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A question came up in a game recently on how "Unearthly Grace" works. Which adds a monster's Charisma Modifier to reflection bonus and saving throws. The Nymph is one Monster that has it.
Logically speaking, at first we thought it was like... she is just too beautiful to want to hit - but that raises questions about monsters who can't see at all, or who don't care at all about physical beauty, like the undead, or even things like Goblins who logically would consider Beautiful as unattractive. It also raised questions about how it would affect things like saving throws.
Then I saw the same ability in a monster of the underdark:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e
So is it a matter of... so beautiful... or the kind of charisma that just affects the way she moves regardless of how it looks. The word makes me think it is that her charisma makes her graceful so would still work even with monsters who are blind. But I am not sure.
So how exactly does such an ability work? With something like "Stunning Glance" it clearly seems to be a gaze attack, and with "Blinding Beauty" it's obviously a matter of appearance. But "Unearthly Grace" is a bit different since there are so many other monsters that can act differently based on how the ability works.
Would Unearthly Grace apply even if the monster would reasonably consider a Nymph to be ugly, or if a monster has no regard for beauty at all?
And if it would work for a monster who would consider her ugly, would that be like a negative deflection bonus to AC instead?
Perhaps the nymph has an aura of pure beauty that appeals to most creatures. They don't want to mar that embodiment of natural beauty. So when they attack, they shy away from hitting her even if it's what's necessary. The aura is causing blows to be deflected away, just in a rather obtuse manner. Even creatures without sentience can feel this aura and respond accordingly. For those creatures that find a nymph ugly, maybe they're repulsed so strongly that they won't be able to hit her.
I guess a better way to phrase the question is this...
If a Nymph uses her Blinding Beauty to blind a creature, and therefore is no longer able to see how beautiful she is, would she loose the benefits of Unearthly Grace, such as to AC, for it knows not how beautiful a target it is attacking, or would it still apply because she is still just as graceful regardless of if the monster can see her?
That aura logic makes sense. What does everyone else think?
I am trying to get it all figured out so all the finer details are understood before next game play.
The ability to see the nymph has nothing to do with the Unearthly Grace ability, so her blinding beauty won't negate it. The two operate autonomously of one another.
That makes sense... so therefore it can't be her physical beauty at all.
Maybe it's just gracefulness. So I guess then the question comes down to, what exactly makes charisma? Beauty, attitude, grace, or all 3?
Edit: and if it's just gracefulness, why base it on charisma, and not dexterity? The aura concept makes more sense from that perspective, but then, what about creatures who neither regard or disregard natural beauty, like the undead?
I'd put down the 'Unearthly Grace' being based off charisma as, since charisma is a measurement more of force of personality than just appearance, that it is (as a supernatural?) ability more the being enforcing their own views on reality. It's not 'she's too pretty to damage', it is instead 'I am too wonderful for the universe to allow this to happen' and that force of personality is warping reality around them to fit that perception.
I'd put down the 'Unearthly Grace' being based off charisma as, since charisma is a measurement more of force of personality than just appearance, that it is (as a supernatural?) ability more the being enforcing their own views on reality. It's not 'she's too pretty to damage', it is instead 'I am too wonderful for the universe to allow this to happen' and that force of personality is warping reality around them to fit that perception.
ooooh. that's an interesting way of putting it. Like saying, "I REJECT that reality." seems almost egocentric.
I'd put down the 'Unearthly Grace' being based off charisma as, since charisma is a measurement more of force of personality than just appearance, that it is (as a supernatural?) ability more the being enforcing their own views on reality. It's not 'she's too pretty to damage', it is instead 'I am too wonderful for the universe to allow this to happen' and that force of personality is warping reality around them to fit that perception.ooooh. that's an interesting way of putting it. Like saying, "I REJECT that reality." seems almost egocentric.
