Community Based Monster Classes VI

[Kobold-Bard]

...
Quasi God

Spoiler

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Love the idea. Kobold Bard never stop homebrewing. Ever.

Aww shucks

~Love the point-buy system, works out really well.

Thanks.

~1st nitpick, pronouns change a lot, sometimes in mid-sentence, between ‘you’ and ‘they’

Yeah, I do that. I'll give it another proofread and try to get the rest of them.

~3rd level has Divine Companion on the table, rather than Manifestation of Divinity.

Fixed.

~5th level abilities are listed as 6th level abilities in description.

Crud, fixed.

~As that Undead and Constructs would be Extraplanar anywhere besides the prime material plane it would not be at all game-breaking to give them the native subtype of the plane they’re ‘home’ at and give them the extraplanar subtype everywhere else. (The subtype does very little besides, as far as I can tell, differentiate between spells and effects that target them, and those are super situational. I think)

I get your point, but since they're not Outsiders it seems a bit weird.

~Ability score bonus, the unnamed one, can it be multiple abilities or is it meant to only be one… for example
At levels 1, 3 & 5 gain +1 strength
Or
At level 1 gain +1 strength
At level 3 gain +1 charisma
At level 5 gain +1 sandwich-eating-score-that-the-DM-houserules.

Added a bit saying it can be any stat each time.

~ Divine Companion: I’m personally not keen on the +1 HD or change option at each level, particularly due to the implied entry text that seems to suggest that the animal companion is similar to that of a Druid’s class feature of same name of effective Druid Level equal to ECL (or HD in this system) of the Quasi-god, and because I further would infer that this implies the bonus HD, Tricks, and other goodies of being an animal companion.

I see your point. Still going to let them change it each level unless that gets another vote against it.

~Aura of Divinity: Cool, reminds me of the marshal and I loved that class… still trying to retool it but I digress.

Based it on the Deity Aura ability, but that's cool.

~Divine Travel: Plane shift uses per day and wording is a bit funny I don’t quite understand when the power is allowed to the Quasi-god, or if it works off of Greater teleport, the issue may come from an unclosed ()s.

Fixed.

~Personal Plane: Hell yes. I’d say since it’s personal, and stuff can’t transfer you could also allow the QD to be in charge of magical effects (dead magic, wild magic, ect) and gravity (subjective, objective, sideways, centric, ect). However time is best left out of the QD’s control. Time is super easy to abuse. Also, the reading of the home-plane makes for it to be a great way to kill things that rely on food, water, or air, as that they don’t receive the benefits of anything taken while inside the home plane… a cruel DM might say the air doesn’t take, a less cruel DM might still mess with the water/thirst or food/hunger effects of such a rule.

Done. Nothing created there can go out, but you can bring food in and eat it fine.

~ Hamper the Competition: Fun!

Woo.

~ Divine Dealings: So in Sandman, the endless can call on eachother and talk, right? I kinda see the ability to call on any deity and chat as a cool power… what I’m trying to say is it might be cool if it could ‘contact other plane’ for deities of other alignments to talk, but the deity on the other side is not compelled to tell the truth or even answer.

I have no idea what you're talking about. But I guess a 1/day chat with a Deity seems fun.

~Closing Clause of Immortality is confusing. Does the QD get all of these abilities it qualifies for, or just one that it both chooses and qualifies for?

It's supposed to be 1 of your choice. Should it be all three?

Overall awesome… My players will know about this class. Great options, and as I tend to say, there could always be more!

...

Also removed Clairaudience/Clairvoyance from Divine Spark because it's now in Far Sight.

For reference:
Lammasu
G. Protector
Quasi-God
Monstrous Feats

[AugustNights]

Extraplanar undead are not uncalled for, and inevitables are extraplanar constructs.

I'm actually fine with being able to change it every level, it's more the +1 HD that bothered me.

Sandman it's worth checking out.

On the Immortal thing... I don't know. If they have to choose, I'd get rid of the prerequisites after choosing... the way it reads the player chooses one, and then has to qualify for it. I'd say either let them get all they qualify for, or let them choose one. Though that's only the way I'd approach it, and the council may have other advice, of course.

[Hyudra]

Basilisk
~Stone Eye: Craggy look seems more powerful that the other two to me, and would probably serve better as a standard part of the look, with the other two as singe choice options… of course not necessary, but I imagine most players will use it like that anyhow. Option is made at each use, yes?

Ah, I see the confusion. No, I should state you make the choice once, and those 2 abilities are available as individual shots thereafter. That entire ability (and its sister ability Petrifying Eye) need some rephrasing and clarification.

Craggy Look is more reliable and consistent in its application, but is outweighed by the disadvantage of having to get foes to 1/2 dex to get the stacking needed for the petrifaction. If, at first level, you take Craggy Look as one of your two Stone Eye abilities, you're gaining the dex damage as a reliable weapon, but you won't be able to take foes out of combat quite so effectively as if you were using Heavy Stare and Sedimentary Sight, or whatever I called 'em.

Probably tonight, I'll sit down and rework things so they're clearer and there's more inherent balance between the abilities (particularly Sedimentary Sight vs. Heavy Stare).

~Geomorphic Gaze is, like all of the other abilities, very cool, and interesting, but I feel it could present more options… also its lead in text made me excited for the ability to petrify undead or constructs of organic materials... maybe it’s better off that it cannot… but its something a player would look at and say ‘Hey! If it can petrify dirt…”

I should state something to that extent, as far as petrifying undead and organic constructs... maybe as something when your HD are higher. I initially wanted to have a lot more options under geomorphic gaze, that were individually less than stellar but gave you a good toolbox set of options. As I mused in this post, however, I found the abilities I was coming up with were very situational and limited the basilisk in many contexts (so it would ultimately be very effective in forests or other landscapes with lots of organic material and weak in deserts, dungeons and caverns, which runs against the monster entry).

Edit - Almost forgot, in my hurry to punch out a response before I headed out the door. Thank you for the review. Both the positive feedback on the creature and the ability reviews are appreciated and help me nail down what to fix and how.

[AugustNights]

As for caltrops... I see a sneeze being petrified. Maybe the Basalisk can produce a readily petrified mucus? Limited use per day, would offer the ability in those dungeons without dust and organic material... I agree that situational abilities aren't great, but there is a lot of cool things that can be done with 'and now they are rocks...'

[Gorgondantess]

Lammasu: Gets my vote.
Golden protector: In the prereqs... you have "Lammasu 4 or 7 HD". Didn't you say you were, in fact, going to make it Lammasu only?
Also, the SR is quite high. Higher than "High SR" creatures.
Once those are addressed, it gets my vote.

Manticore: The only thing I can see now that's a problem is the ungodly number of spikes you can launch with the Skewer Salvo. Address that, and I'll give it my vote. And considering the lack of other Councilmembers, I think that should be enough to get it on the list.

