Why do they hate the catfolk races?

[PhoneLobster]

That's for terrain conditions, not for abilities.

Oddly the only given example is of orcs dropping rocks on players from hangliders.

Nothing about terrain, admittedly nothing about character abilities but indeed an awful lot about flying.

It doesn't specifically rule out the source of discrepencies in combat CR as being from specific character abilities used in special tactics of some form.

It leaves open the potential for the discrepency in combat to be total and the appropriate adjustment in XP to be all of it.

Actually read it next time.

Or even think about it, after all fly only works in the manner described if the terrain and conditions allow it to (no cieling, good weather, no cover etc...) so EVEN if we believed the baseless claim that the proviso on XP for encounters was specific to exploiting terrain, the fly tactic IS exploiting terrain. Duh.

This works if the other guy is in a tree or something, but here's where flight differs. With flight you can simply fly toward the guy and attack from above. So walls bushes, and the like are essentially useless, because the flyer can get an angle on you.

Wrong also.

A) there is plenty of potential for obstacles and terrain which rule that out. So in a terrain rich game Mr target dude has PLENTY of suitable places to hide and terrain that limits the miss shooty fairy's potential facings against him.

B) Even a flying character does not move instantaneously. They have a move rate. And if they are exploiting large ranges they are going to need to move a long way in order to change facings. Then theres the whole limitations to full attacks and such that may result even if they can.

C) It still bloody well doesn't even work indoors (how many rooms DO have a cieling over 60ft higher than the monsters guarding it?), at night, in rainy, snowy, fogy, windy or stormy weather, through a forest canopy, through heavy scrub, or all manner of other things that make flying and shooting things an UNRELIABLE character ability.

D) Theres also that whole thing about D&D facing rules, if Mr target manages to find some cover he can share a square with as far as I can gather he is basically covered in all directions right?

E) And he can still fricking go home. No thats not a huge problem, its what you damn well expect an axe weilding minotaur to do when he's having a bad day at the office/enchanted coverless plain with no contours, trees or shelter, people are throwing trash at him so he goes home, they can either declare victory or follow him and take the risk. Fair enough, it makes sense, you don't sit around helpless having stuff thrown at you, you damn well take your bat and ball and go home. This isn't setting every encounter in a room with a low cieling, its letting monsters retreat when they get their ass handed to them, if it were happening in his house I'd expect him to flee into the wilderness.

[RandomCasualty]

1109151575[/unixtime]]
If you end up giving the Giant Scorpion a "melee skill" that's really big in exchange for removing its "ranged skill" - it's still in the same situation of virtually automatic kills one way or the other whether it has a separate stength stat or not. Ability Scores are just an accounting notation, they aren't even important from a deep mechanics standpoint.

Mechanically yes, but ability scores also carry with it a lot of baggage, where just having a "melee skill" doesn't. We'd be ok with Zorro and Conan having the same melee skill, but we wouldn't be ok if Zorro decided to start picking up boulders and heaving em. And that's the problem with strength is that it has a lot of other abilities that come with it that we dont' really want. They also add additional layers of metabilities, whcih makes the game needlessly complex. You can simplify things a lot by just having an attack bonus. You don't need to have meta-attack bonuses like +6 enhancement bonus to strength. In reality it's a +3 attack bonus, but it's just diluted through another layer of separation.

And ability scores have long been holding the dexterity based fighter back in D&D. I really can't think of a great reason to keep them. All they do is create a reason for a DM to say "Well a giant should be stronger than a human, so that means you can't possibly melee one."

If there were no strength score that added to attack bonus and you just said a giant "fights like a 9th level fighter", then that'd be cool. If you wanted it to pick stuff up too, you could have a "Feat of strength(Ex)" ability that let him lift up big rocks. But the game is a lot easier to handle if we just toss ability scores.

Oddly the only given example is of orcs dropping rocks on players from hangliders.

Which is more special equipment or situation than base ability. Hanggliders aren't a basic D&D form of equipment that you can buy, so basically they're an additional ability you chose to give the orcs beyond thier normal CR. And yes it changes the situation. A flying dragon or wizard should have flying built into their CR.

E) And he can still fricking go home. No thats not a huge problem, its what you damn well expect an axe weilding minotaur to do when he's having a bad day at the office/enchanted coverless plain with no contours, trees or shelter, people are throwing trash at him so he goes home, they can either declare victory or follow him and take the risk. Fair enough, it makes sense, you don't sit around helpless having stuff thrown at you, you damn well take your bat and ball and go home. This isn't setting every encounter in a room with a low cieling, its letting monsters retreat when they get their ass handed to them, if it were happening in his house I'd expect him to flee into the wilderness.

Yeah, though sometimes you may be farther than 500 feet from your house.

Theres also that whole thing about D&D facing rules, if Mr target manages to find some cover he can share a square with as far as I can gather he is basically covered in all directions right?

Not necessarily from above. And even if you are in total cover, so what? are you just going to stay hiding forever? You have no way of fighting back and your opponent has the manueverability edge.

