[3.5] Favorite Obscure Prc, Feat, Spell etc.

[Kalkra]

One item from an obscure source, though I imagine it's reasonably well known by now, is Dungeon magazine 88 p. 104 's "Yenejg Togan's Planar Syllabus", which grants actual ranks in Knowledge (the planes).

And cheaper than a competence boosting item. Doesn't say what happens if you try to exceed your normal cap though, so you probably can't.

[Particle_Man]

One item from an obscure source, though I imagine it's reasonably well known by now, is Dungeon magazine 88 p. 104 's "Yenejg Togan's Planar Syllabus", which grants actual ranks in Knowledge (the planes).

I wonder if that can be used for early entry to some prestige classes?

[Venger]

I wonder if that can be used for early entry to some prestige classes?

If your dm allows content from dungeon magazine, sure.

[Thurbane]

If your dm allows content from dungeon magazine, sure.

There's a similar item in Lords of Madness: Codex Anethama. Gives 5 ranks of Knowledge (dungeoneering), 2 ranks of Knowledge (arcana), and 2 ranks of Knowledge (the planes).

[Venger]

There's a similar item in Lords of Madness: Codex Anethama. Gives 5 ranks of Knowledge (dungeoneering), 2 ranks of Knowledge (arcana), and 2 ranks of Knowledge (the planes).

That's a cool item. Never heard of it before. Since unlike say, primary contact, it doesn't say you can break the cap, you can't. I gather the syllabus also lacks such language, so that's what I'd recommend for that.

Speaking of getting knowledge skills, I'm a fan of keeper of forbidden lore. Maybe not as useful as education, but more flavorful, plus it's an abyssal heritor feat, so can be shuffled once you've gotten what you need from it.

[Meditation]

Dungeon magazine had a hair razor -- a blade that you tied to your hair and swung around -- that simply added to your total number of attacks per round without any other cost save gold. It was an exotic weapon, but nonproficiency didn't present a drawback to the character, only reduced accuracy on what is essentially a free attack.

Dragon, and especially Dungeon, are problematic for this sort of issue (e.g., the thread topic); the stuff in those periodicals is less well-considered than homebrew tossed onto fansites.

D&D would be a better game if much of its 1st party material had, instead, been well-considered, thoughtful versions of what was in those magazines. I suspect that the Paladins of every alignment from Dragon would have had a better signal-to-noise ratio than the Book of Exalted Deeds. And Warlock truly needed Eldritch Claws (though the Beast Claws combo likely should be addressed).

[Kalkra]

On the topic of Dungeon, I've always been kinda fond of the Memelith template from Dungeon #117, page 27, although I haven't found a way to make it actually good.

It's +2 LA (probably), +2 Cha -2 Wis, Deflection bonus to AC equal to Cha modifier, any physical contact, including touch attacks and armed attacks forces a will save against confusion for one round, up to one creature per round. A note on that, it doesn't seem to be optional, so presumably it'll affect the first enemy you hit, and also any allies who cast touch spells on you, your mother when she hugs you, etc. Also, it only affects one creature per round, but it sounds kinda like if you make multiple attacks against that one creature, it needs to make a will save for each one, maybe. Moving on, immunity to all mind-affecting effects, you need to make a DC 15 will save in order to take 10 or 20 to preform an extended task, the DC to use Diplomacy, Intimidate or Sense motive against the memelith is increased by 10, the ability to use any skill untrained, all skills are class skills, add (or subtract) 1d6-3 to all skill checks, and finally, ghost sound, mage hand, and open/close as a 10th-level sorcerer, whatever that means. Probably they're supposed to be at-will SLAs, and not actual spellcasting. Anyway, those three will manifest on their own, unless the memelith makes a DC 10 will save to stop it for 1d6 rounds. I'm pretty sure that means they'll go off when the memelith sleeps, though, so that'll probably be kinda unpleasant for the rest of the party.

There's a ton of stuff there, and it would be really cool to play, I'm just not sure it's actually, y'know, good. Also, LA isn't mentioned in the template description, but the sample memelith has +2 LA, and that's just a human, so I'm guessing that the template was supposed to be +2. It if was +0, then it would be like a way better version or magic-blooded, but I doubt any DM would allow it in that case.

