Simple RAW Thread for 3.5: 30. Really? 30?

[KillianHawkeye]

A 94 additional

Andezzar is right. Being bound implies more than just having your hands or feet tied or manacled. It is more like being hog tied or otherwise completely tied up so that you're basically unable to move. Manacles alone won't do that.

[Thurbane]

Q 095

Can familiars use the retraining rules in the PHB2?


Q 096

Which (Improved) familiar has the most HD?

[Curmudgeon]

A 095 Ask your DM.

Familiars are NPCs, and all aspects of NPCs are decided by the DM.

[Khatoblepas]

A096

Probably Blade Guardian (Complete Warrior) or Gold Wyrmling (Draconomicon) with 8HD.

[Dr TPK]

Q097

What kind of a template does a 10 ft. cone have? A hell hound has a huge mass of targets in front of him and he breaths. How many targets does he affect?

[Andezzar]

A 97

It will affect all creatures within 3 squares

H
	05	10
	10

[Brova]

Q. 098 Is there a RAW-legal method by which undead can receive negative levels? As far as I can tell, the undead type doesn't give immunity but spells like enervation have a exemption for undead.

Q. 099 Does a simulacrum of a templated creature maintain the templates of the base creature?

Q. 099 B What about templates with a HD minimum? For example, would a simulacrum of a vampire Fighter 8 be a vampire Fighter 4 or a vampire spawn?

Q. 100 Is there a ruling as to what "one-half of the real creature’s levels" gives a simulacrum? For example, is a simulacrum of a Wizard 14/Archmage 2 a Wizard 7/Archmage 1 (half of current levels) or a Wizard 8 (levels at half way point of current progression)?

Q. 101 For monsters without a monster progression, is there a general rule covering which of their abilities a simulacrum inherits?

[Khatoblepas]

A098

Undead are immune to level drain through their immunity to energy drain.

Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.

However, the spell Spark of Life removes this immunity from them.

[Curmudgeon]

A 098 Yes.

The spell Spark of Life (Spell Compendium, pages 196-197) temporarily removes an Undead's immunity to energy drain. After Spark of Life ends the Undead will retain the negative levels.

A 099 Doubtful; ask your DM.

A Simulacrum "has only one-half of the real creature’s levels or Hit Dice (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)"; no mention is made of characteristics which are not from levels or HD. A general rule for parsing spells is that they do what they say they do and nothing extra, and in this case template abilities are outside of what Simulacrum says it duplicates.

A 100

No, there's no "ruling" for this. However, removing half of a character's HD removes the half of them most recently acquired, so removing the most recent levels of a Wizard 14/Archmage 2 would result in Wizard 8.

A 101 No.

You'll have to ask your individual DM. The DM could reasonably say that reducing the HD below the minimum specified for the monster does not yield a viable creature, just as removing the top half of a monster does not leave anything viable.

[Chronos]

A 098 correction:

Most effects which cause negative levels are energy drain, but not all of them. Of those that aren't, such as the Fell Drain metamagic, most specifically apply only to living creatures. However, undead are not immune to the negative level imposed by wielding a weapon of inappropriate alignment, such as an evil undead wielding a holy weapon.

[Brova]

A098

Undead are immune to level drain through their immunity to energy drain.

This SRD entry makes a distinction between energy drain (a special attack possessed by creatures such as the vampire) and negative levels (such as those inflicted by enervation). enervation seems to weakly support this, as it specifically outlines an alternative effect for undead creatures.

However, the spell Spark of Life removes this immunity from them.

That should do it. Follow up question, what happens to an undead that acquires a negative level under the effect of spark of life after spark of life wears off?

Also,

Q. 102 If a creature loses a level (setting it's XP to the halfway point between levels per here), then stores XP in a Thought Bottle, spends XP to craft magic items, and resets with the Thought Bottle, can it still have the level restored with restoration?

[RandomMissy]

Q 103
I got some people telling me about an ability that tranforms you into a monster and

you get ALL Special Attacks, Special Qualities & Extraordinary abilities.