I mean sure maybe you can sit around hoping the duration expires, but this assumes that they can't just destroy your cover by then. Generally cover that works from all directions is going to be something like shrubs or something similar, and that won't be all that difficult to take down. Hard cover like trees is only going to be good for one direction.

Now you've got a chance if you've got the hide skill, and really that's about it. Even then your chance is purely to get away. This differs significantly from the guy who climbed up in a tree, because you can very well turn the waiting game on him. When he's up in the tree you have the manueverability edge. You can sit in the bushes at the base of his tree waiting until he starves enough to come down, or you can simply run away and there isn't much he can do about it without coming down first and entering your range. It's very possible for your tree to also turn into your prison.

The flyer however can choose to either pursue, break off or whatever, and you can't do anything to hurt him. It's really impossible to ever turn the tables on a flyer. He comes, goes and pursues at will.

[Murtak]

1109163929[/unixtime]]
The flyer however can choose to either pursue, break off or whatever, and you can't do anything to hurt him. It's really impossible to ever turn the tables on a flyer. He comes, goes and pursues at will.

How is that so different from all the other advantages characters can have?

- The invisible guy can come and go at will.
- The rich guy can send endless streams of hirelings against you.
- The magical guy can blind you, then finish you off at his leisure.
- The strong guy can force you to keep running because he will automatically win melee combat
- The sneaky guy can keep sniping from cover endlessly and you will never find him in the woods.

The only point of yours that I can credit is that an unreasonable large amount of monsters can not fly and have no ranged attacks. That still does not mean that flying is an autowin against them though. Make a list of monsters. Then add some humans, elves and what not to it. Now scratch anything that can not fly, does not live indoors or in the woods, has no hands (or animal intelligence) and has no innate ranged attack. Then scratch the couple weird entries that can teleport, go ethereal, invisible or the likes.

Now, how much is left? It seems to me like there is honestly not all that many creatures that can not fight back against the flying archer. And most of those you can also win against by being able to use invisibility, illusions, wall spells or mind affecting spells. Or heck, just being sneaky.

Now, flying is still pretty strong. Being able to fly away is always nice, you get a few autowins and you can solve a couple of puzzles with it. Exactly how useful it is will depend a lot on your campaign. But unless your campaign is situated in featureless plains with mostly animal inhabitants it is far from the situation you describe.

[RandomCasualty]

1109166415[/unixtime]]
The only point of yours that I can credit is that an unreasonable large amount of monsters can not fly and have no ranged attacks. That still does not mean that flying is an autowin against them though. Make a list of monsters. Then add some humans, elves and what not to it. Now scratch anything that can not fly, does not live indoors or in the woods, has no hands (or animal intelligence) and has no innate ranged attack. Then scratch the couple weird entries that can teleport, go ethereal, invisible or the likes.

Basically what you end up saying is that encounters don't happen outdoors, that's what most people do to 'balance' fly. That's how I've been balancing it anyway. You never meet a hydra in a swamp, you'll only meet it in a marsh cave. You never meet a dire wolf out in the woods or the plains, it's always lurking in some cave.

But why? I mean is flying such a big part of the low level game that we really need it? Why not just get rid of it until level 11+?

Honestly it takes so much away from the tactical game and at seemingly no cost. High ground becomes rather useless, rough terrain becomes a non factor, wtf is the point. Evolving toward situations where everyone is a flier makes battles more dull. There is nothing gained by mass propagation of flight.

Now, how much is left? It seems to me like there is honestly not all that many creatures that can not fight back against the flying archer. And most of those you can also win against by being able to use invisibility, illusions, wall spells or mind affecting spells. Or heck, just being sneaky.

Well, combat invisibility is potentially another issue, though it's not nearly as bad as flight, because most animals at the very least have scent, whcih partially lets them beat invisible attackers. Unless you're the invisibile archer, which tends to have the same problems as flight just from another direction.

Now, flying is still pretty strong. Being able to fly away is always nice, you get a few autowins and you can solve a couple of puzzles with it. Exactly how useful it is will depend a lot on your campaign. But unless your campaign is situated in featureless plains with mostly animal inhabitants it is far from the situation you describe.

Well that's entirely the problem. It's not as though fly just grants autowins. It's an ultimate utility spell too. The thing with fly is you could concievably make it a 7th level spell and people would still take it. Flight really is that good.

It's always a big warning sign when one spell shows up on every wizard's spell list, and that pretty much applies to fly. To balance something you just jack up the spell level until it no longer becomes everyone's favorite spell.

[Murtak]

1109167409[/unixtime]]Basically what you end up saying is that encounters don't happen outdoors, that's what most people do to 'balance' fly. That's how I've been balancing it anyway. You never meet a hydra in a swamp, you'll only meet it in a marsh cave. You never meet a dire wolf out in the woods or the plains, it's always lurking in some cave.

Huh? Why would you mind a flying archer meeting your wolf in the woods? What is he going to do, shoot blindly? He will probably wound a wolf or two, possibly kill one and the rest of the pack is simply going to vanish into the undergrowth.

