That reminds me I need to see how my conversion of Mr.Fishy's fanclub is going.
Hopefully it is going *removes sunglasses* "swimmingly".
*Cue "We Won't Be Fooled Again"*
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Well, for Sp abilities you get from a class...
"If a character class grants a spell-like ability that is not based on an actual spell, the ability's effective spell level is equal to the highest-level class spell the character can cast, and is cast at the class level the ability is granted."
-Magic
Benchak you are wise in your ways. I may allow you to join Team Wraithstrike.
Sadly enough this quote was in another debate I was in last week, but I did not even think to carry it over.
So the general consensus seems to be that YES, I can take Quickened Spell-like Ability as a character, but NO I can not take for the Touch of rage SLA because there isn't a spell in any book technically called 'Touch of Rage' even though a PC could easily, according to RAW, create a spell with the same names and effects?
The technicality really hangs me up because it seems unnecessarily limiting to monsters - a monster can't get Quicken SLA for an inherent ability because somewhere out there a spellcaster doesn't have access to it in an official rulebook? The two factors seem completely unrelated IMHO.
Hopefully it is going *removes sunglasses* "swimmingly".
*Cue "We Won't Be Fooled Again"*
Post made my morning.
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The GM can change anything. We already know that. The point being made is that if he does not houserule. How do bestiary feats increase damage by a large amount? Most PC's with natural attacks have them at 1d6 or 1d4 so increasing those by using INA is not that much of an increase. Spells can do it, but that is the spell doing the heavy lifting, not the bestiary feats.
Think Huge Eidolon with 7+ natural attacks.
I would allow monster feats if my players tried to take them. I think they know that. They would allow it if they happened to be DMing.
It is alien to me that people segregate "player books" and "DM books." My entire group has shown an interest in DMing at one point or another, and we all look at every new supplement that we acquire as a group. This strengthens everyone's understanding of new material and helps us come to a consensus on things like this as they crop up. We are all involved in rulings.
I would allow monster feats if my players tried to take them. I think they know that. They would allow it if they happened to be DMing.
It is alien to me that people segregate "player books" and "DM books." My entire group has shown an interest in DMing at one point or another, and we all look at every new supplement that we acquire as a group. This strengthens everyone's understanding of new material and helps us come to a consensus on things like this as they crop up. We are all involved in rulings.
This has been my experience as well, and I think it represents the ideal way to play. Unfortunately of late I've had a hard time keeping the gaming group cohesive and consistent (people getting married, having kids, Drill weekends, etc.) and one of my concerns is that a character I make and grow to love be usable without dramatic reformatting in pretty much any group I may one day join. I try to take into consideration not just what we would do or what I think should be done, but what my potential new group might think.
In a totally unrelated matter, any groups in the New Orleans-Baton Rouge area looking for a member? :-P
I have to side on the "ask your GM" side of things. But in my opinion, any book beyond Core is "optional at GM's discretion".
In my games, I tend to allow just about anything until it is shown to be a broken* combination. Then I work with the PC to adjust things if needed.
*Broken defined as making one character significantly better than the rest of the group. My last campaign had things that could be considered broken to some, but since the PCs all managed to be the same level of broken, it wasn't a problem. I just had to up the CR of the encounters.
I would allow monster feats if my players tried to take them. I think they know that. They would allow it if they happened to be DMing.
It is alien to me that people segregate "player books" and "DM books." My entire group has shown an interest in DMing at one point or another, and we all look at every new supplement that we acquire as a group. This strengthens everyone's understanding of new material and helps us come to a consensus on things like this as they crop up. We are all involved in rulings.
This has been my experience as well, and I think it represents the ideal way to play. Unfortunately of late I've had a hard time keeping the gaming group cohesive and consistent (people getting married, having kids, Drill weekends, etc.) and one of my concerns is that a character I make and grow to love be usable without dramatic reformatting in pretty much any group I may one day join. I try to take into consideration not just what we would do or what I think should be done, but what my potential new group might think.
