Druids make me cry - AKA WotC can't write rules

[User3]

Problem A:
Lets assume for the sake of argument that our druid has 10 con base, 20d8hp (90 average).

(1) So in your 'true' form you're wearing an item of +6 con, giving you a 16 con and thus netting you another 60 hp (150). Alternate form "retains" your hp (150), but the item of constitution becomes nonfunctional. Effectively, Alternate Form sets your 'true form' hp to your base hp.

(2) Having alternate formed with your 150hp, you acquire another item of +6 con, which, since the first one is melded and inactive, works.

(2a) Second item of +6 con adds another 60hp, bringing you to 210. This is an extrapolation based on the rules, and is perhaps wishful thinking.

(2b) The SRD actually says the following about changing your constitution score:

"If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or decrease accordingly. "

Which means that when you put on the item of +6 con while in alternate form, you look at your new constitution score and calculate bonus hp accordingly. So if he shifted into a 20 Con form (no hp effect because of alternate form), then puts on a +6 item, he looks at his new constitution to figure out how many bonus hp he gets. (26 con is +8, or 160 more hp for 310 total).

This gets even worse if the druid has a con score higher than 10 normally, because they get to double count that con score with their form's con score.

(2c) The game system has experienced a fatal error at #bonus_hp. Please reboot your game.

Now, i know someone is going to say "that makes no sense". I agree. This just makes me hate Alternate Form all that much more. Why can't someone write rules that *actually make sense* for a change?

(I wasn't even looking for a fucking exploit. I just wanted to use a +con item...).

-------------
Problem B:
Animal Companion nonsense. I'm teaching my Megaraptor tricks. In particular, i'm teaching it the combat riding suite. Now, this is what makes war horses and riding dogs 'trained for war', because they automatically come with this skill set. The animal type says animals get armor proficiency when they are 'trained for war'. So does my Megaraptor gain armor proficiencies if i train it for combat riding? What does "trained for war" mean? I don't know, these rules make my brain bleed.

--Squirrelloid "Can i have a lobotomy now?"

[Fwib]

I don't think that it is quite as bad as that: putting on your +6 item would give you 3*HD more hp, I think. Of course, when the wording is somewhat confused, the correct answer should be to ask your DM a nice leading question about how it works in his game.

[Imban]

With your first problem, answer 2b) is a total non-starter. It'd be equivalent to the idea that Druids could Wild Shape and then cast Bear's Endurance on themselves, and gain several hundred extra hit points. If HP aren't modified as the result of your Constitution changing in a Wild Shape, they shouldn't be retroactively modified for that Constitution change if you zap yourself with spells or put on items afterwards - that seems pretty nonsensical to me.

2a) seems likely as my rules-fu finds nothing that would disagree with this.

---

Yes, training for fighting or combat riding is training for war. It's the only thing that could make sense. No, I don't know what that means, other than that your megaraptor is not proficient with no armor.

[Username17]

(2b) The SRD actually says the following about changing your constitution score:

"If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or decrease accordingly. "

Which means that when you put on the item of +6 con while in alternate form, you look at your new constitution score and calculate bonus hp accordingly. So if he shifted into a 20 Con form (no hp effect because of alternate form), then puts on a +6 item, he looks at his new constitution to figure out how many bonus hp he gets. (26 con is +8, or 160 more hp for 310 total).

This gets even worse if the druid has a con score higher than 10 normally, because they get to double count that con score with their form's con score.

Close. Actually you recalculate your hit points based on your new Con modifier, and you thus have 160 more hit points than your base value of 90 hit points: so you have 250 hit points.

This is an old exploit. And by old, I mean it predates 3.5. In fact, it was brought to the attention of the WotC designers, by me back when I wasn't banned at the WotC boards. If you want to get really technical, I was banned for bringing this exact loop to attention of the community. The response was twofold:

1. Ban Frank.
2. Rewrite the transformation rules in 3.5 so that they no longer had the language about not changing your hit points when your Con changed.

Which is fine and all, but then they went back and rewrote the transformation rules again, putting that completely non-functional non-limitation back in.

---

So here's how it works, popping open the time capsule to 2001:

1. If you are going to transform into something with a lower Con than you, keep your ring on. This allows you to have your Con get reduced without lowering your hit points.
   
   
2. If you are going to transform into something with a highe Con, leave your ring on the table. This allows you to change your constitution after the fact by putting the ring back on and then go straight to the normal con change rules (which allow you to take advantage of the new combined Con to calculate your hit point increase).

