Savage Species: Fuck you, you fucking fuck.

[Ted the Flayer]

Ten years ago this month, the gaming world was abuzz with news that WotC was releasing an update to its wildly successful 3rd edition of D&D (A version 3.5, if you will). The fanbase was abuzz with rampant speculation and accusations that anyone who disagrees must be performing fellatio on someone else for not agreeing with them (so basically, things were pretty normal as far as nerd interactions go. Nerds are like wolves with worse hygiene in that respect).

One out of two books featuring some of the 3.5 rules (a version 3.25 if you will) was Savage Species, supposedly a book that lets you play monster races. As I was always one to want to play as/be friends with monsters rather than slaughter everything in my path (because having a troll or a dragon or a pegasus as a friend and companion has always been high on my fantasy bucket list) I got this book with great expectations. What I got was a craptacular kick to the junk so hard my living ancestors felt it, and my future descendants will feel down to the 42nd generation.

Introduction

I normally skip over the introduction, but in this case it is relevant to the book. Remember, this was at the end of 3.0, and there were a lot of bombshells dropped in this one brief page. One of the big rules changes was that monsters now gained skills and feats just like players did. Whatever do I mean? Well, in 3E a monster only got feats every 4 levels, and just didn't get skill points for all their hit dice (for example, if you were huge a certain number of your hit dice "didn't count" for feats and skills). Don't remember? Probably because it was a stupid fucking rule and no one played that way. Another bombshell was the infamous 3.5 square horses. 3.0 mounted combat was simple, horses had two squares, you were on the ass square. Now horses take up 4 squares, and it's your guess where the fuck the rider is. I don't know who thought that was a good idea, but I want to strike them.

Also two monster types are now gone: shapechanger and beast. I get dropping the beast type (the only change was that druids could now have dinosaur animal companions, which I thought was awesome but caused entire legions of grognard jimmies to rustle. I seem to remember them being the same people that would tell you the rules were balanced because you could houserule them away, I wonder if anyone told them they could do that? Knowing people in general, they'd pull a reason why it was TOTALLY different out of their largest and sweatiest ass).

But I will never know why they dropped shapechanger and made it a subtype. People who hunt shapechangers are totally a thing in folklore. Now you can't make shapechanger bane weapons and such. I don't get it.

Next post will be chapter 1, and I am doing it tonight.

[Koumei]

I get dropping the beast type (the only change was that druids could now have dinosaur animal companions, which I thought was awesome but caused entire legions of grognard jimmies to rustle. I seem to remember them being the same people that would tell you the rules were balanced because you could houserule them away, I wonder if anyone told them they could do that? Knowing people in general, they'd pull a reason why it was TOTALLY different out of their largest and sweatiest ass).

I'd like to think that part of dropping Beast was the whole "A Beast is an imaginary (yet nonmagical) creature" followed by "Dinosaurs are Beasts". Implying that dinosaurs are completely imaginary. Which is even crazier than the Creationist stance.

[Ted the Flayer]

Chapter 1: Character Creation

This chapter is short, so I'll do chapter 2 as well tonight. By D&D splat standards, this would be a bit thicker than the paperback splats that 3.0 had, but slim by hardback standards of 3.5. There is a lot of bullshit in those few pages though.

It goes through step by step on how to make a monster character. Rule 0 is: ask your DM. I think that's goo advice, except don't play a monster character if he makes any noise about enforcing "roleplaying" penalties because it means he doesn't want you to play a monster character. Why DMs don't just say no I have no clue. I have been asked by my players for years if they can play trolls and I just say "No, I don't want you to play trolls" rather than let them then fuck them up the ass. I usually find buying them a couple drinks is more effective anyway. top of page 3 and I'm already on my second beer, this book might just fucking kill me.

