Simple RAW Thread for 3.5 #37: 3d12+1

[Boots]

Q243

I found the ultimate guide to building a druid on this site, the book abbreviation used for the spell "summon fey" is "KoK" what book is that, or where else can I find the spell?

[Cygnia]

Q243

I found the ultimate guide to building a druid on this site, the book abbreviation used for the spell "summon fey" is "KoK" what book is that, or where else can I find the spell?

A243

Kingdoms of Kalamar

[St Fan]

Q 244

A Totemist with the shaped soulmeld Wormtail Belt bound to her Totem chakra gains the following attack:

A thick, purple-scaled tail emerges from the back of your wormtail belt. It is long enough that you can reach it around you to attack
your foes with the stinger at its end, which drips with poison.

You can use your wormtail belt’s stinger to make natural attacks. You cannot use the stinger as a natural secondary weapon—using the stinger is the only attack you can make in a given round. You use your full base attack bonus for the attack roll, and the stinger deals 1d6 points of damage. In addition, the stinger delivers a weakening poison that deals initial damage of 1d4 Strength (no secondary damage). A
successful Fortitude save negates the poison damage.
Every point of essentia you invest in your wormtail belt gives you a +1 enhancement bonus on your attack rolls with the stinger, as well as increasing the poison’s save DC as normal.

If the character also has levels in a Martial Adept class, can she use the stinger in conjunction with a strike maneuver?

(I'm thinking specifically about Insightful Strike, to boost the damage while keeping the poison...)

[Thurbane]

Q 245
The Ur-Priest PrC has this clause:

To determine the caster level of an ur-priest, add the character's ur-priest levels to one-half of his levels in other spellcasting classes.

If an Ur-Priest has 2 levels of Ranger, does that boost his CL by 1, seeing that Rangers don't actually gain spells until level 4? i.e. Is Ranger considered a "spellcasting class" prior to level 4?

[Venger]

A 245 Rangers and similar classes such as paladins are considered spellcasting classes before they have access to spells. It allows them to do things like use wands without making checks, for example, so ordinarily, it would add 1 to your CL.

However, ur-priests permanently forsake all prior divine spellcasting. Ranger's spellcasting is divine, so unless you had a way to treat it as arcane, you could not add it since you don't have it anymore.

[Thurbane]

A 245 Rangers and similar classes such as paladins are considered spellcasting classes before they have access to spells. It allows them to do things like use wands without making checks, for example, so ordinarily, it would add 1 to your CL.

However, ur-priests permanently forsake all prior divine spellcasting. Ranger's spellcasting is divine, so unless you had a way to treat it as arcane, you could not add it since you don't have it anymore.

Thank you.

So if I swapped out Ranger for Hexblade, there should be no issues.

[Venger]

That is correct.

[St Fan]

Q 246

The Run feat gives a +4 bonus to Jump checks, but only after a running start.

There are some abilities that allows making standing jumps as if they were running jumps, notably the urban strider psionic power or the Leaping Dragon Stance.

Would Run still grants its bonus to standing jumps helped by the power/martial stance?

[Beni-Kujaku]

A 245 contention Ur-priest only forsakens spellcasting, it doesn't make spellcasting classes not spellcasting classes. As you said, even without having access to spells, rangers and paladins are considered spellcasting classes. In fact, it is even implied in the description from Ur-Priest: "To determine the caster level of an ur-priest, add the character's ur-priest levels to one-half of his levels in other spellcasting classes. (Any levels gained in the cleric class by an ex-cleric don't count.)" It specifically calls out clerics as an exception and not other divine spellcasting classes even though you're supposed to lose all divine spellcasting.

[Thurbane]

Q 247

I'll preface this with the fact that the stat blocks in general, and especially the stat blocks in EttDP, are a bit of a hot mess, but...

The Dabus is a Humanoid with 4RHD. In it's entry, it states the weapons it attacks with are a hammer, hand axe and/or short sword. At least two of these are martial weapons. The Dabus has no feats listed or class levels that would grant proficiency.

I checked the Humanoid type description: they are proficient with simple weapons only, and lack the "and any weapons mentioned in its entry" clause that many other creature types get.

