Considering the Musteval Familiar ...

[schreier]

And in reading through, came across a couple confusing things. I'm guessing I should just ignore them, but:

Size: They are listed as tiny. They are also listed as 2' tall and 30 lbs.

If you check the size table in the SRD, you see:
Tiny Height 1 ft. - 2 ft. Weight 1 lb. - 8 lb.
Small Height 2 ft. - 4 ft. Weight 8 lb. - 60 lb.

Seems to fall clearly in the "Small" realm - hard to see a 30 pound mouse person as tiny? 30 pounds seems pretty uncomfortable to be perched on your shoulder too :)


It also says "Clever use of their change self ability usually keeps their animalistic features concealed when dealing with other creatures."

They do not seem to have a change self ability? I'm guessing it was removed, but just confirming I'm not missing anything.

[Feantar]

Size: They are listed as tiny. They are also listed as 2' tall and 30 lbs.

If you check the size table in the SRD, you see:
Tiny Height 1 ft. - 2 ft. Weight 1 lb. - 8 lb.
Small Height 2 ft. - 4 ft. Weight 8 lb. - 60 lb.

Seems to fall clearly in the "Small" realm - hard to see a 30 pound mouse person as tiny? 30 pounds seems pretty uncomfortable to be perched on your shoulder too :)


The simplest explanation, not a satisfactory one mind you, would be that the 2' tall and 30 lbs is for their small advanced form. Maybe rule that their tiny form is 1.5' 8 lbs or something?



It also says "Clever use of their change self ability usually keeps their animalistic features concealed when dealing with other creatures."

They do not seem to have a change self ability? I'm guessing it was removed, but just confirming I'm not missing anything.

Change self, in 3.5, was changed to disguise self, which they do have. Musteval's are from Book of Exalted Deeds, which was 3.0, I think (or very early 3.5 and it slipped in the editing).

[Venger]

size parameters re: size categories are more like guidelines than actual rules, so there's no dysfunction there.

you are correct in that mustevals have no ability to use change self, but since the spell no longer exists in the first place, it's largely moot.

[schreier]

The simplest explanation, not a satisfactory one mind you, would be that the 2' tall and 30 lbs is for their small advanced form. Maybe rule that their tiny form is 1.5' 8 lbs or something?



Change self, in 3.5, was changed to disguise self, which they do have. Musteval's are from Book of Exalted Deeds, which was 3.0, I think (or very early 3.5 and it slipped in the editing).

That is a possible explanation definitely on size - like you said, not ideal, but at least feasible.

And good catch on disguise self - not sure how I missed that. The SRD doesn't really talk about how drastic the change can be, but I would guess adding a foot and changing appearances, it could make the Musteval look like a halfling or gnome maybe?

[Venger]

That is a possible explanation definitely on size - like you said, not ideal, but at least feasible.

And good catch on disguise self - not sure how I missed that. The SRD doesn't really talk about how drastic the change can be, but I would guess adding a foot and changing appearances, it could make the Musteval look like a halfling or gnome maybe?
the srd specifies the change can be as big or small as you want it to. if all you're trying to do is look like a different race, then that's well within the parameters of the spell and basically all it does anyway. 3 feet is well within normal height for most subspecies of halfling and gnome.


The simplest explanation, not a satisfactory one mind you, would be that the 2' tall and 30 lbs is for their small advanced form. Maybe rule that their tiny form is 1.5' 8 lbs or something?

Change self, in 3.5, was changed to disguise self, which they do have. Musteval's are from Book of Exalted Deeds, which was 3.0, I think (or very early 3.5 and it slipped in the editing).
boed was nominally*3.5, coming out in october of 03 while the 3.5 revision went through in june, but like with all the other books, they just didn't care.

[Daefos]

For what it's worth, dwarves can be under the 4ft "cut-off" for a Medium sized creature (with a minimum height of 3'11" and 3'9" for male and female dwarves, respectively) and there's no mention at all of such dwarves becoming Small, so there's at least some precedent.

Thirty pounds does seem like a bit much, though...

[Venger]

For what it's worth, dwarves can be under the 4ft "cut-off" for a Medium sized creature (with a minimum height of 3'11" and 3'9" for male and female dwarves, respectively) and there's no mention at all of such dwarves becoming Small, so there's at least some precedent.

Thirty pounds does seem like a bit much, though...

and half-giants and dusk giants can be 7 feet or taller, and still count as medium

[schreier]

Honestly the height was irrelevant to me as tiny was up to 2 feet ... It's more that 30lbs is squarely in the middle of small size and almost 4 times the max of tiny (8 lbs)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Honestly the height was irrelevant to me as tiny was up to 2 feet ... It's more that 30lbs is squarely in the middle of small size and almost 4 times the max of tiny (8 lbs)

You've never seen a 30 lb house cat?

