New FAQ (10/12/2004)

[3d6]

The new FAQ is interesting, and I haven’t seen any commentary on it.

From the FAQ:
How many Hit Dice does my 1st-level pixie rogue have? What would his effective character level be?

Unless noted otherwise, all creatures (other than 1-HD humanoids) retain their racial HD when they gain class levels. Thus, your pixie would have 2 Hit Dice: one from his race, and one from his class level. His effective character level (ECL) would be 6 (2 for his HD, plus 4 for his level adjustment) […]

From the SRD:
A pixie character exchanges its 1 HD of fey for its first class level.

From the SRD:
Creatures with 1 or less HD replace their monster levels with their character levels. The monster loses the attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, skills, and feats granted by its 1 monster HD and gains the attack bonus, save bonuses, skills, feats, and other class abilities of a 1st-level character of the appropriate class.

From the SRD:
If a monster has 1 Hit Die or less, or if it is a template creature, it must start the game with one or more class levels, like a regular character. If a monster has 2 or more Hit Dice, it can start with no class levels (though it can gain them later).

From the FAQ:
When my sorcerer shapechanges into the form of a creature with special attacks, what Hit Dice do I use to calculate the DC of those abilities—the creature’s normal HD, my caster level, or something else?

When you use shapechange (or related magic) to assume another creature’s form, your Hit Dice are considered to be the HD of the new form, but only for the purpose of adjudicating effects directly related to your HD, such as determining the DC of any special attacks possessed by the new form or for determining whether you are vulnerable to the sleep or blasphemy spells.

For example, an 18th-level human sorcerer shapechanged into a dire bear would be treated as a 12-HD creature (and not an 18-HD creature) for the purpose of determining what effect an evil cleric's blasphemy spell might have upon him. A 17th-level elf wizard shapechanged into a horned devil would use the horned devil's 15 HD (rather than his own 17 HD) to determine the save DC of his fear aura, stun, and infernal wound supernatural attacks. This has no effect on your hit points or any other statistics derived from your HD, such as base attack bonus, base save bonuses, and so on.

That’s just a bizarre ruling. So a 20th-level character using alter self to assume the form of a orc dies if he gets hit by an enervation, can be knocked out by sleep, and automatically dies to blasphemy? What the hell?

From the FAQ:
If a spectre strikes my 1st-level pixie rogue, does he gain 2 negative levels (because his effective character level is 6) or does he die (because he has only 2 HD)?

Technically, both effects occur, but only the latter really matters to your character. A high level adjustment (such as the pixie’s +4 LA) means that the character is particularly vulnerable to effects based on his Hit Dice (including spells such as sleep or effects such as energy drain). A 2-HD pixie who gains two or more negative levels dies immediately (just as any 2-HD character would).

I just point this out because the question is wrong, which is pretty funny. (A 1st-level pixie rogue has 1 HD.)

What do you guys think?

 

[Knight Otu]

I say that when a 4th edition comes out, I'll crusade for the removal of racial hit dice. They cause enough problems to warrant that step.

 

[beeber]

maybe they need a new proofreader

 

[Kelleris]

Re: Dying instantly to enervation.

That doesn't actually happen, because you are an orc (no racial HD) with at least 17 levels in a class. All it affects are racial-HD-based saves and similar effects. You are no more instantly slain by the spell than a 17th-level Orc Barbarian would be.

 

[3d6]

You do die instantly to enervation. If using alter self to turn in to an orc resulted in a character who was considered to have 17 HD, then a 17th-level sorcerer turning into a dire bear using shapechange would be treated as a 29 HD creature, because it a dire bear with 17 levels in a class. The answer specifically states that you "are considered to be the HD of the new form... for the purpose of adjudicating effects directly related to your HD, such as determining the DC of any special attacks possessed by the new form or for determining whether you are vulnerable to the sleep or blasphemy spells.

 

[Kelleris]

Right. Well, I guess it depends on which hair you want to split. I read "are considered to be the HD of the new form" to mean racial HD, because those are all that is usually counted for the DC of special attacks of the new form. You also count class HD for blasphemy and so forth, though.

So, you can read it as (an !8th level sorcerer as a dire bear) having 12 HD for all purposes or as having 30 HD for all purposes, because someone had an attack of stupid and mixed a case where level-based HD matter and one where they don't matter. I simply opted for the reading that does the least damage to common sense and game balance.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Answer 1 is obviously wrong.

Answer 2... isn't supported, as far as I can tell.

There are a couple of sad things about the first question.

Why did someone need to ask it in the first place? As 3d6 points out, it's spelled out unambiguously in the Pixie entry.

But worse - it shows that Andy Collins is answering questions 'from memory', without bothering to look up the wording. 'cos there's no way that you could give that answer if you'd actually checked.

-Hyp.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Sooo...has anyone else noticed that the left hand at WotC doesn't know what the right hand is doing? Particularly recently?

They've had some major editing and proofreading problems recently. Check out the CustServ responses to questions about the warlock in Complete Arcane over at the WotC message boards. Take note of the fact that they apparently still haven't figured out that Summon Undead hasn't been updated since 3.0 even though it's been printed in two 3.5 sourcebooks. Place bets on the major breaches of respectable publishing etiquette and standards that will be present in Complete Adventurer...

It's a new Sage, right? Not Skip Williams, right? Skip used to make some weird calls, but he generally looked up the rules before he went to press with his answers. Whoever this new guy is (and I'm not at home so I can't look in my Dragon), he better get replaced or edumacated or the nitpickers are going to descend like locusts on that column on a monthly basis.

(edit)

Note the bold text:

Humanoids and Class Levels: Creatures with 1 or less HD replace their monster levels with their character levels. The monster loses the attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, skills, and feats granted by its 1 monster HD and gains the attack bonus, save bonuses, skills, feats, and other class abilities of a 1st-level character of the appropriate class.
Characters with more than 1 Hit Die because of their race do not get a feat for their first class level as members of the common races do, and they do not multiply the skill points for their first class level by four. Instead, they have already received a feat for their first Hit Die because of race, and they have already multiplied their racial skill points for their first Hit Die by four.

Maybe it's not such a stupid ruling after all. The rules say that creatures with 1 or less HD have no monster levels if they have class levels. However, the section header says "humanoids," and not "monsters". So while the RAW contradicts the FAQ ruling, it seems to me that they had intended to imply that the class level/monster level issue was only to apply to humanoids, but just screwed up the wording of the rule.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

shapechange and HD and the FAQ

Yeah, that's a screwed up ruling. What is it with WoTC these days? They should take more care on these things.

The sorcerer->dire bear is absurd. Basically, the text asserts that your HD from class levels cease to count any time you change form into anything. That makes polymorph and alter self really dangerous spells to use.

Ken

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yeah, that's a screwed up ruling. What is it with WoTC these days? They should take more care on these things.

The sorcerer->dire bear is absurd. Basically, the text asserts that your HD from class levels cease to count any time you change form into anything. That makes polymorph and alter self really dangerous spells to use.

Ken

I'm going to just hazard a guess that the "good intentions" behind that one was that, should you polymorph into something that has an ability that you can use in that form, and the ability has a scaling effect that depends on the number of hit dice of the creature, you use the creature's hit dice and not your own to calculate effect. That way, you can't enhance an assumed form by using your own HD to calculate its powers.

But using the assumed form's HD to determine whether Sleep affects you? The hell? Someone's been putting something funny in the Sage's pipe, I wager.