Now, how much is left? It seems to me like there is honestly not all that many creatures that can not fight back against the flying archer. And most of those you can also win against by being able to use invisibility, illusions, wall spells or mind affecting spells. Or heck, just being sneaky.

Well, combat invisibility is potentially another issue, though it's not nearly as bad as flight, because most animals at the very least have scent, whcih partially lets them beat invisible attackers. Unless you're the invisibile archer, which tends to have the same problems as flight just from another direction.

Would you mind answering my question? How many encounters can not
- use bows, slings or the likes themselves
- have some sort of innate ranged attack
- live indoors or in the woods anyways
- fly themselves
- evade combat through movement, invisibility or the likes
and do these encounters make up a large part of your campaigns?

Well that's entirely the problem. It's not as though fly just grants autowins. It's an ultimate utility spell too. The thing with fly is you could concievably make it a 7th level spell and people would still take it. Flight really is that good.

No, that just means that there is no other spell that provides the same benefit. Just like haste. Or invisibility. Or teleport. Or divining the future. Or magic jar. Any of these spells would still be useful as a 9th level spell, simply because there is no other way to gain their specific benefits.

[User3]

I've always hated the Dire line of animals. I honestly don't that something should even be a monster unless it has a ranged attack or ranged magical attack or flight or something. Hydra should shoot fire, giants and golem should toss rocks, orcs always have bows, etc. Every monster should have the potential to do most of the things below:

--The counter for invisibility is AoE spells.

--The counter for targetted magic is Spell Resistance or invisibility.

--The counter for ranged atacks is a crazy movement form like flight or burrowing, or using ranged attacks or spells.

Puzzle monsters are lame since they railroad PC actions and ocassionly TPK a party when they forget to bring cold iron or something.

[Josh_Kablack]

1109166415[/unixtime]]
That still does not mean that flying is an autowin against them though. Make a list of monsters. Then add some humans, elves and what not to it. Now scratch anything that can not fly, does not live indoors or in the woods, has no hands (or animal intelligence) and has no innate ranged attack. Then scratch the couple weird entries that can teleport, go ethereal, invisible or the likes.

That list I did a page ago was a list of everything which didn't fly and had no innate ranged attacks. Creatures which could teleport or go ethereal were already excluded, since they can in theory get into melee range with a flyer.

Some creatures were included which were capable of using weapons, but don't in their default MM entry. Creatures with stealth abilities, significant illusory powers or non-flight movement moves which allow easy escape from flyers (swim, burrow) were included, on the reasoning that while they may easily be able to escape a flyer, the flyer can just as easily escape from them. Flying's not always an autowin, but if played with caution, flying is always at least a stalemate against anything on that list.

No concession at all for terrain was made in my list, since it is at least possible to have a 60'+ vertical line of sight in any terrain.

Hydra should shoot fire, giants and golem should toss rocks, orcs always have bows, etc.

Pyrohyrdas do shoot fire, in a 20' line. That means that if you can attack them from 30' up, you're immune. That also means if you're a human barabarian fighting one in an open field, your single move + single bow shot tactic keeps you out of range of it's single move + breath tactic. If you start the encounter at more than 10', you can also stay out of range of its charge+reach tactic, and only really have to worry about the implications of Run actions and AoOs. If you can get to 90' away from it, and terrain doesn't get in your way, you also become immune to that.

Thus in a straight up melee against a hydra, you can suffer 5-24 attacks per round. Using a move+shoot strategy with a 40' move chracter, you can take suffer zero attacks and only have to worry if you're getting through the fast healing before your ammo gives out.

For "balance" the game needs monsters which are in someway resistant and vulnerable against inverse tactics. And there are precedents there in the rules if you look for them. There need to be creatures who don't melee too well, but walk around inside an Obscuring Mist (and are resistant to common AoE spells); there need to be creatures who have a powered-up version of Snatch Arrows and throw projectiles back at the attacker; there need to be more creatures who have the Tarrasque's Carapace ability (although the wording still needs to be cleaned up on that one). We don't even need to get wacky and write up farseeing zen-archer type creatures who can't perceive anyone *within* 30' of them, although we certainly could without too much difficulty.

[Username17]

No concession at all for terrain was made in my list, since it is at least possible to have a 60'+ vertical line of sight in any terrain.

That's not quite fair. A Hydra is supposed to leap out of the water and attack. An Umber Hulk is supposed to leap out of the wall and attack. Ambush hunters with an unusual movement type are really their own thing. There isn't anything but melee combat with a Hydra or an Umber Hulk, since if it can't close to melee it just doesn't even attack in the first place and then it's stalematatious. Heck, once you escape from an Umber Hulk's reach, it's just going to burrow back down because it knows it can't actually catch anything on the straightaway.

For "balance" the game needs monsters which are in someway resistant and vulnerable against inverse tactics.

Absolutely. Although remember that resistance is relative. A creature could have 90% damage reduction to ranged attacks and that would still be the best way to fight it unless it had some way to close the gap or strike you from afar.