Quasi-God: Extraplanar constructs/undead are good, just not constructs/undead turning into outsiders.
Aura of divinity:

Fright: All enemies within range of their aura suffer a +1/4HD morale bonus on attack rolls, Saves, ability checks & skill checks.

This would be better off in minor, and negative levels in major. Or... I don't know, but they're nearly identical.
Healing/draining: Ummm... I'd just make it one does negative energy and one does positive energy. Fast healing heals undead, y'know.
Personal Plane: So... it's an extradimensional room? Seriously, that's essentially what they get. By 20th level it's an extradimensional building.
Also: say goodbye to material costs! Woo-woo! Need a true resurrection? Just come in the demiplane and do it!

[Hyudra]

"and now they are rocks", har.

Funny thing, I was contemplating additional abilities, for what a Basilisk might use the ability for. One thought was spitting & turning the spit into stone mid-air. Another was barfing on a prone enemy and then solidifying the puke.

The stuff that crosses my mind...

In all seriousness, I want to sit down with both Basilisk and Manticore either tonight or tomorrow.

Added Lammasu to the list, but it strikes me as I type this that I put it in the wrong place in the list, somehow thinking it was Llamasu. Fixing. Fixed.

[Super_Fluous]

Ah, I've been away recently, and haven't really had the time to do the proper revisions to the flesh golem. Now that I am back, I'll try to rework it, pretty much from the ground up.

[AustontheGreat1]

• Please don't center creature images/names.
• Oh, man, a longish class (though it's the first on the list, here, it's the last one I critiqued, since I was working backward). Let's see...
• Skills:
  
  • "*New skill described on p.20 ToB" - Forgive me, but I see no *, or ability this might reference. Martial Lore?
  • Handle Animal seems out of place.
  • Knowledge (nature) seems kind of out of place.
• Full BAB + Strength bonuses seems rather over the top, at a glance. The de-facto rule, now, tends to be one or the other (old classes may ignore this rule, but we shouldn't use them as a measuring stick.)
• Why is the armor bonus not the standard Con mod, or 1+Con mod?
• What happens if your suit of armor gets ruined? Say, by a rust monster?
• The rebuking and commanding of living spells, hrmm...
  
  • "(ten times per day for a typical ragewalker)" what is this? What are we gauging by? I mean, assuming you're 1st level, 18 points in Cha, you're only capable of doing such 7 times a day, so you're wrong... but this doesn't need to be said, anyways.
  • Rebuking & commanding living spells as a cleric of half your HD means you probably won't be able to rebuke/command any. Turn undead (and this ability, by extension) tends to decline severely in usefulness as you gain levels, requiring optimization to keep it viable in mid to high levels. Having it be cut in half means it won't be useful to a player at early, mid or late levels. This ability probably deserves an entry of its own, and fine tuning.
• Ability Score Bonuses:
  
  • I restate what I covered earlier. Full BAB plus strength bonuses are too good, trumping most other classes in this same thread in raw numbers.
  • You probably don't need half the ability score bonuses you listed, anyways. As is, the creatures that should get ability score bonuses are those who are sacrificing it thematically (ie. brutes with low BAB and strength bonuses, who thereby hit less often but hit harder), or those who lack fine manipulation, proficiencies and/or speech, and thus need the raw stats to make their natural tools that much more viable. Ragewalker is a humanoid with a lot going for it to begin with, so there's no need for as many stat bonuses as you've included.
• Quick Healing:
  
  • "The amount of healing each round increases by for every 4 HD the ragewalker gains after the first" - This would initially be read as Fast Healing 2 at 5HD (4 HD after the first {HD}). Clarify? Also, I don't like the use of the word 'gains', either, because it doesn't apply retroactively, RAW.
• Blood Frenzy:
  
  • How often can it be used? Duration?
  • This may need to be toned down. You've already got a flat out ridiculous movement speed, you're adding to that, and gaining notable stat bonuses.
• Versatile Blade Magic:
  
  • RAW, it gives you too much. Let's say that at level 6, I'm a Ragewalker with 18 base CHA, +2 from an item, +3 from stats, +1 from levels. That gives me 7 uses of the metamagic of my choice (assuming I don't go for quicken or amplify), enough to get ~2 uses per encounter in a 4 encounter day (Well, 2 per encounter for 3 encounters, 1 for a single encounter).
  • Some of the options don't really apply to your SLAs. Widen doesn't apply to any of your SLAs, IIRC. Amplify doesn't offer much either (Just cause fear?).
  • Probably needs to be toned down in # per day. Doing so is likely to involve tying it to something other than your CHA, which makes sense anyways, considering the stacking you're offering.
• Living Spell Companion:
  
  • I'm not terribly familiar with living spells, so I'm looking over this, seeing no major faults, and encouraging others who are better versed in such to pay extra attention to it.
  • You talk about the ragewalker rebuking living spells for a second time (the first time appearing under the grafted armor).
• Induce Blood Frenzy:
  
  • I'd make it so that if you save, you're immune for 24 hours.
• Weapon Cloud:
  
  • It affects allies? I can see this being a problem in a cramped dungeon.
  • "1d6 for every 4 HD" - what type of damage? Every 4HD of the creature? Or the Ragewalker? Word this better.
  • "This damage is slashing and piercing and damage reduction applies normally." - Ah, here's the damage type. Why not just say '1d6 slashing/piercing damage for every 4 HD of the Ragewalker.'?
  • "creatures adjacent to the Ragewalker must succeed on a successful reflex save each round" -- This sounds like it would bog down combat. It's a lot of extra saving throws & damage rolls & damage tracking that's liable to come up in pretty much every encounter the ragewalker participates in from 10th level on. (That's ~133 encounters if you go from 10th to 20th level).
• Repel Missiles:
  
  • "whenever the Ragewalker is the target of a ranged attack from a weapon, but not attacks that result from a spell (such as fireball or lightning bolt)," -- I would restructure this to "whenever the Ragewalker is the target of a ranged attack from a weapon (but not attacks that result from a spell, such as a fireball or lightning bolt)", as it reads awkwardly otherwise.
• Awaken Magic:
  
  • I this boiling down to the party's wizard offering up spells to turn into awakened spells for longer durations (perhaps) or just more raw power for their buck.
  • I'm certain there's countless ways to abuse this.
• Blade Storm Master:
  
  • So... at 20th level, with a +12 Cha bonus, I've got 240 points... which essentially translates to +240 hitpoints? That seems a bit much.

