Simple Q&A D&D 3.5 (by RAW) XXI

[OMG PONIES]

Q1053 What creatures are immune to both sneak attack and fire?

Q1054 What creatures are immune to sneak attack, but vulnerable to fire?

[Leekos]

Thicken Skin:
Your skin or natural armor thickens and spreads across your body, providing a +1 enhancement bonus to your Armor Class.

Augment
You can augment this power in one or both of the following ways.

For every 3 additional power points you spend, the enhancement bonus increases by 1.
If you spend 6 additional power points, you can manifest this power as a swift action

Q1055 Since this is an enhancement bonus to armor, does it not stack with the enhancement bonus of magical armor such as +1 Full Plate?

Q1056 Are the augments mutually exclusive? Meaning if I augment the power with 6 power points, do I get both effects, or do I have to choose one or the other?

[willpell]

Q 1052

In the stats blocks of the monsters provided in the various sourcebooks, do the values in the Skills section include Racial bonuses?

For example, one of the monsters that have always puzzled me is the Lizardfolk which has a +4 bonus on Balance, Jump and Swim: however it has Balance +4, Jump +5 and Swim +2, which leads me to think that the racial bonuses are not included. I'm sure, however, that I'm missing something: would anyone be kind enough to show me the exact calculations behind the Lizardfolk's skills?

A1052
The lizardman is suffering a -2 Armor Check penalty to his skills because he is carrying a Heavy Shield; the penalty is doubled in the case of Swim, which is why that skill is lower than Jump (the fact that it isn't exactly 2 lower is either an error or indicates the presence of a rank in Jump, I'm not sure which since I haven't done an exact breakdown of the skills). This is a somewhat annoying case because d20SRD is showing the lizardman's Armor class as either having or not having the shield, but the skills clearly only reflect the shield-carrying version.

For the more general version of your question, the statblocks usually show fixed racial bonuses, although variable bonuses are not usually listed (except I think for Swim, which is technically a variable bonus but is treated as fixed in the case of monster with a swim speed, as they don't usually have to make Swim checks to which the bonus wouldn't apply). There may be rare cases in which a monster deliberately does not display a skill which gets a racial bonus (since any skill listed in its statblock is a class skill for its monster Hit Dice; this can matter if you're building a monster PC with a high Intelligence), deliberately denying that skill's status as a class skill for the monster, but I suspect that Wotco seldom if ever put that much thought into monster Skills. In either case, if the skill is listed, it should virtually always include all "always on" modifiers.

[Douglas]

Q 1052

Sorry if I ask this dumb, dumb question, but it has been bugging me for ages.

In the stats blocks of the monsters provided in the various sourcebooks, do the values in the Skills section include Racial bonuses?

For example, one of the monsters that have always puzzled me is the Lizardfolk which has a +4 bonus on Balance, Jump and Swim: however it has Balance +4, Jump +5 and Swim +2, which leads me to think that the racial bonuses are not included. I'm sure, however, that I'm missing something: would anyone be kind enough to show me the exact calculations behind the Lizardfolk's skills?

Balance: 2 skill ranks + 4 racial + 0 dexterity - 2 armor check = +4
Jump: 2 skill ranks + 4 racial + 1 strength - 2 armor check = +5
Swim: 1 skill rank + 4 racial + 1 strength - 4 armor check (ACP is doubled for swim) = +2

The modifiers as listed include everything, including racial modifiers.

[willpell]

A1024
Sotillion is an Oeridian goddess with the dream domain and alignment CG(CN).

Wikipedia gives her Domains as "Air, Chaos, Charm, Good, Healing, Plant".

Balance: 2 skill ranks + 4 racial + 0 dexterity - 2 armor check = +4
Jump: 2 skill ranks + 4 racial + 1 strength - 2 armor check = +5
Swim: 1 skill rank + 4 racial + 1 strength - 4 armor check (ACP is doubled for swim) = +2

The modifiers as listed include everything, including racial modifiers.

He should have a total of 6 skill ranks, since he's a 3-HD creature; it's not possible to have fewer than 6 skill points at that HD (unless of course you're mindless and have none at all), and no skill listed in a Monster Manual statblock is ever cross-class.