-Username17

[Murtak]

1109177190[/unixtime]]

1109166415[/unixtime]]
That still does not mean that flying is an autowin against them though. Make a list of monsters. Then add some humans, elves and what not to it. Now scratch anything that can not fly, does not live indoors or in the woods, has no hands (or animal intelligence) and has no innate ranged attack. Then scratch the couple weird entries that can teleport, go ethereal, invisible or the likes.

That list I did a page ago was a list of everything which didn't fly and had no innate ranged attacks. Creatures which could teleport or go ethereal were already excluded, since they can in theory get into melee range with a flyer.

Off the top of my head

Achaierai
Animated Object
Hound Archon - can use weapons
Ankheg - burrows
Assassin Vine - has a whopping 5 ft. movement. fly is not the issue here
Athach - has a ranged attack
Basilisk
Behir
Bodak - can use weapons
Bulette - burrows
Carrior Crawler - not quite sure, don't these live in caves only?
Chaos Beast
Choker - lives underground only
Chuul
Delver - burrows
Bebilith - can plane shift
Chain Devil - can use weapons
Hellcat - is invisible
Lemure
Digester
Dinosaur (all)
Dire Animal (all save Bat)
Displacer Beast
Dragon Turtle - dives
Elemental (all save Air)
Ettercap - can use weapons
Ettin - can use weapons
Formian Worker and Formian Warrior
Fungus - movement of 10 or 0 - fly is not the issue here
Ghoul - can use weapons
Ghast - can use weapons
Gibbering Mouther
Girallon
Golem (all) - as these are actually placed by their masters there is no reason whatsoever they will ever stand out in the open plains, waiting to be shot
Gorgon
Gray Render
Grick - underground only
Grimlock - underground only
Hell Hound
Hydras (all)
Magmin
Mimic - please. an underground only creature that pretty much exists for melee ambushes? Are you going to shoot every chest and door and table you see?
Minotaur - can use weapons
Mohrg - can use weapons
Ooze (all)
Otyugh
Owlbear - underground only
Phantom Fungus - invisible
Purple Worm - burrows
Remorhaz - burrows
Roper - underground only
Rust Monster - underground only
Sea Cat - dives
Shambling Mound
Shocker Lizard
Skeleton (all examples) - can use weapons
Skum - can use weapons
Red Slaad
Swarm (Centipede, Rat, Spider) - immune to arrows (you could use fireballs and the like though)
Tarrasque
Tendriculos
Thoqua - burrows
Tojanida - swims
Treant
Troll (but not Troll hunter) - can use weapons
Umber Hulk - burrows
Unicorn (if you are 60'+ outside its home)
Wight - can use weapons
Winter Wolf
Worg
Xorn - burrows
Zombie (all examples save Wyvern zombie) - can use weapons
Animal (all save bat, eagle, hawk, raven)
Vermin (all save bee and wasp)

That cuts down your list quite a bit.

Some creatures were included which were capable of using weapons, but don't in their default MM entry.

Well, if you insist that humanoids of human-like intelligence use greatswords in your campagin but never bows, spears or slings ....

Creatures with stealth abilities, significant illusory powers or non-flight movement moves which allow easy escape from flyers (swim, burrow) were included, on the reasoning that while they may easily be able to escape a flyer, the flyer can just as easily escape from them. Flying's not always an autowin, but if played with caution, flying is always at least a stalemate against anything on that list.

Note that I was arguing against fly being an autowin. And I don't even consider it a stalemate if you never enter any caves, tunnels or buildings.

No concession at all for terrain was made in my list, since it is at least possible to have a 60'+ vertical line of sight in any terrain.

Except, say . . dense forests. Or caves. Or buildings. Or underwater. Which is where quite a bit of your list will be hanging out.

[Josh_Kablack]

I really thought that I had been arguing that flight was part of a larger probelm and not a huge issue in and of itself for the past two pages. But I guess I'm just not getting that point accross. Maybe I should write it in bold next time.

As to specific factual points:

1. The Athach as listed is incapable of attacking anyone beyond 50 ft. It does not have a giant-like Rock Throwing special ability, but instead throws rocks as improvised weapons, and as per PHB 113, improvised thrown weapons have a range increment of 10 ft, which means a maximum range of 50 ft. (Really, it has a BAB of +10, +1 for dex, -2 for size, and yet it's rock attack is listed as a +5 bonus)

2. Owlbear environment is listed as Temperate Forest.

3. In both reality and the D&D rules, 60' lines of sight exist in all environments. As per DMG 87, Spotting Distance is 2d6x10 ft in even a dense forest. The only terrain where spotting distance is worse is underwater in murky water.

[Murtak]

1109188499[/unixtime]]I really thought that I had been arguing that flight was part of a larger probelm and not a huge issue in and of itself for the past two pages. But I guess I'm just not getting that point accross. Maybe I should write it in bold next time.

Look, when you quote me saying that flying is not an autowin again a vast majority of creatures then I am going to assume that the text you put below that quote applies to it.

