Creative Director
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I'm sad that:
A) Megaraptor got nerfed down to large
B) They're still better than a T-RexFor a while, my half orc druid was the only hitter and healer in my group of four. People initially thought he was a barbarian; it worked ok. I'm sad, though, at the way the new wild shape rules work. T-Rexes are huge. They should be better than Megaraptors because T-Rexes are Awesome and Megaraptors are lame. When I was able to turn into a Huge creature, I should have been able to switch from Megaraptor to T-Rex and do more damage. But I can't. T-Rexes aren't really very good compared to Megaraptors.
Please fix.
(My Merciful, Vicious Amulet of Mighty Fists +0 probably isn't helping.)
I can't say for sure... but megaraptor is probably going to be exiting stage left. I'd like to see a bit more robust a selection of dinosaurs, and the megaraptor's a good one to get kicked out. If only because there's no real world dinosaur called "megaraptor."
SO! Megaraptor leaves, T-rex gets better. I think I can promise that.
I'm sad that:
A) Megaraptor got nerfed down to large
[...]I can't say for sure... but megaraptor is probably going to be exiting stage left. I'd like to see a bit more robust a selection of dinosaurs, and the megaraptor's a good one to get kicked out. If only because there's no real world dinosaur called "megaraptor."
SO! Megaraptor leaves, T-rex gets better. I think I can promise that.
Not to nitpick, but the real world "megaraptor" is called a Utahraptor. From Wikipedia:
"Up to 6.5 m (21 ft) long, 2 m (6.6 ft) tall, and 700 kg (1,500 lb) in weight, Utahraptor would have been a formidable predator."With that in mind I still say just advance the HD on a Deinonychus to make it large and you've got an instant "megaraptor". And unless there was some temporary Pathfinder change I missed (entirely possible), my 3.5 MM is telling me megaraptors were always large.
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Creative Director
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Not to nitpick, but the real world "megaraptor" is called a Utahraptor. From Wikipedia:
"Up to 6.5 m (21 ft) long, 2 m (6.6 ft) tall, and 700 kg (1,500 lb) in weight, Utahraptor would have been a formidable predator."With that in mind I still say just advance the HD on a Deinonychus to make it large and you've got an instant "megaraptor". And unless there was some temporary Pathfinder change I missed (entirely possible), my 3.5 MM is telling me megaraptors were always large.
Not to nitpick back, but the real world one's name is "utahraptor," not "megaraptor." I never claimed there was not a real-world dinosaur called "utahraptor." :-)
In any event, you're absolutely correct that if you want a larger raptor than a deinonychus, it's a relatively easy matter to advance it up a few HD or a size category. It's not so easy to turn a deinonychus into a stegosaurus or a brachiosaurus though. Which is why I'd rather see a wider range of dinos represented than using one of the limited spots available on what is more or less a repeat with a few more hit dice.
As for the size problem... in the first printing of the 3.5 Monster Manual, deinonychuses were Large and megaraptors were huge. This got errataed relatively soon, since the real-world deinonychus was certainly not large sized; Medium's just right.
Not to nitpick back, but the real world one's name is "utahraptor," not "megaraptor." I never claimed there was not a real-world dinosaur called "utahraptor." :-)
As for the size problem... in the first printing of the 3.5 Monster Manual, deinonychuses were Large and megaraptors were huge. This got errataed relatively soon, since the real-world deinonychus was certainly not large sized; Medium's just right.
Yar, semantics. That's why I'm an engineer, not an english teacher ;). I guess my MM is a late printing since it shows the historically correct medium-large sizes for the two critters. It sounds like Wizards had the old Jurassic Park syndrome the first time around.
Eikl: As for the original sentiment of the T-Rex being full of fail I agree, and the dino thread has some great ideas on improving them. I'm sure they'll be better than their current incarnation when Paizo publishes its new Pathfinder critter book.
