As I'm in the midst of building some aquatic encounters (thanks to those that offered great suggestions), I was looking to trade out some feats on a Dragon Turtle, and in my research found out that there is no official Paizo monster feat that is the equivalent of Flyby attack for swimming creatures. There is a feat from Tome of Horrors by FGG: Swim-by attack, that is exactly what I want. Suffice it to say, I'm flabbergasted. With so many excellent aquatic based creatures, to not have the equivalent of flyby attack seems ludicrous. Is this something that a lot of GMs out there are using from ToH, or just house-ruling?
Design Manager
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I used Alluria Publishing's Cerulean Seas setting for all of my Aquatic campaigns and encounters. They are absolutely the resource for aquatic combat and adventures, and their art and design are absolutely top notch. If you're going to mix in a lot of aquatic stuff, you should definitely check it out.
(But yeah, I think Paizo's support for aquatic encounters is currently a might thin).
Yeah, I'm noticing that. Thanks for pointing me to a good resource.
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Design Manager
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No problem! I'd been trying to find really good rules for aquatic campaigns to execute a campaign idea I'd been working on for a while (and playing around with writing up some of my own) when I stumbled across Cerulean Seas and was just blown away by how amazing it was, both in content and presentation. The rules are also presented in a way that's pretty modular, allowing you to use as much or as little of them as you want.
I was really excited to use the rules on float and buoyancy (I had visions of massive 3D combats with all kinds of dynamic movement in my head), but it turned out that was just one thing too many for my players to keep track of and I had to drop it.
Wow. Geez, guy, you're the freaken D-freaken-M. That's why you are a DM. Just say the Monster has swim by feat instead of xxx.
The rules are not there to hold your hand. You have to do some stuff on your own. Make it up fercrikiessake. They even have a 'rule' for that.
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Design Manager
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Sometimes having mechanical reinforcement of what happens in combat makes players feel better about how things go and reinforces the bond of trust between players and GMs. I know when I'm a GM, I try to go by the book as much as possible, even if it's a 3pp book or one I wrote specifically for the scenario. I'll do stuff off the cuff sometimes, but I can get away with that because my players have learned to trust me based on all the times I didn't just make things up. "I used this feat" is much better than "It can because I said so". It also makes it easier to get away with those "Because I said so"'s when you don't use them very often.
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I too noticed the lack of that feat (I was not aware of the FGG feat until I read this thread). I actually created a Swim By Attack feat for the The Sunken Pyramid adventure I wrote for Raging Swan Press precicely because I needed such a feat but was surprised to learn it did't exist.
Speaking of material for an aquatic campaign, I would humbly suggest that you check out The Sunken Pyramid adventure. It has 8 out of 8 5-star reviews :)
In addition to the adventure itself, the module contains extensive background on sahuagin culture. religion and tribal society as well as complete statistics and motivations for key members of the sahuagin tribe.
@DrDeth: For frick's sake man, I did just say he's got swim-by attack instead of xxx, frick it all anyway! Even if no feat existed anywhere, I would have created one based off of the fly-by and ride-by attack rules. I wasn't saying: can I do this? I was saying: I can't believe the Paizo devs haven't already done this somewhere!
@Ssalarn: Completely echo that sentiment. My players trust me because they know I don't use rule 0 unless I have to. They also know that I live by the what's good for the goose is good for the gander rule. If NPCs/Monsters can do it, PCs can do it too, and vice versa. Because I'm essentially adding this new feat to our campaign, I have to make it known to the group, so that, should they be capable of acquiring it in the future, they know of its existence.
@Marc Radle: Just downloaded the free version of Sunken Pyramid, I'll give it a perusal. Thanks for pointing me to it. The sahuagin material will be most useful as I'm also building an encounter based around a group of sahuagin and skum baddies working for an aboleth.
Note that Spring Attack can fill in here if the creature has a swim speed, and just wants to make an attack in passing. Flyby Attack would allow more, i.e. any kind of standard action during the move, not just an attack, but incurs an attack of opportunity. However, if all you want to do is attack, Spring Attack can provide that.
Excellent point for those creatures/characters that have the required 13 Dex. In my particular case the creature does not meet the Dex requirement for that feat tree.
As an interesting aside, one could also ask, why isn't there a Walk-by Attack feat, for those that cannot qualify for Spring Attack?
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Design Manager
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I too noticed the lack of that feat (I was not aware of the FGG feat until I read this thread). I actually created a Swim By Attack feat for the The Sunken Pyramid adventure I wrote for Raging Swan Press precicely because I needed such a feat but was surprised to learn it did't exist.
Speaking of material for an aquatic campaign, I would humbly suggest that you check out The Sunken Pyramid adventure. It has 8 out of 8 5-star reviews :)
In addition to the adventure itself, the module contains extensive background on sahuagin culture. religion and tribal society as well as complete statistics and motivations for key members of the sahuagin tribe.
I have to go check this out! Sahuagin are one of my all time favorite aquatic baddies!
As an interesting aside, one could also ask, why isn't there a Walk-by Attack feat, for those that cannot qualify for Spring Attack?
I'd call it Run-by attack, but that is an interesting aside. A feat that let's a character make a single (standard action) attack, in the middle of a move action, which will undoubtedly provoke AoOs, doesn't seem like a game breaker. Maybe you could also create Improved Run-by attack, where the character gets the attack, and doesn't provoke AoOs from the target of the attack. Other creatures/characters could still get AoOs though.
Speaking of AoOs, I've always thought it should be AsoO, shouldn't it? It is attacks of opportunity, not attack of opportunities.
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Design Manager
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@MendedWall12 and Ssalarn: Cool, glad I could help!
I'm extremely proud of the Sunken Pyramid, so I encourage anyone interested in an aquatic adventure to check it out.
If you have some time to waste, here are the design blogs I did for Raging Swan:
Flicked through the free .pdf and blog posts, bought the print/.pdf bundle :)
Was very excited when I read the reviews, including Zeit's 5 star review.
@DrDeth: For frick's sake man, I did just say he's got swim-by attack instead of xxx, frick it all anyway! Even if no feat existed anywhere, I would have created one based off of the fly-by and ride-by attack rules. I wasn't saying: can I do this? I was saying: I can't believe the Paizo devs haven't already done this somewhere!
Why should they? I 'll point out "Even if no feat existed anywhere, I would have created one based off of the fly-by and ride-by attack rules". And there are 3PP source. There. That's what PF is all about.
Paizo doesn't try and fill every niche, they are happy to let 3pp and the DM fill in the corner cases.
Point taken, the only reason I balked is because they have several aquatic themed adventures published, and it amazed me that at no point in the creation of those aquatic themed adventures did they think this feat needed creating/adding to the official lists.
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@MendedWall12 and Ssalarn: Cool, glad I could help!
I'm extremely proud of the Sunken Pyramid, so I encourage anyone interested in an aquatic adventure to check it out.
If you have some time to waste, here are the design blogs I did for Raging Swan:
Flicked through the free .pdf and blog posts, bought the print/.pdf bundle :)
Was very excited when I read the reviews, including Zeit's 5 star review.
Awesome!