General Discussion and Sugestions

[oslecamo]

And the porting is now fully done! A big thanks for all the people who helped!

[bhu]

anything else i can do?

[Nanshork]

Hooray, fully ported!

[oslecamo]

anything else i can do?

Well, unless you're willing to search for typos or take a shot at the monsters in the waiting list, I have nothing else for you to do.

Thanks again for your suport!

[sirpercival]

Os, question.  In the Anthro Animal writeup, you have:

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.

The wording is a little unclear -- do you get 2 at each of 1st and 2nd level (so 4 total), or just 1 each (2 total)?

[oslecamo]

Two at first level and two at 2nd level for 4 total.

[Retrokinesis]

So is it just me, or do the werecreatures seem to be a lot weaker than any of the others? I mean, they replace your physical abilities completely and none of them have particularly amazing stat boosts. Especially since you don't get strength increases for growing in size, but you do get strength *penalties* for taking a smaller size (see weretiger). Spending extra transformations to grow larger only increases your natural weapon damage and makes you easier to hit, in addition to being a pain to use (you try fitting a colossal spider in a sewer ). Compared to base 3.5's werecreatures, with unlimited uses and additive stats, I'm not sure I'd take any of these templates over something like death knight or paragon.

[Nanshork]

That's why I wanted to put in that bit about picking what ability scores are best for the hybrid.

Furthermore:

Abilities

All lycanthropes gain +2 to Wisdom. In addition, when in animal form, a lycanthrope’s physical ability scores improve according to its kind, as set out in the table below. These adjustments are equal to the animal’s normal ability scores -10 or -11. A lycanthrope in hybrid form modifies its physical ability scores by the same amount.

"Official" lycanthropes NEVER have their scores lowered by changing into animal or hybrid forms.

I know all about this stuff, I wrote the official Lycanthropy guide.   

[oslecamo]

So is it just me, or do the werecreatures seem to be a lot weaker than any of the others? I mean, they replace your physical abilities completely and none of them have particularly amazing stat boosts. Especially since you don't get strength increases for growing in size, but you do get strength *penalties* for taking a smaller size (see weretiger). Spending extra transformations to grow larger only increases your natural weapon damage and makes you easier to hit, in addition to being a pain to use (you try fitting a colossal spider in a sewer ).

Here are my reasonings:
-Ability scores being replaced simply means you can dump your basic scores and invest them somewhere else.
-Even with those "penalties", Str 19 is pretty far from shabby.
-Raaghh, why does the only thing people think about with size categories is bloody str? 
Reach? Grapple? Trip? You actually get immune to some nasty effects (f*** you forcecage).  The fact you can now actually block a passage with your body?  Size =/= Str score damnit! 

Compared to base 3.5's werecreatures, with unlimited uses and additive stats, I'm not sure I'd take any of these templates over something like death knight or paragon.

Now this is a more relevant point. Following Nanshork's endless bickering interested sugestions, I added the following ability to all weres:


Ability:All lycanthropes gain +2 to Wisdom. In addition, when in animal form, a lycanthrope’s physical ability scores improve according to its kind, as set out in the table below. These adjustments are equal to the animal’s normal ability scores -10. A lycanthrope in hybrid form modifies its physical ability scores by the same amount.

Also this happens to screw over people who would dump their base str scores in a suposed bruiser character, but gently caress them.

[Retrokinesis]

Compared to base 3.5's werecreatures, with unlimited uses and additive stats, I'm not sure I'd take any of these templates over something like death knight or paragon.

Now this is a more relevant point. Following Nanshork's endless bickering interested sugestions, I added the following ability to all weres:


Ability:All lycanthropes gain +2 to Wisdom. In addition, when in animal form, a lycanthrope’s physical ability scores improve according to its kind, as set out in the table below. These adjustments are equal to the animal’s normal ability scores -10. A lycanthrope in hybrid form modifies its physical ability scores by the same amount.

Also this happens to screw over people who would dump their base str scores in a suposed bruiser character, but gently caress them.

That seems like a good balance between making your base stats useful and making the alternate form useful. Do those apply on top of the improved hybrid form attributes from higher HD? Also, want me to go through the animal base forms and figure out the stat bonuses? I noticed they're not added yet so I could save you the time if you like.

EDIT: So I went through and calculated the stat bonuses for all the different forms, and discovered some interesting things. Raw data is below, in the format +Str/+Dex/+Con = total stat modifier.

(click to show/hide)

Dire Badger: +4/+7/+9 = 20

Bear, Black: +9/3/+5 = 17
Bear, Brown: +17/+3/+9 = 29
Bear, Polar: +17/+3/+9 = 29

Cheetah: +6/+9/+5 = 19

Snake, Constrictor: +7/+7/+3 = 17
Snake, Small Viper: -4/+7/+1 = 4 or 8

Hydra: Smallest is huge not large, # of heads not specified.

