Simple RAW Thread for 3.5 #32: More Seasons than the Simpsons

[HeadlessMermaid]

A 447
Smite Evil is a Supernatural ability and thus a standard action (crazy, I know), so it can't be combined with the full attack action required for a Flurry of Blows. Cleave interacts with Flurry of Blows normally. If you drop a foe with one of your Flurry attacks, you get an immediate extra attack at the same BAB you just used. You then continue your Flurry routine, assuming you have attack(s) left. Remember you can only do that 1/round unless you have Great Cleave.

A 448 tentative
[I'm not entirely sure about this, I'm only tackling it because no one else has.] I think that "at the same bonus" means at the same attack bonus (essentially, at the same BAB), which does not include Cha from Smite. I believe that, if other bonuses (such as Smite) were included, the wording would be "bonuses", plural. However, I am fairly certain that you don't add anything extra to damage either way.

A 449
Yes.

A 451 addition
The feat Devoted Inquisitor (Complete Adventurer p.107) is for multiclass Paladins/Rogues, though it doesn't progress Sneak Attack or Smite Evil, it only allows you to combine a Smite with a Sneak Attack to potentially daze a target.

A 454a
Correct.

A 454b
Also correct.

A 456
You roll damage separately for every attack roll. The second arrow gets all the bonuses:

• as long as the conditions still apply (e.g. your target is still denied its Dex to AC for sneak attack)
• for precision damage, as long as the action you took in order to fire the arrows is a full-round action (or Greater Manyshot, which explicitly allows this)

A form of attack that enables an attacker to make multiple attacks during an action other than a full-round action, such as the Manyshot feat (standard action) or a quickened scorching ray (swift action), allows precision damage to be applied only to the first attack in the group.

[Jowgen]

Q 457

On a creature that is humanoid-ish in shape, but is being used as a mount (e.g. Gray Render, A&E p. 91), what kind of body slot does a saddle occupy?

[Troacctid]

Q 457

On a creature that is humanoid-ish in shape, but is being used as a mount (e.g. Gray Render, A&E p. 91), what kind of body slot does a saddle occupy?

Whatever body slot the saddle says it occupies.

[Xaroth]

Q 458

Is there an evil variant of the Jade Phoenix Mage?

[Andezzar]

A 458

Sort of:

For a real twist, consider making the Jade Phoenix fellowship into the Ebon Phoenix. The thirteen ancient swordsage-wizards were not servants of good, but instead the chosen champions of some evil god-king. As long as they still survive, the evil overlord cannot be wholly expunged from the world, and so these terrible ancient spirits keep alive the hope of returning their dark master to power someday. Destroying all thirteen Ebon Phoenix mages would require an epic quest to fi nd and ultimately imprison or destroy each spirit before it can reincarnate.

That's all there is though.

[kkplx]

Q 459

Can you use the spell Animate Dread Warrior on the corpse of a spellcaster (or any non-fighter corpse really), and if so, will the resulting undead have fighter level or the levels of the corpse you animated?

[Andezzar]

A 459

The target must be humanoid and have had 3+ levels one of which needs to be in the warrior not fighter class to be animated by the spell. It is unclear whether the corpse rises as the creature presented on p. 62 (based off a level 4 human warrior) or whether the template is applied to the creature it was before its death and it retains its class levels.

[Getsugaru]

Q460:

In Complete Adventurer (pg. 16), the spellthief's Steal Spell class feature states the thief can steal spells without stating specifics on arcane or divine as far as I can see, but all of the examples are of arcane casters, namely wizards and sorcerers. My question is this: can a spellthief steal divine spells from a divine caster with this class feature?

[Thurbane]

Q 461

What would be the approximate dimensions for the skull of a Mountain Giant (MM2, p.113)?

[GilesTheCleric]

Q460:

In Complete Adventurer (pg. 16), the spellthief's Steal Spell class feature states the thief can steal spells without stating specifics on arcane or divine as far as I can see, but all of the examples are of arcane casters, namely wizards and sorcerers. My question is this: can a spellthief steal divine spells from a divine caster with this class feature?

