Dysfunctional Rules VI: Magic Circle Against Errata

[NeoPhoenix0]

So this thread is the next in a long line of threads collecting rules from 3.5 and pathifnder that just don't seem to work right.

Check the handbook to see if your dysfunction is already there, cause this is the 6th thread.

Previous threads:

"Wait, That Didn't Work Right" - The Dysfunctional Rules Collection
"Wait Again, That Didn't Work Right" - The Dysfunctional Rules Collection
Dysfunctional Rules III: 100% Rules-Legal, 110% Silly
Dysfunctional Rules IV: It's Like a Sandwich Made of RAW Failure!
Dysfunctional Rules Thread V: Dysfunctions All the Way Down

[Qwertystop]

The ACG spell "Memorize Page" never actually says what a "page" is for the purpose of the spell. You could memorize every detail on a giant piece of paper with a surface area and writing equal to encyclopedias. Stretching it MUCH further, you could actually memorize every detail about a person if their profession was "page".

Also it says Modify Memory can remove the knowledge, but the spell works on time, not volume of information so it's unclear how many castings you would need to remove 1 or multiple castings of "Memorize Page".

Noting, though:
"The memory of the page includes text and images"
If you memorized a person who was a page, it's questionable whether you'd learn more than their tattoos.

[Fax Celestis]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...0#post18139780

Tl;dr if you want to take Truename Training, you don't want to take Able Learner because of how the two interact. You're actually better off just sucking up crossclass ranks until you take Truename Training.

skills are weird and fiddly.

[Flickerdart]

Noting, though:
"The memory of the page includes text and images"
If you memorized a person who was a page, it's questionable whether you'd learn more than their tattoos.

To be fair, you could have a a page who is also a wizard and uses the tattoo spellbook from Complete Arcana.

[deuxhero]

The spell actually says spellbook pages have to be written down then read for you to do anything with them ("Because Magic" I guess).

Also CA is 3.5 while Memorize Page is PF. The Magus arcana Spell-Scars does work however.

[The Viscount]

Stench (as possessed by ghasts, hezrous, and troglodytes) is funky. Immunity to poison protects you from it, but not needing to breathe does not. Similarly all sorts of creatures without any real olfactory organs are completely vulnerable to stench.

[Chronos]

Creatures are all assumed to have humanlike senses unless otherwise specified. Even if a creature doesn't have any obvious nose, it's still assumed to have something or another which functions as an olfactory organ. The real dysfunction here is that this applies even to (for instance) constructs.

[No brains]

Creatures are all assumed to have humanlike senses unless otherwise specified. Even if a creature doesn't have any obvious nose, it's still assumed to have something or another which functions as an olfactory organ. The real dysfunction here is that this applies even to (for instance) constructs.

Stench specifies that it affects living creatures and is an effect with a fortitude save that doesn't affect objects. Further, immunity to poison is a specific immunity from the construct and undead types. Never mind bathing and holding it in, Con - creatures aren't offended/ affected.

[Flickerdart]

Stench (as possessed by ghasts, hezrous, and troglodytes) is funky. Immunity to poison protects you from it, but not needing to breathe does not. Similarly all sorts of creatures without any real olfactory organs are completely vulnerable to stench.

Regardless of the funkiness of the stench, it's entirely possible that the harmful nature of the stench is due to an airborne poison of some sort, rather than just being a vomit-inducing odour.

[Chronos]

I didn't mean that constructs suffer penalties from stench-- I just meant the fact that they have a sense of smell at all.

[No brains]

I guess that is a little weird. Maybe golems should taste their master's food for poison.

[Nettlekid]

I expect this has already been mentioned long ago, but I haven't read through all the previous threads so it's new to me.

Polymorph states that a creature with the Shapechanger subtype can change back to its normal form as a standard action, but Polymorph changes the creature's subtype to match that of its assumed form. That means a creature with the Shapechanger subtype loses that subtype, so Polymorph's special caveat is useless to it. It would only be useful for a creature that was Polymorphed INTO a Shapechanger.

[Ehcks]

Regardless of the funkiness of the stench, it's entirely possible that the harmful nature of the stench is due to an airborne poison of some sort, rather than just being a vomit-inducing odour.

That is, of course, how odors work. They're chemicals floating through the air. For Stench, it's not just that they smell really bad. They're exuding a cloud of poisonous smoke, that also smells really bad.