Seems a pretty good description of most fey in most classic literature. :)
Creative Director
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Unearthly grace is not something that you can easily quantify, since no human can possess it and no human has really seen it (hence the unEARTHly part of it). The basic idea, though, is that a creature is so poised and beautiful and confident and impressive that they become harder to hit or damage. The type of bonuses granted are resistance and deflection bonuses... basically, weapons that try to strike these creatures veer aside almost as if they know they are not worthy of bringing harm to something so incredible and beautiful and important, poisons simply can't bring themselves to be as potent when used against them, attempts to influence their minds are too guilt-ridden about trying to overwhelm such a unique and wonderful personality, and so on.
It's not dexterity based because the nymph or whatever doesn't actually have to physically react to danger in order to gain the benefit. It's just always working. They're just that awesome.
Unearthly grace is not something that you can easily quantify, since no human can possess it and no human has really seen it (hence the unEARTHly part of it). The basic idea, though, is that a creature is so poised and beautiful and confident and impressive that they become harder to hit or damage. The type of bonuses granted are resistance and deflection bonuses... basically, weapons that try to strike these creatures veer aside almost as if they know they are not worthy of bringing harm to something so incredible and beautiful and important, poisons simply can't bring themselves to be as potent when used against them, attempts to influence their minds are too guilt-ridden about trying to overwhelm such a unique and wonderful personality, and so on.
It's not dexterity based because the nymph or whatever doesn't actually have to physically react to danger in order to gain the benefit. It's just always working. They're just that awesome.
So would there be any examples of any creatures who would not be affected by it? And for the purposes of a campaign, suppose a Nymph had a fiendish template applied, or suppose another Fey who is fiendish has it, how would that logically work?
This question has actually come up in quite a few groups in the past so the more clear I can get it the better.
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Creative Director
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So would there be any examples of any creatures who would not be affected by it? And for the purposes of a campaign, suppose a Nymph had a fiendish template applied, or suppose another Fey who is fiendish has it, how would that logically work?
This question has actually come up in quite a few groups in the past so the more clear I can get it the better.
Nope. The defense affects everything, in the same way the resistance bonus from a cloak of resistance or the AC bonus from a ring of protection affects everything. A nymph who gains the fiendish template or something like that keeps her unearthly grace ability unchanged. Only templates that specifically say that the base creature loses its ability strip abilities from the base creature. Same goes for all of her other abilities and special attacks and special defenses.
The behind-the-scenes reason that the nymph has this ability is because she needs the AC boost. She doesn't wear armor, she doesn't have natural armor, and allowing her beauty to be a supernatural defense is very much in flavor for her powers and it gives her a really fun and unique defense. But when you get right down to it, it's really just a deflection bonus to AC and a resistance bonus to saves with some fancy flavor attached to it. They're always on and always protect her.
So would there be any examples of any creatures who would not be affected by it? And for the purposes of a campaign, suppose a Nymph had a fiendish template applied, or suppose another Fey who is fiendish has it, how would that logically work?
This question has actually come up in quite a few groups in the past so the more clear I can get it the better.
Nope. The defense affects everything, in the same way the resistance bonus from a cloak of resistance or the AC bonus from a ring of protection affects everything. A nymph who gains the fiendish template or something like that keeps her unearthly grace ability unchanged. Only templates that specifically say that the base creature loses its ability strip abilities from the base creature. Same goes for all of her other abilities and special attacks and special defenses.
The behind-the-scenes reason that the nymph has this ability is because she needs the AC boost. She doesn't wear armor, she doesn't have natural armor, and allowing her beauty to be a supernatural defense is very much in flavor for her powers and it gives her a really fun and unique defense. But when you get right down to it, it's really just a deflection bonus to AC and a resistance bonus to saves with some fancy flavor attached to it. They're always on and always protect her.
That makes allot of sense. And even as a character playing a Nymph, combining a high charisma roll with the racial bonuses to charisma, she can't really stack that deflection bonus with armor, and she probably wouldn't wear armor anyway since allot of armor limits her dexterity bonus too. So she is pretty much stuck wearing next to nothing for the entire campaign.
I am glad I got a response from the Editor-in-Chief about this one. Makes it feel allot more final. And I am relieved that it works that way, because it would be a bit tedious to have to keep track of multiple AC and deflection bonuses for a number of situations.
