Questions

[darlis moonbeam]

Not sure I would say it's an all or nothing in the rules. If you have it then you can use search to find them but does not mean you actually can find them. Perhaps some sort of Improved Trapfinding that either gives you bonuses to that search or helps lower the DC on those searches. Was not really proposing anything I just happened to see the post about evasion and realized I had the same issue with trapfinding from my build as I get it from both sides.

[Rudolf]

The difference I see is that Trapfinding is skills-based. Throw more skill points at it, or buy MW thieves tools, and you’ll improve.

 

The mods might be open to trading one of your Trapfindings away, but you have to decide what would be a good trade. I know it’s not an exact match, but a LOT of Pathfinder rogue archetypes trade away Trapfinding for something. Maybe you can find something?

[Steel Warrior]

Very true, there may be ACF's that allow you to trade trapfinding for another feature. One thing I will point out, is the Trapfinding feature on Pathfinder is really nice. If they might consider it a house rule, if a player has 2 classes with trapfinding. See the PF version gives a 1/2 level bonus to perception, but in this case it can apply to (Search and Disabling Device) trap checks only.

3.5 Version

Trapfinding

Rogues (and only rogues) can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20.
Finding a nonmagical trap has a DC of at least 20, or higher if it is well hidden. Finding a magic trap has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.
Rogues (and only rogues) can use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.
A rogue who beats a trap’s DC by 10 or more with a Disable Device check can study a trap, figure out how it works, and bypass it (with her party) without disarming it.

VS.

Pathfinder

Trapfinding

A rogue adds 1/2 her level to Perception skill checks made to locate traps and to Disable Device skill checks (minimum +1). A rogue can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.

 

Edited September 19 by Steel Warrior (see edit history)

[Delia2531]

Improved Evasion is a feat/ability in its own right, all we have done is allow the 'double-up' to advance you through the progression rather than waste it.

 

Improved Trapfinding isn't an existing ability, there are other abilities with an Improved version that we may need to consider as we come across them, but Trapfinding isn't one of them I'm afraid.

 

For now your best bet is an ACF that lets you trade one away. Anything else takes us down the Homebrew/PF-conversion path which we are trying to avoid generally.

[Fenris2]

15 hours ago, Blue Jay said:

Well, welcome to RFT, and welcome to be 3.5e!

The RLA Progressions are meant to exactly duplicate the standard 'official' monsters from the original sources, but using reassigned LAs from this community project at the GiantITP forums. So, there should be no difference between the RLA Progression monster and the official stat block, except that you gain features and bonuses gradually, over several levels.

However, the RLA Progressions were a one-man job that I tried to crank out in just a few months, so I practiced a lot of minimalism. You will still need to refer to the original source material to understand how everything works. The things that you mentioned (eating, sleeping, healing, etc) are all traits of the Construct type (see here for a convenient reference), which means your caryatid column will have all those traits.

If there's any way in which my RLA Progression differs from the monster in the original source (Fiend Folio), please let me know, so I can correct my progression.

---

For healing a construct, the repair ___ damage spells is about the only real option. They're on the artificer, sorcerer/wizard and urban druid lists, so you can make wands and potions/oils of them. There are some other ways (using the Craft Construct feat), but they're often obscure or prohibitively expensive, so the spells are your best bet. You might look into ways to gain Fast Healing (e.g., Shadow Creature template, the dragon shaman's Vigor aura, the Healing Devotion feat, etc).

I look forward to seeing your caryatid column PC take shape! Mine never got off the ground, so I hope you'll get further than I did.

Challenge accepted! Wait... There was no challenge? Well anyway....

Healing. So, repair spells work, but so too does the vigor line of spells, or it should afaik since it grants fast healing to the subject. That opens up more class options, and class options are for sure the easiest way to address this issue. But maybe I want something not divney or arcaney for the build. So then what? Well we can still slap those spells on eternal wands (or non-eternal for that matter) easy enough. Issue here is going to be UMD rolls if they are not on a spell list. Then a maybe brain flash occurred. FR has a PRC class called Runecaster(Player's Guide to Faerun p69) that creates no-spell-list needed daily (or charged) items that would be perfect for this. Well there are some limitations to these runes like fixed target (user) and they are permanently dispellable, so don't go running around with it out in the open/LOS for enemy caster to see... But none the less pretty perfect for this mostly out of combat application. If I have it right it works out to be a Lesser Vigor rune at 400gp to buy a 1/day use assuming setting spell level and caster level of the effect to 1, which is indeed budget friendly for 3rd level char for sure.