[KillianHawkeye]

He should have a total of 6 skill ranks, since he's a 3-HD creature; it's not possible to have fewer than 6 skill points at that HD (unless of course you're mindless and have none at all), and no skill listed in a Monster Manual statblock is ever cross-class.

Correction: It is a 2 HD creature. It has 5 skill points.

[Khedrac]

A1024 continued
I cannot speak for Wikipedia, but:

Name: Sotillion
...
Domains: Air, Chaos, Dream* (CD), Good, Healing, Plant, Summer* (SS)

It's page 156 of version 2

[Metahuman1]

Q 1053: Is there a way to have Unlimited Uses per day of Turn Undead, Other then having a massive pile of Night Sticks or Dark Chaos Shuffling for massive numbers of the extra turning feat?

[Fenryr]

Q1054:

Tome of Battle. Is it possible to give Mighty Throw (Setting Sun school) to a Crusader with Slippers of the Setting Sun? If it's possible, it is my own maneuver? It will recharge after I have no more maneuvers to be granted?

[Lateral]

A 1054

Yes, as long as you meet the prerequisites. Yes, it's your maneuver (as long as you have those slippers, of course). It will be granted randomly, along with the rest of your maneuvers.

Q 1055

If you have Hide in Plain Sight (the Su version) and are hiding successfully, and you attack some creature and get to a place where it can't see you (in a single turn), and at no point move anywhere that would disqualify you for HiPS, can you make a Hide check to hide again at the end of the turn?

[Andezzar]

A 1055

Yes, you don't even need to get out of sight. That is the beauty of hiding in plain sight. You could even stand next to a creature and as a full round action attack, hide, attack, hide ... until all the attacks of your Full Attack are resolved.

[Lyndworm]

A1053

This post is off by one number. I think you misstyped Cicciograna's Question number.

Q 1053

Q1054

Q 1055

The posts above (and their responses) are all off by two numbers.



A 1053 & 1054:
I don't feel quite up to giving a complete list, but all Elemental type creatures are immune to critical hits and all Fire subtype creatures are immune to fire damage. You can probably see why my first thought was fire elementals.

Plant type creatures are also immune to critical hits, and treants specifically are vulnerable to Fire damage.

There are certain oddballs (like the treant), but I believe that (in addition to Elementals and Plants) all Constructs (excluding the Living Construct subtype), Oozes, and Undead are immune to critical hits, all Fire subtype creatures are immune to fire damage, and all Cold subtype creatures are vulnerable to Fire damage.

[willpell]

This post is off by one number. I think you misstyped Cicciograna's Question number.

So I did. Y'know, why exactly do we use answer-numbering instead of just quoting the question? (Being that this isn't a RAW question, I'm not numbering it.)

Q1054 What creatures are immune to sneak attack, but vulnerable to fire?

When you say "vulnerable", did you just mean "capable of being affected by", or were you specifically looking for the Vulnerability quality? The latter list is much shorter.

[Duke of Urrel]

A 1055

Yes, you don't even need to get out of sight. That is the beauty of hiding in plain sight. You could even stand next to a creature and as a full round action attack, hide, attack, hide ... until all the attacks of your Full Attack are resolved.

A 1055 follow-up question

Don't you have to take a standard action to activate the supernatural Hide in Plain Sight ability? That would make you unable to attack in the same round, unless you also benefit from magical Haste or something like that.

According to the RAW, "Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise." I've always assumed that a standard action is generally not the same thing as an attack action. Am I wrong?

[KillianHawkeye]

A 1055 follow-up question

Don't you have to take a standard action to activate the supernatural Hide in Plain Sight ability? That would make you unable to attack in the same round, unless you also benefit from magical Haste or something like that.

According to the RAW, "Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise." I've always assumed that a standard action is generally not the same thing as an attack action. Am I wrong?

Re: 1055

The supernatural version of HiPS (such as that gained by the Shadowdancer) seems to be more of an "always on" ability.

But you are right that a standard action used to make an attack cannot also be used to activate a special ability.