Anwyay, it gives three choices: Take the stats out of the monster manual, add to +4s, two +2s and a -2 to your stats, or roll on a chart. Did you know if a monster had less than 8 in a stat in 3.0, you had to roll on a chart rather than just apply -4 for a 6, -6 for a 4, etc? Yeah, it was hosed back in the day. That's another positive thing in this book (the term "damning with fine praise comes to mind). [Note: It seems that this book uses a third, more retarded method: If your stat is 6 or below you don't get to roll and just take the stat how it is. Although if you have a score lower than 6 its a good place to sink your dump stat]

And that's it for chapter 1.



Chapter 2: Monster Characters

Okay, time for Giant Frog. What makes this maddening is that there's good advice in here, as if someone on the team know what the fuck they were talking about and someone else did not. If I was Frank, I'd be regaling you with tales of different authors and their propensity to be hacks and/or speculation on whether they wear giant shoes for comedic effect, but honestly I don't know anyone who wrote D&d books except Gygax and Arneson. Yeah, I suck at history, fuck off.

Anyway, the book correctly identifies that racial bonuses gain less relevance as you level up. Which is a deceptively great start, despite saying that an awakened deinonychus wouldn't make a good PC (like DAMHELLASS it wouldn't that's fucking awesome, and I think the author knows this).

Our first major mistake is the chart depicting monster skills per hit die. Outsiders and Undead do not have 2 skill points per hit die, they have 8 and 4 respectively. They didn't even had that in 3.0, this is a mistake pulled out of thin ass.

That careless mistake gets the reader's asshole nice and lubed up for the true cornholing: Level Adjustments. And let me tell you, they had something custom-made by Bad Dragon for you in this chapter. Here is a list of things that grant level adjustment:

1. Unbalanced hit die. The tome version of half orcs? Unbalances, level adjustment! Not having a constitution? Unbalanced, level adjustment! (because it's a good thing to not have bonus hit points per level. Oh wait...).

2. Being big! Because being surrounded by more things and being an obvious first target is awesome! Reach is handy, but that gets put in the player's hands by level 1...

3. Having natural armor! Having even one point gives you a level adjustment! Because that +1 to AC really breaks the game right in half!

4. Movement: Get this, the ability to swim doesn't grant a level adjustment, except if you use it in a game. I am serious as a motherfucking heart attack, this is what the fucking book says. climb also grants a +1 level adjustment because there isn't a first level spell that lets you climb for free.

[Note: I'm noticing a trend here, if the character can do something that a wizard can do at level 1 just because, it kicks you in the nuts. Also, extra strength and constitution are weighted for level adjustment purposes, but not mental stats. This book should have been titled "Fighters Can't Have Nice Things"].

5. Natural Attacks. So yeah, if the natural attacks can deal more damage than a fighter can do, LEVEL ADJUSTMENT! Never mind that natural weapons can't be enhanced easily, and that at high levels it won't be worth paying the constantly greater cost that level adjustment entails!

6. Racial skill bonuses! Three or more bonuses give you a level adjustment? Because a race that has +2 to spot, search, and listen is a totally munchkin race!

7. Miscellaneous! I'm going to point out the stupid here.
-Ability damage. You know, like what a wizard can do at level 1.
-Spellcasting ability above your hit dice is only +1 LA, ever! I'm writing a monster that grants 20th level spellcasting with 1 hit die!
-Spell resistance! Note that this book consider spell resistance to NOT stack with levels (although an argument could be made that it does), bu it gives +1 LA regardless of the amount! Which means you can be immune to magic at 1st level, not have spll resistance by 20th, and pay for your magic immunity over the next 19 levels!


I'm already drunk enough that i'm opening new beers before finishing the ones before them.

There's a couple of dumbass fumbling through calculating LA's for two monsters, ogres and kuo-toa. I would play ogres if allowed to, but who the fuck plays a kuo-toa? They're a bunch of deep one knockoffs that aren't even as cool as the OTHER deep one knockoffs (Sahuagin own your face and the faces of all the ones you love). I can only see two outcomes: either everyone plays sahuagin or no one (and if everyone is playing them, why apply LA at all? Bastards.

Then there's "intermediate" monsters, with similarly flimsy argument. A half Dragon gets +2 LA, PLUS another +1 for color of dragon? What the actual fuck? Can you take +2 and not pick a color? Fuck.

