Familiar errors

[huntercc]

I'm noticing odd behavior with the familiars, although this may be an issue with all animals.

When I add the Hawk as a familiar, it gets an AC of 18 and a Will save of +4, but their entry in the Monster Manual says it should have AC = 17 and Will +2. Looking at the dat file entry for the Hawk, I believe it is entered correctly. HL reports that the AC consists of +3 (Dex) +2 (size) +3 (natural), but its natural AC bonus should only be +2.

[EDIT]
Oops... I guess I should have read the PHB a little better before posting this. A familiar gains +1 Natural armor at 1st level, and uses the master's saves if they are better than the familiar's base saves.
[/EDIT]

I also just noticed that the Hawk's Spot bonus is +16 when it should only be +14, and its Listen is +4 when it should be +2.

[huntercc]

Another thing I've just noticed is an error when checking the "within 1 mile" box:


Attempt to access non-existent minion 'ArcFamil'
Location: 'eval' script for Thing 'cArcFNear' (Eval Script '1') near line 4


Seems to happen with every familiar race I select.

[Colen]

huntercc wrote:
>
>
> I'm noticing odd behavior with the familiars, although this may be an
> issue with all animals.
>
> When I add the Hawk as a familiar, *sometimes* it gets an AC of 18 and a
> Will save of +4, but their entry in the Monster Manual says it should
> have AC = 17 and Will +2. Looking at the dat file entry for the Hawk, I
> believe it is entered correctly. HL reports that the AC consists of +3
> (Dex) +2 (size) +3 (natural), but its natural AC bonus should only be +2.
>
> In the process of trying to figure this out, I've seen it show up as I
> described above and I've also seen it show up with the correct numbers.
> I haven't been able to see a pattern to this, it just seems random.

Familiars get a +1 to natural armor per 2 levels of their master, so a
normal Hawk has an AC of 17. A Hawk Familiar of a level 1-2 sorcerer has
an AC of 18, or 19 at level 3-4, etc.


> I also just noticed that the Hawk's Spot bonus is +16 when it should
> only be +14, and its Listen is +4 when it should be +2.


I'm reasonably sure this is because whoever wrote it can't count. Spot
is Wisdom based, so the total value should be:

+2 (Wisdom)
+8 (Racial bonus)
+2 (Alertness feat)
+4 (Skill points)

Making a total of +16, not +14. I guess we could make it +14, but then
the hawk would have 2 skill points left over (since it gets 4 skill
points at level 1)?


--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development

[Colen]

huntercc wrote:
>
>
> Another thing I've just noticed is an error when checking the "within 1
> mile" box:
>
>
> Attempt to access non-existent minion 'ArcFamil'
> Location: 'eval' script for Thing 'cArcFNear' (Eval Script '1') near line 4
>
>
> Seems to happen with every familiar race I select.


Can you email me the portfolio that exhibits this behaviour? Someone
else reported this, but I can't reproduce it for the life of me. (Please
email it to colen@wolflair.com).


Thanks,

--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development

[huntercc]

Originally Posted by Colen

Familiars get a +1 to natural armor per 2 levels of their master, so a
normal Hawk has an AC of 17. A Hawk Familiar of a level 1-2 sorcerer has
an AC of 18, or 19 at level 3-4, etc.

yeah, I realized that shortly after I posted this - sorry

Originally Posted by Colen

I'm reasonably sure this is because whoever wrote it can't count. Spot
is Wisdom based, so the total value should be:

+2 (Wisdom)
+8 (Racial bonus)
+2 (Alertness feat)
+4 (Skill points)

Making a total of +16, not +14. I guess we could make it +14, but then
the hawk would have 2 skill points left over (since it gets 4 skill
points at level 1)?

The non-familiar version of the hawk shouldn't have the Alertness feat though, which I'm only just now noticing in your implementation of it... so it looks like if you remove that, problem solved

[huntercc]

Originally Posted by Colen

Can you email me the portfolio that exhibits this behaviour? Someone
else reported this, but I can't reproduce it for the life of me. (Please
email it to colen@wolflair.com).

Email sent.

As a side note, have you considered having the "within 1 mile" checkbox also activate the "within arms reach" box or its effects?

[Colen]

huntercc wrote:

> I'm reasonably sure this is because whoever wrote it can't count. Spot
> is Wisdom based, so the total value should be:
>
> +2 (Wisdom)
> +8 (Racial bonus)
> +2 (Alertness feat)
> +4 (Skill points)
>
> Making a total of +16, not +14. I guess we could make it +14, but then
> the hawk would have 2 skill points left over (since it gets 4 skill
> points at level 1)?
>
>
>
> The non-familiar version of the hawk shouldn't have the Alertness feat
> though, which I'm only just now noticing in your implementation of it...
> so it looks like if you remove that, problem solved Smile


According to http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hawk.htm all Hawks have
alertness - is that a mistake in the SRD? If so, what feat should the
Hawk have instead?


--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development

[huntercc]

Interesting... according to my monster manual they only have Weapon Finesse...?

Looking thru the errata for the MM I see they added the Alertness feat to several animals. So... once again you are correct and I am not :-P

[Colen]

huntercc wrote:
>
> As a side note, have you considered having the "within 1 mile" checkbox
> also activate the "within arms reach" box or its effects?
>


I figured out how to do this easily, so this should also be in the next
release.


--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development