• Please don't center your creature images/names. Looks awkward on some monitor setups (I have two 1920x1080 monitors side by side, so I have all the text on one page, and the image is split between the two monitors).
• Prerequisites:
  
  • Boring. Too easy to enter the class. Not terribly flavorful. Doesn't let people who decide (late) that they want to enter the class do so unless they revise their background, which is weird. Advise more flexible, interesting, challenging prereqs.
• Skills: Some elementals kind of get shafted. Appraise? Swim?
• Does water elemental even need ranks in swim? He's got swim movement.
• Proficiencies:
  
  • Don't see why they get weapon and armor proficiencies, if their elemental parents don't... I'm a Wyvern that's the spawn of a wyvern and an air elemental... and now I can wear armor? Does not compute.
• Elemental Body:
  
  • Air elemental - gets terrific bonuses. Immunity, damage resistance, flight. Question though - it seems odd that creatures that would be spawned from air elemental parents, which would already have flight, kind of don't get much out of this. A half-air elemental pegasus gets little bonus, even if it makes a lot of sense, heritage wise.
  • Earth elemental - Less terrific bonuses. Acid immunity (which comes up arguably the least of the core elemental damages), and a burrow speed, which is ok but kind of meh. (and potentially gamebreaking if you're getting it at level 2, see other burrowing creatures).
  • Fire - Gets terrific bonuses. I just don't really understand why it moves so fast (80' land speed at 20th level?). Doesn't make a lot of sense.
  • Water kind of gets screwed. Immunity to cold, which isn't common (but isn't uncommon), and a swim speed... which is kind of meh, since it's only going to come up in maybe one encounter a level.
• Elemental Power:
  
  • Force of Nature: Seems kind of detrimental to the air elemental. It basically prevents you from full attacking foes. Make it optional?
  • Force of Nature: DC needs fixing. DC = 10 = Damage dealt? Think you meant 10 + Damage dealt.
  • Stability: Kind of sucks. Very niche benefit that's rarely going to come up.
  • Burn: Not as bad as the other three, but it's... not a lot. I'm sure it adds up, but it doesn't really wow.
  • Flowing Form: See Stability, above. Niche benefit that won't come up nearly as often as air & fire's Elemental Power effects.
• Elemental Magic:
  
  • Under air, 'Air Walk' is kind of lame when you already have flight.
  • No need for "minimum 1" for the 1st ability in each table... it's granted with the 2nd level of the class, so you naturally have 2HD already.
  • Can't help but feel Fire gets the short end of the stick, here. Lots of evocation effects, delivering damage of the most resisted type.

Ragewalker

• Alright, image un-centered. Sorry about that.
  
• Okay, added "*" to martial lore.
  
• Handle Animal and Knowledge (Nature) are both on the list simply because it is a fey and even though it is a rage-filled creature of war, it still has a deep connection to the natural world. I think they should be there. Know.(Nature) mostly, and even fighters get Handle Animal so that they can train any animal they are using such as war beasts and mounts and stuff. Though I trust your advice. If you give me any reason to remove them I will.
  
• BAB has been reduced to Cleric BAB (I think that's 2/3, but correct me if I'm wrong.)
  
• The grafted armor ability was originally extremely complicated ability that involved incorporating armor the ragewalker found into his armor as well as transferring magic armor into it. I believe it was Gorgon who suggested that I change it to copy the Iron Golem's armor ability.
  
• I will add a note saying that the armor is immune to rusting, and heals damage slowly over time.
  
• The "(ten times per day for a typical ragewalker)" was left over when the ability was copied from the original Ragewalker. I apologize and I will remove it. Origianally I was told that the ability shouldn't be the only ability granted at any level so I spliced into the other ability. Rebuking living spells is a minor ability at best so I will change it to "as a cleric of a level equal to you HD."
  
• I agree, the ability increses are over the top. I thing that I should remove the strength increases altogether and give it bonuses to charisma at 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter. So a total of +4 Charisma, granted over levels 3, 6, 9, 12. Sound better?
  
• Quick Healing edited a little. Tried to clear the stuff you didn't like.
  
• Originally I had the Ragewalker gaining maneuvers with a progression similar to a warblade. I was told that that wasn't acceptable, and understandably. So originally that was going to be stance that the Ragewalker gained access to. I still need to change it. How about it last a number of rounds equal to either the ragewalker's charisma score or constitution score; and usable 1/day for every 5 HD?
  
• How about I reduce it to a flat 3/day as usual for the Metamagic Spell-like Ability feats. Also, Amplify could be applied to Cause Fear, Inflict Light Wounds, or Blade Barrier. Widen could be used to modify Cause Fear or Globe of Invulnerability. You didn't specify widen but it can modify many of them either.
  
• Sorry, Turning living spells ability was originally meant to be part of this ability, I don't know how it wound up under grafted armor.
  
• Induce Blood Frenzy altered as specified.
  
• Weapon cloud has some problems. What if I just state that the Ragewalker can control the the swirling blades enough to make them pass harmlessly around allies? Specified that it's the Ragewalker's HD. How should I reduce the rolls and complication involved.
  
• I knew this ability was overpowered when I put it down. I was hoping to get help making it acceptable. I can't recall who, but I remember someone suggesting that the Ragewalker shouldn't immediately gain control of the living spell. How about I change it so that the living spell is created under the control of the original caster of the spell, and the Ragewalker may then attempt to take control via its Rebuking and Commanding ability. Or to fix the problem of a party wizard simply giving up the spell to make a living spell, the Living Spell is created under no ones command; adding the possibility of creating a new foe. Any of those suggestions sound acceptable?
  
• I see, how would you suggest I fix the capstone ability then?

Okay, gotta run. I'll get to the Half-Elemental soon.\

Sorry for posting this in the Closed thread. I haven't been keeping up and I didn't realize.

[NineThePuma]

A number of Kython classes are mistakenly listed as Base classes when they are, in fact, optional (mutually exclusive) PrCs.

[Mystic Muse]

responses to Illurien. I cut out a few of the grammar error critiques simply for the sake of less things to respond to.

Spoiler

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I tried to address everything you brought up.

Needs an image..

Forgot about that for some reason

Source? Without it, can't look at the original monster for flavor & details. I had to look it up.

Sorry, monster manual 5.

Telepathy out to 10' per HD is kind of crippling. That means not being able to talk to other people in the same room as you.

Well, that's how the original class communicated.

All skills should not be class skills. That gives you access to iajitsu focus, hypnotism, craft dreamweave item, and so on... skills with concrete in-game benefits that can really power you up. Also, it's the factotum's schtick that you're messing with.

That was a suggestion by Gorgon.

The numbers in the table (particularly BAB) are screwy. Some are like +1 and others are like + 3 (with a space). It needs tidying.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Needs more flavor text in ability descriptions, so we've got a better idea of what's going on and why. You mention a tempest lash, but I frankly don't have a clue what that is, especially because there's no source.

Okay.

Tempest Lash:

The healing is perhaps a bit much. Consider that you're potentially delivering two 1d8+Str attacks, dealing 2d4 str mod damage and gaining 10-20 hp on each attack.

