Author Topic: Anthropomorphic Animal  (Read 23865 times)

Offline oslecamo

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Anthropomorphic Animal
« on: November 08, 2011, 05:09:36 AM »
Anthropomorphic Animal




HD: d8
Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Features
1 +1 +0 +0 +0 Hybrid body, What has magic done?, Animal prowess
2 +2 +0 +0 +0 What has magic done? Animal Skill
3 +3 +1 +1 +1 Animal power
4 +4 +1 +1 +1 Animal power
5 +5 +1 +1 +1 Animal apotheosis
6 +6 +2 +2 +2 Animal apotheosis
Class Skills (4+ Int Modifier,quadruple at 1st level):Balance, Climb, Jump, Hide, Knowledge(Nature or Dungeoneering), Listen, Move Silently, Sense Motive, Spot, Survival,  and Swim

Proficiencies: The antropormhopic animal is proficient with simple weapons and whatever natural weapons it acquires from this class.

Features:


Hybrid body:
At 1st level an antropormhopic animal  loses all racial bonuses it had and gains monstruous humanoid traits(basically darvision 60 foot) and has a base speed 40 ft. An antropormhopic animal is a medium or small(player's choice) bipedal creature and has two arms capable of fine manipulation. Also choose one of the classe's saves. That save becomes of good progression.

Aspect-wise it resembles a crossover between an human and one or more animal, the details of which are left to the player to specify depending on the choices it takes from now on.

Regardless, an antropormhopic animal has a natural armor bonus equal to its Con bonus.


What has magic done?:
At 1st and 2nd level the antropormhopic animal may select two of the following bonus.  Unless otherwise noticed no ability from this list may be picked more than once.

(click to show/hide)

Animal Prowess: At 1st level the AA gains +1 to two physical ability scores of it's choice. For every other level on this class it gains an extra +1 to the chosen scores, for a total bonus of +6 at 6th level.

Animal skill:
Choose one physical skill. The AA gains a bonus on that skill equal to it's HD. Alternatively, choose two physical skills, and the AA gains a bonus on those skills equal to 1/2 it's HD.

Animal power: At 3rd and 4th level select one of the following options. Alternatively select three more from the "What has Magic done?" option.

(click to show/hide)

Animal apotheosis:
At 5th and 6th level select one of the following bonus. Alternatively pick two from Animal power or six more from "What has magic done?"

(click to show/hide)

Comments
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« Last Edit: March 26, 2019, 02:26:47 AM by oslecamo »

Offline Anomander

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Re: Antropormhopic Animal
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2012, 05:28:14 PM »
What has magic done?

Just to be sure, is it supposed to grant 2 abilities at level 1 and another 2 at level 2 or two abilities over these two levels?

Fast: Not sure giving untyped +/HD speed increases is a good idea. Flat speed increases are really powerful as is and are good at all levels.

Blood Squirt: ...this ability sounds a little weird. Your enemy looks sickly and that scares you? Unless the opponent has hemophobia that should actually make him more confident in seeing that his enemy looks unwell. Not sure what typical of animal ability it tries to emulate. Should reorient the fluff toward those animal abilities normally seen to scare predators, like puffing your chest to double size, raising some kind of membrane around your head that looks scary or something like that.

Animal Prowess/BAB

Most of your other monster classes gaining +ability bonuses to physical abilities are usually getting them to compensate for a lower BAB. This class gets both a good BaB and constant increases to an ability score that will improve its chances to it. Seems imbalanced compared to the rest.

Animal power

Faster (and fastest): Same thing about scaling movement vs flat movement.
Size change: Might want to specify whether or not it function as a size increase/decrease as per the rules (+str,+nat armor,+con,etc) or if it only increases effective size and reach/space.

Stat increases
Is it normal that the AA abilities allows it to get a potential total gain of +26 throughout its ability scores at level 20 with 6 levels?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Antropormhopic Animal
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2012, 05:59:30 PM »
Yes, it grants 2 abilities at level 1 and another 2 at level 2. Why does everybody keeps asking that? :???

