SRD talk:Rogue

CAn someone please explain in detail the BS of how a rogue can pick epic feats at 10th level with out meeting pre reqs.--NameViolation 23:10, October 28, 2009 (UTC)

Explained in chat, and certainly not bs. Surgo 23:35, October 28, 2009 (UTC)

I could do it in detail with citations and everything, but I won't because you probably wouldn't allow it in your games anyway with that attitude and that's fine (really it is fine, I don't care if you overrule it or not). So I'll save us both a bit of time. The default rules for bonus feats (which are annoyingly primarily cited in the monster manual) don't say that you have to qualify for a bonus feat in order to take it. So a strict reading allows one to conclude that if the class ability doesn't say you can only pick one you qualify for, like the rogue ability doesn't, you can just take whatever you want. And there really isn't any room for argument on that unless you start arguing that words don't mean the same thing or some other crap that just makes people look foolish. What you can argue is that the rules were left open to allow for bonus feats on monsters who wouldn't qualify for them but should have them, and that the rogue ability was supposed to require you to qualify for the feat like the fighter, but then you're out of the realm of what the rules actually say. That isn't a bad call for certain game styles, but restricting rogues in that way is a houserule and should be recognized as such.

So yeah, it's legal and certainly not BS, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't consider it an an error and adjust your games accordingly. - TarkisFlux 00:03, October 29, 2009 (UTC)

I just come off as a prick. I call every thing BS. :P doen't mean I'm not open to ideas (not that it was implied)--NameViolation 00:24, October 29, 2009 (UTC)

On page 301 of the monster manual, the bottom of the first column it reads:

FEATS All monsters have a number of feats equal to 1 + (1 per 3 HD). Monsters must meet the prerequisites for feats, just as characters must. If your creature concept begs for a feat for which the creature does not qualify, consider altering the creature so that it qualifies for the feat, or assign the feat as a bonus feat. (It is acceptable for a creature to have a bonus feat for which it does not meet the prerequisites.)

Analysis: The important part is highlighted in bold. If this is indeed what is being quoted then I would have to say that the bold statement only applies to creatures in which the DM is making up himself. The context of the paragraph is applying to creatures that the DM is creating and or editing. The parentheses indicate that it is a clarification for the allowance of feats in this special case. The sentence could be read on its own, but the problem then becomes the wording of “It is acceptable”. This seems to clearly imply that letting a creature have a bonus feat that he/she does not meet the prerequs for is not normally done. This would mean that by “R.A.W.” it is only ok if the GM allows it. This is redundant with the DMG.

So it begins again... Right, look, that whole quote is actually important, not just the part you highlighted. Do you see how they say that you should either 1) fix the creature so that they qualify for the feat you want them to have, or 2) just give them the feat as a bonus feat? This means that bonus feats in general are not subject to strict meeting of prereqs; if it did not mean that it would not have been presented as a separate option from actually meeting the prereqs. Were you supposed to qualify for all of your feats, bonus or otherwise, you would have a much smaller comment about how you could give a creature more feats than their HD would allow instead of the above phrasing, and the notion of not needing to meet prereqs would not come up in this way. The following parenthetical comment is just there to drive the point home. Further, because they specifically separated options 1 and 2, your reading of "it is acceptable" is flawed. In this case it means nothing more than "it is permissible" or "we don't care if a creature doesn't qualify for its bonus feats" and has nothing to do with the general desire of the authors for bonus feats to be prereq qualified or not. As this is one of the few places where bonus feats are actually defined, this can be taken as a general rule for bonus feats. The fact that it is in a monster context instead of a player context is not relevant since bonus feats are never defined in a player context except in those cases where they are given as class features (some of which say you have to qualify, and some of which do not). The context doesn't even disallow PCs since all PCs are creatures by definition, so lacking any closer context they and their bonus feats are covered by this rule.

That is a strict reading of what's there, and it does not say all of the things that you have read into it. You can argue that rogues should only pick ones for which they are qualified because the fighter does so or because the broader freedom was intended to be reserved for the monsters or because different authors used the same terms in different places and meant different things for them, and I actually think most of those are decent arguments to be made. But they are not what the rules actually say. - TarkisFlux 01:25, October 29, 2009 (UTC)

Wrong for so many reasons

But the biggest reason is that characters are not creatures 'as per RAW'.

