Rules Q&A Master of Many forms and Human Bonus feat [Archive]

newguydude1

2020-12-19, 09:26 AM

My intention is a showchase in the forums, so I am already asking the "DM(s)"^^
Aren't the starting packages in the PHB not enough as evidence (e.g human fighter). The human bonus feat follows the same syntax as the fighter bonus feat.
Finally, since we can try to turn into specific characters it would fitting if I where to assume his selected bonus feat. The way I see it, is that you should be able to wild shape into any legal human bonus feat for a 1st lvl char.

your gonna have to catch me up here as i dont really use wild shape

wild shape is as alternate form ability except noted here

A creature with this special quality has the ability to assume one or more specific alternate forms. A true seeing spell or ability reveals the creature’s natural form. A creature using alternate form reverts to its natural form when killed, but separated body parts retain their shape. A creature cannot use alternate form to take the form of a creature with a template. Assuming an alternate form results in the following changes to the creature:

The creature retains the type and subtype of its original form. It gains the size of its new form. If the new form has the aquatic subtype, the creature gains that subtype as well.
The creature loses the natural weapons, natural armor, and movement modes of its original form, as well as any extraordinary special attacks of its original form not derived from class levels (such as the barbarian’s rage class feature).
The creature gains the natural weapons, natural armor, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of its new form.
The creature retains the special qualities of its original form. It does not gain any special qualities of its new form.
The creature retains the spell-like abilities and supernatural attacks of its old form (except for breath weapons and gaze attacks). It does not gain the spell-like abilities or attacks of its new form.
The creature gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con) of its new form. It retains the mental ability scores (Int, Wis, Cha) of its original form. Apply any changed physical ability score modifiers in all appropriate areas with one exception: the creature retains the hit points of its original form despite any change to its Constitution.
The creature retains its hit points and save bonuses, although its save modifiers may change due to a change in ability scores.
Except as described elsewhere, the creature retains all other game statistics of its original form, including (but not necessarily limited to) HD, hit points, skill ranks, feats, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses.
The creature retains any spellcasting ability it had in its original form, although it must be able to speak intelligibly to cast spells with verbal components and it must have humanlike hands to cast spells with somatic components.
The creature is effectively camouflaged as a creature of its new form, and it gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks if it uses this ability to create a disguise.
Any gear worn or carried by the creature that can’t be worn or carried in its new form instead falls to the ground in its space. If the creature changes size, any gear it wears or carries that can be worn or carried in its new form changes size to match the new size. (Nonhumanoid-shaped creatures can’t wear armor designed for humanoid-shaped creatures, and vice versa.) Gear returns to normal size if dropped.

i am not seeing anywhere that it says you getting racial bonus feats. not even in rules compendium.
alter self explicitly says you get the racial bonus feats so thats why the argument exists but im not seeing anywhere that wild shape gets feats of its new form.

so lets start there.
show me the rule that says wild shape gets racial bonus feats like alter self does

You acquire the physical qualities of the new form while retaining your own mind. Physical qualities include natural size, mundane movement capabilities (such as burrowing, climbing, walking, swimming, and flight with wings, to a maximum speed of 120 feet for flying or 60 feet for nonflying movement), natural armor bonus, natural weapons (such as claws, bite, and so on), racial skill bonuses, racial bonus feats, and any gross physical qualities (presence or absence of wings, number of extremities, and so forth). A body with extra limbs does not allow you to make more attacks (or more advantageous two-weapon attacks) than normal.

and then from there we need to decide whether by raw the bonus feat humans get is a "racial bonus feat" or just an untyped bonus feat.

and then from there we need to figure out whether polymorphing into a human who chose the feat you want as their bonus feat counts as polymorphing into a specific or general creature.

lots of hurdles

1.wild shape grant feats?
2. human bonus feat classified as racial bonus feat?
3. can you polymorph into a specific creature with the feat you want chosen for its bonus feat? or does it work a different way as in you get to select the bonus feat?

Rebel7284

2020-12-19, 10:55 AM

If you are stuck as a human, maybe Chameleon class for that floating bonus feat you can swap each day?

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-19, 11:04 AM

your gonna have to catch me up here as i dont really use wild shape

wild shape is as alternate form ability except noted here

i am not seeing anywhere that it says you getting racial bonus feats. not even in rules compendium.
alter self explicitly says you get the racial bonus feats so thats why the argument exists but im not seeing anywhere that wild shape gets feats of its new form.

...

1. There are options to enhance Wild Shape to Humanoid Shape (see Master of Many Forms)

2. It's the Master of Many Forms ability at lvl 7:

Extraordinary Wild Shape (Ex): Starting at 7th level, a master of many forms gains the extraordinary special qualities of any form she assumes with wild shape.

As far as I know all feats are (EX) abilities unless otherwise mentioned. So, basically you should get the human bonus feat.

Biffoniacus_Furiou

2020-12-19, 12:11 PM

I don't think it works if you're already a human, as you've already got that bonus feat. Sort of like if an Elf wild shapes into another Elf, they won't get an additional +2 to listen, search, and spot.

However, if you're not already human you'll also get the bonus skill points! So if you need to make a particular skill check, Wild Shape into a human, use that bonus feat to make it a class skill (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?451088-Alternative-ways-to-get-new-Class-skills) or just get Skill Focus if it already is, put max ranks in it, then make your check.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-19, 01:19 PM

newguydude1

2020-12-19, 02:28 PM

1. There are options to enhance Wild Shape to Humanoid Shape (see Master of Many Forms)

2. It's the Master of Many Forms ability at lvl 7:

As far as I know all feats are (EX) abilities unless otherwise mentioned. So, basically you should get the human bonus feat.

ex abilities arent ex special qualities right? ex special quality is like regeneration not feats.

yeah i dont recall any shapechanging giving you feats other than racial ones. so i dont think you get any feat from wild shape.

there are...
ex attacks
ex special qualities
ex abilities

like if you look at the monsters here
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm
none of them have power attack listed as a "special quality" despite having the feat.

so wild shape does not grant racial bonus feats. one of the clauses in alternate form directly say that you retain your own feats, nothing about gaining feats in the new form.

Khedrac

2020-12-19, 04:00 PM

As far as I know all feats are (EX) abilities unless otherwise mentioned. So, basically you should get the human bonus feat.

Feats are "Ex" unless states, but the possession of a bonus feat is not in itself a feat and so is not "Ex" unless specifically stated (which it isn't).

Troacctid

2020-12-19, 04:01 PM

1. There are options to enhance Wild Shape to Humanoid Shape (see Master of Many Forms)

2. It's the Master of Many Forms ability at lvl 7:

As far as I know all feats are (EX) abilities unless otherwise mentioned. So, basically you should get the human bonus feat.
While feats default to (Ex), that's not necessarily true of the abilities that grant them. The human's ability to select an additional feat is a natural ability, not an extraordinary ability, even though the feat itself is most likely (Ex). Also, it applies at 1st level during character creation, so you can't necessarily gain it from a shapeshifting effect. Furthermore, bonus feats in general are not considered special qualities (they have their own, separate line in statblocks), so it doesn't actually matter that they're (Ex). And finally, alternate form says the creature retains its own feats—it doesn't gain the feats of the new form.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-19, 11:44 PM

While feats default to (Ex), that's not necessarily true of the abilities that grant them. The human's ability to select an additional feat is a natural ability, not an extraordinary ability, even though the feat itself is most likely (Ex). Also, it applies at 1st level during character creation, so you can't necessarily gain it from a shapeshifting effect. Furthermore, bonus feats in general are not considered special qualities (they have their own, separate line in statblocks), so it doesn't actually matter that they're (Ex). And finally, alternate form says the creature retains its own feats—it doesn't gain the feats of the new form.

I don't think that they default to natural abilities because:

Natural Abilities

This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.

While the second sentence defaults everything unlabeled to NA, the first ability excludes mental abilities. And HBF is a mental "fast learning" ability.
IMHO the sole category that makes sense (for HBF) would be EX. It ain't a spell/like ability nor a magical supernatural ability, which leaves EX as sole option.

And my last argument would be "text trumps table". As long as the there is text that supports that HBF has to be a extraordinary special quality the table is irrelevant. We have seen enough dysfunctional tables in 3.5 so far. Just because the tables don't reflect the extraordinary special quality source anymore doesn't change the source of that ability.

edit: I don't think the 1st lvl restriction for HBF is a problem here. We can assume that Wild Shape transforms you into a 1st lvl equivalent of the target creature type by default if it doesn't have a fix HD. In chase of humans that would be a "commoner 1". You have to keep in mind that wild shape forms represent just matured fresh out of the box versions (referring to stats! not visually!) of the desired form.

newguydude1

2020-12-20, 04:08 AM

I don't think that they default to natural abilities because:

While the second sentence defaults everything unlabeled to NA, the first ability excludes mental abilities. And HBF is a mental "fast learning" ability.
IMHO the sole category that makes sense (for HBF) would be EX. It ain't a spell/like ability nor a magical supernatural ability, which leaves EX as sole option.

And my last argument would be "text trumps table". As long as the there is text that supports that HBF has to be a extraordinary special quality the table is irrelevant. We have seen enough dysfunctional tables in 3.5 so far. Just because the tables don't reflect the extraordinary special quality source anymore doesn't change the source of that ability.

edit: I don't think the 1st lvl restriction for HBF is a problem here. We can assume that Wild Shape transforms you into a 1st lvl equivalent of the target creature type by default if it doesn't have a fix HD. In chase of humans that would be a "commoner 1". You have to keep in mind that wild shape forms represent just matured fresh out of the box versions (referring to stats! not visually!) of the desired form.

you need to show us the rule that says feats or racial feats are a extraordinary special quality.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-20, 04:20 AM

you need to show us the rule that says feats or racial feats are a extraordinary special quality.

The Special Abilities (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)section covers that. A Special Ability has to fall under one of the 4 options mentioned there: Natural, Extraordinary, Supernatural, or Spell-like.

I have provided arguments in my last post why it can't be natural, supernatural or a spell-like ability and thus has to be an extraordinary ability.

Can you disprove it?

newguydude1

2020-12-20, 05:01 AM

The Special Abilities (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)section covers that. A Special Ability has to fall under one of the 4 options mentioned there: Natural, Extraordinary, Supernatural, or Spell-like.

I have provided arguments in my last post why it can't be natural, supernatural or a spell-like ability and thus has to be an extraordinary ability.

Can you disprove it?

theres nothing to disprove because you havent proven anything.

polymorph says you get extraordinary attacks, but not the extraordinary special qualities.
feats are stated to be an extraordinary ability.

nowhere in d&d i can find has feats ever been stated to be an extraordinary special quality.
spells like shapechange don't say they give you all of the feats of the monster your turning into.

so extraordinary abilities are further split into
extraordinary attacks
extraordinary special qualities
and everything that is extraordinary but is not an attack or a special quality.

like the gargoyles freeze ability
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gargoyle.htm
its an extraordinary ability but neither an attack or a special quality.

you need to show that feats are extraordinary special quality. calling them an extraordinary ability is not enough to call them a special quality.

so either show a rule text saying feats are an extraordinary special quality
or that all extraordinary abilities must be classified as an attack or special quality
or that shapechange gives all of the target creatures feats like power attack, weapon focus, multiattack, etc.

but thats not possible because alter self directly states racial bonus feats are physical qualities and you gain them while at the same time you dont get extraordinary special qualities of your new form. so the two are separate categories.

Darg

2020-12-20, 10:09 AM

Look at stat blocks. Human bonus feats are under feats. Not special attacks or special qualities.

Not to mention the PHB describes feats as natural ability which by extention is validated by the alter self spell with racial feats.

Alternate form does not give you all the physical qualities of your new form which also means you don't get racial feats.

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-20, 10:21 AM

There's an argument to be made that human racial traits are (Ex) special qualities.
I don't think there's a statblock for a basic human, but the racial traits of all the other standard player races are (Ex), according to the MM.

It's made more difficult to judge because this is handled inconsistently.
According to Fiend Folio even type and subtype traits are (Ex) special qualities, MM4 and 5 general list type traits under special qualities and MM5 iirc explicitly lists monsters with (Ex) innate spellcasting.
Other books don't list type or race boni at all, but they also don't actively contradict that specification.

So for the sake of consistency it has to be assumed that race, type and subtype traits are (Ex) unless specified otherwise.

As to the existence of some kind of third category of special ability, according to the MM:

Many creatures have unusual abilities, which can include special
attack forms, resistance or vulnerability to certain types of
damage, and enhanced senses, among others. A monster entry
breaks these abilities into special attacks and special qualities. The
latter category includes defenses, vulnerabilities, and other special
abilities that are not modes of attack. A special ability is either
extraordinary (Ex), spell-like (Sp), or supernatural (Su).

Emphasis mine.

There are only special attacks and special qualities. Any special ability that doesn't fall into the first category is automatically in the second.

Racial bonus feats are (Ex) special qualities unless specified otherwise, but the ability to gain feats is not.
Since you can only polymorph into generic creatures that means you only get racial bonus feats, not any feats the creature could pick itself.

That aside the human bonus feat is technically not a feat itself, it's the racial trait allowing you to pick an extra feat, so any rule concerning bonus feats isn't applicable anyway.

The only question is if human racial traits are (Ex) or not.
I'm not aware of any statblock explicitly stating so one way or the other, but all the other player race traits are so i'd say it's at least a fair assumption to make.

Edit: Clarification

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-20, 12:12 PM

theres nothing to disprove because you havent proven anything.

polymorph says you get extraordinary attacks, but not the extraordinary special qualities.
feats are stated to be an extraordinary ability.

nowhere in d&d i can find has feats ever been stated to be an extraordinary special quality.
spells like shapechange don't say they give you all of the feats of the monster your turning into.

so extraordinary abilities are further split into
extraordinary attacks
extraordinary special qualities
and everything that is extraordinary but is not an attack or a special quality.
MM page6 disagrees with you. The paragraph about "Special Attacks & Special Qualities" calls both as "Special Ability" out. And both can be either extraordinary, supernatural or spell-like. Same as in the SRD (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm):

Special Abilities

A special ability is either extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural in nature.
Which leads to the conclusion that an extraordinary ability can only either an Ex attack or an Ex quality. There is nothing else, contrary to what you are suggesting with your last line.

like the gargoyles freeze ability
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gargoyle.htm
its an extraordinary ability but neither an attack or a special quality.
Look again, it's a special quality and mentioned last in the line.

_____________________

Look at stat blocks. Human bonus feats are under feats. Not special attacks or special qualities.

Not to mention the PHB describes feats as natural ability which by extention is validated by the alter self spell with racial feats.

Alternate form does not give you all the physical qualities of your new form which also means you don't get racial feats.
As far as I know we only have starting package statblocks for humans, if you can point me to more accurate one for a generic human I would be happy.

Further the HBF itself and all feats (unless otherwise mentioned in the feat) are extraordinary abilities ( either EX attacks or EX qualities). Feats aren't magical by default, thus they can't be spell-like or supernatural by default (which are both magical). Exceptions exist and are called out as such or indicating that they are magical.

and I already explained that MOMF lvl 7 gives it... but I'll repost the quote again for you

Extraordinary Wild Shape (Ex): Starting at 7th level, a master of many forms gains the extraordinary special qualities of any form she assumes with wild shape.

MOMF gives you past lvl7 all extraordinary special qualities (= extraordinary non attack special ability).
Base Wild Shape gives you all extraordinary special attacks

Conclusion, we have EX special attack + EX special qualities = all EX abilities

____________________

There's an argument to be made that human racial traits are (Ex) special qualities.
I don't think there's a statblock for a basic human, but the racial traits of all the other standard player races are (Ex), according to the MM.

....

The only question is if human racial traits are (Ex) or not.
I'm not aware of any statblock explicitly stating so one way or the other, but all the other player race traits are so i'd say it's at least a fair assumption to make.

Edit: Clarification

It is easy to proof that human racial traits can only be EX abilities. You just need to look up the 4 possible categories (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm) and their distinctions.

1. It can't be a Natural Ability since those are tied to your physical form. HBF and feats are by default mental abilities since you learn em and they aren't physical abilities that you get because of the physical form of your race.

2&3. They can be Spell-like or Supernatural. Since neither the HBF nor feats in general are magical (exceptions exist as noted in those specific feats) they don't fit in here.

4. But they (HBF and feats in general) fit into the Extraordinary category very well.

Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.

These abilities cannot be disrupted in combat, as spells can, and they generally do not provoke attacks of opportunity. Effects or areas that negate or disrupt magic have no effect on extraordinary abilities. They are not subject to dispelling, and they function normally in an antimagic field.

Using an extraordinary ability is usually not an action because most extraordinary abilities automatically happen in a reactive fashion. Those extraordinary abilities that are actions are standard actions unless otherwise noted.
Sounds like HBF and feat in general to me.

edit: gramma and text structure. sorry it's early and I just woke up... -.-
to prevent further misinterpretations I'll corrected the passages: 1, 2&3

Darg

2020-12-20, 09:45 PM

A feat is a special feature that either gives your character a new capability or improves one he or she already has.

A feat is a feature not an ability. Stat blocks literally have their own section specifically for feats. Racial bonus feats are a feature of racial traits. Alternate Form, and by extension Wild Shape, does not give you racial traits.

I would even argue that even Alter Self would not let you get the human bonus feat. It's not even given a designation.

1 extra feat at 1st level, because humans are quick to master specialized tasks and varied in their talents. See Chapter 5: Feats.

The extra feat is literally "1 extra feat at 1st level." As you aren't first level, it would be impossible to benefit from this trait. Compare it to elves:

Weapon Proficiency: Elves receive the Martial Weapon Profi-ciency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats. Elves esteem the arts of swordplay and archery, so all elves are familiar with these weapons.

The human trait is an extra feat at first level. The elven trait is proficiency which gives bonus feats. One is a trait while the other is a feature of a trait.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-21, 01:12 AM

A feat is a feature not an ability. Stat blocks literally have their own section specifically for feats. Racial bonus feats are a feature of racial traits. Alternate Form, and by extension Wild Shape, does not give you racial traits.

I would even argue that even Alter Self would not let you get the human bonus feat. It's not even given a designation.

The extra feat is literally "1 extra feat at 1st level." As you aren't first level, it would be impossible to benefit from this trait. Compare it to elves:

The human trait is an extra feat at first level. The elven trait is proficiency which gives bonus feats. One is a trait while the other is a feature of a trait.
Have you read any of the quotes I posted?

Just because Feats have their separate line in the statsblock doesn't change the fact that the sole Special ability category they can fit into is EX. If you still don't want to believe it, have a look at the statement in BOED page 39 in the Exalted Feats paragraph:

These feats are thus supernatural in nature (rather than being
extraordinary abilities, as most feats are).
The quote shows without any doubt that non-exalted feats default to "Extraordinary Abilities" unless otherwise mentioned.

yeah it's a 1st lvl ability. So what? Wild Shape turns you in a generic matured state of the target creature type. And how much lvl/HD has the most generic adult human (hint: commoner/npc 1)? Yeah 1st lvl. That is the generic form you are shaping into. So where is the problem?

I have provided you enough rules over the past posts that feats are EX abilities by default. Unless you can point me to rules that say otherwise, accept it as a fact pls.

____________________

The question to solve is still "how it is resolved when a human wild shapes (as MOMF 7) into another human".
Does he lose his original HBF or does he get to pick second HBF for the duration of Wild Shape?

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-21, 03:41 AM

The question to solve is still "how it is resolved when a human wild shapes (as MOMF 7) into another human".
Does he lose his original HBF or does he get to pick second HBF for the duration of Wild Shape?

According to the rules of Alternate Form you explicitly keep your feats.
So since you already have a bonus feat from being human i'd have to say you get nothing.

Darg

2020-12-21, 10:04 AM

The quote shows without any doubt that non-exalted feats default to "Extraordinary Abilities" unless otherwise mentioned.

Even if I believed that to be the case, you are missing one thing: they aren't classified as a special attack or quality. Which makes sense as they have their own category.

yeah it's a 1st lvl ability. So what? Wild Shape turns you in a generic matured state of the target creature type. And how much lvl/HD has the most generic adult human (hint: commoner/npc 1)? Yeah 1st lvl. That is the generic form you are shaping into. So where is the problem?

You are taking the shape. Alternate Form does not tell you you get to pick your form's HD as you get to keep your own. If it doesn't tell you you can do it you can't do it. As such, your level remains a minimum of 12.

The question to solve is still "how it is resolved when a human wild shapes (as MOMF 7) into another human".
Does he lose his original HBF or does he get to pick second HBF for the duration of Wild Shape?