I'll try and change it to be a static amount. Any suggestions on how much is appropriate?
[quote]SLAs:
State, as you describe each level of SLAs, how many times they can be used a day. It's very unclear, as it's currently stated.
"The other mentioned SLAs are usable 1/day per spell level HD." is awkwardly worded.[quote/] Okay. I was just trying to simplify it a bit and I guess I failed.
Improved Body of Knowledge:

"purpose of overcoming DR and she simply needs to trance instead of sleep. " is weirdly worded. The trance thing is a thought of its own. End the sentence after detailing DR and then bring up trances after that, in a sentence of its own.

Will do.

Storm of visions SU:
[]Ability needs a proper name, with capitalization (and if you're detailing (su), (ex), etc, do it consistently and use the standard formatting).

Thanks for catching this, I will.

Home Plane:

I don't like that you named it for the player. Let the players name their own dark library.

WOTC named it actually. Otherwise, yeah, I'd have left the name blank. I'll probably do that anyway since the first name is impossible to spell, and the second seems about as subtle as a brick to the face.

Being able to transport to the library is fine. Not having a way to transport back is... inconvenient.

good point.

This strikes me as an ability fitting for a much higher level than 4th.

It was originally, but I think somebody suggested that it made more sense as a lower level ability.
Infinite Knowledge:

Seems like a kind of overpowered version of Knowledge Devotion. The problem with skill-based abilities is that they either don't work at all (truenaming) or they're too easy to pump, granting ridiculous bonuses.
The 13th level bonus sucks. A bonus to AC granted around the time that AC really has started to decline in usefulness. I can't see smart players using it.
The 16th level bonus is weird and ill-fitting. I can't think of a better way to say it. "DCS" is confusing (Save DCs would be better, but still awkward), and there's really no precedent for an ability like it. Replace it?[/]

I think this was a suggestion by Gorgon based off of the Marrutact.

Combat Expertise:
[The thing about combat expertise is that, as a feat that's a prerequisite for so many other feats, it's one you take early or you just don't take it at all. As such, it is out of place at 5th level.

Okay. I just thought the first couple of levels were kind of front loaded already.

"If Illurien already has Combat advantage at this point, she can" ...
What's combat advantage?

Most likely combat expertise but I had combat advantage on my mind for some reason.

You reference cloud of foresight before the ability is granted, which is confusing. Consider moving the dodge bonus details to the cloud of foresight entry instead.

Sounds good.
Damage Reduction:

"At 6th level Illurien gains damage reduction good equal to half her hit dice." -- I'd reword, as it's just clunky in the underlined part there. Look at other monsters for how they worded the DR entries.[/]

Sounds good.

"The miss chance increases by 10% every time she takes another 2 levels in the class for a total of 40% at 14th level. " - wording is awkward in the underlined part there.
So... I have 40% chance to dodge any attack at 14th level. I've also got the dodge bonus from combat expertise, so that's... 5%? 45% chance to avoid any attack. I'm also getting +5 to AC in addition to my existing bonus, so my AC is maybe going to prevent what? One in five attacks on its own? Seems a little much, numberwise. It strikes me that with some other abilities and/or concealment benefits, you're nigh untouchable (Say, warlock's entropic shield, as a start).[/]

originally it was just twenty percent. Should I just go back to that?
Improved Storm of Visions
I've stated why I don't like Storm of Visions, Dazed is actually a pretty crippling condition tacked onto the insane number of rolls being performed.[/]
[quote]Knowledge Devotion:
What would happen if I, as an Illurien with skills stacked to maximize knowledge, huge int, int bonuses from levels in the class, item familiars granting +20 or more to the knowledge skill of my choice, picked up the Knowledge Devotion feat in addition to the bonuses granted here? Stacking! Too easy/intuitive to abuse.[/] Thanks for pointing that out.

"and to the fatigued and exhausted conditions.. " -- isn't a complete thought. Two periods at the end there.

Thanks for catching that
Rejuvenation:

Kind of crippling if you don't necessarily get a choice in the matter. If I'm the BBEG trying to defeat the party, I'm going to kill the Illurien over and over, and run away after each time.

Have any suggestion for how to implement it then? Somebody suggested the level drawback to balance out the fact the raise dead is unlimited.
Perfected Tempest Lash:

I complained about the number of rolls with storm of knowledge, and I complained about the number of things that tempest lash got, goodie wise. I fear the experience tracking makes a full attack routine by the Illurien into a bit of a headache (You're rolling vs. ac, doing damage, recording damage to the monster on the sheet, rolling int damage, recording changes to the monster on the sheet, adjusting stats where needed, calculating hp gain, adding to your temporary hp pool, calculating XP damage, adding to your special XP pool... and you're doing all this potentially twice a round, several rounds in a row.

The XP thing was a suggestion by Magicypop. After pointing a bunch of stuff out, I agree there's too much rolling. I'll do what I can to reduce the amount.

Improved SLAs:

Too vague, a little rushed.
I can add, what? Two spells, period? Or two spells for each level?
The number of times it's usable per day is awkwardly worded.

supposed to be per level to kind of represent the endless pursuit of knowledge. It was just an idea and I expect it's more powerful than I intended.

Overall, needs polish:
Ability names should be bolded, capitalized, there should be consistency with use of (Su) and (Ex) throughout all abilities or none, there should be a degree of flavor text, the text is a little rushed and feels like shorthand more than proper descriptions made for readability.

I'll add the flavor text once the mechanics are finished.

[Makiru]

As a reminder: Solamith
It's so close to approval, I can taste it!
It would just be so much of an ego boost if it got on the finished list before I finished the garngrath.

[Hyudra]

Basilisk Changelog:
Jan 11, 2011:

• Stone Eye changed to clarify (several times) that you only fire one effect at a time.
• Sedimentary Glancing renamed to Glancing Glaze, and given a buff at 8HD that lets you halve duration and make it exhaust instead.
• Heavy Glare no longer imposes slow, but comes close, halving enemy movement & imposing the same penalties to attacks, AC and reflex saves. It doesn't force enemies to choose between move and standard actions though - to do that, again, you've got an option at 8HD that lets you halve the duration to make it slow instead.
• Craggy Look damage dice changed. Does more damage early, and scales slower (1d6 at 1st, 2d4 at 8th, 3d3 at 14th). I also added the bit about 1/2 dexterity being counted as a stone eye condition to the ability text, which made it easy to tidy up a lot of text elsewhere.
• Text of stone eye cleaned up & simplified a lot.
• Geomorphic Gaze given a buff rangewise (from 10 + 5 per point of strength mod to 25' + 5' at 6HD and every 3HD thereafter).
• Geomorphic Gaze now lets you do the difficult terrain + one obstacle in the same action at 10HD.
• Added 5 additional abilities to geomorphic gaze:
  
  • Seal a door shut? Check.
  • Turn grass to caltrops? Check.
  • Turn leaves on the trees into a rain of knifelike stones? Check.
  • Turn entangling rope/web/tanglefoot goop into stone? Check.
  • Turn rope/web/glue/moss/vines to fragile stone? Check.
• Tidied up some text in Petrifying Eye.
• Fixed erroneous mention of dexterity in Crushing Glower.

