Dysfunctional Rules VIII: When General Trumps Specific

[Martimus Prime]

Listing darkwood separately from organic material does not necessarily mean that it is not organic

Actually, I quite like the idea of dark wood being something alien, as in not carbon-based (not "organic" in the chemical sense). It would cerainly make it more flavorful as a material in settings with eldritch horrors/elder evils/far realms stuff as a primary theme.

[ShurikVch]

In Dangerous Denizens: The Monsters of Tellene book, several monsters have Bunching SQ, which allow to fit more creature in 5 ft. square

Creatures which have it:
Goblin, Shashyf (Small Humanoid) - 4 in a square
Mite (Tiny Humanoid) - 6 in a square
Sprite, Brownie (Tiny Fey) - 6 in a square
Tarantubat (Tiny Magical Beast) - 5 in a square

Problem: this SQ doesn't disappear with increase of size, thus Colossal versions of those creatures would still fit in a 5 ft. square

[The Viscount]

Do they increase in size when advancing by adding more HD?

[Telok]

In Dangerous Denizens: The Monsters of Tellene book, several monsters have Bunching SQ, which allow to fit more creature in 5 ft. square

Creatures which have it:
Goblin, Shashyf (Small Humanoid) - 4 in a square
Mite (Tiny Humanoid) - 6 in a square
Sprite, Brownie (Tiny Fey) - 6 in a square
Tarantubat (Tiny Magical Beast) - 5 in a square

Problem: this SQ doesn't disappear with increase of size, thus Colossal versions of those creatures would still fit in a 5 ft. square

Now I want to throw the Titanic template on some brownies.

[georgie_leech]

Do they increase in size when advancing by adding more HD?

No, but I'm pretty sure Goblins at least are a valid target for Enlarge and similar.

[ShurikVch]

Do they increase in size when advancing by adding more HD?

Tarantubat, actually, do - from 2 HD it's size is Small (starts as ½ HD)
Still, there are spells such as Giant Size, and templates such as Kaiju

[The Viscount]

The Fellmist Robe limits the maximum miss chance you can gain from it to 50%.
This limit is actually beyond what it is physically possible to achieve, because each point of essentia increases the miss chance by 5%. The maximum miss chance possible would be 45% (base 10%, 4 essentia for normal, 2 more from 15 levels of Incarnate, and 1 from Expanded Soulmeld Capacity).

[Troacctid]

There are plenty of other ways to increase essentia capacity that you haven't included. It's fairly easy to hit the 50% cap if you're high enough level. Heck, an Incandescent Champion can do it without even breaking a sweat.

[Gemini476]

I don't remember, does the Essentia cap keep scaling upwards in Epic levels?

[Troacctid]

I don't remember, does the Essentia cap keep scaling upwards in Epic levels?

Yes, +1 every 10 levels.

[The Viscount]

There are plenty of other ways to increase essentia capacity that you haven't included. It's fairly easy to hit the 50% cap if you're high enough level. Heck, an Incandescent Champion can do it without even breaking a sweat.

I'm curious, what other ways are there?

[Troacctid]

Here's one. The Voices of the Void feat from Dragon #330 allows you to ignore verbal components of spells and warlock invocations while you are in an area of darkness or shadowy illumination. Warlock invocations do not have verbal components.

I'm curious, what other ways are there?

Incarnum focus. Incarnum overload. Gaining more levels.

[ShurikVch]

Warlock invocations do not have verbal components.

May it be intended to such invocations as Baleful Utterance, Dread Seizure, Weighty Utterance, or Word of Changing?
I mean: they don't have a literal verbal component, but you couldn't use them without speaking...

[Troacctid]

May it be intended to such invocations as Baleful Utterance, Dread Seizure, Weighty Utterance, or Word of Changing?
I mean: they don't have a literal verbal component, but you couldn't use them without speaking...

No, they don't have verbal components either.

[ShurikVch]

No, they don't have verbal components either.

Weren't there some [ceremonial] feats which add verbal component even if there wasn't any before?
(IIRR, one if them was called Bloodthirsty)
I don't sure if they are applicable to invocations

[Inevitability]

The Soothe the Beast feat lets you spend a use of bardic music to improve an animal's attitude with a perform check. Small problem: the ELH (released before the ECS) allowed for that as a feat-less use of Perform, making the feat pointless.

