The in game explaination is that these poor souls didn't have the chance to become more than they did as all PCs do by way of being PCs.
I say bull and rebuilt the NPC classes to be more useful, if less adventure oriented. I dare say some less combat oriented PCs would give thought to taking...
Judgement calls are naturally going to be needed, otherwise we wouldn't have GMs, just adventure modules on CD playing different tracks as you progress.
If you spear a fish it's still alive though (unless you spear it a whole bunch, or manage to crit). Given that they have so little HP I'd say that spears did minimal damage when striking underwater.
Given the 5' cube world of DnD I find it hard to say that a spear thrust into water is going to do much more than minimal damage if it managed to hit at all.
Aside from the problem with kinetic energy being stolen by the surface of the water, you've got distorted perception from the light...
A good idea, but can be squashed with a simple retort. All the kinetic energy the orb has is released upon creation. It is instantly shot forth at full speed, with no further magical assistance.
I'd just be weary of repeating crossbows with attachments.
Those things have got to be unwieldly as it is. And if you give them wands as well, then you've got the M4A1, with the M203 (the M9 is bad enough).
Not sure about the rules of Rugby aside from a comparison to arena football, but how about this.
A touch attack to hit the correct square (DC 5 normally, and give the ball a 20' range given we're talking giants) when throwing, with a grapple against the ball to receive.
Tackles could be...
The poll's for a NPC version of the Fighter. Same abilities for the most part with the exception of bonus feats and a couple other possible tweaks.
Each progression except for more than 1 has been mapped out and would give level 20 BABs of 25, 30, 35, and 40 respectively. Leaning towards the...
Bah! 0.33 is still 4 feats for the first BAB and introducing non-decimal fractions makes me want to poke people in the eye.
Besides, I put in subwizard, wizard, cleric, fighter, and superfighter progressions, that should be enough!
For most oozes I'd agree. In fact RAW states that they may squeeze through any crack of at least one inch.
But a cube? I mean come on! It's a fuggin' cube! If you allow it to squeeze at all it really should become twice as long, or somehow twice as dense (making it like one of those...
Actually, the 5 foot movement was one of the things I pointed out in that it seemed to suffer no ill effects from squeezing.
I do not like the cube's abbreviation. Makes me think of those Apple commercials.