A460: Yes. Divine and Arcane spells don't function any differently in terms of "being a spell" or "the potential to cast a specific known spell [spell slot]".

[HeadlessMermaid]

A 461
That's not really a rules question. :) All the rules can tell you is that a Mountain Giant is "more than 40 feet tall and weighing nearly 50,000 pounds", that it occupies a 40 ft. by 40 ft. space, and that it has 25 ft reach. The rest is up to the DM to calculate or eyeball.

[Andezzar]

A 461

This question goes beyond the scope of this thread, but if you PM me or open a separate thread, I have a few ideas how to calculate it.

[GilesTheCleric]

Q 462: Dragon Magazine never got any errata. So, how do I navigate errors? For example, Drag342 has Initiate feats for the core deities. But, some spell levels don't match up. For example, Initiate of Hextor (page 51) lists Greater Bane as a 4th level spell. However, the entry for Greater Bane (page 52) lists it as a 3rd level spell. Which is correct?

[Doctor Awkward]

Q 462: Dragon Magazine never got any errata. So, how do I navigate errors? For example, Drag342 has Initiate feats for the core deities. But, some spell levels don't match up. For example, Initiate of Hextor (page 51) lists Greater Bane as a 4th level spell. However, the entry for Greater Bane (page 52) lists it as a 3rd level spell. Which is correct?

A 462

This is only conjecture, but from examining the surrounding pages, I'd say the long text of the spell is correct (Greater Bane should be 3rd level).

The level entries for all of the other initiate feats are pretty consistent in their layout of lower level spells to higher level. Initiate of Hextor is the only one that has multiple spells for the same level that don't seem to make sense-- compare that entry to Initiate of Fharlanghn, who has two first level spells that are clearly supposed to be first level spells. Combined with the effect of Greater Bane as pretty in line with 3rd level effects, I'm pretty confident in saying that the Initiate feat is the one that has the typo.

[St Fan]

Q 463

There exists some situations where, instead of hitting the intended opponent with an attack, you’re at risk of hitting an ally. (For example, the attack of opportunity against people involved in a bull-rush, some feats like Elusive Target or Confound the Big Folk, and some martial maneuvers like Scorpion Parry, Manticore Parry or Ghostly Defense.)

When this happens, does extra damage relying on seeing the opponent (sneak attack, favored enemy, skirmish and other precision damage) or other special attacks needing to hit specific spots (stunning fist, death attack, etc.) apply, since it isn’t the expected target that is hit?

[Thurbane]

A 461
That's not really a rules question. :) All the rules can tell you is that a Mountain Giant is "more than 40 feet tall and weighing nearly 50,000 pounds", that it occupies a 40 ft. by 40 ft. space, and that it has 25 ft reach. The rest is up to the DM to calculate or eyeball.

A 461

This question goes beyond the scope of this thread, but if you PM me or open a separate thread, I have a few ideas how to calculate it.

Q 461

I didn't really want to start a whole thread for what I thought was a fairly straightforward question, but yes, possibly not RAW as such.

Let me re-phrase: how many times larger in dimensions is a Colossal humanoid shaped creature than a Medium humanoid shaped creature?

[Troacctid]

Q 461

I didn't really want to start a whole thread for what I thought was a fairly straightforward question, but yes, possibly not RAW as such.

Let me re-phrase: how many times larger in dimensions is a Colossal humanoid shaped creature than a Medium humanoid shaped creature?

Depends on the creature. Typical height/length and weight of creatures of each size category can be found here.

[Duke of Urrel]

Q 461

I didn't really want to start a whole thread for what I thought was a fairly straightforward question, but yes, possibly not RAW as such.

Let me re-phrase: how many times larger in dimensions is a Colossal humanoid shaped creature than a Medium humanoid shaped creature?

Depends on the creature. Typical height/length and weight of creatures of each size category can be found here.

A 461 Math

Let's use the description from the MM2 ("more than 40 feet tall and weighing nearly 50,000 pounds") and do some simple math, assuming for the moment that the dimensions of a mountain giant are proportional to the dimensions of a human being.