Does this mean it is not proficient with the martial weapons listed in its stat block?

[Venger]

A 247 You are correct.

[H_H_F_F]

Q 248

Is the Dragon Compendium errata first party?

[Troacctid]

Q 248

Is the Dragon Compendium errata first party?

Dragon Compendium isn't first party, so I'm not sure why its errata would be.

[Thurbane]

A248

It depends on your definition of "1st party" - people often quibble about the exact meaning of this, especially in the context of WotC 3.0/3.5 material.

If you mean is it 3.5 D&D material officially endorsed by WotC? Yes. The Compendium is, and so is its errata.

At least IMHO.

[lylsyly]

Dragon Compendium is considered first party for build competitions so why wouldn't it's errata be conisedered the same?

[Troacctid]

Dragon Compendium is considered first party for build competitions so why wouldn't it's errata be conisedered the same?

"Allowed in build competitions," "1st party," "Officially licensed," and "Canonical" are four different things. 1st party means published by Wizards of the Coast. Dragon Compendium was published by Paizo, not Wizards of the Coast, so it is 3rd party, not 1st party; the same is true of its errata. However, at the time, Paizo had a license to print official D&D 3.5e material—essentially they had a deal with WotC allowing them to print "official" D&D 3.5 content (not just d20 OGL content like most other 3rd party publishers), including using D&D trademarks beyond the normal bounds of the OGL. So it is officially licensed. As for build competitions, they can do whatever they want; it doesn't have any bearing on what is or isn't 1st party.

I think what you're really asking is whether the errata has the same level of "officialness" as the book it belongs to. The answer to that question is yes. The errata for Dragon Compendium has exactly the same status as the book itself.

[Rorr404]

Q 249 Is there any collection of 3.5e class guide threads (Or individual threads,) that is on this website. something similar to The Devout and the Dead: a guide to Clerics (On this forum,) but for 3.5e, thank you in advance

[St Fan]

Q 250

Off-Hand Swap: With a flourish, you flip your weapon into the air, catch it in your off hand, and continue to press the attack. When you use this maneuver, you must first take a full attack action to strike an opponent at least twice. On your next turn, you can make a special feint as a free action, using Sleight of Hand rather than Bluff. Your opponent uses the standard rules for resisting a feint. Once you use this maneuver against a particular opponent, whether it succeeds or fails, you cannot use it against him again.

I was wondering: does this maneuver means that the next attack has to be with the off-hand, and with thus the Strength bonus cut in half?

As a general rule, even if he is wielding only one weapon and not two-weapon fighting, a character fighting with his off hand for whatever reason will always get this disadvantage?

[Troacctid]

Q 250



I was wondering: does this maneuver means that the next attack has to be with the off-hand, and with thus the Strength bonus cut in half?

As a general rule, even if he is wielding only one weapon and not two-weapon fighting, a character fighting with his off hand for whatever reason will always get this disadvantage?

You are thinking of the 3.0 rules, where you had to take a feat in order to be ambidextrous. In 3.5, there is no penalty for attacking with the offhand unless you are using the two-weapon fighting special attack.

[St Fan]

You are thinking of the 3.0 rules, where you had to take a feat in order to be ambidextrous. In 3.5, there is no penalty for attacking with the offhand unless you are using the two-weapon fighting special attack.

Yeah, I know about the old Ambidexterity feat... but I am not sure that is true even for 3.5; the rule for the Strength ability in the SRD says:

You apply your character’s Strength modifier to:

Damage rolls when using a melee weapon or a thrown weapon (including a sling). (Exceptions: Off-hand attacks receive only one-half the character’s Strength bonus, while two-handed attacks receive one and a half times the Strength bonus.

There is no mention of two-weapon fighting here.

[Thurbane]

In 3.5, "off-hand" attacks literally only happen when you are fighting with two weapons.

3.5 characters do not have to nominate right- or left-handedness at creation.

[St Fan]

In 3.5, "off-hand" attacks literally only happen when you are fighting with two weapons.

3.5 characters do not have to nominate right- or left-handedness at creation.

Can I have a source, please?

[Thurbane]

Can I have a source, please?

