FreeTheSlaves
Adventurer
Good riddance to the toad.
Bring on the pseudodragon!
Bring on the pseudodragon!
Toad Got Nerfed!
- Thread starter Frostmarrow
- Start date
Zhure
First Post
Toads are amazingly cool!
+21 to Hide.
"Take 10, Hoppy, hide in the room, and mentally alert me when the BBEG shows up."
Hoppy's hide of 31 will protect him against darn near any search at relatively low levels. It isn't until level 10+ that the Rogue, Savant or the Ranger has a decent chance to find Hoppy. Get that little guy a diminutive Cloak of the Toadkind and he's practically invisible.
That being said, Toughness stinks for most characters. I've taken it as a PC a grand total of once. Of course, my Sorcerer had the best hit points in the group, with his good CON, Toughness and Toad. Outright saved my life on three occasions, kept me conscious on dozens of occasions. I still think it should scale by level, because Mind Over Body is generally a lot more useful.
Greg
+21 to Hide.
"Take 10, Hoppy, hide in the room, and mentally alert me when the BBEG shows up."
Hoppy's hide of 31 will protect him against darn near any search at relatively low levels. It isn't until level 10+ that the Rogue, Savant or the Ranger has a decent chance to find Hoppy. Get that little guy a diminutive Cloak of the Toadkind and he's practically invisible.
That being said, Toughness stinks for most characters. I've taken it as a PC a grand total of once. Of course, my Sorcerer had the best hit points in the group, with his good CON, Toughness and Toad. Outright saved my life on three occasions, kept me conscious on dozens of occasions. I still think it should scale by level, because Mind Over Body is generally a lot more useful.
Greg
Li Shenron
Legend
Zhure said:
Bah... Toads are possibly the weakest creature in every book I have seen, with a base CR of 1/10, 1 hp and speed of 5ft.
Some familiars have some combat usefulness, at least at low levels, others make good scouts, others can fly. I think the only place a toad familiar could usefully hide is in his master's pocket. No way you can send him scouting or delivering a spell unless you have a very favorable situation and you can wait a couple of days for it to come back. If it doesn't get killed with a simple kick.
I think the original authors of the corebooks (by the way... how many of them are still involved with the revision?) knew well that a Toad had to give a good bonus in exchange for being otherwise useless.
It is possible that too many Wiz/Sor choose the Toad, but that's because it's the easiest choice: you don't need to know how to usefully use a familiar, because you don't really have it, so for a player inexperienced with familiar (and afraid of going too far in putting them to danger) could choose a Toad the first time, and leave something more difficult to handle for when he's more experienced. I had a few Wiz/Sor in my group played by inexperienced players and all of them didn't want a familiar exactly because the Xp loss risk scared them and I always told them to get a Toad.
Mark Chance
Boingy! Boingy!
Frostmarrow said:It is with great sadness I have to inform you that the toad familiar has been downgraded in 3.5E. Instead of adding +2 to Con it gives a flat +3 hit point bonus.
It's about time they nerfed the toad. It was completely broken. It's ability completely overshadowed the Constitution-boosting abilities of other animals, throwing the entire game out of balance.
Li Shenron
Legend
Zhure said:
Ok... better to know later than never
drnuncheon
Explorer
It's working game balance on the Magic: the Gathering theory. Put it out there, see what gets overused, and then take it away in the next edition.
Why WOTC doesn't have a cadre of in-house munchkins to test their stuff is beyond me. (I have to wonder...no 3e playtesters were abusive munchkins?)
J
Why WOTC doesn't have a cadre of in-house munchkins to test their stuff is beyond me. (I have to wonder...no 3e playtesters were abusive munchkins?)
J
Murrdox
First Post
When my players are creating wizards and I hear them say,
"Oh, I can put that '8' into CON, and just take a Toad familiar" that tells you something is wrong.
No familiar should grant an ability bonus to ANYTHING unless it's an improved familiar you can't get until you have at least 10 hit dice or something.
Plus, a familiar is a wizard's faithful companion, pet, and confidant. Toad Familiars just get written down on the "equipment" section of the character sheet, the +2 to Con written in, and then completely forgotten about.
I've always thought the Toad was too powerful, and too dumb at the same time, and I'm glad they're nerfing it. They should give it SOMETHING useful to do though besides granting 3 hit points. In terms of historical fantasy, Toads and black cats and ravens are stereotypical familiars. You don't want to get RID of them... but they need to do something worthwhile while not being completely dumb at the same time. Hell, allow them to grant the wizard a +2 to swim checks and a +1 Fortitude save, or something similar.
"Oh, I can put that '8' into CON, and just take a Toad familiar" that tells you something is wrong.
No familiar should grant an ability bonus to ANYTHING unless it's an improved familiar you can't get until you have at least 10 hit dice or something.
Plus, a familiar is a wizard's faithful companion, pet, and confidant. Toad Familiars just get written down on the "equipment" section of the character sheet, the +2 to Con written in, and then completely forgotten about.
I've always thought the Toad was too powerful, and too dumb at the same time, and I'm glad they're nerfing it. They should give it SOMETHING useful to do though besides granting 3 hit points. In terms of historical fantasy, Toads and black cats and ravens are stereotypical familiars. You don't want to get RID of them... but they need to do something worthwhile while not being completely dumb at the same time. Hell, allow them to grant the wizard a +2 to swim checks and a +1 Fortitude save, or something similar.
