I am creating a character for Pathfinder Society and I want to know how this is intended to work. I asume it works this way: you usually need 2 hands free to climb, thanks of combat climber you need only 1 and becouse of Tailed Goblin you can climb only with your tail. But it's not that clear, so I want to know if there is something oficial.
Rules:
Tailed Goblin:
You have a powerful tail, likely because you descend from a community of monkey goblins. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Athletics checks to Climb, you gain Combat Climber as a bonus feat, and you reduce the number of free hands required to Climb or Trip by one.
Combat Climber:
Your techniques allow you to fight as you climb. You’re not flat-footed while Climbing and can Climb with a hand occupied. You must still use another hand and both legs to Climb.
Climb (action):
Requirements You have both hands free.
You move up, down, or across an incline. Unless it’s particularly easy, you must attempt an Athletics check. The GM determines the DC based on the nature of the incline and environmental circumstances. You’re flat-footed unless you have a climb Speed.
The text in Tree Climber goblin ancestry feat 5, which requires being a Tailed Goblin or Treedweller Goblin, has a telltale flavor sentence, "Your time in forest or jungle canopies has taught you how to scramble across branches with sure feet." That sounds like climbing without hands, though technically a Treedweller Goblin would still need to use hands.
Having both hands free while climbing for the cost of a heritage is balanced.
Tree Climber feat grants a climb speed for climbing without Athletics checks and the tailed goblin champion in my campaign has made good use of that climb speed. The modules set up pits and walls as obstacles, but they weren't obstacles to her.
I would probably allow it.
However, to argue in opposition:
Combat Climber says that you have to use another hand. So while you have 5 limbs that can be used for climbing (two legs, two hands, and a tail) you still have to use two legs and a hand in order to benefit from Combat Climber.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would probably allow it.
However, to argue in opposition:
Combat Climber says that you have to use another hand. So while you have 5 limbs that can be used for climbing (two legs, two hands, and a tail) you still have to use two legs and a hand in order to benefit from Combat Climber.
Tailed Goblin gives you Combat Climber and also reduces the number of hands you need to climb by 1.
The last part is meaningless if you argue Combat Climber overrides that and makes you require another free hand anyways.
As Squiggit said, it gives the feat and an additional bonus. If that part of the sentence was just supposed to be a reminder it would say something along the lines of
- "you gain Combat Climber as a bonus feat, which reduces the number of free hands required to Climb by one, and you reduce the number of hands required to trip by one."
but as it stands it pretty explicitly says it gives you the feat and also reduces the number of hands required on top of that.
Well, this isn't the only scenario where you can end up with multiple pieces of feats that are redundant with each other. Though it is a good point that it isn't discrete choices that the player makes - both Combat Climber and the tail to be used as a climbing limb are part of the same choice.
With the ruling that you still need one hand to climb:
Combat Climber still makes it so that you aren't flat-footed while climbing.
Tailed Goblin still gives you a +2 bonus to climb.
If you take additional feats like Hard Tail that let you do other things with your tail, you can still use Combat Climber to only need one hand available to climb with while climbing, and still do those other things with your tail.
So there is still quite a bit of distinct benefit for having both Combat Climber and Tailed Goblin even if the number of hands reduced doesn't stack.
Looking at it further, I think the more convincing argument in favor is actually that Tailed Goblin also reduces the number of hands needed for Trip.
Trip only needs 1 hand by default. So since Tailed Goblin reduces that by one, then it means that Tailed Goblin is intended to be able to reduce the number of needed hands for Trip and Climb all the way down to zero.
~~~~~~~~
This is why I think it is good when there are people who take up both sides (or sometimes all of the many sides) of a debate.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So there is still quite a bit of distinct benefit for having both Combat Climber and Tailed Goblin even if the number of hands reduced doesn't stack.
It's not "both" though. Tailed goblin gives you combat climber, and then also reduces the number of hands you need to climb by one. The options are packaged together. Describing it like this implies the OP is picking two different options and trying to combine them.
This is why I think it is good when there are people who take up both sides (or sometimes all of the many sides) of a debate.This is a very strange statement. If the options are exclusive, you can support one or the other, neither (or being unsure) or something completely different. But supporting exclusive options at the same time is rather unhealthy. Maybe a lot.
Not meaning one person arguing both sides at the same time.
It is good that different people each take up one side of a debate and argue it well.
If an actual debate is only argued by one side, then it doesn't really tell the whole story.