RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Everyone is free to dis-regard the blog post in their home games but until they change it officially it still determines how animals will be treated in all published & Society play.
Mathwei, neither awaken nor permanency are allowed in Society play. This issue seems squarely centered on home games.
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And the reason you'd use Orcs instead is they are cheaper, more plentiful, come already trained and have a reason to actually stick around (you are paying them after all). Remember your vivisectionist has no direct control over any anthro animal and you tortured them into this shape they are more likely to rebel and try to kill you.
I don't believe there is anything in the spell description that even implies a "tortured or otherwise painful" transformation in the slightest.
Please don't make things up to support your case. It only undermines the foundation of the point you were trying to make.
The default spell name is anthropomorphic animal, the Vivisectionist version that we are discussing is called Torturous Transformation add to that the posters statement that he planned to use a completely evil villain who used torture and brainwashing to control these animals and I believe the comment was called appropriate.
@Chris Mortika no they aren't but the Vivisectionist 9th lvl ability makes it permanent without using Permanency or Awaken so is an appropriate question.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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@Chris Mortika no they aren't but the Vivisectionist 9th lvl ability makes it permanent without using Permanency or Awaken so is an appropriate question.
According to the Pathfinder Society Resources: "Vivisectionist alchemist archetype does not gain awaken at 9th level nor does it grant the ability to make anthropomorphic animal permanent."
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And the reason you'd use Orcs instead is they are cheaper, more plentiful, come already trained and have a reason to actually stick around (you are paying them after all). Remember your vivisectionist has no direct control over any anthro animal and you tortured them into this shape they are more likely to rebel and try to kill you.
I don't believe there is anything in the spell description that even implies a "tortured or otherwise painful" transformation in the slightest.
Please don't make things up to support your case. It only undermines the foundation of the point you were trying to make.
The Vivisectionist ability is called "Torturous Transformation", that doesn't apply to the casting of the spell other ways but it certainly implies when Vivisectionists 'cast' this it's not fun.
One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?
It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
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One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
Throw a charm spell on top of it and now we're REALLY into furry territory.
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According to the Pathfinder Society Resources: "Vivisectionist alchemist archetype does not gain awaken at 9th level nor does it grant the ability to make anthropomorphic animal permanent."@Chris Mortika no they aren't but the Vivisectionist 9th lvl ability makes it permanent without using Permanency or Awaken so is an appropriate question.
They updated the society rules for UM already? I thought they weren't doing that till tomorrow.
Sweet, got some reading to do.thx Chris
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One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
Wouldn't it be less expensive to just acquire a larger animal to start?
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Wouldn't it be less expensive to just acquire a larger animal to start?One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
Sounds like it depends on theme/flavor. If you have an evil wizard with a million gold who decides he HAS to have an army of rat men...
Give it any other TYPE and this conversation ends but there are now strict guidelines on what ANIMAL type can do.
I'm sorry if I might seem stubborn or something for not letting this go, but I fail to see where these "strict guidelines" are. If you are referring to the blog post, those don't seem very "strict" in any way, shape or form. Where are the rules that explain everything you are saying? Where does it even say that an INT of 3 is "well below the grossly retarded level"? When your intelligence is only a 1 or 2, going up to 3 is a big jump. I see no real limitations in the Animal Creature Type entry like you are describing.
Money may be no issue but time is it takes a solid month to train any animal for combat and an indeterminate amount of time to get them enough xp to earn a feat.
Not earn a feat, earn a level. And for a 2HD animal, it needs 3,000 XP to go up to level 3. Just keep throwing first level NPC's at it (humans, goblins, whatever). Or any other 1/3 CR monster (dire rats, maybe?). 135 XP each. It will need to kill 15 of them to level up. It can easily take care of five a day no problem. In some cases it could probably even take out all 15 in one day. It's not that big of a time issue. And again, I'm not really buying the whole "need to train them" argument until I see it.
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Give it any other TYPE and this conversation ends but there are now strict guidelines on what ANIMAL type can do.I'm sorry if I might seem stubborn or something for not letting this go, but I fail to see where these "strict guidelines" are. If you are referring to the blog post, those don't seem very "strict" in any way, shape or form. Where are the rules that explain everything you are saying? Where does it even say that an INT of 3 is "well below the grossly retarded level"? When your intelligence is only a 1 or 2, going up to 3 is a big jump. I see no real limitations in the Animal Creature Type entry like you are describing.
Money may be no issue but time is it takes a solid month to train any animal for combat and an indeterminate amount of time to get them enough xp to earn a feat.Not earn a feat, earn a level. And for a 2HD animal, it needs 3,000 XP to go up to level 3. Just keep throwing first level NPC's at it (humans, goblins, whatever). Or any other 1/3 CR monster (dire rats, maybe?). 135 XP each. It will need to kill 15 of them to level up. It can easily take care of five a day no problem. In some cases it could probably even take out all 15 in one day. It's not that big of a time issue. And again, I'm not really buying the whole "need to train them" argument until I see it.