 

Looked at...

Healing Devotion - Certainly works, but is a touch miserly and more importantly the feat cost is high given awakening already eats one of 'em.

Dragon Shaman - Half a cigar. Normally pretty awesome but heals to half... and then nada. Which begs the question and then what?

Shadow Creature(Lords of Madness p167). Very cool idea. Also adds to sneakiness and a sneaky gish psion is one of my top build concepts so far... But only if its applicable to a construct in RFT, not sure how fixed on creature types allowable you are for templates. Either way, which version(s) are we using? Official, Oslecamo or other?

 

New thought. What about level of The Crossbreed which is (or at least was) approved. As I read it you get both sets of racial traits construct/human and can choose whichever you want as most beneficial. So that could be can heal normally, and even add in eating/sleeping and whatever to better play that role I was shooting for of "Awww... Isn't that cute? The puppy construct thinks its a people." It may also (re) open shadow creature.

 

Edited September 19 by Fenris2
Removed dndtools.net links (see edit history)

[Steel Warrior]

@Fenris2

Not sure that the link to Realm Helps Shadow Creature is allowed, it may be copyright protected material.
Crossbreed I believe was already approved, Also taking the two feats instead, Monster Blooded and Monster Hybrid are allowed.

Giving your construct fast healing also works through template or class.

Healing Belt using the Repair spell version was also approved since the spells are the same spell level and does the same for constructs, including warforged.

[Fenris2]

44 minutes ago, Steel Warrior said:

@Fenris2

Not sure that the link to Realm Helps Shadow Creature is allowed, it may be copyright protected material.
Crossbreed I believe was already approved, Also taking the two feats instead, Monster Blooded and Monster Hybrid are allowed.

Giving your construct fast healing also works through template or class.

Healing Belt using the Repair spell version was also approved since the spells are the same spell level and does the same for constructs, including warforged.

Cool that helps a bit, although not sure that Monster Hybrid applies to non-Oslecamo progressions or not? But if it does it is an option.

 

Also, edited my post and replaced all links to anything that might be copyrighted (best guess) with book and page references just to be on the safe side.

[Steel Warrior]

18 minutes ago, Fenris2 said:

Cool that helps a bit, although not sure that Monster Hybrid applies to non-Oslecamo progressions or not? But if it does it is an option.

 

Also, edited my post and replaced all links to anything that might be copyrighted (best guess) with book and page references just to be on the safe side.

I used it for my MM3/Ebberon Changeling 0, MM1 Phasm 3||Rogue 3 (changeling acf). Using non oslecamo as long as you are using monster levels (savage species style) classes. Blue Jay had helped create monster levels for the RLA monsters where a lot of the empty LA was removed to balance them out to actual classes.

Edited September 19 by Steel Warrior (see edit history)

[Blue Jay]

17 hours ago, darlis moonbeam said:

So I just saw the evasion + evasion = Improved Evasion. Is there anything similar for Trapfinding from like Rogue and Scout?

The reason for this house rule is to clear up a common issue. In the PHB section about Uncanny Dodge, it's stated that gaining Uncanny Dodge twice grants Improved Uncanny Dodge. There are also one or two PrCs (Master Thrower, I think?) that have a similar rule for Evasion. Players were getting those two confused, so we decided to just give it to them.

But, Improved Trapfinding isn't a thing that exists, so we're not doing that.

[Blue Jay]

@Fenris2, The vigor line actually doesn't work for constructs, because the Target line says "living creature touched." Constructs don't count as living unless they have the living construct subtype (that's the downside of not using the Oslecamo caryatid column).