I'm not sure I can provide one, but conversely, can you provide a 3.5 source where characters have a dominant hand?

I may have a misunderstanding of how things work in 3.5 prepared to 3.0 (which I largely did not play), but AFAIK "off-hand" is a term that only seems to be mentioned in 3.5 specifically in relation to TWF.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but it may take someone else to provide a relevant citation.

[Khedrac]

I'm not sure I can provide one, but conversely, can you provide a 3.5 source where characters have a dominant hand?

I may have a misunderstanding of how things work in 3.5 prepared to 3.0 (which I largely did not play), but AFAIK "off-hand" is a term that only seems to be mentioned in 3.5 specifically in relation to TWF.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but it may take someone else to provide a relevant citation.

This. Thurbane is right as far as most people are concerned on this one.

One piece of supporting evidence is:

Armor spikes
...
You can’t also make an attack with armor spikes if you have already made an attack with another off-hand weapon, and vice versa.

The key work here is "another", armor spikes are obviously not a weapon actually held in your 'off-hand' so this adds weight to the argument that in 3.5 D&D an 'off-hand' weapon is simply a weapon used to make attacks that is not the primary weapon.

[Vaern]

Q 251

Can a Staff of the Magi be used to recharge itself?

The wielder of the staff chooses to lower the spell resistance granted by the staff, enabling its absorption ability.
The wielder of the staff then casts Enlarge Person, a 1st-level spell, on himself at the cost of 0 charges.
The chosen spell is a single-target arcane spell targeting the wielder of the staff, which the staff can absorb.
The staff has restored 1 charge at the cost of 0 charges.

[St Fan]

Q 251

Can a Staff of the Magi be used to recharge itself?

The wielder of the staff chooses to lower the spell resistance granted by the staff, enabling its absorption ability.
The wielder of the staff then casts Enlarge Person, a 1st-level spell, on himself at the cost of 0 charges.
The chosen spell is a single-target arcane spell targeting the wielder of the staff, which the staff can absorb.
The staff has restored 1 charge at the cost of 0 charges.

A 251
On a purely reading level... yeah, that should work, there's no caveat in the text against absorbing the staff's magic or against non-hostile spell.

On a purely practical level... don't, because you're certain the GM will throw books at you. Or rules on the spot that it will cause a retributive strike.

[St Fan]

Q 252

The suggestion spell can be used with commands that will trigger on specific conditions.

Now, let's imagine a caster using the spell on a willing ally, with the suggestion being: "I you fall under mind control (aside from this very suggestion spell), don't obey the orders but attack the one who tried to control you instead."

A) Will that work? Does it fall within the "creature under more than one mind control receiving conflicting orders" rule, and thus force an opposed Charisma check between the controllers?

B) If it is indeed the case, I guess the check is made when the conflict happens, but for the caster of the suggestion, is the Charisma used the one when casting the spell? (For example, if it was boosted by eagle's splendor at the time?)

C) Finally, if this trick does work, can a caster use such a suggestion on himself?

[Jon_Dahl]

Q 253

Monster Manual II, pp. 127-128. It says that an Immoth casts spells as a 12th-level sorcerer. The Ice Rune ability requires that the Immoth prepares spells. But a sorcerer does not prepare spells. How can the Immoth use his or her Icy Rune ability?

Edit: For instance, the PCs will face an Immoth who has two Displacements, three Black Tentacles and three Freezing Spheres on his body as Ice Runes, and he can throw these at player as a free action AND use a full round to act. Fair and balanced?

[Khedrac]

A 253

Monster Manual II, pp. 127-128. It says that an Immoth casts spells as a 12th-level sorcerer. The Ice Rune ability requires that the Immoth prepares spells. But a sorcerer does not prepare spells. How can the Immoth use his or her Icy Rune ability?

RAW it cannot - this is not addressed in the MM2 errata or the 3.0/3.5 update rules so by strict RAW it cannot use ice rune without class levels. (Note advancement is by character class.)

[Thurbane]

A 253 additonal

Under a strictly RAW reading of the ability, it does not work (although to me, at least, the RAI is clear).

This can also be remedied by the creature taking the Arcane Preparation feat.