Flat speed increases really powerful? Don't get it. Expeditious retreat never seemed to break anything, and barbarians will happily swap their speed increase for other stuff. What's the worst that could happen?

There's actually a D&D animal somewhere that does have the blood squirt ability. Some lizard, based on a real life one, and it's more the suprise effect since icky stuff suddenly bursting out of somewhere is never nice. But puffing/inflating also sounds nice so I'll add those options for fluff terms. Ability renamed "scare predator".

Yes the AA gets both Str boosts and full bab, but has crappy proficiencies and the other classes usually get other sort of to-hit boosters like enachments and/or spells and stuff like that.

For what size changes do and don't do around here, check the FAQ. And  since we're at it, no, bloody no, the core rules do not say you get ability score boosts and nat armor for just a size change, that's only for monster advancment rules.  Otherwise enlarge person would be the ultimate low level buff. I still don't get it why half the people out there seem to think it applies to every size change ever when it only appears in the monster manual!

I don't mind the +26 since, again, the AA is low on magic stuff and if you burn your choices in score increases, you wonn't really be able to pick any of the scaling stuff.

Offline Anomander

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2012, 07:01:52 PM »
Quote
Flat speed increases really powerful? Don't get it. Expeditious retreat never seemed to break anything, and barbarians will happily swap their speed increase for other stuff. What's the worst that could happen?
Expeditious retreat requires a standard action to get, isn't permanent and doesn't stack with other effects like Haste. So it certainly doesn't break anything. Then again, the idea isn't to break stuff. I'm not giving attention to Flat increases but to scaling ones.

Great mobility is extremely advantageous. What Barbarians are ready to trade 10ft for depends... stuff like Pounce are a clear winner since since such abilities are good and much harder to get.

Quote
Yes the AA gets both Str boosts and full bab, but has crappy proficiencies and the other classes usually get other sort of to-hit boosters like enachments and/or spells and stuff like that.

Quote
Yes the AA gets both Str boosts and full bab, but has crappy proficiencies and the other classes usually get other sort of to-hit boosters like enachments and/or spells and stuff like that.
It has crappy proficiencies but those have no proficiencies at all but for their natural weapons.

Quote
For what size changes do and don't do...
Woah. Sorry.

Quote
I don't mind the +26 since, again, the AA is low on magic stuff and if you burn your choices in score increases, you wonn't really be able to pick any of the scaling stuff.
Not really. It grants it direct entry into magical divine power.
Ability scores scale in themselves as with the right combination of feats and class abilities they can be converted to increase almost anything.
Not minding the gains in themselves. I just find it an impressive number for 6 levels.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2012, 07:16:36 PM »
Quote
Flat speed increases really powerful? Don't get it. Expeditious retreat never seemed to break anything, and barbarians will happily swap their speed increase for other stuff. What's the worst that could happen?
Expeditious retreat requires a standard action to get, isn't permanent and doesn't stack with other effects like Haste. So it certainly doesn't break anything. Then again, the idea isn't to break stuff. I'm not giving attention to Flat increases but to scaling ones.

Great mobility is extremely advantageous. What Barbarians are ready to trade 10ft for depends... stuff like Pounce are a clear winner since since such abilities are good and much harder to get.
As Catty herself said here, flat speed boosts are overvalued.

Quote
Yes the AA gets both Str boosts and full bab, but has crappy proficiencies and the other classes usually get other sort of to-hit boosters like enachments and/or spells and stuff like that.
Quote
Yes the AA gets both Str boosts and full bab, but has crappy proficiencies and the other classes usually get other sort of to-hit boosters like enachments and/or spells and stuff like that.
It has crappy proficiencies but those have no proficiencies at all but for their natural weapons.
Usually those other monsters also get ranged suport of some sort like breath weapons that mean they don't need to rely only on their to-hit.