At this point Pluvia all I can say is go read the blog post here and all the comments/discussion that came from it.
If you disagree with any of my conclusions I'll be happy to continue to discuss them but until you and I are referring to the same information this will continue to be counter-productive.
At this point Pluvia all I can say is go read the blog post here and all the comments/discussion that came from it.
If you disagree with any of my conclusions I'll be happy to continue to discuss them but until you and I are referring to the same information this will continue to be counter-productive.
Oh, I read the entire post, but now you're saying I have to read over 200 comments as well? Don't really have time right now since I'm closing up shop at work, but I might read them all eventually. Are there any actual further developer clarifications in the comments as well?
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Oh, I read the entire post, but now you're saying I have to read over 200 comments as well? Don't really have time right now since I'm closing up shop at work, but I might read them all eventually. Are there any actual further developer clarifications in the comments as well?At this point Pluvia all I can say is go read the blog post here and all the comments/discussion that came from it.
If you disagree with any of my conclusions I'll be happy to continue to discuss them but until you and I are referring to the same information this will continue to be counter-productive.
Quite a few actually, the devs & editors where quite vocal in that thread. My favorite quote came from Jason Buhlman
Hey there Everybody,
Couple of quick responses.
1. Animals work under the rules for Handle Animal. The only place where Int comes into this is using the skill for Magical Beasts (which must have an Int of 1 or 2 for the skill to be used on them) and the number of tricks an animal can learn. On the first issue, it is just easier to have the rules apply to all creatures of the animal type, regardless of Int. This does not necessarily create two different Int score tracks, it just places limitations on creatures of the animal type, which I think is perfectly reasonable. Similar limitations apply to plants, but PCs have fewer iterations with them as tools and allies, so the issue is far less common there. The rules are silent on the second issue, but I think a GM could safely assume that an animal can learn 3 extra tricks for each point of Int above 2 (following the pattern).
2. Because we are dealing with something that has a real world analog (animal intelligence), it is pretty easy to get into heated debate about what an animal can and cannot do. Remember that we are running a game here, not trying to simulate every exact possibility of reality. That means that in some situations, the rules might not be able to properly replicate every situation without opening up the system to easy abuse. Some GMs will certainly view the weapon wielding animal companions in this way, which is why we left it open for GM interpretation (such as in PFS). I am going to let Hyrum and Mark make the call on this situation for PFS, based on their experience and vision for the Org Play program.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Wouldn't it be less expensive to just acquire a larger animal to start?One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
Well, if the animal in question is a wizard or witch's familiar (like in that listed idea of Anthropomorphic Animal + Possess Familiar or whatever the spell was called), then you might have to go with a Permanent Enlarge Person, depending on how long they'll be stuck in beastform.
Throw a charm spell on top of it and now we're REALLY into furry territory.One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
I would say it is more like, do you want your alternate dire rat man body to be able to use most of your old equipment or not...
Wouldn't it be less expensive to just acquire a larger animal to start?One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
Sorry if I am not too "familiar" :P with theses rules, but are not the selections of familiars rather restricted even with the improved familiar feat? The largest one I found was a dire rat.
Well, if the animal in question is a wizard or witch's familiar (like in that listed idea of Anthropomorphic Animal + Possess Familiar or whatever the spell was called), then you might have to go with a Permanent Enlarge Person, depending on how long they'll be stuck in beastform.Wouldn't it be less expensive to just acquire a larger animal to start?One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.
Sadly this won't work on familiers, as they are magical beasts.
And you cannot do it before making them your familiar, as the rules states that it must be an unmodfied animal.
Well, if the animal in question is a wizard or witch's familiar (like in that listed idea of Anthropomorphic Animal + Possess Familiar or whatever the spell was called), then you might have to go with a Permanent Enlarge Person, depending on how long they'll be stuck in beastform.Wouldn't it be less expensive to just acquire a larger animal to start?One more question about this spell: does it affect the animal's size at all? I.e., if you cast Anthropomorphic Animal on a small-size animal, does it beocme Medium, or does it stay small?It is a humanoid now, so you can increase the size with enlarge person spell and make it permanent.Sadly this won't work on familiers, as they are magical beasts.
And you cannot do it before making them your familiar, as the rules states that it must be an unmodfied animal.
Anthropomorphic Animal does not change the type, but it does make them humanoid, it is a fine line, but I would have to agree with you that RAW enlarge person does not work on familiars, or any other animal that has this spell cast on it. However I do wonder on the RAI but only about 25% chance in favor of it supposed to work that way.