Leopard: +6/+9/+5 = 20

Lion: +7/+7/+5 at medium, +4 str for large = 19 or 23

Lizard, Horned: -3/+2/+3 for tiny = 2 or 5
Lizard, Monitor: +7/+5/+7 = 19
Lizard, Crocodile: +9/+2/+7 = 18

Dire Rat: +0/+7/+2 = 9

Rhinoceros: +12/+0/+11 at medium, +4 str for large = 23 or 27

Spider, Hunter: +1/+7/+2 = 10
Spider, Weaver: Same

Tiger: +9/+5/+7, +4 str for large = 21 or 25

Basic Wolf: +3/+5/+5 = 13
Dire Wolf: +15/+5/+7 = 27

What I gather from this is:

• The dire rat, horned lizard, both spiders, viper, and basic wolf are all weaker than average, in terms of stat bonuses, while the upgraded bears, upgraded wolf, and rhinoceros are all stronger.
• It seems to be the size that's really messing with things. All the weaker ones are smaller, while all the more powerful ones are larger.
• The horned lizard and viper would actually have stat *penalties* if such were allowed.
• The mechanics for the werehydra are really confusing .

[Nanshork]

I'm going to wait until this is officially sorted out before I add it into my class.

1) Retrokinesis brings up a good point that I have no idea how to address without standardizing stat bonuses from hybrid form completely.

2) oslecamo, are you sure you want to add an extra +2 to wisdom for all the lycanthropes?  You know what balance level you're looking for better than I do, I just don't want you to add it because of my endless bickering interested suggestions.   

[oslecamo]

I'm going to wait until this is officially sorted out before I add it into my class.

1) Retrokinesis brings up a good point that I have no idea how to address without standardizing stat bonuses from hybrid form completely.

Alternate form isn't only about stat bonus. Is also about extra movement forms, nat armor, and the ocasional extra  Ex ability. Also gently caress standardization, otherwise I would've just made a single generic monster class and kept adding random chooseable abilities.


Horned lizard already had the advantage of having the spines ability, but now I noticed they can't start as tiny, so changed it to a custom horned lizard with medium size and base 12 str on top of the spines.

2) oslecamo, are you sure you want to add an extra +2 to wisdom for all the lycanthropes?  You know what balance level you're looking for better than I do, I just don't want you to add it because of my endless bickering interested suggestions.   

Yes I'm sure. It kinda makes sense, and it's not like divine casters will want to lose a level just for +2 Wis and an alternate form. What's the worst that can happen? People picking it up as monk?

[Hushblade]

a lycanthrope’s physical ability scores improve according to its kind, as set out in the table below. These adjustments are equal to the animal’s normal ability scores -10. A lycanthrope in hybrid form modifies its physical ability scores by the same amount.

Shouldn't the specifics be added to each specific lycanthrope page?

[oslecamo]

Ok guys, I guess I owe you all an apology. I had completely forgoten how my were classes were suposed to work (cheap pun!).

You see, one of the basis of this whole project is precisely to ditch the original massive ability score bonus. The lychantropes would simply give you some natural weapons, nat armor and movement modes plus some static bonus that varied little from one to the other, the ones in the table. But somehow I ended up naming the ability alternate form, which I didn't notice back then that it did grant the original creature's stats.

Not anymore. All lychantrope alternate forms now replaced by Were Form, that really doesn't care about the original animal besides looks. It only grants what's written on the class, no more, no less. It's how one of the players in my campaigns has been using it all along and it works pretty well. Actually it's thanks to him I figured  out I was just overcomplicating and overpowering things at this point. One level for +4 Str, +7 Dex and +9 con plus other goodies? What was I thinking, seriously.


Also something else I missed.

The mechanics for the werehydra are really confusing

What's to be confused about? You gain 1 extra head per WH level plus another for each non WH level, half that in Werehydra form, and you grow up more heads as you take damage.

[Nanshork]

That solves that problem right up.

oslecamo, most of the lycanthropes still have the Ability class feature listed under first level.  I got rid of it in Werebadger but you'll need to take it out of the rest.

[oslecamo]

Done!

Also happy Easter everybody!

[Daedroth]

Yo have 2 times Worg in the index.

[oslecamo]

Fixed.

[oslecamo]

Minor updates in a couple classes:

Gloom-now gains Trapfinding at 3rd level.

LeShay-Now Charming Eyes can replicate Charm Person at 3 HD, and gains fast healing equal to 1/4 HD at 4th level.

[sirpercival]

Can I request the Voidmind template?  Also, we need more monster feats.

I'll see if I can think of any.