The question came up this time because I created a new monster based on the Nymph (still a work in progress) and started playing it in a campaign. We went with the 25 point system, instead of dice rolls, so she took a big hit to Strength and Constitution to get an 18 to charisma and 16 to dexterity. We have her LA at 5 (so far) and her as a level 4 Rogue. As a level 9 character in a level 9 party she has only 35 HP, but she also has 35 AC. Allot of questions came up in balancing efforts, and since the first monsters she went up against happened to be undead, this was one of the big ones.
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On a related note, would Stunning Glance be a gaze attack that requires eye contact? Since Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and creatures tend to view beauty in a number of ways, is there anything about the Nymph that is dependent on the perspective of the creature?
The succubi demon lords, Shami-aumorae and Malcanthet, have been statted with a "Profane beauty" ability, that gives them their charisma modifier as deflection bonus, as long as they don't wear armor (which btw is heretical towards the standards of fantasy armor for females). So I guess that one would be negated by blindness.
Maybe, for savor only, because it's certainly not in the rules, you should replace Unearthly grace with this for a fiendish nymph.
The succubi demon lords, Shami-aumorae and Malcanthet, have been statted with a "Profane beauty" ability, that gives them their charisma modifier as deflection bonus, as long as they don't wear armor (which btw is heretical towards the standards of fantasy armor for females). So I guess that one would be negated by blindness.
Maybe, for savor only, because it's certainly not in the rules, you should replace Unearthly grace with this for a fiendish nymph.
That is a very good suggestion. Some of the questions raised are in relation to her altered form. I started with multiple templates and ended up with something totally new so that ability seems like a useful compromise I can bring up.
If you want to see what I am talking about, you can read the details here:
http://www.etherealspheres.com/ShadowNymph.pdf
It's gone through allot of tweaks since first play, and allot more are expected. Most of the finer details are the result of questions during play that were not previously defined. It seems the more detail I go into one thing the more detail I have to go with something else.
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Creative Director
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On a related note, would Stunning Glance be a gaze attack that requires eye contact? Since Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and creatures tend to view beauty in a number of ways, is there anything about the Nymph that is dependent on the perspective of the creature?
Stunning glance does not require eye contact; the nymph can just throw one of those around each round without fear of anyone actually looking back. Both it and blinding beauty work equally well on any target, despite the target creature's perspective on whether or not it thinks the nymph is beautiful.
On a related note, would Stunning Glance be a gaze attack that requires eye contact? Since Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and creatures tend to view beauty in a number of ways, is there anything about the Nymph that is dependent on the perspective of the creature?Stunning glance does not require eye contact; the nymph can just throw one of those around each round without fear of anyone actually looking back. Both it and blinding beauty work equally well on any target, despite the target creature's perspective on whether or not it thinks the nymph is beautiful.
Thanks. allot of useful info. Though all this does make Nymph even by herself even more powerful as a Player Character, let alone one with Shadow abilities, so I am going to have to come up with personality quirks and weaknesses to balance her out.
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Creative Director
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Thanks. allot of useful info. Though all this does make Nymph even by herself even more powerful as a Player Character, let alone one with Shadow abilities, so I am going to have to come up with personality quirks and weaknesses to balance her out.
It absolutely does. Nymphs are VERY powerful as PCs, and that's something a GM will have to just come to grips with if he wants to allow a nymph PC.
ya. I am seeing that now. Even without spells, or druid abilities, or inspiration: just those 3 abilities are amazingly powerful, even more so combined with her really high attribute adjustments.
About Blinding Beauty... a Nymph can suppress it as a free action, so if she doesn't it is constantly active. If a character makes the saving throw, does that make it immune? If so, is the immunity to just that Nymph or to any? And what happens if two Nymphs with Blinding Beauty Gaze upon each other?
If they could blind each other, I suppose that would explain why they tend to be solitary creatures. And a blind nymph would appear unable to use stunning glance.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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1) So how exactly does [uneartly grace] work?
2) Would Unearthly Grace apply even if the monster would reasonably consider a Nymph to be ugly, or if a monster has no regard for beauty at all?
3) And if it would work for a monster who would consider her ugly, would that be like a negative deflection bonus to AC instead?
You are venturing into "Ask your DM" territory.
Yes
Yes