What the hey? Abishai and spell like abilities...

[Olive]

So I was just updating the Red Abishai, for no particular reason (wanders off whistling...), and noticed that all abishai have the spell like ability detect alignment. There's no such spell, never was in 3e, there's no errata for MC: MoF, and the Monsters FAQ doesn't mention it...

what should I do?!?!?

 

[Tatsukun]

I can't remember if Red Abishai are chaotic or lawful, but whichever they aren't is the one they can detect. For example, if they are Lawful Evil, they can detect Good and Detect Chaos.

It's kind of like a Palidan's ability to detect Evil, or a Chaos Knight's ability to detect law. It's usually the oppositte of whatever you are.

-Tatsu

 

[Garnfellow]

I caught that one, too, while updating my own planar binding list. I did a google search to see if any official errata had been posted, but found nothing on the abishai. (It did appear that know alignment has crept into other 3e Forgotten Realms products, like Magic of Faerun.)

Personally, I just plain dropped the ability. One could substitue detect good and detect chaos, I suppose.

I also had a question on the green abishai's sting -- does it really do poison damage with no Fortitude save? And are there other poisons in 3e that do not allow saving throws?

 

[Tatsukun]

are there other poisons in 3e that do not allow saving throws?

I don't think so. But, then again, there are people here with even more free time than me, so maybe one of them will prove me wrong.

-Tatsu

 

[The Forsaken One]

Last time I read about that it was taken as temporary ability damage but with the poison thingy attached so that people immune or resistant to it would get the alotted and respective bonusses to their saves or not at all.

If you aren't in agreement with this, for example with CR overpoweredment in comparement to your party. Just up the CR or change it and give it a save equal to 10 + Half the abishais HD + Abishais constitution modifier.

IMHO both are good solutions.

 

[Kalanyr]

Know Alignment isn't quiet detect oposite, its basically focusing on a character for 1 round and then knowing the Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic component of their alignment another round of focus yields the good/neutral/evil component and then the spell ends (since the spell does directly effect a single target (reading their alignment) a Will Save and/or SR is probably also appropriate). This is from my memory of the 2e spell.

 

[da chicken]

But that spell was explicitly removed from the game for being bad game design. It encourages alignment as a straight jacket. It's primarily bad because it can actually return "neutral".

I'd say changing it to detect good and detect chaos is the most appropriate solution.

 

[reiella]

So I was just updating the Red Abishai, for no particular reason (wanders off whistling...), and noticed that all abishai have the spell like ability detect alignment. There's no such spell, never was in 3e, there's no errata for MC: MoF, and the Monsters FAQ doesn't mention it...

what should I do?!?!?

I'd just replace it with Detect Chaos or Detect Good (or both) myself.

The situation, however, is a bit classic of the earlier 3E FR books (including the Magic of Faerun book mentioned elsewhere in this thread). There seemed to be alot of "Cut + Pasting" going on from 2e material in them some stuff not being caught as updated.

 

[Kalanyr]

But that spell was explicitly removed from the game for being bad game design. It encourages alignment as a straight jacket. It's primarily bad because it can actually return "neutral".

I'd say changing it to detect good and detect chaos is the most appropriate solution.

I never really saw a problem with being able to detect neutral, its a position as real as any other. Well I did see one, Know Alignment vs Mindblank was always a tricky situation since they'd know you were magically blocking. In order to avoid this while still capturing the 2e spell feeling I'd probably just make it a combined spell that detected evil/good/law/chaos and let you know which was coming from which target, that way a netural and a magically blanked target still give off nothing.

 

[Olive]

Thanks guys, just wanted to make sure I wasn't losing it.