Immunities

[Hawken]

Should a creature that has immunity to one condition also be immune to a related condition?

1) Dazed and Stunned are similar conditions with Stun being the more intense of the two (more penalties and restrictions faced by the person stunned than someone who is just dazed). Would something that was immune to being Stunned likewise be immune to the Dazed condition as well?

2) While not exactly "immune" to being tripped, would it even be possible to trip an Ooze, which doesn't even walk, doesn't have legs, doesn't have a shape, a side or a facing, and is already on the ground? And if it was possible, how would you go about tripping something that had the consistency of vomit?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

1) No. They have a similar end effect, but are not related and have entirely different causes. Gamist-wise, it also gives an unneeded power boost if you implemented such a rule.

2) I don't know if there is any rule written out to explicitly say so, but this is one of those areas where common sense, RAI, DM judgement, etc... comes into play. Obviously you can't trip an ooze. Or you can, but it doesn't really do anything mechanically. I recently had a similar issue when some of my players didn't like me telling them they couldn't knock a snake prone.

 

[Hawken]

Hey, Stream, how's it going?

The reason behind the questions is a game I'm in. Some other PCs are in an encounter with Oozes. One is a sorcerer that does the Wings of Flurry which has a secondary effect of dazing targets. Seemed odd to me that the DM would allow the Daze as the Oozes don't have a brain, nervous system, they are mindless and thus immune to mind effects, immune to criticals and immune to stunning. I'm not really seeing how such a creature could be dazed.

And one of the other PCs has the Defensive Throw feat (if an attacker misses, he gets a free Trip attack) and he wants to use that on an ooze that attacks him, so he can trip it and then use his Improved Trip feat to get an extra free attack on the Ooze. I don't really see how an Ooze can be tripped or even picked up and thrown.

I actually spoke up about this because the whole thing just seemed weird to me. They think there's no reason the Ooze shouldn't be dazed--I can't see it myself, and the player thinks that its perfectly reasonable to be able to trip something that doesn't even have legs or walks and is already on the ground.

Just out of curiosity, would anyone allow the Decisive Strike (alternate Monk class feature from PHB II) to double all the damage of an unarmed attack, or just the unarmed damage? A monk PC in the game--the same one that thinks he can throw an Ooze--is getting axiomatic and holy damage on his attacks and is doubling the damage they inflict when he makes a Decisive Strike. It seems to me that the doubling would only apply to the unarmed damage and not any bonus damage since, while he may be hitting more decisively, the attack isn't any more holy or axiomatic than usual.

 

[frankthedm]

If you don't feel an ooze should be daze-able from the effect in question, it is your prerogative to say no. Definitely say no to tripping oozes IMO.

You'll sometimes see things that shouldn't work. Thats why the game has a DM. Like someone claiming they can tumble through a creature that completely fills a hallway. Sometime the rules miss these things.

...Sometimes they don't though, so be sure to give the books a thorough reading...

Designated Exceptions
Some creatures break the above rules. A creature that completely fills the squares it occupies cannot be moved past, even with the Tumble skill or similar special abilities

And one of the other PCs has the Defensive Throw feat (if an attacker misses, he gets a free Trip attack) and he wants to use that on an ooze that attacks him, so he can trip it and then use his Improved Trip feat to get an extra free attack on the Ooze.

are you sure the text of the feats even lets the improved trip bonus attack kick off?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3r...0-improved-trip-feat-aoo-defensive-throw.html

The key phrase from Improved Trip is "as if you hadn’t used your attack for the trip attempt."

On an AoO, you could have taken a normal melee attack, and so may make a normal melee attack "as if you hadn’t used your attack for the trip attempt."

On a Defensive Throw, you could not have taken a normal melee attack, and so may not make a normal melee attack "as if you hadn’t used your attack for the trip attempt."

Just out of curiosity, would anyone allow the Decisive Strike (alternate Monk class feature from PHB II) to double all the damage of an unarmed attack, or just the unarmed damage? A monk PC in the game--the same one that thinks he can throw an Ooze--is getting axiomatic and holy damage on his attacks and is doubling the damage they inflict when he makes a Decisive Strike. It seems to me that the doubling would only apply to the unarmed damage and not any bonus damage since, while he may be hitting more decisively, the attack isn't any more holy or axiomatic than usual.

those don't multiply.

Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results. Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage.

Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon’s normal damage are never multiplied.

Also how is this player having his unarmed strike enchanted?