[Kobold-Bard]

Lammasu: Gets my vote.

Woo.

Golden protector: In the prereqs... you have "Lammasu 4 or 7 HD". Didn't you say you were, in fact, going to make it Lammasu only?
Also, the SR is quite high. Higher than "High SR" creatures.
Once those are addressed, it gets my vote.

Done, both are facepalms on my part. Also removed the bit in their claw description that implied they might not have been a Lamassu beforehand.

...

Quasi-God: Extraplanar constructs/undead are good, just not constructs/undead turning into outsiders.

Done.

Aura of divinity:

This would be better off in minor, and negative levels in major. Or... I don't know, but they're nearly identical.
Healing/draining: Ummm... I'd just make it one does negative energy and one does positive energy. Fast healing heals undead, y'know.

ORLY? I didn't know that. I'll adjust that in a bit.

Personal Plane: So... it's an extradimensional room? Seriously, that's essentially what they get. By 20th level it's an extradimensional building.
Also: say goodbye to material costs! Woo-woo! Need a true resurrection? Just come in the demiplane and do it!

Hmm. When you put it like that is sounds a bit ****. The abilities are based on the godly abilities (general ones, not the salient abilities) so I don't want to get rid of it. Any suggestions for improvements?

Yay for Lamassu & G. Protector getting the thumbs up

[Hyudra]

Added the Golden Protector to the list.

Check this post again (if there's no follow-up posts), as I'm aiming to do some more critiques today.

Bleakborn

• Hasn't been updated since late November. No commentary to add.

Maug

• Changelogs are useful. I see it was updated on December 10th, but if I want to figure out what changes to look for, I've now got to hunt through 5-10 pages of thread for critique on the class, and any notice of follow up changes.
• State the source of the monster in the entry, so people (players & critiquers) can reference it.
• Still waiting for Gorgondantess' suggested changes (Added this post to the table, under the suggestions/critiques column.)
• Additionally, there's some general format errors. Mild stuff like...
  
  • "Craft,Intimidate,Knowledge(architecture andengineering),Listen,Profession (siege engineer and soldier),Spot, Survival"
    -- No spaces between commas and the following entry, most of the time.
  • No period at the end of many sentences.
  • No space between some other punctuation (periods) and the following word. (ie. "Pulverize:As a free...", "...damage.A maug...")
  • "equal to it’s strength modifier" -- Should be its.
  • The creature's name is misspelled under Growth.
  • The creature's name should probably be consistently capitalized throughout the entry.
• So beyond that general polish & Gorgondantess' suggestions (Yeah, don't have full BAB and +Str. That's a smidge over the top.)

Death Knight:

• State the source of your monster. I don't want to have to google it.
• Prerequisite should state HD rather than levels, as is our tendency.
• Prerequisite is kind of dull. Add something more flavorful/hard?
• More formatting issues:
  
  • "and shield(including tower shield)" should have a space @ the underlined area.
  • "Death TouchThe death knight’s" needs a bracket & space between Touch and The.
  • Abyssal Blast - again needs a bracket.
  • Immunities - needs a period at the end of that sentence.
  • Spell Resistance - Has two brackets.
  • Fear Aura - needs a bracket.
  • "if they succeed the will save , they are shaken." has an extra space after 'will save'.
  • "the will save, they are shaken, If they succeed" - needs that comma after 'shaken' to be a period.
  • There's more. No offense intended, but if you can't be bothered to revise & double check your own entry, I can't be bothered to find all the errors.
• The gained benefits are kind of weak, considering the level you gain them at. The DR is easily penetrated at 8th level, and you're ultimately gaining paladin-like abilities at levels 7-9 at the earliest... which is a bit underwhelming.
• The class needs a bit more flavor. Flavor text and/or abilities that make it stand out as something beyond an anti-paladin who happens to be undead.

Living Spell

• Skipping this one since Magicyop is away & I don't know when he'll be back.

Solamith

• HD, skill points, proficiencies need proper formatting. Bolded headings at the very least.
• It seems to get 'Demon' too early. Compare to other demons, who get it at 2nd. Consistency is key.
• The Solamith is immune to its own soulfire and that of other solamiths... what's to stop a group of PCs from just having each player play Solamith and bombard their way through every encounter?
• The summon monster is kinda weak, given the very limited number of uses. Consider allowing one to use a lower level summon monster skill, more times a day? So at level N, I can use the highest level summon monster (Say, Summon Monster V) I have available once a day, or use one a step lower (Summon Monster IV) twice a day?
  
  If Foreign Soulfire fuel is a concern here, consider having lesser summoned creatures (ie. the summon monster IV instance) be destroyed absolutely by the offering of their flesh, effectively giving you only one unbuffed shot.
• I would reword "is Reflex half (10 + 1/2HD + Con modifer)." to "allows a reflex save (10 + ...) for half damage.
• State, in each ability description, when that ability is gained.
• Widen Soulfire - I'd state that taking that extra damage is voluntary. Reword to something like "At Xth level, the Solamith can choose to take extra damage when using Soulfire. For every 2 damage taken in this way..."
• Again, with Abyssal Defenses, Solamith gains the ability at a level different from other demons. Consider switching the place of Abyssal Defenses and Growth.
• Maximize Soulfire - For every 4 extra points of damage taken... so if I take 8 self damage, then I get +2 die of damage (Maximize Soulfire) and +10' blast radius (Widen Soulfire)? Or do they not stack? Clarify.
• Finally, I don't like it having full BAB and Str bonuses. One or the other (If ability to land ranged attacks is an issue, consider allowing Str to apply to the ranged attack rolls).

Animated Object

• Skipping this one since Magicyop is away & I don't know when he'll be back.

Thorn

• First thing that caught my eye was the confusion in the table. For the stat boosts, is that a choice between Dex, Wis and Cha, or is Dex given for sure, then we choose between Wis and Cha?
  
