Creature Types/Subtypes & Classification

[Nellisir]

Right, but how do you account for the special attacks, qualities and ability score adjustments with these classes?

There are two ways to set up this system - quick & dirty, or slow & complete. In the first, each race has a recommended minimum hit dice and a static set of adjustments -- attacks, abilities, qualities, what have you. That static set is for the recommended HD - say 12 for a hill giant.

In the second method, each race has a racial progression tracking from 1HD to, say 20, and everything is broken down along there, a la Savage Species.

That's all I've got time for right now.
More later,
Nell.

 

[Tonguez]

Before I forget it: "allow mount only type spells such as for paladins, but useable on any mountable type creature" - this is already possible, because mountable is every creature with the correct body shape. But I have yet to see the subtype Mountable. The other examples aren't convincing, too: Saddles and horseshoes need only a ceratin body shape respectively a ceratin body part - both are available to more creatures than Equines.

Tonguez:
Subtypes like Elf or Human are used now - are they disregarded with your system? And if we have both Beast (Dragon) and a Humanoid (Dragon), then we still need to determine which certain benefits are shared by both types.

1. I agree with you about Mounts not just being horses (afterall a Griffon is a classic DnD mount and is definately not Equine)

2. I don't use subraces so Elf and Human subtypes aren't an issue, but the same point about 'each Subtype should highlight a particular 'trait' (which has a mechanical effect)' still applies - so what are the traits of the elf subtype (other than Bane weapons, favoured enemy etc (which I don't think needs a subtype since thats alread featured in it being a subrace)

3. As for Dragon subtype if we look at the current Dragon Type and isolate the Traits we get

Traits: A dragon possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in the description of a particular kind).
—Darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision (same as Magical beast)
—Immunity to magic sleep effects and paralysis effects.
—Proficient with its natural weapons only unless humanoid in form (or capable of assuming humanoid form), in which case proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
—Proficient with no armor.
—Dragons eat, sleep, and breathe.

Other than the Immunities (same as Elf iirc) nothing there imho that would unbalance a Humanoid Dragon

(we might want to add the 12d Hit Dice,Good Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saves and 6 + Int modifier skill points as special features of True Dragons only.)

 

[reanjr]

I'd like to see Vermin turned into a subtype (primarily of Animals, but there might be something else it would work with), Giant a subtype (again, mostly of humanoid, but not limited to it). Get rid of Outsider. Just use the Extraplanar subtype for magical effects that refer to Outsiders. Monstrous Humanoid should be in Humanoid. I'm sure there are some others, but these are the ones off the top of my head.

 

[reanjr]

I like the idea of more animal subtypes that apply to many creatures: arachnid, reptilian, avian, equine, etc. A horse affecting thing should affect centaurs too, a bird one should affect harpies.

That reminds me. Instead of Vermin, make it an Arthropod subtype. I think that would work much better and seems to fit all the current vermin (D20 SRD ones at least).

 

[Gez]

Prey and Predator should be templates - the warbeast template would be better, if it had such a basis, because it can address some issues differently, if necessary.

I do not agree. I'm speaking about separating beasts in two types because I want to have different features for preys and for predators. Subtypes and templates (the "augmented thingie" subtype) can modify traits, but do not touch on features. An iron golem with the living construct subtype would still have the same HDs, the same base attack bonus and base save bonuses. An iron golem with the pseudonatural template (I do not care if it's not supposed to apply to constructs, pseudonatural things are not supposed to exist to begin with) will likewise keep his HDs, hp, BAB, and saves.

And these are the things I want to change.

What is the difference between a centaur and a harpy? Why wouldn't you use Equine on centaurs, but Avian on harpies?

The closest the beast is from us, the subtler the nuances we make are. We are mammalians, so a mammalian subtype is not enough -- you'll need equine, canine, feline, cetacean, etc. subtypes as well. Birds, frogs, snakes, and fish are other kinds of vertebrates, so we can stop at this level of detail. Jellyfish, snails and squids aren't vertebrate, so we can stop at "invertebrate".

You can compare it with people and their home. Let's take two (fictional) cities, Smallburg and Littletown, located in the same (fictional, too) region/federed state of Petitelandia, in the (fictional again) country/federal state of Minutia.
Mr John Smith, who lives in Smallburg, will refer to his girlfriend Ms Jean Schmidt, who lives in another quarter of Smallburg, as a Smallburgese of that other quarter.
His coworker Mr Jack Blake, lives in Littletown, will be a Littletownian, and John Smith will not care about in which quarter or district of Littletown precisely Blake's house is.
His CEO lives somewhere in South Diminutivia. John Smith doesn't care that his boss' actual city is named Rathernotbigville, the CEO is a Southern Diminutivian, not a Rathernotbigvillager.
There's talk of mergings between John Smith's company and another from Sotiny, another country. The representative of that other company, Finework, is a Sotiniese. John Smith utterly doesn't care which region of Sotiny this stranger is, and even less of which city in that region, which quarter in that city, which street in that quarter, and so on.
Saying "he's a Sotiniese" is all that John Smith needs to define the negociator.