[Venger]

Dungeon magazine had a hair razor -- a blade that you tied to your hair and swung around -- that simply added to your total number of attacks per round without any other cost save gold. It was an exotic weapon, but nonproficiency didn't present a drawback to the character, only reduced accuracy on what is essentially a free attack.

Dragon, and especially Dungeon, are problematic for this sort of issue (e.g., the thread topic); the stuff in those periodicals is less well-considered than homebrew tossed onto fansites.

Yeah, I'm not nuts about all this dragon magazine content in this thread either, but what're you gonna do? Ten years after they stopped publishing official material, it's pretty hard to find obscure first party content, i guess.

D&D would be a better game if much of its 1st party material had, instead, been well-considered, thoughtful versions of what was in those magazines. I suspect that the Paladins of every alignment from Dragon would have had a better signal-to-noise ratio than the Book of Exalted Deeds. And Warlock truly needed Eldritch Claws (though the Beast Claws combo likely should be addressed).

You know that 99% of the content of splats is lifted (with various degrees of editing) from dragon magazine, right? If first party material isn't well-considered or thoughtful, why should stuff stolen from dragon magazine get special treatment?

content: stump knife. requires losing or cutting off your hand, but very useful for critfishers. like a wealth of obscure dross, it lurks in aeg.

[Thurbane]

Yeah, I'm not nuts about all this dragon magazine content in this thread either, but what're you gonna do? Ten years after they stopped publishing official material, it's pretty hard to find obscure first party content, i guess.

That's true - but there is still the occasional nugget to be found. Usually an online article, in an adventure, or in a rulebook in an odd section where you wouldn't expect to find it.

Case in point: D&D Adventures: A List of obscure 1st party sources

[Venger]

That's true - but there is still the occasional nugget to be found. Usually an online article, in an adventure, or in a rulebook in an odd section where you wouldn't expect to find it.

Oh, absolutely. I'd never heard of the codex anathema, for example, despite having many parts of lords of madness basically memorized. on that subject, lords of madness's slavery rules. there's cause to cite them with surprising frequency.

cold iron warrior's already been mentioned, and as questionable as the qc was on the online articles, the fey features as a whole were pretty cool.

occasionally I wake up in a cold sweat and fear that ballisteer will be the new ingredient for iron chef, but every time, I've been wrong.

[AvatarVecna]

It's weird actually...I started a personal project a while ago where I was trying to hunt down weird PrC abilities. It was largely for things like "practicing optimizing stuff that's garbage but has some gems", as well as getting good ammunition if there's ever a game where I can snipe abilities from around the whole edition. It's nowhere near complete, else I'd probably just make it its own thread and just link to the thread, but here's a few highlights from what I've looked through so far:

Spider Blast (Sp): Once per day, a 10th-level arachnomancer can produce a 50-foot long, cone-shaped blast of extremely poisonous, normal-sized spiders. Every creature within the area of the blast takes 5d4 points of damage and must make 1d4 Fortitude saves against poison (DC 10 + arachnomancer level + arachnomancer's Con modifier; 1d6 points of Strength damage for both initial and secondary damage). Each creature is also allowed a Reflex save at the same DC for partial effect: Success means the victim takes half damage and need make only one Fortitude saving throw against poison (though the second saving throw normally required against a poison's secondary effect still applies). The spiders fade away at the end of the arachnomancer's turn.

1/day, breathe forth a 50 ft cone of spiders. 5d6 damage and 1d4 Fort saves (Ref save for half damage and 1 Fort save). Any failed fort saves means 1d6 Str damage. This is on the list less because it's particularly useful or abusable, and more because it's such an evocative image that, because it's a bad capstone for an awful class, will not otherwise get mentioned ever.

Slap of Forgetfulness (Ex): The arcanopath monk of 7th or higher level can use this extraordinary ability once per round, but no more than once per arcanopath level per day. The monk must declare he is using the slap of forgetfulness attack before making the attack roll (thus, a missed attack roll ruins the attempt). A foe struck by the arcanopath is forced to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + the arcanopath level + the arcanopath's Wisdom modifier), in addition to taking damage as normal. If the saving throw fails, the opponent loses 1d4 arcane spells (or 1d4 unused daily arcane spell slots). The lost spells or spell slots are lost first from the highest level spells the spellcaster can cast, but otherwise are determined by the creature struck. If the result indicates more spells lost than are prepared (or unused) at a particular level, spells at the next lower level are lost in the same fashion, and so on. Lost spells (or open spell slots) can be regained normally. Creatures immune to critical hits cannot be affected by the slap of forgetfulness.