You would have already possessed the trait. Becoming yourself doesn't give you something extra. Not to mention "bonuses from the same source don't stack," aka human racial trait.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-21, 10:48 AM

Even if I believed that to be the case, you are missing one thing: they aren't classified as a special attack or quality. Which makes sense as they have their own category.
Just because the table doesn't reflects that, that doesn't mean that they have their own category. I have presented rules in text form, where you can categorize em without causing any dysfunctions, while you make claims that the table doesn't reflect this rule. Text trumps table. We have rules how any kind of Special Ability (Attack / Quality) has to be categorized and you just ignore em.

You are taking the shape. Alternate Form does not tell you you get to pick your form's HD as you get to keep your own. If it doesn't tell you you can do it you can't do it. As such, your level remains a minimum of 12.
I never implied that your level changes. I said, that Wild Shape can only transform you into a generic adult version of the targeted race (statwise, not appearance), which for a human is commoner 1 stats. Pls don't twist my words.

You would have already possessed the trait. Becoming yourself doesn't give you something extra. Not to mention "bonuses from the same source don't stack," aka human racial trait.
As far as I can recall this is a rule regarding "modifiers" (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm), thus can only apply when some kind of dice roll is involved.

In most cases, modifiers to a given check or roll stack (combine for a cumulative effect) if they come from different sources and have different types (or no type at all), but do not stack if they have the same type or come from the same source (such as the same spell cast twice in succession). If the modifiers to a particular roll do not stack, only the best bonus and worst penalty applies. Dodge bonuses and circumstance bonuses however, do stack with one another unless otherwise specified.

Unless you can point me to other rules where stacking effects from the same source causes problems, I have to guess that you just misremembered the rule I just quoted.
Further, if your assumption would be true, Fighter Bonus Feats would need to call out that you may stack em. But they don't, since the rule you are thinking of only applies to rolls and not to bonus feats.

newguydude1

2020-12-21, 03:23 PM

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-21, 04:01 PM

gargoyle is my oversight but still, show me one instance in d&d where shapechange gave all the feats of the target creature to the wizard. because thats what your saying here.

you are saying
1. all ex abilities must be either special qualities or attacks
This is RAW. I quoted the relevant text earlier in the thread. All special abilities that aren't modes of attack are special qualities.

2. since all feats are ex abilities and not attacks, they are special qualities
I'm pretty sure BoED is the only place that says so. At least i don't know of any other rule that explicitly tells us that feats are (Ex).
And it's not all feats. Reserve, Psionic and Exalted feats are (Su) and Domain feats are SLA's iirc.

But yes, assuming that feats are (Ex) unless specified otherwise would make them special qualities, since every special ability that's not an attack is a special quality by default.

3. therefore if you use momf to turn into an aboleth mage you get Combat Casting, Empower Spell, Eschew Materials, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus (illusion), Spell Focus (enchantment), Spell Penetration.

An Aboleth Mage is just an Aboleth with 10 levels of wizard. You can't wild shape into one.

newguydude1

2020-12-21, 04:04 PM

An Aboleth Mage is just an Aboleth with 10 levels of wizard. You can't wild shape into one.

your still saying if i shapechange into a solar i get
Cleave, Dodge, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Mobility, Power Attack, Track

I'm pretty sure BoED is the only place that says so. At least i don't know of any other rule that explicitly tells us that feats are (Ex).
And it's not all feats. Reserve, Psionic and Exalted feats are (Su) and Domain feats are SLA's iirc.

But yes, assuming that feats are (Ex) unless specified otherwise would make them special qualities, since every special ability that's not an attack is a special quality by default..

ill look for it later and post if i find it anywhere else too.

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-21, 04:15 PM

your still saying if i shapechange into a solar i get
Cleave, Dodge, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Mobility, Power Attack, Track
If they were (Ex), which i remain unconvinced of.
I'd rather assume that BoED is wrong. It would hardly be the first time and it's very suspicious that the core books do not mention this anywhere, i've checked.

But the RAW on special abilities is explicit. If it's not a special attack it's a special quality. There is no third category.

So if feats turn out to be (Ex) unless specified otherwise you'd get them via Shapechange. Not that it'd matter at that point, but it's relevant for MoMF or Enhance Wild Shape too.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-21, 05:30 PM

2 quotes from the 3.5 Main FAQ (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20070731a)

1)

Page 39 of BE it states that exalted feats are supernatural abilities and not extraordinary abilities like other feats. Does that mean that I lose the benefits from my exalted feats in an antimagic field?
Correct. Unless specifically stated otherwise, the benefits granted by exalted feats are considered supernatural abilities and thus don’t function in areas of antimagic. Some of the special abilities granted by the Vow of Poverty (and described under "Voluntary Poverty” on pages 29–31) are specifically described as extraordinary (such as the natural armor bonus gained at 8th level). These abilities are retained in areas of antimagic, even if other abilities from the same feat (or from other exalted feats) are not.
So the FAQ sees no issue in the statement that Feats default to EX abilities.
Further, as what would you otherwise categorize em? I have shown several times that all other options are invalid. And there is nothing in the (Special Abilities) rule indicating other noncategorized abilities. Conclusion = it has to be one of the mentioned options.

2)

When my human uses polymorph* to take the form of another creature, he loses any extraordinary special attacks and qualities. Does this include his bonus feat and bonus skill points? If so, how do I figure out which feat and skill points are derived from his racial traits?
A human’s bonus feat and bonus skill points—like most other racial traits—are considered extraordinary qualities, and thus are lost when the character would lose such abilities (including when polymorphed). This is a good reason to keep track of which feat is your human bonus feat, since it might have wide-reaching effects. (For instance, if Dodge was your bonus feat, you’d lose the benefits of any other feats that have Dodge as a prerequisite, such as Mobility and Spring Attack.)
Keeping track of where your bonus skill points are spent is more onerous, and likely less significant to play. If most of
your skills are maxed out (that is, their rank equals your level +3, or half that for a cross-class skill), it’s probably easiest
simply to designate one skill as the repository for all your bonus skill points.
For ease of play, some DMs ignore this side effect, but doing so represents a clear benefit granted to humans. Be aware that players of nonhuman characters can resent this “freebie.”
*The question and answer uses “polymorph” to refer specifically to spells that rely on the polymorph or alter self spell to duplicate their effect (including alter self, polymorph, polymorph any object, and shapechange), psionic powers based on he metamorphosis power (including metamorphosis and greater metamorphosis), and any other effect based on either of these lists.
Here is another proof that a Human's Bonus Feat is undisputedly an EX ability/quality.
While the Polymorph line does lose their own race's Special Qualities, this is not true for Wild Shape which is based on

- The creature retains the special qualities of its original form. It does not gain any special qualities of its new form.
- The creature gains the natural weapons, natural armor, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of its new form.

and for completeness sake:

Extraordinary Wild Shape (Ex): Starting at 7th level, a master of many forms gains the extraordinary special qualities of any form she assumes with wild shape.

I hope this should clear all doubts.

edit:

your still saying if i shapechange into a solar i get
Cleave, Dodge, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Mobility, Power Attack, Track
Yes, this is RAW if you wasn't aware of how broken Shapechange is. We are talking about a 9th lvl spell of a broken T1 class here. One of the reasons why the Epic Fighter doesn't look so epic anymore behind a 17th lvl wizard.

Bonus Round:
I realized just now, that you would also get the regular 1st lvl feat of the human you are wild shaping into... = 2 floating feats *WIN*WIN*

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-21, 06:05 PM

So the FAQ sees no issue in the statement that Feats default to EX abilities.
Further, as what would you otherwise categorize em? I have shown several times that all other options are invalid. And there is nothing in the (Special Abilities) rule indicating other noncategorized abilities. Conclusion = it has to be one of the mentioned options.
There's always the option that feats are their own thing and not Special Abilities (in the RAW sense) at all. Which is RAW unless BoED is on the table.

Here is another proof that a Human's Bonus Feat is undisputedly an EX ability/quality.
The FAQ is a lot of things, but it's only very rarely considered "proof" of anything. Mostly because it has an unfortunate habit of contradicting both the RAW and itself.

It's certainly not deserving of the term "undisputed" in any sense.

Edit: not that i disagree that the human racial traits are (Ex), but the FAQ is not a source of RAW.

Bonus Round:
I realized just now, that you would also get the regular 1st lvl feat of the human you are wild shaping into... = 2 floating feats *WIN*WIN*
I have no idea how you've reached this conclusion. You never get feats that aren't listed in a statblock, no matter the answer to the previous questions.
Just because the human racial trait mentions the 1st level feat doesn't mean you get an extra one in addition to the bonus feat, no matter how permissive the reading.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-22, 02:27 AM

There's always the option that feats are their own thing and not Special Abilities (in the RAW sense) at all. Which is RAW unless BoED is on the table.

The FAQ is a lot of things, but it's only very rarely considered "proof" of anything. Mostly because it has an unfortunate habit of contradicting both the RAW and itself.

It's certainly not deserving of the term "undisputed" in any sense.

Edit: not that i disagree that the human racial traits are (Ex), but the FAQ is not a source of RAW.

I have no idea how you've reached this conclusion. You never get feats that aren't listed in a statblock, no matter the answer to the previous questions.
Just because the human racial trait mentions the 1st level feat doesn't mean you get an extra one in addition to the bonus feat, no matter how permissive the reading.
I have shown rules several times, that 3.5 has a finite list for Special Abilities. There is no option for other/non-categorized Abilities by RAW. It has to be one of them. You are making assumptions while ignoring that the rules do not leave any room for that. Show me in the Special Ability section where you read that there are other options possible and that it ain't a finite list of options. Can you back up your argument with rule text (from Special Abilities)?

Human Wild Shape:
As already explained, MOMF Extraordinary Wild Shape gives you access to all extraordinary special qualities. Feats fall under this category.

To make it simple, lets first assume another basic PHB race for which we have stats in the MM, e.g a Dwarf Fighter 1 (MM p90)
His feats are legal targets for Extraordinary Wild Shape.

Now, if you would limit the human selection to only commoner 1, as human he still has 2 feats which I would gain by the rules. Even if you would give him only a racial HD at first lvl, he would still have 2 legal feats to copy.

Just because we don't have the human statblock served on a silver plate, doesn't mean we lack rules in text form to solve the situation at hand imho. It is not that hard to set up a statsblock for a 1st human, even if you have to fall back to commoner/racial HD it doesn't change anything. Cause the table doesn't provide more info (for our situation) than the text does. And since text trumps table, for what do you need a statblock anyway?

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-22, 04:02 AM

I have shown rules several times, that 3.5 has a finite list for Special Abilities. There is no option for other/non-categorized Abilities by RAW. It has to be one of them. You are making assumptions while ignoring that the rules do not leave any room for that. Show me in the Special Ability section where you read that there are other options possible and that it ain't a finite list of options. Can you back up your argument with rule text (from Special Abilities)?
I'd say it's up to you to prove that feats are special abilities first. Because afaik they're not listed as such anywhere.
There's a list of special abilities in every MM and a few other books. "Feats" appears in none of those.

The only thing you have is a throwaway line from BoED that feats are usually Ex, but that's it.

Human Wild Shape:
As already explained, MOMF Extraordinary Wild Shape gives you access to all extraordinary special qualities. Feats fall under this category.
You've yet to show the RAW for that. As i said above none of the listings for special qualities mention feats at all.

To make it simple, lets first assume another basic PHB race for which we have stats in the MM, e.g a Dwarf Fighter 1 (MM p90)
His feats are legal targets for Extraordinary Wild Shape.
No they're not. You can't wild shape into a creature with class levels, so you can't wild shape into a Dwarf Fighter.

Now, if you would limit the human selection to only commoner 1, as human he still has 2 feats which I would gain by the rules. Even if you would give him only a racial HD at first lvl, he would still have 2 legal feats to copy.
You can't wild shape into a commoner any more than you can wild shape into a fighter.

Just because we don't have the human statblock served on a silver plate, doesn't mean we lack rules in text form to solve the situation at hand imho. It is not that hard to set up a statsblock for a 1st human, even if you have to fall back to commoner/racial HD it doesn't change anything. Cause the table doesn't provide more info (for our situation) than the text does. And since text trumps table, for what do you need a statblock anyway?
You can't wild shape (or polymorph) into specific creatures, only generic examples of a species. A generic human has neither a class nor any feats.
You get exactly what is listed under the human race entry (subject to the limitations of your method of shapechanging). And nothing else.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-22, 11:27 AM

I'd say it's up to you to prove that feats are special abilities first. Because afaik they're not listed as such anywhere.
There's a list of special abilities in every MM and a few other books. "Feats" appears in none of those.

The only thing you have is a throwaway line from BoED that feats are usually Ex, but that's it.

You've yet to show the RAW for that. As i said above none of the listings for special qualities mention feats at all.
List = table
text trumps table. I have showed you the rule text for Special Abilities and how they are categorized. EX, SU & SLA either as Attack or Quality. The rule text doesn't leave room for non-categorized Special Abilities. How about trying to counter my rule text arguments with actual rule text arguments back instead of pointing to lists who have less weight than text. You won't convince anybody with tables, when we have text that says otherwise.
It's your claim that there are other "untyped" Special Ability categories for feats without any textual evidence so far.

No they're not. You can't wild shape into a creature with class levels, so you can't wild shape into a Dwarf Fighter.

You can't wild shape into a commoner any more than you can wild shape into a fighter.

You can't wild shape (or polymorph) into specific creatures, only generic examples of a species. A generic human has neither a class nor any feats.
Can you back that up with some rule text? Where does Wild Shape (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm#wildShape)or Alternate Form (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#alternateForm)mention that you may not shape into a creature with class levels?I can't find any class restriction nor anything indicating only generic specimen. I'm curious where is that rule (I "know" the rule from memory but can't find it?? Alter Self/poly line maybe?..)
And even if I would shape into a human with a single( or 1/2, 1/4, 1/8...) Racial HD, the targeted form still has 2 feats (one for the 1st HD and the HBF). The sole difference compared to shaping into a 1HD animal/monster is that player races haven't set their 1st lvl feat into stone.

____________________

It would be kind if you would start to follow the intention of this thread that I mentioned in the very first post:
"point me to RAW pls" - Rules as Written and no more tables/list anymore pls. This is not a thread about the designers intention or what it should have been. I'm asking for RAW and nothing else here. I have provided enough rule text to work with. You can either agree or disagree and present rule text with your own interpretation/explanation and I will gladly response to it. Because it is annoying (and to some degree provoking since you ignore my request) when I have to dig out the rules for your arguments. Just a kind request (and I hope nobody feels offended here. not my intention ;) )

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-22, 12:24 PM

List = table
text trumps table. I have showed you the rule text for Special Abilities and how they are categorized. EX, SU & SLA either as Attack or Quality. The rule text doesn't leave room for non-categorized Special Abilities. How about trying to counter my rule text arguments with actual rule text arguments back instead of pointing to lists who have less weight than text. You won't convince anybody with tables, when we have text that says otherwise.
It's your claim that there are other "untyped" Special Ability categories for feats without any textual evidence so far.
No, that's not my claim. As should be obvious because i've already said so twice in this thread.

You have yet to show that feats are special abilities at all. Because i've yet to see a single shred of RAW saying that feats are special abilities any more than skill points or hp are.
The rules for special abilities are completely irrelevant unless feats are special abilities.

Can you back that up with some rule text? Where does Wild Shape (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm#wildShape)or Alternate Form (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#alternateForm)mention that you may not shape into a creature with class levels?I can't find any class restriction nor anything indicating only generic specimen. I'm curious where is that rule (I "know" the rule from memory but can't find it?? Alter Self/poly line maybe?..)
And even if I would shape into a human with a single( or 1/2, 1/4, 1/8...) Racial HD, the targeted form still has 2 feats (one for the 1st HD and the HBF). The sole difference compared to shaping into a 1HD animal/monster is that player races haven't set their 1st lvl feat into stone.
The basic Alternate Form rules. Specifically this part:

Except as described elsewhere, the creature retains all other game statistics of its original form, including (but not necessarily limited to) HD, hit points, skill ranks, feats, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses.
You don't gain the HD of your new form. You can't gain class levels without gaining HD.
Do note that feats are mentioned as their own thing instead of with special qualities.

And humans don't have racial HD. They never get racial HD (see the rules on the Humanoid type).

Humanoids with more than 1 Hit Die are the only humanoids who make use of the features of the humanoid type.
Even if they did Wild Shape does not grant you the targets HD so you don't gain any of the benefits of HD, such as skill points, hp or feats derived from HD.

The reason you get racial bonus feats at all is that those are part of your racial traits, which are (Ex) special qualities (see the player race entries in the MM).

It would be kind if you would start to follow the intention of this thread that I mentioned in the very first post:
"point me to RAW pls" - Rules as Written and no more tables/list anymore pls. This is not a thread about the designers intention or what it should have been. I'm asking for RAW and nothing else here. I have provided enough rule text to work with. You can either agree or disagree and present rule text with your own interpretation/explanation and I will gladly response to it. Because it is annoying (and to some degree provoking since you ignore my request) when I have to dig out the rules for your arguments. Just a kind request (and I hope nobody feels offended here. not my intention ;) )
I wouldn't exactly call the glossary a table, but whatever.

I'm willing to back up specific points of contention with RAW quotes, but i'm not quoting half a book at you to recap what's common knowledge.
If we can't even agree on that much i'm afraid we have no basis for productive discussion.

If you want to argue that common knowledge is wrong it's up to you to provide RAW backing it up.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-23, 03:41 AM

No, that's not my claim. As should be obvious because i've already said so twice in this thread.

You have yet to show that feats are special abilities at all. Because i've yet to see a single shred of RAW saying that feats are special abilities any more than skill points or hp are.
The rules for special abilities are completely irrelevant unless feats are special abilities.
I have pointed you several times to the Special Abilities (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)section:
The way that things are worded here, any kind of ability has to fit into the categories mentioned and it even says what those that don't fit into the mentioned categories are. There is no other option for an ability as to be one of the mentioned thing here. If you can prove that the text leaves room for other non categorized and not named things, show me where it says so:
1:Natural Abilities

This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.
So anything that doesn't fit into EX, SU and SLA, has to be an "ability a creature has because of its physical nature" to count as Natural Ability. On the contrary anything that is not an Natural Ability has to fall into either EX, SU, SLA.
I think we can safely assume that feats are not Natural Abilities, since they are not part of our physical nature.
There is no room for any untyped abilities the way the text is worded.

2: EX, SU & SLA
Since SU and SLA are magical abilities, all nonmagical feats can only fit into EX (unless otherwise mentioned).
While this is never called out explicitly, the Exalted Feats paragraph shows very well that feats default to EX unless otherwise mentioned.

You are constantly ignoring that "Abilities" are either "Natural" or "EX, SU, SLA". There are no other untyped abilities that you are trying to fit feats into just because "tables show otherwise". Well the tables don't need to. They don't contradict the rules when they give feats their own line for better visualization even if feat are also Special Qualities.
You would have to argue that feats are not "Abilities" to ignore the Special Ability rules, but I assume that this is not your intention, since that argument has no base in 3.5 or by default English definition.

The basic Alternate Form rules. Specifically this part:

You don't gain the HD of your new form. You can't gain class levels without gaining HD.
Do note that feats are mentioned as their own thing instead of with special qualities.

And humans don't have racial HD. They never get racial HD (see the rules on the Humanoid type).

Even if they did Wild Shape does not grant you the targets HD so you don't gain any of the benefits of HD, such as skill points, hp or feats derived from HD.
Ehm, sorry but No, that is not how Wild Shape functions. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to shape into dragons of various HD (dragon wild shape feat). They can have different HD and you get anything that is related to their HD (for those things that your Wild Shape ability gives access to). You don't get the HP and HD, but that doesn't limit your access to things that thrive from HD (the text doesn't say so and it doesn't work that way). Your target stats for anything else are still thriving partially from the target forms HD (e.g. the age/size of a dragon, access to special abilities..). Your assumption is simply wrong here and the text doesn't support your claim.
While you don't get the target forms HD, the HD is still used as power measurement if the target form allows for flexible HD and thus flexible power lvl depenging on that HD.

edit:

Humanoids with 1 Hit Die exchange the features of their humanoid Hit Die for the class features of a PC or NPC class. Humanoids of this sort are presented as 1st-level warriors, which means that they have average combat ability and poor saving throws.

Humanoids with more than 1 Hit Die are the only humanoids who make use of the features of the humanoid type.
If you still claim that you can only wild shape into only a generic humanoid, here are rules presented how they are handled. The 1st RHD gets exchanged to 1st-level-warrior. This instructions give enough rules to wild shape into a human warrior 1. I still fail to see how this is going to limit Wild/Humanoid Shape.