It's stupidly complicated, just plain stupid, in all ways more powerful than not having that rule, and a known problem that is five years old, that they fvcking fixed!

It's like they think that if they fix a problem for a while everyone will have forgotten about it and they can print it (and fix it) again. What the hell?

-Username17

[User3]

Frank: I'm not totally sure i follow your reasoning why you lose the extra hp from con bonus in your true form. Alternate Form specifically states you "retain" your hp, which sounds a lot like "these are your hp, period". Then you manage to get this huge con bonus, but you don't currently have any hp from con bonus in this form (because those that were from a con bonus aren't actually from con bonus anymore since they aren't related to any con bonus you currently have. Thats why Alternate Form has to specify you retain your hp, because you no longer have your base form con bonus). I guess I'm wondering how you're interpreting retained and why?

Imban: Except the rules for gaining hp from constitution state you use the new con modifier, which is based on alternate form. The only reason Alternate Form doesn't trigger that passage is because it specifically says it doesn't, but the con item doesn't have such a clause. And yes, casting a spell that increases your con has the same effect. Stupid, yes. But no one actually believes WotC can write rules to save their life, do they?

[User3]

That was me. I need to remember my password one of these days...

[AlphaNerd]

If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or decrease accordingly.

"Accordingly" is very interpretable. For instance, I could say that "accordingly" meant that for every +2 con you got, you could +1 hp/level. Since you have 90 hp and 20 con and 20 hd in uberform, gaining +6 con grants +60 hp. Doesn't solve the problem of having two (or more?) +con items, one for each form.

Of course, the real trouble is that the rules are in disagreement with each other.

The creature retains its hit points and save bonuses, although its save modifiers may change due to a change in ability scores.

These don't play nicely with each other. Rules shouldn't contradict each other, lest problems occur.

[Crissa]

The problem is that the rules don't say 'Add +1hp for each increase of +2 Con' they say 'recalculate your hitpoints'.

The rules never calculate or record based on a delta - despite players writing down their die roles for each level and skillpoints spent at each level - the rules recalculate the whole formula each time.

So, you're level 10, with a Con of 12, you Alternate into Blah, it has a Con of 18, with your 'trueform' hitpoints. You add +4 to your Con. Your Con is now 22. That's 6 * level hitpoints the added to your Trueform hitpoints. You get both the benefit of the item and the form!

Why? Because they don't caclulate how much your con changed just [that your con changed[/i].

I didn't make that up. It just makes no sense because they wrote it that way.

Argh.

-Crissa

[AlphaNerd]

The problem is that the rules don't say 'Add +1hp for each increase of +2 Con' they say 'recalculate your hitpoints'.

Where? I posted the section of the rules that seemed to indicate things, and it references "change" and "increase or decrease". "Increase or decrease" suggests a delta to me. Perhaps this is just a matter of semantics...

Joshua

[Imban]

So, it turns out Druids can turn into a bear and then cast Bear's Endurance on themselves. Well, fvck. I seriously hate everything about the way shapeshifting rules are written in 3e D&D, which is why I cry about having a shapeshifter as one of my PCs in both of the games I DM.

EDIT: Frank may feel free to read this as "Frank was right and I was wrong", if he so chooses.

[Crissa]

'Suggests a delta' Alpha - but no, there's no delta in any of the books.

That's too advanced for the target audience; they give us charts instead of fractional math or formula. That's why Rogue and Monk PRCs suck BAB down the toilet.

-Crissa

[Username17]

Yes, at its core, D&D is based on a look-up table. All the modifiers in the world don't actually change the core mechanic, which is: look at the chart on page 8 of the Player's Handbook and see what it says your number is.

When a shapeshifter changes into a bear, the new shapeshifting rules tell you to not consult the table to recalculate hit points at that time. But if your con subsequently changes for any other reason, you go consult that table, and all the jiggering and pokering you've done with your stats immediately catch up with you in full. After all, you don't have a virtual modifier or a running con total or any of that.

You don't even have a rubric for calculating hit points. You just have a look-up table.

---

Now, a lot of people assume that the rule is "gain one hit point per level every time your Con goes up 2", or even "add half your con score, rounded down, minus five to your hit points at each level" - and while frequently that gets the same answer as the actual rules, the actual rules are that there's a look-up table and you fvcking well better look at it.

