying a monk's unarmed strike counts as a natural attack for feats, effects, etc. is redundant. Unless someone can show a specific example where it would come into play, beneficially or perhaps maybe as a hinderance?, there is really no need for it and could (should?) be omitted.
I guess this is another example of where the rules would benefit from one or two sentences extra just to clear up any confusion. Everyone "knows" that natural attacks aren't unarmed strikes, but no one can prove it conclusively because of the errors / ambiguity in the rules. It's a shame that when trying to clarify rules we need to use 'my version' and 'in my opinion' so much, but I guess thats what the GM is for :) I guess also that at this stage it's also too much to hope for any kind of clarification / errata in the APG for this and / or the monk issues? 1,000 XP to everyone for effort :)
Unarmed Strikes -- These are attacks made by creatures without natural weapons and are not natural attacks. Natural attacks are not unarmed strikes since that would create a self exclusion situation (unarmed strikes =/= natural attacks so if natural attacks == unarmed strikes then natural attacks =/= natural attacks... which is a logical No No). If you could please quote the page number in the core book which this is quoted from that would solve all my problems right then and there and would be very appreciated! Frankly I feel kind of embarrassed that I missed it. Thanks for your time with this.
Thanks, but if you read my post I do quote from that exact same passage so yes, I have read it :) My confusion comes in here: natural and monks attacks are listed under unarmed attacks, special case to be true, but unarmed attacks nonetheless. So while you are correct that there are three types of attacks, natural attacks as per the rules are unarmed attacks.
All good except for this part. Which part? The reasoning LordGriffin puts forward or the reasons I gave as to why it was flawed? If you could, answer this that would be most helpful I think: When is an unarmed attack an unarmed strike? It is not because of the "weaponized" reasoning set out above as that can be proven not to work. The fact is there is no black and white distinction made in the rules, which is why I kinda would like an official answer, or better yet, a small note on this in an errata. Do you happen to know when that errata will be out? Or is it sort of up in the air? Thanks.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I agree with what you are saying, except on one point. Forgetting the monk, any character can take improved unarmed strike, which in effect "weaponizes" their unarmed attack. Then we are back to the same point where they wouldn't qualify in terms of the favoured weapon from above if they follow your reasoning. Think of it this way, in the core rules a natural attack is a subset of unarmed attacks in the form of an armed unarmed attack. I.e. a natural attack is always an unarmed attack, but an unarmed attack is not necessarily a natural attack. Taking your example (balled fist) further one could argue that if an unarmed attack deals bludgeoning damage it should be an unarmed strike, but that falls apart too since a claw attack counts as bludgeoning as well. There are also instances in the core rulebook which reference both unarmed attack and unarmed strike as the same thing, such as the scorpion style feat for example.
Please excuse me if this is a simple misunderstanding on my part: A monk's attacks, anyone with improved unarmed attack, casters of touch spells, and a character with natural weapons all fall under the same section of unarmed attacks, namely "armed" unarmed attacks, paraphrased from page 182 of the core book. So keeping the above in mind, could someone please explain the distinction between a natural attack and an unarmed strike? Specifically, if 'unarmed strike' is listed as a favoured weapon, does that encompass all unarmed attacks? Just "armed" unarmed attacks (which include the monk's attacks AND natural attacks as seen above)? I thought maybe an unarmed strike is an "unarmed" unarmed attack, but that is clearly not the case when you read the improved unarmed attack feat which states you are treated as armed when making an unarmed strike. As with my previous posts an official answer would be greatly appreciated, but any pointers to specific pages in specific books would also be great. Thanks.
a search of the earlier rules forum threads should reveal something official (I think). I did search prior to posting this and indeed there was a thread here that discusses this same issue, but no official ruling was given. Since that was about haste specifically I thought it better to start a new thread specific to the speed enhancement. The opinions from that thread were also mixed.
Just a cursory glance at the costs, the speed enhancement is +3, so without anything else that would cost 32,000 (+1 and +3) on top of the weapon cost. For the TWF example, that would be 64,000 for 2 extra attacks. Considering also that you do not gain the additional benefit's which Haste bestows I think it might be fair allow this. But I agree, I would very much appreciate an official ruling.
Is the speed enhancement have an effect? Yes. Is the effect similiar to the effect that the speed enhancement gives? Yes it's exactly the same in fact. It isn't the same *exact* effect in terms of target. This gives the weapon an effect while haste gives the character the effect. Does the enhancement say it doesn't stack with similiar effects? Yes. So I would go with no more extra attacks. Fair enough, no two should stack. However the effect is on the weapon, not the character. If you cast haste on the character of course it wouldn't stack but the other weapon is a completely different entity to the first. It's like an enhancement bonus to shield, and an enhancement bonus to armour. Enhancement bonuses don't stack, but since they are on two different entities their affects are not stacking at all.
let's say you have a fighter with TWF and he has a longsword +1 with speed (+3 bonus), and a shortsword with the same +1 and speed. Does he get an extra attack for each weapon? I would argue he does since the speed enhancement gives the weapon another attack, not another attack for his character. The speed property does say that it doesn't stack with similar effects such as haste. However haste affects the character as apposed to a single weapon, so with two speed weapons stacking shouldn't even be an issue. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks. We sat down and worked out a character progression for this template and we seem to have it sorted out. I think the bit that got us all spun around was the CR modifier changing with HD :)
A couple of questions I'm hoping someone could answer. We are generating 3rd level characters and one of them will be a half-fiend. Since he has no HD the example in the beastiary for monstrous characters doesn't quite fit. So: 1. How many class levels does he get in a party of 3rd level PC's? 2. What would his starting XP be? 3. Does the CR bump equate to LA from 3.5? 4. If the CR bump does equate to LA, does that mean he effectively misses out on a class level when his CR goes from +1 to +2? We basically get that the half-fiend will be getting less XP for his whole life, it's just the class / character progression which confuses us. Thanks in advance. |
