Feral Template

[Smorgonoffz]

Does a player's hit dice ,when he has the feral template, count as monster hit dice regarding the special abilities/qualities ? .
In any event include reasons for both the yes and no

[Chaosvii7]

The template changes the base creature into a Monstrous Humanoid if it isn't already. That impact relies on their base race and racial hit dice; It's still humanoid for all intents and purposes, but every racial hit die it had would be turned into a d10. If it did not have racial hit dice(such as hit dice from a class), those would not be affected. However, because the wording of the template is so poor, you COULD interpret it that it changes all hit dice to a d10(Because they forgot to clarify what kind of hit dice could be changed; A rather large oversight, considering that they usually mention it in a good number of templates).

RAW; You change all of your hit dice into d10s.

RAI; You change all of your racial hit dice into d10s.

Interpretation is up to both you and/or your DM.

[Smorgonoffz]

Thanks, but i just forgott to add to the initial post this little tidbit " regarding the special abilities/qualities"

[Chaosvii7]

Thanks, but i just forgott to add to the initial post this little tidbit " regarding the special abilities/qualities"

OH, you mean the chart that gives them special abilities? That scales with total hit dice. It's not really in a grey area; The racial hit die thing is in a section that classically mentions when it uses racial v. total HD, but as far as special abilities or qualities go if they don't mention scaling with racial HD then they do. If you want a technicality to justify it, the base creature the template used was a Minotaur; The monster's entry mentions that to advance it, you do so by giving it a character class, which means that the only way it'd gain more HD is to level up as a fighter, or barbarian, or a cleric or something. While there are a small handful of stat blocks that just don't work(mostly for prestige class characters; Check the Dysfunctional Rules thread for more info on that if you're interested), this one is actually in check.

TL;DR, those abilities scale with total HD because there's no mention of them scaling specifically with racial HD and the base creature doesn't advance with racial HD, making the example creature pointless if it can't fully benefit from the template.

[Red Fel]

See, I disagree. I love the ability package that Feral comes with - pounce, rend, improved grab, darkvision, fast healing; it's a whole lotta love, and I love it.

But the problem is the language. See, it doesn't say it scales with your hit dice. What it actually says is:
Special Attacks: A feral creature gains additional special attacks depending on its Hit Dice, as shown on the table below. It gains the special attacks indicated in the row corresponding to its monster Hit Dice, plus all those in previous rows. If the base creature possesses a duplicate ability, the feral creature uses whichever version of the ability is better.
(Emphasis added.)

The first commend is generic, referring to Hit Dice. Could be anything, I grant you. But the second specifically refers to "monster Hit Dice," or RHD. In other words, the template draws its special attacks from your pre-existing RHD, not your subsequently-acquired character levels.

Further, since you generally don't gain new RHD, but rather start with a fixed set, those abilities aren't going to scale upwards. If you have any RHD, that's pretty much all you'll have, and thus those abilities derived from RHD when you take the template are all you'll get.

[Coidzor]

See, I disagree. I love the ability package that Feral comes with - pounce, rend, improved grab, darkvision, fast healing; it's a whole lotta love, and I love it.

But the problem is the language. See, it doesn't say it scales with your hit dice. What it actually says is:
(Emphasis added.)

The first commend is generic, referring to Hit Dice. Could be anything, I grant you. But the second specifically refers to "monster Hit Dice," or RHD. In other words, the template draws its special attacks from your pre-existing RHD, not your subsequently-acquired character levels.

Further, since you generally don't gain new RHD, but rather start with a fixed set, those abilities aren't going to scale upwards. If you have any RHD, that's pretty much all you'll have, and thus those abilities derived from RHD when you take the template are all you'll get.

Is monster HD actually defined to mean RHD anywhere or is it one of those places where between the drunk writers and drunker editors we haven't the foggiest what they were thinking at the time?

[Necroticplague]

Assuming that "monster HD=RHD", which seems relatively reasonable, than only RHD counts for special attacks, but any HD, even from class level, counts for special qualities. This is because the special quality section teads


A feral creature gains additional special qualities depending on its Hit Dice, as shown on the table below. If the base creature possesses a duplicate ability, the feral creature has whichever ability is better.
No mention of racial or monster HD.

[Red Fel]

Assuming that "monster HD=RHD", which seems relatively reasonable, than only RHD counts for special attacks, but any HD, even from class level, counts for special qualities. This is because the special quality section teads


No mention of racial or monster HD.

True. So you get the Darkvision and Fast Healing, and that's nice.

But let's be honest. You didn't open the delicious, broken mess of 3.0 that is Savage Species for Darkvision and Fast Healing. You want Pounce.

And you're not getting any Pounce.

[Necroticplague]

True. So you get the Darkvision and Fast Healing, and that's nice.

But let's be honest. You didn't open the delicious, broken mess of 3.0 that is Savage Species for Darkvision and Fast Healing. You want Pounce.

And you're not getting any Pounce.

Eh, darkvision is meh, but fast healing is always useful to let a melee keep on trucking. Honestly, I've mostly taken feral for the natural armor and oversized claws. Even missing those special attacks, it manages to be one of the better melee templates.