Quote
I don't mind the +26 since, again, the AA is low on magic stuff and if you burn your choices in score increases, you wonn't really be able to pick any of the scaling stuff.
Not really. It grants it direct entry into magical divine power.
Ability scores scale in themselves as with the right combination of feats and class abilities they can be converted to increase almost anything.
Not minding the gains in themselves. I just find it an impressive number for 6 levels.
If it was a flat +26 to one stat I would be worried, but since it's spread out over at least three stats, and people are calling it "impressive", I don't believe it needs changing.

Offline Anomander

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2012, 10:34:15 PM »
Quote
As Catty herself said here, flat speed boosts are overvalued.
I see her opinion but not its foundations on the matter. Whether that be true or not is another matter that can be judged by those who care about it.
Considering I do not, I'll agree with you that it might as well be left as such.

Quote
Usually those other monsters also get ranged suport of some sort like breath weapons that mean they don't need to rely only on their to-hit.
Might want to add "or no ranged combat aptitudes" to that guideline then:

5b-Extra scores should only be used if the monster is gaining minor abilities or has bad base statistics (low Bab, saves, no proefeciencies, no hands).

About the high BAB, it might be a good idea to give them a lesser BAB progression and add a What has magic done? ability that increases it to full, like the it does with the saves. Animals by default do not get a good BAB.

Quote
If it was a flat +26 to one stat I would be worried, but since it's spread out over at least three stats, and people are calling it "impressive", I don't believe it needs changing.
So be it. I'm mostly comparing it with the average power level you advise under your own guidelines. +22 split between two stats is a net gain of +11 each for 6 levels into the class. The +5 excess seemed out of form with your advice, since its almost four times the recommended amount.

5-Ability score increases shouldn't be more than +1 to any score in any level. You may take exceptions to this at 1st level in certain cases. No ability score penalties unless you have a very really good reason.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2012, 10:39:41 PM by Anomander »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2012, 06:51:26 PM »
Quote
Usually those other monsters also get ranged suport of some sort like breath weapons that mean they don't need to rely only on their to-hit.
Might want to add "or no ranged combat aptitudes" to that guideline then:

5b-Extra scores should only be used if the monster is gaining minor abilities or has bad base statistics (low Bab, saves, no proefeciencies, no hands).
The idea was more in the sense that a breath weapon always deals some damage and targets a save instead of AC. But added a commentary about it then.

About the high BAB, it might be a good idea to give them a lesser BAB progression and add a What has magic done? ability that increases it to full, like the it does with the saves. Animals by default do not get a good BAB.
The AA's a monstruous humanoid. :p

Quote
If it was a flat +26 to one stat I would be worried, but since it's spread out over at least three stats, and people are calling it "impressive", I don't believe it needs changing.
So be it. I'm mostly comparing it with the average power level you advise under your own guidelines. +22 split between two stats is a net gain of +11 each for 6 levels into the class. The +5 excess seemed out of form with your advice, since its almost four times the recommended amount.

5-Ability score increases shouldn't be more than +1 to any score in any level. You may take exceptions to this at 1st level in certain cases. No ability score penalties unless you have a very really good reason.
"Recommended". "Shouldn't". Those aren't hard guidelines. Heck, the Annis Hag can get you a whooping +13 bonus spread trough your scores with a single dip and some murdering spree!

Again, I believe those monster custom abilities are somewhat lacking compared to other monsters, so I seeked to make up for it with bigger than norm ability scores and full Bab (ok, the full bab is also partially because they're monstruous humanoids). I would rather see how it plays out in the Nintendo campaign before changing anything.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2012, 10:29:02 PM »
Scare predator is a lot weaker than all the other options. I'd make this usable once per encounter as a free action. Or make it do something worse than shaken on a failed save, like shaken on a successful save, and panicked on a failed one. I'd still keep it at once per encounter, though. Once you've seen the trick, it just isn't as scary...
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2012, 05:49:47 PM »
Weak? It affects everybody that can see you! Cause fear affects only one oponent,  Fear (for shaken if you save, frightened if you fail) is a 4th level spell and still only affects a cone.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2012, 05:55:57 PM »
Weak? It affects everybody that can see you! Cause fear affects only one oponent,  Fear (for shaken if you save, frightened if you fail) is a 4th level spell and still only affects a cone.
And both of those cause the target(s) to be Frightened if they fail their save, and Shaken if they make it. Shaken on a failed save (which is what Scare Predator does) is not worth an action, unless you are following it up with something that automatically causes them to be shaken again (and so stacks to Frightened).
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2012, 02:51:24 PM »
Fine, made frightened/shaken on a lose/save but reduced range to melee and 1/minute, plus duration is now 1d4 rounds for either.

