PHB II and Improved Natural Attack

[pawsplay]

That's nothing. The Highland Stalker in Complete Adventurer has neither sneak attack dice nor skirmish, and yet it appears in the same book as Scouts (the base class with skirmish), spellthieves (base class who have sneak attack), and Ninjas (base class with sudden strike, which as a special provision can be treated as sneak attack for purposes of prereqs). The only way for them to go wrong was to go back to the PHB and choose a class that did not have either ability... which they did. Ranger.

 

[starwed]

....and yet, in the "Advice on 9th level Monk doing 6d6 damage per strike... " thread, the example monk is used as proof that Monks can take INA.

No. It is used as support for a particular position. (And the main support is the FAQ, which rules on this quite explicitly. Without it, I'd say it's a confusing issue. THe FAQ is designed entirely to remove such confusion.)

 

[D.Shaffer]

....and yet, in the "Advice on 9th level Monk doing 6d6 damage per strike... " thread, the example monk is used as proof that Monks can take INA.

It's the BAB requirement they're looking at for why it's incorrect. There's a +4 BAB prerequisite. You cant have that at 1st level.

 

[Artoomis]

That is some major incompetence. Letting crap like that get into print is unforgivable. It sounds like Dragon magazine has more Wotc oversight than the PHB2.

Oh, my. That is VERY strong language.

The task of writing and editing a book, particularly a rues book, is a daunting one. I would well and truly amazed to see something like this book (or any of the D&D books) get into print without at least a few signficant errors.

I do not think any of us could afford to but an error-free book. I think the cost of THAT would be about as much as an order of magnitude greater (that is, 10 times the cost).

 

[moritheil]

Normally I'd say that it is strong language, but consider that there is a real history of botching things - inaccurate FAQ rulings, pathetic monster combat routines, wildly suboptimal NPC creation presented as powerful (a la Elminster.) I'd say it's fair for Frank to be frustrated every once in a while.

 

[Artoomis]

Normally I'd say that it is strong language, but consider that there is a real history of botching things - inaccurate FAQ rulings, pathetic monster combat routines, wildly suboptimal NPC creation presented as powerful (a la Elminster.) I'd say it's fair for Frank to be frustrated every once in a while.

Frustrated is one thing. Accusing WotC of "major incompetence...unforgivable" is another. It's going overboard with criticism.

It's fair to say we'd like to see them do a better job. But, since we do keep buying their books, I'd say we keep forgiving these errors and somhow dealing with all this "incompetence."

I'd challenge ANYONE on these boards to do a better in in EVERY CASE. That's the issue, you see - they (WotC) have to be darn near perfect in EVERY CASE or they get accused of gross incompetence.

I'd like to see anyone here to a better job of balancing costs, deadlines, desired accuracy, fan criticism and everything else and still stay in business.

I'd say they are doing a pretty fair job. Sure I'd like to see them do better, but I, for one, am not willing to pay more to get a higher quality product.

We seem to have a little problem in this country - a tendancy to use the strongest adjectives we can find, Everything, it seems, is either the "best" or the "worst."

 

[Deset Gled]

I do not think any of us could afford to but an error-free book. I think the cost of THAT would be about as much as an order of magnitude greater (that is, 10 times the cost).

True. But the cost of an after the fact fix, through an errata document hosted on a website (that already exists), is practically nothing. My issue with errors isn't so much the fact that they exist, as the way WotC deals with them (i.e. ignoring them, forcing you to buy another book to get the upgrades a la Spell Compendium, or breaking the Primary Source rule that they themselves set up to try and minimize confusion).

 

[lukelightning]

I'm far less forgiving of these PH2 mistakes; these are packages meant to be used by PCs. Making a mistake in some random sample NPC is no biggie, but making a mistake in a template for a player is much worse.

 

[KarinsDad]

Oh, my. That is VERY strong language.

The task of writing and editing a book, particularly a rues book, is a daunting one. I would well and truly amazed to see something like this book (or any of the D&D books) get into print without at least a few signficant errors.

I do not think any of us could afford to but an error-free book. I think the cost of THAT would be about as much as an order of magnitude greater (that is, 10 times the cost).

Nonsense.

Frank is correct.

There are often glaring errors in the WotC books. They are caused by lack of due diligence. WotC does not force its employees to sit down in a room with all the pertinent books in electronic form on laptops for quick searching and have them read out loud every sentence and table layout in a new book. With a few people electronically back checking prerequisites / pertinent rules and "rules lawyers" type people doing the review, 90% or more of the current level of errors in their books would get caught.

But it takes a few weeks of actual time to do this level of due diligence and WotC does not do this.

This type of shoddiness happens in many industries where documentation is written and proofed.

 

[Artoomis]

...This type of shoddiness happens in many industries where documentation is written and proofed.

Too true.

Editing and checking closely for errors is VERY expensive.