Note that according to this, drad Necromancrs get a LA adjustment. And regeneration makes you "unkillable" because there aren't regenerating things in D&D and you totally can't keep hacking at them to keep them down while someone makes a fire. And Nixies are totally balanced at 4th level while only have 1 hit dice, which I don't need to tell you doesn't actually work.

Now, advanced monsters. A level 1 psion is actually ECL 3. I'm dead serious, having psionic abilities is a +2 LA. Having the Wild Talent feat gives you an LA. Having a sonic attack? +2 LA, because WotC has a hardon for sonic attacks. So, 2nd level bards. Having a high turn resistance? LA! Because not getting annihilated or turned into an NPC's personal bitch with no save is something you should be penalized for!. I can't stress how ass-backwards that it. And wish grants you +3 LA. Sounds great actually, let me have Wish at 4 ECL, kit out the party in wish-related goodies, then kill/greyhawk the creature and let me re-roll. Except that monsters that can cast Wish are really high level (correct me if I'm wrong on that).

Note that Kytons are 14th level characters (?!), and Dretches are on the list. Who the fuck wants to play as a Dretch? Same as kuo-toa previously.

Note that they call the breakdown of their fucking stupid reasoning as the "acid test". Someone was definitely dropping something writing this.

Then there's a sample using a bugbear character. It makes me sad, because the illustration of the bugbear with the dreadlocks is pretty badass. A side note: this book is also the book of the Chain Shirt, because every other NPC has one. Reminds me of my first 3E group, where everyone thought chain shirt was bestarmor, and everyone wore one. That was before we discovered mithril breastplates and mithril full plate though.

That's it, I'm going to barf. More tomorrow night.

[CapnTthePirateG]

This book has it coming.

[hogarth]

The biggest problem with Savage Species is that it was doomed to failure from the start.

The idea of making 1-20 classes out of monsters is a reasonable one, but the level adjustment system was fucked up before a single word of Savage Species had ever been written. Any attempt to write a book that was compatible with the existing system was going to be equally fucked up.

[Silent Wayfarer]

I always thought that was because of Gygax's pro-(demi)human bias being carried over.

[Prak]

And he said that you shouldn't make a 1st level spell that was more powerful than magic missile, because magic missile was the "best spell".

True story, one of the guys in the game I'm playing at the moment cannot believe that I never prep Magic Missile, because he thinks it's some kind of gold standard. I've tried to express to him how little a shit I give about 1d4 auto-hit damage, and he doesn't get it. Sure, I used it once last session for lack of anything else to do, but I'm pretty sure I actually got more mileage out of the burning hands I used in the same encounter. And mind you, my character is a drow wizard, meaning "a kind of good level 3 wizard (with 2d4 extra hp because of a houserule) in an ECL 5 game." Once I get another feat, I may pick up Fell Weaken and prep magic missiles that sap strength damage and actually give a shit, but until then? fuck that spell.

[icyshadowlord]

I had totally forgotten how terrible this book was.

Thank you for the reminder.

[hogarth]

Anyway, the Savage Species system was badly broken by concept.

[..]

In an interview a while after Savage Species came out, Rich Redman said that he was instructed to [err] on the side of weakness for making monster characters on the grounds that players were going to figure out how to powergame that shit, and thus the "baseline" for a player character monster should be almost unplayably weak.

Yes, it was broken by concept, and yes, the level adjustments err on the side of weakness. But the blame should start with the book that introduced the broken concept and the principle of unplayably weak monsters in the first place, not with Savage Species.

[Slade]

I liked the angels Trumpet Archon (HD +2 =Clereic lv) and , they give you Cleric plus:
Full BAB, full cleric casting, spell abilities...how is this weak?

They only start being bad at level 14 when they stop granting Clerics levels (well because RHD slow down).

Yes, if you read what I wrote you note that Trumpets have 2nd level spells at 2nd level, 3rd level spells at 3rd level, etc, etc.
Sadly this slows as RHD slows.