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-23, 05:01 AM

I have pointed you several times to the Special Abilities (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)section:
The way that things are worded here, any kind of ability has to fit into the categories mentioned and it even says what those that don't fit into the mentioned categories are. There is no other option for an ability as to be one of the mentioned thing here. If you can prove that the text leaves room for other non categorized and not named things, show me where it says so:
You're still missing my point. The section on special abilities applies only to special abilities.
You have yet to show that feats are a special ability.

If you look at the index of the page you have linked you will note that feats are not listed in that section. They're in their own section.
Unless you can provide a RAW source stating the opposite the conclusion is that feats are not special abilities, so the rules for special abilities don't apply.

Ehm, sorry but No, that is not how Wild Shape functions. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to shape into dragons of various HD (dragon wild shape feat). They can have different HD and you get anything that is related to their HD (for those things that your Wild Shape ability gives access to). You don't get the HP and HD, but that doesn't limit your access to things that thrive from HD (the text doesn't say so and it doesn't work that way). Your target stats for anything else are still thriving partially from the target forms HD (e.g. the age/size of a dragon, access to special abilities..). Your assumption is simply wrong here and the text doesn't support your claim.
While you don't get the target forms HD, the HD is still used as power measurement if the target form allows for flexible HD and thus flexible power lvl depenging on that HD.
That's a function of age category, not HD. Wild shaping into a dragon doesn't add the dragons HD to your own. You still don't get the feats, skill points or hp derived from HD.

If you still claim that you can only wild shape into only a generic humanoid, here are rules presented how they are handled. The 1st RHD gets exchanged to 1st-level-warrior. This instructions give enough rules to wild shape into a human warrior 1. I still fail to see how this is going to limit Wild/Humanoid Shape.

You don't get class levels/HD from wild shape or any benefits derived from class levels or HD. Reread the Alternate Form rules. You get what they say you get and nothing else.
If you wild shape into a humanoid your HD or class levels do not change. You're still a Druid X.
So obviously the rules for humanoids exchanging their RHD for their first class level don't apply because you already have class levels.

A human druid 10 wild shaping into an elf is still a druid 10, not a druid 10/warrior 1. A druid 10 wild shaping into a tiger is still a druid 10 with 10 HD, not a druid 10 with 6 animal RHD.
Basically the only thing wild shape changes is your race (partially, subject to the limitations of Alternate Form). It doesn't add or change class levels or HD, so you don't gain any benefits of either.

ciopo

2020-12-23, 05:28 AM

You have yet to show that feats are special abilities at all. Because i've yet to see a single shred of RAW saying that feats are special abilities any more than skill points or hp are.
The rules for special abilities are completely irrelevant unless feats are special abilities.

Well, per the srd, the fighter bonus feat is a special quality in the same venue that a druid woodland stride is a special quality, since that is where it is listed on the advancement tables.

so at the very least having extra feat is something special per the PHB, it is not supernatural or SLA because fighters bonus feats keeps on working inside AMF, it is not natural because they are class-dependent and not linked to race/creature, therefore the fighter bonus feat is an extraordinary special ability of "having more feats"

Devil argument may be had that it's fighter feat(ex), and not the granted feat itself that is (ex), same as monk feat(ex).

I'd like to add that alter self specifically says that you gain the racial feats of the target form, what that means in relation to shapechanging to a sentient race instead of a Monster (something) it's up in the air.

To OP:

As pertaining to the opening question, my RAW interpretation of shapechange is that you gain the feats of a solar.
if your MoMF wild shapes to a human, my question to you (OP) would be "do you wild shape to a generic human, or do you wild shape to "specific human that has feat X" ? I can't find a text justification that would let you go "generic human" but then choose what the HBF was. the assumption I go by is that when you wild shape to a creature that has 0 HD, you do not gain anything that has the header " at 1st level ", because you are shapechanging to a 0 HD target.
Therefore, if you shapechange to a dwarf, you gain +2CON and -2 DEX and the other little things. if you shapechange to a human, sadly you gain nothing because their prominent feature is in function of them becoming 1st level , however that happens. You can't wild shape to a human commoner 1 any more than you can wild shape to a human fighter 10 commoner 1 is table, not rule, per your parlance. Or reversing that, why wild shape to a commoner 1 when you can wild shape to a fighter X? *CAN* you wildshape to a fighter X? Can you wildshape to the specific creature that is your evil twin personality and instead of a druid5/MoMF7 you are a human with 12 completely differently built class levels? (i haven't read up on why "fighter X isn't a valid alter self/wild shape etc target form, but I recall that by RAW it isn't, and so do you unless i've been mistaken about what I'm reading in this thread, I have a short attention span!)

Darg

2020-12-23, 10:08 AM

Well, per the srd, the fighter bonus feat is a special quality in the same venue that a druid woodland stride is a special quality, since that is where it is listed on the advancement tables.

so at the very least having extra feat is something special per the PHB, it is not supernatural or SLA because fighters bonus feats keeps on working inside AMF, it is not natural because they are class-dependent and not linked to race/creature, therefore the fighter bonus feat is an extraordinary special ability of "having more feats"

They are class features. The table only says "special." So "special feature" seems much more likely than "special ability" as not every class feature is an ability. Not to mention that the PHB defines feats as a special feature, not as a special quality or ability. Feats grant abilities. Hence you get the fey/fiendish heritage feats and others like them. Reserve feats grant an ability and are not the ability themselves.

Even the BoED quote doesn't actually conflict with this. The exalted feats are supernatural in nature yes, but it doesn't say they are abilities themselves. The reference to other feats being extraordinary abilities could also be a turn of phrase.

ciopo

2020-12-23, 11:07 AM

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-23, 11:55 PM

They are class features. The table only says "special." So "special feature" seems much more likely than "special ability" as not every class feature is an ability. Not to mention that the PHB defines feats as a special feature, not as a special quality or ability. Feats grant abilities. Hence you get the fey/fiendish heritage feats and others like them. Reserve feats grant an ability and are not the ability themselves.

Even the BoED quote doesn't actually conflict with this. The exalted feats are supernatural in nature yes, but it doesn't say they are abilities themselves. The reference to other feats being extraordinary abilities could also be a turn of phrase.
1. The sole definition for "ability" in 3.5 is in the glossary and that is talking about Ability scores. We can assume that the "ability" in Special "Ability" thus only can refer to basic English definition. And that should easily include feats.

2. Being called "special features" (undefined term) ain't a rule to exclude em as Special Abilities. I don't see anything that would indicate that. Further, I could also say that all class features are not abilities, and only give abilities.. do you see how pointless everything then becomes? Under that assumption noting is an ability and only gives the ability as effect. This kind of interpretation only causes dysfunctions and thus can't be the intention here.

3. Unless you can show a rule, that explicitly excludes feats from being abilities, it's not within the "feat rules" territory to decide if they are Special Abilities or not. Because it is the Special Ability rules (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)territory that define what is one and what is not. Feats could only be an exception if they specifically call it out. And being called a Special Feature (undefined term) is not enough.
And these rules are explicit, that only Natural Abilities are not Special Abilities and everything else has either to be EX, SU or SLA (a finite list with no indicators for any untyped/undefined categories).

To OP:

As pertaining to the opening question, my RAW interpretation of shapechange is that you gain the feats of a solar.
if your MoMF wild shapes to a human, my question to you (OP) would be "do you wild shape to a generic human, or do you wild shape to "specific human that has feat X" ? I can't find a text justification that would let you go "generic human" but then choose what the HBF was. the assumption I go by is that when you wild shape to a creature that has 0 HD, you do not gain anything that has the header " at 1st level ", because you are shapechanging to a 0 HD target.
Therefore, if you shapechange to a dwarf, you gain +2CON and -2 DEX and the other little things. if you shapechange to a human, sadly you gain nothing because their prominent feature is in function of them becoming 1st level , however that happens. You can't wild shape to a human commoner 1 any more than you can wild shape to a human fighter 10 commoner 1 is table, not rule, per your parlance. Or reversing that, why wild shape to a commoner 1 when you can wild shape to a fighter X? *CAN* you wildshape to a fighter X? Can you wildshape to the specific creature that is your evil twin personality and instead of a druid5/MoMF7 you are a human with 12 completely differently built class levels? (i haven't read up on why "fighter X isn't a valid alter self/wild shape etc target form, but I recall that by RAW it isn't, and so do you unless i've been mistaken about what I'm reading in this thread, I have a short attention span!)

I did give the generic example because the argument of "limited to generic form" did come up, but my question where this rule stands for Wild Shape / Alternate Form remains unanswered.
So, I have to ask genuinely, where is the rule that would stop me from doing the following:

1. calculate my max HD for Wild/Humanoid Shape
2. shape into a max HD human = any class combo

The sole limitation I could find was the denial of templates. Where is this rule (as said, from memory I know it, but is it really a Wild Shape rule or maybe a Alter Self/Poly?)? I'm confused here, if there is really any rule that would stop me from doing so.
I don't even see that "HD" (in the Wild Shape rules) would exclude HD from class lvl and would only refer to RHD.

edit: k, I found at least one limitation I was missing in this assumption which could be important:

The form chosen must be that of an animal the druid is familiar with.
So one could argument that I don't get to pick any class/feat combo myself, but would have to rely on a class/feat combo I am familiar with..? (e.g. shape into someone specific)

ciopo

2020-12-24, 09:24 AM

I did give the generic example because the argument of "limited to generic form" did come up, but my question where this rule stands for Wild Shape / Alternate Form remains unanswered.
So, I have to ask genuinely, where is the rule that would stop me from doing the following:

1. calculate my max HD for Wild/Humanoid Shape
2. shape into a max HD human = any class combo

The sole limitation I could find was the denial of templates. Where is this rule (as said, from memory I know it, but is it really a Wild Shape rule or maybe a Alter Self/Poly?)? I'm confused here, if there is really any rule that would stop me from doing so.
I don't even see that "HD" (in the Wild Shape rules) would exclude HD from class lvl and would only refer to RHD.

edit: k, I found at least one limitation I was missing in this assumption which could be important:

So one could argument that I don't get to pick any class/feat combo myself, but would have to rely on a class/feat combo I am familiar with..? (e.g. shape into someone specific)
I'm saying I don't remember either where the rule of "you can't shapechange to something with class levels" is. I have it in mind that it is "a thing", but not where it is defined.
The only inference I can make is that the progression is "shapechange is like polymorph but with these differences", "polymorph is like alter self with these differences", and alter self does not say that you gain the class features of the creature you polymorph into, but it also doesn't esplicitly forbid you to do so.

I.e. , I surmise that you *can* alter self to "a dwarf fighter 5", but alter self specifically says what it is you gain, you are not forbidden to do so, but there is no benefit gained from alter self to a dwarf figther instead of a dwarf druid. I'm getting an Air Bud vibe here.

but things change when it's shapechange that you do, or MoMF, since those esplicitly give you "everything that alter self does, but also these other goodies".
5e shapechange esplicitly says " forms with class levels or spellcasting are forbidden", which could be used as a reference that the same could be true for 3.5, but it is not *esplicitly* so as far as I've read

I can't find where it is codified that you can't alter self/shapechange/etc to something with class levels. My point on HBF boils down to "you'd get it if something with class levels is a valid target form for you to polymorph to" .
The "common sense" answer I can think of is that just because you've shapechanged to be a rogue, you aren't any better at trapfinding than you were before, or at evading explosions, because these are qualities derived from training, but I meh at this explanation because shapechange is *magic* and "it's magic" is a perfectly valid explanation for your sudden prowess at trapfinding after shapechanging to something/someone you know is good at trapfinding

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-24, 11:24 AM

I'm saying I don't remember either where the rule of "you can't shapechange to something with class levels" is. I have it in mind that it is "a thing", but not where it is defined.
The only inference I can make is that the progression is "shapechange is like polymorph but with these differences", "polymorph is like alter self with these differences", and alter self does not say that you gain the class features of the creature you polymorph into, but it also doesn't esplicitly forbid you to do so.
...

I think I found the root of the problem...

the 3.5 PHB ERRATA...

________________________

Before the Errata:
Before the errata was released, Wild Shape referred to Polymorph, which further refers to Alter Self. Alter Self has this line:

You are effectively disguised as an average member of the new form’s race.
Here we had a rule that limits us to an average/generic member of our new form's race.
Further since Wild Shape said to behave exactly like the "spell" it was forced to behave under the spell effect stacking rules. E.g. when you activate Wild Shape while a previous instance of it is active, all changes from the previous form would be irrelevant for the duration of the new form. But the effect would still be there if you would cancel the new form while the previous form still has remaining duration left .
See Casting Spells > Stacking Effects (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm)
Note that these rules only apply to "Spells" and not overall effects. The entire page talks about "casting spells" and not about abilities nor effects in general.

________________________

The mess that the Errata caused...
Now Wild Shape refers to Alternate Form (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm), which doesn't have said line.
Further Wild Shape doesn't refer to a spell anymore and thus is not affected by the spell effect stacking rules, since it doesn't need to behave like a spell anymore..
Which means, when you now shape into another shape while a previous instance is active, you do what you would normally do when Wild Shaping: keep the things mentioned and add the things mentioned..
This escalates, because now you can benefit from special qualities of multiple forms (as MOMF) with remaining duration, since that is something you keep and add..

________________________

Imho this was caused because they ignored the existance of the MOMF prc, which is in another book, while doing the errata for the PHB. Otherwise I have no answer how they have caused this monstrosity

Hell yeah.. I don't know what to say to this mess.. 3.5 RAW. I need an emote to smash my head against a wall :smallamused:

edit: changed a sentence to prevent misinterpretation.

Darg

2020-12-24, 11:23 PM

Further Wild Shape doesn't refer to a spell anymore and thus is not affected by the spell effect stacking rules, since it doesn't need to behave like a spell anymore..
Which means, when you now shape into another shape while a previous instance is active, you do what you would normally do when Wild Shaping: keep the things mentioned and add the things mentioned..
This escalates, because now you can benefit from special qualities of multiple forms (as MOMF) with remaining duration, since that is something you keep and add..

Spells stacking refers to the "Combining Magical Effects" rules which use "spells or magical effects" as the subjects of its rules. Supernatural abilities are magical. Features of a form don't stack with another. That means you only have one form at a time. Extraordinary Wild Shape says, "a master of many forms gains the extraordinary special qualities of any form she assumes with wild shape." You have 2 options. Either the MoMF never loses the Ex abilities or it only applies to the currently occupied form. The most logical assumption is the latter.

Warmjenkins

2020-12-25, 01:22 AM

I'm gonna have to agree that feats aren't extraordinary abilities unless I see rules stating they are. I've yet to see any evidence of that in this thread so far, only guesswork and leaps in logic trying to say they have to be because what else are they. Unfortunately plenty of things aren't well defined in d&d and just because nothing says they aren't does not prove that they are.

Hit points aren't extraordinary abilities, I don't belive it is ever stated that they aren't but that doesn't prove that they are. Skill points likewise aren't extraordinary abilities ect... these examples could go on for ever obviously but I think the point is rather obvious. Feats are said to be special features, not abilities. Some feats may grant abilities, attack, or qualities and some may even be those things themselves but that is on a case by case basis not the general rule. Some feats even expressly deal with physical characteristics such as bloodline or body type and could therefore fall under natural abilities.

As for the OP, personally I'd allow that specific character to work regardless because I think it is an interesting and entertaining idea. I just wouldn't have it work due to human bonus feat shenanigans and have them essentially be another character that can draw upon a certain amount of shared general knowledge (thus the similar skills and class abilities) but not specifics memories or personality traits.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-25, 04:45 AM

Spells stacking refers to the "Combining Magical Effects" rules which use "spells or magical effects" as the subjects of its rules. Supernatural abilities are magical. Features of a form don't stack with another. That means you only have one form at a time. Extraordinary Wild Shape says, "a master of many forms gains the extraordinary special qualities of any form she assumes with wild shape." You have 2 options. Either the MoMF never loses the Ex abilities or it only applies to the currently occupied form. The most logical assumption is the latter.
The rules of "Combining Magical Effects" is on the Casting Spells (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm)page:

Same Effect with Differing Results

The same spell can sometimes produce varying effects if applied to the same recipient more than once. Usually the last spell in the series trumps the others. None of the previous spells are actually removed or dispelled, but their effects become irrelevant while the final spell in the series lasts. While some parts of the page mention effects, it seems that only spells get the short end of the stick here. I don't see any base that would affect "all magical stuff/abilities". Only spells are limited by this rule. The errata for Wild Shape causes you to "keep what Wild Shape says that you keep" and "add what Wild Shape says that you should add" (modified by MOMF in our special chase here).
The title of the page makes it clear: "Casting Spells" and not "resolving magical effects overall".

I'm gonna have to agree that feats aren't extraordinary abilities unless I see rules stating they are. I've yet to see any evidence of that in this thread so far, only guesswork and leaps in logic trying to say they have to be because what else are they. Unfortunately plenty of things aren't well defined in d&d and just because nothing says they aren't does not prove that they are.

Hit points aren't extraordinary abilities, I don't belive it is ever stated that they aren't but that doesn't prove that they are. Skill points likewise aren't extraordinary abilities ect... these examples could go on for ever obviously but I think the point is rather obvious. Feats are said to be special features, not abilities. Some feats may grant abilities, attack, or qualities and some may even be those things themselves but that is on a case by case basis not the general rule. Some feats even expressly deal with physical characteristics such as bloodline or body type and could therefore fall under natural abilities.

As said several times. The "primary source" rule for what is and what is not a "Special Ability" is defined in the "Special Abilities (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)" section and not in the feats section of the rules. Feats can only make exceptions to the general rules for what is an Special Ability and what is not by calling it explicitly out.

Hit-Point aren't any kind of ability to begin with as per regular English definition of "ability". HP aren't an "ability" you use, it's a resource you use. Sorry but that argument is flawed.
Feats on the other hand are "abilities" per default English definition (they give you either the ability to do something or the ability to do something better/in a special way). As such the Special Ability rules have supremacy to categorize em. Unless the feats or feat-type calls itself as an exception out (see Exalted Feats and other feats that are called out as something else than EX), the rules will categorize em accordingly to the Special Ability section.

And the Special Ability section says that every ability which is not a Natural Ability has to be either of EX, SU, SLA. A finite list of options with no room for untyped or unmentioned types.

Feats in general (exceptions may exist as noted) easily disqualify as Natural Ability and are not magical thus further excluding SU & SLA a possible answers. Which leaves EX as sole category where regular feats perfectly fit the description.

Unless you can present rules that differ from the Primary Source for categorizing Special Abilities and makes a special exceptions for feats, you have to apply em as presented.
I've presented the rules more than once now. Ignoring em won't change the fact that the ball is now on your side of the field. If you want to deny it, you have to disprove how the primary source rules in the Special Abilities section define what is and what is not a Special Ability. ;)

PS: I hope you all know what "primary source" for 3.5 rules means and how it is applied/used to interpret the rules correct. A book or a paragraph can have supremacy for its main topic. Other paragraphs that don't have this as main topic can only make exceptions and may not change the primary rules. As such, even if Feats aren't called out as Special Abilities/EX, it doesn't change that it's still the Special Ability section that has supremacy over this topic (what counts as a Special Ability and what doesn't).

Warmjenkins

2020-12-25, 03:08 PM

Hit-Point aren't any kind of ability to begin with as per regular English definition of "ability". HP aren't an "ability" you use, it's a resource you use. Sorry but that argument is flawed.
Feats on the other hand are "abilities" per default English definition (they give you either the ability to do something or the ability to do something better/in a special way). As such the Special Ability rules have supremacy to categorize em. Unless the feats or feat-type calls itself as an exception out (see Exalted Feats and other feats that are called out as something else than EX), the rules will categorize em accordingly to the Special Ability section.

Except hp and skills meet the English definition of an ability better than many feats do. In fact hp is derived from an "ability" called constitution. Its in chapter 1 of the player handbook. You know that chapter titled "abilities" where it says "your character has six abilities: strength ect... that has to be one of the weakest and most blatantly false arguments I've ever seen.

The rules never say feats are special abilities, you're making a logical leap because it supports your argument but not because it's true. Feats don't necessarily give abilities or the ability to do something better. Although by your definition of ability hp does count, it gives you the ability to take hits better. Toughness is a feat... just gonna leave that there. Skills flat out give you the ability to do things you couldn't yet aren't categorized as special abilities. I also noticed you conveniently ignored the example of skills not being special abilities. It seems to me you intentionally ignored this because it doesn't fit the narrative you're trying to force and realize that it causes your whole argument to fall apart.

It never once in the rules states that feats are handled by the special abilities rules. Many feats just give a flat small bonus to something like a save or attack roll, is everything that gives a bonus to any aspect of a character now some sort of special ability unless it explicitly says otherwise? Intelligence must be an exceptional ability then since it "isn't physical" and is explicitly stated to be an ability. Obviously not and I think you know that and are only making this argument because you really want it to work that way for your benefit. All evidence I've seen in the rules points to feats not being considered special abilities and your only argument that they are is a flimsy one based on your interpretation of the English word ability that isn't even accurate to many feats.

