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--- srd:special_abilities [2008/04/23 01:03] – created cedwards
+++ srd:special_abilities [2008/04/23 11:03] (current) – cedwards
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 ===== Ability Score Loss =====
-Various attacks cause ability score loss, either ability damage or ability drain. Points lost to ability damage return at the rate of 1 point per day (or double that if the character gets complete bed rest) to each damaged ability, and the spells //[[lesser restoration]]// and //[[restoration]]// offset ability damage as well. Ability drain, however, is permanent, though //[[restoration]]// can restore even those lost ability score points.
+Various attacks cause ability score loss, either [[special abilities#ability damage| ability damage]] or [[special abilities#ability drain | ability drain]]. Points lost to ability damage return at the rate of 1 point per day (or double that if the character gets complete bed rest) to each damaged ability, and the spells //[[lesser restoration]]// and //[[restoration]]// offset ability damage as well. Ability drain, however, is permanent, though //[[restoration]]// can restore even those lost ability score points.
 While any loss is debilitating, losing all points in an ability score can be devastating.
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   * //[[Wall of force]]//, //[[prismatic wall]]//, and //[[prismatic sphere]]// are not affected by antimagic. //[[Break enchantment]]//, //[[dispel magic]]//, and //[[greater dispel magic]]// spells do not dispel antimagic. //[[Mage’s disjunction]]// has a 1% chance per caster level of destroying an //[[antimagic field]]//. If the //[[antimagic field]]// survives the //[[disjunction]]//, no items within it are disjoined.
+===== Blindsight and Blindsense =====
+Some creatures have blindsight, the extraordinary ability to use a nonvisual sense (or a combination of such senses) to operate effectively without vision. Such sense may include sensitivity to vibrations, acute scent, keen hearing, or echolocation. This ability makes invisibility and concealment (even magical darkness) irrelevant to the creature (though it still can’t see ethereal creatures). This ability operates out to a range specified in the creature description.
+  * Blindsight never allows a creature to distinguish color or visual contrast. A creature cannot read with blindsight.
+  * Blindsight does not subject a creature to gaze attacks (even though darkvision does).
+  * Blinding attacks do not penalize creatures using blindsight.
+  * Deafening attacks thwart blindsight if it relies on hearing.
+  * Blindsight works underwater but not in a vacuum.
+  * Blindsight negates displacement and blur effects.
+  ?? Blindsense :: Other creatures have blindsense, a lesser ability that lets the creature notice things it cannot see, but without the precision of blindsight. The creature with blindsense usually does not need to make Spot or Listen checks to notice and locate creatures within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature. Any opponent the creature cannot see has total concealment (50% miss chance) against the creature with blindsense, and the blindsensing creature still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment. Visibility still affects the movement of a creature with blindsense. A creature with blindsense is still denied its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class against attacks from creatures it cannot see.!!
+===== Breath Weapon =====
+A creature attacking with a breath weapon is actually expelling something from its mouth (rather than conjuring it by means of a spell or some other magical effect). Most creatures with breath weapons are limited to a number of uses per day or by a minimum length of time that must pass between uses. Such creatures are usually smart enough to save their breath weapon until they really need it.
+  * Using a breath weapon is typically a standard action.
+  * No attack roll is necessary. The breath simply fills its stated area.
+  * Any character caught in the area must make the appropriate saving throw or suffer the breath weapon’s full effect. In many cases, a character who succeeds on his saving throw still takes half damage or some other reduced effect.
+  * Breath weapons are supernatural abilities except where noted.
+  * Creatures are immune to their own breath weapons.
+  * Creatures unable to breathe can still use breath weapons. (The term is something of a misnomer.)
+===== Charm and Compulsion =====
+Many abilities and spells can cloud the minds of characters and monsters, leaving them unable to tell friend from foe—or worse yet, deceiving them into thinking that their former friends are now their worst enemies. Two general types of enchantments affect characters and creatures: charms and compulsions.
+Charming another creature gives the charming character the ability to befriend and suggest courses of actions to his minion, but the servitude is not absolute or mindless. Charms of this type include the various charm spells. Essentially, a charmed character retains free will but makes choices according to a skewed view of the world.
+  * A charmed creature doesn’t gain any magical ability to understand his new friend’s language.
+  * A charmed character retains his original alignment and allegiances, generally with the exception that he now regards the charming creature as a dear friend and will give great weight to his suggestions and directions.
+  * A charmed character fights his former allies only if they threaten his new friend, and even then he uses the least lethal means at his disposal as long as these tactics show any possibility of success (just as he would in a fight between two actual friends).
+  * A charmed character is entitled to an opposed Charisma check against his master in order to resist instructions or commands that would make him do something he wouldn’t normally do even for a close friend. If he succeeds, he decides not to go along with that order but remains charmed.
+  * A charmed character never obeys a command that is obviously suicidal or grievously harmful to her.
+  * If the charming creature commands his minion to do something that the influenced character would be violently opposed to, the subject may attempt a new saving throw to break free of the influence altogether.
+  * A charmed character who is openly attacked by the creature who charmed him or by that creature’s apparent allies is automatically freed of the spell or effect.
+Compulsion is a different matter altogether. A compulsion overrides the subject’s free will in some way or simply changes the way the subject’s mind works. A charm makes the subject a friend of the caster; a compulsion makes the subject obey the caster.
+Regardless of whether a character is charmed or compelled, he won’t volunteer information or tactics that his master doesn’t ask for.
+===== Cold Immunity =====
+A creature with cold immunity never takes cold damage. It has vulnerability to fire, which means it takes half again as much (+50%) damage as normal from fire, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed, or if the save is a success or failure.
+===== Damage Reduction =====
+Some magic creatures have the supernatural ability to instantly heal damage from weapons or to ignore blows altogether as though they were invulnerable.
+The numerical part of a creature’s damage reduction is the amount of hit points the creature ignores from normal attacks. Usually, a certain type of weapon can overcome this reduction. This information is separated from the damage reduction number by a slash. Damage reduction may be overcome by special materials, by magic weapons (any weapon with a +1 or higher enhancement bonus, not counting the enhancement from masterwork quality), certain types of weapons (such as slashing or bludgeoning), and weapons imbued with an alignment. If a dash follows the slash then the damage reduction is effective against any attack that does not ignore damage reduction.
+Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Similarly, ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an alignment gains the alignment of that projectile weapon (in addition to any alignment it may already have).
+Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.
+Attacks that deal no damage because of the target’s damage reduction do not disrupt spells.
+Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even nonmagical fire) ignore damage reduction.
+Sometimes damage reduction is instant healing. Sometimes damage reduction represents the creature’s tough hide or body,. In either case, characters can see that conventional attacks don’t work.
+If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.