We all know that when a 4th level character goes from a Constitution of 14 to a Constitution of 16 that he gains 4 hit points. But the actual rule is that when you had a 14 you looked at the table and noted that you had a +2 modifier on every die and when you hit 16 you look at the table again and note that you have a +3 modifier on each die and recalculate.

Got that? The real rule is amazingly more steps than any player you know probably ever goes through. But that's because it's set up for childrens. The concept is that it is broken into baby steps that a child could do - you don't need to know how to do multiplication to perform D&D math. It has already been factored out as a series of addition problems.

---

And because of that, the "no con changing" factor that the PHB2 put into shape changing is unenforceable. D&D is performed as a series of addition problems with named boxes where only the latest or largest box counts. A stage that tells you to not perform additions with it is therefore meaningless static as the next step is simply going to come and overwrite it as soon as you care.

It's a known limitation of the system. It's in there by design to make the system less impossible for people without middle school math.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1161065164[/unixtime]]
And because of that, the "no con changing" factor that the PHB2 put into shape changing is unenforceable.

Yeah and the PHB2 polymorph rules were pretty good too, up until they slipped that little static hit point rule in there. Why can't you just get the monster's HP too but have your wounds transfer from one form to another? That'd seem to work best.

It's a known limitation of the system. It's in there by design to make the system less impossible for people without middle school math.

Well, I don't even consider it a limitation of the system. It's in fact a good thing that 26 con means a specific thing regardless of how it became 26. If con is linked to hit points we want a fast and easy way to determine hp. We dont' want to have to go through a backlog of the history of how con got to 26 to determine HP, with some methods of achieving 26 yielding different HP totals than others.

We don't want people writing rules where suddenly relational continuity is broken. It makes the game far too complex to even follow. Any valued D&D stat, like +10 BaB or 16 strength needs to have the same effect solely based on its current value. Otherwise, everything goes to hell.

[User3]

1161071602[/unixtime]]Why can't you just get the monster's HP too but have your wounds transfer from one form to another? That'd seem to work best.

I don't think they like the idea of players dying when they change form. I'm not saying they're right, just saying.

[Fwib]

What was wrong with the way 2e AD&D did it, with %damage remaining the same when your hp total changed from form-alteration? (I think)

[Username17]

In AD&D, monsters didn't have stats, and you didn't change hit points or attributes in any way when you transformed into anything. When you transformed, you healed a percentage of your hit points, whether you were transforming into a hawk or a bullette.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

Why, oh why can't we just use regular old polymorph and shapechange and not worry about such things? Why do they have to keep introducing new "balanced'" rules that actually just suck in every way more than the originals?

Just power up the melee classes until they're competitive with the monsters, rather than the monsters' bitches, remove stupid game-breaking loops (, and remove cost avoidance exploits (xp-free wishes, etc.) Everything will then be fine by me. I don't care if some options are wildly better than others. I just want to be able to play through a game from 1-20 with any given class choice and not be handed my ass on a bloody platter by the first non-spellcasting CR 10 monster I fight.

It's not goddamned quantum theory.

[RandomCasualty]

1161835419[/unixtime]]Why, oh why can't we just use regular old polymorph and shapechange and not worry about such things? Why do they have to keep introducing new "balanced'" rules that actually just suck in every way more than the originals?

Because those rules suck even worse. The old poly and shapechange mechanics were terrible. While the new rules aren't perfect, the PHB2 rules are a lot better than the old polymorph rules.

[NineInchNall]

I don't know about that. I've never had any difficulties using the 3.5 alter self, polymorph, or shapechange.

[RandomCasualty]

1161848723[/unixtime]]I don't know about that. I've never had any difficulties using the 3.5 alter self, polymorph, or shapechange.

Well, you probably need to look again. From any angle you can possibly think of, the old polymorph mechanics were godawful peices of garbage.

Unbelievably complex: You had to take the monsters ability scores, natural armor, natural attacks, and then had to go totally recaclulate all your attack bonuses, AC, hit points, and basically everything else. In monster form you may no longer qualify for certain feat prereqs, so you've got ot check those too. You sure as hell better do this crap before the session, otherwise you're going to stop the session when you suddenly decide to polymorph into something on the spot.

Difficult to Adjudicate: Ok, so I turn into some beast like a hydra and want to try to put on magic items? What slots do I have? What happens if I turn into a dragon? The real answer is that we don't know. Nowhere in the rules does it say what slots any given creature has. What about somatic components? Does the claws on a choker count as a hand? Can I use a collossal greatsword when in dragon form? Nowhere is any of this crap answered. You've also got other semantic problems like whether polymorph counted as a size increase for stacking with enlarge or righteous might.