According to this source, "[t]he average human head is 6 to 7 inches wide and 8 to 9 inches long. The average circumference is 21 to 23 inches."

22 inches’ circumference divided by π is about seven inches, a nice number to use for the skull's diameter (though of course this is only the average diameter, because a skull is not perfectly round).

Let’s say that a mountain giant is 42 feet tall, which is exactly seven times the height of a six-foot human. The mountain giant’s skull should also have seven times the diameter of a human skull, which is 49 inches or a little more than four feet.

Just for fun, the weight of a mountain giant skull should be seven cubed times the weight of a human skull, which is about 2.5 pounds. This turns out to be 857 pounds.

[HeadlessMermaid]

A 463
It depends on the ability.

• Sneak attack is not optional. The extra damage applies "any time her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC..." etc.
• Skirmish is not optional. The extra damage applies "on all attacks during a round..." etc.
• Favored Enemy is not optional. It's just "a +2 [or more] bonus on weapon damage rolls against such creatures".
• Stunning Fist is optional, but once you declare an attack as such, it "forces a foe damaged by your unarmed attack to make a Fortitude saving throw".

So for the above, as long as all the conditions are met for the extra damage or Stunning Fist to apply, it applies even if it wasn't your intended target.

However, Death Attack requires you to study your target for 3 rounds. If then your attack is diverted to another creature, it's not against a creature you have studied, so Death Attack does not apply.

[St Fan]

^^ Thanks. I had hoped there were some encompassing rule around precision damage, but apparently not.

Q 464
Experience-wise, what happen if a character non-lethally defeat an opponent, only to have to fight it at a later time? Does every encounter count for experience points? Or only if the opponent(s) get stronger in-between (like, by gaining a level)?

For example, what if arrogant martial artist PC walks into a bugbear village, beat up every warrior there but leave them alive, and say "see you next week." Would he gains the same XP amount every week?

[Morphic tide]

Q 463

There exists some situations where, instead of hitting the intended opponent with an attack, you’re at risk of hitting an ally. (For example, the attack of opportunity against people involved in a bull-rush, some feats like Elusive Target or Confound the Big Folk, and some martial maneuvers like Scorpion Parry, Manticore Parry or Ghostly Defense.)

When this happens, does extra damage relying on seeing the opponent (sneak attack, favored enemy, skirmish and other precision damage) or other special attacks needing to hit specific spots (stunning fist, death attack, etc.) apply, since it isn’t the expected target that is hit?

By RAW, if the conditions for the effect still apply, then the effect still works when redirected. So if you use an AoO on an enemy that got Bull Rushed, then your sneak attack, favored enemy, stunning strike and so on all apply to your hit ally if the required conditions are met.

By RAI, where the DM follows basic logic and considers the fluff more important than crunch, a wonderful feature of TTRPGs, any precision damage doesn't apply to redirected targets, even if it is redirected to another target that meets the requirements for it to work. It's precision damage, after all, so the redirected attack lacks needed precision.

^^ Thanks. I had hoped there were some encompassing rule around precision damage, but apparently not.

Q 464
Experience-wise, what happen if a character non-lethally defeat an opponent, only to have to fight it at a later time? Does every encounter count for experience points? Or only if the opponent(s) get stronger in-between (like, by gaining a level)?

For example, what if arrogant martial artist PC walks into a bugbear village, beat up every warrior there but leave them alive, and say "see you next week." Would he gains the same XP amount every week?

The XP gain is for any defeated enemy, there was a line or two in OotS that hinged on recurring enemies giving XP for each fight, and there are no rules against it. Combined with the Trap-as-encounters rules and Rogues can power level like a monster in a hall of self resetting traps, as they get XP for each disabled trap, even if they disabled it before.

[Andezzar]

Q 465

If a character successfully uses disable device on a resetting trap, does it still reset? Does he have a choice?

[Xaroth]

Q 465

If a character successfully uses disable device on a resetting trap, does it still reset? Does he have a choice?