In a totally unrelated matter, any groups in the New Orleans-Baton Rouge area looking for a member? :-P
That's a perfectly legitimate reason to ask the question. I suppose then the popular vote would win out; it's always going to fall on the DM in any particular game to make the call, which implies to me that the answer is 'no' for your build to be universally acceptable.
The GM can change anything. We already know that. The point being made is that if he does not houserule. How do bestiary feats increase damage by a large amount? Most PC's with natural attacks have them at 1d6 or 1d4 so increasing those by using INA is not that much of an increase. Spells can do it, but that is the spell doing the heavy lifting, not the bestiary feats.Think Huge Eidolon with 7+ natural attacks.
The feat is just another factor in the equation. Once the weapon sizes go from large to huge the damage in crease is pretty good.
My response was assuming the "damaging increasing feat" always was supposed to be a major factor, just special circumstances, and Eidolons are not PC's so a huge PC with natural attacks is hard to come by unless you are an Eidolon.
I have to side on the "ask your GM" side of things. But in my opinion, any book beyond Core is "optional at GM's discretion".
In my games, I tend to allow just about anything until it is shown to be a broken* combination. Then I work with the PC to adjust things if needed.
*Broken defined as making one character significantly better than the rest of the group. My last campaign had things that could be considered broken to some, but since the PCs all managed to be the same level of broken, it wasn't a problem. I just had to up the CR of the encounters.
I used to play in a group where everything I ran was considered 'over-powered', but that was because the other players in the group just weren't very good at building characters. They never pre-planned their feats or took into consideration skill synergies... they just grabbed what they thought looked cool in the moment and then complained that the character I was running was 'broken' due to some particularly effective combo or other.
In that group I ran a human Paladin (low level), a halfling Master Summoner (low level), a human cross-blooded Sorcerer/Paladin/Dragon Disciple and an Eldritch Archer (Arcane Archer/Eldritch Knight). All were powerful, but only deemed broken because each had to carry a bunch of scattershot from-the-hip characters around on his back from encounter to encouter.
I'm not with the group any more, though I do still help some of them design characters from time to time.
Ok, please don't think I am saying you can't use Monster Feats in your own game, but as far as the intended use of monster feats, they are mostly intended for monsters alone.
A lot of people have focused on this phrase from the monster feat section, "although some player characters might qualify for them (particularly Craft Construct).", but they have disregarded the beginning of the sentence, "Most of the following feats apply specifically to monsters".
If you take a look at the feat descriptions, most of them start with "This creature can (do something special)" or "One of this creature's attacks (does something special)", whereas the one feat that is called out at the top of the page as being something a player character could qualify for, Craft Construct, starts with "You can create construct creatures like golems."
Please don't get me wrong, I am not saying anyone is less of a GM, or doing something wrong by allowing their players to take monster feats, I am just saying that the designers' intention is pretty obvious, and thus allowing monster feats for players is a house rule, and not allowing monster feats is not a house rule.
I meant to type synthesis, but the point stands.
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So the general consensus seems to be that YES, I can take Quickened Spell-like Ability as a character, but NO I can not take for the Touch of rage SLA because there isn't a spell in any book technically called 'Touch of Rage' even though a PC could easily, according to RAW, create a spell with the same names and effects?
The technicality really hangs me up because it seems unnecessarily limiting to monsters - a monster can't get Quicken SLA for an inherent ability because somewhere out there a spellcaster doesn't have access to it in an official rulebook? The two factors seem completely unrelated IMHO.
These kinds of technicalities hang me up as well. I'm pretty sure that they put that requirement in there to ensure that the ability is balanced against the standard of "spell level" so that it is easy to determine what the pre-requisites for quickening it should be.
That said, I would probably (as a DM) just say "it's roughly equal to a spell of level X" and go from there. This requires a judgement call, obviously, but I hate it when weird technicalities appear that break verisimilitude and would much rather make such a judgement than have an aneurysm.