[ishy]

And regeneration makes you "unkillable" because there aren't regenerating things in D&D and you totally can't keep hacking at them to keep them down while someone makes a fire.

This seems to directly conradict the advice given earlier in the Estimating Level Adjustment section. Where they say nobody cares about fast healing or regeneration at higher level because of death from massive damage. (Even though I've never actually seen a table who used that rule)

I get dropping the beast type [ . . . ]

I'd like to think that part of dropping Beast was the whole "A Beast is an imaginary (yet nonmagical) creature" followed by "Dinosaurs are Beasts". Implying that dinosaurs are completely imaginary. Which is even crazier than the Creationist stance.

Their revision spotlight articles actually did say almost exactly that.

Q: Why was the beast type removed from the creature list?

A: It was redundant and confusing. Originally, the animal type was for real-world animals. The beast type was for nonmagical but nonexistent creatures. The magical beast type was for fanciful, magical creatures. That sounded good, but then we started wondering why dinosaurs, which did exist, were beasts right alongside griffons, which we're pretty sure didn't. What if an existing animal became extinct? Would that shift it from being an animal to a beast? Why could druids and various spells that affect animals not affect dinosaurs or other "natural" beasts just because we didn't want them to affect fanciful ones?
In the end, we answered a lot of questions by putting real-world critters (along with their extinct and dire cousins) in with the animals they were most like. Those few fanciful beasts went into the magical beast category.

Another bombshell was the infamous 3.5 square horses. 3.0 mounted combat was simple, horses had two squares, you were on the ass square. Now horses take up 4 squares, and it's your guess where the fuck the rider is. I don't know who thought that was a good idea, but I want to strike them.

According to this article (see the horses part)one of the reasons was diagonal movement.

But I will never know why they dropped shapechanger and made it a subtype. People who hunt shapechangers are totally a thing in folklore. Now you can't make shapechanger bane weapons and such. I don't get it.

Probably because you want shapeshifters of different types, like devils, humanoids etc who are all shapeshifters.

And he said that you shouldn't make a 1st level spell that was more powerful than magic missile, because magic missile was the "best spell".

Sadly people still think this (see also prak's post). Here is what pathfinder said in their utlimate magic book

Magic Missile: Perhaps the best 1st-level spell in the game, magic missile may not do a lot of damage, but it requires no attack roll, has a medium range, needs no saving throw, and harms incorporeal creatures. Even if magic missile were 2nd-level, smart casters would still learn it.

Makes me wonder why they didn't make it a 2nd lvl spell in the first place.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

It goes through step by step on how to make a monster character. Rule 0 is: ask your DM. I think that's goo advice, except don't play a monster character if he makes any noise about enforcing "roleplaying" penalties because it means he doesn't want you to play a monster character. Why DMs don't just say no I have no clue.

Because by and large the people who want to play monsters aren't doing it for interesting role-playing experiences, it's because they want all the spotlights. All of them. They either think they have something figured out to where they will dominate combat and make everyone else look like shriveled-dick pansies by comparison (That they are usually wrong is neither here nor there), or they want to be the center of attention and getting run out of every town you go to is how they've decided to do it.

Yes, it's a bad idea, and it's stupid and passive-aggressive. But you didn't ask why it was a good idea; you asked why it was done. Everyone who I've encountered who wants to play monster races on a regular basis get off on game disruption and usually also confuse "Unique Character" with "Character type no one else has tried to play".

[Ted the Flayer]

Desdan:

Those are all really good reasons to say "no". Which was the actual question, why be a passive-aggressive dick when you can be an aggressive dick and tell them to fuck off? I've shot down repeated attempts by my players to play trolls and to play pixies, and I don't even feel bad. And no one has really questioned my reasoning.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Someone who's dedicated to making your game all about them under the best of circumstances is not likely to play nice just because you've seen through their cunning plan. On the contrary, they're likely to be even bigger, veinier, more throbbing dicks because you told them to stick to the same PHB races anyone can play. And sure, the best solution is probably to kick them out of your game, but it's not always that simple.

And again, I'm saying that you shouldn't be a passive-aggressive dick GM just because it's easier than other options.