Making it a skin-penetrating chemical is easy.

[No brains]

I expect this has already been mentioned long ago, but I haven't read through all the previous threads so it's new to me.

Polymorph states that a creature with the Shapechanger subtype can change back to its normal form as a standard action, but Polymorph changes the creature's subtype to match that of its assumed form. That means a creature with the Shapechanger subtype loses that subtype, so Polymorph's special caveat is useless to it. It would only be useful for a creature that was Polymorphed INTO a Shapechanger.

The entirety of everything about polymorph is dysfunctional. Though the more that we can specify the better.

Unrelated, on page 33 of Libris Mortis, there are rules for con trolling an undead mount. The paragraph delineating the rules states that these rules exist because of the difficulty in controlling a non-intelligent mount, but the actual rules specify all undead as following these rules, regardless of intelligence.

One extra bit that I need a better rules lawyer to verify for me is that these rules might supersede other restrictions on what makes a mount. It might be that any undead can be used as a mount following these rules as they are written without any need to determine if the mount is willing or able.

[Fax Celestis]

I cannot for the life of me find anything on how fractional HD work in the SRD. Are they actually defined anywhere?

[Telok]

I cannot for the life of me find anything on how fractional HD work in the SRD. Are they actually defined anywhere?

Probably in the first monster manual. They're a hold over from older editions, you just take a fraction of the HP that the die normally gives. For everything else you treat then as 1 HD. At least that's the way it was done back in the day.

In regards to riding tho... I'm trying to set up a mind flayer riding a void-mind beholder (yes it's a semi-boss fight) and I'm thinking of extrapolating from archers riding an elephant but the rules are... iffy... once you get past "some guy on a horse".

[heavyfuel]

I might be missing something here, but the Toothed Tentacle spell from LEoF.

It has a duration of Concentration, which means your standard action is being used every turn. But you also require a Standard or Full-Round action to have the mouths attack. So it's impossible for them to attack unless you also have the Swift Concentration skill trick.

[Sith_Happens]

Lone unicorns occasionally allow themselves to be tamed and ridden by good human or elven maidens of pure heart.

The Beloved of Valarian's Call Unicorn feature provides no exception to this statement, meaning that many Beloveds of Valarian cannot ride their own unicorn companions. The Elf Paladin 5 substitution level's Unicorn Mount feature is better but still not quite all the way there:

The unicorn serves as a loyal steed regardless of the paladin’s gender.

That still leaves the virginity requirement. Hope you weren't planning on having your Elf Paladin get any.

----------

Going back to Beloved of Valarian, the only way for a Beloved 10 to replace her unicorn companion is to get level drained and then gain the level back.

[heavyfuel]

The Beloved of Valarian's Call Unicorn feature provides no exception to this statement, meaning that many Beloveds of Valarian cannot ride their own unicorn companions. The Elf Paladin 5 substitution level's Unicorn Mount feature is better but still not quite all the way there:

That still leaves the virginity requirement. Hope you weren't planning on having your Elf Paladin get any.

----------

Going back to Beloved of Valarian, the only way for a Beloved 10 to replace her unicorn companion is to get level drained and then gain the level back.

Can you even be a maiden if you're not a girl? As I think the answer is "no", then it's probably more like "men can't ride it, even if they're virgins, as they're not maidens"

[bekeleven]

You know who I really feel sorry for in this equation?

Beloved of Valarian Half-elves.

[Sith_Happens]

You know who I really feel sorry for in this equation?

Beloved of Valarian Half-elves.

Actually I'm pretty sure Elven Blood covers that.

[zergling.exe]

Wild Mages can cast spells with a caster level of 0. One level of a casting class plus wild mage gives you a caster level of 2. Then wild magic reduces it by 3 to -1, then makes you roll a d6 to add to your caster level, and you get a 1. What effects would a spell that relies on caster level have if you have a caster level of 0?

[bekeleven]

Wild Mages can cast spells with a caster level of 0. One level of a casting class plus wild mage gives you a caster level of 2. Then wild magic reduces it by 3 to -1, then makes you roll a d6 to add to your caster level, and you get a 1. What effects would a spell that relies on caster level have if you have a caster level of 0?

