antipathy

[Bad Paper]

My game is right now (Saturday night), and in an hour or two I will need to rule on this:

One of my players has an item with antipathy against CE red dragons on it. Does this also affect half-dragons? (CE, and red, otherwise)

Thanks!

edit: OK, the first fight took muuuuch longer than I had anticipated (let's hear it for feebleminding the wizard, ha ha ha), so I have a few weeks to think about this. No longer one-hour time slot

 

[blargney the second]

It's one or the other: either CE or red dragons. If it's CE, it'd work against the half-dragons. The latter would not work.

 

[Artoomis]

"... repel either a specific kind of intelligent creature or creatures of a particular alignment, as defined by you..."

"...The kind of creature to be affected must be named specifically..."

So, first, what kind of creature or alignment is being repelled?

If CE, the asnwer is obvious.

If Red Dragon, then Half-Dragon will not be specific enough as "...A creature subtype is not specific enough."

Since even "sub type" is not specific enough, I'd say if you want half-dragons (red) that's what you need to specify.

BYW, I think it is odd that alignment (which is very broad) is good enough while even a creature sub-type is not specific enough, but that is how it is written.

 

[Neil Bishop]

Maybe I am wrong but I would rule that "a creature with the blood of red dragons in its veins" would be allowed by me to exclude both red dragons and half-red dragons while also meeting the requirement of a specific kind of creature.

 

[Artoomis]

Maybe I am wrong but I would rule that "a creature with the blood of red dragons in its veins" would be allowed by me to exclude both red dragons and half-red dragons while also meeting the requirement of a specific kind of creature.

I'd probably allow that, but, then, I think the way it allows an alignment and yet only a specific creature type is too restrictive on the creature type part, so I would tend to be just a tad generous if someone tried that sort of "type" for a creature..

 

[Bad Paper]

ah, OK, the player (and I) had skimmed the spell wrong at first. We've never used this before. She wanted red dragons; I (incorrectly) told her that she had to slap CE on top of that, so we'll remove it. So. Red dragons. The question is now whether antipathy targetted at red dragons affects half-red-dragons. It seems that we're waffling over a fairly even split: RAW vs RAI.

I don't care much, really, since the intended target of her spell is currently out of the picture; this is just about how henchmen react. So I want to toss her a bone, but not a very meaty one.

 

[Piratecat]

I'd probably give her the half-dragons if you want to throw her a bone. It's fun to let the PCs feel powerful and effective. Just give the half-dragons some missile weapons...

 

[blargney the second]

I'd probably let it fly as well. If half-elves and half-orcs count as their full-blooded kin, it doesn't seem unreasonable to let half-red dragons receive the same punishment.
-blarg

 

[Bad Paper]

it seems that everyone missed something minor

Likewise, the specific alignment to be repelled must be named.

You do have to specify the alignment. Dragons are color-coded for your convenience, but still, you have to say "chaotic evil red dragons."

So hmm. But yeah blargney has a point. I think I may let this fly. It's just that there are a lot of half-dragons, and their ranger specializes in dragons, and yeah it'll just be a slaughter.

 

[blargney the second]

I think it's even simpler than that - straight up boolean logic.

"repel either a specific kind of intelligent creature or creatures of a particular alignment, as defined by you."

They're mutually exclusive choices.
-blarg