[PraxisVetli]

True. So you get the Darkvision and Fast Healing, and that's nice.

But let's be honest. You didn't open the delicious, broken mess of 3.0 that is Savage Species for Darkvision and Fast Healing. You want Pounce.

And you're not getting any Pounce.

Aha, ahaha, oh man.
This made me lol so hard. A point to you sir.


Also, yeah, totally off RHD. Though, I'm trying a deal with my DM that trades the d10 HD, Fast Healing and Natural Armour to keep the Special Attacks running of all HD.

Maybe you could try that, though that's a whole ball of Houserule.

[Red Fel]

Eh, darkvision is meh, but fast healing is always useful to let a melee keep on trucking. Honestly, I've mostly taken feral for the natural armor and oversized claws. Even missing those special attacks, it manages to be one of the better melee templates.

Well, this is actually a fair point. Let's see what the template gets you, aside from the special attacks based on RHD. Stat modifiers. Boosts to Str, Con, and Wis (!), penalties to Dex and Int. This is actually noteworthy - templates that boost physical abilities tend not to boost things like Wis, which could be useful for a Monk or divine caster. Natural armor, claw attacks, boost to land speed. These are automatic, and not tied to any kind of HD (although the claw damage is tied to size), so enjoy them. Special attacks based on RHD. Ignore. Special qualities based on HD, but not explicitly RHD. Gray area, but Darkvision is useful, and as Necrotic mentions, Fast Healing is helpful for melees.
So, for +1 LA, you're guaranteed the stat modifiers, the natural armor, the claw attacks and the land speed boost. You may also get Darkvision and Fast Healing. It's not a terrible exchange.

But let's consider. You're not just in it for the physical stats. If you were, you'd take Lolth-touched, and for the same LA you'd get +6 to Str and Con, and no stat penalties. (Also you'd be CE, but let's face it, all PCs are CE at heart.)

If you wanted a natural attack with a bunch of features, you'd take Half-Minotaur, become a Large, get boosts to natural armor and physical stats (both from the template and the size bumb), get a gore attack, Darkvision, Scent, and Track as a bonus feat.

Or, you could take Half-Ogre, get the size and stat increases, natural armor, and the Giant's Blood feature, which allows you to take the +0 LA Primordial Giant template on top of that, which will give you an at-will SLA, and help shore up some of your mental penalties.

Or, you could take Mineral Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e), gain a burrow speed, DR, and natural armor, plus a bunch of mental penalties.

Yes. Feral gets you natural armor and weapons, guaranteed. It is a stable melee choice. But it's not going to get you nearly as much as it would if you had RHD, and there are other templates out there, not based on RHD, that can get you an awful lot.

[Oddman80]

See, I disagree. I love the ability package that Feral comes with - pounce, rend, improved grab, darkvision, fast healing; it's a whole lotta love, and I love it.

But the problem is the language. See, it doesn't say it scales with your hit dice. What it actually says is:
(Emphasis added.)

The first commend is generic, referring to Hit Dice. Could be anything, I grant you. But the second specifically refers to "monster Hit Dice," or RHD. In other words, the template draws its special attacks from your pre-existing RHD, not your subsequently-acquired character levels.

Further, since you generally don't gain new RHD, but rather start with a fixed set, those abilities aren't going to scale upwards. If you have any RHD, that's pretty much all you'll have, and thus those abilities derived from RHD when you take the template are all you'll get.

yeah.... but your type has been changed to Monstrous Humanoid. You ARE a monster. Any HD you have as a Monstous Humanoid would be Monster HD.

I find it odd how complicated people make things for themselves; Creating all sorts of nuanced interpretations that aren't there. Deciding that a Monstrous Humanoid's Monster HD must refer to some third thing that is never mentioned by name in the entire entry... now that is a stretch.

[Smorgonoffz]

monstruos hit dice are the hd you have as a monster/monster class.

[Red Fel]

yeah.... but your type has been changed to Monstrous Humanoid. You ARE a monster. Any HD you have as a Monstous Humanoid would be Monster HD.

I find it odd how complicated people make things for themselves; Creating all sorts of nuanced interpretations that aren't there. Deciding that a Monstrous Humanoid's Monster HD must refer to some third thing that is never mentioned by name in the entire entry... now that is a stretch.

Not quite. Any HD you get from classes are, well, HD from classes, not HD from your race.

Even if we accepted that, for a monstrous humanoid, your HD are all "monstrous," any HD you gain from classes aren't monster HD. They're class HD. Monster HD are racial HD, RHD, which come before everything else.

Consider, for example, the fact that:
A monstrous humanoid has the following features. 8-sided Hit Dice. Base attack bonus equal to total Hit Dice (as fighter). Good Reflex and Will saves. Skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die.
However, as soon as you take your first class level, those hit dice change. That BAB changes. Those Reflex and Will saves, those skill points, they all change. The only way you keep them is if you have pre-existing RHD; your class levels overwrite the rest.

