Try again <sigh> Monks and Improve Natural Attack

[Artoomis]

...

What exactly are you looking for?

Effects, core rules only (as that was the framing of this whole thread), other than INA, that an ordinary player paying a monk might want to use with his monk's "natural weapons."

A non-standard race (monsters, vampire, template, etc.) is surely NOT what WotC instended "effects" to be, is it? I would like anyone to find something that fits what "effects" was intended to be. Example from core rule - and not silly ones like PCs based upon mosters.

I cannot locate anything other than spells. One item - but that applies equally to unarmed attacks anyway, so teh monks diod not need to line about "effects" for that.

In other words WHY have "effects" in the description?

 

[Artoomis]

...You limit your thinking to monster abilities only and core only???

Please, you MUST be joking.

No - I assume that from the Core Rules only, the description should have some meaning other than a vague "maybe something will come up in a future book" sort of thing.

I submit that the phrase "spells and effects" was INTENDED to be kind of vague catch-all. "Effects" is NOT a defined game term, anyway, so how could it possibly be used in some precise way?

 

[KarinsDad]

No - I assume that from the Core Rules only, the description should have some meaning other than a vague "maybe something will come up in a future book" sort of thing.

This is 3.5 we are discussing. There was already a 3E version of the game with Psionics and Splat Books. Of course the writing of that class feature (and many others) was to include future books.

You cannot be serious in thinking that the class feature was JUST added in for Monks so that they could take INA.

That type of thinking is worse (and more limited) than what you are accusing us of: only two core rules. I could counter with: "You include INA. That's only 3 core rules. What's up with only that???"

Number of pertinent core rules is hardly a convincing argument one way or the other.

I submit that the words "spells and effects" was INTENDED to be kind of vague catch-all. "Effects" is NOT a defined game term, anyway, so how could it possibly be used in some precise way?

I agree that the phrase was intended as a catch-all. That does not change what they wrote and how they wrote it.

 

[Artoomis]

...I agree that the phrase was intended as a catch-all. That does not change what they wrote and how they wrote it.

So, strictly reading the rules as you seem to really enjoy, what is an "effect" in D&D 3.5e?

That should be interesting!

 

[KarinsDad]

In other words WHY have "effects" in the description?

You've already given the answer to this. It's a catch-all, intended to include Magic Fist and Amulets of Mighty Fist and anything else that WotC writes up that matches that rule (course we disagree that INA matches that rule).

But now you somehow seem dissatisfied with the answer you yourself gave.

 

[Artoomis]

I've got to sign off for now, but I think it will be very interesting to discuss, using Core Rules strict text only, what is an "effect" and what is not an "effect."

 

[Artoomis]

edit:

Is this suppose to be a dig or something?

If you are trying to be snarky or worse yet, backhandedly insulting, please don't. It's frowned on around here.

Of course I was not. I am answering this ONLY to ask that if you see something of mine that might be taken as snippy, please IGNORE it. DON'T respond to it and bring more attention to it - I'd hate to have teis disucssuion closed by moderators and nothing would do ti faster that having personl exchanges about badbopard behavior. Thanks.

I intentionally buried this response by placing it in an edited earlier response to keep it low-key. With luck I'll never even know if you saw this or not as we won't mention it again.

Truly, when I said "interesting" that's what I meant. There have been a lot of attempts at defining feats as effects or as NOT being effects but few detailed efforts to determine, based upon the entire set of core rules only, what EXACTLY are effects and what are not. I don't think that the rules are written precisely enough to do that with 100% certainty, thus the discussion would be "interesting."

Moving on....

You've already given the answer to this. It's a catch-all, intended to include Magic Fist and Amulets of Mighty Fist and anything else that WotC writes up that matches that rule (course we disagree that INA matches that rule).

But now you somehow seem dissatisfied with the answer you yourself gave.

I am quite happy with that answer, actually.

 

[KarinsDad]

So, stricly reading the rules as you seem to really enjoy, what is an "effect" in D&D 3.5e?

I've already stated my opinion of this several times in this and other threads.

An effect is an external influence to a given creature, object, or other effect. I base this definition off of the standard usage of the word effect found throughout the rules.

There appears to be three basic game elements: creatures (and their properties), objects (and their properties), and effects (and their properties: magical or mundane). Virtually every thing in the game appears to fall into one of these 3 categories.

That should be interesting!

Is this suppose to be a dig or something?

If you are trying to be snarky or worse yet, backhandedly insulting, please don't. It's frowned on around here.

 

[Mistwell]

A very odd form of debate.

First, you ask for EVEN ONE such effect.

I point out Psionics (of which there are several).

Then you ask for ANY CORE effects.

Keeping it core was quite fair, given there is so much non-core WOTC stuff that proves the point you happen to disagree with. SRD doesn't mean core, and never did. So, why did you bring up Psionics in a debate where you already agreed to stick to core, unless it was to be a moving target?

 

[Mistwell]

This is non-core...

The new book, Dragon Magic, has an item named the Fang Ring. It grants Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike) as a bonus feat in addition to Improved Unarmed Strike.

I think as near to a consensus as you will usually find already agrees that WOTC endorses Improved Natural Attack for the Monk with non-core products and the FAQ and CustServ, and that the intent of the rules was likely that all along.

This appears to be yet another semantics debate between the usual suspects on this board who repeat the same arguements in different words every day (generally intent versus what was actually written in the rules and balance), all done purely for the pleasure of the debate.

Nobody is going to persuade anyone of anything, and the same folks who enjoy the game of deconstructing the rules into small portions and throwing them around at each other will continue to do so until they get bored with the topic of "define what is meant by 'effects' " and move on to the next definitions debate.

Sometimes it's a fun game to play, and sometimes it's just plain silly. This one seems to have crossed that line from fun to silly, at least for me. You can usually tell when the line has been crossed, because the same usernames show up for almost an entire page, responding back and forth to each other with increasingly small minutia, usually about a tangent that has very little to do with the topic anyway.