[hogarth]

Those are all really good reasons to say "no". Which was the actual question, why be a passive-aggressive dick when you can be an aggressive dick and tell them to fuck off? I've shot down repeated attempts by my players to play trolls and to play pixies, and I don't even feel bad. And no one has really questioned my reasoning.

The idea is that, in the "typical" D&D campaign world (not a Rifts or Planescape-type "anything goes" campaign, e.g.), having a monster in the party is interesting once in a rare while, but it gets a bit silly if it happens too frequently. So how do you encourage players to play non-monster characters? One way is to put the monster PC at some sort of disadvantage.

I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, picking on the monster PC seems kind of dickish, but on the other hand I support the GM's right to manage the amount of silliness in his campaign world and at least picking on all monster PCs equally is impartial (as opposed to saying "Bob can play a pixie, but Joe can't play a troll because I said so").

[Tumbling Down]

And he said that you shouldn't make a 1st level spell that was more powerful than magic missile, because magic missile was the "best spell".

Sadly people still think this

Ever since Complete Mage told players that Acid Fog was a shit spell because it's "easily avoided by leaving the spell effect", I've just assumed that these people all play gruff dwarven fighters and never actually read any of the spell descriptions.

[Ted the Flayer]

Chapter Three: Monster Classes

This chapter is a short one. First off, love the artwork on the first page. And maybe it's just me, but the Minotaur breaking the fourth wall looks kind of seductive. I hear "'Sup, ladies?" in my head. Probably just me.

This chapter described the monster class, and like most things in the book it sounds like a good idea but turns to shit. And it is also saddled with the idea that you pay more at high levels for things you got at 1st level that don't matter anymore. The sample class is the Minotaur. Notice that even when adjusted for the +4 extra constitution, an 8th level minotaur has wizard HP, cleric BaB (which +8 str does slightly mitigate), and shit for skills. The minotaur has no role at 8th level, all the abilities are beatstick abilities but you don't have the HP to withstand a beating. You have a +4 AC over non-minotaurs which helps a little, but all in all it makes me want to piss. It is interesting how the class grants +2 dex at 1st level then later on takes it away from you. That is enough cocksuckery for now, let's move to the next chapter.

Chapter 4: Feats

Now we move to the feats. These feats are all over the fucking place, to say the least. There's a couple decent choices, but they tend to be a bit odd. I will briefly discuss them. The chapter artwork is the awesome dreadlocked bugbear again, with the half-orc iconic barbarian that always looks like he's in a cartoon and being scared shitless in every picture I see him in, which tells me that he is drawn that way on purpose.

Ability focus: This shows up a lot in 3.5. It's pretty standard, gives a +2 bonus to a save DC.

Area Attack: You have to be Huge or bigger, and you can attack everything you can reach in a half-circle. Note that the feat describes this ability as dealing "massive damage". Also note that the definition of "massive damage" is 1d8 + 1.5*str modifier. Also note it doesn't work on things bigger than 2 sizes smaller than you. This feat is so worthless it's painful.

Assume Supernatural Ability: I don't have a clue what this feat does, so I'm going to try my best. When you polymorph, you can use one of the form's (Su) abilities when you take its form. However, you get -2 to all d20 rolls and have to save Will DC 19 or not be able to use it at all in combat. I'm sure there is cheese here, but that's a lot of stupid bullshit. Why the penalty to d20 rolls? It seems retarded when you try to use it as intended, and not a deterrent if you're cheesing it.

[Sidebar fun: There's a sidebar telling DMs to fuck over monsters played by PCs and forcing them AND ONLY THEM to find exotic masters to train them for feats. Because getting a slightly better attack bonus is worth months of questing! Ass.]

Blowhard: Well, this feat certainly does blow. You blow as a standard action, and create a wind condition in a cone. Messes with small fliers but seems pretty useless.

Bonus Breath: You can use your breath weapon one more time a day. Is this needed? The only creature I can think of that breaths in times per day is the half-dragon.