And they are saying its NOT manipulate form because this is an ability that can be cast on self, while the manipulate form cant.

What on earth are they talkin bout.

[Thurbane]

Q104

How does holding the charge on touch spells work with SLAs?
Say a Half-fiend uses it's Poison SLA - can it hold the charge until it hits someone with a natural attack?
And if so, does using another SLA in the meantime discharge/dispel the held Poison?

[Curmudgeon]

A 104

Usually, a spell-like ability works just like the spell of that name.

There are no exceptions to this rule either for holding the charge or being able to deliver the spell charge in the same round as the "casting". Similarly, there are no exceptions to the usual rule that the body can only hold the charge from one touch spell at a time.

[Brova]

Q. 105 Creating a spell-stitched undead requires the Create Wondrous Item feat. Does this imply that the process is magic item creation, and that things like liquid pain can be used to pay the associated XP costs?

[Curmudgeon]

A 105 No.

creature

A living or otherwise active being, not an object. The terms "creature" and "character" are sometimes used interchangeably.

CREATING A SPELLSTITCHED CREATURE
“Spellstitched” is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal undead with a Wisdom score of 10 or higher (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Evil spellcasters can use liquid pain in magic item creation.

As a Spellstitched creature is not an item, options for magic item creation do not apply.

[Amphetryon]

Q106: How many PP/day would a Kalashtar Ardent 5/Non-Psionic PrC 10/War Mind 5 have, assuming a 17 starting WIS and all Level-based increases to WIS, with no PP-boosting items or Feats? I've gotten more than one answer from offline sources.

[Chronos]

A 105 contention:

"Object" and "item" are not synonymous in D&D. An object cannot be a creature, but an item can be.

A 106:

You would have 25 PP/day from ardent levels and 20 from war mind levels. Your Wis at level 20 would be 22, assuming no other increases than from level, and it doesn't matter how it got to that point. All psionic classes use the same formula for bonus power points from a high score, and both of your classes are Wis-based, so with a 22 Wis and 5 levels each, you would gain 15 more power points per class from Wis. Adding it all up, you'd have a total of 75 power points.

One possible complication would be if you had the Practiced Manifester feat (very common for multiclassed ardents, due to the unusual way their power known works). Bonus power points from a high ability score depend on your manifester level, so a side effect of that feat would be to increase your power point. Your ardent ML would be 9, instead of 5, and so you'd gain an additional 12 points, for a total of 87.

EDIT: I missed that you said that the character was a kalashtar. IIRC, they have two PP as a racial feature, so it'd be 77 without Practiced Manifester, or 89 with.

[Amphetryon]

A 105 contention:

"Object" and "item" are not synonymous in D&D. An object cannot be a creature, but an item can be.

A 106:

You would have 25 PP/day from ardent levels and 20 from war mind levels. Your Wis at level 20 would be 22, assuming no other increases than from level, and it doesn't matter how it got to that point. All psionic classes use the same formula for bonus power points from a high score, and both of your classes are Wis-based, so with a 22 Wis and 5 levels each, you would gain 15 more power points per class from Wis. Adding it all up, you'd have a total of 75 power points.

One possible complication would be if you had the Practiced Manifester feat (very common for multiclassed ardents, due to the unusual way their power known works). Bonus power points from a high ability score depend on your manifester level, so a side effect of that feat would be to increase your power point. Your ardent ML would be 9, instead of 5, and so you'd gain an additional 12 points, for a total of 87.

EDIT: I missed that you said that the character was a kalashtar. IIRC, they have two PP as a racial feature, so it'd be 77 without Practiced Manifester, or 89 with.

Kalashtar get 1 PP/Level, whether that Level is in a Psionic Class or not.

[heavyfuel]

Q 107

What happens when a person buffed by Luminous Armor enters an area with Darkness heightened to 3rd level?

[Andezzar]

A 107

Nothing. Luminous Armor is not a light spell. It lacks the descriptor.