[T]he megaraptor's a good one to get kicked out. If only because there's no real world dinosaur called "megaraptor."
You may want to update the Wikipedia page, then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaraptorElki, as you yourself pointed out, you'll benefit from creatures with more natural attacks because of the +3d6 you get from your Amulet of Mighty Fists. In fact, you'll be even better off as a giant octopus.
Without the bonus damage to all attacks, the megaraptor and T. rex are basically a toss-up, IMO.
[T]he megaraptor's a good one to get kicked out. If only because there's no real world dinosaur called "megaraptor."You may want to update the Wikipedia page, then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaraptorElki, as you yourself pointed out, you'll benefit from creatures with more natural attacks because of the +3d6 you get from your Amulet of Mighty Fists. In fact, you'll be even better off as a giant octopus.
Without the bonus damage to all attacks, the megaraptor and T. rex are basically a toss-up, IMO.
Hm, what will they dig up next?
Since a T-Rex is essentially twice as big as a megaraptor, according to the online stats that I found, if the megaraptor is kept then perhaps some stat adjustment needs to be made.|
Creative Director
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[T]he megaraptor's a good one to get kicked out. If only because there's no real world dinosaur called "megaraptor."You may want to update the Wikipedia page, then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaraptorElki, as you yourself pointed out, you'll benefit from creatures with more natural attacks because of the +3d6 you get from your Amulet of Mighty Fists. In fact, you'll be even better off as a giant octopus.
Without the bonus damage to all attacks, the megaraptor and T. rex are basically a toss-up, IMO.
That's the awesome thing about dinosuars, of course... they can't be kept up with and there's always new dinosaur lore to assimilate!
My back-of-the-envelope calculation used a base Str of 18 (on the high end for a half-orc druid, but plausible), a 50% chance to hit with a primary attack (talons for the megaraptor, bite for the T. rex) and a 25% chance to hit with secondary attacks (for the megaraptor). That gave an average damage of 11.125 for the megaraptor and 10.25 for the T. rex. Not a huge difference, if you exclude the +3d6 for each attack. The megaraptor gets pounce (awesome!) and the T. rex gets improved grab (so-so, in Pathfinder).
I'm sad that:
A) Megaraptor got nerfed down to large
B) They're still better than a T-RexFor a while, my half orc druid was the only hitter and healer in my group of four. People initially thought he was a barbarian; it worked ok. I'm sad, though, at the way the new wild shape rules work. T-Rexes are huge. They should be better than Megaraptors because T-Rexes are Awesome and Megaraptors are lame. When I was able to turn into a Huge creature, I should have been able to switch from Megaraptor to T-Rex and do more damage. But I can't. T-Rexes aren't really very good compared to Megaraptors.
Please fix.
(My Merciful, Vicious Amulet of Mighty Fists +0 probably isn't helping.)
But surely you could turn into a Huge Megaraptor provided your druid was 17th+ level? I don't remember anything in the wild shape rules forbidding you turning into an Advanced form of an animal, and the Megaraptor becomes Huge when it hits 17HD (Per the SRD a Megaraptor has Advancement: 9-16 HD (Large); 17-24 HD (Huge)).
That would boost your Megaraptor-form's talon damage to 3d6+Str, foreclaws to 1d6+1/2Str and bite to 2d6+Str AND give you the extra physical abilities, reach and natural armour of a Huge creature.
Rules of wildshape require the Druid be familiar with the animal he turns into, Unless there was an active ecology of 17hd Megaraptors for the druid to become "familiar" with he couldn't take the form of a huge megaraptor simply because he's seen and has been familar with the regular sized raptor.
So it depends if the DM supplies the 17HD megaraptor as an animal or not.Also "familiar" doesnt mean "I saw one once". So casting enlarge or animal growth on a 12hd raptor doesn't make you "familiar with 17hd megaraptors.
Presumably from what I can see (mechanics wise) and what i could imagine, a huge megaraptor would be far more viscious of an opponent than a T-rex.