Controlled respiration: If you suffocate outside of water, this doubles the time to die. For NPCs, but I can honestly think of a lot of things that doesn't tie up a feat slot that I can do to let sahuagin fight outside of water.

Crush: Gives you a crush attack like a dragon.

Cumbrous Dodge, et al: There are four of these feats. They all follow the same formula: good stuff now, crap later. Cumbrous dodge gives a +2 dodge bonus to your AC for the rest of the fight, after the fight you are fatigued for 8 hours. Cumbrous fortitude/will/reflex gives you +6 to one save, but afterwards you are staggered/prone and dazed/shaken. So yeah, they all suck big floppy donkey dick.

Deadly Poison; Doubles the secondary poison damage. Useless for players, hateful for DMs.

Deep Denizen: you get +2 to skills you don't give two shits about.

Desert Dweller: Drops the DC to avoid heatstroke by 5, lets you go longer without water. I'd say it's good if it's a desert campaign and your DM is focusing on survival and tracking rations and such.

Detach: This feat is fucking hilarious. If you regenerate, you can rip off a limb and throw it at someone.

Dust Cloud: It's half the Dragon's Hover feat. Lasts for rounds equal to 1 + dexterity modifier. Since most big things have really poor dexterity scores, this means it could potentially last 0 rounds or even negative rounds... And no, there is no "minimum of 1 round".

Empower Spell-Like Ability: This and others like it have been reprinted so many times with so many different functions it's just not funny anymore.

Extend reach: If you have a tentacle, you extend the reach. Popular in Japan.

Extra Item Space: This feat are sick. If you have an extra head or arms or something, you can take this feat and get more magic item slots. Except that most DMs will just let their ettins were two magic helms, their mariliths were 3 pairs of magic rings, and so forth.

Final Strike: If you're a DM and you're still pissed at your players for turning your boyfriend straight again [note: this actually happened in a game I played in], this is the feat for you. When the monster that takes this dies, it detonates and deals heavy damage.

Fling Enemy: I want to say that this feat was reprinted in Races of Stone. At any rate, you can fling an enemy and it takes heavy damage. Or you can fling it at something else and it takes half damage, and the target takes the other half. As tactically interesting as this feat is, shouldn't big things be able to throw small beings without a feat?

Gape of the Serpent: Improves your swallow whole ability. Taken exclusively by high-level rogues.

Grass Trekker: You get a crappy bonus to jump checks, but get the ability to walk 12 hours a day without making fortitude checks. I've played in games where that came up, actually. I would rather get the ability by putting it in an item of some sort rather than setting a feat on fire, but I can see the use.

Great Flyby Attack: When you use the flyby attack, you can hit as many targets as you have dexterity bonus. How did a good feat slip in here?

Multigrab, and Greater Multigrab: Reminds me of a dragon's improved snatch. Wait what? Reduces the penalties to grapple someone without being considered "grappled" yourself, can reduce it all the way to nothing with two feats.

Multiweapon fighting, Greater Multiweapon fighting, etc: Like two weapon fighting, except with more than two weapons. If you 3.5-ize the feat to not require multidexterity, it's a great feat to give to multilimbed rogues.

Mighty roar, greater mighty roar: Like the Ki Shout feats from Oriental Adventures, except designed with animals in mind.

Improved Assume Supernatural Ability: You no longer have the -2 to d20 rolls when you polymorph. Except as we had established earlier, you don't actually care about the -2 to rolls.

Improved flyby Attack: You no longer provoke attacks of opportunity when using flyby attack. Allows dragons to hit and run better with physical attacks if they are so inclined.

Improved Multiattack: You no longer get penalties to your secondary natural attacks. Now, why can't they do this for two weapon fighting? Asses.

Improved Turn resistance: Like in Libris Mortis. NEXT.

Improved Web: I like this feat, actually. You get +2 to your web save dc, AND it lets you web up one more target per point of dex modifier. I kind of like monstrous feats that add on to existing abilities in a way that makes sense and adds depth to the creature.

Inured to Energy: Your energy resistance increases by +10 to a certain type. It only applies to existing resistances. Too bad, it would add some interesting features if you could just take it and get 10 to one type of energy resistance.