[ShurikVch]

If you will look at the Creature Size and Scale (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreatu resInCombat) table, you will see the "Weight" header have "5" superscript.
5. Assumes that the creature is roughly as dense as a regular animal. A creature made of stone will weigh considerably more. A gaseous creature will weigh much less.Thus, Musteval is (probably) just have unusually dense body

[Bronk]

Creature sizes are all screwed up in dnd, and my go to examples are the sprites. If you check out their entries, their descriptions completely fail to match their art.

For Mustevals, I'd just go with 30 pounds being a typo, and go with 3 pounds instead if you can. That would match up with a double sized regular weasel.

[ShurikVch]

For Mustevals, I'd just go with 30 pounds being a typo, and go with 3 pounds instead if you can. That would match up with a double sized regular weasel.Finnish Spitz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Spitz) may weigh 30 lbs. while up to 20" tall (i. e. under 2')

3 lbs. is ridiculously light - it's male American mink (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mink) at winter (doesn't grow bigger than 1.5')

[hamishspence]

Mustevals have reasonably long legs though. "From nose to rump" of 18 inches, with 6 inches of leg underneath that, brings it to 2 ft tall (though once looking straight forward rather than up, it'd be slightly shorter).

[Bronk]

Finnish Spitz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Spitz) may weigh 30 lbs. while up to 20" tall (i. e. under 2')

3 lbs. is ridiculously light - it's male American mink (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mink) at winter (doesn't grow bigger than 1.5')

The Finnish Spitz is a dog though. If we're going with dnd stats here, it would be small, not tiny, plus even a chihuahua is like 10+ pounds.

The mink is pretty much what I'm talking about here... it's a foot and a half long, weighs 1-3 pounds. So... 2 feet, 3 pounds doesn't seem far off. I was doubling the info from the wikipedia article for a stoat, since the musteval looks like a stoat/ermine in winter.

Ooooh, additionally, they show the musteval wearing all sorts of armor and equipment... gotta factor that in! Just reequipping it with lighter armor will free up some pounds. :)

[ShurikVch]

The Finnish Spitz is a dog though.And what's you want?
Rodent?
OK, there are Cape porcupine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_porcupine), Desmarest's hutia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmarest%27s_hutia), and Hoary marmot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoary_marmot). How about them?


If we're going with dnd stats here, it would be small, not tinyBut why?
20" size put them strictly into Tiny territory (4" below the Small range)

Also:
Kobolds are the smallest of all Small races (count as Tiny (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a) in some cases). The smallest Kobold is 2' tall and weighs 35 lbs.
Mites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mite_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)) - in their 3.5 incarnation (Kingdoms of Kalamar) - are Tiny, up to 2' tall, and weighs up to 25 lbs.
Thus, Musteval will be a "middle ground" between the very Small (almost Tiny) Kobolds and really Tiny Mites

[Darrin]

You've never seen a 30 lb house cat?

Cats have variable density. A 12" cat can absolutely weigh 30 lbs when it wants to (usually on your chest at 5:30 am).

[hamishspence]

The Finnish Spitz is a dog though. If we're going with dnd stats here, it would be small, not tiny, plus even a chihuahua is like 10+ pounds.

For quadrupeds like dogs, what matters isn't height at the head, or even height at the shoulder - it's length, not including tail.

A dog that is 2 ft long from snout to rump, meets the minimum for Small.

The size categories are flexible, but the general guideline is that a Small quadruped is between 2 and 4 ft long from nose tip to rump, and between 8 and 60 lb.

The BoED Musteval pic

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/boed_gallery/75111.jpg

doesn't show whether the 2 ft tall figure is "crouched" or "standing up" - you'd need to see it compared to another creature to know for sure.

It does show that it's proportioned more like a human than a weasel though - long hind legs.

[schreier]

The main reason I originally raised the question - if it were small (2', 30lbs seems small), alter self lefts a musteval go an aasimir and pretty much walk anywhere. As Tiny, the alter self forms are much more restricted

[Kelb_Panthera]

The main reason I originally raised the question - if it were small (2', 30lbs seems small), alter self lefts a musteval go an aasimir and pretty much walk anywhere. As Tiny, the alter self forms are much more restricted

If you're worried about RAW, it doesn't matter what the guidelines are. The creature entry says tiny, so they're tiny.

That said, the guidelines are much more concerned with height/length than weight and say as much in bringing up stone and gaseous creatures while making no mention of exceptions to the height/length category. Apparently mustevals are densely muscled for their size. *shrug*