As i have come to understand the T-rex there were more of a scavenger/bully of smaller dinos, where as the raptor was ever the hunter/predator. So if a mega raptor is simply a giant raptor, itd be ridiculously scary.
In a real ecology however, a critter that big would have a harder time surviving and hunting than it's smaller cousins (thus why the raptor at its true size was a better survivor than the T-rex at its true size)
The raptor was made for running at high speed and cornering (similar to cheetahs and leopards) where as the t-rex trying to run at full speed and turn would fall over because of his center of gravity.
The megaraptor would effectively have the same problem with size, and therefor the creature would be unlikely to naturally exist. Meaning the advanced forms of megaraptor are likely "pets" to some mad mage or evil druid master.
If such was the case, there wouldnt be enough of them for the druid character to become "familiar" with.
When I was looking up stuff on Deinonychus earlier in this thread I did find one very interesting piece of incorrect pop-culture. Deinonychus wasn't fast. I'd agree with most of the rest of your post. All animals exist on a clinal distribution, and those outlyers would be quite rare. I could see a DM ruling that even if you were familiar with normal megaraptors you'd need to make some kind of Knowledge (Nature) check of around a DC31 (10 + 17HD + 4 for rarity/oddity) to see if you are aware of the advanced HD ones. If you made that check I'd say you know they exist and are knowledgable enough with the way critters are put together that you could shape into one.
Also, with Paizo looking at Dino-mechanics I'd say that the power difference between an advanced megaraptor and a T-Rex will be small enough that there'd be little reason to bother with advancing a megaraptor.
When I was looking up stuff on Deinonychus earlier in this thread I did find one very interesting piece of incorrect pop-culture. Deinonychus wasn't fast. I'd agree with most of the rest of your post. All animals exist on a clinal distribution, and those outlyers would be quite rare. I could see a DM ruling that even if you were familiar with normal megaraptors you'd need to make some kind of Knowledge (Nature) check of around a DC31 (10 + 17HD + 4 for rarity/oddity) to see if you are aware of the advanced HD ones. If you made that check I'd say you know they exist and are knowledgable enough with the way critters are put together that you could shape into one.
Also, with Paizo looking at Dino-mechanics I'd say that the power difference between an advanced megaraptor and a T-Rex will be small enough that there'd be little reason to bother with advancing a megaraptor.
Well anything about the dang things (dinos) is pure speculation anyway, ( I still think they had purple fur and red mohawks).
But the arguement I was watching on Tv one day seeming to make logical, physical sense that the T-rex wasnt dodging or dashing after agile little prey.
The raptor for example however, finding track that presume their pace was 6 mph, only says the darn thing was walking at 6mph (or there abouts) at the time , in that terrain, in that weather.
1,000 years from now, if you find my foot prints from the fridge to the couch, you will guess I only walk 1 mph, when Im capable of 5 mph.
and If a megarpator were trying to eat me I bet I could bust out a rapid 5.5 mph! (although an in shape human gets 12 mph pretty easily)
See the leg mechanics of the human only really double walking speed to running speed.
But the ostrich who walks leisurely around the same pace as a human, can easily get up to , dang now I cant remember, but a whole heck of a alot more than 12mph.
So when dealing with an alien leg mechanic, how can you really accurately depict the sprint capability of it, when you might even have the leg put together upside down?
Heck, when I was five people thought T-rex walked around like Godzilla (upright), and that wasnt that long ago!
Palentologists, Archeologists, and Meteorologists all have the same thing in common.
They get paid for being WRONG all the TIME!
I know that in the entry for T-Rex motion on wikipedia they mention that one of the models that predicted the running speed of a T-Rex was validated by entering a dozen or so different animals of different body layouts. So mathematical models aren't always right (especially for something as nebulous as paleantology) but if your model is accurate for quite a few different animals then you can assume it is in the right neighborhood for your unkown critter.
