Two stat block things that bug me

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Thank you for joining this discussion. I agreed with you totally. The creatures I'm talking about like the porpoise and octopus don't have it listed as a racial bonus feat. I believe they should.

Which I view more as an oversight in the new statblock than as a bona fide error. Add the superscript "B" and everything is fine.

 

[Man-thing]

Thanks.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Outsider, 8HD, BAB +8, (should have 4 feats), I can decide to make it a multiple arm demon and take my four feats as:

Improved Critical (warhammer)
Improved Critical (rapier)
Improved Critical (longsword)
Improved Critical (battleaxe)

That's pretty much the way they work now - what you are descibing is a beast of pure Evil that springs forth from the substance of the Abyss knowing how to make particularly nasty wounds.

Note that, mechanically speaking, a Multiweapon Fighting feat might help you out a bit more ...

 

[the Jester]

Think of it this way: a bottom-rung hatchling dragon might well have more than 1 HD. If it just hatched from the egg, creatures can come into existence with more than 1 HD.

Furthermore, what about outsiders? Surely they aren't born as we are.

As to other creatures- yes, maybe they grow from small puppies into big ravening wolves, but that doesn't stop them from having effective feat choices. Youth doesn't really count, imo. After all, I'm sure few 5-year-old kids have a strength of 13 and Power Attack, but a lot of 25-year-old fighters do.

 

[Man-thing]

I just I'm taking it too intuitively. See I look at the idea that monsters have been changed to the 1 + HD/3 pattern so they conform with characters. It seemed to me that the feats were linked to HD just like characters. So monsters should gain a feat at 1,3,6,9,12,15,...

Or what prevents an EPic monsters lets say 33HD from having 12 epic feats? What it seems to me people are implying is that the "when" of feats is not improtant. (Obviously an extreme example.)

 

[radferth]

What does it add to the game to go back and scrutinize every monster feat to see if the monster could have qualified if advanced from 1st level? It would be nice if every monster had the exact amount of skills and feats that they should, but RPGs don't exactly have a great proofreading trackrecord. I assume that the stats blocks listed are close enough to what the rules would mandate that I can run them. If the creature has a few too many points, maybe it got some bonus skills or feats. If it has too few, maybe is has some skill or feat that doesn't affect its interaction with the characters in any way.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Which I view more as an oversight in the new statblock than as a bona fide error. Add the superscript "B" and everything is fine.

No, the porpoise doesn't need a B. It has a BAB of +1 and two animal hit dice; therefore it qualifies for one feat, and satisfies the prerequisite for Weapon Finesse.

-Hyp.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

No, the porpoise doesn't need a B. It has a BAB of +1 and two animal hit dice; therefore it qualifies for one feat, and satisfies the prerequisite for Weapon Finesse.

-Hyp.

Ah, right - because of the "porpoises are born at 2HD, and don't grow up from 1HD de-advanced porpoises" part. Sorry I missed that!

 

[Man-thing]

Where does it state that porpoises are "born" at two HD?

When I look at monster classes it seems to me that all monsters are born at 1 HD but become valuable as monsters at a later HD and the MM shows a typical adult.

 

[Daermon]

Wait.... We're arguing whether porpoises should have Weapon Finesse?