The farthest away from you, the broader your brush. That's why equine, feline, avian, reptilian; but not mammalian, viperine, etc.

 

[Roman]

Gez, I agree with your reasoning... but what does 'viverine' mean?

 

[Roman]

Nellisir - I see I think I understand what you mean now - I misinterpreted it before. What you describe does sound at least theoretically workable, but the devil is in the details...

 

[Nellisir]

Nellisir - I see I think I understand what you mean now - I misinterpreted it before. What you describe does sound at least theoretically workable, but the devil is in the details...

As always.

The biggest question is, if the monster's abilities are broken down by HD, how balanced they should be for PC purposes. If you ignore PC balance, then things get alot easier -- a 1 HD beholder has all the same attacks, but lower saves, than an 8HD beholder.

It's possible some things, like damage from natural attacks or natural armor bonuses, could be class features rather than creature features -- hill giants, for instance, have a +9 natural armor bonus and 12 HD. Minotaurs have a +5 bonus and 6 HD. Using ONLY those two as a reference, and giving the minotaur a +1 racial bonus to natural AC, you might say the brawler monster class gives a +1 natural armor bonus at every level except 1st, 6th, 12th, and 18th. This also works for gnolls (2 HD, +1 natural AC) and goblins (1 HD, +0 natural AC), but not grimlocks (2 HD, +4 natural AC).

The spellcaster class is something of a misnomer. It might, in some cases, give actual spellcasting ability, but most of the time it'll reflect a large array or reliance on spell-like or supernatural abilities. Whether creatures with low HD but abundant spell-like abilities (like most fey) can be worked into the system is a valid question.

Still mulling it over, still no time to deal with the devil on the details,
Nell.

 

[Gez]

Gez, I agree with your reasoning... but what does 'viverine' mean?

It's a typo, I meant viperine.

But "viverine" does exist, incidentally, and means "similar to viverids" (the same way that "reptilian" means "similar to reptiles").

Civets, mongooses and genets are exemples of viverids.

Edit: See the list here:
http://www.vetscite.org/publish/articles/000011/index.html

Animal: Adjective

bear: ursine
bee: apian
bird: passerine
bull: taurine
calf (or veal): vituline
cat: feline
civet: viverine
cow: bovine
crow: corvine
deer: cervine
dog: canine
fish: piscine
fox: vulpine
frog: ranine
goat: caprine
goose: anserine
gull: larine
hare: leporine
horse: equine
mouse: murine
peacock: pavonine
pig: porcine
sable: zibeline
seal: otarine, phocine
sheep: ovine
snake: elapine, anguine, colubrine
tortoise: testudine
wasp: vespine
weasel: musteline
wolf: lupine

Now, you can expand the Guardinal family a bit and come up with testudinals, raninals, or pavoninals.

 

[Verequus]

Bonus feats could probably take up most of the slack, and if you really want to penalize oozes, give them a penalty to saves. It wouldn't be a 100% match to the way things are now, but I think it could be close.

How do you penalize oozes and constructs (those have poor saves, too)? A straight penalty won't cover the save advancement. Maybe saying, those types have simply the special quality "All saves are always treated as poor."?

2. I don't use subraces so Elf and Human subtypes aren't an issue, but the same point about 'each Subtype should highlight a particular 'trait' (which has a mechanical effect)' still applies - so what are the traits of the elf subtype (other than Bane weapons, favoured enemy etc (which I don't think needs a subtype since thats alread featured in it being a subrace)

Do I interpret this correctly? You don't want to differentiate between an elf and an human regarding a Bane weapon, etc.? If yes, which subtype should be assigned? Primate or something like that?

we might want to add the 12d Hit Dice,Good Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saves and 6 + Int modifier skill points as special features of True Dragons only.

How do we do that? Saying, that only a Beast (Dragon) gains those advantages?

The closest the beast is from us, the subtler the nuances we make are. We are mammalians, so a mammalian subtype is not enough -- you'll need equine, canine, feline, cetacean, etc. subtypes as well. Birds, frogs, snakes, and fish are other kinds of vertebrates, so we can stop at this level of detail. Jellyfish, snails and squids aren't vertebrate, so we can stop at "invertebrate".

The proposed list consists of 31 types and I neither know, if this list is comprehensive, nor if the mechanical differences are enough to justify the extra work. Also, I don't understand, why is mammalian to broad, but invertebrate isn't? Is this the human-centric view? If yes, is this in a D&D-universe appropriate?