Sundering Strike of Oblivion (Ex): When an arcanopath monk of 10th level makes a successful slap of forgetfulness, he can automatically convert it to a sundering strike of oblivion once per day. In addition to taking normal damage and losing 1d4 prepared arcane spells (or 1d4 unused daily arcane spell slots), the foe completely loses knowledge of the lost spells. Spellcasters who lose knowledge of spells may later attempt a Spellcraft check (DC 10 + spell level + the arcanopath's Wisdom modifier) to regain each one. Failure indicates the spell is unavailable until the next time the spellcaster advances a level, at which time the spellcaster automatically relearns all her forgotten spells (as well as gains knowledge of new spells as normal for the class).

The Arcanopath PrC has several abilities that are pretty solid for any martial that wants to take on casters (obviously, not good enough though), such as the important half of Exceptional Deflection at ECL 9 and the ability to make melee attacks on ethereal creatures at ECL 13, but these are the two that make it onto this list. This PrC is doing a lot of good things, but it's still not good enough to really compete with casters...but that doesn't mean these abilities can't be put to fantastic use by somebody sniping them up.

Monster Lore (Ex): At 2nd level, you gain uncanny knowledge about all types of living monsters, including their habitats, behavior, abilities, and weaknesses. You can make a special monster lore check to identify monsters or their special abilities or vulnerabilities. The check functions as a Knowledge check (PH 78), except the monster lore check can identify any living creature. You gain a bonus on this check equal to your beast heart adept level + your Int modifier. You can attempt this check in addition to making the relevant Knowledge check to learn about a creature.

If you have levels in the bard class or the loremaster prestige class, you can add those levels to your beast heart adept levels when determining the bonus on the monster lore check.

Add your Int, your BHA levels, and any levels you have in Bard or Loremaster together, and pretend that's your bonus for any knowledge skill relating to creature identification/stats. Particularly abusable on a build that would want Knowledge Devotion but doesn't have the skill points to invest in six knowledge skills. In fact, even if you've invested, this is still useful because it doesn't replace normal knowledge checks, but rather is made in addition to them.

Mindsee: At 2nd level, you gain the ability to remember a single scene perfectly, in exhaustive detail, not forgetting it until she desires to. This is a "frozen moment", chosen by silent act of will, of something you see. It retains the focus, field of view, and lighting conditions of your viewing. For every additional court herald level attained, you gain the ability to memorize an additional scene (without relinquishing the first one). These scenes can be retained for years, vanishing only upon your death, the physical loss of your brain, or as the result of certain spell attacks. Court heralds typically use this power to remember a blazon perfectly for later copying or comparison, but can also use it to keep a perfect likeness of a being in mind, remember who was present at a particular meeting, or the presence and precise description of particular items.

Ignoring how strangely that ability name rolls off the tongue, this is the kind of ability this guide was made for: weird little abilities that do strange things not often seen in the system, that can be combined with other things to much more useful effect. At any one time, you can have a single "frame" of your own visual field perfectly etched into your mind, without requiring any action on your part, and you can drop it for a new one as you please. Won't come up too often, but when it does...it's quite a neat little trick.

At 2nd level and again at 5th level, you can select a nation from the following list: Aundair, Breland, Darguun, Karrnath, the Mournland, the Talenta Plains, Thrane, Valenar, Zilargo. While in this region, you gain a +2 bonus on Bluff, Gather Information, Intimidate, Sense Motive, and Survival checks and a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls. This bonus stacks with the bonus granted by the ranger's favored enemy class feature.

You can permanently change an enemy region by taking a free action and spending 2 action points.

This is essentially Favored Enemy (Nation in Khorvaire) that you can change with 2 action points and a free action. Oh, and it'll stack with Favored Enemy, for those of you who want to play a racist who's also got nationalist pride for a nation that doesn't exist anymore. Wait...that's a little on the nose.