And you're probably right about T-Rex not being agile, especially considering the moment of inertia of a body of that shape.
As for Palentologists, Archeologists, and Meteorologists, I'd say another thing they have in common is that as technology progresses their disciplines become more exact. Even physical sciences have lots of holes and problems. The big difference is that we don't hear about those problems in our common lives.
Well thats is exactly my point on the familiarity issue. There is no definaition and as such I think it gets abused and players just thumb the monster manual looking for the most advantageous form an say I'm going to be that.
Reguardless if you CAN become a HUGE animal, doesnt mean a HUGE raptor actually exists. So I would have to argue that if you haven't actually SEEN one existing on its own (not just an enlarged one or magically modified one) then you can't become one, because it doesn't exist in its natural state.
So by that definaition, if the DM is the one who did the "advancing" and used it against you in the course of play, it would theoretically be fair game for the druid (meaning if the DM advanced the size of this creature there would have to be a breeding population of such beasts) ....UNLESS it was a magically altered pet of an evil magus and this technically a unique creature, and then there would NOT be enough of the creature for the player to have been "familar with" but simply having seen one once, or knowing what a small one is like and just becomming a big one (by doing the advancing mechanics yourself) shouldnt be allowed.
By that logic I could become a HUGE Rat, no? (not that I would want to)
If you wanted to become a raptor, but no HUGE ones existed to become familar with, couldnt you, however become a raptor and then cast animal growth on yourself? Would that have the same result?
And then if you did that often enough on yourself, would that be sufficent familiarity to say you can just go straight for the huge version based on the arguement you are very familar with the creature because you have "lived" as one on more than one occasion?
That though would be really cool because theoretically, in th world you could turn into a technically non existant animal ( a huge megaraptor) having a form of your very own!
Reguardless if you CAN become a HUGE animal, doesnt mean a HUGE raptor actually exists. So I would have to argue that if you haven't actually SEEN one existing on its own (not just an enlarged one or magically modified one) then you can't become one, because it doesn't exist in its natural state.Well I certainly wouldn't allow a druid to learn an larger form from an animal enlarged by Animal Growth, since (a) it's not a natural form, and (b) the spell doesn't give extra HD, so it's questionable that a druid can learn how to become an a Megaraptor Advanced to 17+ Hit Dice by examining a 8-16 HD 'raptor that's been inflated.
As for casting Animal Growth on yourself, I'm afraid it's usually impossible according to the rules as written, since a wild shaping druid retains their type. So, unless somebody plays an Awakened animal, they can't use the spell on themselves while in animal-form.
However, a literal interpretation of the SRD indicates a druid can turn into a Megaraptor and receive an Enlarge Person to increase a size step, since technically they're still humanoid. That's just a 1st level spell, although it isn't on the Druid list!
Anyhows, I fear this debate will just go round in circles. Wouldn't we be better off either leaving it to each DM's choice or calling for the Pathfinder rules to include some statements about how wild shape familiarity is achieved?
So If I'm Turok the Dinosaur Hunter, and I am a ranger who's chosen enemey is Dinosaurs. And your druid turns into one:
1) my Dino slaying spear doesn't work on you because your human2) I get no bonuses to track your dino tracks
3) I dont get + to hit and damage, or bluff or whatever because you are human?
Hmmm that seems to be a flubber-oonie in the rule set if you ask me.
Your type should change for the duration of the effect.
But then again, I suppose dopplegangers "type" doesnt change.
Well either way, you're a "shape changer" and you get slayed by the shapechanger bane weapon. Or you are what you are at the time, and you get slayed by that bane weapon. Either way, their needs to be clarification on both familiarity and type of the druid according to wildshape (and beastshape/polymorph spells as well)
How would you play that out with your rangers
Turok closely inspects the tracks of the theropd: "These are not the tracks of a raptor, but a shape changer!"
????