1. The Athach as listed is incapable of attacking anyone beyond 50 ft. It does not have a giant-like Rock Throwing special ability, but instead throws rocks as improvised weapons, and as per PHB 113, improvised thrown weapons have a range increment of 10 ft, which means a maximum range of 50 ft. (Really, it has a BAB of +10, +1 for dex, -2 for size, and yet it's rock attack is listed as a +5 bonus)

*shrug* I am going to assume that anything with hands and a human level Int (7 is still easily within human range) is at least capable of throwing spears and using slings. If you say that everything must always use the weapons given in the MM entries we will just have to disagree.

Owlbear environment is listed as Temperate Forest.

My mistake. That should have gone behind the otyugh.

3. In both reality and the D&D rules, 60' lines of sight exist in all environments. As per DMG 87, Spotting Distance is 2d6x10 ft in even a dense forest. The only terrain where spotting distance is worse is underwater in murky water.

In a dense forest, the maximum distance at which a Spot check for detecting the nearby presence of others can succeed 2d6×10 feet. Because any square with undergrowth provides concealment, it’s usually easy for a creature to use the Hide skill in the forest. Logs and massive trees provide cover, which also makes hiding possible.

That does not look like "you always have 60+ ft. of sight" to me. And you certainly can't count on always seeing a human at 20 metres in the real world, much less if he is making any effort at hiding. And anything marginally intelligent you shoot once will certainly make the tiny effort required to find 90+% cover.

[RandomCasualty]

1109170444[/unixtime]]
Would you mind answering my question? How many encounters can not
- use bows, slings or the likes themselves
- have some sort of innate ranged attack
- live indoors or in the woods anyways
- fly themselves
- evade combat through movement, invisibility or the likes
and do these encounters make up a large part of your campaigns?

Well you seem to have answered it with a list of your own. And while, I don't explicitly argue with the list, I can argue with a few terms.

First, as Josh pointed out, monsters tend to be much weaker at ranged combat. So even if you don't get a total autowin, forcing monsters to use ranged weapons is a big utility benefit anyway.

Also, caverns don't necessarily have to have a ceiling too low to fly well, though they usually do as a point of Metagaming on the part of the DM.

As for making up a large part of the campaign, probably not. But that's still issue to be taken up with fly, because it's not as though all it does is grant autowins. Even if it doesn't grant an autowin, it's still incredibly powerful. As stated earlier, forcing monsters to use missile weapons alone is usually awesome. Gaining an infintie climb score, immunity to pit traps and terrain movement reductions is awesome. No longer do you have to worry about your enemies well defended mountain pass leading to his fortress. Nope, just fly. Opponents with higher ground? Just fly. Opponents with no ranged attacks? Just fly.

Flying is the epitome of outdoor uberness. Basically if you have fly you really can't have good outdoor quests. The only reason flying is 3rd level in D&D is because the dungeon setting is most common, the place where fly seems remotely balanced at 3rd level only because its neutered completely. As soon as you start setting your adventures in a place with a high ceiling, then you have problems.

No, that just means that there is no other spell that provides the same benefit. Just like haste. Or invisibility. Or teleport. Or divining the future. Or magic jar. Any of these spells would still be useful as a 9th level spell, simply because there is no other way to gain their specific benefits.

Well, there are certain classes of spells that fail the "would you take it at a higher level test" and that is spells that don't use up slots at all, I'm talking about stuff like identify and out of combat divinations. Because you don't really care how high a level identify is, because you never have to choose it over another spell, you just use it during downtime.

For spells that actively force a choice however, the test works well. Ironically a lot of spells you mentioned are also in question balance wise. For 3.5 haste? People rarely take it now at 3rd level in my campaigns. I doubt people would take it if you made it 5th level.

INvisibility? Yeah people would probably take that if it were higher in level, but there would be a point where people would eventually decide its not worth it because so many monsters can beat it. I'm not sure exactly where that cutoff point is, but it's probably a lot higher than CR 3.

Teleport? This spell is just broke as a combat spell period. If it's just a travel spell it doesn't really matter what level it is, as stated above, since it no longer really takes up a slot.

Divinations? If they're noncombat, then of course spell level is meaningless. If they're something you'd use while adventuring, then absolutely spel level matters. Augury is cool and all, but would you trade a flame strike or a heal for it? Probably not.

Magic Jar is honestly another fairly questionable spell in terms of power. There's so much weird stuff you can do with body switching magic that I don't even know how to address it.

But for the most part, the "would you take it at a higher spell level" actually means something. You can generally find the most powerful spells by looking at what spells a skilled player *always* takes. 3.0 haste was on that list, and that was broken beyond belief. Fly is definitely on that list too.

[Murtak]

1109201874[/unixtime]]Well, there are certain classes of spells that fail the "would you take it at a higher level test" and that is spells that don't use up slots at all, I'm talking about stuff like identify and out of combat divinations. Because you don't really care how high a level identify is, because you never have to choose it over another spell, you just use it during downtime.

For spells that actively force a choice however, the test works well. Ironically a lot of spells you mentioned are also in question balance wise. For 3.5 haste? People rarely take it now at 3rd level in my campaigns. I doubt people would take it if you made it 5th level.