Moving the Shadow (Ex): At 4th level, a Daidoji bodyguard learns the techniques of taking advantage of an opponent's armor. The Daidoji bodyguard gains a dodge bonus to his AC equal to the armor check penalty (if any) of the opponent striking him.

Seriously, what even is this ability? Highly useful against an army of heavily-armored martial combatants who haven't gotten their armor's ACP down, I suppose?

Cheat Death: Upon reaching 7th level, your mastery over death and dying has progressed to the point where you can deny a foe the ability to send you into death's embrace in a single, cowardly blow. Whenever anyone attempts a coup de grace on you, you automatically make the subsequent Fortitude save (see pages 153—154 of the Player's Handbook). The attacker still deals just as much damage as she normally would, and you could still die from that damage. Similarly, when you take massive damage (50 or more points of damage from a single attack), you automatically succeed on the Fortitude save to survive the associated trauma (see page 145 of the Player's Handbook), although you can be killed by sheer damage dealt.

This ability lets you auto-pass the Fort save vs death from a coup de grace (which tend to have massive DCs) or massive damage (which can occur frequently in high-DPR games that use this rule), some of the only nonmagical non-death-effect SoDs in the game - and certainly the easiest to pull off with any kind of regularity in most games. Most DMs don't play with massive damage rules, and aren't fond of having you wake up to an assassin slitting your throat (since it makes for a whiny half-hour after you fail the save), but if you expect either of these to come up frequently, this ability will be a literal lifesaver.

[pabelfly]

I like Psion Uncarnate. Gives you incorporeality as a class ability that improves throughout the class's life, including the ability to make your gear incorporeal, and the level 10 capstone is that you can always be incorporeal. You can also do melee touch attack damage (up to 3d6 per touch attack at level 9) while incorporeal.

Still trying to figure out a way to really make use of the class and its ability.

[Venger]

Well, that thread sounds like it'll be a blast. I can't wait to post in it whenever you get around to uploading it.

the spider breath

arcanopath dope slap

I cooked for death delver iron chef. I literally forgot it had this ability. I've never even heard of anyone who played with massive damage rules. Any competent player or monster is dealing 50+ damage with every attack at mid levels.

I think mindsee might dethrone master inquisitive's "roleplaying you have to pay for" as most worthless class feature. Your superpower that you have to pay class levels for is... remembering things. Sometimes. A little.

daidoji bodyguard leaves me dumbstruck. did they want you to like, put your enemies in really heavy armor somehow? is that a power you have?

[AvatarVecna]

Spoiler: Oh and as far as weird spells go...

Show

This isn't part of that same guide, that's just PrCs, but these have stuck in my mind from years chargening.

Transmutation
Level: Sorcerer 3, Wizard 3
Components: V, S,
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell causes a powerful transformation in the target creature. Outwardly, the target doesn't appear any different. On the inside, the creature's internal organs constantly seethe and slither about, and actively avoid being struck at by weapons. For the duration of the spell, the target is immune to extra damage from critical hits and sneak attacks. Additionally, the target takes minimum possible damage from falls and gains a +4 enhancement bonus on all saving throws against poison, disease, and paralysis.

Undulant Innards makes crits, precision, and falling damage not matter for the duration. While I can't imagine very many situations where I would cast it during a fight, its low-level makes it prime real estate for persisting or building into an item.

Divination
Level: Brahmin 3
Components: V,
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

You extend your senses to become one with all beings and objects within a 30-foot-radius sphere centered on you.
You see and feel everything sensed by every person, creature, and object in that area.
The onrush of sensory information gives you a +20 bonus on your Search, Spot, and Listen checks for the duration of the spell.
In addition, you are never considered flat-footed while the spell duration lasts, and you cannot be flanked unless every other creature within 30 feet of you is also flanked.

...you probably can't cast this one, cuz who even plays Brahmin? But if your DM lets you build this into an item that for the love of god do it. Even if your DM decides that this spell doesn't give blindsight/blindsense, it still gives +20 to perception skills, FF immunity, and flanking immunity unless every other creature within 30 ft is also flanked. FF and flanking immunity that isn't tied into uncanny dodge and thus can't be bypassed by things that bypass UD specifically are...nice.

