Talk:Critter Care (3.5e Feat)

This feat is badly written

I have several issues with how the feat is written. The general idea is good, but, first of all, the text under "Normal" is superfluous. Of course you can't use Handle Animal to cure animals normally. I think a "Normal" entry is only necessary if the original rules are some complicated issue like grapple or using weapons of the wrong size, rules that most people would have to look up.

Second, the limit. "For every rank of Handle Animal that you have, you may cure an Animal 1d6 hit points of damage. You may cure a maximum number of dice per day equal to your ranks in Handle Animal." It is unclear how that applies, is there a maximum per individual creature or is this a maximum of the sum of HD you heal per day.

(#3) the wording is also weird. You can't really cure Hit Dice. Sure, you cure by giving back hit points, and the number of hit points cured is rolled, but you don't really cure HD because the creature never lost HD (losing HD is called negative levels).

(#4) "You regain these dice every day at dawn." is also weird rules text. There are tons of abilities per day, but I've never seen any specify exactly when the daily uses are regained.

But the weirdest thing is #5, the feat's mechanic. Even though it is based on a skill, you don't really need to make a skill check anywhere. Wouldn't that be the simplest thing? Something like "Make a Handle Animal skill check, with 10 + 2x the number of hit points you want to cure as the DC". With such a mechanic, you don't need to invent new effects for Skill Focus and the healers kit (weirdness #6). Instead, there would be a straight skill bonus -> more hp healed connection. Together with a simple "you can use this ability once per day per animal" and you can get rid of #2.

Problem #7 is the text "This curing is non-magical."... "non-magical" is not a D&D ability descriptor. There are natural, extraordinary, supernatural, spell-like, psionic and psi-like abilities (and of course spells). Pick one of these 6, don't invent a new category. Especially don't invent a category that says what something not is, without stating what it actually is. If it is not magical, what is it then? Psionic?

The last problem, #8, is the text "This skill does not allow you to cure player characters." Sorry, that's not how D&D works. There is no "this only works on PCs" or "this never works on PCs" rule. The game world does not know who is running in DM mode and who is in PC mode (at least from the plain rules).

D&D has creature types for this. Instead, write "this ability can only be used on creatures of the animal type". This way, you have a simple Yes or No answer: If the PC does not have the animal type, the ability can't be used on him. If he happens to have the animal type (unusual, but possible), he can be cured with this ability.

I fear you have to get a better feeling for the conventions of the D&D rules. Read the sections of the SRD that deal with creature types, ability types and so on again, and look how other feats work. Then scrap this feat and completely rebuild it. --Mkill 11:03, 9 July 2007 (MDT)

Reworded--Dmilewski 12:46, 9 July 2007 (MDT)

Much better. --Mkill 02:23, 10 July 2007 (MDT)