The spell Anthropomorphic Animal does not work on familiers, as they are magical beasts.
Thus my questions earlier as to legitamate targets and spesific change to creature type.
Greatest...spell...ever
Yes I'm biased.I mean now I can make a cavalier that plays cards with his mount (which carries his swords around).
Am I the only one thinking Bravestarr?
In the end. I think that i will allow this spell to affect magical beasts as well as animals as legitimate targets and shift the affected creature’s type to Monstrous Humanoid for the duration of this spell's effect.
I feel that this covers the spirit and intent of this spell. I know however this is not true to RAW or current errata.
I do not see this as unbalanced or unbalancing, granted it does have the fan boyish wicked, cool, awesome factor but time, effort, availability, cost are well balanced limiting factors.
The spell as currently written is only effective as a debuff utterly perverting the intent of this spell.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Am I the only one thinking Bravestarr?Greatest...spell...ever
Yes I'm biased.I mean now I can make a cavalier that plays cards with his mount (which carries his swords around).
I totally beat you to it!
Greatest...spell...ever
Yes I'm biased.I mean now I can make a cavalier that plays cards with his mount (which carries his swords around).
Oh god.
For some reason, now I can't get This out of my head (0:48 especially).
Am I the only one thinking Bravestarr?Greatest...spell...ever
Yes I'm biased.I mean now I can make a cavalier that plays cards with his mount (which carries his swords around).
No.
Am I the only one thinking Bravestarr?Greatest...spell...ever
Yes I'm biased.I mean now I can make a cavalier that plays cards with his mount (which carries his swords around).
Personally, I'm thinking of the Dogs Playing Poker images... hehehe
After reading this thread, it seems the intent was to soothe an animal till its friendly, and then turn said animal into a guide who can speak the party's language. The spell is kind of like speak with animals, only it lasts longer and provides the whole party with the ability to communicate with the animal in question. Its a quirky utility spell, and I would definitely add this spell as a druid or witch.
Also, a loyal beast of burden who can understand your verbal commands still has the increased encumbrance capacity for being large and retains its strength score while gaining opposable thumbs. More quirky utility. Also, it would let your quadruped mount benefit from your masterwork climbing kit and go with you where you could not normally take them. I could see using anthropomorphic trained and obedient aurochs as trap triggering fodder if your druid is of the twisted, blight-y sort, as the animal can now open chests, doors and step on pressure plates. Handle animal becomes more useful in these cases, literally allowing you to push chattel to do your bidding.
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At this point Pluvia all I can say is go read the blog post here and all the comments/discussion that came from it.
If you disagree with any of my conclusions I'll be happy to continue to discuss them but until you and I are referring to the same information this will continue to be counter-productive.
Okay, I finally had time to go over the post and the discussion during this very unproductive Monday at work. I didn't read every single post since it seemed like things were getting out of hand a bit, but I did pay close attention whenever James and Jason made comments and I think I see where you're coming from now. This is actually my favorite comment:
By the way, and in order to add more fuel to the fire...
My preference = Animals never have more than a 2 Intelligence.
If an animal has Int 1 to 2, build it as an animal.
If an animal has an Int of 3 or higher, build it as a magical beast.
If an animal has no Int score at all, build it as a vermin.Animals are animals. When they start doing things like talking or using crossbows or pole arms, they're fantasy, and they should be treated as fantasy creatures. And druids should have very little interest in weird "he thinks he's people" since that's not natural at all.
That's me, though... so unless I'm your GM you don't have to worry about it. And if you're MY GM and you've got animals who thinks they're people and they're not magical beasts and they haven't been granted their people powers by magic like awaken or from being reincarnated, gorilla-king style, from something that CAN do this stuff... I'll probably bail on the campaign. Or make a ranger with favored enemy (talking animal). :-P
He actually shares my hate for talking animals in entertainment. If it's still an animal, I agree now that things probably shouldn't work the way I was describing. But this does kind of contradict the whole thing about an Anthropomorphic Animal still being of the animal type with an INT of 3. I really wish they would just make INT 2 a hard limit for animals and make anything that increased it beyond that also turn it into something else like a Magical Beast.
Anyway, I'm still not giving up on my Vivisectionist beastmen henchmen idea. It just means he'll have to work harder and use Awaken to finally get the right results he's looking for. It actually works out better this way. He'll need to do a lot of trial and error to learn how to do it properly, resulting in the death of many animals and imperfect beastmen. The final recipe for success:
Do the permanent Anthropomorphic Animal procedure. While the creature is still unconscious, pump the thing full of Id Moss to kill its newfound slightly improved intelligence so he can proceed with the final Awaken procedure. It's now a Magical Beast, no longer bound by all of the silly animal restrictions. Probably throw in a bonus lobotomy during the Id Moss phase for good measure. Then go into said brain washing and training for class levels. Yes, this is not the most practical way for a villain to gain henchmen. But that's not the point. This is a madman playing god.