Feats in general (exceptions may exist as noted) easily disqualify as Natural Ability and are not magical thus further excluding SU & SLA a possible answers. Which leaves EX as sole category where regular feats perfectly fit the description.

How do feats not qualify as natural abilities any more than extraordinary ones in most cases? Is having a bonus on fort saves, climb, swim, strength checks ect... not a natural ability, they are clearly physical abilities? What about having a prehensile tail, or earth elemental ancestry, both feats and clearly both physical "abilities"(except they aren't abilities obviously because the rules never say or imply they are)

As said several times. The "primary source" rule for what is and what is not a "Special Ability" is defined in the "Special Abilities (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm)" section and not in the feats section of the rules. Feats can only make exceptions to the general rules for what is an Special Ability and what is not by calling it explicitly out.

Except feats aren't special abilities at all. The primary source for feats rules is the feats section of the players handbook. It explicitly calls feats out as being a special feature of a character, not a special ability. Therefore, even under your own twisted logic feats wouldn't be extraordinary abilities, at best they are extraordinary features.

Unless you can present rules that differ from the Primary Source for categorizing Special Abilities and makes a special exceptions for feats, you have to apply em as presented.
I've presented the rules more than once now. Ignoring em won't change the fact that the ball is now on your side of the field. If you want to deny it, you have to disprove how the primary source rules in the Special Abilities section define what is and what is not a Special Ability. ;)

Challenge accepted and completed. However the burden of proof was always on you because you are the one going against the commonly accepted knowledge of how the rules work. You never once provided rules stating that feats are special abilities despite many posts asking for exactly that.

newguydude1

2020-12-25, 04:19 PM

ciopo

2020-12-25, 04:24 PM

A case for feats being abilities, and special abilities, is the rogue
level 10 rogue get a special feature called "special ability", and gets to pick among a list, one of the options is picking a feat instead of the other stuff

let me also play devil's advotace, since the wording is "Feat : A rogue may gain a bonus feat in place of a special ability.", that works as an argument that feats aren't actually abilities. It all depends of the interpretation of that wording, inclusive or exclusive

Warmjenkins

2020-12-25, 05:26 PM

both the 3.5 faq and the boed says feats are ex abilities so thats what they are. boed and bovd are referenced constantly multiple times across all 3.5 books so trying to disregard them is meaningless. fcii for example says the archfiends real stats and not their aspect stats are in bovd and tells you directly to look it up in that book.

feats are ex abilities. and if ex abilities must be either attacks or qualities then feats are qualities and shapechange gives them to you.

this is the end of the discussion. you get feats via shapechange and improved wild shape from momf.

No they don't, the boed says most feats are extraordinary abilities. Some clearly are magical in nature and don't specify that they are supernatural or spell like. Many are also clearly great candidates for natural abilities so we can not assume things are extraordinary abilities at all. Many may not be abilities at all as they don't fit any of the criteria of abilities. (This is all ignoring that the book of exalted deeds is widely considered one of the worst books for any rules. The faq flat out contradicts itself frequently so I, as well as many others, don't really consider it rules text at all. When they contradict the players handbook I think i know what most people will side with.)

Most drow are neutral evil, the mm1 says so. That doesn't mean we can assume that any given drow is evil. It doesn't prove that something about their biology automatically turns them neutral evil and that unless otherwise stated they are neutral evil. Most creatures found on the plane of fire have the fire subtype, most creatures on the outer planes are outsiders... None of those statements mean anything when it comes to the rules.

Most spells that detect things are blocked by a sheet of lead. Does that mean if a spell entry doesn't state that it isn't blocked by lead that it defaults to following those rules? I mean if a feat entry doesn't state that its an extraordinary ability we get to assume it is so I can just go ahead and assume that it does. I'll assume that drow npc without a stat block is evil and my smite will work because the rules don't say it won't. Fortunately the rules don't work that way and the absence of identifying characteristics don't let you just assume whatever is favorable for you. Most feats may well be extraordinary abilities, that doesn't equate to all feats are extraordinary abilities(or even special abilities at all) unless stated otherwise.

The metamagic feats in the players handbook aren't stated to be supernatural despite clearly being magical in origin. Nor are the item creation feats, or any number of clearly supernatural or magical feats. The communicator feat in the complete arcane grants you spell like abilities, not specified that it isn't an extraordinary ability. We cannot simply assume all feats not specified as otherwise are extraordinary abilities just because it says some are. (Edit: found a better example now that I was able to actually get to my books. Arcane strike, apparently an extraordinary ability that lets you channel arcane energy into your melee attacks. Apparently non-magical arcane energy since its not specified to not be extraordinary.)

If there is rules text saying unless otherwise stated all feats are extraordinary abilities then I concede that I'm wrong here. But as far as I know there isn't rules text stating all feats are special abilities or even abilities at all. In the absence of evidence for your argument you are simply guessing or making assumptions whether or not a feat is an extraordinary ability.

That said I completely agree with the second part of your statement. Even if all feats are extraordinary abilities they aren't part of somethings race they represent acquired traits, usually as a result of experiences or training. Not all members of a race will have the same feats so wild shaping into one wont grant you any feat unless every member of that race would possess it.

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-25, 06:14 PM

If there is rules text saying unless otherwise stated all feats are extraordinary abilities then I concede that I'm wrong here. But as far as I know there isn't rules text stating all feats are special abilities or even abilities at all. In the absence of evidence for your argument you are simply guessing or making assumptions whether or not a feat is an extraordinary ability.

There isn't. It's a simple fact that pretty much every 3.5 book makes a distinction between feats and special qualities. And none even come close to equating them.

The only argument otherwise is that single line from BoED saying feats are usually extraordinary abilities (though it does not call them special abilities at all),
combined with the section on special abilities stating that special abilities must be (Ex), (Sp) or (Su) - though note it does not state that all (Ex), (Sp) and (Su) abilities must be special abilities - making the argument mostly wishful thinking.

Well, that and the FAQ question which simply quotes that passage in the question and has an answer that doesn't go into that at all.
But that's the FAQ, so even if it didn't just copy & paste BoED it still wouldn't be RAW. If it told you outright that feats can be bought with skill points that still wouldn't make it so. :smalltongue:

In fact you only really have to look at the Alternate Form rules:

A creature with this special quality has the ability to assume one or more specific alternate forms. A true seeing spell or ability reveals the creature’s natural form. A creature using alternate form reverts to its natural form when killed, but separated body parts retain their shape. A creature cannot use alternate form to take the form of a creature with a template. Assuming an alternate form results in the following changes to the creature:

The creature retains the type and subtype of its original form. It gains the size of its new form. If the new form has the aquatic subtype, the creature gains that subtype as well.
The creature loses the natural weapons, natural armor, and movement modes of its original form, as well as any extraordinary special attacks of its original form not derived from class levels (such as the barbarian’s rage class feature).
The creature gains the natural weapons, natural armor, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of its new form.
The creature retains the special qualities of its original form. It does not gain any special qualities of its new form.
The creature retains the spell-like abilities and supernatural attacks of its old form (except for breath weapons and gaze attacks). It does not gain the spell-like abilities or attacks of its new form.
The creature gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con) of its new form. It retains the mental ability scores (Int, Wis, Cha) of its original form. Apply any changed physical ability score modifiers in all appropriate areas with one exception: the creature retains the hit points of its original form despite any change to its Constitution.
The creature retains its hit points and save bonuses, although its save modifiers may change due to a change in ability scores.
Except as described elsewhere, the creature retains all other game statistics of its original form, including (but not necessarily limited to) HD, hit points, skill ranks, feats, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses.
The creature retains any spellcasting ability it had in its original form, although it must be able to speak intelligibly to cast spells with verbal components and it must have humanlike hands to cast spells with somatic components.
The creature is effectively camouflaged as a creature of its new form, and it gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks if it uses this ability to create a disguise.
Any gear worn or carried by the creature that can’t be worn or carried in its new form instead falls to the ground in its space. If the creature changes size, any gear it wears or carries that can be worn or carried in its new form changes size to match the new size. (Nonhumanoid-shaped creatures can’t wear armor designed for humanoid-shaped creatures, and vice versa.) Gear returns to normal size if dropped.
I've bolded the relevant parts, but to summarize: according to the AF rules feats are an "other game statistic", not a special attack or quality.

If you want to be really nitpicky you can also look up "special quality" on the officlal glossary (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/gloss/window&term=Glossary_dnd_specialquality&alpha=), which tells you this:

Characteristics possessed by certain monsters (and sometimes characters) that are distinctive in some way. The Monster Manual has detailed information on all special qualities.
None of the Monster Manuals list feats under special qualities.

For those who have trouble with AF and Wild Shape there's also the Rules of the Game Archive (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/rg) which goes through it step-by-step (look for the articles titled "Polymorph Revisited", there's 4 of them).
It's certainly more official than the FAQ at least.
It also gives an explicit, plain language, no-misunderstandings-possible "you can't WS into something with class levels" rule if you need one.

newguydude1

2020-12-25, 06:25 PM

I've bolded the relevant parts, but to summarize: according to the AF rules feats are an "other game statistic", not a special attack or quality.

thats what i said but then you quoted some other place that said all ex are either attacks or qualities.

you cant use glossary. glossary is a summary not actual rules. glossary got a lot of stuff wrong. for example, a wizards spell known list is whatever spell he wrote into his spellbook at any point in time. thats why you can only prepare spells that you know from a borrowed spellbook and not spells you dont know. glossary however says a wizards spell known is spells he has in his spellbook when even complete arcane says there are no special connection between a wizard and his book.

so if you go glossary are rules route, then the borrowed spellbook rules dont function. if you dont then everything functions which is the correct way to go because primary source rule. actual text trumps glossary text.

anyways if boed says most feats are ex abilities then all feats that arent explicitly not extraordinary are extraordinary, like psionic feats. unless you have a contradicting rule elsewhere, which you dont.

alter self puts racial bonus feats as physical qualities not extraordinary qualities.

Warmjenkins

2020-12-25, 07:09 PM

anyways if boed says most feats are ex abilities then all feats that arent explicitly not extraordinary are extraordinary, like psionic feats. unless you have a contradicting rule elsewhere, which you dont.

What? I really hope you don't belive that or you mistyped or something because that makes absolutely no sense. That statement is objectively and undeniably false. The very most you could say from the information given is if boed says most feats are extraordinary abilities then most feats that aren't explicitly not extraordinary are extraordinary.

Contradicting rule? Contradicting what? You never cited a rule. There is nothing to contradict. You cited a vague statement describing a section of feats. You can't contradict it because it doesn't say anything of substance.

It never said all other feats, unless specified otherwise are extraordinary. It could have said that, and likely would have if it were true. But it didn't because its not true. Arcane strike doesn't channel non-magical arcane energy. Metamagic feats don't non-magically modify your magic spells. Neither are stated to be non-extraordinary abilities.

It is never stated that all feats are extraordinary abilities, or even special abilities of any kind. It is stated that some are but never all. It is never even implied that they are. The onus of proof is on you. You've never provided any rules text that even suggest that all feats are special abilities let alone extraordinary abilities. I have no clue why you would assume such things with no evidence and a huge amount of evidence to the contrary. Those examples i provided were just a few of very many.

For those who have trouble with AF and Wild Shape there's also the Rules of the Game Archive (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/rg) which goes through it step-by-step (look for the articles titled "Polymorph Revisited", there's 4 of them).

Thats pretty cool and Im surprised I hadn't seen it before now honestly and thanks for bringing it up

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-25, 08:07 PM

Except hp and skills meet the English definition of an ability better than many feats do. In fact hp is derived from an "ability" called constitution. Its in chapter 1 of the player handbook. You know that chapter titled "abilities" where it says "your character has six abilities: strength ect... that has to be one of the weakest and most blatantly false arguments I've ever seen. An "ability" (per English definition) is something that you use and not just a resource like HP. In 3.5 "Ability" refers to Ability scores by the definition of the glossary. We can assume that the "ability" in "Special Ability" ain't referring to Ability Scores, since that would make no sence. Thus it has to fall back to regular English definition.
HP doesn't derive from Constitution. It's just that CON gives a bonus on HD. That doesn't turn any of those (HD/HP) into abilities.

The rules never say feats are special abilities, you're making a logical leap because it supports your argument but not because it's true. Feats don't necessarily give abilities or the ability to do something better. Although by your definition of ability hp does count, it gives you the ability to take hits better. Toughness is a feat... just gonna leave that there. Skills flat out give you the ability to do things you couldn't yet aren't categorized as special abilities. I also noticed you conveniently ignored the example of skills not being special abilities. It seems to me you intentionally ignored this because it doesn't fit the narrative you're trying to force and realize that it causes your whole argument to fall apart.

It never once in the rules states that feats are handled by the special abilities rules. Many feats just give a flat small bonus to something like a save or attack roll, is everything that gives a bonus to any aspect of a character now some sort of special ability unless it explicitly says otherwise? Intelligence must be an exceptional ability then since it "isn't physical" and is explicitly stated to be an ability. Obviously not and I think you know that and are only making this argument because you really want it to work that way for your benefit. All evidence I've seen in the rules points to feats not being considered special abilities and your only argument that they are is a flimsy one based on your interpretation of the English word ability that isn't even accurate to many feats.

You keep ignoring my argument about primary source. The Special Ability section determines what is a feat or what is not. It doesn't care if everything has a friendly reminder in () or in its text or not. The rules are clear and leave no room for any ability that doesn't fit the mentioned 4 categories (where only 3 count as Special Ability). Every ability can be easily classified by just knowing these 4 categories:
1: Abilities a creature has because of its physical nature are Natural Abilities
2: Every ability that is not magical is Extraordinary
3: Magical effects who mimic a specific spell are SLAs
4: Magical effects who doesn't mimic a specific spell are SU
These are the rules that you have to apply to all abilities. There is no rule and no need to give you always a friendly reminder in each abilities text. While 3.5 often makes use of friendly reminder, but they lack consistency. Just because the obvious category isn't pointed out for you doesn't mean that you have right to exclude it from there. Further BOED also references that feats default to EX. But you ignore that too or just assume "it must be wrong" because it contradicts your interpretation.
Feats lack the permission to ignore the Special Ability rules unless they call it out. And the is no general exception for feat, we instead have references that they are by default EX.

How do feats not qualify as natural abilities any more than extraordinary ones in most cases? Is having a bonus on fort saves, climb, swim, strength checks ect... not a natural ability, they are clearly physical abilities? What about having a prehensile tail, or earth elemental ancestry, both feats and clearly both physical "abilities"(except they aren't abilities obviously because the rules never say or imply they are)
See above, but if you really have a problem to differentiate these two I'll try to point you into the right direction.
Natural Abilities includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. You don't have feats because of you physical nature. You have them because you spent a feat tax on em, which has nothing to do with your physical nature. You learn em which is effectively a mental process in the first place for all feats that are EX and not called out to be SU or SLA. SU and SLA feats (yeah we have both as exceptions IIRC) are magical, which automatically disqualifies em as NA and EX.
The "Abilities" that give bonuses on skill checks because of your race/form are Natural Abilities, but the "bonus" itself is not. A class ability, feat or item giving you bonuses to skill checks ain't a Natural Ability.
"prehensile tail, or earth elemental ancestry" are feats you take, not Abilities you gain (automatically) because of your form/race (which is the requirement for NA). Can't you see that you "spent a feat to add the effects to you form"? That is something totally different as "something that your get (for free) because you have the form"(aka racial in many other games).

Except feats aren't special abilities at all. The primary source for feats rules is the feats section of the players handbook. It explicitly calls feats out as being a special feature of a character, not a special ability. Therefore, even under your own twisted logic feats wouldn't be extraordinary abilities, at best they are extraordinary features.
Can you show me a definition of "special feature"? I assume no. I don't see any kind of explanation, not in the glossary and no paragraph or title is named as such anyhere. Than it can't be a new category that could suppress the Special Ability rules. It's just basic English which doesn't set any rules. As said, the Special Ability section, is the primary source that decides what is and what is not an Special Ability. An undefined term in the feats section won't change these rules. The categories are clear and by definition feats fit into EX.

Challenge accepted and completed. However the burden of proof was always on you because you are the one going against the commonly accepted knowledge of how the rules work. You never once provided rules stating that feats are special abilities despite many posts asking for exactly that.

Here the primary source rules:

Errata Rule: Primary Sources
When you find a disagreement between two D&D® rules sources, unless an official errata file says otherwise, the primary source is correct. One example of a primary/secondary source is text taking precedence over a table entry. An individual spell description takes precedence when the short description in the beginning of the spells chapter disagrees. Another example of primary vs. secondary sources involves book and topic precedence. The Player's Handbook, for example, gives all the rules for playing the game, for playing PC races, and for using base class descriptions. If you find something on one of those topics from the DUNGEON MASTER's Guide or the Monster Manual that disagrees with the Player's Handbook, you should assume the Player's Handbook is the primary source. The DUNGEON MASTER's Guide is the primary source for topics such as magic item descriptions, special material construction rules, and so on. The Monster Manual is the primary source for monster descriptions, templates, and supernatural, extraordinary, and spell-like abilities. You are ignoring that the Special Abilities section has Primacy about what is and what is not Special Ability (it's own topic, more proof ain't possible). The feats section only has primacy over feats. And unless it is explicitly called out that they ignore the Special Ability rules/categories, they have to behave under them. And no, once again, an undefined term (special feature) doesn't make a rule. It's just basic English describing something.
You define something in 3.5 either as:
1: Title + explanation
2: paragraph with explanation
3: bold written term + ":" + explanation
4: Glossary
I don't see how special feature is defined and what they do (or not). It's just a basic English telling you that feat are special features. That is describing what feats are in a fancy way but lack any kind of information that would turn it into a rule. Undefined term != rule

__________________________

let me also play devil's advotace, since the wording is "Feat : A rogue may gain a bonus feat in place of a special ability.", that works as an argument that feats aren't actually abilities. It all depends of the interpretation of that wording, inclusive or exclusive
It's still the Special Abilities section that has supremacy over its own topic and rogue could only make an exception for itself at best. Rogue won't set any new global rules for Special Abilities.

Warmjenkins

2020-12-25, 09:10 PM

Snipped for length

Ok, most of what you wrote was just nonsense predicated on a false assumption.(to be fair, upon rereading it, I think there are a few bad typos that are making it sound way worse than it really is) The key point you are missing is feats are not by default special abilities. Full stop, that's it. The rules never state that feats are abilities. Some feats say they are abilities so some are but not all. You have never provided evidence to the contrary. Feat /= special ability. Also since this seems to be a common misconception somehow most/=all. I can't believe I've had to explain it this many times any somehow people still don't get it.

Skills are often times more of abilities than feats. Guess what, they aren't special abilities either. You know what are abilities according to chapter of the player handbook? Stength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom and charisma. Seriously, read the first chapter it explicitly calls them abilities constantly. So stop trying to use a misinformed English language definition to back up your argument. Plenty of abilities in d&d and covered by the special abilities rules. It never states feats fall under those rules once, never references them in the feats section, never even hints at them.

Also did you really just try to argue that being born with a tail isn't a physical characteristic and is a learned trait? Having ancestors is a learned trait? Channeling your magic into arcane energy in your weapon is 100% non-magical?

Feats are special abilities but skills are not? The things literally reffered to as abilities are not? Some feats are clearly not abilities by your very own definition. Others are clearly not extraordinary yet lack anything saying thearen't. You're saying the players handbook and other core rulebook text is wrong but a vague statement that doesn't even say anything of substance and your own misconception of the non-game definition of an English word are definitely correct? Multiple people cited multiple sources that state feats are not considered special abilities by default. You stated one sentence in one of the least respected rulebooks that at best only says most feats are special abilities. Most, not all.

In summary feats are not abilities, they aren't spells, they aren't weapons or items. They don't need to say every single thing they aren't because they were never implied to be any of those things in the first place. Unless a feat says its an ability it isn't, those are the rules. Feats aren't spells just because they don't say they aren't, feats aren't extraordinary abilities just because they don't say they aren't. Show me a rule that states feats are always special abilities. If you can't then you have no argument to start with.