Involuntary Rage: It gives you barbarian rage, but only when you take 50 or more points of damage from a single attack. It's an interesting idea, but chances are if you have more than 50 hit points then you're not in a situation where barbarian rage would benefit.

Irresistible gaze: You get a +2 to the DC of your gaze attacks. Stacks will Ability Focus. Pretty snazzy.

Mighty Leaping: Gives you +10 to jump checks, and lets you reduce falling damage by 20 feet with a jump check. Note that halflings qualify for this feat if they boost their strength a bit with no ranks in jump needed.

Multitasking: It's a sneaky way to get extra actions if you have 4 or more hands. Silent Spell allows multiple spells at once

Multivoice: You can cast more than 1 spell per round with you have silent spell, which makes it less powerful than Multitasking, but there are few monsters with both 4 arms and 2 heads so you won't be able to pick between them. Brotip: be a wizard and polymorph into that two-headed girallan you fought after taking both of the feats. Fun for the whole family.

Narrowed Gaze: It allows a creature with a gaze attack to choose to only affect with an active gaze. It's useful if you want to have a medusa crimelord with lots of minions that she doesn't want to turn to stone.

Pain Mastery: Every 50 points of damage you take, you get +2 str until the end of the encounter. Since the BoVD was printed before this, I'm pretty sure Masochism existed already which was a much better bonus without being forced to take the feat.

Peak Hopper: +2 to 2 skills. NEXT.

Pervasive gaze: If your opponents avert their gaze to fight you, they only have a 25% chance to not be forced to save rather than 50%. It sounds nice, but I don't recall anyone averting their gaze in my game, they either close their eyes, look the thing in the eye because their fortitude save is off the RNG, or they just blind the gazer somehow. Note that it seems to think you can avert your gaze from beholder eyerays because it mentions them as not getting the bonus. I'm pretty sure no one thought that, Book.

Piercing Gaze: Add 30 to the range of your gaze attack. Savage Species is giving a lot of medusa lovin' this chapter. The authors must have a thing for scalies.

Poison Immunity: If you're poisonous, you gain immunity to all poisons. That seems very limited in utility. You have to take the shitty Poison Resistance to get this. I don't think that most players will want it.

Power Dive: Hey, I remember you! Like I said in the Draconomicon review, it pales in comparison to what simply flinging yourself bodily at someone from a high place can do.

Prehensile Tail: Your tail becomes a third hand. You can wield a weapon in it, and you get a bonus to climb and grapple. Lets you qualify for multiweapon fighting feats (although you still have to take multiweapon fighting despite having two weapon fighting already. Although you wouldn't take improved multiweapon fighting every anyway).

Quickchange: Lets you speed up your alternate form ability.

Quicken Spell-Like Ability: See Empower Spell-Like Ability.

Rapid Breath: See Draconomicon.

Rending Constriction: If you are constricting and have lots of limbs, lets you rend the victim, but it ends the grapple. Not really worth it.

Reverberation: Adds +2 to the DC of a sonic attack.

Roll With It: gives you Dr 2/-. I remember the outrage over this feat about how supposedly overpowered it was that a dwarf fighter could get DR 2/- at level 1! THE SACRILEGE! I let a fighter take it, and we barely noticed it.

Scramble: Lets you make a reflex save versus an attack that would kill you, but only works once a day.

Stamp: Like the feat in draconomicon, but you don't have to be a dragon to take it. Knocks things down around you, good with a huge reach weapon and lots of attacks of opportunity.

Supernatural Transformation: converts a spell-like ability to a supernatural ability. Handy for beating spell resistance, used in a lot of builds.

Surrogate Spellcasting: This book totally made a rule up that you had to have hands and a human voice to cast spells, then it makes a feat to overcome it. Seriously, was there any DMs that didn't let dragons and unicorn clerics and shit just cast spells without taking a feat?

Swamp Stalker: Two words: Shit Stalker.