  • Consider "+1 Dex. +1 Wis or +1 Cha"
• For the enhancement bonus ability (I know there's been a lot of headaches here, the example caught me off guard, since the text, as written, didn't lead me to believe you could choose all abilities anew. Reword to "These special abilities are chosen anew whenever the thorn acquires a new HD and apply to all weapons used with the ability." ?
• In your given example, referring to the enhancement bonuses, wouldn't you, at 4th level, just have a +1 weapon? Not a +1 Keen?
• "of ammunition to grow curved thorns in can take proper advantage of." is awkwardly worded.
• "possession and for up to one minute after it leaves." is an incomplete sentence.
• For the sneak attack, I'd consider stating it stacks with rogue levels for the purpose of progressing sneak attack. Also, consider giving it the ability to swap sneak attack for sneak attack analogues (Scout/ninja variants, should the Thorn opt to take levels in either of those classes).
• "Drawing from the power of their linage, third level Thorns and higher with a free hand can form and fire..." is awkwardly worded. Rephrase? Also, lineage is spelled wrong (well, it won't show up on spell check, since it's referring to lines; linage means the # of lines on a piece of printed material). The more you know!
• "Thorn's with iterative attacks" - you mean Thorns.
• "then it has the option of doing bludgeoning damage instead)" - the words 'option' and 'instead' kind of contradict each other. Replace 'instead' with something else?
• "DC of 10 + 1/2 HD + Chosen Ability Mod" - this appears under slumbering shots. I'd reword to "DC of 10 + ½ HD + Training/Talent Ability Mod". Or be even clearer; "DC of 10 + ½ HD + Cha mod for Talent Thorns or Wis mod for Training Thorns."
• "Against an offguard opponent" - define what this means. Offguard isn't a word, either.
• "Thorn's chosen ability modifier per successful attack" - again, the chosen ability modifier reference here is a bit weird.
• You reference subduing strikes, but it's not clear from the monster class entry what this refers to. Reference to removed material? Something that needs outlining?
• "These weapons are particularly cumbersome and bestow a -1 penalty to attack rolls, armour class, and skills relating to movement..." - Initially, on reading this, I thought the penalty applied to the thorn. Clarify?
• "Further saves against the Thorn's slumbering shots ability are made at an addition -1 penalty per stuck slumbering arrow, bolt or bullet ontop of any it may be taking from having non-lethal damage, or the attacks being non-lethal." - run on sentence that goes off rails. Fix/clarify?

Swarmshifter

• Abilities need proper paragraphs.
• Still have reservations about friend of the plague. BBEG vampire turns into a swarm... and can't attack you? Even if you're mortal enemies? Just doesn't compute.
• You shift between referring to the swarmshifter as 'you' and 'her'.
• Still referring to CL where you probably mean CR, under swarmshifting.
• Could stand to be bumped up to 1 swarm per 4HD.

Wendigo

• Skipping this one since Magicyop is away & I don't know when he'll be back.
• Wow, he's got a lot of creatures pending completion.

Grell

• There's an accidental paragraph break under Abberant body.
• I don't like creatures having unspecific "[creature] body" names. There's tons of aberrations, so there could be a lot of confusion if many creatures have the ability "Aberrant body", with each doing the same thing.
• "This damage increases by a step when the grell gains a size category." (Powerful Tentacles) -- Read as is, you could see it as gaining the standard scaling of tentacle damage from growth, and then you'd get another step of improvement from Powerful Tentacles. Reword to "This damage increases by a step when the grell gains a size category, as normal"?
• Otherwise ok.

Umber Hulk

• I'm afraid I can't add anything to this monster, as it veers so wildly from the base monster that flavor & mechanics just don't reconcile.

Yellow Musk Creeper

• Skipping this one since Magicyop is away & I don't know when he'll be back.

Gibbering Mouther

• You reference a +1 Str in the changelog. It does not appear in the creature, as far as I can tell.
• Otherwise looks pretty good

Werescorpion

• Is this an official monster? There's so many therianthropes that I can't tell anymore. You don't list a source, changelog or commentary that might help me any.
• What's the duration on the changed shape? Can I change shape & stay that way until 26 hours later, change back in the event I need to (opening a door) & then change to a scorpion again, just using one daily use, there?
• You state the number of uses a day twice.
• Does assuming hybrid and assuming scorpion form use the same use-pool of alternate forms?
• Quite frankly, I'm not sold on the full-scorpion form. Sure, you get a bit more strength to damage, but why wouldn't I just assume hybrid form & stay that way indefinitely? I wouldn't really need to change forms & I'd get massive stat bonuses.
• You need to change the table header for form improvement, as it refers to ectomanthrope rather than werescorpion.
• The jump check bonus is a little weird. I'm looking at the monstrous scorpion and seeing nothing jump based.
• You state "Lycanthrope" in 'Size'.
• Entomanothrope is kind of misplaced. It's too broad a category. Narrow it down to Dromothrope? Dromopoda are the official classification that scorpions fall into.

Pandorym

• Forgive me, but I'm skipping this as I've not seen Geckoking active and I'm not up to reviewing a 20 level class.

Dwarven Ancestor

• Str bonuses & Full BAB make it a better bruiser than many melee monsters in this thread.
• "one size larged" should be 'one size larger'.
• It saddens me that the class basically boils down to "wade into combat and spam Stone Hammer" -- The damage outclasses what you're liable to output with melee until mid-late levels (not necessarily even then), and the actions enemies lose from being knocked prone make up for any turns you 'waste' using Stone Hammer & having it be saved against. When you're not able to use Stone Hammer, then your combat options remain really, really boring, especially for a 6th level class.
• Blink out is perhaps too powerful. It basically lets you avoid one round's attacks per encounter and/or avoid a given hazard/terrain feature. I'd give it a more defined # of uses than 'once per encounter', as 'encounter' is fairly vague for something as versatile as Blink Out (ToB maneuvers use 'encounter'
  but are largely combat focused).

Jovoc

• Hasn't been changed since my prior feedback.

Demilich

• Soul Steal needs elaboration. It isn't clear exactly how you go about stealing a soul.
• Darker Touch is flat out useless at epic level. Enough so that it's not worth including on the class.
• Except... can it target itself with Darker Touch? If so, then you've got a mild use for it. It's still largely a dead level, though.
• "Any caster trying to break this curse, must also make a CL check (DC=10+HD) or the cure attempt fails." - this crops up at the end of the ability entry, and feels out of place there. Put the CL check/failure note around where the removal is mentioned in the body of text?
• Deathless Terror isn't that great. "Fewer than twice the Demilich's HD" is better than it was, but most enemies that are worth talking about at epic level are going to be immune to mind affecting abilities. It's just kinda underwhelming. The ability to terrify those of 1/2 your HD is probably never going to come up - you're a level 24 PC and you're unable to terrify a CR 11 cloud giant.
• Soul Absorption is probably why anyone would take the class, for the easy stat bonuses.
• The class table references Greater Fell Defense. There is no ability described.

Gargoyle

• Reviewed not long ago.

Remorhaz

• I think Heat may last a bit too long. If it had a shorter duration (ie. rounds equal to Con modifier), then enemies at least have an option when dealing with the Remorhaz, that doesn't involve throwing themselves suicidally at the thing or standing there & taking it (they can take cover or postpone long enough to force the ability to time out).
• As is, it's a really powerful effect that I think would auto-win many encounters. You're a melee brute and can already initiate battles remarkably well (start every battle by scouting forward, then using Ambush to knock a key foe prone) and you've got a heat aura that turns you into an absolute beast, damagewise. Foes with natural attacks wouldn't be able to take you out before you took them out, and you can have the ability for 1 encounter a day at 1st, 2 at 3rd, 3 at 6th and 4 encounters a day at 9th... at which point you've pretty much got heat on you for every relevant encounter you face.
• Compare to a barbarian's rage. At early levels, the barbarian gets +4 Str, +4 con and -2 AC, among other things. Your rage will last less time than heat, grants you ~2-4 damage per attack (as opposed to 7 average damage on heat for every attack delivered & on some attacks received), and you get less rages over levels than Remorhaz gets heat over levels. This isn't counting the other bonuses one gets, like destroying weapons.
• Pyroclastic Belch - the cone of steam is kinda vague. Save? Roll to Hit?
• Firey Surge - Firey isn't a word. You mean Fiery.
• Otherwise, no major complaints.