I want to revisit the phrasing that's in debate and suggest reading it with a different perspective:
The creature can only select a spell-like ability duplicating a spell with a level less than or equal to 1/2 its caster level (round down) – 4. For a summary, see Table: Quickened Spell-Like Abilities.
A spell-like ability that duplicates a spell with a casting time greater than 1 full round cannot be quickened.
Now, if you wish, you can choose to read the bold print as the crux of the statement, presuming that what's going unsaid is that 'only spell-like abilities that duplicate a spell can have this feat applied to them'.
However, that's actually a fairly big assumption if you don't read the text as if it were in bold print and instead take in the entire phrase. It could just as easily - and in my opinion does - go unsaid that the statements are prefaced with the assumption 'When the spell-like ability duplicates a spell...' which would in turn suggest that they are singling out those types of abilities for level and casting time restrictions since they are already known quantities, NOT restricting the feat to their use.
This makes MUCH more sense to my mind when taking into account the FAQ explanations regarding spell-like abilities that don't have listed spell levels as well as the odd restriction that Monsters couldn't Quicken an inherent ability for the sole reason that some spellcaster somewhere doesn't have an official copy of it in his standard spellbook.
Case in point:
FAQ wrote:
Cleric domains, sorcerer bloodlines, wizard schools, and certain other class features give spell-like abilities that aren't based on spells. What's the effective spell level for these abilities?The effective spell level for these spell-like abilities is equal to the highest-level spell that a character of that class could normally cast at the level the ability is gained.
For example, a 1st-level elemental bloodline sorcerer has elemental ray as a spell-like ability. Because a sorcerer 1's highest-level spell available is 1st, that spell-like ability counts as a 1st-level spell. A 9th-level elemental bloodline sorcerer has elemental blast as a spell-like ability. Because a sorcerer 9's highest-level spell available is 4th, that spell-like ability counts as a 4th-level spell.
—Sean K Reynolds, 07/07/11 Back to Top
Thanks for that FAQ. I looked for it, but could not find it.
All SLA's count as spells though so the duplicating part has a lot of meaning. The restriction seems to be intentional.
As to why existing spells seem to be mentioned I think certain types of magic are more common in the world, which is why certain deities grant spells that are also arcane spells.
Verisimilitude wise it is strange, but for game balance it makes sense.
Thanks for that FAQ. I looked for it, but could not find it.
All SLA's count as spells though so the duplicating part has a lot of meaning. The restriction seems to be intentional.
As to why existing spells seem to be mentioned I think certain types of magic are more common in the world, which is why certain deities grant spells that are also arcane spells.
Verisimilitude wise it is strange, but for game balance it makes sense.
My point is that I don't think its a restriction. I think what they are saying is "in the case of spell-like abilities that duplicate a spell..." which is a huge difference. I think they are making that effort because they want to keep the Monster's version of an existing spell on par with a character's version of an existing spell, rather than have multiple 'versions' of Fireball or Dispel Magic floating around... in the case of SLA's that DON'T mimic spells, that concern is unnecessary.
You do have a point, and the rules are not always written particularly well. It is worth an FAQ if that is not what they meant.
You do have a point, and the rules are not always written particularly well. It is worth an FAQ if that is not what they meant.
I'm not overly familiar with the protocol of FAQ - is there a way to point someone towards this thread? The clarification would actually have fairly far-reaching effects on a lot of characters...
Excuse me but what is the point of this thread?
It would be better served to get attention if it had its own thread. Asking people to hit the FAQ button as a part of your opening post also helps. When things get a lot of hits the devs notice, and eventually get around to answering the question.
Excuse me but what is the point of this thread?
There is a misconception that PC's can not take feats that are in the bestiary even if they qualify for them despite the bestiary saying PC's can qualify for them.
Excuse me but what is the point of this thread?There is a misconception that PC's can not take feats that are in the bestiary even if they qualify for them despite the bestiary saying PC's can qualify for them.
And more specifically, the applicability of the Quicken Spell-Like Abilities Monster feat to SLA's that do not duplicate an existing spell.