 

[Hawken]

Its not my call on the Ooze's dazeability. I'm just a fellow PC. I don't know too much about the other characters since this is a play-by-post game, but they we do have access to see each groups activities (all us PCs are split into 3 groups right now).

I kind of thought the Defensive Throw/Improved Trip would play out that way. While I like the player, his character seems to be pretty cheap. In addition to the Defensive Throw/Improved Trip which kicks in on a failed attack roll, he also has the Karmic Strike feat which lets his make an AoO when an enemy makes a successful AoO. With all the potential AoOs, I'm fairly certain he has Combat Reflexes as well. I'm not sure how his unarmed damage is getting the lawful and good damage added into it, but all this guy is doing is Decisive Strikes for somewhere around 50hp a hit. Of course, all that can be countered by ranged attacks and spells, but I don't think the DM has hit on that as he's slightly overwhelmed with a kobold sorcerer (pun-pun in the making, I believe) throwing around Wings of Flurry and a rogue that is sneak attacking the hell out of the undead being thrown at him.

The DM is relatively new to 3.5, so he's getting kind of frustrated. I've tried to talk to him privately about it but he's pretty much ignored my concerns. I can't really say too much to the other players either without coming across as a tattletale or a whiner, so I've just kind of taken the sit-back-and-watch approach.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hi, Hawken. I'll just say I'm ok, how are you?

The thing with daze is that it really, really can't be like stunning. There's just so many heavily immune things NOT immune to it. Aside from the oozes, undead as well. I think daze was intended to be a very uncommon effect to be immune to. A lot of abilities that leave you inactive after using them -- the celerity spells, the clap of thunder feat (C.Arcane) use dazed as the inflicted condition on the user. I posit it's not simply "cannot act for a round" because they assumed most everyone would be subject to being dazed.

I guess you could get more detailed and make specific rulings like "ooze can't be dazed." But I find it better to let things I really can't comprehend too well, like oozes and dazing, to remain abstract and just go by the rules. Because it seems like a slippery slope to me. You start ruling this way, then the next time someone tries to grease an ooze, do you rule the ooze doesn't have to treat the ground as difficult terrain? Since going on "realism" and simulation, I don't see how a slippery floor would slow down an ooze.

I do think the fact that you'd expect to see dazed as as a listed immunity to make the difference between that and being tripped. Is there any monster listed as "cannot be made prone"? What can be affected by tripping seems much more in the realm of judgement call to me.

As for monk, I don't really know Decisive Srike that well. But barring very specific text to the contrary, I'd expect an attack doing 2x damage to work the same as a crit, lance charge, or a spear set against a charge.

As for alignments...monk attacks eventually gain the lawful descriptor. In C.Champion, you can trade ki strike (magic), which the designers realized was useless, with holy strike, for +1d6 damage and good alignment on unarmed attacks. Or evil, if you're evil. As for the AoOs...good ofr him, investing all those feats to make combat reflexes worth taking. I don't see why it's broken. He gets a trip if they miss, and an attack if they hit. He covered his bases. Don't see how he's broken anything, though. He should not get to attack and use improved trip on a defensive throw. Only with Karmic Strike, or whenever he can make an actual attack, and not limited to a trip. He does still get the +4 trip bonus from the feat, though.

Wings of Flurry...is crazy powerful. It has no listed dice cap, iirc. I capped it at 10, like a normal area spell of level 4. it's still an area force effect that can be made to not hit allies, very good spell. Do note the radius is around the sorcerer, which means to use it well, you have to expose yourself quite a bit to danger.
You didn't mention it, but it's from the same book. Tell your DM to ban or nerf Wings of Cover. Do NOT let the sorcerer get that spell as written!

Here's how I nerfed it, if you want to present him with an idea of how to do so:

"Wings of Cover grants a +8 cover bonus to AC and +4 cover bonus to reflex saves against one attack. Any targeted or area attack/spell/ability that does not need to hit AC or give a reflex save instead has a 50% chance of being stopped by the wings blocking line of sight and effect. Any ability that does not require line of sight/effect to function is unaffected by the use of this spell."

I wrote it up kind of fast, it might not be perfect legally (are there any abilities that don't need line of sight/effect the defender would care to prevent?), but it's certainly better than the RAW version: Immediate action to completely block line of effect, making basically any attack or targeted spell fail automatically. At spell level 2!

 

[Hawken]

Doing good, Stream.

I suppose I see your reasoning on the daze. It just doesn't seem right to me somehow that something that is mindless and immune to critical hits--devoid of vital organs and a nervous system of some sort--could be dazed. How do you daze something that doesn't even register pain or injury or is even aware of it? But there's no point to pressing the point.

