Apparently, in a recently released scenario there were stats given for "a houscat" that are completely OTT for such a critter. Surely your average housecat isn't the equal of a creature -1.
But now we are sure to see these stats reproduced on the aon and pf2 rules websites, and players with a cat familiar will want to use those stats for their familiar.
Surely someone in editting should have seen this and thrown up a red flag. Vague memories of forum threads past bring back lengthy discussions of a fight between a housecat and a peasant. We don't want to see stuff like that, again, do we?
Surely it is a highly unusual housecat to be a creature -1.
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The biggest problem here is expecting to use creature stats for a familiar. Not a stat block having been made for a one-time gag.
Reminded of a cartoon panel that mocked 3.0 housecat stats over at Giant in the Playground (giantitp.com, where Order of the Stick resides). The cartoon showed a housecat w/ extra pokey claws leaping at a human. The tagline was "Cat vs. Commoner, Win Initiative, Win It All". They even released a t-shirt if I recall.
Googling Cat vs. Commoner turned up dozens (!) more memes (and the aforementioned cartoon if interested), and references to other RPGs where housecats can battle meek humans w/ some success.
Apparently hyper-powered kitties are an RPG staple. :)
Now to start adding templates...
Oh, wait, I'd forgotten I'd actually done that back in 3.X!
Friend had a cat that would jump on the battlemat so I statted her out to Epic levels using various templates (mainly the one that turns a tiny animal into a CR 14 (?) behemoth).
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These stats won't be in AoN, they only extract stats from rule books, or from Toolbox at the end of Adventures and Adventure Path books. The cat is an "in-text" stat block in a PFS scenario. So at least it won't be on AoN.
Also, the stat block in context is very under leveled as an encounter anyway and is more of a formality. TBH, the other sites shouldn't extract these "in-text" stat blocks, or at least put them in a special category, because often, they are very specific stat block that lose a lot when losing the context.
The specified cat...
It's like for NPCs stat blocks in APs. When they released the Lost Omen Legends book, they said one reason there wasn't any stat blocks was because they wanted to keep some liberties to put custom stat blocks for the needs of each AP they might appear in. So NPCs might not have the same level, gears, or even abilities between two APs if they appear in two of them. So that cat is probably that. A stat block made for the particular needs of that very specific context and scenario.
(We have also already seen a monster change some of its abilities between their introduction in an AP and a "reprint" in a bestiary. It was minor, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more of that.)
Lol, animals being exaggerated beyond their capabilities? Far from the first time I had issues with that, with most animals in this game.
At least there isn't free dex-to-damage in pf2e.
Can someone please PM me with the scenario in question? I wanna see this lil' beasty.
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I used one of these solo against a level 20 PF1 party. Flerken.
But that is not a house cat.
If someone is able to post stats I'd like to see how well a commoner fares against this housecat. Closest I could find on the pfsrd was a leopard which beats a commoner 99.992% of the time.
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Maybe it is just the cat equivalent of a PC.
The biggest problem here is expecting to use creature stats for a familiar. Not a stat block having been made for a one-time gag.
Is that due to edition confusion?
Because the rules for familiar very clearly spell out that you use the stats on your character sheet rather than anything that comes from the bestiary.
Remember that the devs generally recommend buffing up creatures that are too low level for the adventure if you use them, so this housecat may have been built at a higher level for use in the adventure.
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I think that cats in most game systems are not powerful enough. The only reason people think cats are weak is because they choose to be nice to humans. If cats were to turn hostile, the results would make a zombie apocalypse look like a beach party. Cats are highly intelligent, Machiavellian stealth predators who have been studying human behavior for millennia. They can see in the dark. They are fast. They can jump. They know of a variety of poisons that they can apply to their claws. They are telepathic. They are on friendly terms with the elder gods.
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus reports that in the ancient Egyptian city of Bubastus, when a Roman soldier accidentally ran over a cat with his chariot, a mob gathered and put the soldier to death. The population of that city was likely under feline telepathic control.