Yes, we still use 3.0 haste. Note how 3.5 haste does not give you extra actions anymore, just extra swings (= extra damage) which you can get from other sources. Hence 3.5 haste does not belong on my list - lots of spells do damage or add to weapon damage. By the way, how do you figure 3.5 haste is a good change if people rarely take it now? Isn't that the mark of a bad spell?

Divinations? If they're noncombat, then of course spell level is meaningless. If they're something you'd use while adventuring, then absolutely spel level matters. Augury is cool and all, but would you trade a flame strike or a heal for it? Probably not.

If flame strike is my highest spell level? No. But if I also have 8th level spells at my disposal? Sure, augury here we go. Note the similarity to when most people started using 3.0 haste.

But for the most part, the "would you take it at a higher spell level" actually means something. You can generally find the most powerful spells by looking at what spells a skilled player *always* takes. 3.0 haste was on that list, and that was broken beyond belief. Fly is definitely on that list too.

Why is/was 3.0 haste broken? Is there another reason then "everyone wanted it"? 3.0 haste is/was one of the few ways for melee fighters to do a decent amount of damage. Sure, casters got some use out of it too, but usually would not regularly be casting two spells per round until past level 12 in my experience - meanwhile fighters quadrupled their damage in the first round of combat (and quite often later rounds too).

By the way, your new stance on fly seems much more reasonable to me. I can buy the whole "fly makes too much stuff too easy, especially given so many silly monster entries" thing. I guess it was just the "auto-win" phrase that was bugging me. I am still curious as to why you think faerie hovering is overpowered though.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Which of hte catfolk races fly again?

I agree w/ Josh, Flight isn't any bigger a deal than a Monk's uberspeed and a longbow. It's keeping things at range that borks CR values to nothing.

[Username17]

Hell, Warriors have Ride and proficiency with the Composite Longbow. You don't need any class features or feats at all to bork CR, and you can do it with less than 500 gp worth of equipment.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1109207609[/unixtime]]
I agree w/ Josh, Flight isn't any bigger a deal than a Monk's uberspeed and a longbow. It's keeping things at range that borks CR values to nothing.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with Josh on that more or less too.

The real problem is keeping your opponent out of range, flight is admittedly a very highly effective way of doing that, but it's not the only way.

The thing is though is how do you actually stop missile attacks. As Frank pointed out earlier, even if there was a 90% reduction in missile damage, it still beciomes better to fly or kite your opponent, beacuse you still take no damage at all, it just takes you longer to kill them.

I'm not really sure how we best negate this sort of tactic short of granting certain things immunity to ranged attacks entirely, beacuse anything short of immunity just isnt' good enough.

[PhoneLobster]

I'd like to have a brief go at a few entries on that list that Murtak apparently just conceded.