Offline Zionpopsickle

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2012, 09:43:42 PM »
I have to echo the concern for the movement speed upgrades as well.  I have two main things concern me unless I am misreading something about the move speed increases.

1 )It is very frontloaded. At level 6 you can have a landspeed of well over 115ft.  If you combine this with sprint you can make a charge of 2300ft.  At this level it is actually incredibly powerful to be able to do such a thing since wizards don't even have dimension door yet.  Even at level 7 when wizards get their 4th level spells you can still chase down a wizard after their entire spell compliment of dimension doors. 

2)At higher levels it becomes mechanically difficult to track the amount of movement you actually have.  Your move speed will be 200 or so feet per round, with sprint making it 2000ft for the round or 4000 feet of charging.  Now this isn't too powerful when in the paradigm of scry and die but it makes for awkward mechanical association since you can literally charge a goose in Lincoln Park from Wrigley Field (to use Chicago geography as an example).  At this point teleportation actually makes more sense then being able to go from 0 to nearly 300mph and back to zero in 6 seconds.  You would need an acceleration of 40 something Gees minimum to do so and if you used something like acrobatic charge and lots of direction changes your character would literally have to experience Gee forces that should turn them into a fine mist.

Also, it should be noted that this 20th level character would run at literally supersonic speeds which again is not overpowered at that level but does make for logistical problems in traveling from place to place.

I think these speed increases are actually a bit too powerful at level 6-8ish and afterwards can just be a pain in the ass for adjudicating tactical combat since your character literally runs off the map every round if they want to.

Offline Rakoa

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #12 on: June 13, 2012, 08:23:10 AM »
Sonic boom, sonic boom...he's the fastest thing alive!!
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Offline littha

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #13 on: June 13, 2012, 11:09:05 AM »
At this point teleportation actually makes more sense then being able to go from 0 to nearly 300mph and back to zero in 6 seconds.  You would need an acceleration of 40 something Gees minimum to do so and if you used something like acrobatic charge and lots of direction changes your character would literally have to experience Gee forces that should turn them into a fine mist.

So you are perfectly fine with someone vanishing completely from one place and reappearing somewhere else and also apparently ok with Human/Animal hybrids but running super fast stretches your suspension of disbelief?

Besides that you could get those sorts of speeds even without using this sort of stuff.
Non-Homebrew D&D stuff gets you a Nezumi WereCheetah Monk/Battledancer/Barbarian and things if you want to be silly on your move speeds...

Note that 4000ft in 3 seconds (assuming the charge takes half of your 6 second action) is about 900 miles an hour (not taking into account acceleration/deceleration.) Not 300.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2012, 11:17:17 AM by littha »

Offline Zionpopsickle

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #14 on: June 13, 2012, 11:42:52 AM »
At this point teleportation actually makes more sense then being able to go from 0 to nearly 300mph and back to zero in 6 seconds.  You would need an acceleration of 40 something Gees minimum to do so and if you used something like acrobatic charge and lots of direction changes your character would literally have to experience Gee forces that should turn them into a fine mist.

So you are perfectly fine with someone vanishing completely from one place and reappearing somewhere else and also apparently ok with Human/Animal hybrids but running super fast stretches your suspension of disbelief?

Besides that you could get those sorts of speeds even without using this sort of stuff.
Non-Homebrew D&D stuff gets you a Nezumi WereCheetah Monk/Battledancer/Barbarian and things if you want to be silly on your move speeds...

Note that 4000ft in 3 seconds (assuming the charge takes half of your 6 second action) is about 900 miles an hour (not taking into account acceleration/deceleration.) Not 300.