Transmutation
Level: Druid 3, Ranger 3, Sorcerer 3, Wizard 3
Components: V, S,
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target: One creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You cause a creature's natural armor to crystallize and become brittle. Whenever the affected creature is hit in combat, part of the crystallized hide cracks and shatters, dealing it additional lethal damage equal to its natural armor bonus. Thus, if a creature with +3 natural armor is affected by this spell, it takes an extra 3 points of damage each time it is struck by a melee, ranged, or natural weapon. The creature's actual Armor Class does not change.

Shining South is at it again with the weird ****. It's a shame this isn't broad enough to apply to spell attacks or it'd be just golden for a mailman build. Oh and because it's a popular spell when making casters with high NA, I should mention that Scintillating Scales no-sells this.

Well, that thread sounds like it'll be a blast. I can't wait to post in it whenever you get around to uploading it.

the spider breath

arcanopath dope slap

I cooked for death delver iron chef. I literally forgot it had this ability. I've never even heard of anyone who played with massive damage rules. Any competent player or monster is dealing 50+ damage with every attack at mid levels.

I think mindsee might dethrone master inquisitive's "roleplaying you have to pay for" as most worthless class feature. Your superpower that you have to pay class levels for is... remembering things. Sometimes. A little.

daidoji bodyguard leaves me dumbstruck. did they want you to like, put your enemies in really heavy armor somehow? is that a power you have?

It's been...slow-going. Y'know how it goes, passion grabs you one day and leaves you bored the next so you only get like a sixth of the way into things...

Yeah, I can't imagine that Death Delver ability was very lauded in that IC round. PCs are usually either playing games where they don't expect to get CdG'd, or they are and they take precautions...and those precautions are useful for more than just "don't get my throat slit while I'm sleeping" so even taking this class isn't useful just for the pleasure of not sleeping in the Rope Trick, and that's about the only time I'd expect to get CdG'd in most games. But maybe you're facing some kinda creature that hands CdGs out like candy. In fact, the lead-in to the guide calls out the not-infrequent epic X-stalt circle-jerk game that pops up here ITP, and in those kinds of games, sniping this ability to have Ex immunity to CdGs because the DM might well throw a Hypermundane at you and you need a defense against Heroic Killing Blows. Outside of that, it's...just another one of those "immunities I sniped just to make my list of immunities longer". And yeah, most any game you use this in you won't have to worry about death from massive damage - either you took the class straight cuz it's a low-op game and nobody deals enough damage to trigger it, or it's high-op and you sniped it, and the DM turned that rule off cuz it'd just make for a lot of tedious rolling that won't end up mattering no matter how it turns out.

See, I think Mindsee has some value. Yeah, mostly if a player says "I want to see how much my PC remembers", it's a simple Int-check away, and usually not a very hard one. But getting the level of detail described by the ability without having to make any kind of roll is pretty nice...especially if you can combine it with divinations that let you extend your visual senses elsewhere. That it basically can't be taken away from you is also pretty nice. It's still definitely a niche ability though.

Daidoji Bodyguard is maybe a little useful in like...one situation that's worth mentioning. The bonus given is a dodge bonus, so it applies to Touch AC, but it's only really useful against opponents wearing heavy armor that haven't reduced it. While this is obviously intended for facing down a small army of warriors who could afford full plate but not mithril full plate, it's greater value is going to be in facing Bad Touch caster builds that prefer heavier armor. Clerics who aren't shooting their attack bonus into the stratosphere, warmages in heavy who ignore the ASF but not the ACP and spam energy orbs at you, handsy bards who think they're paladins of sexual freedom...

...it's an edge case, but at least I can say that the ability isn't worthless because it makes some casters have a lot harder time fighting you, and that's not nothing.

[Venger]

undulent innards is pretty interesting, but 3rd is too expensive.

