What Outsider abilities do plane touched get?

[Storm Raven]

Shields are armour. See them listed right there on the armour table

Not in 3.5e they aren't. They don't even provide an armor bonus to AC.

 

[Storm Raven]

And they do. The fact that they are unlikely to use them in their native form is irrelevant.

If you mechanically read the "outsider" template and apply it to the hell hound without using your brain in the process, you might come to this conclusion. I, on the other hand, prefer a DM with a modicum of common sense.

 

[TheEvil]

But, according to your previous statements, this is wrong because it doesn't say that armor use granted by a trait is required to provide this. Intent is unimportant. Since your are just doing a mechanical reading of the text, dwarven rogues, for example, would be proficienct with shields.

Unless you go with a common sense view of what should be granted, in which case, you can rule that hell hounds don't have weapon proficiencies, dwarven rogues are limited to those weapon and armor proficiencies his class provides, and dust para-genasi are too.

The problem you are running in to is that the rules for outsiders weren't really intended to provide for PC type individuals who have no racial hit dice. They were intended to describe how to construct devas and the like. As a rule of thumb, I rule that unless you have racial hit dice, you generally don't get things like racial armor or weapon proficiencies, unless the racial description makes it real clear that it was intended that you do. The generic "outsider" description isn't a real clear announcement of intent on this score.

Actually, assuming that the armor benifit provided by traits only comes into play if the non-class entry has them is perfectly reasonable and keeps the trait benifits self-contained rather then to bring in items from the outside. Certainly it is not unreasonable for a GM to rule as you would, but that doesn't mean it is supported by the RAW.

Please answer my question: Why differentiate between Features and Traits if both are dependent on whether or not the creature has racial hit dice? Why not include the weapon and armor proficiencies in the features section if that is what was intended?

 

[IcyCool]

Shields are armour. See them listed right there on the armour table?


glass.

Shield proficiency is different from the various armor proficiencies, see them listed separately in the feats table?

 

[Prism]

If you mechanically read the "outsider" template and apply it to the hell hound without using your brain in the process, you might come to this conclusion. I, on the other hand, prefer a DM with a modicum of common sense.

It actually seems to me that we are all pretty much agreeing here. By the book outsiders , including native outsiders, get all martial weapon proficiences whether they have 1HD or more than 1

Whether you apply this rule to each in game creature based upon its ability to use a weapon i.e hell hound or from a point of view of realism i.e an plane touched native to the material plane is another matter

In our games we allow plane touched (aasimar, otherworldly feat, rakasha) and other outsiders (non native) to use all martial weapons - this doesn't mean we haven't thought about it or we DM without common sense. We simply see it as too much work to decide on a case by case basis whether each individual outsider does or does not get the proficiences that the rules allow for. So in our games, if it ever came up, a hell hound would indeed be able to use a greatsword without the -4 penalty. Is it really that much of a problem

As a final note there are a number of weapons in various books that allow creatures without a humanoid form to wield them and I would certainly allow a hell hound to use armour spikes on barding which is a martial weapon

 

[Storm Raven]

Please answer my question: Why differentiate between Features and Traits if both are dependent on whether or not the creature has racial hit dice? Why not include the weapon and armor proficiencies in the features section if that is what was intended?

Because I'm looking at the rules concerning creatures with 1 Hit Die or less, and since weapon and armor proficiencies fall into the category of "feats", they are replaced by the feats and class abilities of a 1st level character of the appropriate class. From the SRD:

Creatures with 1 or less HD replace their monster levels with their character levels. The monster loses the attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, skills, and feats granted by its 1 monster HD and gains the attack bonus, save bonuses, skills, feats, and other class abilities of a 1st-level character of the appropriate class.

 

[Prism]

Because I'm looking at the rules concerning creatures with 1 Hit Die or less, and since weapon and armor proficiencies fall into the category of "feats", they are replaced by the feats and class abilities of a 1st level character of the appropriate class. From the SRD:

Weapon and armour proficiencies are not always feats. They can be taken as feats but when they are gained from a class they are features of that class or from a creature type they are traits. There is no such feat as all martial wepon proficiencies. Feats are those listed under the feats section in the stat block and for your average 1HD creature thats just the one

 

[Scion]

That sounds like it loses its bonuses from the 1hd (generally an npc class hd), and not the racial stuff.

Otherwise the human, who is listed with a few different npc classes, would lose his bonus feat for being a human when you made him into another character class.

Racial bonus vs class bonuses. I believe your quote says that they lose all class bonuses and not the racial ones.

 

[Storm Raven]

Weapon and armour proficiencies are not always feats.

Except they are. Just because it takes many feats to be proficient in all martial weapon proficiencies doesn't make it any less of a feat. They lose their feats, thus they lose the armor and weapon proficiencies and get those of a 1st level character of the appropriate class.

 

[Staffan]

My thoughts: It's not as if the planetouched are particularly powerful considering their +1 LA. So why not let them have some weapon proficiencies?