[Troacctid]

The Soothe the Beast feat lets you spend a use of bardic music to improve an animal's attitude with a perform check. Small problem: the ELH (released before the ECS) allowed for that as a feat-less use of Perform, making the feat pointless.

I'd think using the DCs for Diplomacy would be a big advantage. They're 20 points lower than the Epic Perform DCs.

[Inevitability]

I'd think using the DCs for Diplomacy would be a big advantage. They're 20 points lower than the Epic Perform DCs.

No they aren't?

Just to clarify, I'm looking at d20srd. What source are you using?

[Troacctid]

The primary source, Epic Level Handbook.

[Inevitability]

The primary source, Epic Level Handbook.

D20srd is wrong, got it. Thanks for pointing that out!

[ShurikVch]

Many times before various TO threads suggested useage of Fast Time (demi)plane to get unmatched speed (with Planar Bubble or similar stuff)

Except, no RAW existed about how exactly different time traits would interact at the same plane

We couldn't go there by "real world guidelines", because, AFAIK, such things don't happen IRL

[The Viscount]

Creatures of the Elemental type have good saves that depend on their element, Fort for earth and water, Ref for fire and air.
Except the Chraal and Ice Serpent lack any of these subtypes. What now?

[Coretron03]

So, i was reading intensify spell meta magic and reading it says it increases only the dice, no other effects. If this metamagic was used on something with dice damage and then extra damage, like magic missile dealing 1d4+1 would the extra dice give the +1 damage? a strict reading seems to say no.

Also, would bloodlines that give 1 damage per dice still affect it?
This one seems more likely

Quoting myself here, does anyone dissagree with this?

Also, in pathfinder sorcerer bloodlines can give abilities with uses of 3+cha, what happens if you are a race with -4 charisma and dump cha down to 7? i have no idea what negitive rounds of uses of a ability does.
A couple minor ones
A certain type of monk(will find out later) cannot be tracked or leave a trail. If they want they can leave a trail but they can't be tracked. Ever.
A half elf only archetype lets you pick aquan as a languge choice if you have high int but uh, they already could

[Inevitability]

The Ankheg entry says to treat it borrowing up as a charge, but burrowing creatures are incapable of charging.

[Debatra]

The Ankheg entry says to treat it borrowing up as a charge, but burrowing creatures are incapable of charging.

Specific Trumps General.

[Inevitability]

Specific Trumps General.

But we're not specifically said it can burrow despite the restriction. There's plenty of dysfunctions listed in the handbook that amount to 'X says to do Y, except Y is impossible'.

[Jormengand]

The Ankheg entry says to treat it borrowing up as a charge, but burrowing creatures are incapable of charging.

Ankhegs are clearly an exception to that general rule, then.

EDIT: This is why I should refresh the page after I leave the computer for a while...

[No brains]

Can't a Thoqqua do something sillier and charge out of the ground without having to move 10' first? At least an Ankheg pretends that inertia is a factor.

Also, wouldn't treating something like a charge make it so that they wouldn't need to charge? Do either of these burrowing creatures get the benefit of moving twice their speed, or do they just get attack and AC modifiers after acting a certain way? The DMG says that some reckless movements should count as a charge, like swinging on a chandelier.

[The Viscount]

Elemental burst has some weird things about it.

First, it is counted as an All elements spell, despite you only selecting one type when you cast it (the alternative would be varying descriptor depending on choice, I think this exists?) which means that a Wu Jen who has Elemental Mastery of Fire gets a +2 caster level when making a burst of water. Second, it can be used to make many shards of wood or metal from an object, but doesn't change the nature of that object, so this can be used to slowly generate lots of metal for free (at a lower level than minor creation). Third, the spell describes you as selecting a target composed of one of the five elements, but the spell description doesn't have a target, only an area. It's clear what they meant, but how is this resolved by RAW? Fourth, how are you to find an object composed of water? Does a container count, or not, because the spell doesn't describe breaking any container?

Separately, Decapitating Scarf, Entangling Scarf, and Iron Scarf are three spells that use a silk scarf as the focus. Because each involve flinging the scarf at the enemy, you need several silk scarves to cast any of these spells more than once. In fact, because each spell is instantaneous and has the scarf "assume ironlike hardness" you probably can't easily recover it or put it back in your bag, so you have to be constantly scarf shopping. Which is fine, because in the world of D&D silk scarves are free, so your bag is filled with them. Not really dysfunctional, just funny.

[Inevitability]

Varying descriptors are definitely a thing: just think of every summoning spell ever.