Sucky Mechanics: Polymorph uses partial stat replacement, which is a terrible balance mechanic as it makes physical stats irrelevant, yet you keep your mental ones, making for the best of both worlds. That principle just can't be balanced. Also it let you get into Prestige classes like beholder mage. Totally kicks anyone in the balls who decided to take an LA race.

Crazy Broke: Old polymorph mechanics are effectively what makes the druid insanely powerful. They grant bonuses that make other buff spells look like total crap, and encourages everyone to walk around as a frost giant. Thanks to their crappy mechanics it also means all your party fighters just put all their good rolls in physical stats for nothing. Even alter self is an uber buff to get +6 natural armor for a very long duration, which makes barkskin look like crap.

The old polymorph mechanics had absolutely nothing redeeming. Nothing. Seriously, I can't think of a single thing that they did well. They were the very definition of garbage. The new rules may not be great, but they're alot better than what we had before.

[Username17]

The old polymorph mechanics had absolutely nothing redeeming. Nothing. Seriously, I can't think of a single thing that they did well.

I'm with you there.

The new rules may not be great, but they're alot better than what we had before.

OK, you lost me. The new rules are exactly the same except:

• More Complexity! That's right, casting a form changing spell now involves looking at the errata, the spell description, the hereditary case, and the errata for that before you even compare the monster description and your character! In some cases the hereditary case also has a hereditary case or two that you need to look at (and the associated errata). You could be expected to line by line edit 8 pieces of text together before you even know how to line by line edit your character together with a monster you found in an obscure sourcebook your DM hasn't even read.
  
  
• More Broken! THe biggest, and indeed only meaningful change to the POlymorphing rules in the PHB2 is that now the default assumption is no longer that you don't add abilities from he monster to your character but that you do. Which means that now unmentioned abilities like for example fvcking spellcasting are explicitly added to your character. Fvck!
  
  
• More Stupid! Take Bracers of Health off and put them back on to get extra hit points! Or leave them on to transform into weak creatures without losing hit points and benefit from having extra slots! Ride the short bus all the way to Power Town.
  

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

As I said, I've never found the spell "unbelievably complex". None of the things you mention gives me any pause.

Difficult to adjudicate? The only things I've ever encountered as legitimate adjudication problems are a) whether it counts as a size increase, and b) the confusion that the Sage introduced by saying that a human's bonus feat and skill ranks were lost by taking a nonhuman form. The first could have been fixed by explicitly declaring when a spell counts as a size increasing effect, and the second was a direct contradiction of the text and Skip Williams's article on the subject.

Sucky Mechanics: Stat replacement does suck, but meh. I'll give you that.

Crazy Broke: Barkskin is crap. I've never seen how the Wizard's using a spell to improve his armor class for a long time I see no thematic problem with it being advantageous for a warrior to be in frost giant form at all times, and therefore I don't see that complaint as a problem.


In my experience the spells have always been easy to use and adjudicate, and I've run quite a few games in which said spells were used quite a lot. I understand how the spells can be abused, but I see such things rarely in actual play, but then, I have odd opinions of what constitutes overpoweredness, as I have certain thematic assumptions that differ from many people's.

[RandomCasualty]

1161906347[/unixtime]]

• More Complexity! That's right, casting a form changing spell now involves looking at the errata, the spell description, the hereditary case, and the errata for that before you even compare the monster description and your character! In some cases the hereditary case also has a hereditary case or two that you need to look at (and the associated errata). You could be expected to line by line edit 8 pieces of text together before you even know how to line by line edit your character together with a monster you found in an obscure sourcebook your DM hasn't even read.
  

Well I was actually referring to the polymorph version in the PHB2, not the actual polymorph errata. I personally just enforce the shapeshift druid variant as mandatory instead of wildshape in my games. Wildshape and the polymorph chain I consider to be the old rules, even with the pointless errata that does nothing but make things more complex.

[*] More Broken! THe biggest, and indeed only meaningful change to the POlymorphing rules in the PHB2 is that now the default assumption is no longer that you don't add abilities from he monster to your character but that you do. Which means that now unmentioned abilities like for example fvcking spellcasting are explicitly added to your character. Fvck!

