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I hate to make a FAQ thread for a book that most people don't have access to, but this question is important enough. One of the types of Skinwalker in Blood of the Moon gets access to the Distraction ability and references the Bestiary for the rules.
A creature with this ability can nauseate the creatures that it damages. Any living creature that takes damage from a creature with the distraction ability is nauseated for 1 round; a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 creature's HD + creature's Con modifier) negates the effect.
Format: distraction (DC 14); Location: Special Attacks.
I believe this ability was made for swarms and opening it up to PCs/NPCs creates some devastating builds. Archers, monks, casters using auto-damage effects like magic missile, alchemists whose bombs do damage on a miss, and others. This is the nauseated condition:
Creatures with the nauseated condition experience stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.
Even if the wererat-kin isn't focusing on con, an enemy potentially rolling saves up to 7 times in one round is bad odds for him. I do need a question here I suppose. Was the intention for Distraction to trigger off of every attack, just their natural attacks, or was Distraction even the ability intended to be given?
Flavor question: what's so distracting about a wererat-kin doing damage anyway?
(side note: I'm interested in seeing what a wererat-kin wizard using toppling spell magic missiles looks like)
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As it is right now? Its hilariously stupid good to play a Skinshifter Rat as an Alchemist (Grenadier). So without further ado, here is my Non-Heritage Skinshifter of the Wererats.
Skinshifter (Rat) Alchemist 10 (Grenadier)
STR: 10 (8 starting), DEX: 18, CON: 12, INT: 18, WIS: 10 , CHA: 8
BAB: +7/+2
Bestial Feature: Distraction.
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Far Shot, Charing Hurler, Weapon Focus (Bombs)
Discoveries: Explosive Bomb, Precise Bomb, Ranged Baptism, Wings, Strafe Bomb, Fast Bombs
Other Special Abilities: Directed Blast, Staggering Blast.
At first one wonders ^ here where the harm is in this character. After all it looks like an average character correct? Well no. There is an important thing that was added and although the bestial feature is flexible, there really is no other choice for a Skinshifter Rat when you got mostly AOE Attacks as an Alchemist or even a Wizard (Both are INT based Classes, Skinshifter Rats get +2 INT).
Okay lets say your doing your job as the Alchemist by going into the air with your Wings discovery and laying down the air support for your comrades in the middle of a battlefield right? Right. You decide to as a Standard Action go into your Shifter form (Rat) to get your Distraction. On your next turn you decide to imbibe your Mutagen for the +4 CON. Your third turn... well there is this marching set of enemies in a straight line, you decide to toss a Strafe Bomb down there.
Because you have Explosive Bomb and Strafe Bomb and Force Bomb, its a 80FT long line force bomb that if it damages (Which it has a good chance to unless the enemy is all Monks/Rogues), it will cause Distraction. Each enemy in that line needs to make a DC 18 FORT save or be Nauseated.
Since you have fast bombs you can toss another one down there and hope they fail their save on the second try. Yes such a specific situation. What I am getting at is if the Skinshifter Rat in the above build was more about CON than DEX... well they would be having at least a DC20 FORT save with their Distraction.
How about if enemy saves against the Distraction but got hit by a Crit-Bomb? Well the Crit-Bomb can cause the enemy to be Staggered for 1d4+1 rounds on a failed reflex save, its reduced 1 round on a successful reflex save. However that means its like still being hit by Distraction that limits you to ONE Standard Action or ONE Movement Action for the duration of the stagger.
How about if our Grenadier Rat decides to use Directed Blast with Force Bomb and Explosive Bomb? Well anyone caught within the 30FT Cone of the bomb needs to make a FORT save or be Nauseated for a Round. Why Force Bomb? Not that many creatures in the game have resistance or immunity to that damage.
Nauseated: Creatures with the nauseated condition experience stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.
If our Rat won the initiative and gets to go first, they can potentially rob the enemy of their turn. This means that it can turn bosses in modules/scenarios/adventure paths into jokes as they get robbed of their turns unless they have a stupidly good FORT Save or are Immune to being Nauseated.
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I will got to agree that Distraction is very good for AOE spammers like Alchemists and Wizards. I don't really know how to interpret what it should and shouldn't be able to be used with. Like Natural Weapons, Unarmed Strikes, Manufactured Weapons, Damaging Spells. Speaking of Unarmed Strikes it would work well with a Monk on their flurry.