Yes I am more ok with teleportation since causality works different in D&D and thus positional uncertainty on large scales for teleportation is reasonably allowable within associated mechanics.  The problem with high speed is that the creatures are still relatively flesh and blood and thus the effects of momentum and acceleration should still apply.  Just imagine said character hitting a grease spell while travelling 900mph.  They are now a sliding supersonic projectile (except of course they stop instantly over the course of this 10 feet which should cause them to literally combust from the friction).

The physics of teleportation are quite simply more reasonable then the physics of flesh and blood creatures being able to move at extremely high accelerations and speeds without magical assistance.

But again like I said, I really only think the speed is a problem mechanically for levels 6-8.  At higher levels I just have a fluff problem with associating any living creature moving at sustained mach speeds via simple muscle-power within the D&D paradigm.  And this is coming from someone who is a big fan of the Manwha Id.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #15 on: June 13, 2012, 12:16:36 PM »
First, sprint only works on land, and at levels 6-8 flying starts to kick in, so the wizard isn't particularly worried if you run circles under him.

And even if you're in a dungeon, you sure you want to move 2000 feet ahead of the party and risk running into some trap or hidden monster by yourself?

Geting all the speed increase abilities does make you a speed machine yes, but given the opportunity cost, you better become bloody fast if you ask me.


Finally, remember, that a wizard did create she. What Has Magic Done? :p

Offline littha

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #16 on: June 13, 2012, 12:28:46 PM »
The problem with high speed is that the creatures are still relatively flesh and blood and thus the effects of momentum and acceleration should still apply.

The same creature that can survive being immersed in lava or dropped from orbit? because those are things that mid-high level characters can do without magical assistance.

Offline Zionpopsickle

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #17 on: June 13, 2012, 03:00:34 PM »
First, sprint only works on land, and at levels 6-8 flying starts to kick in, so the wizard isn't particularly worried if you run circles under him.

And even if you're in a dungeon, you sure you want to move 2000 feet ahead of the party and risk running into some trap or hidden monster by yourself?

Geting all the speed increase abilities does make you a speed machine yes, but given the opportunity cost, you better become bloody fast if you ask me.


Finally, remember, that a wizard did create she. What Has Magic Done? :p

I would like to point out that you can make a vertical leap of around 200 feet as part of your charge which makes flying not as useful as you are implying. 

But as I said I don't have that big of a problem with it mechanically besides the frontloading that it seems to do.  Frankly, speed increases (counting teleportation etc.) tend to ramp up non-linearly past level 7, whereas this jumps discontinuously from 1-6 and then advances linearly.  But this is probably just me overthinking the math a bit.

One of the things I find funny is that you readily outrun your spot checks which tends to be kinda silly.

The problem with high speed is that the creatures are still relatively flesh and blood and thus the effects of momentum and acceleration should still apply.

The same creature that can survive being immersed in lava or dropped from orbit? because those are things that mid-high level characters can do without magical assistance.


But those are within the paradigm of all other mundanes, which I can accept.  All 20th level characters are superheroic and can do silly unreal things but few characters can move this fast without extensive use of magic and no one does it mundanely, so it falls outside of that paradigm. 

Looking back at it, I think I have a much bigger problem with sprint then the speed increases because its what gives you the ludicrous multi-thousand feet per round speeds.  And again, this is probably me being overcritical though.

Otherwise I do like it, which is probably why I am being so hard on it.  And supersonic bunny girls are a pretty awesome. :D


Offline bobthe6th

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #18 on: February 20, 2013, 12:31:04 PM »
Hmm... what do you think about adding the option for Animal apotheosis of one from animal power and three from What has magic done. Then again, you could just take both levels of animal power for 6 what has magic done, then spend one animal apotheosis to get them back.
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Anthropomorphic Animal
« Reply #19 on: February 21, 2013, 05:37:46 PM »
You can already do that. You simply swap one apotheosis for two powers, then one of the powers for 3xWhat Has Magic Done.