I'm not following you, I got the impression the polymorph subschool wiped out all your class abilities. The only thing you kept were a few select things, like your hp (which was really dumb admittedly). Aside from that it seemed pretty balanced and easy to adjudicate. You're basically just a summoned monster with a few more or less hit points.

[*]More Stupid! Take Bracers of Health off and put them back on to get extra hit points! Or leave them on to transform into weak creatures without losing hit points and benefit from having extra slots! Ride the short bus all the way to Power Town.

Yeah the hit point thing is moronic, but I still consider it a really big step above the old poylmorph mechanics, which were entirely moronic.

The hit point thing is an easy house rule we can implement which actually makes things work in some fashion. The old form-changing mechanics were totally unsalvageable. The new mechanics almost feel like something we can use.

[NineInchNall]

1161906347[/unixtime]]The new rules may not be great, but they're alot better than what we had before.

OK, you lost me. The new rules are exactly the same except:

• More Complexity! That's right, casting a form changing spell now involves looking at the errata, the spell description, the hereditary case, and the errata for that before you even compare the monster description and your character! In some cases the hereditary case also has a hereditary case or two that you need to look at (and the associated errata). You could be expected to line by line edit 8 pieces of text together before you even know how to line by line edit your character together with a monster you found in an obscure sourcebook your DM hasn't even read.

Yay! I totally agree! Another problem of the new subschool is the loss of all feats and class features. Sooooo, what happens to my familiar? What happens to my animal companion?

Adjudication issues are rather amusing. My favorite is the Vow of Nonviolence/Peace character who changes form so that he loses the vows and can kill things with impunity, only to change back without any consequences because he didn't have the feat at the time he was slaughtering innocents.

• More Broken! THe biggest, and indeed only meaningful change to the POlymorphing rules in the PHB2 is that now the default assumption is no longer that you don't add abilities from he monster to your character but that you do. Which means that now unmentioned abilities like for example fvcking spellcasting are explicitly added to your character. Fvck!

Yeah, alter self is pretty much broken by that now.

Unfortunately, most of the monomorph spells explicitly take away spellcasting from the target forms, and they do so without compensating for the loss. So most of them generally just suck ass. They're almost universally the worst option. That is, of course, until someone writes a broken one.

• More Stupid! Take Bracers of Health off and put them back on to get extra hit points! Or leave them on to transform into weak creatures without losing hit points and benefit from having extra slots! Ride the short bus all the way to Power Town.
  

-Username17

Yeah. Dumb. Of course, most of the new spells don't last long enough to be useful for anything, even that.

[RandomCasualty]

1161907321[/unixtime]]
Crazy Broke: Barkskin is crap. I've never seen how the Wizard's using a spell to improve his armor class for a long time I see no thematic problem with it being advantageous for a warrior to be in frost giant form at all times, and therefore I don't see that complaint as a problem.

Well, alter self isn't just a better form of barkskin, it also *stacks* with barkskin, making it a must take spell. Barkskin is effectively an amulet of natural armor that can create temporarily. Alter self is virtual LA at no cost. And we all know wizards needed more power boosts... You basically hand them a +6 completely stackable AC boost at 3rd level just for the hell of it, and it lasts 10 minutes/level. That's just crazy.

The thing is that natural armor bonuses only come from two places in the rules.
-Racial modifier (which you pay LA and racial hit dice out the ass for).
-Polymorph chain (which you pay virtually nothing for).

So you're getting ultra rare bonuses for a long term buff spell and you lose nothing. When you get into true polymorph and shapechange you may be talking about +15 natural armor bonuses. That's enough to push one guy off the RNG entirely.

What's even worse is that it forces you to walk around all day as a troglodyte. And that just blows from a roleplaying standpoint. So even if you accept that they're somehow balanced (which they're not, at all.), you still have all your PCs who wanted to play a noble elven wizard now playing a smelly troglodyte. By allowing the spell you are telling your PCs: either you polymorph or you are taking a self nerf. And that sucks.

The new PHB2 morphs are optional. They're not so powerful as to get every single person to take them. As written in 3.5 PHB, you'd be a fool not to take alter self, polymorph, PaO and shapechange as soon as you can get them. They're just that much better than everything else.

And that's just scratching the iceberg of brokenness. I'm sure Frank knows another 30+ ways to abuse the poly mechanics than I do. I've never played with them in any lengthy capacity. It took me only a few sessions and some reading of various board posts to realize they were completely unsalvageable and broke in the worst ways possible.