Others I've reviewed recently. Pandorym, Half-Golem, and MagicYop's creatures I've not reviewed, but that should cover everything on the unfinished list.

[Saidoro]

Others I've reviewed recently. Pandorym, Half-Golem, and MagicYop's creatures I've not reviewed, but that should cover everything on the unfinished list.

For some reason cloaker isn't on the unfinished list.

[bladesmith]

Remorhaz

• I think Heat may last a bit too long. If it had a shorter duration (ie. rounds equal to Con modifier), then enemies at least have an option when dealing with the Remorhaz, that doesn't involve throwing themselves suicidally at the thing or standing there & taking it (they can take cover or postpone long enough to force the ability to time out).
  Huh, I made it last just as long as a Barbarian's rage...
• As is, it's a really powerful effect that I think would auto-win many encounters. You're a melee brute and can already initiate battles remarkably well (start every battle by scouting forward, then using Ambush to knock a key foe prone) and you've got a heat aura that turns you into an absolute beast, damagewise. Foes with natural attacks wouldn't be able to take you out before you took them out, and you can have the ability for 1 encounter a day at 1st, 2 at 3rd, 3 at 6th and 4 encounters a day at 9th... at which point you've pretty much got heat on you for every relevant encounter you face.
  Well, to some extent, that was the goal. You've got a decent amount of hit points, and some natural armor, but in the end Heat is often your best defense as a Remorhaz. It makes the big bruiser monsters a little more wary of going toe-to-toe with you, when you are otherwise mostly a first initiative wonder. Still I might slow down the progression to 1/4-5 HD.
• Compare to a barbarian's rage. At early levels, the barbarian gets +4 Str, +4 con and -2 AC, among other things. Your rage will last less time than heat, grants you ~2-4 damage per attack (as opposed to 7 average damage on heat for every attack delivered & on some attacks received), and you get less rages over levels than Remorhaz gets heat over levels. This isn't counting the other bonuses one gets, like destroying weapons.
  Uh, Rage lasts 3+new CON score, or 5+ original CON score. Which is what Heat is set at. Still, with Con bonuses, it might be a little much, so I'll shorten it a bit. Also, it looks like a lot of the confusion comes in thinking that the Heat damage applies to your natural attacks. Like the original monster, the damage does NOT apply to a Remorhaz's natural attacks. I'll make sure to put a sentence or two in there to explain that.
• Pyroclastic Belch - the cone of steam is kinda vague. Save? Roll to Hit?
  Bah, I thought I had a save listed in the entry, but it was either never there, or got deleted in one of the edits. Fixed
• Firey Surge - Firey isn't a word. You mean Fiery.
  My spellchecker either just sucks, or has been putting up with my creative spelling for to long.
• Otherwise, no major complaints.

Awesomesauce.

Thanks for bringing up the balance issues. I know that I have a rather odd sense of what is and isn't balanced, so having you looking at it has helped a lot.
EDIT: Cut down Heat to 1/4 HD, and lasting 3+Con. Eh, not sure if 2 rounds will make that much of a difference in the long run, but I don't think it's going to matter a whole lot by the point those two rounds are not mattering much. If that makes sense. Also, cut down the Strength bonuses a bit, so that you aren't getting STR and CON in one level.

[Chambers]

Hyudra

I've edited in my proposed change to Stone Hammer.

Stone Hammer (Su): At 5th level the dwarf ancestor gains the ability to strike the ground with his weapon as a standard action causing a localized earthquake. All enemies standing on the ground within 20ft of the dwarf ancestor must make a Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 the dwarf ancestor's HD + the dwarf ancestors Strength modifier) or fall prone and take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage. Enemies that make their Reflex negate both falling prone and the damage.

The damage increases by +1d4 every 2 HD the dwarf ancestor has.

So now it's comparable to the Stomp power, but scales a little bit in damage with hit dice.

I'm not really sure that 'encounter' is a vague term. There are a number of maneuvers that have uses outside of combat; the shadow teleport ones come to mind. I don't know if there's a hard rule on how often you can use maneuvers out of combat. If there is one, then that would apply to Blink Out as well. If there isn't one, then whatever common sense house rule applies to maneuvers out of combat should be applied to Blink Out.

I feel like we both know each others position on the Full Bab/Str issue. No sense in rehashing old arguments.

I think one of the difficulties I've had with this project is that in my head I'm designing a player race, while the mechanics of it are supposed to be on par with a class. I think that's one of the reason why I've been hesitant to give a lot of active type abilities.

---

With the change to Stone Hammer I'm pretty satisfied with the class. It's a defense orientated class, with heavy protections, enhanced use of combat maneuvers, and some active abilities. I appreciate the time you've taken to review the class. Now I'd like to get some other opinions on it. So far I think you and Gorgondantess have been the only ones to review it. Forgive me if someone else has and I've missed it.

[TheGeckoKing]

Blech. Basically, Writer's Block + School Exams + Other Stuff = Not a nice life,
so I do apologize for disappearing. It's just making monster classes became painful to do, and so I thought it best to take a break rather than drag my heels about.
Swarmshifer has been edited, Pandoryrm will be gotten to in the morning, and I am simply sick to death with regards to the Umber Hulk. Nothing I do seems right, so I give up. Consider that scrapped.

[Hyudra]

Cloaker

• Part of me expected the cloaker to have a bit more skills. It's more of a roguish creature than anything else... so I figured broad skill list, some conditional but potentially powerful attacks and some general versatility.
• "Cloakers do not take penalties to jump checks for having a low movement speed." - this bears clarification. There's a lot of ways movement interacts with jump. For one thing, jump distance is capped by your movement speed... so is that limit now gone?
• "At ? HD" - clarify.
• You mention freedom from lighting conditions, but you don't actually state that lighting conditions affect the ability in the first place.
• One Shadow Shift ability is named Dancing Visions but applies Mirror Image. Kind of confusing. (I know it's this way on the cloaker, but still)
• I hate save-or-fall prone, for the record. I've avoided it on all of my creatures thus far. Prone is an extremely effective attack type that I feel should more or less be contained to melee & melee techniques. The nausea effect, by knocking someone down and making them nauseated, effectively denies them a round of actions (they can take one action, which pretty much has to be standing up, which provokes an attack of opportunity from any adjacent foes).
• Hold Monster is a 5th level spell, that most casters wouldn't have access to until ~10th level (Bards 8th). You're getting it at 5th level. A bit too much, methinks.
• As such, I think the moan abilities, pretty much across the board, are problematic, and detract from the Cloaker's schtick, which should be cloaking & engulfing people.