[Andezzar]

Re: A 1055

Unless you use bluff to create a distraction, hiding (or more specifically performing a Hide check) is a Non-Action. As KillianHawkeye already pointed out HiPS whether supernatural or extraordinary only allows you to ignore some of the conditions usually required to make a hide check. It is not activated itself.

[Lord_Gareth]

So I did. Y'know, why exactly do we use answer-numbering instead of just quoting the question? (Being that this isn't a RAW question, I'm not numbering it.)

Because that's in the procedures that the moderator who started this thread laid down. If you don't like that, those same procedures say to PM him with ideas for improving the thread.

[willpell]

Q1056
I'm having trouble putting together exactly how Scare works; it says it's "as Cause Fear except", but the "except" part directly contradicts Cause Fear ("all creatures of less than 6 HD become frightened", implying that the Will-save-to-be-Shaken-instead part no longer applies) and leaves me confused. So tell me if this synthesis is correct:

Scare
Necromancy [Fear, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2
Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (A bit of bone from an undead skeleton, zombie, ghoul, ghast, or mummy.)
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Targets: One living creature per three levels, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart
Duration: 1 round/level or 1 round; see text
Saving Throw: Will partial
Spell Resistance: Yes

The affected creatures become frightened. If a subject succeeds on a Will save, it is instead shaken for 1 round. Creatures with 6 or more Hit Dice are immune to this effect.

Scare counters and dispels remove fear.

[MrLemon]

A1056 This seems correct. Scare is basically "Cause Fear, Mass", with a different duration and range.
Okay, the "mass" part is mostly pointless at 1/3 levels, when the spell is useless above 5HD

[Garan]

Q 1057 Is it possible to tumble while prone?

Q 1058 If a rogue with a penalty to strength makes a melee sneak attack, does the minus apply before or after the sneak attack damage (if the original attack would be reduced to less than one and therefore be one on a normal melee attack)?

[Andezzar]

A 1058

All damage gets added (even the negatives) and then you check whether the total is less than 1. Only if that is the case, it gets rounded up to 1.

[Silvanoshei]

Q 1059 Fun Question!

You cast Planar Binding and trap a Nightmare. What requested service could you ask of him/her to let you ride him till the end of days without making it a "open-ended task" to affect it one day per caster level?

[Curmudgeon]

A 1057 No.

You can use Tumble as part of normal movement with the appropriate check. Unless your character has crawl as a specific listed movement mode, that is not normal movement for them.

[Sith_Happens]

Q 1045

Is there a way for a Sorcerer to get Bardic Music (preferably including Inspire Courage) without multiclassing into Bard?

Bumping question.

[NeedsAnswersNao]

A1045 Without PrCs (several options there)? There isn't an ACF I'm aware of but there are feats that can get you close.

[NeedsAnswersNao]

Q 1060: How many Hit Dice does an Intelligent Item have?

[Metahuman1]

Q 1061 I recall hearing about a trick were a psionic character can with some combo of feats/powers use there Psi Crystal to only ever take half Damage when ever there hit. Anyone know what this might be?

[ben-zayb]

Q 1062
Does the Transmuter Variant Spell Versatility allow a wizard to bypass Mind Blank's effect by effectively changing any scrying spell's school (from Divination to Transmutation)?

A 1061
Use Share Pain with your familiar. Share Vigor to your familiar as well to get extra tanky. Seriously, Psions can get VERY beefed up with this trick

[Curmudgeon]

A 1062 Ask your DM.

The Transmuter treats the spell chosen for Spell Versatility as a Transmutation spell; this allows them to cast a spell normally prohibited to them. The RAW makes no mention of the spell school changing for anyone else. As such, it's going to be up to each individual DM to decide if the school stays the same or changes where other creatures are concerned.

[Nightpenguin]

Q1063

The cleric attacks the unconscious goblin with a greatsword. The ranger is trying to stop the cleric from hitting the goblin, by throwing herself in front of it. Both know what the other is trying to do. Neither was in combat, and so neither has an initiative score yet. Neither has a readied action. How do I resolve this? I feel that an Aid Another doesn't make sense here as the ranger doesn't need to maintain her own AC, just defend the goblin.