What the hell is a brahmin? I've never even heard of that class before. Well done. pretty good spell, too. I assume it's a divine class?

brittleskin is a fascinating if utterly worthless spell. anything with good na, like a troll or dinosaur or whatever, is gonna have a huge fort save, so you're not going to waste your time casting fortneg crap on them. you're going to target ref with a status or zap them with ray of stupidity. there is no situation where this is the best response.

in my experience, both as a gm and a player, when someone says "oh yeah, we tell him about that guy we met, the one with the beard and what he found in the journal. you know who I mean" the gm will just say "yeah, it's only been an hour from your character's pov, Urik was his name. you fill in the king on what you've learned." I've never even heard of someone calling for a character int-check based on a player's bad memory or lack of note-taking skills. I'm sure it happens, though. it's certainly flavorful, i'll give you that

a gm sending a huge battalion of guards with mithral fullplate is the adamantine door problem writ large. I hope all my gms do that. who needs to adventure when the loot just waddles right up to you? generally, touch-based casters don't want to engage physically being casters and will use familiars, spectral hands, etc, but if you're fighting a suel arcanamach or something weird, I guess it could help you. I hope you have your wand of mage burr handy.

[AvatarVecna]

What the hell is a brahmin? I've never even heard of that class before. Well done. pretty good spell, too. I assume it's a divine class?

I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it, because it only very technically exists. You see, "Oriental Adventures" kinda addresses the problem that it's a "Asia-ish" setting book, and Asia is kinda...big. So some of the classes in the book have alternate names for the three "Oriental" cultures the book is concerned with: Chinese-ish, Japanese-ish, and Indian-ish. "Brahmin" is the Indian-ish alternate name for the OA Shaman class. Oh but it gets even better, because That Art Thou isn't even actually in Oriental Adventures, it's in a web enhancement campaign setting that, among other things, introduces two new Shaman Brahmin domains and one new spell, which is specific to the Brahmin domain "Meditation", which is different from the cleric domain "Meditation". In any case, Clerics and...whatever you choose to call that class with the "Shaman" entry in OA can't swap domains between each other.

...which makes "That Art Thou" a setting-specific web enhancement one-class-only spell. And it's an amazing spell.

brittleskin is a fascinating if utterly worthless spell. anything with good na, like a troll or dinosaur or whatever, is gonna have a huge fort save, so you're not going to waste your time casting fortneg crap on them. you're going to target ref with a status or zap them with ray of stupidity. there is no situation where this is the best response.

Oh indeed it's just a worthless attack spell. But it's such an odd duck that it sticks in my mind despite itself.

[Asmotherion]

prc
Not sure if it's obscure but with Conjuration being my favorite school i have to say Malconvoker. Plus everyone is aware of the incantatrix so it's definitely not obscure anymore.

feat
Poison Spell; Fell Drain may be better but i still love it. Plus you can potentially use it with positoxins to be able to affect undead.

spell
A metamagically enhanced Cloud of knives; invisible+Percistant+Fell Drain.

item
knowstones; Practically the Sorcerer's Spell Scroll. Great for balancing out the Sorcerer with the Wizard.

There's also the Slippers of Battledancing+Gloves of Heartfelt Blows to add an extra instance of you Cha Mod to Attack/Damage with a Decastave/Thunderlance; With a bit of investment turn your mage into a great Gish.

race
Spellscales; Not only Dragonic but you also get a low investment huge bonus to Spellcraft.

[ben-zayb]

Good thing is That Art Thou being a divination spell, so Unseen Seers should be able to grab it. It matches the Seer flavor too.

[PraxisVetli]

Also I may be wrong but I think they’re the only player race with a bite attack that isn’t something cherry picked out of a monster manual.

Poison Dusk Lizardfolk get a bite, though you very well might count that as 'cherry picked out of a Monster Manual'

subsequent uses are only a move action (based on the general rule for directing and redirecting spells).

Can I get a citation for this?

Nevermind, I found it.
Wow, that's good to know.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

One of these days I'm going to build an Artificer whose purpose in life is creating the swankiest ship ever.

Lightning Turbine: from the Arms & Equipment Guide. Doubles the speed of any vehicle it's attached to in a storm (or brings it up to 90ft, whichever is greater).

Lightning Ballista: from Heroes of Battle. Instead of normal ammo, fires a line of lightning. The once per minute limitation handicaps its usefulness, but in a storm it can fire every other round...

Stormship: from one of the Eberron books (I think it was Explorer's?); not too obscure, but often passed over in favor of the other elemental vehicles. It's fast, durable, relatively maneuverable, causes random lightning strikes around itself that the captain can direct... and it creates a constant storm around itself.