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-26, 03:45 AM

thats what i said but then you quoted some other place that said all ex are either attacks or qualities.
No, the special abilities section says that all special abilities are either attacks or qualities, and those must be either (Ex), (Sp) or (Su).
As i said in the very post you quoted that does not mean the reverse in that all (Ex) abilities must be special qualities.

you cant use glossary. glossary is a summary not actual rules. glossary got a lot of stuff wrong. for example, a wizards spell known list is whatever spell he wrote into his spellbook at any point in time. thats why you can only prepare spells that you know from a borrowed spellbook and not spells you dont know. glossary however says a wizards spell known is spells he has in his spellbook when even complete arcane says there are no special connection between a wizard and his book.
That's not really a valid argument if you're trying to use the FAQ as a RAW source. :smalltongue:

alter self puts racial bonus feats as physical qualities not extraordinary qualities.
Yeah, but the Alternate Form rules are worded differently so you don't get racial bonus feats by default.
Racial traits are explicitly (Ex) special qualities, including bonus feats (see the Elf MM entry for example), so you can get them with MoMF 7 or Enhance Wild Shape.

You keep ignoring my argument about primary source. The Special Ability section determines what is a feat or what is not.
The special ability section doesn't even mention feats.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-26, 03:49 AM

Ok, most of what you wrote was just nonsense predicated on a false assumption.(to be fair, upon rereading it, I think there are a few bad typos that are making it sound way worse than it really is) The key point you are missing is feats are not by default special abilities. Full stop, that's it. The rules never state that feats are abilities. Some feats say they are abilities so some are but not all. You have never provided evidence to the contrary. Feat /= special ability. Also since this seems to be a common misconception somehow most/=all. I can't believe I've had to explain it this many times any somehow people still don't get it.
The Special Ability rules never claim that they explicitly call out everything one by one what is and what is not an SA. It presents rules how to distinguish if an "ability" (normal English definition, not Ability Scores) is a Natural Ability or if not, to which one of the Special Ability categories it belongs.
Think about stacking rules as example. Does every bonus in any ability/spell/whatsoever remind you of those? There are many which do, but also enough instances that don't remind of those rules. But the stacking rules have supremacy over its topic and it doesn't need to call out each possible instance. It just needs to present global working rules (which can be altered by specific exceptions in their niche). The same can be said for Special Abilities. They present global rules and as long as feats fit the description, they qualify for being Special Abilities (unless feats would make an explicit counter statement, which it doesn't).

Skills are often times more of abilities than feats. Guess what, they aren't special abilities either. You know what are abilities according to chapter of the player handbook? Stength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom and charisma. Seriously, read the first chapter it explicitly calls them abilities constantly. So stop trying to use a misinformed English language definition to back up your argument. Plenty of abilities in d&d and covered by the special abilities rules. It never states feats fall under those rules once, never references them in the feats section, never even hints at them.

Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.
Most skills who can be used even untrained automatically disqualify, because it is something that anyone can do.
Just because English is my 3rd language doesn't mean that I have problems gasping the rules behind the text. I know that my English sentence structure is bady influenced by 2 other languages and that I often make typos or twist some similiar words while typing. But these lil problems don't stop me from grasping the logic behind the text (especially if I take my time to grasping it). That assumption is just rude. You are constantly ignoring the "primary source rule for topics" and the reference in BOED. And for the topic what is and what is not an Special Ability, it is the "Special Abilities" section that sets the general rules, not the feats section.
E.g. Combat rules have their own section. Magic (spell) rules make use of em and sometimes alter these for their nice (either magic overall: e.g. rules for Ray & Weapon-like attacks, or spell specific rules: E.g. Invisibility is redefining what is an attack for "itself").
The same way, the feats section can only change/ignore the Special Ability rules when they explicitly call it out. And you haven't presented any valid exception rule for feats so far.

Also did you really just try to argue that being born with a tail isn't a physical characteristic and is a learned trait? Having ancestors is a learned trait? Channeling your magic into arcane energy in your weapon is 100% non-magical? You are mixing fluff text (something very common in 3.5) with actual rules.
While the fluff text implies that you are born with it, by RAW you get to take the feat when you reach the starting age for your first class lvl (or if the monster is matured in the chase of monsters without class lvls).
While you may claim that the feat tells you, that you are born with it, it doesn't alter the rules when you get and benefit from your first feat. So you don't get to pick that feat when you are born, sorry. And to ask you a simple question here: "Are you arguing that you didn't "spent a feat to learn the feat"? If you needed to spend resources, it is not a Natural Ability. Only if you race description instead tells you that "you get the feat for free" it becomes a Natural Ability (IIRC there are a few examples of this).
Further, Natural Abilities never tell you that you need to be born with em. The rules call em out as things that you just have because of your race/form. So your ability to sexually reproduce (which you get as teenager) is a Natural Ability that you aren't born with. But compared to your feat examples, you don't need to spend any feats or resources to gain this Natural Ability. Because it's "natural".

edit:

The special ability section doesn't even mention feats.

The Special Ability section presents rules in form of categories with a description of each. The rule enforces you to apply the rules to anything that is valid.
Since when does every rule have to call out each specific chases name? > Rules mainly set parameters to follow.

And if you would just read the EX desperation and can follow me that feats default to abilities in the English language you have to apply the rules.

Yak folklore

2020-12-26, 12:22 PM

There is nothing that explicitly states that that doesn't work, but in other instances of being able to exchange feats (I'm thinking chameleon), it does say that you can't undermine prerequisites, just can't.
Again, mostly boils down to ask your DM, but if I were DMing I would look at the change in mechanical power, versus the flair and coolness of it.

Warmjenkins

2020-12-26, 01:02 PM

And if you would just read the EX desperation and can follow me that feats default to abilities in the English language you have to apply the rules.

Ok, first of all I was not disparaging or insulting you for your typos or lack of English profiency. That's why I added the statement about it possibly being the reason so much came across as nonsense. It made things hard to understand but its hardly the worst I've seen on these forums. I just pointed it out to try and be fair in assuming things like that you don't think the special abilities section gets to decide what is or isn't a feat ect... sorry if it came across that way I was just trying to give you the benefit of the doubt on a few of the more ridiculous statements being typos.

Second, while there are plenty of other holes and logical leap in your reasoning (like a warforgeds entire body not being a physical characteristic because it was decided by a feat you must take at character creation, you're the one who decided English definitions apply to game rules remember) you seem to be getting hung up on lots of meaningless things and keep ignoring the real issue here. Feats aren't special abilities. The rules never say that all feats are special abilities. That's it. Feats are not special abilities unless the rules say they are. The rules never say all feats are special abilities. The rules only call out certain feats as special abilities. I know I'm repeating myself a lot here but you are either not getting the point or being willfully ignorant. You seem to think feats are special abilities because they fit your personal definition of the word ability in non-game terms. I, as well as many others, have provided a large number of examples of feats not fitting the definition you put forth of abilities. I've pointed out that by both the English definition that you gave and the in game definition that many other things meet both definitions better than most feats do. You are either ignoring this because it doesn't fit your argument or somehow still missing it.

The English language does not equate to rules text. Also feats absolutely do not default to abilities in the English language. The English definition of a skill and the d&d definition of a skill do not always line up. Being able to fight with a sword is 100% a skill, but in d&d there is no swordfighting skill. Being able to forge someone's name is definitely an ability, much more than have three more hp is yet guess which one is a feat and which one is a skill. None are special abilities in the d&d sense. Feats aren't special abilities.

Feats aren't special abilities. Rules text has been provided to you from multiple sources showing that feats aren't special abilities. The special abilities rules do not govern feats in any way unless the rules explicitly state feats to be special abilities. In which case they are only the primary source on the parts of the feat that pertain to the specific parts of that feat that interact with those rules. Your primary source argument keeps being ignored because it is irrelevant. The primary source on ability scores is chapter 1 of the players handbook. Guess what, that doesn't matter because feats aren't ability scores. If a feat modifies ability scores or somehow is an ability score then the primary source matters now. But that doesn't make all feats suddenly become ability scores just because one is. Feats aren't special abilities, show me any rules text that says that feats, as a whole not specific ones, are special abilities. If you can't then the special abilities rules don't matter. Feats aren't special abilities. Your own personal definition of the word ability doesn't equate to rules, especially when most trained skills meet the definition of special ability as well or better than most feats. Im getting tired of saying it now but feats are not special abilities.

(Edit, I was going to try to keep my point more focused because you are either getting distracted or intentionally deflecting from the core flaw of your argument but I guess I couldn't help myself.)

You are mixing fluff text (something very common in 3.5) with actual rules.
While the fluff text implies that you are born with it, by RAW you get to take the feat when you reach the starting age for your first class lvl (or if the monster is matured in the chase of monsters without class lvls).
While you may claim that the feat tells you, that you are born with it, it doesn't alter the rules when you get and benefit from your first feat. So you don't get to pick that feat when you are born, sorry. And to ask you a simple question here: "Are you arguing that you didn't "spent a feat to learn the feat"? If you needed to spend resources, it is not a Natural Ability. Only if you race description instead tells you that "you get the feat for free" it becomes a Natural Ability (IIRC there are a few examples of this).
Further, Natural Abilities never tell you that you need to be born with em. The rules call em out as things that you just have because of your race/form. So your ability to sexually reproduce (which you get as teenager) is a Natural Ability that you aren't born with. But compared to your feat examples, you don't need to spend any feats or resources to gain this Natural Ability. Because it's "natural".

Aside from your misconception about the ability to reproduce being inborn. Where in the rules does it say natural abilities can't be gained by spending resources? Also, if I have to choose between multiple different natural abilities (something many races do such as a drogonborns wing/breath weapon ect... don't get hung up on the example though because there are tons more) does that make them not natural now? Does player choice somehow suddenly decide what kind of ability something is? I spent the resource of one of my racial traits, there was an opportunity cost to take the choice i did. There were a finite number of choices. Some natural abilities are gained over time and must be chosen (just like skills or feats, wierd huh?) at various points along the characters life/level progression.

In fact natural abilities are described by the srd "Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like." So therefore all feats, if they were special abilities, that don't otherwise specify as one of those three default to natural abilities. It doesn't say you need to be born with them, can't acquire or lose them, or that they can't involve knowledge or intelligence. An aboleths ancestral memories and ability to absorb memories of other creatures would be a good example.

Once again though, this is a side argument that has nothing to do with the core reason you are wrong about special abilities so don't let it distract you. In reality special abilities in game terms are only the specific things the game says they are. Id consider spells and skills special abilities, they are certainly abilities and definitely special but the game doesn't. I'd consider many things spells by the English definition that the game doesn't. Some things the game considers spells i would not because they don't fit the English definition. None of that matters though because the game defines what is a spell, what is a special ability what is a feat, and what is a skill. Feats aren't special abilities.

(Side note i just noticed that is related to the OP, level adjustment is listed under the same racial traits (EX): heading as the rest. So if you argue that everything under that heading is an extraordinary special quality get to get the human bonus feat you'd also have to get level adjustment, favored class, languages ect... obviously not the intended effect)

Darg

2020-12-26, 01:55 PM

The rules of "Combining Magical Effects" is on the Casting Spells (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm)page:
While some parts of the page mention effects, it seems that only spells get the short end of the stick here. I don't see any base that would affect "all magical stuff/abilities". Only spells are limited by this rule. The errata for Wild Shape causes you to "keep what Wild Shape says that you keep" and "add what Wild Shape says that you should add" (modified by MOMF in our special chase here).
The title of the page makes it clear: "Casting Spells" and not "resolving magical effects overall".

Welp, looks like I can stack conditions, SLAs, Su, Ex, and armor and weapon abilities as long as they aren't modifiers. It should be really nice guaranteeing my eldritch essence lands with infinite instances of the essence attached to an eldritch blast. I may be limited to one essence, but it is still only one essence when I apply it infinitely.

The chapter of the PHB is called Magic. Being under the casting spells section is relevant as 95% of all SLAs and Su refer back to the spell to understand how the ability functions. The title of the subsection is indeed "Combining Magical Effects." Ignoring the structure and focusing only on specific lines tends to lead to the unfortunate misunderstanding in this thread.

Even if feats are Extraordinary Abilities, the human extra feat is not a racial trait. The trait is picking the feat at level one. You have not even demonstrated how wild shape gives you the racial traits of the form you take.

As others have stated, the BoED feat clause does not apply to all feats. The clause is not even ironclad exclusive to where feats can only be supernatural or extraordinary as that would make SLA feats no longer SLA. It may be the case that feats that are abilities are mostly extraordinary, but then again nothing says that all feats are abilities in the first place. This makes interpreting that all feats being extraordinary abilities and thus special qualities not only never represented, but also logical fallacy.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-27, 09:32 PM

*snip*
I've to apologize that due to the overheated discussion maybe some of my arguments may have sound to polarizing. Let me try to put it in in a more detailed way:

When I see an untyped ability (assuming the ability in Special "Ability" defaults to base English definition and that feats are abilities by English definition) I ask myself the following questions, because the Special Ability section enforces these rules:
1. "Is it a Natural Ability?" In some chases races can even have racial feats (as NA) because of some parts of their body that enables them to have em without any "special" effort. That doesn't mean that all feats in a monster stat block are racial feats, only those explicit mentioned that come from form/body-parts.

2. If it doesn't fit into (1): "Is it non magical?" When it ain't magical it can only be an Extraordinary Ability, since we excluded NA as possibility. Most feats generally default into this group but not all.

3. If it doesn't fit into (1+2): "Is it referring to a spell?" if it is, then it has to be a SLA.

4. If it doesn't fit into (1+2+3): If it is magical but not resembling a spell it can only be an SU ability.

An easy guideline to categorize, that doesn't cause any conflicts.

I don't get why some of you insist that either one (Special Abilities or Feats) has to call out the other to have a reason for interaction. Let me give you a similar example to our situation. There are many combat spells that make use of the "Combat" rules. Do you see that the "Combat" rules are always referring to the fact that spells might fall under this rule? No, because they don't have to. As soon as a spell provides a scenario to follow the combat rules they apply.
The same can be said about Feats and Special Abilities. As soon as feats provide the required things to follow the Special Ability rules they apply. So what is in you opinion the requirement than one is enforced to apply the Special Ability rules? The sole reason of the Special Ability section is, that you can categorize all the abilities that don't have a friendly reminder for you in their rule text (like most Feats).

Welp, looks like I can stack conditions, SLAs, Su, Ex, and armor and weapon abilities as long as they aren't modifiers. It should be really nice guaranteeing my eldritch essence lands with infinite instances of the essence attached to an eldritch blast. I may be limited to one essence, but it is still only one essence when I apply it infinitely. Eldritch Blast is an SLA. Spell-Like-Ability. The "like a spell" part ain't just for looks ;) It has to behave like a spell unless noted otherwise in the SLA description. As such, it has to follow the regular spell stacking rules. No conflict/dysfunction here.
And just because an ability is stackable, doesn't mean that their effects (e.g. bonus types, size bonuses..) are stackable as you wish. They still follow all other rules that apply in the specific situations.

The chapter of the PHB is called Magic. Being under the casting spells section is relevant as 95% of all SLAs and Su refer back to the spell to understand how the ability functions. The title of the subsection is indeed "Combining Magical Effects." Ignoring the structure and focusing only on specific lines tends to lead to the unfortunate misunderstanding in this thread.As said, SLAs have to follow the spell casting rules unless otherwise mentioned in the (general and specific) SLA rules. But that isn't the chase for SU abilities since they aren't related to casting spells.

Even if feats are Extraordinary Abilities, the human extra feat is not a racial trait. The trait is picking the feat at level one. You have not even demonstrated how wild shape gives you the racial traits of the form you take. As other have also confirmed it: All racial traits are Ex. Just because we lack a table to confirm this for HBF doesn't change that the HBF doesn't call itself out as an exception and as such has to follow the Special Ability Rules.
And I have said several times that MOMF7 gives all Extraordinary Qualities. Where is your problem? Did you miss that this topic ain't about base Wild Shape?

As others have stated, the BoED feat clause does not apply to all feats. The clause is not even ironclad exclusive to where feats can only be supernatural or extraordinary as that would make SLA feats no longer SLA. It may be the case that feats that are abilities are mostly extraordinary, but then again nothing says that all feats are abilities in the first place. This makes interpreting that all feats being extraordinary abilities and thus special qualities not only never represented, but also logical fallacy.

as I said to Warmjenkins, maybe my arguments have been a bit to polarizing.
If you look at a feat (and from where it is provided: racial or HD progression?) and take the Special Ability rules, you can clearly categorize em into the groups. It's obvious that feats that give SLA are SLA unless otherwise mentioned. BoED doesn't say that "all non-exalted feats are EX".. it says "rather than being
extraordinary abilities, as most feats are". It just tells us that most are EX as simple guideline. Which is true if you start to categorize all feats with the guidelines given in the Special Ability section. Only a small section are SLAs and SUs.

Warmjenkins

2020-12-28, 01:25 AM

I've to apologize that due to the overheated discussion maybe some of my arguments may have sound to polarizing. Let me try to put it in in a more detailed way:

When I see an untyped ability (assuming the ability in Special "Ability" defaults to base English definition and that feats are abilities by English definition) I ask myself the following questions, because the Special Ability section enforces these rules:
1. "Is it a Natural Ability?" In some chases races can even have racial feats (as NA) because of some parts of their body that enables them to have em without any "special" effort. That doesn't mean that all feats in a monster stat block are racial feats, only those explicit mentioned that come from form/body-parts.

2. If it doesn't fit into (1): "Is it non magical?" When it ain't magical it can only be an Extraordinary Ability, since we excluded NA as possibility. Most feats generally default into this group but not all.

3. If it doesn't fit into (1+2): "Is it referring to a spell?" if it is, then it has to be a SLA.

4. If it doesn't fit into (1+2+3): If it is magical but not resembling a spell it can only be an SU ability.

An easy guideline to categorize, that doesn't cause any conflicts.

I don't get why some of you insist that either one (Special Abilities or Feats) has to call out the other to have a reason for interaction. Let me give you a similar example to our situation. There are many combat spells that make use of the "Combat" rules. Do you see that the "Combat" rules are always referring to the fact that spells might fall under this rule? No, because they don't have to. As soon as a spell provides a scenario to follow the combat rules they apply.
The same can be said about Feats and Special Abilities. As soon as feats provide the required things to follow the Special Ability rules they apply.

No problem, I never took any offense to anything and completely understand how easy it is to get overly excited about topics. I also know that many people on this forum and the internet in general don't have English as their first language. I think I understood the meaning behind all your statements but upon a reread of it I became less sure of myself so I mentioned the part about what I assumed were typos just in case. I'm sorry if I came across as accusatory. Even if someone has atrocious grammar, and ive seen some pretty poor grammar on the internet, and no excuse for it I'd never attack them for it in a debate because I feel personal attacks only make your position look weaker.

Anyway, on to the actual subject. The problem i have is if you classify all feats as special abilities because you think they fit the criteria of the English definition of the word ability you then must, for the sake of fairness and consistency, count skills, spellcasting, all untyped class abilities, all untyped abilities gained through spells, plot, items, world events ect... as special abilities. It never ends, the argument is actually pretty good for dexterity or strength being special abilities then since things like toughness, iron will, and alertness are all feats. If a feat gives me claws then why aren't all things that give claws extraordinary abilities unless they say otherwise? Why aren't skills extraordinary abilities? They are gained in the same way as feats and the human bonus feat even comes with a bonus skill, supposedly for the exact same reason that they get the feat. In fact feats and skills are far more similar than feats and special abilities are in most cases. Spellcasting definitely seems like a special ability by all definitions much more than feats do.

This problem isn't contained to feats and special abilities either. Things aren't considered attack actions unless they say they are even though the argument could be made that many things are attack actions. The same is true for many things in 3.5. Nothing in 3.5 presents a vague definition and tells you to just figure out what does or doesn't fit based on your personal opinion for that very reason. Skills are only what is described as a skill in their chapter or in their own description. Plenty of things meet the definition of a skill but aren't unless they say they are in d&d. Plenty of things meet the definition of an attack but also aren't considered attacks. To do things the other way around just makes things messy and it never ends, a persuasive person could argue almost anything is a special ability.

Sight is an ability, its definitely mental in nature so not a natural ability, after all your eyes are no more integral to sight than your brain is to thought and most of the actual seeing happens in your brain. Sight is governed by your wisdom stat, also a mental ability. Therefore wisdom is an extraordinary ability. Definitely moreso of an ability than the iron will feat that does only a portion of what wisdom does. You also gain wisdom as you grow, age, and level up just like feats. You might argue that you are born with some amount of wisdom but some feats must also be taken at character creation so no difference there. Neither explicitly calls out its ability type anywhere and feats don't even call themselves abilities where wisdom is explicitly and repeatedly called an ability in the players handbook. I don't see how you could logically argue that feats are extraordinary abilities but wisdom isn't or especially that skills aren't.

ciopo

2020-12-28, 09:23 AM

cue mandatory https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html
about one word having more than one meaning

sight is indeed an ability, and is extraordinary at that when it's low-light or darkvision :P

I would counterpoint that spellcasting as a whole could be inferred to be a SU ability

are there any untyped class abilities? legit question, I can't think of any, except feats ( which again, I accept as possibly not special abilities after all, I just disagree with that conclusion )

Classes such as the war hulk that has extra ability boosts, classify these boosts as (ex), so I don't see the problem exactly with wisdom being an ability here.

