u/toddkong7

If a character had the Skyjump Heroic Skill and the Protect Skill, could they do this, and if so, what happens?:

The character uses the Skyjump Skill as an action to pay 10 MP and become airborne until the start of their next turn. While airborne in this way, they have these effects:
- Their melee attacks can target unreachable/flying targets
- They are unseen by other creatures.

While unseen in this way, would they be able to use the Protect Skill? If so, and they do so before their next turn to replace the initial target of an attack with themselves, would they still be considered unseen by the attacker? If so, what would happen? Would the attack auto miss lol? How does being unseen actually affect this interaction?

Thanks in advance for the answers~!

I have an idea for a High WLP, Weaponmaster/Elementalist build with the Humble Strength Heroic Skill to start (2026 playtest optional rule).

The idea is to use an arcane staff as the weapon and cast the Elemental Weapon spell to target enemy weaknesses with its free attack. Then on subsequent rounds, you’d use Soaring Strike to deal extra damage (or hit fliers), since the staff counts as a spear via Humble Strength. On top of this, you could use Bladestorm to apply Multi (2)! Humble Strength would also give +10 damage to the staff attacks, which are single stat reliant (WLP+WLP). This leads to big AOE melee damage that ignores flight and can quickly adapt to enemy weaknesses, all at base level!

To build upon this base, I am wondering whether or not the Chimerist’s Consume Skill would recover MP through the casting of the above mentioned spells, as the character would be wielding an arcane weapon and is dealing damage through them via a free attack. In the same vain, I was wondering whether or not the Elementalist’s Cataclysm Skill would apply extra damage to the free attack granted by those spells, as the character would be wielding an arcane weapon and is dealing damage through them via a free attack.

So the question is:

If a spell’s effect allows you to perform a free attack, would damage dealt by that free attack be considered damage dealt by that spell, allowing this build to take advantage of Consume and Cataclysm? Or is such a free attack considered a separate source of damage despite being in the spell’s effect?

On a related note, would the Powerful Spell Heroic Skill be applied to damage dealt by this kind of free attack?

Thanks in advanced for the answers!

I’m in a dinosaur-themed 5.5e campaign using a third-party source book (Dr. Dhrolin’s Dictionary of Dinosaurs). We recently fought a CR 8 Ankylosaurus that has some… pretty extreme traits to say the least:

- 22 AC (26 vs ranged) — honestly, this one is kinda cool!
- 2/day Legendary Resistance — unusual for CR 8, but okay.
- Immunity to forced movement, prone, and speed reduction (including grapples/paralysis) — um… why? It’s sturdy, yes. But completely immovable AND unstoppable? Isn’t that kind of overdoing it…?
- Resistance to force damage — VERY out-of-left-field, in my opinion. This is normally reserved for more spirit/energy-based monsters, last I checked.
- Complete immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

That last one is where I start to struggle…

When we fought it, half the party (martials) were basically invalidated. We couldn’t control it via push or grapple, couldn’t meaningfully damage it, and even things equivalent to explosives did nothing. It didn’t feel like a tough fight—it felt like we just weren’t allowed to interact with it in normal ways.

Now here’s the thing: using the book’s taming rules, we actually captured it. So now this thing—with all those traits—is on our side. I’m worried this is going to cause long-term problems for the campaign. It seems like it could trivialize many encounters, especially if we manage to tame more. And regardless of that, it feels way outside what a CR 8 “mundane” creature should be capable of, both mechanically and thematically.

Some people at the table think it’s fine because “it’s cool” or “magic still works on it,” but that doesn’t really address how extreme B/P/S immunity (in conjunction with Force resistance) is in practice. For context, I’ve seen a campaign struggle before—and even fall apart—when a player was given something overtuned (at-will adult dragon transformation), and it made encounter balance basically impossible. This doesn’t feel like it’s that much lacking in foresight or restraint, but it feels like it’s in the same ball park at the very least.

I like my group a lot, and I’m not blaming my DM—they’re just running the book as written. I’m more questioning the design itself and whether this is healthy for the game going forward.

So: am I overreacting here, or are these valid concerns?