The Gaming Den

For the upcoming campaign I keep talking about, I have a guy who wants to play a volodni. What the hell is a volodni, and what powers does it have that makes the +2 LA worth it? (I've seen a partial stat write up.)

I think I can talk him out of Drow and Half-Celestial (his other possibles), but I don't know enough about Volodni to discuss them intelligently.

Game On,
fbmf

It's from "Unapproachable East". Plant people. I'll grab an excerpt when I get home if no one else has.

+2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Int, -2 Cha.
Cold resistance 5.
+4 racial bonus to Hide checks in wooded terrain.
Low-light vision.
Plant type.
Half damage from piercing weapons, minimum 1 point of damage.
Volodni only need 2 hours of sleep a day, but spellcasters work differently as per elves. They need 1/4 the food and water of humans.
Automatic languages: Common, Sylvan.
Favoured class: Druid.

This is a +2 LA race? wtf?

Well, if you want to convince him not to use it, you could say something like "Well, if you *want* to suck, I guess that's alright."

By virtue of the plant type, they also gain:
—Low-light vision (WTF? Why? Well, they get it twice).
—Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning.
—Not subject to critical hits.
—Proficient with its natural weapons only.
—Proficient with no armor.
—Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.
—Plants can take the Rapidstrike feat chain.

So depending on the level of polymorphing and broken magic items you allow, it can actually be decent.

Once again, WotC doubles the highest justifiable sane ECL for no good reason.

Naar at [unixtime wrote:1119056022[/unixtime]]+2 Con, +2 Wis, -2 Int, -2 Cha.

Balanced stats are standard

Cold resistance 5.
+4 racial bonus to Hide checks in wooded terrain.
Low-light vision.

Even if you made that +4 to Hide everywhere, those three abilities are not even on par with dwarven save bonuses, skill bonuses and darkvision.

Plant type.
Half damage from piercing weapons, minimum 1 point of damage.

This is what you're being charged ECL for. Immunity to mind-affecting effects, critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning is actually pretty decent in the long run and taking half damage from nearly all ranged weapons also rocks.

Now if in your game, this package is actually better than the package of dwarven attack bonuses + dodge bonuses + weapon familiarities + reduced armor encumberance + stonecunning, then this is an ECL +1 race, otherwise it's ECL +0.

Volodni only need 2 hours of sleep a day, but spellcasters work differently as per elves.

This is worth about the same as the dwarf's stability bonus. Rarely useful, but occasionally very good.

They need 1/4 the food and water of humans.

This is worth precisely the same as dwarves aging slower than humans, which is to say nothing in any sane game.

Automatic languages: Common, Sylvan.
Favoured class: Druid.

Nothing earth shaking here.

Catharz at [unixtime wrote:1119068292[/unixtime]]
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning.

I'm just going to quote the relevant part again:

Catharz at [unixtime wrote:1119068292[/unixtime]]
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, [strong]POLYMORPH[/strong], and stunning.

Must suck to be a Volodni Druid. Oh, wait, it's their favored class. That's kind of a kick in the head.

--d.

For some reason, creatures immune to polymorph (but still legal targets for the spell) seem to be able to polymorph themselves.

But you're right, Volodni druid is completely pointless. If a druid wants to be a Volodni, they use Plant Wildshape.

Catharz wrote:For some reason, creatures immune to polymorph (but still legal targets for the spell) seem to be able to polymorph themselves.

Not exactly. In 3rd edition and the early 3.5 books (such as the first three core books), Immunity is defined as infinite SR or infinite Energy Resistance as appropriate. This means that self effects function normally and a character can voluntarily lower their immunity to be affected by something (so you can buff your own Golems, for instance).

In the MM3 they redefined Immunity to be that an effect with the appropriate tag has no effects at all on you - even secondary effects. So in the new write-up, a Winter Wolf can walk through a Wall of Ice.

Since the DMG2 is going to be Core, it seems a slam-dunk that liches and volodni will not be able to wildshape themselves in the core rules.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:
In the MM3 they redefined Immunity to be that an effect with the appropriate tag has no effects at all on you - even secondary effects.

Worst. Ruling. Ever.

Josh_Kablack wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:
In the MM3 they redefined Immunity to be that an effect with the appropriate tag has no effects at all on you - even secondary effects.

Worst. Ruling. Ever.

I don't know about that. It makes sense to me that red dragons can't fireball themselves, no matter how hard they try.

Unless of course you refer to the inconsistancy of randomly changes rules, in which case I totally agree.

Well I DO know about it, and that's crazy-town.

I can deal with Fire creatures not taking damage from a Wall of Fire, not even if they want to.

I could deal with liches not be able to Haste or Bless themselves if the designers could ever remember that's how it worked.

I can deal with Cold creatures not taking damage from the frigid air remaining after a Wall of Ice has been shattered, but I really can't deal with them walking right through the wall and leaving it undamaged.

I really can't deal with not getting your +2 to hit from Heroism when you're fighting giant centipedes.

I reall can't deal with using Shapechange into a Plant creature and then not being able to take abother form until the duration wears off.

And I damn sure can't deal with all the Fiend Folio golems, which now get to do all of the following:

Ignore any concealment from Obscuring Mist or similar spells
Walk straight through any wall spell - even duration INST walls like Wall of Iron.
Not take extra damage from swords with Greater Magic weapon cast on them.
Have opponents not get to-hit bonuses from spells like Bless, Heroism, Prayer, Greater Magic Weapon, Tenser's Transformation, Bull's Strength and so on.
Be totally immune to any natural weapons gained via Polymorph or Wildshape.
Be totally immune to any attack from Summoned or called monsters. In fact, they can freely move through squares occupied by such monsters and ignore cover granted by hiding behind such monsters.
Use use-activated magic items inside an Anti-Magic Field

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1119294481[/unixtime]]I could deal with liches not be able to Haste or Bless themselves if the designers could ever remember that's how it worked.

School me, Joshie. Why can't liches use haste?

Agreed, the secondary effects part is crap. I thought you were talking about the infinite resistance vs immunity part (or more precisely, the "can lower at will" part).

Josh_Kablack wrote:I really can't deal with not getting your +2 to hit from Heroism when you're fighting giant centipedes. (and numerous others)

Huh? Why would buff spells not work? The spell does not affect the golem/vermin/etc. after all.

Josh_Kablack wrote:I reall can't deal with using Shapechange into a Plant creature and then not being able to take abother form until the duration wears off.

Polymorphing rules being the multiply broken mess they are I tend to disregard any further problems with them as pointless.

Still, "infinite resistance" works much better overall. The only benefit to the MM3 solution is the "can't voluntary lower resistance" part, which could just as easily be a single sentence clarification to the old rule.

Zherog at [unixtime wrote:1119300487[/unixtime]]

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1119294481[/unixtime]]I could deal with liches not be able to Haste or Bless themselves if the designers could ever remember that's how it worked.

School me, Joshie. Why can't liches use haste?

Haste affects creatures and not objects.
Haste allows a Fort Save.

Thus, Haste does not affect any creature who doesn't have a Con score.

-Username17

There's gotta be more to it than that, though:

SRD wrote:A creature with no Constitution has no body or no metabolism. It is immune to any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless the effect works on objects or is harmless.

SRD wrote:Haste
...
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates (harmless)

Haste is harmless, therefore by the definition of what happens to critters with no con score it should affect the undead just fine.