[Curmudgeon]

A 107

While Luminous Armor has a specific effect against darkness spells of 2nd level or lower, it is not a [Light] spell. From that perspective, nothing happens to either spell.

Normal lights (torches, candles, lanterns, and so forth) are incapable of brightening the area, as are light spells of lower level. Higher level light spells are not affected by darkness.

Being neither normal light nor a [Light] spell, the light from the Armor is reduced to shadowy illumination as per the normal operation of Darkness.

[Dr TPK]

A 97

It will affect all creatures within 3 squares

H
	05	10
	10

Thank you, but...

Q108

What if the hell hound breaths southwards in that template? "South" being the square left to 05.

[Andezzar]

A 108

Cones and spheres always issue for a grid intersection.

Some spells affect an area. Sometimes a spell description specifies a specially defined area, but usually an area falls into one of the categories defined below.

Regardless of the shape of the area, you select the point where the spell originates, but otherwise you don’t control which creatures or objects the spell affects. The point of origin of a spell is always a grid intersection. When determining whether a given creature is within the area of a spell, count out the distance from the point of origin in squares just as you do when moving a character or when determining the range for a ranged attack. The only difference is that instead of counting from the center of one square to the center of the next, you count from intersection to intersection.

You can count diagonally across a square, but remember that every second diagonal counts as 2 squares of distance. If the far edge of a square is within the spell’s area, anything within that square is within the spell’s area. If the spell’s area only touches the near edge of a square, however, anything within that square is unaffected by the spell.

[...]

Cone, Cylinder, Line, or Sphere

Most spells that affect an area have a particular shape, such as a cone, cylinder, line, or sphere. A cone-shaped spell shoots away from you in a quarter-circle in the direction you designate. It starts from any corner of your square and widens out as it goes. Most cones are either bursts or emanations (see above), and thus won’t go around corners.

From those rules I get:

	H
05	05	05
	10

It's either the red or the green square, depending on whether you used the SW or SW intersection. You cannot really do a 10 ft cone going south.

[Wacky89]

Q109

By RAW can a Druid with wild shape take Multiattack as a feat?

[Curmudgeon]

A 109

If the Druid is in a shape with three or more natural attacks when they're awarded enough XP to go up a level, then yes. Otherwise, no. There is no preparation time between receiving the XP and going through the Level Advancement sequence (Player's Handbook, pages 58-59).

[heavyfuel]

A 109

Prerequisites work on binary basis. You either meet them, or you don't. This is "checked" when you level up.

If the druid had leveled up and gained a feat while in wildshape (possibly meeting the prereqs for Multiattack), then he could select the feat.

Note that when no longer in Wildshape, he'd still have the feat, but wouldn't be able to use it

Some feats have prerequisites. Your character must have the indicated ability score, class feature, feat, skill, base attack bonus, or other quality designated in order to select or use that feat. A character can gain a feat at the same level at which he or she gains the prerequisite.

[Dread_Head]

Q110
Would an Archivist 7 / Nar-Demonbinder 1 fulfil the spell casting requirements for entry into Mystic Theurge?

Q111
Ocular spell turns a spells effect into a ray, can this be combined with split ray in any way?

Q112
Can an ocular spell you cast be shared with your familiar via its share spells ability?

[Curmudgeon]

A 110 No.

A 1st-level Nar Demonbinder can cast 4th-level and 5th-level arcane spells. Mystic Theurge requires the ability to cast 2nd-level arcane spells. There are no 2nd-level spells on the Nar Demonbinder's list, and being able to cast higher-level spells does not satisfy the MT entry requirement.

A 112 Only partially.

With Ocular Spell and Share Spells you can have a non-Personal spell which for which you would be a valid target held in one of the familiar's eyes. However, the familiar has no spellcasting ability and thus the spell held there can never be cast; it disappears after 8 hours.

[Andezzar]

A 110

No, the character cannot cast second level arcane spells.

A 111

Yes, just apply both metamagics.

112

Only if you cat the spell at yourself i.e. the ray from the eye targets yourself.