Achaierai- Lives in hell, does have a hide bonus, and an odd dark cloud thing.
Animated Object - This is SO an ambush monster, you don't just find animated tables roaming in the wild.
Assassin Vine - despite movement issues it is SOOOO and ambusher (hide bonus, described as one).
Basilisk- despite only a small terrain specific hide bonus is described as an ambusher.
Behir - does have that hide skill again, but admittedly nothing else to indicate ambushing behaviour.
Chaos Beast - Lives in Limbo, has kick ass hide bonus.
Choker - lives underground only (also has kick ass hide bonus)
Chuul- good hide bonus, lives under water.
Bebilith - can plane shift, and lives in hell and has a damn good hide bonus
Chain Devil - can use weapons - also lives in hell
Hellcat - is invisible - AND is sneaky, also lives in hell
Lemure - lives in hell.
Digester - reasonable hide including racial bonus, described as "lurking" in a variety of terrains, its an ambusher again.
Dinosaur (all) - all bar the biggest have hide bonuses, and racial hide bonuses and live in forests, one lives under water and also has a hide bonus. Ambush and flee.
Dire Animal...
D.Apes have a non standard move (climb) enabling them to pull the fly trick on others, D.Badgers have burrow,
D.Bats fly,
D.Lions have racial hide bonuses and are 'patient hunters', dire rats climb and hide oddly having climb skill bonuses AND a climb speed,
D.Sharks live underwater,
D.Tigers are described as ambushers and have a bigger hide bulge than the D.Lions,
D.Weasels stalk their prey in the dark and have a hide bonus.
D.Wolves get a racial hide bonus, it sucks but they get one so supposedly its used.
D.Wolverine has a climb speed.
Displacer Beast - Resistant to ranged attacks, has totally kick ass hide bonuses, well built for night stalking, so smart they can talk to you. King ambusher.
Elemental (all save Air) Earth burrows, Water dives, all of them live in other dimensions.
Ettercap - can use weapons - and described as sneaky and has hide bonuses
Formian Worker and Formian Warrior- live in another plane, in cities, UNDERGROUND, use ranged weapons and magic...
Fungus - clear across the board suckyness aside, they live underground.
Ghoul+Ghast - can use weapons - screw that, high hide bonuses and described both as 'lurking' and targeting the 'unwary', ambusher again.
Gibbering Mouther - Lives underground, has swim speed, turns ground into mud if that helps.
Girallon- despite lack of hide skill has climb movement and is described as hiding in and vanishing into trees and undergrowth.
Grick - underground only - and racial hide bonuses and a climb speed, the fat magic DR at that level is nice vs arrows too.
Grimlock - underground only- fat racial hide bonuses
Hell Hound- lives in hell, totally massive hide bonus for its CR
Hydras (all)- all have swim movement and clearly hide in their swamps.
Magmin - lives in another dimension
Minotaur - can use weapons - and lives underground, in mazes no less, where it has superior maze navigation and maze based ambush tormenting (it says so).
Mohrg - can use weapons - The biggest hide bonus bulge you ever saw.
Ooze (all) - some live underground, some climb, some have transparency, all kinds of crazy immunities to arrows and other ranged options like elemental attacks, illusions, stunning, this, that, and the other.
Otyugh - racial hide bonus and described as an ambusher.
Roper - underground only - where it hides and is described as yet another ambusher
Shambling Mound - despite only sucky racial hide bonus is described as an ambusher by nature.
Shocker Lizard - also described as ambusher, big hide bonuses for CR.
Skum - can use weapons - and dives with swim movement.
Red Slaad - lives in limbo, establishes SECRET lairs in other planes, as in not in open featureless well lit plains with no shelter, has passable hide bonus.
Swarm (Centipede, Rat, Spider) - immune to arrows (you could use fireballs and the like though) - and they all either climb or fly. Some have hide bonuses.
Tarrasque - what seriously?
Tendriculos - passable hide skill, described as ambusher.
Tojanida - swims - and lives in another dimension and has a fat hide bonus.
Treant - described as ambusher, sucky hide skill but huge racial hide bonus.
Unicorn - like totally teleports, unless its forest is five feet by five feet it gets away.
Wight - can use weapons - lives underground, where it 'lurks' has fat hide and move silent bonuses.
Winter Wolf - smart enough they can talk to you and has racial hide bonuses in their home terrain.
Worg - passable hide bonus, often wears goblin archers on back.
Xorn - burrows - and lives in another dimension and has hide up the wazzoo.
Animal (all save bat, eagle, hawk, raven) Now here we are talking swimming, climbing, burrowing, flying, hide bonuses all over the place and plenty of descriptions of ambush tactics, heck snakes have four out of six. Sure some of them don't have that but so what? they are just animals and the ones without those options are the ones which are less relevant or notable for other reasons as well. A lot of them also live underwater or have humanoid companions (horses, dogs, cats, elephants).
Vermin (all save bee and wasp) Lots of climb speeds, hide bonuses and ambush tactics.

Now I struck of about half dozen off the list I didn't have anything to add to, less than half dozen other entries that don't have any defenses I could see either, and there were a couple of dire animals, two dinosaurs and a handful of animals and giant vermine that also lacked defenses.

But all up the vast majority of the list of things totally owned by the fairy pea shooter is a heck of a lot less than originally implied.

* Note. I did make a big think of stuff living in other dimensions. But you know when stuff has to commute accross interdimensional barriers in order to get to their place of slaughter I expect them to be going some place of importance or indeed describable features, not just popping in to spend hours on end standing unresponsive in the middle of a featureless well lit plain with a target painted on their back. Of course only a very few of the examples lived in another dimension AND had no other excuse for not falling for the elaborate open plain flying archer set up.

I also didn't talk about DR anywhere near enough, certainly it has its effect on archery and should have been worth mentioning, as would elemental and mental immunities in the context of ranged magic.

But anyway. List of monsters that are helpless dumb ass targets = actually a lot smaller than orginally implied.

[PhoneLobster]

And also quickly...

Also, caverns don't necessarily have to have a ceiling too low to fly well, though they usually do as a point of Metagaming on the part of the DM.

You've never actually been in a natural cave have you?

If a DM makes it so a human or even half human size can functionally fly in place (within relatively easy reach of the ground even), let alone move 10 or more feet in a row then he is probably metagaming to increase the size of the cavern. The majority of real caves are either too short, too narrow or full of stalagtites. If they are big enough to fly in they are not big enough to maneuver in, and almost never big enough to be more than 30, let alone 60 feet away from the ground.

The insides of buildings, tunnels and mines aren't much better either. Especially old fashioned ones.

Damnit.

Its a wonder that the larger bats manage that kind of flight.

[RandomCasualty]

1109212870[/unixtime]]
You've never actually been in a natural cave have you?

If a DM makes it so a human or even half human size can functionally fly in place (within relatively easy reach of the ground even), let alone move 10 or more feet in a row then he is probably metagaming to increase the size of the cavern. The majority of real caves are either too short, too narrow or full of stalagtites. If they are big enough to fly in they are not big enough to maneuver in, and almost never big enough to be more than 30, let alone 60 feet away from the ground.

Yeah, though fantasy stuff clearly isn't like that. You've got dragons with huge 20x20 spaces and such.

