are snakes animals?

[willhoff]

Vrebel has been hunting snakes with a bow using mahogany arrows fitted with bronze tipped heads with stirge feathers and, in addition, with electrical or cold damage added with a rod to the arrows.

These arrows should do negative energy damage (among other types of damage) to animals as they are bronze tipped.

Vrebel has tried the above on snakes including black snakes in sinister forest, cobras in the swamps near Vehl, and yellow snakes in the spirit dunes.  He is getting no negative energy damage on any of these snakes.

Snakes are listed as animals in Lore.

Just thought I would point this out so either you can fix lore or maybe, if its easy *winks*, make a change so the negative energy applies to snakes.

Thanks,

Willhoff

[Acacea]

Vermin, I think.

[lonnarin]

edit: The NWN toolset says Reptilian, though LORE says different.  Lizardmen and Kobals and the like would be Reptilian Humanoids

LORE has snakes listed under Animals.  I have never tried to charm a snake before as a druid, so I am not entirely certain if they are under full animal status or a quasi-animal status.

[willhoff]

Thanks Ionnarin and Acacea for your responses.  Vermin and reptilian make more since to me too.  I guess I was confused because if you go on Lore and type "animals", snakes are included in the list.  Maybe the Lore list is more inclusive or broader than the bronze arrow damage list of animals.

[lonnarin]

I suppose the only sure way to test this would be to arch many snakes repeatedly and seeing if you ever get 1 hp of damage against them using copper tipped hickory arrows.  If so, then they would be in a different classification than animal.  But if you see 2dmg show up as the least amount over a long period of time, or 7 dmg on a shortbow or 9 dmg on a longbow for a non-critical hit, then it would indicate that they are full animal status.  Next time I'm on with Grovel, I'll try to get him to charm a snake to test that side of things.  And if a Prunillite cleric with plant domain could turn them, they would be most likely vermin.

[ycleption]

I don't know if this helps, but animal empathy doesn't work against snakes, doesn't even give you the option to.

[willhoff]

More confirmation that snakes are probably not animals on your animal empathy point ycleption, thanks.  

With the arrows Vrebel has tried:  Mahogany bronze tipped, stirge feathers, with eletrical damage added via a rod, you should only see negative energy pop up if you hit something considered an animal.  The arrows do 2d6 negative energy to animals and 1d6 electrical damage to everything (thats not immune to electrical).

Vrebel is not getting negative energy on any of the snakes he's hit.  So he goes up and cuts off their heads with his greatsword.

[Gulnyr]

Lizardmen and Kobals and the like would be Reptilian Humanoids

I have a feeling Harlas would strongly disagree.

[Dorganath]

Almost positive they're vermin.  It's a racial type and yeah, AE doesn't work on them as a result.  Clerics of some deities (Prunilla comes to mind) have Turn Vermin, which works like Turn Undead except on things like snakes and other things classified as vermin.

[osxmallard]

Snakes are in the creator as animals->snakes (for custom) and animals->other (for standard).

[Pankoki]

Where they are in the creator unfortunately does not reveal much as to what creature type they are, their position in the creator is entirely out of practicality. The snakes in layo are indeed Vermin, which means that Animal Empathy does not work on them and clerics with the Plant Domain can turn them as they turn undead.

And relating to the original query, indeed, no arrow type that exists through CNR has Vermin as a damage bonus and so you wont get that benefit.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Where in LORE does it state snakes are animals?

[ycleption]

[lore]animals[/lore]

[darkstorme]

Rats, then, are also inaccurately labeled, since they too are vermin.  Basically, anything with more than four legs or anything that St. Patrick drove out of Ireland.

[willhoff]

Ok, I think I have it cleared up, snakes are Vermin and therfore not considered "animals" for mechanical purposes in Layo, i.e. animal empathy and "animal" arrow damage from bronze arrow heads.

Thanks for everyone's imput:)

[lonnarin]

Ah, if only the coders at BIOware were more familiar with intro-level BIOlogy.

[Thunder Pants]

Ah, if only the coders at BIOware were more familiar with intro-level BIOlogy.

You can hardly expect everybody to be experts in taxonomy though, which unfortunately is something most people know very little about