Several Dwarf Related Questions

[elbandit]

I have a couple of questions concerning Dwarves in D&D 3.5

1) Dwarves base land speed is 20' and the rules state that they can move in Heavy and medium armor at this speed. Does this mean that they move in Heavy and Medium Armopr at their base land speed or does this mean the slowest they will move in such armor is 20 fet? What happens if a Dwarf is equiped with Boots of Striding and Spring and wearing Heavy armor? Would his movement rate be 30 ft or would it be 20 ft?

2) The Dwarven Defender gains a constituion bonus when he goes into his defensive stance. The con bonus gives additional HPs but the text states that these HP are not lost first like other temporary hps. Can someone explain to me what that means and more inmortant how that is useful? Seems like after the stance ends you would die if you took a lot of damage.

Thanks!

 

[morbiczer]

1. I'd guess 30 ft.

2. Example: (just some random numbers)

a) Dwarven Defender has 20 hps, and he doesn't enter dfensivve stance. He gets hit by some monster, takes 25 hp damage, drops to -5, hopefully he manages to stabilize.

b) Dwarven Defender has 20 hps, he goes into defensive stance, gets 6 additional hps, so he has 26. He gets hit, drops to 1 hp, but is still in action. He gets healed by the cleric, drinks a potion, whatever, so he goes back to 11 hps. at the end of the battle his hps drop back to 5 hps, but due to the Con increase he never went into negatives.

 

[AuraSeer]

The con bonus gives additional HPs but the text states that these HP are not lost first like other temporary hps. Can someone explain to me what that means and more inmortant how that is useful? Seems like after the stance ends you would die if you took a lot of damage.

Right. Hit points from a Con increase are in some ways less useful than actual temporary hit points, because it's possible to die when the ability increase goes away.

Say you normally have 10 hit points, and you drink a potion of aid and gain 4 temporary hit points. If you're then hit with a greataxe for 11 damage, you are still standing with 3 points left. The temporary hit points are lost first, so when the potion wears off, nothing bad happens to you.

If you had instead drunk a potion of bear's endurance and gotten 4 more hit points from the Con increase, the axe blow would still have left you with 3 hp. But when this potion goes off, your Con score drops back to normal, and you lose those 4 points again. That puts you at -1, so you pass out and begin dying.

However, the tradeoff is that once temp hit points are gone, they're gone forever. A Con increase actually raises your maximum, and you can be healed all the way up to the higher total, for as long as the ability boost lasts.

 

[UltimaGabe]

1) Dwarves base land speed is 20' and the rules state that they can move in Heavy and medium armor at this speed. Does this mean that they move in Heavy and Medium Armopr at their base land speed or does this mean the slowest they will move in such armor is 20 fet? What happens if a Dwarf is equiped with Boots of Striding and Spring and wearing Heavy armor? Would his movement rate be 30 ft or would it be 20 ft?

They simply don't have their speed reduced when wearing heavier armor. So a Dwarf with a 30 ft. land speed (through magic) in heavier armor would still have the same land speed as without the armor.

 

[elbandit]

Another Question

Thanks for the answers guys! I now have another question;

The Dawrven Defender requires a pre-requiste of "Toughness". Is it possible to instead substitute Improved Toughness for that requirement?

 

[frankthedm]

ONLY if improved toughness says it counts as toughness for other prequirements.

Toughness is SPECIFICLY chosen because it IS a sub optimum feat and as such you are 'paying' for the entry into the DD class by 'wasting' the feat.

 

[UltimaGabe]

ONLY if improved toughness says it counts as toughness for other prequirements.

Toughness is SPECIFICLY chosen because it IS a sub optimum feat and as such you are 'paying' for the entry into the DD class by 'wasting' the feat.

Well, Improved Toughness isn't amazing either, but Toughness really just sucks. The Dwarven Defender is a pretty good class, so it's understandable for it to require something like that.

In short, Improved Toughness doesn't count.

 

[Endur]

Whether you can substitute Improved Toughness is up to your GM.

The Dwarven Defender PRC was designed before the Improved Toughness feat existed, so the Game Designers couldn't write in that Improved Toughness was equivalent to Toughness.

If Improved Toughness becomes a core feat (and not a add on feat from Complete Warrior) in D&D 4.0, then maybe the Dwarven Defender PRC will officially recognize Improved Toughness as an option.