Ask a Simple Question part 19: Titan-Bloodline Pixie Ubercharger edition

[archangel.arcanis]

Q294: My character has a Janni that follows him around, are Janni as completely useless as they look?

Ethereal jaunt for an entire hour is pretty nice.  Planeshift between astral, elemental, and material at will is nice as well.  And telepathy 100 feet qualifies for mindsight.

Q298: Does that mean the Sha'ir's ability to Planar Bind a Janni once per day as the spell is better than I thought?  Because it looks unbelievably awful from here.

Yes it is. Even if Janni suck if you bind enough of them you can make someone very unhappy. As Stalin said "Quantity has a quality all its own"

But is it really that important to have it as an ability rather than a spell?  You still pay for it and you can only get Janni.  You're already a spellcaster, why would you want this ability?

Would you have something better if it weren't there? Does it make you weaker for having it? Even a crappy ability is better than nothing, as long as it doesn't restrict you like that stupid grappling class does. This at least saves you the spell slot even if it is only for Janni.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Q298: Does that mean the Sha'ir's ability to Planar Bind a Janni once per day as the spell is better than I thought?  Because it looks unbelievably awful from here.

It's a decent means of interplanar transportation, and going ethereal for a full hour lets you bypass a lot of bullshit.  Plus, think of it as a way to summon a vendor to sell loot to.

[Sobolev]

Q298: Does that mean the Sha'ir's ability to Planar Bind a Janni once per day as the spell is better than I thought?  Because it looks unbelievably awful from here.

It's a decent means of interplanar transportation, and going ethereal for a full hour lets you bypass a lot of bullshit.  Plus, think of it as a way to summon a vendor to sell loot to.

That last point is pretty funny, and the previous poster makes a good point of "If nothing else, it's something."  I was asking because I was attempting to draw some lines of when to abort the class and wasn't sure if this was really worth staying in.  At least the level 11 ability lets you once per day summon something with Wish.  Still I suppose it's not awful.

Q299: I think I could find it, but I'm not able to right now so...What are the downsides to being on an elemental plane (example: fire)  I assume you take some amount of firey damage per round?  How much.  I also assume Fire spells are empowered or something as well.  So.  Planar traits of the Elemental Plane of Fire? =D

[PhaedrusXY]

A299 (mostly): http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#elementalPlaneOfFire

How much damage you take per round depends on where you're at, exactly. In some places none, but if you're standing in a lake of lava... a lot.

[Sobolev]

A299 (mostly): http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#elementalPlaneOfFire

How much damage you take per round depends on where you're at, exactly. In some places none, but if you're standing in a lake of lava... a lot.

Endure Elements required?  Trying to figure which of the 4 elemental planes would count as an escape and which of them would just kill me if I suddenly teleported there.

[Echoes]

A299 (mostly): http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#elementalPlaneOfFire

How much damage you take per round depends on where you're at, exactly. In some places none, but if you're standing in a lake of lava... a lot.

Endure Elements required?  Trying to figure which of the 4 elemental planes would count as an escape and which of them would just kill me if I suddenly teleported there.

Air is safe. If you have a form of water breathing water would also be safe as well.

[Sobolev]

A299 (mostly): http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#elementalPlaneOfFire

How much damage you take per round depends on where you're at, exactly. In some places none, but if you're standing in a lake of lava... a lot.

Endure Elements required?  Trying to figure which of the 4 elemental planes would count as an escape and which of them would just kill me if I suddenly teleported there.

Air is safe. If you have a form of water breathing water would also be safe as well.

Air seems the best.  Planning on using the Sha'ir ability (Yes them again damnit!) to go to another plane as an "OH SHIT YOU CAUGHT ME WITHOUT SPELLS" button.

[RelentlessImp]

Q 300: Do natural attacks all gain +1 1/2 strength bonus for being primary and +Strength bonus for secondary, or does it depend on the natural weapon itself?

My specific example is an illithid with a full natural attack routine of 4 Tentacles+2 Claws+1 Bite (Bite of the Wereboar, which says it gets 1 1/2 Strength bonus and doesn't say anything about it changing if it's a secondary).

[wotmaniac]

Q 300: Do natural attacks all gain +1 1/2 strength bonus for being primary and +Strength bonus for secondary, or does it depend on the natural weapon itself?

My specific example is an illithid with a full natural attack routine of 4 Tentacles+2 Claws+1 Bite (Bite of the Wereboar, which says it gets 1 1/2 Strength bonus and doesn't say anything about it changing if it's a secondary).

A300
Typically, for natural attacks, the primary attack uses x1, and secondary is x1/2.  It would appear that your specific example would be an exception.