Combine the three and you end up with an absurdly fast vehicle that spews AOE lightning effects. Add on a Cloud Keel or an Earth Keel (both also from AEG) to become all terrain.

[AvatarVecna]

Good thing is That Art Thou being a divination spell, so Unseen Seers should be able to grab it. It matches the Seer flavor too.

Oh yeah it's a lovely spell for just being impossible to catch off-guard. Setting up a flank becomes even more of a pain than it normally is because the flankers have to be flanked themselves...well I guess not necessary if they're both somehow using 30 ft reach weapons (maybe flanked by colossal creatures?). But for most situations PCs find themselves in, it more or less necessitates a 15-person line alternating between sides with you in the middle.

[Heliomance]

occasionally I wake up in a cold sweat and fear that ballisteer will be the new ingredient for iron chef, but every time, I've been wrong.

Ooh, I hadn't come across that class before

[Particle_Man]

A wand of that art thou would be gold to anyone with high umd, especially a warlock.

Wow the ballister kind of leaves arcane archer crying in the corner.

This is pre3rd but I like the Sentinel npc class from dragon magazine. It was a guard that could actually see sneaky bad guys coming. These days an urban ranger could probably mimic it well enough.

[The Viscount]

Ooh, I hadn't come across that class before

You've done it now, Venger. Our round 100's going to be Ballisteer now.

[Piggy Knowles]

Oh Gods, please no. Anything that even references psionic combat should be scrubbed from existence. It's the only way we'll ever move on from the shame of the original 3.0 Psionics Handbook.

[Venger]

Ooh, I hadn't come across that class before

You've done it now, Venger. Our round 100's going to be Ballisteer now.

The prophecy fulfills itself.

brb gouging out my eyes

[daremetoidareyo]

The prophecy fulfills itself.

brb gouging out my eyes

I made a ballisteer once. It works on a human. Death attacks from a mile away!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...0&postcount=42

[Zombulian]

Poison Dusk Lizardfolk get a bite, though you very well might count that as 'cherry picked out of a Monster Manual.’

Well... seeing as the race is from MMIII I believe it does in fact fit that condition Cool race though.
You reminded me though, there’s the Viletooth Lizardfolk alternate race in Dragon Magic which has an acid bite. Neat. But also they still have 2RHD and +1 LA.

[Venger]

I made a ballisteer once. It works on a human. Death attacks from a mile away!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...0&postcount=42

Please, no speculation until the deadline.

[Troacctid]

No. They. Weren’t.

*sigh* Nearly 10 years of this, seriously.

There are two mechanically and editorially different suites of game assets called Naga in Oriental Adventures (L5R d20). Both of them have several Naga subspecies called bloodlines (as if we didn’t use that term enough in d20). One of them is explicitly called out as a PC option whereas the other is a “monster” race where several subspecies have high amounts of LA and HD. The former was NOT updated in 3.5 and thus explicitly grandfathered into 3.0, while the latter was seriously nerfed because the 3.0 monster Naga had such a small LA/HD requirement for its weaker subspecies that it was almost as good a deal as Lolth-Touched.

I said nearly all this in the first post, btw.

This happens every time.



Yes. You’re not reading the right entry. You’re not reading my whole post.

Please read the post.

Look up the entry I cited. . . not the entry you searched. Did I cite Dragon magazine? Nope. You know why? Because the PC stats weren’t updated in Dragon magazine — just the monster stats. There are no monster entries for the PC Naga options in d20 at all.

(And thank God there aren’t, or it would be even more confusing.)

I swear, this subject is the only time where giving a citation on the internet literally feels worse than giving none at all. I kinda wish Dragon had updated the PC version — people read it more than the OA supplement.

I don’t think this is anyone’s fault, btw. I seriously think this aspect of d20 is just cursed.

So you're saying the version you quoted was not actually from a D&D book but rather from another totally separate d20 system book. How does that even count? It's kind of like asking why nobody ever mentions the HK G3 assault rifle from d20 Modern or the Force Sensitive feat from d20 Star Wars. Except it's even further from canon than that, because those were at least 1st party supplements for alternative systems, whereas Rokugan Campaign Setting isn't even from Wizards of the Coast, and it's a piece of content that already has an official version that should supersede the 3rd party version due to primary source rules (and having the more recent 3.5 update).