But this really does bring up the question of what the intent of the Vivisectionist archetype actually was. All of the Torturous Transformation bonus extracts (except for Regenerate) seem to have no practical use whatsoever for a PC. They all seem to just be F'ed up things a villain can do to show that he's F'ed up. Not that I'm complaining. Should help me make an awesome villain to use.
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At this point Pluvia all I can say is go read the blog post here and all the comments/discussion that came from it.
If you disagree with any of my conclusions I'll be happy to continue to discuss them but until you and I are referring to the same information this will continue to be counter-productive.Okay, I finally had time to go over the post and the discussion during this very unproductive Monday at work. I didn't read every single post since it seemed like things were getting out of hand a bit, but I did pay close attention whenever James and Jason made comments and I think I see where you're coming from now. This is actually my favorite comment:
He actually shares my hate for talking animals in entertainment. If it's still an animal, I agree now that things probably shouldn't work the way I was describing. But this does kind of contradict the whole thing about an...By the way, and in order to add more fuel to the fire...
My preference = Animals never have more than a 2 Intelligence.
If an animal has Int 1 to 2, build it as an animal.
If an animal has an Int of 3 or higher, build it as a magical beast.
If an animal has no Int score at all, build it as a vermin.Animals are animals. When they start doing things like talking or using crossbows or pole arms, they're fantasy, and they should be treated as fantasy creatures. And druids should have very little interest in weird "he thinks he's people" since that's not natural at all.
That's me, though... so unless I'm your GM you don't have to worry about it. And if you're MY GM and you've got animals who thinks they're people and they're not magical beasts and they haven't been granted their people powers by magic like awaken or from being reincarnated, gorilla-king style, from something that CAN do this stuff... I'll probably bail on the campaign. Or make a ranger with favored enemy (talking animal). :-P
Yeah I've pretty much assumed the vivisectionist archetype is only there to give Alchemists sneak attack with all the higher level stuff strictly for NPC villains.
Now I HAVE found several good PC uses for this spell but only for true casters (Wizards, Sorcerers and Witches), as written it's useless for an adventuring Alchemist.
Sorry for the Necromancy, but I was wondering if there was any official ruling on this? I can see the Vivisectionist gaining the Unique Ability to combine Anthropomorphic Animal and Awaken, but otherwise leaving the abilities as they are seems fitting, although rules-wise weak.
On the other hand, while the name is ominous, the ability itself is described as a 2-hour long surgical procedure. I can see good-aligned Vivisectionists keeping their 'patients' under sedation and using several sessions of 'Humanoid' state to slowly, gradually acclimatise the Animal in question to Bipedal life. Evil-aligned Vivisectionists would keep the patient awake and use the threat of pain and fear to keep their patients in line.
That would be an interesting twist. Awaken a Wolf, Anthromorphisize the rest of the pack, leave them to protect the forest until such time as the rest of the Druidic Alliance can turn up and kick ass.
Ways of getting around the 3 Int would be utilizing a Cursed Ring that would drop the wearer's Intelligence by 2 points but otherwise function as a low-level Magic Ring. Since it takes a Break Curse or otherwise powerful spell to break the Intelligence-dampening Curse, the Animal-come-Companion is now free to be Awakened.
But a spell that breaks a Curse effect could potentially result in your new friend reverting mentally to a gibbering idiot, and since the Anthropomorphic Creature now has a natural Intelligence of 3, the Awaken spell no longer applies and the creature devolves back to a 3-int Animal rather than a Magical Beast.
Awaken isn't a persistent thing that is always checking that the animal has less than 3 int.
It goes off once, and once ig goes off that it. Otherwise it would kill itself, create a worm hole as you have just tied to divide by zero through magical means and puts a mini justin bieber into everyone's head to sing lullabys and whine when you are trying to sleep.
If you really wanted to, you could even make a tiny +6 int headband, anthropomorphise your mouse familiar, give it a broad-rimmed hat with a feather and a tiny rapier-you now adventure with Reepicheep. =D
Whee! :)
I'm currently aiding A GM in his game by making the BBEG and this spell helped us create a great hook/threat you see one of the BBEG is an alchemist Vivisectionist, and just so happens (I used this threads idea of lowering int by 1 point to make it legal) to create a race of animal people, which we then bread into an army of animal soldiers (we figured permanent animal people who were awakened would breed true and the babies would be intelligent animal people) and now the PC's have a wide array of new encounters not in the bestiary to fight.