[InnaBinder]

A300b
Generally, Bite attacks and Slams are given the specific exceptional benefit of 1 1/2 times STR, while most other Natural Attack forms, like claws and tentacles, are not.  If memory serves, Tail Slaps usually get the 1 1/2 x STR benefit as well.

[Garryl]

The 1.5*Str benefit to natural weapons is also for creatures with any single natural weapon, but no more than one. Low-level Astral Constructs have a single Slam attack, for instance. There are some exceptions, such as herbivorous animals, whose single natural weapons are considered secondary weapons (even if they have no primary antural weapons) and thus gain only 0.5*Str.

[X-Codes]

The 1.5*Str benefit to natural weapons is also for creatures with any single natural weapon, but no more than one. Low-level Astral Constructs have a single Slam attack, for instance. There are some exceptions, such as herbivorous animals, whose single natural weapons are considered secondary weapons (even if they have no primary antural weapons) and thus gain only 0.5*Str.

What this guy said.

The Bite of the Wereboar spell assumes that you don't have any natural weapons when you cast the spell, so it may or may not be a case of specific-overrules-general, so you'll have to ask your DM.  In any case, it's almost certainly not going to be 1.5x strength applied to that attack.

[Bauglir]

Q301

Is there any way to make Heavy Armor into Light? I don't care about the Dex bonus or anything, just the armor category.

[Garryl]

Q301

Is there any way to make Heavy Armor into Light? I don't care about the Dex bonus or anything, just the armor category.

A301 Use the Halfweight armor property (+3 bonus, or +2 if it's already Illithidwrought). Makes any armor weight half as much and count as light armor. I think it's from Drow of the Underdark, certainly one of those books dealing with that general area.

[Bauglir]

Q301

Is there any way to make Heavy Armor into Light? I don't care about the Dex bonus or anything, just the armor category.

A301 Use the Halfweight armor property (+3 bonus, or +2 if it's already Illithidwrought). Makes any armor weight half as much and count as light armor. I think it's from Drow of the Underdark, certainly one of those books dealing with that general area.

It's in Underdark, and thus just BARELY 3.5. Thank you so very much.

[Sunic_Flames]

Q297: Can you do an unarmed strike sequence and a manufactured weapon attack sequence in the same round, or is that just natural weapons?

just natural

You can, however, use two-weapon or multiweapon fighting to make a main-hand UAS sequence with a series of off-hand manufactured weapon attacks (and possibly the other way around as well, depending on how you interperet unarmed strikes never counting as off-hand weapons).

Given that the character in question fights with a two handed weapon, and I just wanted to know if I could kick people too to make Monks feel worse about themselves, yeah. Not happening. Doesn't really matter, I just wanted to do it for the lulz.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Q301

Is there any way to make Heavy Armor into Light? I don't care about the Dex bonus or anything, just the armor category.

Use it on the thunalid stone armor from Anuroch: empire of shade.

[archangel.arcanis]

Q297: Can you do an unarmed strike sequence and a manufactured weapon attack sequence in the same round, or is that just natural weapons?

just natural

You can, however, use two-weapon or multiweapon fighting to make a main-hand UAS sequence with a series of off-hand manufactured weapon attacks (and possibly the other way around as well, depending on how you interperet unarmed strikes never counting as off-hand weapons).

Given that the character in question fights with a two handed weapon, and I just wanted to know if I could kick people too to make Monks feel worse about themselves, yeah. Not happening. Doesn't really matter, I just wanted to do it for the lulz.

Snap kick from ToB lets you make an unarmed attack in addition to your normal attacks by taking an extra -2 to all attacks that round. So yes you can kick them while using a 2 hander just to piss off monks.

[Rebel7284]

Q297: Can you do an unarmed strike sequence and a manufactured weapon attack sequence in the same round, or is that just natural weapons?

just natural

You can, however, use two-weapon or multiweapon fighting to make a main-hand UAS sequence with a series of off-hand manufactured weapon attacks (and possibly the other way around as well, depending on how you interperet unarmed strikes never counting as off-hand weapons).

Given that the character in question fights with a two handed weapon, and I just wanted to know if I could kick people too to make Monks feel worse about themselves, yeah. Not happening. Doesn't really matter, I just wanted to do it for the lulz.

Snap kick from ToB lets you make an unarmed attack in addition to your normal attacks by taking an extra -2 to all attacks that round. So yes you can kick them while using a 2 hander just to piss off monks.

Yeah but at that point you've wasted two feats to act like a monk O.o

[Ithamar]

Q302:  Drow of the Underdark gives partial details on a potentially interesting race known as Vril.  Info for them is on pages 123 - 126.  However, info on their racial Shriek and Skinshift abilities seem to be completely missing.  Are these found elsewhere?  Or just poor editing by WotC?  Or am I blind and completely glossing over it?

Edit:  Nevermind.  Vril were statted out in the online errata.