Consider this recent archeological discovery:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/a-giant-cat-picture-was-just-discov ered-among-the-nazca-lines/
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I think that cats in most game systems are not powerful enough. The only reason people think cats are weak is because they choose to be nice to humans. If cats were to turn hostile, the results would make a zombie apocalypse look like a beach party. Cats are highly intelligent, Machiavellian stealth predators who have been studying human behavior for millennia. They can see in the dark. They are fast. They can jump. They know of a variety of poisons that they can apply to their claws. They are telepathic. They are on friendly terms with the elder gods.
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus reports that in the ancient Egyptian city of Bubastus, when a Roman soldier accidentally ran over a cat with his chariot, a mob gathered and put the soldier to death. The population of that city was likely under feline telepathic control.
Consider this recent archeological discovery:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/a-giant-cat-picture-was-just-discov ered-among-the-nazca-lines/
He has references. It must be true!
I mean using your familiar to attack is probably not a good idea in any event.
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In a world where Aurumvoraxes exist, one should always (carefully) check suspiciously violent "housecats" for the tell-tale scarring of removed legs and acid-weakened claws. The lengths people will go to for an "exotic" guard-pet... Not to mention depriving the poor things of metals so that they stay manageable when growing; it's not only mostly ineffective, but horribly cruel.
People don't talk about it amidst all this Tar-Baphon business, but it's becoming a serious problem. You may have heard about that documenta-play with those Dwarven menagerists a few months back?
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I don't understand why people would use cat stats for a familiar when familiar doesn't have stats at all.
I think Paizo clearly does not want to give familiar stats for that exact reason : There will always be a tiny animal a bit too good to be a familiar or a set of abilities that can be exploited.
Paizo tries to avoid using the bestiary for character options. Familiars don't have stats, animal companions have a selected choice of stats and abilities, it will be the same for eidolons it seems.
I have seen someone claiming that nothing says familiars can't attacks, and actually have an attack bonus statted out so that they should get to strikes, and looked at animals in the bestiary to give them these strikes... So there are people that think it should be done. (Not saying they are right in any way btw.)
I don't know the context of this particular PFS scenario, but the cat vs. commoner thing is a grognard joke that's been around since, I think, 1st edition D&D. A non-classed average human (a commoner) would get stats that were usually created with the core material, and then later on, someone would publish a new book that would include stats for common animals, and the housecat's stats would be in there. But as is often the case with with splatbooks in D&D's long history, designers would create the new stats from scratch without considering how it stacked up to already-published material. (Although some would argue that this power creep was intentional to be able to more easily sell the new material.)
Anyway, "cat-vs-commoner" has been a meme before Internet memes existed.
I can't say if the housecat from this PFS scenario is a referential joke, a pure coincidence, or history repeating itself.
1st ed had some creatures with ineffective attacks, cats among them I believe, but oy also has 1 HD venomous snakes that could insta-kill high level PCs (which suits reality well, but makes for awkward game mechanics).
One aspect of 1st ed. is one could get wildly different mechanics based on the level of the module or setting. So cats in a high level module, they might do 1 h.p. damage because it's funny, while a cat in a 1st level module would just be a cat because doing any damage could kill. Mix the two or ask for consistency and there may be issues.
Then later we get the claw/claw/bite routine because duh, cats have all three, and this gets tied to minimum damage 1 (even if nonlethal) and OUCH! Silly base mechanics not suited for sub-heroic details.
Speaking of which, neither is PF2. It seems the minimum level will remain -1, so if one's going to stat a creature, it has to meet those standards...meaning housecats are legitimately comparable to Kobolds.
Which is to say, the writer shouldn't have statted out that cat, even if it's in a 5th level scenario where such a cat makes zero difference.
Have the encounter be a skills test or something.
(Unless it's meant to be a rather brutal, feral beast for a housecat. Then I'd have one Strike that represents its claw/claw/bite as a whole.)
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Definitely a point. I'm relatively sure I could take on an American Shorthair and win, as long as I keep it form going facehugger, but I am not at all certain of chances against a Maine Coon.