Do vampires get the +8 racial bonus to Climb checks which spider climb gives? Or do they just get the ability to climb sheer surfaces, without getting the +8 or the climb speed?
Spider Climb (Ex) A vampire can climb sheer surfaces as though under the effects of a spider climb spell.
The subject can climb and travel on vertical surfaces or even traverse ceilings as well as a spider does. The affected creature must have its hands free to climb in this manner. The subject gains a climb speed of 20 feet and a +8 racial bonus on Climb skill checks; furthermore, it need not make Climb checks to traverse a vertical or horizontal surface (even upside down). A spider climbing creature retains its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any) while climbing, and opponents get no special bonus to their attacks against it. It cannot, however, use the run action while climbing.
The whole thing.
Spider Climb (Ex) A vampire can climb sheer surfaces as though under the effects of a spider climb spell.
The bold part is the important text.
EDIT: I haven't checked, but any Vampire NPCs probably have the +8 climb from this ability already factored into their stat-blocks.
Huh.
Here's the canonical vampire from the Bestiary. If vampires get the +8 racial bonus to Climb checks, it should be factored in already. However, Climb isn't displayed at all, either under Skills or Racial Modifiers.
I'm forced to rescind my previous answer. I do not know whether the omission is probative or simply one of many Bestiary stat block mistakes.
The stat block also seems to be missing the info on even having the spider climb ability at all so I would just chalk it up to an oversight.Huh.
Here's the canonical vampire from the Bestiary. If vampires get the +8 racial bonus to Climb checks, it should be factored in already. However, Climb isn't displayed at all, either under Skills or Racial Modifiers.
I'm forced to rescind my previous answer. I do not know whether the omission is probative or simply one of many Bestiary stat block mistakes.
It's there, at the end of the SQ line.
It just looksike an oversight to me. Spider Climb is listed, so maybe they didn't want people to add the bonus twice?
Racial bonuses are explicitly called out as being stackable.I don't think it is an oversight, it is not included in the stat block to avoid doubling it.
If it was in the statblock, a lot of people would think: "he gets a +8 or the race and a +8 for the spell".
Racial bonuses don't stack, but a good number of players will forget that.
Right, what Diego Rossi is saying is that is likely why they didn't include it in the stat-block. The vampire gets a +8 racial bonus from having a constant spider-climb extraordinary ability. If they included it in the stat-block people might think they have a racial bonus for being a vampire AND a bonus from spider-climb since - as you said -racial bonuses stack.
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Racial bonuses are explicitly called out as being stackable.I don't think it is an oversight, it is not included in the stat block to avoid doubling it.
If it was in the statblock, a lot of people would think: "he gets a +8 or the race and a +8 for the spell".
Racial bonuses don't stack, but a good number of players will forget that.
Do you have a source for that?
The only thing that I have found is that when creating a race with the Advanced race book, some purchase stack. And that is spelled out in the specific purchase. It doesn't seem a general rule.|
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Racial bonuses are explicitly called out as being stackable.I don't think it is an oversight, it is not included in the stat block to avoid doubling it.
If it was in the statblock, a lot of people would think: "he gets a +8 or the race and a +8 for the spell".
Racial bonuses don't stack, but a good number of players will forget that.Do you have a source for that?
The only thing that I have found is that when creating a race with the Advanced race book, some purchase stack. And that is spelled out in the specific purchase. It doesn't seem a general rule.Took me forever to find it, curse the unintuitive nature of the rules layout.
Bonus Types: Usually, a bonus has a type that indicates how the spell grants the bonus. The important aspect of bonus types is that two bonuses of the same type don’t generally stack. With the exception of dodge bonuses, most circumstance bonuses, and racial bonuses, only the better bonus of a given type works (see Combining Magical Effects). The same principle applies to penalties—a character taking two or more penalties of the same type applies only the worst one, although most penalties have no type and thus always stack. Bonuses without a type always stack, unless they are from the same source.
Interesting, so a human with the Dual talent alternate racial trait can apply both to the same stat as it don't say "two different scores. I doubt that any GM will allow that, as it is clearly against RAI, but with a bit of rule lawyering, i is RAW.
[Rant]
P. 208 CRB, thanks. I had to download the whole CRB as a single file to find the citation.
And that is one of the reasons that make me dislike the passage to the Archive of Nethys as the online PRD.
I have searched "racial bonuses", "stacking" and variants in both the AoN and D20PFSRD. As neither has the whole text of the books I was unable to find anything.[/Rant]