Thick-skinned: Increases existing DR by +2. Supposedly this was another feat that fighters weren't supposed to take. It's not a fighter bonus feat, so I'm not sure we care, that's a maximum of DR 12/- at level 18. A CR 18 monster does more damage than that hacking a loogie at something.

Thunderclap: you clap your hands and it deafens and knocks down everything in a cone in front of you. Has Improved Unarmed Strike as a prerequisite for some reason but it's an interesting feat. It has uses that aren't stupid, it seems effective enough. I let it pass.

Treefriend: Friend? Sistah, all the elements of harmony couldn't make this feat not suck (+2 to two skills). NEXT.

Uncanny Scent: You can pinpoint things with your scent up to 20 feet away. That's pretty good, actually.

Vicious Wound: Increases damage per round of wound damage by 1. You don't care.

Virulent Poison: +2 to your poison save DC. Stacks with Ability focus.

Wingstorm: Like in Draconomicon.

Winter's child: Like the desert version of this feat. Useful if you can get it put into a wondrous item or armor or something, but don't take it.

That's it for tonight.

[wotmaniac]

oops -- wrong thread

[Ted the Flayer]

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54075

Prak started a new thread discussing pun-pun here. I'd prefer further discussion of the legitimacy of the build be taken to that thread. It bears further debate, but I'd rather it not hijack my thread.

[wotmaniac]

sorry 'bout that.

thanks - I hadn't seen it.

[Koumei]

I'm not sure it does warrant further debate. What is this, WotC forums, 2005?

Gape of the Serpent: Improves your swallow whole ability. Taken exclusively by high-level rogues.

That bit actually made me laugh. You're right that there are a few gems, and a few things that could have been gems, they were good ideas, but were just made shit.

Alongside the Trumpet Archon, I'd say the Eladrin that turns into a laser disco ball is pretty good for a substantial part of it's career. Like, starting at low level, you could bank on the LA never crippling you in the actual campaign.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hmm. Some of those feats look like they'd be really useful for my Crypts of Chaos PC. Maybe I should rethink my plans for level 3.

[fectin]

Area Attack: You have to be Huge or bigger, and you can attack everything you can reach in a half-circle. Note that the feat describes this ability as dealing "massive damage". Also note that the definition of "massive damage" is 1d8 + 1.5*str modifier. Also note it doesn't work on things bigger than 2 sizes smaller than you. This feat is so worthless it's painful.

Isn't "massive damage" the keyword for fortitude save or die? it's probably a piddly save, but if so, that's not completely shite.

[Prak]

Massive damage is DC 15 vrs death. I think it was intended to help martial characters compete with spellcasters, but was written in exactly the wrong way to do so. Martial characters, other than rogues, are unlikely to do 50 damage in a single hit, at least without a ton of buffs. Then there's the fact that it's only DC 15. Assuming that you're dealing with an opponent that can actually fail that save, the wizard can probably drop a 50 point fireball on them.

I don't see "massive damage" anywhere in that feat description, but tt's a shitty feat anyway. That kind of attack should just be what happens when a huge or larger creature (or creature with sufficient strength) wields a large enough improvised weapon. In fact, it only takes 200 lbs to deal 4d6 damage. A large tree could easily weigh that much, and be large enough to sweep in at least a 20' radius arc. I can almost kind of see requiring the feat to do the sweep attack, but only because "FEATS!" is the fighter class ability. I'd rather give the fighter a half decent, actually unique ability, and just say "if you have str 40, you can swing 20' long, 200# columns in an arc and do area damage at 4d6"

[K]

The Cumbrous X line is actually not terrible if you have a way to be immune to the negative status effect. For example, immunity to fear is tossed around like free candy, so getting that and just taking two feats for a +8 to all Will saves forever is not a terrible waste of feats.

Assume Supernatural Ability is not just for the far-flung Polymorph future, but for Alter Self. There are worse thing than being a Necropoliton who changes into a Vampire Spawn for the Domination Gaze, or an Tielfling who dumpster dives for the crazy number of Outsiders with weird powers ranging from free Teleports to planeshifting to paralyzing gazes.