Short version: Your HD from classes are distinct from your racial HD. While the passage does not explicitly refer to racial Hit Dice, it does refer to monstrous Hit Dice, and those are more likely to be RHD (which come explicitly from being a monster) than class HD (which you allege are monstrous by merit of being nonhumanoid).

I just don't see your argument.

[Oddman80]

per SRD on the subject of playing monster races:
The creature’s Hit Dice equal the number of class levels it has plus its racial Hit Dice

In this regard, creature = monster, as the entire section is about playing monsters. So Monster HD = Creature HD = Class Level + Racial HD.

nowhere in srd does the term "monster" indicate that it ONLY refers to racial.

The whole point of the template allowing abilities over the course of the character's progression is to keep it as a +1 template. It prevents all of the abilities from coming into play at beginning levels. but as your feral monster melee character advances in the game it gets some extra perks along the way. Not breaking the +1 LA, as the rest of the characters at those levels have all gotten significantly stronger as well.

[Jeff the Green]

per SRD on the subject of playing monster races:
The creature’s Hit Dice equal the number of class levels it has plus its racial Hit Dice

In this regard, creature = monster, as the entire section is about playing monsters. So Monster HD = Creature HD = Class Level + Racial HD.

nowhere in srd does the term "monster" indicate that it ONLY refers to racial.

The whole point of the template allowing abilities over the course of the character's progression is to keep it as a +1 template. It prevents all of the abilities from coming into play at beginning levels. but as your feral monster melee character advances in the game it gets some extra perks along the way. Not breaking the +1 LA, as the rest of the characters at those levels have all gotten significantly stronger as well.

I tend to agree with this. Unless there's some indication that "monster hit die" is equivalent to RHD, I think it should be read as "monster's hit die".

[kkplx]

You gain the special qualities: Fast healing and Darkvision.

You do not gain pounce, rend etc.

The first by RAW scales with total HD, the second with racial (monster because 3.0) HD.

Any DM with some sense in him should make you pay a +2 LA even without houseruling you gaining the special attacks, because the template is WAY too good for +1 without some limitations.

[Curmudgeon]

Is monster HD actually defined to mean RHD anywhere or is it one of those places where between the drunk writers and drunker editors we haven't the foggiest what they were thinking at the time?
As for the definition issue, while it lacks a Glossary section, Savage Species makes the meaning of this term very clear earlier in the book. There are numerous references, so I'll only cite the first few. In the section BASICS OF MONSTER CHARACTERS, on page 7:
7. SELECT SKILLS
Adding a class level to a monster is a lot like multiclassing. The monster does not get four times the normal skill points for its first class level unless it had 1 or fewer monster Hit Dice. Otherwise, its monster kind counts as its first class. Also in the QUICK AND DIRTY rules for making a monster character (page 12):
Do not multiply the base skill points by 4 for your first class level, because your monster character is not a 1st-level character if you kept its monster Hit Dice. There's a very clear distinction of the term from class-based hit dice on page 17, under TEMPLATES AND CLASSES:
If the template changes skill points, as the half-celestial template does, the change applies to skill points gained from monster Hit Dice and not to skill points gained from classes. Also from Spellcasting and Monsters (page 18):
However, companion creatures that use the master’s base attack bonus or base save bonuses use the values accumulated from all the master’s levels (including all class levels and monster Hit Dice). For a more recent citation outside of Savage Species we can turn to the official SRD (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35), in the Improving Monsters section:
Ability Score Improvement: Treat monster Hit Dice the same as character level for determining ability score increases. This only applies to Hit Dice increases, monsters do not gain ability score increases for levels they “already reached” with their racial Hit Dice, since these adjustments are included in their basic ability scores.

[Oddman80]

snip

Thank you Curmudgeon. However only the 4th quote actually distinguished the two as separate. The first three don't distinguish that monster hit die are equal only to racial hit die, because in both situations, the monster in question has not yet taken any classes. I was saying that the SRD seems to make clear that Monster Hit Die = Racial Hit Die + Class Level hit die.

[Rijan_Sai]

Don't know if it's relevant,*but Hero Forge automatically adds the special attacks regardless of RHD.

*Probably not, but it's there...

[Red Fel]

Thank you Curmudgeon. However only the 4th quote actually distinguished the two as separate. The first three don't distinguish that monster hit die are equal only to racial hit die, because in both situations, the monster in question has not yet taken any classes. I was saying that the SRD seems to make clear that Monster Hit Die = Racial Hit Die + Class Level hit die.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "the SRD seems to make it clear." There is an assumption in your comments, and that assumption is as follows: Monster Hit Dice are the Hit Dice possessed by a monster. Your comments basically say that RHD + Class HD = Character HD (which is true), and if the character is a monster, then Character HD = Monster HD (which is the assumption), and that therefore Monster HD includes Class HD (which is only true if the assumption is true).

In no way does the SRD make that "clear." One could certainly interpret the SRD to say that, as you do, but it is not self-evident or apparent on its face. Indeed, Curmudgeon's post strongly supports a conclusion that, in 3.0, "monster Hit Dice" meant the same as the 3.5 term "racial Hit Dice." The SRD, being 3.5-oriented, would not necessarily use the outdated terminology, certainly not in the same way.