This isn't exactly dysfunctional because there are rules for this: You're plugging a number into a formula. For instance, should you somehow get fireball at this level, it would have a range of 400 feet and cause a fiery explosion that deals no damage.

There may be specific spells that break with this information, but off the top of my head I can't think of any.

[heavyfuel]

This isn't exactly dysfunctional because there are rules for this: You're plugging a number into a formula. For instance, should you somehow get fireball at this level, it would have a range of 400 feet and cause a fiery explosion that deals no damage.

There may be specific spells that break with this information, but off the top of my head I can't think of any.

Unless you call a fiery explosion that deals no damage dysfunctional, which might as well be.

Also, can you get negative CL? Like, you can throw a fireball at 360ft and it explodes healing everyone?

[Erik Vale]

That still leaves the virginity requirement. Hope you weren't planning on having your Elf Paladin get any.

Maiden doesn't [or didn't] actually mean virgin, it simply means/t unmarried. Of course, in theory these were the same thing, which is how the Mary became a Virgin and how Abstinence no longer works [assuming rape is discounted, which it normally is] if you're Christian.
*Checks modern dictionary*
Maiden, which doesn't necessarily mean virgin with it's primary meaning being a young or unmarried women. However, it can mean virginal. So, in this case it's ask your god... I mean GM.
Or, argue that you have to not match any criteria, so you can be a paladin that get's it regularly or you can be a married paladin who never does it... Or have never won a race and turn into a horse, but then you need to increase the size of a unicorn, and you lack hands.

[Erik Vale]

Unless you call a fiery explosion that deals no damage dysfunctional, which might as well be.

Also, can you get negative CL? Like, you can throw a fireball at 360ft and it explodes healing everyone?

Double disfunction, subtractions always leave you with at least 1, so with negative caster level you deal more damage than with no caster level.

[Jeff the Green]

Maiden doesn't [or didn't] actually mean virgin, it simply means/t unmarried. Of course, in theory these were the same thing, which is how the Mary became a Virgin and how Abstinence no longer works [assuming rape is discounted, which it normally is] if you're Christian.
*Checks modern dictionary*
Maiden, which doesn't necessarily mean virgin with it's primary meaning being a young or unmarried women. However, it can mean virginal. So, in this case it's ask your god... I mean GM.
Or, argue that you have to not match any criteria, so you can be a paladin that get's it regularly or you can be a married paladin who never does it... Or have never won a race and turn into a horse, but then you need to increase the size of a unicorn, and you lack hands.

Debatable. The Wiktionary entry, which I've found to be pretty reliable on these things, lists its etymology going back to Proto-Indo-European. Which is a good thing, because you have to go back that far before "maiden" (or its precursors) didn't have an implication of virginity. Of course, virginity may have been a polite fiction in many cases.

More importantly, lexicology is descriptive, not prescriptive, and ignores etymology. In modern English "maiden" almost always means a virgin woman. (If you want to look at historic usage, actually, "maiden" has been used to describe virgin men.)

(And almah, the Hebrew word you're thinking of means a woman of childbearing age that hasn't yet borne a child; it can refer to a married woman but for obvious reasons usually doesn't.)

[Kazyan]

The Sunfly Swarm in Book of Exalted Deeds has two spell-like abilities. One is detect evil. The other is detect evil. This was not errata'd.

[Fax Celestis]

Unless you call a fiery explosion that deals no damage dysfunctional, which might as well be.

Also, can you get negative CL? Like, you can throw a fireball at 360ft and it explodes healing everyone?

Not just that, it explodes dealing no damage and then sets things on fire.

[Gemini476]

Wild Mages can cast spells with a caster level of 0. One level of a casting class plus wild mage gives you a caster level of 2. Then wild magic reduces it by 3 to -1, then makes you roll a d6 to add to your caster level, and you get a 1. What effects would a spell that relies on caster level have if you have a caster level of 0?

Shouldn't the unwritten-but-assumed rule about not being able to cast spells at a lower caster level than the minimum (whatever that may be) stop this? (Not that the (non)existence of that rule isn't dysfunctional in the first place.)

Although if it doesn't I'd suggest adding the Mage Slayer feat to the mix. 2 base caster levels - 3 (Wild Magic) - 4 (Mage Slayer) + 1d6 = -4 to 1 (average -0.5). I'm sure that there's some weird things that can be done with so low caster levels.