Plus Momo's above example is just one character in a party. Which adds further annoyances to whoever is GMing. As it depends on the party.
A) Everyone is doing their own thing and may have the luck of having some well coordinated tricks up their sleeves.
B) Everyone is a focused group that has several intentional tricks up their sleeves and can cover each others weaknesses.
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As the lead developer for Blood of the Moon, I can weigh in on this issue.
It was an error for this ability to slip into the book without some explanation of how it should work and some caveats for its use. I apologize for the mix-up and hope we can work through this relatively painlessly.
Under Bestial Features, the third bullet point down should read as follows:
• Distraction (as the Universal Monster Rule, except only with one natural attack [your choice] per round, and sickens instead of nauseates)
(Let's assume for the sake of this correction that we had infinite space on that page for text. :P)
Thanks for your patience in clearing this up!
Thank you very much Patrick Renie. This defiantly clears up the situation and makes it still workable for character builds like a Skinshifter Rat Monk with the Feral Combat Training feat, and what other builds people may come up with.
Thanks for clearing that up!
Thanks very much Patrick. You cleared this up a day before the pdf comes out so I'm guessing it'll be pretty painless.
As the lead developer for Blood of the Moon, I can weigh in on this issue.
It was an error for this ability to slip into the book without some explanation of how it should work and some caveats for its use. I apologize for the mix-up and hope we can work through this relatively painlessly.
Under Bestial Features, the third bullet point down should read as follows:
** spoiler omitted **
(Let's assume for the sake of this correction that we had infinite space on that page for text. :P)
Thanks for your patience in clearing this up!
This is a bit of a necro, but is the Distraction ability Extraordinary or is it Supernatural as per the Shapechange ability? I'm asking because if it was Supernatural it could be used with a Conductive weapon once per round instead of the bite.
As the lead developer for Blood of the Moon, I can weigh in on this issue.
It was an error for this ability to slip into the book without some explanation of how it should work and some caveats for its use. I apologize for the mix-up and hope we can work through this relatively painlessly.
Under Bestial Features, the third bullet point down should read as follows:
Distraction (as the Universal Monster Rule, except only with one natural attack [your choice] per round, and sickens instead of nauseates)
(Let's assume for the sake of this correction that we had infinite space on that page for text. :P)
Thanks for your patience in clearing this up!
im sorry for digging up someting from the past, but after my DM referred me to this link i had ot ask.
since the ratkin only pick one ability when he change form. how can he ever use the distraction ability if it now calls for a natural attack? if he takes it he can't take the other ability of natural attack. (unless you want to say that this is the sole ability from all the skinwalkers ability that actuly force you to spend a feat\class ability\spell to use?)
...Under Bestial Features, the third bullet point down should read as follows:
Distraction (as the Universal Monster Rule, except only with one natural attack [your choice] per round, and sickens instead of nauseates)...
im sorry for digging up someting from the past, but after my DM referred me to this link i had ot ask.
since the ratkin only pick one ability when he change form. how can he ever use the distraction ability if it now calls for a natural attack? if he takes it he can't take the other ability of natural attack. (unless you want to say that this is the sole ability from all the skinwalkers ability that actuly force you to spend a feat\class ability\spell to use?)
Your nightskulk/wererat-kin is going to want to grab the Extra Feature feat (BotM, pg. 7) so he can manifest two abilities in bestial form. Your nightskulk can't spare one feat slot? Ask your GM if you can grab Extra Feature in place of rogue talent, fighter feat, or similar class option.
not my point.
my point is that from all the skinwalkers abiliteis this one has no effect by itslef. (as opposed to gaininng darkvision or +x for this or taht skill etc). in the rush to nerf the overpower of giving nauseate they nurfed it out of anything usefull by itself. sure i can take feats and such to make it work. but why should i be forced to do so? does a shark kin need to take a feat to use his swiming ability?
Gaining darkvision, swim, ferocity, scent are all self-buffs, while distraction is a debuff applied through a natural attack, so I don't think they're really comparable. I don't see a problem in requiring a nightskulk to have a natural attack before being able to use distraction. If you and your GM don't like the change, ignore it or houserule it.
...in the rush to nerf the overpower of giving nauseate they nurfed it out of anything usefull by itself...
Dude, give the designer a little more credit that he (and the others he discussed it with) fully considered the ramifications of the change. And maybe consider being a little less confrontational and condescending if you don't like the answer you got from the developers.