The only thing that comes to mind is damage reduction in some, but not all monster entries.

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-28, 12:10 PM

I would counterpoint that spellcasting as a whole could be inferred to be a SU ability

are there any untyped class abilities? legit question, I can't think of any, except feats ( which again, I accept as possibly not special abilities after all, I just disagree with that conclusion )

Natural abilities are untyped. By RAW anything not marked Ex, Sp or Su is one.

This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.
That should make it simple but it's also RAW that special abilities, which at least innate casting definitely is - must be Ex, Sp or Su.

"Spells" is generally undesignated, so it should be a natural ability, but it's also listed as a special ability so by RAW it can't be. So we have a dysfunction.

If spellcasting was SU it wouldn't be subject to dispel, counterspelling or cause AoO's. And that's before you consider how broken that would be with Assume Supernatural Ability.
It's also never called out as Su (or anything, there's been pages and pages of discussion about it with regard to Planar Shepherd WS).

Manifesting psionic powers is explicitly a psi-like ability, but there's no such rule regarding spells and it wouldn't work anyway because of the dispel + counterspell issue, though you might argue "specific trumps general" on that.
It's certainly the most generally balanced interpretation if you must give it one of the three types because afaik there is no option to gain Sp abilities via shapeshifting except for Planar Shepherd, which is broken anyway.

If spellcasting was Ex it would be granted by MoMF wildshape (it's generally listed as a special attack in monster statblocks, see Planetar and Solar).
Though that's the only option with some RAW backing, as in some monsters having innate spellcasting that's explicitly Ex (Hobgoblin Warsoul iirc from MM 5 is one).
Certainly makes MoMF and Aberration WS a lot more attractive if you play it that way. :smalltongue:

In the end there's really no proof either way - as i said there's pages upon pages of threads of people trying to figure it out - so your best bet is probably to treat it as a natural ability.
It's the most balanced way - afaik there is no way to gain nonphysical natural abilities, Alter Self, it's evolutions and Alternate Form/WS certainly don't - and the way that works best under the rules if you ignore that single conflict with the special ability rules.

ciopo

2020-12-28, 12:54 PM

Oh, I am not advocating that spellcasting should be treated as a SU special ability, I'm mad but not that mad!

I'm saying that, by semantic, *IF* I were to classify spellcasting under the umbrella of special ability, I would put it into supernatural

Darg

2020-12-28, 03:47 PM

are there any untyped class abilities? legit question, I can't think of any, except feats ( which again, I accept as possibly not special abilities after all, I just disagree with that conclusion )

Bonus feats (the class feature gives the bonus feats and are not the feats themselves), spellcasting, DD's apotheosis, bardic knowledge, and bardic music (the effect is supernatural but the music is not, meaning you can still perform in an anti-magic field) are all examples.

If it doesn't have an Ex, Sp, or Su next to the name of the feature it is not either of those 3 things

"Spells" is generally undesignated, so it should be a natural ability, but it's also listed as a special ability so by RAW it can't be. So we have a dysfunction.

Luckily you don't have to worry about it:

The char-
acter’s base attack bonus, base saving throw bonuses, and special
class abilities are now reduced to the new, lower level

They are special class abilities and not special abilities. The abilities themselves may be special abilities, but are not inherently special abilities.

Manifesting psionic powers is explicitly a psi-like ability, but there's no such rule regarding spells and it wouldn't work anyway because of the dispel + counterspell issue, though you might argue "specific trumps general" on that.

I would argue that the section header focuses the point of the paragraphs preceeding from it. Should this be ignored, powers explicitly do not cost power points and invalidates the entire system. The fact that class psionics do not meet the definition and properties of PLAs should be enough evidence to prove that class powers are not PLAs.

Eldritch Blast is an SLA. Spell-Like-Ability. The "like a spell" part ain't just for looks ;) It has to behave like a spell unless noted otherwise in the SLA description. As such, it has to follow the regular spell stacking rules. No conflict/dysfunction here.
And just because an ability is stackable, doesn't mean that their effects (e.g. bonus types, size bonuses..) are stackable as you wish. They still follow all other rules that apply in the specific situations.

As said, SLAs have to follow the spell casting rules unless otherwise mentioned in the (general and specific) SLA rules. But that isn't the chase for SU abilities since they aren't related to casting spells.

You missed the point. Same sources don't stack regardless. Gaining the properties of a form you possess is overwritten by the new form you become.

As other have also confirmed it: All racial traits are Ex. Just because we lack a table to confirm this for HBF doesn't change that the HBF doesn't call itself out as an exception and as such has to follow the Special Ability Rules.
And I have said several times that MOMF7 gives all Extraordinary Qualities. Where is your problem? Did you miss that this topic ain't about base Wild Shape?

All racial traits are not Ex and I want to know where in the rules it states this? Combing previous posts, nothing confirms that they are. Infact, there is more evidence that they are not. The best one is the fact that Ex, SLA, and Su abilities have the tag next to them. Those that aren't are not either of the 3. None of the human traits have that tag and are therefore neither.

Regardless of whether feats are Ex or not, the human trait gives you a feat at level 1. The trait is not the feat itself.

sleepyphoenixx

2020-12-28, 04:29 PM

Luckily you don't have to worry about it:

They are special class abilities and not special abilities. The abilities themselves may be special abilities, but are not inherently special abilities.
I was actually talking about innate (as in racial) spellcasting like dragons or angels have, not spells granted by class levels.
That's definitely a special ability, seeing how it appears in the special ability index and is generally listed under Special Attacks in monster statblocks.

I would argue that the section header focuses the point of the paragraphs preceeding from it. Should this be ignored, powers explicitly do not cost power points and invalidates the entire system. The fact that class psionics do not meet the definition and properties of PLAs should be enough evidence to prove that class powers are not PLAs.
There isn't really anything to argue. It's right there in the text:

The manifestation of powers by a psionic character is considered a psi-like ability, as is the manifestation of powers by creatures without a psionic class (creatures with the psionic subtype, also simply called psionic creatures).
I don't really see how this can be interpreted to refer to anything but characters with a psionic class.

And as i also mentioned in the post you quoted this conflict can easily be resolved by using "specific trumps general".
Psionics is specifically ruled to cost pp, so it does despite being a PLA. There is no conflict here.

All racial traits are not Ex and I want to know where in the rules it states this? Combing previous posts, nothing confirms that they are. Infact, there is more evidence that they are not. The best one is the fact that Ex, SLA, and Su abilities have the tag next to them. Those that aren't are not either of the 3. None of the human traits have that tag and are therefore neither.
All the other PHB races have their racial traits listed as Ex Special Qualities in the MM despite not labelling them Ex in the PHB. So it's at the very least not an unreasonable assumption.

Yeah, you can quibble about humans never getting such an entry, but i prefer consistency and simply telling my players they can't use an otherwise-valid option over having different rules for the same thing book-by-book because the editors didn't pay attention.

Gruftzwerg

2020-12-30, 09:40 AM

Anyway, on to the actual subject. The problem i have is if you classify all feats as special abilities because you think they fit the criteria of the English definition of the word ability you then must, for the sake of fairness and consistency, count skills, spellcasting, all untyped class abilities, all untyped abilities gained through spells, plot, items, world events ect... as special abilities. It never ends, the argument is actually pretty good for dexterity or strength being special abilities then since things like toughness, iron will, and alertness are all feats. If a feat gives me claws then why aren't all things that give claws extraordinary abilities unless they say otherwise? Why aren't skills extraordinary abilities? They are gained in the same way as feats and the human bonus feat even comes with a bonus skill, supposedly for the exact same reason that they get the feat. In fact feats and skills are far more similar than feats and special abilities are in most cases. Spellcasting definitely seems like a special ability by all definitions much more than feats do.
Skills:
I would argue that skills are something that anyone can do (those that can be used without ranks) and that anyone can learn (skills don't have requirements to put points into them.). This excludes em as EX since: "They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training."
And I think we can easily exclude them from the remaining categories.

Spellcasting:
What would happen if we would categorize spellcasting as SU? Would it really break the world apart? Lets have a look at the rules:

Supernatural abilities are magical and go away in an antimagic field but are not subject to spell resistance, counterspells, or to being dispelled by dispel magic. Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise. Supernatural abilities may have a use limit or be usable at will, just like spell-like abilities. However, supernatural abilities do not provoke attacks of opportunity and never require Concentration checks. Unless otherwise noted, a supernatural ability has an effective caster level equal to the creature’s Hit Dice. The saving throw (if any) against a supernatural ability is:

10 + ½ the creature’s HD + the creature’s ability modifier (usually Charisma).

Is there any rule that doesn't get trumped by "more specific" global spell rules (e.g. Spell Resistance, Counterspell, casting time, AoO, Save rolls..) or by specific spell rules (e.g. Dispell Magic...)? I'm kindly asking here. Is there any rule untouched by spell rules that would cause problems if we would assume that spellcasting would be SU?

untyped class abilities, all untyped abilities :
If we are talking about real abilities and not just some passive bonuses the class gets I would say yes. May sound "too strong" at first glance but still not as strong as T1 casting imho (MOMF needs to sacrifice 7 lvl worth of druid casting to pull this off). Further, the MOMF still needs to be familiar with the form. The DMs needs to be careful what he is presenting in front of the MOMF and what he is getting familiar with. Compare this power lvl to a default druid who gets his spell list no matter what (plus his regular shapes and abilities). Further the DM can stretch the time and interaction needed to be familiar with someone "specific" depending on the circumstances. Imho very strong but not game breaking. Just another reason why mundanes got the short end of the stick in 3.5... :/

gained through spells, plot, items, world events ect:
Not part of the target form. Their source is not the target form (e.g. even if the form has cast the spell himself, the spells effect is the source, not the target form). So none of the things apply here in our chase (MOMF 7).

This problem isn't contained to feats and special abilities either. Things aren't considered attack actions unless they say they are even though the argument could be made that many things are attack actions. The same is true for many things in 3.5. Nothing in 3.5 presents a vague definition and tells you to just figure out what does or doesn't fit based on your personal opinion for that very reason.
Sorry, but imho an attack action doesn't need to be called out explicitly in every ability, cause the general combat rules set the definition of "Attack Action" are in most (non exceptional) chases enough to determine if something is an attack action or not. The explicit ability in each chase doesn't need to call it out every time if it is obvious by the definition of "attack action". As said, 3.5 often uses friendly reminder, but on an inconsistent base (see effects that give size bonuses)

I can see the arguable point that things who only give passive bonuses should not be counted as abilities and just be viewed as merely enhancements/benefits/whatsoever. But one could also argument that the "ability" gives me the passiv bonus/enhancement. Debatable and normally would call for a DM decision. But as shown by ciopo's War-Hulk example, such passive bonuses can be EX abilities. So it seems even passive bonuses can be valid 3.5 abilities.

Sight is an ability, its definitely mental in nature so not a natural ability, after all your eyes are no more integral to sight than your brain is to thought and most of the actual seeing happens in your brain. Sight is governed by your wisdom stat, also a mental ability. Therefore wisdom is an extraordinary ability. Definitely moreso of an ability than the iron will feat that does only a portion of what wisdom does. You also gain wisdom as you grow, age, and level up just like feats. You might argue that you are born with some amount of wisdom but some feats must also be taken at character creation so no difference there. Neither explicitly calls out its ability type anywhere and feats don't even call themselves abilities where wisdom is explicitly and repeatedly called an ability in the players handbook. I don't see how you could logically argue that feats are extraordinary abilities but wisdom isn't or especially that skills aren't.
Again, "sight" is something that anyone can do and as such not an EX ability. It's non-magical either and as such just a mere "ability" (as in default English). Same can be said about Wisdom which thus can easily be categorized as Natural Abilities.

cue mandatory https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html
about one word having more than one meaning

sight is indeed an ability, and is extraordinary at that when it's low-light or darkvision :P

I would counterpoint that spellcasting as a whole could be inferred to be a SU ability

are there any untyped class abilities? legit question, I can't think of any, except feats ( which again, I accept as possibly not special abilities after all, I just disagree with that conclusion )

Classes such as the war hulk that has extra ability boosts, classify these boosts as (ex), so I don't see the problem exactly with wisdom being an ability here.

The only thing that comes to mind is damage reduction in some, but not all monster entries.
yeah, i think the comic fits our discussion to some degree^^

As already asked above, do you see any rule problems if we would categorize spellcasting as SU. Imho all SU rules get trumped by more specific spell casting rules.

I would like to know if there are so many untyped class abilities that might be problematic.
Monk's Unarmed Strike would come into my mind. If we would follow the categories of the Special Abilities section, it would count as EX, despite not being explicitly called out as such.

Natural abilities are untyped. By RAW anything not marked Ex, Sp or Su is one.

This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.

That is not what the quoted rule text is saying. It doesn't say all untyped abilities are Natural Abilities (nor that NA are untyped). It says that those abilities that doesn't fit into the other categories (EX, SLA, SU) are NA.

All racial traits are not Ex and I want to know where in the rules it states this? Combing previous posts, nothing confirms that they are. Infact, there is more evidence that they are not. The best one is the fact that Ex, SLA, and Su abilities have the tag next to them. Those that aren't are not either of the 3. None of the human traits have that tag and are therefore neither.

Regardless of whether feats are Ex or not, the human trait gives you a feat at level 1. The trait is not the feat itself

It's not a rule, but as far as I know (and others have pointed out): all racial traits in the MM are marked as EX. We only lack the statblock for humans in the MM. The human traits don't mention that their traits count as anything "out of the line", which leads to the conclusion that all human traits would count as EX (yeah,not a real rule and it's extrapolated info, I have to admit. But it is on a consistent level. Can you show contradicting examples? Kindly asking).

Yeah, the HBF trait is not a feat itself. So what? Sorry but I don't get the point you are trying to make here. As long as the trait is an EX ability MOMF lvl 7 gives access to it. Please explain me where your argument is aiming here? Imho I could even argue that the target form has already picked their HBF (since my target form is an adult with a minimum of 1hd worth of class lvl) and thus the "HBF ability" got replaced by a feat which I again (could) get via MOMF lvl 7 (unless it is a feat called out as SU/SLA). However you want to turn it around, the result is that I will get it since both are EX Abilities.

edit:

You missed the point. Same sources don't stack regardless. Gaining the properties of a form you possess is overwritten by the new form you become.
Would you be so kind to quote the rule you are suggesting here? The only rules that comes into my mind would be either stacking rules for bonuses on dice rolls or "spell" stacking rules that would forbid this kind of stacking (same source). Do we have any global rule here that I'm unaware of? Otherwise I have to point out that Wild Shape is neither a bonus to a dice roll, nor a spell/SLA and thus doesn't fall under the rules you mention. As I said, blame the ERRATA that changed Wild Shape from referring to Polymorph, which is a spell and thus had forced Wild Shape to behave under the spell effect stacking rules (back, before the ERRATA). Now it refers to Alternate Form which is not a cast spell and doesn't follow the limitations cast "spell" effects have to face. I'm kindly asking if you can present either global rules that prevent stacking from the same source or at least for SU abilities?

_______________________________________________
PS: I'm really getting the feeling we are close to a final answer here. Lets see if there are any other obstacles left with this "theory so far". Keep it coming, anything that worries/bothers you.

And I'm sorry for the late response, but I received really sad news and this messed up my last few days (and probably the coming few weeks or more...).

Darg

2021-01-01, 11:31 PM

Apparently the Premium edition of the MM stealth errataed (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/119229/if-alter-self-is-used-to-assume-aquatic-elf-form-does-the-form-get-functioning/119244) the (Ex) tag:

The traits of the aquatic elf (Monster Manual 103) are listed as extraordinary abilities in the Monster Manual (2003) and in the SRD, but they are not listed as extraordinary abilities by the premium edition Monster Manual (2012), therefore they're actually natural abilities via stealth errata. (This change is consistent throughout the premium edition and, for example, eliminates some confusion with races that had all their racial traits listed as extraordinary abilities even when those extraordinary abilities were also spell-like abilities, like some possessed by a drow (103) or a gnome (131).)

I don't have the premium edition so I can't verify this, but it makes much more sense than racial traits being Ex abilities.

Otherwise I have to point out that Wild Shape is neither a bonus to a dice roll, nor a spell/SLA and thus doesn't fall under the rules you mention.

You forget that it modifies your ability scores, which are indeed die rolls. The fact that you get ability score modifiers from other spells or effects proves that they are. Still, I can't see how you don't think that a supernatural ability isn't a magical effect and isn't subject to the magical effect stacking rules.

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-02, 01:09 AM

Apparently the Premium edition of the MM stealth errataed (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/119229/if-alter-self-is-used-to-assume-aquatic-elf-form-does-the-form-get-functioning/119244) the (Ex) tag:

I don't have the premium edition so I can't verify this, but it makes much more sense than racial traits being Ex abilities.
I don't have the premium edition neither. But I can theoretically go through two possible scenarios:

1)
Unless they explicitly call out a change, it doesn't change anything per 3.5 rules. Because keeping silent about something doesn't contradict what has already been said. Unless a new rule is shown, nothing changes.

2)
Even if we would ignore the given friendly reminders in previous MM and go for uncategorized traits as in the Premium MM, the changes would be little. As said, nothing stops the Special Ability section to apply the rules and categorize each ability. Only a handful of racial traits would fall into Natural Abilities. Because most of em are still non-magical things that "not anyone can learn" and thus belong into the EX category. Further this would solve the problem with those SLA granting traits that are marked as EX, since they would easily fall into the SLA category where they belong to.

While I would personally prefer option 2, imho it I looks more like to be option 1.

You forget that it modifies your ability scores, which are indeed die rolls. The fact that you get ability score modifiers from other spells or effects proves that they are. Still, I can't see how you don't think that a supernatural ability isn't a magical effect and isn't subject to the magical effect stacking rules.

A modifier is any bonus or penalty applying to a die roll. A positive modifier is a bonus, and a negative modifier is a penalty.
Wild Shape doesn't give you any positive or negative modifiers to apply to your ability scores. It sets your ability scores to the target values.

The creature gains the physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con) of its new form.
You don't gain any modifiers, you directly gain the physical ability scores.

Edit:
Anyone here with a Premium edition of the MM? We could need some clarification, if there are any new rules "who call out changes" or not.

Darg

2021-01-02, 01:53 AM

Wild Shape doesn't give you any positive or negative modifiers to apply to your ability scores. It sets your ability scores to the target values.

You don't gain any modifiers, you directly gain the physical ability scores.

And yet it modifies your ability scores to be that which it becomes. The only way it wouldn't be a bonus or penalty is if you had the exact same scores as the form you assume. Even then, 0 is a valid number as your ability modifiers can be 0. The books do this circle thing where modifier refers to bonus or penalty while bonus and penalty refer back to modifier which ultimately doesn't provide a clear definition of what they exactly are. Without this clear answer, any modification to a die roll is a modifier by definition.

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-02, 02:21 AM

And yet it modifies your ability scores to be that which it becomes. The only way it wouldn't be a bonus or penalty is if you had the exact same scores as the form you assume. Even then, 0 is a valid number as your ability modifiers can be 0. The books do this circle thing where modifier refers to bonus or penalty while bonus and penalty refer back to modifier which ultimately doesn't provide a clear definition of what they exactly are. Without this clear answer, any modification to a die roll is a modifier by definition.

I have presented how "modifiers" have their special definition that trumps any other normally valid definition of modifiers.
And these rules talk about "modifiers that you apply to a roll" and not about "gaining ability scores". Mechanically two different things in 3.5.
And imho even in the real world. Think about prepaid sim cards for smartphones. You can modify the sim cards value by charging money onto it. But you could also exchange the sim card with another prepaid sim card which has its own value. The previous value didn't get modified at all.
The same can be said in our situation. You temporary exchange your ability score. This is not what 3.5 has defined as modifier.

modifying a given value is not same as exchanging the value: A +/- B != A B
edit: B in the formula is the modifier to A, it doesn't exchange it. The result is not B!

Darg

2021-01-02, 02:42 AM

I have presented how "modifiers" have their special definition that trumps any other normally valid definition of modifiers.
And these rules talk about "modifiers that you apply to a roll" and not about "gaining ability scores". Mechanically two different things in 3.5.
And imho even in the real world. Think about prepaid sim cards for smartphones. You can modify the sim cards value by charging money onto it. But you could also exchange the sim card with another prepaid sim card which has its own value. The previous value didn't get modified at all.
The same can be said in our situation. You temporary exchange your ability score. This is not what 3.5 has defined as modifier.

modifying a given value is not same as exchanging the value: A +/- B != A B

You are applying your own narrow interpretation. Using the same prepaid card scenario, the total amount of money you possess was modified by changing cards. "Gaining ability scores" has never been defined. You gain a bonus or penalty. You receive a bonus or penalty. You get a bonus or penalty. You gain the ability scores. You receive the ability scores. You get the ability scores. It's all the same. It's all a modification to a die roll you possess. Your ability score is modified to a lesser or greater degree.

