Acquired Template and Skills

[Kendall-DM]

I've decided to implement the Huecuva from Fiend Folio, and in doing so, discovered that the -6 it takes to Intelligence is causing it to lose skill points. Not sure that should be happening. If it isn't supposed to happen, is there a way to get the skill points to stay put with a tag? Thanks.

[Aaron]

If anyone, monster or character, has a negative Int modifier then the skill points they get at each HD/level are reduced by this amount (to a minimum of 1). So that's working correctly at the moment.

I don't think there is a tag solution to this, but you could easily add back an equivalent number of skill points in an eval script.

[Kendall-DM]

Yeah, but it's one of those templates where it says "do not recalculate the creature's BAB, saves, or skill points". I just thought the acquired tag took care of that, but it doesn't unfortunately. I think it is one of the few templates that actually modifies Intelligence, so finding a similar template and what isn't coming easy. However, the example creature in the book isn't losing the skill points from its Intelligence going down.

Yeah, looks like I have to add it back in, based on it's original Intelligence. Was hoping for an easier solution, feeling lazy today.

[Kendall-DM]

Had to do some fancy coding to cover all the cases, but now it's working. No worries.

[Mathias]

That "do not recalculate" sounds like they repeated the boilerplate text that they use when they sort-of change the type in a template. I don't think they meant to not change things due to an intelligence loss - just not to change things due to the change in type, and I there are always skill point errors in monsters, so forgetting to change the sample doesn't seem like an error that's out of character.

[Kendall-DM]

True. And the FF is ripe with tons of errors. WotC decided to put the book out before they had finished the 3.5 rule changes for profit only, and tried to incorporate the unfinished rules in it. It was a horrible decision.

I wish I had more examples of acquired templates and changes to Intelligence scores, but alas. Here's the rub for me, at least from a point of logicality. Creatures that get a higher Intelligence from an acquired template shouldn't have their skill points increased, so by association, neither should they "unlearn" skills. You can make a case for Intelligence based skills, but then, they are already losing Intelligence bonus, so it's built in. At least that's my take on skills. I've been trying to get help at the WotC forums, but I've forgotten my password there (I haven't been there in over 3 years). For now, I'm going with my solution, but reserving the right to change my mind if soundly convinced otherwise.

[Kendall-DM]

Went out and found this on the d20srd site regarding skills and templates.

"Some templates change how skill points are determined, but this change usually only affects skill points gained after the template is applied. Treat skills listed in the base creature’s description as class skills, as well as any new skills provided by the template."

This reminds me of the way Intelligence and skills work for attribute advances for every 4 levels. They don't retroactively add to the skill point totals, so therefore, they shouldn't take away from them either. Unfortunately, HL has a bug right now on the Intelligence where aNormMod is not working properly with skill points, an odd behavior that adds on 4 points on odd (or even, can't remember right now) adjustments to the Intelligence score, so I can't really use that while its bugged.

[Kendall-DM]

Dug a little further, mainly because I still wasn't sure. Though the rules don't say explicitly so, modifications to Int from acquired templates (errors aside) appear not to affect the skill points from past levels. So, that complicates the whole mess further. It means I'd have to use aNormMod to ensure that further levels do get the benefit (my current code that re-adds the skill points won't work on further levels). The whole new problem this brings up, is if another thing (such as a template, or inherent attribute boost) is added later that modifies aNormMod again, it will not work correctly. It's a complex issue, and one I don't want to spend wracking my brain on the massive problem it causes should it come to pass. I'll just try to avoid those situations... less coding!

[Mathias]

When a game designer writes a game system that allows things to be added in any order, and writes the rules so that the order doesn't matter, letting users change their mind all they want during character/NPC creation, and then writes one or two items whose rules work like this, where the order the character aquired them matters, is when I want to throw things at them. I hate non-retroactive changes.

An absolutely correct handling of this sort of thing would require EVERYTHING on your character to be tracked by the order it was added in - meaning if you were creating a 10th level NPC, and you decided to change your mind about whether to take class X at 3rd level, then class Y at 4th, or to reverse that, you'd need to delete every feat, purchased item, class level, etc. added after 4rd level, then put it all back after making your change. Then, you could track that all the class levels this character gains after aquiring the template are affected by the INT penalty but the racial and class levels aquired before are not.

[Kendall-DM]

Can't say I disagree with that argument. I accept that D&D is a flawed system, and I patch it up as best I can. However, I've never understood the "unlearning" part of D&D (losing Int or losing levels), it has never made much sense to me. Then again, I could rail on and on about the things I don't understand in the sytem, I'd have more luck making sense of it by giving myself a lobotomy. :P