Decisive Strike is from PHB II and is an alternate class feature that replaces flurry of blows. Instead of more attacks, the monk gets fewer attacks (1 attack, 2 at 11th level) that do double damage, but the doubling lasts until his turn the following round.

I didn't mean to imply that the monk was broken, cheap sure, but not broken because there are obvious ways around his tactics. And by cheap I mean his tactic of hitting someone with Decisive Strike (1 attack per round), doubling all his damage for around 50hp on his attack--which he shouldn't get to double his holy/lawful damage but he has so far--and then getting upto 6 or so extra attacks because of his feat combinations. The Decisive Strike was made based on the principle of 1 attack doing more damage rather than many attacks (that may or may not even hit) doing less damage. He easily bypasses this limitation because of his feats which lets him use his Decisive Strike as often as he has enemies that have melee attacks (up to his Dex mod).

Oh, and yeah, the pun-pun wannabe has Wings of Cover too and has been using it frequently. The DM doesn't like it and honestly, I think he doesn't know what to do about it, but I don't feel like saying anything to anyone else about it. I know its a potent spell but it doesn't seem too powerful to me. Its a 4th level spell and a sorcerer might have 5 or 6 4th level slots. So, he's protected against 5-6 single attacks if he uses all of his 4th level spells on that.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I thought wings of cover was level 2? Which is part of the reason it's broken, though it'd be good at any level. My last sorcerer was using it to negate enervations and such! Blocking much more powerful spells was only half the slap in the face; the other was the fact the other sod was wasting his standard action to do nothing.

As for the monk, you never multiply dice damage as far as I know. Decisive Strike sounds really poorly thought out to me. It takes a full round action to do, right? I'd think without that kind of next-round abuse it'd just be utterly worthless, but clearly it's too good with it. Do note using it means he's eating full attacks both rounds, which should be a deterrant (if the DM's afraid of killing him and goes soft on him, request he stop. Part of the balance of that alternate feature, as well as flurry, is that monks usually can't survive for long stretches in melee with other brutes). I'd houserule decisive strike to be a standard action (and could be readied) for a single attack (later 2, as per written) for x2 damage, but does NOT extend beyond that attack. Seems much more sane that way. Oh well, this isn't a houserule forum, and you're not the DM.

Daze: Daze to me isn't obvious what exactly it entails. You shock the system, or mind/body of the target enough to momentarily leave them unable to act. That's a lot more ambigious than "stunning" them. And could mean different things for creatures with different anatomies. So, I just don't bother trying to rationalize it. How exactly does a blob of goop gain enough sentience to coherently move around? However it does, daze momentarily disrupts that. Done.

EDIT: Back to Decisive Strike, part of the plan involves a "set up" time of already being in melee and doing the decisive strike, so that his full attack the next round can benefit. It reminds me a lot of the Storm Guard trick with Warblade (first round full attack touch attack for no damage; each touch equates to +5 damage on all attacks the next round, when the pain really comes in, via the tactic given from the feat): if the DM allows for people to be aware of just what is about to go down, any reasonably smart foe, on his turn, would either take one attack and tumble away (or suffer an AoO, even) or withdraw. Make the PC only get one uber damage attack. It's worth it to limit your own offense that round to avoid his much more impressive full attack. Does your DM ever have guys back off to limit the monk's use of decisive strike? If not, suggest it to him sometime. Enemies with tumble, spring attack (you can step to the side 5 ft, attack, then withdraw with it as written), etc... Or just eat the AoO.

 

[Hawken]

You're right, Wings of Cover is 2nd level.

I was kind of thinking that's how it should be. I've seen his damage listed, but not how he gets to inflict that damage, so I haven't said anything about him doubling his lawful and holy damage.

How exactly does a full round action eat into the next round's actions? A full attack option doesn't carry over into the next round, just multiple attacks and a 5' step on his turn. It'd be the same with this, right? Get a 5' step and make his one Decisive Strike.

And this combat with the oozes was their first battle. So I don't know if he's going to play them with any thought or strategy. He just threw three 4-5HD goblins at my 10th level paladin with mundane weapons--however, he did have them surrender quite quickly, so maybe there is hope for him as far as thinking battles through instead of just throwing monsters at the PCs.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

You said Decisive sStrike's bonus continues into the following round. So I was saying, a smart enemy would at that point choose to deny the monk a full attack by moving more than 5 ft away from him. That's all.