This is not what 3.5 has defined as modifier.

What is the definition of modifier? "Any bonus or penalty applying to a die roll. A positive modifier is a bonus, and a negative modifier is a penalty." What is a bonus and what is a penalty? "A positive modifier to a die roll" and "A negative modifier to a die roll." What is the english definition of "modifier?" "a person or thing that makes partial or minor changes to something." Wild Shape changes your abilities. It modifies your ability scores. Specifically and individually your strength, dexterity, and constitution. Just because it doesn't give a specific number in the description doesn't mean there isn't a specific number to be had.

2)
Even if we would ignore the given friendly reminders in previous MM and go for uncategorized traits as in the Premium MM, the changes would be little. As said, nothing stops the Special Ability section to apply the rules and categorize each ability. Only a handful of racial traits would fall into Natural Abilities. Because most of em are still non-magical things that "not anyone can learn" and thus belong into the EX category. Further this would solve the problem with those SLA granting traits that are marked as EX, since they would easily fall into the SLA category where they belong to.

You ignore part of the definition of Natural ability:

Natural Abilities

This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.

Traits definitely fall under this as creatures possess these by their physical nature. Even if the possession of racial traits is a Ex ability, by the example of drow and gnome the individual traits themselves are not Ex unless otherwise specified. Therefore wouldn't be gained by Extraordinary Wild Shape.

You also bring into contradiction what an Ex ability is. 'Because most of em are still non-magical things that "not anyone can learn"' kinda excludes feats doesn't it as feats are something anyone can learn. Feats are also not designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like as a whole. The only single reference to feats being abilities is that one line from BoED. Even then it never even says that the exalted feats are supernatural abilities which means it contradicts itself mechanically if it were establishing a rule.

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-02, 04:14 AM

You are applying your own narrow interpretation. Using the same prepaid card scenario, the total amount of money you possess was modified by changing cards. "Gaining ability scores" has never been defined. You gain a bonus or penalty. You receive a bonus or penalty. You get a bonus or penalty. You gain the ability scores. You receive the ability scores. You get the ability scores. It's all the same. It's all a modification to a die roll you possess. Your ability score is modified to a lesser or greater degree.

What is the definition of modifier? "Any bonus or penalty applying to a die roll. A positive modifier is a bonus, and a negative modifier is a penalty." What is a bonus and what is a penalty? "A positive modifier to a die roll" and "A negative modifier to a die roll." What is the english definition of "modifier?" "a person or thing that makes partial or minor changes to something." Wild Shape changes your abilities. It modifies your ability scores. Specifically and individually your strength, dexterity, and constitution. Just because it doesn't give a specific number in the description doesn't mean there isn't a specific number to be had.
You ignore that you are calculating that modifier and that it is not something the the effect of Wild Shape/Alternate Form does tell you to do. Alternate Form doesn't tell you to calculate the difference and apply it as modifier to your score. It tells you that you "gain the scores". Gaining something is not modifying something. Mechanically totally different things. When you modify a value, you can't ignore the value at the same time. You can only ignore a value when you exchange it by gaining a new value. Basic logic. modify!=(ex)change
And Wild Shape (Alternate Form) does give you new values and doesn't care to modify the old values. It's clear that the values only get changed but not modified. You are mixing up the very definition of modifying something.

You ignore part of the definition of Natural ability:

Traits definitely fall under this as creatures possess these by their physical nature. Even if the possession of racial traits is a Ex ability, by the example of drow and gnome the individual traits themselves are not Ex unless otherwise specified. Therefore wouldn't be gained by Extraordinary Wild Shape.

You also bring into contradiction what an Ex ability is. 'Because most of em are still non-magical things that "not anyone can learn"' kinda excludes feats doesn't it as feats are something anyone can learn. Feats are also not designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like as a whole. The only single reference to feats being abilities is that one line from BoED. Even then it never even says that the exalted feats are supernatural abilities which means it contradicts itself mechanically if it were establishing a rule.
as said in previous post, you are misinterpreting the rule text in your favor. The text doesn't tell you that all Natural Abilities are untyped, nor that all untyped abilities are NA. All it does tell you is:

Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.
Any ability that can't be designated into the EX, SU or SLA categories presented are NA. This means if you have an ability that doesn't fit the description of EX, SU nor SLA (as presented in the Special Abilities section), then it can only be a Natural Ability.
My interpretation doesn't cause any dysfunctions and sets four 100% distinguishable categories.

Racial traits have a hard time to count as Natural Ability, even if you might think otherwise by basic logical assumptions.
The problem is that EX abilities claim that "they are not something that just anyone can do or even learn".
Racial traits are bound to races as the name implies. As such they qualify for things that nor just anyone can do or learn. Thus they can't be Natural Abilities. Natural abilities are things which you would expect any normal creature to have: Ability scores, and access to all skills, normal senses, height, weight, age and so on.

Raishoiken

2021-01-03, 03:18 AM

as said in previous post, you are misinterpreting the rule text in your favor. The text doesn't tell you that all Natural Abilities are untyped, nor that all untyped abilities are NA. All it does tell you is...

This is incorrect:

Natural Abilities
This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.

It literally says that, specifically, anything that is a special abilty that isnt already specified as ex,sp,su is EXPLICITLY defaulted to natural ability.
It doesnt default if it can't be designated, just if it simply isn't designated as such

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-03, 05:21 AM

This is incorrect:

It literally says that, specifically, anything that is a special abilty that isnt already specified as ex,sp,su is EXPLICITLY defaulted to natural ability.
It doesnt default if it can't be designated, just if it simply isn't designated as such

It still doesn't say that all abilities that don't have their type mentioned are NA.
Those that can't be designated as EX, SP, SU are NA. That is not the same.

Otherwise the "Spells" class feature becomes a NA if I would assume that what Darg implied. And as we know, spells aren't something from your natural form and thus can't be NA.

To assume that the sentence means all untype abilities are NA is just dysfunctional and is not what the text says.

Further, when I say "defaults to Ex", I mean, that most feats are:
1: non-magical, thus can't be a SLA/SU
2: something not everyone can do or even learn (feats in general have prerequisites, while exceptions exist).
As such, unless a feat is magical somehow or explicitly calls itself out as an exception (SU/SLA), it "defaults to EX". I hope I could make it sound less polarizing now and I'm sorry if it caused confusion.

The fact that feats (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm)in general have prerequisites is an indicator that they at least qualify for EX unless they are magical. They are (normally) not something that you have because of your physical form (exceptions may exist).

__________________________________
edit: we could sort the 4 types of abilities into 2 groups where each type represents a subgroup:

1: Nonmagical Abilities
1a:(NA) Things that you would normally assume anyone can/has (Ability Scores, normal sight/senses, skills...)
1b:(EX) Things that not anyone can do or learn (feats, class abilities and other things that can have special requirements to obtain them like other feats, stats or level in a certain class (for class abilities)).

2: Magical Abilities
2a:(SLA) Calls out a spell as reference
2b:(SU) Doesn't resemble a certain spell

Any ability can be easily designated into one of the categories without causing any dysfunctions.

Darg

2021-01-03, 01:48 PM

It still doesn't say that all abilities that don't have their type mentioned are NA.
Those that can't be designated as EX, SP, SU are NA. That is not the same.

Otherwise the "Spells" class feature becomes a NA if I would assume that what Darg implied. And as we know, spells aren't something from your natural form and thus can't be NA.

Actually that is exactly what it says. If they aren't designated, they are natural abilities.

Spellcasting from classes are actually "special class abilities" as I have previously mentioned. Basically another term for class feature. Just as there are armor and weapon special abilities. They are special abilities; however, they are not the special abilities that the special abilities section is referencing. Classifying them as natural abilities changes nothing mechanically either. There is nothing mechanically in the game that gives you the abilities of a specific individual other than the Consume Identity supernatural ability of a greater doppelganger.

IFurther, when I say "defaults to Ex", I mean, that most feats are:
1: non-magical, thus can't be a SLA/SU
2: something not everyone can do or even learn (feats in general have prerequisites, while exceptions exist).
As such, unless a feat is magical somehow or explicitly calls itself out as an exception (SU/SLA), it "defaults to EX". I hope I could make it sound less polarizing now and I'm sorry if it caused confusion.

The fact that feats (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm)in general have prerequisites is an indicator that they at least qualify for EX unless they are magical. They are (normally) not something that you have because of your physical form (exceptions may exist).

I see where your confusion comes into play. Natural abilities are based on physical nature, not physical form. Ones nature is the natural limits one can accomplish. Extraordinary goes beyond one's physical nature. Every creature is technically able to learn spellcasting as long as their physical nature allows it which means it can't be extraordinary. One's intelligence is just as much a physical quality as is the wings a bird possesses. Feats are learned by gaining experience and requirements have nothing to with being Ex. Just as a human can't fly because they don't have wings (doesn't make wings any less natural) requirements for feats don't make them extraordinary. What would be extraordinary is that same human learning to fly without the physical nature for it such as a feat granting the beholder's flight (ex) ability.

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-04, 05:25 AM

Actually that is exactly what it says. If they aren't designated, they are natural abilities. The rules nowhere claim that all special abilities are marked with friendly reminders for you. As such you have to look up the 4 categories in the Special Abilities section to see where the rules designate em. And if you can't designate an ability into the EX, SU & SLA categories, it has to be a NA. The 4 categories aren't presented there for no reason. They are supposed to be used, so that you can see where an ability is designated to.

Spellcasting from classes are actually "special class abilities" as I have previously mentioned. Basically another term for class feature. Just as there are armor and weapon special abilities. They are special abilities; however, they are not the special abilities that the special abilities section is referencing. Classifying them as natural abilities changes nothing mechanically either. There is nothing mechanically in the game that gives you the abilities of a specific individual other than the Consume Identity supernatural ability of a greater doppelganger.
Can you quote where the term "special class ability" is defined in 3.5. I can't find it.
And how can they be Special Abilities and at the same time not, without calling out an explicit exception? They can't just ignore the Primary Source rule for Special Abilities without explicitly making some kind of exception. And so far you haven't provided any rule text that would confirm such an exception.

I see where your confusion comes into play. Natural abilities are based on physical nature, not physical form. Ones nature is the natural limits one can accomplish. Extraordinary goes beyond one's physical nature. Every creature is technically able to learn spellcasting as long as their physical nature allows it which means it can't be extraordinary. One's intelligence is just as much a physical quality as is the wings a bird possesses. Feats are learned by gaining experience and requirements have nothing to with being Ex. Just as a human can't fly because they don't have wings (doesn't make wings any less natural) requirements for feats don't make them extraordinary. What would be extraordinary is that same human learning to fly without the physical nature for it such as a feat granting the beholder's flight (ex) ability.

I would argue that physical nature is basically the same as physical form. The NA section isn't talking about things that come from your mental abilities. While there are mental abilities that are NA (e.g. WIS & INT score) because your physical form/nature includes a brain, that doesn't mean that the thing that come from those mental abilities are natural abilities (e.g. your casting ability which is tied to a mental stat ain't a NA // Turn Undead isn't a NA just because it's tied to a mental stat).
Cultural "traits" are often tied to the common mental state of a race or a "special" part/form/size of their body (again not a NA since it is not something everybody can do). This is represented by the fact that the MM marked all traits as EX.
When it comes to flying, the "Movement Modes" are explained in the glossary of the MM on p311:

These are natural, non magical, unless specifically noted in the monsters description.
We have a specific exception that calls out all movement modes to be natural (abilities) unless noted otherwise (as in the chase of the Beholder).

Darg

2021-01-04, 04:15 PM

The rules nowhere claim that all special abilities are marked with friendly reminders for you. As such you have to look up the 4 categories in the Special Abilities section to see where the rules designate em. And if you can't designate an ability into the EX, SU & SLA categories, it has to be a NA. The 4 categories aren't presented there for no reason. They are supposed to be used, so that you can see where an ability is designated to.

The special abilities section doesn't designate what type of ability it is. The monster manual entries, class features designate the type of ability it is within the parenthesis: (Su), (Ex), and (Sp).

Can you quote where the term "special class ability" is defined in 3.5. I can't find it.
And how can they be Special Abilities and at the same time not, without calling out an explicit exception? They can't just ignore the Primary Source rule for Special Abilities without explicitly making some kind of exception. And so far you haven't provided any rule text that would confirm such an exception.

It isn't defined, only mentioned a few times. I previously quoted the monster manual under "Level Loss." The SRD mentions it too. It uses the term in place of class feature. Armor and weapon special abilities are also not included in the classification of creature special abilities. So you have creature special abilities, class special abilities, and item special abilities as separate categories that don't necessarily follow the rules for the others.

I would argue that physical nature is basically the same as physical form. The NA section isn't talking about things that come from your mental abilities. While there are mental abilities that are NA (e.g. WIS & INT score) because your physical form/nature includes a brain, that doesn't mean that the thing that come from those mental abilities are natural abilities (e.g. your casting ability which is tied to a mental stat ain't a NA // Turn Undead isn't a NA just because it's tied to a mental stat).
Cultural "traits" are often tied to the common mental state of a race or a "special" part/form/size of their body (again not a NA since it is not something everybody can do). This is represented by the fact that the MM marked all traits as EX.
When it comes to flying, the "Movement Modes" are explained in the glossary of the MM on p311:

We have a specific exception that calls out all movement modes to be natural (abilities) unless noted otherwise (as in the chase of the Beholder).

Either way, spellcasting can't be Ex, Sp, or Su. It has never been designated as such and so it can never be. Reinforcing this fact is that there are class features specifically not designated as such so spellcasting is not unique.

The MM only classified the non-human PHB races and their subraces' racial traits as such. There is no hard and fast rule that all racial traits are Ex. It even conflicts with racial traits that are specifically other than extraordinary. It's funny that a character's size and move speed is an extraordinary ability instead of a physical quality of their form. Makes alter self's size change not actually applicable.

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-04, 11:32 PM

The special abilities section doesn't designate what type of ability it is. The monster manual entries, class features designate the type of ability it is within the parenthesis: (Su), (Ex), and (Sp).

The Special Ability section is the primary source. The MM just follows the guideline presented in the primary source on an inconsistent level. Same as with "size affecting effects that don't stack" isn't mentioned on every size affecting ability. Because they are inconsistently used friendly reminders that refer to the primary source for stacking spell effect. The absence of that reminder doesn't stop the primary source rules to apply.
In our chase we have friendly reminders in the MM in form of "(XX) that follow the primary source rule for Special Abilities. Just because it isn't mentioned always doesn't stop the Special Ability rules to apply (same as with size effects).

It isn't defined, only mentioned a few times. I previously quoted the monster manual under "Level Loss." The SRD mentions it too. It uses the term in place of class feature. Armor and weapon special abilities are also not included in the classification of creature special abilities. So you have creature special abilities, class special abilities, and item special abilities as separate categories that don't necessarily follow the rules for the others.
If it ain't defined, it can't be an exceptional category by the definition of rules. It has no weight to suppress the primary source unless it explicitly calls it out or designates itself into a "defined" category. So far no evidence was presented for that.

Either way, spellcasting can't be Ex, Sp, or Su. It has never been designated as such and so it can never be. Reinforcing this fact is that there are class features specifically not designated as such so spellcasting is not unique.Again, the Primary Source set the definition of the categories and thus gives a guideline how to designate those abilities 100% without error. It never claims that all abilities have reminders for you.
NA talks about those abilities that per the rules in the very same page "Special Abilities" can't be designated into EX, SU,SLA has to be NA.
Your interpretation ignores the context and purpose of the "Special Abilities" section where the rule your are talking about is.

The MM only classified the non-human PHB races and their subraces' racial traits as such. There is no hard and fast rule that all racial traits are Ex. It even conflicts with racial traits that are specifically other than extraordinary. It's funny that a character's size and move speed is an extraordinary ability instead of a physical quality of their form. Makes alter self's size change not actually applicable.
3.5 works with consistent rules that can have explicit exceptions. I have presented rule interpretation that explains why the MM reminds you that they are EX abilities. The MM didn't do anything else than following the guideline presented in the Primary Source. Nowhere the HBF is presented as something out of the line (no exception mentioned). As such it follows the same rules as all other traits do. They get designated by the Special Ability rules. And I have presented quotes from BoED and the FAQ that support my interpretation.
While your interpretation assumes that BoED and the FAQ has to be wrong and causes wired states and dysfunctions.
Occam's razor would suggest to use the interpretation that causes less dysfunctions or the one making less claims about authors who have failed here and there (just because it doesn't fit your interpretation). I think I win/lead in both categories so far.

Raishoiken

2021-01-05, 12:07 AM

The Special Ability section is the primary source. .

If it ain't defined, it can't be an exceptional category by the definition of rules. It has no weight to suppress the primary source unless it explicitly calls it out or designates itself into a "defined" category. So far no evidence was presented for that.

The SRD says, EXPLICITLY as rules text that if it is not labled as ex,sp, or su, that it is automatically considered a natural ability. Point to the rule that says specifically that if a designation isnt givin that you have to give it a designation yourself and your point will be made, which as far as ive seen doesnt exist.

Again, the Primary Source set the definition of the categories and thus gives a guideline how to designate those abilities 100% without error.

This isnt a guideline for determining what an undesignated ability is, these are explanations aa to how ex,sp,and su abilities work. The closest it is to a guidline is a clue to dms who are creating new abilities

It never claims that all abilities have reminders for you.
NA talks about those abilities that per the rules in the very same page "Special Abilities" can't be designated into EX, SU,SLA has to be NA.

No, it doesnt explicitly say all abilities have friendly reminders. But the rules do explicitly say that:

This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature. Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.
What that means, by air tight rules, is that if
A: it is not designated as ex,spn or su
Then
B: it is designated at that point as a natural ability
So unless you can find something im not seeing in the same section that says something different, anything you say to the contrary is head canon

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-05, 12:34 AM

The SRD says, EXPLICITLY as rules text that if it is not labled as ex,sp, or su, that it is automatically considered a natural ability. Point to the rule that says specifically that if a designation isnt givin that you have to give it a designation yourself and your point will be made, which as far as ive seen doesnt exist. The text doesn't say "those not labled". It say those not designated (as defined on the same page: "Special Abilities") as EX, SU and SLA. While I present rules that define the categories of Special Abilities you ignore to follow em. The definition of those categories are reason enough to apply em. Compare it with "Combat" rules or "Spell effect stacking" rules. They don't need to be mentioned everywhere where they apply. The fact that there are primary source rules for their topic is enough to enforce the rules everywhere where they have to be applied by their definition. E.g. a spell needs to call out that it can ignore primary source "Combat" rules. Spells doesn't have any kind of special rights to ignore em because the text keeps silent. In the same way, you have no right to ignore the defined categories presented in the Special Ability section without an explicit exception.

This isnt a guideline for determining what an undesignated ability is, these are explanations aa to how ex,sp,and su abilities work. The closest it is to a guidline is a clue to dms who are creating new abilities
1. The categories are defined. As such you have to follow the rules within those definitions to use those categories as the rules demand it.
2. I have presented how any ability can be designated without any errors into on of the 4 categories. None of the categories overlap. They have clear distinctions that separates each category from the other. 100% clear set definitions.

No, it doesnt explicitly say all abilities have friendly reminders. But the rules do explicitly say that:

What that means, by air tight rules, is that if
A: it is not designated as ex,spn or su
Then
B: it is designated at that point as a natural ability
So unless you can find something im not seeing in the same section that says something different, anything you say to the contrary is head canon

As said above, the rules don't say to designate all untyped abilities as NA. All it says that those that aren't designated as EX, SLA, SU (as defined in their definitions) are NA. You have to exclude all the definitions of EX, SLA & SU first to conclude that it isn't designated to them. Otherwise you ignore the definition of those categories. The definitions aren't eye candy, they are rules to follow.

Darg

2021-01-05, 01:51 PM

Raishoiken

2021-01-05, 04:23 PM

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-06, 05:40 AM

I don't think you understand what designate means. The (Ex) tag designates an extraordinary ability. Defining something is not designation. They have to be specifically called out as such to not be a natural ability. Unless you can refute the definition of "designated" I don't think we are going to see eye to eye.

Descriptions of what the abilities do or how they mentally categorized abilities does not equate to rules text. Just like how an off hand parenthetical does not make feats default to extraordinary abilities.