Caverns in fantasy contain huge cities and big caves with dragon lairs and similar stuff. That is another issue I have with a lot of the D&D creatures too is that they're all too damn big, especialyl the high level and epic stuff.

Generally fantasy dungeons are huge, unlike their real world counterparts.

[RandomCasualty]

I'm not going to bother pick apart your list, but I will point this out because it's totally ridiculous.

1109212103[/unixtime]]Hydras (all)- all have swim movement and clearly hide in their swamps.

Hide? Being a huge creature with a +1 dex bonus, no ranks in hide or MS and a huge penalty from size?

Hydras would have trouble hiding from a blind man.

[PhoneLobster]

A) Being under water invalidates being shot with arrows by some guy in the sky. So hydra swim speed on its own invalidates the tactic, hide or not.

B) It lives in swamps, probably ugly monster infested zombie movie swamps. I call 100% cover while submerged by means of mud, murk, pond weed and scum.

As Frank said, which got me going through the list looking for hide and alternate movement. The hydra, like most of those guys is designed as an ambush monster.

He only enters your non murky land breather world when he can totally rock it.

Of course as hinted complaints of wandering topic suggest things seem to be moving to a conclusion on this thread that cat girls aren't allowed because some vocal minority of players think flight, which they don't even have, is massively universe destroyingly overpowered.

A remarkably stupid conclusion, but one I believe is entirely true.

[RandomCasualty]

1109224965[/unixtime]]A) Being under water invalidates being shot with arrows by some guy in the sky. So hydra swim speed on its own invalidates the tactic, hide or not.

How deep are these swamps? The majority of swamps I've been in have fairly shallow water in the sense that a huge fucking creature like a hydra isn't going to be able to easily use a swim speed very well, and certainly not without being detected.

This isn't a school pirranha or some fairly small fish. This isn't even an alligator, this is a fucking huge ass hydra. 20 feet long. That's damn big.

B) It lives in swamps, probably ugly monster infested zombie movie swamps. I call 100% cover while submerged by means of mud, murk, pond weed and scum.

If it has 100% cover then the hydra itself cannot see shit. So long as some part of the hydra is visible (and it needs to be to actually see people to ambush), then it needs to make a hide check.

As Frank said, which got me going through the list looking for hide and alternate movement. The hydra, like most of those guys is designed as an ambush monster.

It's designed like one, yes, though it sucks at it. It's slow, has no means of hiding or disguising itself and is solely based around the DM giving it some arbitrarily unfair advantage like 100% cover that it can still see through.

Hydras see as well as dwarves. They don't have tremorsense or any natural sensing abilities. Their hide skill sucks. They can't ambush anybody unless the DM gets all "creative" and starts assigning them abilities they don't really have.

[PhoneLobster]

Swamps, marshes and wetlands aren't just shallow muddy puddles, they are vast bodies of water, plenty of deep wide and broad expanses of water can and should exist amongst any serious swamp.

Plenty of swamps are basically muddy lakes, lagoons or rivers with trees and rafts of moss growing in them.

Better yet swamps can have sudden sink holes full of water grown over with moss and skum among otherwise shallow areas, which in an of themselves are hazards, before you put a monster at the bottom.

Giant salt water Crocs, gators, dugongs and water buffalo have no problem hiding in the things, and a hydra is hardly that much of an extension. (Oddly your example of hiding in small place animals, piranha, come from one of the biggest rivers in the world).

It doesn't matter if the hydra can't see you back, his detection of you need not be reliable as long as your detection of him is utterly unreliable. He can damn well wait for you to step on his face before he bites you and it will make his schtick work. Plenty of predators do exactly that.

Hydra encounters start at zero range with the hydra ripping apart or dragging under the fool who stepped on its face. Thats an ambush monster.

Further more even if the hundred percent cover prevented his ambushing, it would still, on its own, just like being underwater on its own, totally foil being shot with arrows from the air.

So any pretense otherwise is spinning the tangent from cat people of being in denial about flight off onto another tangent again about being in denial about ambushes. Which you are already pushing suspiciously close to continued being in denial about how hide mechanics should or do work.

"You can't have cat people because I think flight is overpowered" is bad enough "You can't have cat people because I think Hydra can't ambush you in a swamp" is worse.

[User3]

The argument against catgirls is that monster mechanics are problematic when used by PCs, fanboys will do awful things with catgirls, and even if you gave them catgirls they wouldn't be happy so it its a moot point anyway.

They are strong arguments to just create catgirls for your specific campaign/player rather than making any attempt to make a core race like elves that you expect everyone to use.

I can think of three ways to make catgirls using existing rules, and I know that none of those will satisfy even 1% of the anime goobers out there, unlike dwarves or elves which make like 95% of DnD players happy as-is.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Easiest way to make Catpeople work? They're humans. Except w/ fur, pointy ears, and funky weird eyes. Take Blindfighting w/ your feat to simulate seeing in the dark. Put your highest ability in Dex. Done.

I've never really understood why you need ability score mods, weird feat and ability combinations, and so on to make a race. D&D is, after all, a RPG. IMO, you can roleplay a catperson without a lot of abilities and mods.