And sorry, I'd forgotten that Shadow Creature can't be applied to constructs.

---

Crossbreed, Monster Blooded and Monster Hybrid are allowed, but I'm not sure if we've ever made a ruling on whether they should only work with Oslecamo classes. It seems like we've had this conversation, but I don't recall if/how it resolved. I could see arguments for both sides: on the one hand, there are some cool and completely unproblematic character concepts it opens up (I used Crossbreed to get human traits on my RLA centaur, who was supposed to be a half-centaur); but on the other hand, things like succubus/nymph or marilith/balor or dragon/dragon or choker/anything seem like they could get really disruptive for a DM to work with.

What do the other mods think? Are we okay "crossing the streams" between Oslecamo and official sources with Oslecamo's Monster Blooded + Monster Hybrid and Crossbreed feats? If we're okay with it, do we have any restrictions we'd like to consider (e.g., "only race+progression combinations, and not progression+progression combos", or "ability scores gained from two monster progressions at the same level don't stack", etc.)?

@Delia2531, @rogueblade0729, @JCBarnes

[rogueblade0729]

Full disclosure, I tend to play 3.5e more conservatively, since considering all the possibilities in the rules makes my head spin. Oslecamo stuff has been approved in the past, but at least in my games, they tend to be a little more difficult to run for, since those characters stand out in both roleplay and mechanics more than more "ordinary" PCs. It makes some encounters more difficult to balance around, but I've gotten used to it at this point.

If we allow crossbreeding, I feel like the possibilities for minmaxing would just obliterate any sort of challenge I could possibly pose to the players without me seriously bending the rules or spending even more hours designing encounters. For these reasons, I vote against allowing crossbreeding between official and unofficial sources.

Edited September 19 by rogueblade0729 (see edit history)

[Steel Warrior]

What if you were a normal base race + Oslecamo. In my case, I chose 2 non oslecamo races changeling||phasm since they compliment each other, and I only took it to qualify for the changeling rogue acf.
 

Edited September 20 by Steel Warrior (see edit history)

[Delia2531]

6 hours ago, rogueblade0729 said:

Full disclosure, I tend to play 3.5e more conservatively, since considering all the possibilities in the rules makes my head spin. Oslecamo stuff has been approved in the past, but at least in my games, they tend to be a little more difficult to run for, since those characters stand out in both roleplay and mechanics more than more "ordinary" PCs. It makes some encounters more difficult to balance around, but I've gotten used to it at this point.

If we allow crossbreeding, I feel like the possibilities for minmaxing would just obliterate any sort of challenge I could possibly pose to the players without me seriously bending the rules or spending even more hours designing encounters. For these reasons, I vote against allowing crossbreeding between official and unofficial sources.

I haven't run a mission here at RFT for some time, but I understand your concerns. I find it hard enough to manage with the variety of PCs that our current rules accommodate so I am torn as to whether allowing this would make it even harder, or we are already past that.
 

If we had a small fire the difference between pouring on a bucket of water or a bucket of ethanol would make a difference; when you've already got a house fire it doesn't matter what's in the bucket.

 

For the sake of simplicity over all, and to try to keep the character approval a bit more manageable, I vote No; let's keep the sources separate on this.

[Blue Jay]

That's 2 votes for No.

I'm actually going to vote Yes. I'm a bit nervous about it opening some doors too wide, but it doesn't seem like our group is being overrun with powergamers right now, and I'm kind ready to say Yes to something after saying a lot of No's recently.

That said, even though I'm voting Yes, I still might be in favor of applying some restrictions, maybe like this:

• As @Steel Warrior suggested, we could allow a base race + monster class combo, but disallow multiple non-Oslecamo monster progressions.
• We could allow multiclass monsters, but restrict the stacking of bonuses and features in some way (e.g., you get the type features & traits, ability score bonuses and natural armor of only one of the monsters, but the other level-by-level benefits of both).

If we did consider restrictions like, would that change anyone's mind? Or do you two still want to just play it safe and keep it on the Oslecamo side of things?

@Delia2531, @rogueblade0729

[droobles]

So, should symbiotic template be banned?