Funnily enough, the PHB is the primary source for playing PC races. Meaning that when you play an elf your racial traits are not extraordinary as they aren't designated as such. This means if the PC wild shapes into an elf with extraordinary wildshape, you don't get the racial traits as an extraordinary ability. Primary source wins out right?

I do understand what it means. But what you fail to see is that the Special Ability section defines clearly distinct categories to designate any ability into them.

The Special Ability section is the primary source for its topic.
And abilities don't need to call out the rules they have to follow. See size bonuses from effects. Some call out that you lack the permission to stack em, while others don't. That doesn't stop the rules to apply to all of em.
Same can be said in our chase. Feats and Spells don't need to call out every time under which rules they need to behave. But that doesn't stop the rules from applying to em.
Feats are abilities and as such they need to follow the Special Abilities section and can only call out exceptions. Which exalted feats in BoED does as example and supports this interpretation.

1: Nonmagical Abilities
1a:(NA) Things that you would normally assume anyone can/has (Ability Scores, normal sight/senses, skills...)
1b:(EX) Things that not anyone can do or learn (feats, class abilities and other things that can have special requirements to obtain them like other feats, stats or level in a certain class (for class abilities)).

2: Magical Abilities
2a:(SLA) Calls out a spell as reference
2b:(SU) Doesn't resemble a certain spell

4 clearly defined categories where you can fit any ability into it. Nothing overlaps, clearly distinct categories.
And since the Special Abilities section is the primary source for its topic, these four categories set how abilities are designates per the rules. The 4 category definitions aren't there just for show.

IMHO, my interpretation doesn't contradict with any of the ruletext we have quoted so far in this thread.
While you assume that the 4 categories in the Special Abilities section are what? Fluff text? And BoED and the FAQ have to be wrong. Then and only then can your argumentation survive. But that is imho to much to ask if we have theories that don't rely on such fiat.

Raishoiken

2021-01-06, 08:16 AM

Darg

2021-01-06, 09:29 AM

the FAQ have to be wrong.

Have you even read the FAQ? How can anyone actually take it seriously when it is filled with inconsistency and being flat out contradictory. At best it's good as a guideline when you run into a delimma, but should never be brought into a rules discussion.

As for the BoED statement for Ex feats, what has more authority: PHB or BoED? Remember your statement about the premium edition MM? You didn't think it not including the Ex tag on racial traits was a legitimate errata. If that is the case it's contradictory to think that feats default to Ex because BoED vs every other book not stating as such. It makes even less sense.

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-07, 12:49 AM

Homie, what you just said shows that you donr know what it means. What you are describing by talking about the fact that you can use those definitions to place the abilities in one category or the other is the process of designation. You deciding which category it is in based on the descriptions of what each ability is you going through the process of designating a category for them to go in.

Thia is why there is an issue. Because the monster manual is saying that anything that isnt already designated, as in the past tense, is a natural ability. Its the very fact that you have to designate a category meana that itnismt already designated.
Does that make more sense?

The rules are already written and set. As such, using past tense ain't really wrong imho.

Further, a rule-book isn't used from "start to end". Sure, first you read it through to have a vague knowledge about the presented rules. But when you actually use rule-books in a game, you start to look up topics and everything that topic is referring to. Think about combat rules. Sometimes you need to jump multiple times between pages to solve a single attack action (attack actions, combat situation modifiers, special maneuvers..). The same happens here. The rules demand you to know something that is presented later. That is imho something very common in 3.5 rule-books. Here it is on the same page. Nothing to get upset about.

Example:
So we want to use an ability. We look up Special Abilities and read the entire section to get an overview of the topic. After reading the 4 categories we now have the knowledge to tell the characteristics of each category and how they are distinct from each other. This knowledge shows us how the rules designated abilities into the mentioned categories.

Note how Natural Abilities is presented in the Special Abilities section (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm):
1. The page title is Special Abilities
2. The Natural Abilities paragraph tells us that those abilities not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like are NA.
3. A new Special Abilities paragraph is opened which starts with the statement that all Special Abilities are either EX, SLA, SU. This seems to exclude Natural Abilities as one of em.

If you note this separation, we can easily tell why they simply said, that anything that isn't designated into one of the other categories EX, SLA, SU categories (as defined on that page) has to be a NA. Because Natural Ability seems to be (as I already suggested) the normal (non special) abilities section and not part of the Special Abilities club. NA are those abilities that remain if you take all Special Abilities away.

Why this presentation order:
This way the authors did gave us a stairway presentation. We start at the ground with NA and the ground isn't a real part of the stairway. As such NA are all abilities that don't designate into Special Abilities. The stairway consist of the 3 steps:
- EX (special, something not anyone can learn but not magical)
- SLA (magical but has to follow spell rules)
- SU (magical and doesn't have to follow spell rules)
A linear progress of power-enhancement. NA (the ground) is everything left what hasn't been designated into these 3 steps. Imho a good presentation order. But the rule text could have been lesser misleading (as we see with our different points of view ^^).

Have you even read the FAQ? How can anyone actually take it seriously when it is filled with inconsistency and being flat out contradictory. At best it's good as a guideline when you run into a delimma, but should never be brought into a rules discussion.

As for the BoED statement for Ex feats, what has more authority: PHB or BoED? Remember your statement about the premium edition MM? You didn't think it not including the Ex tag on racial traits was a legitimate errata. If that is the case it's contradictory to think that feats default to Ex because BoED vs every other book not stating as such. It makes even less sense.
I've read the FAQ dozens of times, believe me. And I have to admit that I myself once also thought that the FAQ is poorly written and contradicts itself to often. But time has passed and my knowledge about rules have grown. At some point I realized that my own wrong interpretations caused me to believe that the FAQ "was wrong" in many chases. I can say the same for many so called "proofs" in many FAQ stomping threads over the internet. Most of them either thrive from a wrong interpretation of rules, the lack of knowledge about the existence of certain rules or they just straight don't understand things like Primary Source and how it behaves.
And if you follow my interpretation, BoED doesn't contradict with it. As such, it is a valid rule. Trying to find the best interpretation that causes the no rule text to become dysfunctional. That should be what we aim for, don't you agree?

I'm not denying that there still might be a few errors in the FAQ, but I can't remember anything right off the bat. Most of the things where I thought that the FAQ had to be wrong, it was me who was wrong. Once I tried to find an interpretation that somehow fits the FAQ I had several breakthroughs.

Understanding the full extend of what the Primary Source rule does was one of the things that helped the most. And it is imho one of the reasons why we all have problems with the rules for so many years. We all learned the rules without the Primary Source rule in mind, while the authors have designed the rules based on them without telling us...
This caused a chaotic state where people where quoting spell specific combat rules as general combat rules (yeah that was a thing in the early days pre-ERRATA). The authors realized the mess they caused and released the ERRATA which finally included the Primary Source rule. The problem that remains is, that our brain has spent to much time without this rule in mind and it is hard to delete all the wrong thoughts that thrive from this.
Imagine you have today a total newbie at your table. How long will it take for him to even hear "Primary Source rule"? Hours? Weeks? Months? Years? I would assume years for most newbies.

This is the reason why I make such topics. It's sometimes hard to even apply all the rules you know because we lived to long under a misconception (absence of the Primary Source rule). Further I need to dissect a topic with the community together to even recall all rules (and the pages where to find em) to make sure I'm not missing any rules in my thoughts.

PS: I hope that nobody felt offended here. I'm talking about the problems I had(and maybe still have) and I see everybody is having at some point due to the described reasons.

_______________

edit:
You would do me a "favor" if you would take your time in a calm state to reread the Primary Source rule and to think about the extend of what it means when something is the "Primary Source for its topic".
Imho it means that anything that is related to that topic has to follow the rules unless it explicitly calls itself out not to behave under the primary source rules. Which means on the contrary that there is no need for other things to call out to behave under the Primary Source rules. Because that is the reason why we have Primary Source rules in the first place: That everything that fits the situation described in those rules has to follow em (unless an exception is mentioned).
Since feats are abilities they have to follow the rules presented in the entire Special Abilities section. As such most feats are EX, since most are nonmagical but still something not everyone can learn (prerequisites).

Raishoiken

2021-01-07, 08:40 PM

Warmjenkins

2021-01-10, 01:06 AM

Ok, I've been absent for a while and there is way too much to quote if I were to reply to everything individually. Thats said I still fail to see any evidence at all that feats are extraordinary abilities by default. The rules clearly and unquestionably state that all abilities not already designated as a specific category are natural abilities. That seems pretty set in stone and straightforward. It would be ludicrous to think that the rules want you to try to determine what every ability is by your own personal interpretation of flavor text and descriptions that are usually fluff. As already shown multiple times most people won't agree which category an ability falls into by description alone. Luckily we don't have to because they already designated all the special abilities for us.

Next, skills still meet the definition of special abilities as much as feats. Not all skills can be used without special training or prerequisites, same as feats. Many feats require no training and literally everyone can do them. Feats cannot be extraordinary abilities by your own definition. Sight isn't something everyone can do. Many people are born blind, never able to see once in their life. Many races are blind by default. Not everyone can do it, not magical, more extraordinary of an ability than some extra hp, which you are arguing is an extraordinary ability. So why again don't these count?

Obviously I don't think skills, feats, sight, hp, or many of the other things I pointed out to no contest or contrary evidence are extraordinary abilities. That would be ridiculous, I just used them as examples of some of the countless things that can easily fit your definition of extraordinary ability. If you try to start categorizing things based on a plain English definition of a word you open the floodgates to everything in existence now being argued to fit within that mold. Especially when you use a word in a language that has many possible definitions and interpretations of those definitions. This is compounded by many examples of things you yourself argue count as extraordinary abilities.

For example, yet again, if iron will is an extraordinary ability why isn't wisdom. Everyone has will saves, both do the exact same thing. Wisdom actually does more than iron will and would fit better than an extraordinary ability. Toughness, same argument. Weapon focus, how is this different than a trained skill. The feat represents the payoff of training with a specific weapon or technique(such as unarmed strike or ray) as bonus on rolls. The same way many skills represents the same thing with a chosen tool or technique. As previously mentioned arcane strike uses spell slots to fuel magical energy into your attacks. Not designated as any kind of abilitiy therefore extraordinary by your own argument and therefore non-magical. These are but a few of many more examples of feats not fitting the description of extraordinary ability. I can't come up with and have yet to see an argument for the myriad if natural, magical, and passive feats being extraordinary abilities but the other things that are functionally identical somehow not. The only logical conclusion, and the one supported by how other rules work as well as rules text, is that things are not extraordinary abilities unless the rules say they are.

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-12, 01:48 PM

Idk if i'm coming across as a bit unhinged or something but i assure you that im in a "calm state of mind", the emphasis was just for that, to emphasis the point to mayne make it easier to understand. Im not mad or anything lol, especially not at the dude who forged Lord Orochimaru from scratch. With that out of the way

You would literally be 100% correct if the monster manual/srd said:

This line would mean exactly what you are arguing for. Put the way i did above, if you came across an ability that did not have a lable attatched to it already such as ex, sp, or su, you would interpret how the ability works and then place it into one of the categories based on what would be most appropriate.

This, however, is not the case. More snippets for clarification;

To designate:

In past tense, it would then mean:
"Officially assinged a specific status or ascribed a specific name or quality already"

The big important thing here, is that since the special abilities section use tells us that an ability is a "natural ability" if the ability hasnt already been given a descriptor, because it uses the past tense "not designated"

When you use rules, they aren't ordered from the first page to the last. They are all present at the same time. Due to the (entire) Special Abilities section having set the definition for Special Abilities, imho it is normal to use past tense here, since the rules are already written and set. The is no indicator that the needed information is above or below. I see by RAW no reason to limit the sentence to "above".

Further I still argue that
designate != marked (with a friendly reminder)

The rules presented in the (entire) Special Ability section define how you designate abilities into presented categories.
It doesn't say that all untyped abilities are NA. Only those that are not designated as Special Abilities (EX, SLA, SU) (as presented by the rules in the entire Special Ability section) are NA.

Ok, I've been absent for a while and there is way too much to quote if I were to reply to everything individually. Thats said I still fail to see any evidence at all that feats are extraordinary abilities by default. The rules clearly and unquestionably state that all abilities not already designated as a specific category are natural abilities. That seems pretty set in stone and straightforward. It would be ludicrous to think that the rules want you to try to determine what every ability is by your own personal interpretation of flavor text and descriptions that are usually fluff. As already shown multiple times most people won't agree which category an ability falls into by description alone. Luckily we don't have to because they already designated all the special abilities for us.
most feats default to EX, because most are not magical (thus can't be a SLA o SU). But all feats qualify for: (EX:) They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.

Next, skills still meet the definition of special abilities as much as feats. Not all skills can be used without special training or prerequisites, same as feats. Many feats require no training and literally everyone can do them. Feats cannot be extraordinary abilities by your own definition. Sight isn't something everyone can do. Many people are born blind, never able to see once in their life. Many races are blind by default. Not everyone can do it, not magical, more extraordinary of an ability than some extra hp, which you are arguing is an extraordinary ability. So why again don't these count?

Obviously I don't think skills, feats, sight, hp, or many of the other things I pointed out to no contest or contrary evidence are extraordinary abilities. That would be ridiculous, I just used them as examples of some of the countless things that can easily fit your definition of extraordinary ability. If you try to start categorizing things based on a plain English definition of a word you open the floodgates to everything in existence now being argued to fit within that mold. Especially when you use a word in a language that has many possible definitions and interpretations of those definitions. This is compounded by many examples of things you yourself argue count as extraordinary abilities.

For example, yet again, if iron will is an extraordinary ability why isn't wisdom. Everyone has will saves, both do the exact same thing. Wisdom actually does more than iron will and would fit better than an extraordinary ability. Toughness, same argument. Weapon focus, how is this different than a trained skill. The feat represents the payoff of training with a specific weapon or technique(such as unarmed strike or ray) as bonus on rolls. The same way many skills represents the same thing with a chosen tool or technique. As previously mentioned arcane strike uses spell slots to fuel magical energy into your attacks. Not designated as any kind of abilitiy therefore extraordinary by your own argument and therefore non-magical. These are but a few of many more examples of feats not fitting the description of extraordinary ability. I can't come up with and have yet to see an argument for the myriad if natural, magical, and passive feats being extraordinary abilities but the other things that are functionally identical somehow not. The only logical conclusion, and the one supported by how other rules work as well as rules text, is that things are not extraordinary abilities unless the rules say they are.
The things that you mentioned (skills, sight, wisdom/ability scores, HP, ..) have a major difference to feats. They don't qualify for:
(EX:) They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.
nor are they magical, which disqualifies em as SLA and SU. Thus, since they aren't designated as EX, SLA, SU as per the rules presented, they are NAs. I can see that one could argue to separate skills into "those usable without ranks (NA)" and "those only usable with ranks (EX)". But I would still argue that ".. even learn to do without extensive training." is most likely referring to prerequisites and requirements (e.g. feats generally have requirements; class abilities require you to have X levels in a certain class to unlock the ability...). Anyone can put skill-points into skills which imho ain't extensive training. Other than that, anything is easily designated by the rules:
non magical non special = NA
non magical but special = EX
magical and resembles a spell (follows spell rules) = SLA
magical but doesn't resemble a spell (and thus doesn't follow spell rules) = SU
100% clear defined without anything that overlaps.

about sight/blindness:
In 3.5 all types have (generally at character creation) sight unless otherwise mentioned (exceptions) or they have some kind of flaw (exception). Or does your DM randomly (or even rolled %dice) burden your characters with blindness at character creation? I guess not.

Raishoiken

2021-01-13, 06:34 PM

When you use rules, they aren't ordered from the first page to the last. They are all present at the same time. Due to the (entire) Special Abilities section having set the definition for Special Abilities, imho it is normal to use past tense here, since the rules are already written and set. The is no indicator that the needed information is above or below. I see by RAW no reason to limit the sentence to "above".

Further I still argue that
designate != marked (with a friendly reminder)

that just so happens to be exactly what the word designated means. To have been "otherwise designated" or in other words: "otherwise officially assigned a specific status", the designating has to have already been set in stone.

The way things are designated in the monster manual and the player's handbook where this is discussed are by being marked, officially and by the authors, with either ex, sp, or su.

The rules presented in the (entire) Special Ability section define how you designate abilities into presented categories.

No the special abilities section does not. The special ability section describes special abilities and how they work, not how to designate them. Because the authors have already designated everything that needs to be already

It doesn't say that all untyped abilities are NA. Only those that are not designated as Special Abilities (EX, SLA, SU) (as presented by the rules in the entire Special Ability section) are NA.

The primary issue here is that all of the abilities we come across have already been described, designated, and had their status as an ability assigned when they were written into the books they are presented in.

After the authors described what each ability did and assigned them their status, they went on to further tell us that any ability they had not already done that to is a natural ability by default.

In short: yes, that is quite literally exactly what it says

You would have to make the assumption that the writers would just randomly get lazy half-way through writing the creature blocks and decided to make the player's and dm de-cypher which abilities were which in order for what i'm saying to not be the case

If anyone has a different way to explain this than me that would be amazing because i feel like i'm just repeating the same thing

Gruftzwerg

2021-01-14, 01:33 AM

that just so happens to be exactly what the word designated means. To have been "otherwise designated" or in other words: "otherwise officially assigned a specific status", the designating has to have already been set in stone.

The way things are designated in the monster manual and the player's handbook where this is discussed are by being marked, officially and by the authors, with either ex, sp, or su.

...

If anyone has a different way to explain this than me that would be amazing because i feel like i'm just repeating the same thing

I feel also like repeating the same things over and over again. You are ignoring the Primary Source Rule. The Special Ability section is the primary source for its topic = all abilities.
It defines NA as any ability that is not part of the Special Ability family and this definition covers all "normal" abilities (as NA).

Due to the Primary Source rule, feats don't need to call out what they are or not. You have rules to categorize each feat separately. Just because some abilities have friendly reminders doesn't change any global rules set by the Special Ability section.

Here 2 examples of the Primary Source Rule:

1) size changing effects
Take "size changing effects" that give "bonuses to size". We have stacking rules (Primary Source) that say that only "bonuses to dice rolls" may stack. This rule causes that "bonuses to size" don't stack, because size itself it not a roll and it doesn't affect any rolls itself. Size gives you a "size modifier" to certain dice rolls, but that is not the affected target of those "size changing"-effects.
Because this is hard to gasp for many (including myself for the first, what 7-10years?). We can assume that it did come up in the internal tests of WotC before releasing their stuff. As such most "size changing"-effects remind you that you may not stack em (while not even calling out the rule basis for that), but sadly not all. This inconsistency of friendly reminders can be seen for other topics too.

2) stacking fear effects
DMG p. 294 has a special "Fear"-section (Primary Source). It defines how fear effects stack with each other. While all fear effects operate under this rule (unless an exception is called out), only a few mention this. But that doesn't stop the Fear section to have supremacy over the topic and setting the global rules for that topic.

Now back to Special Abilities:
The Special Abilities section defines the 4 categories of abilities and as such has supremacy over this topic. It doesn't need to be called out to affect things in its Territory. It doesn't care if reminders are constantly used or not. Unless something calls itself out as exception regards the Special Ability section (as BoED does for Exalted Feats), it has to behave under these rules.

Btw, BoED is another example where you have a friendly reminder for exalted feats. Where are the friendly reminders for all the other feats? We have none. It doesn't even proceed to mark any exalted feat in the same book with an "(SU)" as friendly reminder. This is what I talk about when I mention the inconsistency of friendly reminders in 3.5 (Do you see now how lazy the authors are?^^)
And if BoED can once mention a rule (exalted feats as SU) and than never mention it again in the feats description, than I would assume the same thing for the Special Ability Section.

I'll quote the Primary Source rule once again in the hope that it helps to understand my point here:
When you find a disagreement between two... rules sources, unless an official errata file says otherwise, the primary source is correct. One example of a primary/secondary source is text taking precedence over a table entry. An individual spell description takes precedence when the short description in the beginning of the spells chapter disagrees.

Another example of primary vs. secondary sources involves book and topic precedence. The Player's Handbook, for example, gives all the rules for playing the game, for playing PC races, and for using base class descriptions. If you find something on one of those topics from the Dungeon Master's Guide or the Monster Manual that disagrees with the Player's Handbook, you should assume the Player's Handbook is the primary source. The Dungeon Master's Guide is the primary source for topics such as magic item descriptions, special material construction rules, and so on. The Monster Manual is the primary source for monster descriptions, templates, and supernatural, extraordinary, and spell-like abilities.

The Special ability section defines the 4 categories and how each ability is designated into those categories by their definition. Any other interpretation causes dysfunctions like Spells becoming NA (and thus would be inherit abilities of the physical form and not a mental ability as it clearly is..) or undefined ability categories which ignore the Primary Source rule for Special Abilities (since no explicit exception is called out in any way).