A 465

The character is given the choice, as both disarming a trap and resetting a trap require the same DC. Look here for more information, on the SRD.

[Xaroth]

Q 466

According to the Warblade class you can change your maneuvers at 4th, 6th, 8th level, and so on.

Are these purely Warblade levels, or do initiator levels count as well?

[Uncle Pine]

Q 467

Is there either a creature with natural access to Awaken as a SLA, or alternatively a template that could grant it?

[Andezzar]

A 466

Warblade Levels:

class level: A character’s level in a single class. Class features generally depend on class level rather than character level.

[St Fan]

Q 468
While reading the SRD, I noticed something puzzling: the wording for “fighting defensively” and using the Combat Expertise feat seems to imply that the two actions are entirely separate (obviously, you can’t use both at the same time). However, numerous feats with Combat Expertise as a prerequisite give specific advantages “when you are fighting defensively”. So, to clear up things, is using Combat Expertise (even at the minimum –1 to hit) falling under “fighting defensively”?

Q 469
The Desert Wind Dodge feat from the Tome of Battle specifies that it can be used instead of the Dodge feat to qualify for any feat, prestige class or special ability having it as a prerequisite. However, numerous feats with Dodge as a prerequisite give their advantage specifically toward the “dodge target” (the one opponent you’ve declared dodging against). By contrast, Desert Wind Dodge gives the dodge bonus against every opponent as long as the character moved at least 10 feet. Does it means that with any feat you’ve qualified for thanks to Desert Wind Dodge, the “dodge target” extend to all opponents that are subjected to the dodge bonus (basically everybody unless they have way of negating your Dexterity bonus to AC)?

Q 470
Several feats or maneuvers (Defensive Throw, for example) allow some special actions when an opponent “attack you and miss”. Does this involves solely failed attack rolls, or do misses caused by cover/darkness/invisibility also count?

[KillianHawkeye]

Q 468
While reading the SRD, I noticed something puzzling: the wording for “fighting defensively” and using the Combat Expertise feat seems to imply that the two actions are entirely separate (obviously, you can’t use both at the same time). However, numerous feats with Combat Expertise as a prerequisite give specific advantages “when you are fighting defensively”. So, to clear up things, is using Combat Expertise (even at the minimum –1 to hit) falling under “fighting defensively”?

A 468

No, using Combat Expertise does not count as fighting defensively. However, you are incorrect about being unable to do both at once. Some (but not all) of these kind of feats will allow you to use them when taking at least a -2 penalty using Combat Expertise in lieu of fighting defensively, but that isn't a general rule.

Q 469
The Desert Wind Dodge feat from the Tome of Battle specifies that it can be used instead of the Dodge feat to qualify for any feat, prestige class or special ability having it as a prerequisite. However, numerous feats with Dodge as a prerequisite give their advantage specifically toward the “dodge target” (the one opponent you’ve declared dodging against). By contrast, Desert Wind Dodge gives the dodge bonus against every opponent as long as the character moved at least 10 feet. Does it means that with any feat you’ve qualified for thanks to Desert Wind Dodge, the “dodge target” extend to all opponents that are subjected to the dodge bonus (basically everybody unless they have way of negating your Dexterity bonus to AC)?

A 469

No, you won't be able to use a feat that only functions against your Dodge target if you lack the ability to set a Dodge target. The substitute prerequisite is only useful in cases with a more general benefit, such as the Mobility and Spring Attack feats.

Q 470
Several feats or maneuvers (Defensive Throw, for example) allow some special actions when an opponent “attack you and miss”. Does this involves solely failed attack rolls, or do misses caused by cover/darkness/invisibility also count?

A 470

If no specific reason for the miss is required, then any miss should do.

[Metahuman1]

Q 471: What skill is used for the construction/repair of a Warfordged?

[Morphic tide]

Q 471: What skill is used for the construction/repair of a Warfordged?

Construction of Warforged has no RAW rules to it, as far as I know. Repair uses multiple different Craft skills, though I can't remember which ones at the moment.