Good Vs. Evil Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

There is a clear delineation between characters and creatures in dnd.

Doesn't. Work. At. All.

75.25.17.116 10:17, June 9, 2010 (UTC)

Wait, what? You had the start of a reasonable argument there by attempting to argue that characters are not creatures (or at least not subject to the same rules), but then you get sidetracked into a discussion of good and evil in the game and how it applies equally to both groups. And then after saying both groups function exactly the same with regards to this system that isn't actually related to the topic in question, you proceed to just assume your starting position. At no time do you offer any actual support for your position.

In summary: Your argument, it "Doesn't. Work. At. All." - TarkisFlux 16:29, June 9, 2010 (UTC)

No, that was an example of the game stating that characters are not creatures. It had nothing to do with 'good vs evil'. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Harpers (talk • contribs) at

Then it needs a page citation or link or something to indicate that it came from the rules. It's hard to differentiate "general statements of one guy" from "rules in a book that from which we're trying to draw inferences" without it.

While that could be an indication that there is a clear distinction, it could also be just standard clarity stuff. Lacking specific delineation in the context of feats, all we can do is draw reasonable inferences from other points in the rules like this one. But one point on its own seems insufficient to me to draw the conclusion claimed. Characters are built on races in a monster manual, races that can be assigned feats that they qualify for by the rules in the same book. If characters are not creatures, then there's a distinction between what's allowed based on who's behind the wheel. I'd need more than one abstract non-mechanical case where both words happened to be used that could easily be written off as an attempt at clarity or reinforcement to draw that inference with any sort of confidence. And even then it's just an inference, and different people can have different burden of proof requirements before they sign off.

For what it's worth, I actually don't allow this in most of my games and feel that this sort of thing was intended to be reserved for monsters. That's just not what the rules say, and I know a lot of people who have not seen sufficient tertiary evidence to go along with that inference. - TarkisFlux 05:33, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

If creatures and characters are mutually exclusive sets, or even not the same thing, then everyone's been playing wrong since release. Magic Missile targets creatures, and Fireball only affects creatures and objects, and says nothing about characters, so clearly it shouldn't work on PCs or NPCs, only on monsters. Black Tentacles only grapples creatures, so PCs and NPCs are immune. Solid Fog acts even weirder, where only creatures are concealed, only creatures are slowed, and only creatures are penalized, but no sight of any kind goes through it.

Since what's a character and what's a creature is so important, does anyone have a page reference for the rules on what makes something a creature and what a character? --IGTN 05:50, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Moar findings, since this is hilarious. The initiative rules work primarily for characters: creature initiative numbers are arbitrary and unconnected to their dex, and characters act on their initiative, but combatants (probably includes some creatures, but not noncombatants) act on tied initiative. So without an initiative tie, creatures can't act in combat at all. Special movement modes are creature-only, so characters can't use a fly speed if they get one. - IGTN 06:17, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Another interesting take on the matter. --Ghostwheel 01:56, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

The only thing interesting in that thread is the primacy argument and that someone could think that two paragraphs separated by a section header were intended to be intimately connected. He'd have a stronger argument if he'd just focused on the prereq paragraph and tried to make the argument that it preempted the bonus feat rules in the MM due to primacy of source. That problem with it is that the previous section seems to make a distinction between a feat (which is granted at 1st, 3rd, and every 3 levels after) and a bonus feat (anything else), though it's difficult to determine whether those are intended to be separate things or a special case of the same thing. That there are bonus feats granted later in the book that do not explicitly say that you gain their benefit even if you don't meet the prereqs suggests that they are actually intended to be different things, even though it's woefully unclear here, which suggests they're intended to be different things (or that the authors didn't expect people to mine the rules this closely and were somewhat sloppy with their wording). - TarkisFlux 04:38, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

I do believe that the latter is the case :-P lol --Ghostwheel 05:24, July 22, 2010 (UTC)