[Gorgondantess]

I am simply sick to death with regards to the Umber Hulk. Nothing I do seems right, so I give up. Consider that scrapped.

Consider this a tentative dibs on the umber hulk, then. I want to do something that's not ridiculously long for once.

[TheGeckoKing]

Okey Dokey then. I know what I wanna do in place of the Umber Hulk, anyway. I call dibs on the Vivisector (MMV, p200). I'll do it when I get time.

[Saidoro]

Cloaker

• Part of me expected the cloaker to have a bit more skills. It's more of a roguish creature than anything else... so I figured broad skill list, some conditional but potentially powerful attacks and some general versatility.
  The base creature has spot, hide, listen and move silently, it's ambushy, but other than that not very rogue-like. If the general consensus goes towards rogue I'll probably change it, but for now it stays.
• "Cloakers do not take penalties to jump checks for having a low movement speed." - this bears clarification. There's a lot of ways movement interacts with jump. For one thing, jump distance is capped by your movement speed... so is that limit now gone?
  I'll change it to "Cloakers are treated as though they had a base land speed of 30 ft for the purposes of using the jump skill." That should be a bit clearer.
• "At ? HD" - clarify.The Antigamer said it should come in at a higher level, but I wasn't really sure where to put it, or if it should be in there at all.
• You mention freedom from lighting conditions, but you don't actually state that lighting conditions affect the ability in the first place."While in shadowy areas the cloaker can use the following abilities."
• One Shadow Shift ability is named Dancing Visions but applies Mirror Image. Kind of confusing. (I know it's this way on the cloaker, but still)I'll change that.
• I hate save-or-fall prone, for the record. I've avoided it on all of my creatures thus far. Prone is an extremely effective attack type that I feel should more or less be contained to melee & melee techniques. The nausea effect, by knocking someone down and making them nauseated, effectively denies them a round of actions (they can take one action, which pretty much has to be standing up, which provokes an attack of opportunity from any adjacent foes). What if I make it "Affected characters become nauseated for 1d4+1 rounds, those who fail their saves by 5 or more also fall prone."
• Hold Monster is a 5th level spell, that most casters wouldn't have access to until ~10th level (Bards 8th). You're getting it at 5th level. A bit too much, methinks.Okay, I can delay that.
• As such, I think the moan abilities, pretty much across the board, are problematic, and detract from the Cloaker's schtick, which should be cloaking & engulfing people. I disagree. Without moan a fifth level cloaker really has one really effective combat strategy, it leaps at one foe of large size or smaller, engulfs them, and spends the rest of combat slowly biting them to death. It can use shadow shift to grant itself concealment if it's in a poorly lit area and it can swing it's tail at it's other enemies, but really it's main contribution will be locking down a single enemy of large size or smaller. But what if it's fighting a large number of enemies, or an enemy to big to engulf? The five levels it sunk into cloaker will give it some minor defensive abilities, but that's about it. Without moan there's a wide range of encounters where it won't be effective (there are far more huge+ monsters than there are undead and constructs) moan means the ability to meaningfully contribute far more often than not.

I'll make a few changes on this and wait on a response for others.

[Zemro]

Thorn

• First thing that caught my eye was the confusion in the table. For the stat boosts, is that a choice between Dex, Wis and Cha, or is Dex given for sure, then we choose between Wis and Cha?
  
  • Consider "+1 Dex. +1 Wis or +1 Cha"
• For the enhancement bonus ability (I know there's been a lot of headaches here, the example caught me off guard, since the text, as written, didn't lead me to believe you could choose all abilities anew. Reword to "These special abilities are chosen anew whenever the thorn acquires a new HD and apply to all weapons used with the ability." ?

Simple enough, anything to cut down on confusion is a good change to make in my books.

• In your given example, referring to the enhancement bonuses, wouldn't you, at 4th level, just have a +1 weapon? Not a +1 Keen?

I'll quote myself here, I think you may have missed a bit (understandable, considering the impressive amount of monsters you critiqued there).

Sometimes a Thorn may find himself faced with a challenge in which his weapon is not sufficient. Those of fourth level have a strong enough connection to the faerie courts to do something about that. They may empowered a thorned weapon they are wielding, granting it a +1 enhancement bonus per 4HD. In addition to the enhancement bonus the weapon also gains any number of weapon special abilities, provided their total equivalent bonus does not exceed the thorn's HD/4 (rounded down). These special abilities are chosen anew whenever the thorn acquires a new HD and apply to all weapons used with the ability. So a Thorn with four class levels could choose Keen, turning weapons into +1 Keen Weapons, but upon gaining another level decide to replace Keen and make his weapons +1 Merciful Weapons.

So, the amount of abilities is determined by a separate metric, I could clarify that it's just the weapon's special abilities that are checked against the HD/4?

• "of ammunition to grow curved thorns in can take proper advantage of." is awkwardly worded.
• "possession and for up to one minute after it leaves." is an incomplete sentence.

Made some small changed to address the ammunition portion of that ability. Though, on the second point, there's more to that sentence, and it seems to be complete to me: "This process is a supernatural ability and lasts as long as the weapon is in the Thorn's possession, and for up to one minute after it leaves."

• For the sneak attack, I'd consider stating it stacks with rogue levels for the purpose of progressing sneak attack. Also, consider giving it the ability to swap sneak attack for sneak attack analogues (Scout/ninja variants, should the Thorn opt to take levels in either of those classes).

Well, it's progression is a little different then the rogue's... though I'll add a bit on stacking and see how that sounds.

• "Drawing from the power of their linage, third level Thorns and higher with a free hand can form and fire..." is awkwardly worded. Rephrase? Also, lineage is spelled wrong (well, it won't show up on spell check, since it's referring to lines; linage means the # of lines on a piece of printed material). The more you know!
• "Thorn's with iterative attacks" - you mean Thorns.
• "then it has the option of doing bludgeoning damage instead)" - the words 'option' and 'instead' kind of contradict each other. Replace 'instead' with something else?

And knowing is half the battle! (Aka fixed)

• "DC of 10 + 1/2 HD + Chosen Ability Mod" - this appears under slumbering shots. I'd reword to "DC of 10 + ½ HD + Training/Talent Ability Mod". Or be even clearer; "DC of 10 + ½ HD + Cha mod for Talent Thorns or Wis mod for Training Thorns."
• "Thorn's chosen ability modifier per successful attack" - again, the chosen ability modifier reference here is a bit weird.

Changed, that's a much clearer way of putting things.

• "Against an offguard opponent" - define what this means. Offguard isn't a word, either.

It's a fluff sentence, the abilities's requirements for functioning are listed in the next sentence. I've no problems removing that line to increase clarity.

• You reference subduing strikes, but it's not clear from the monster class entry what this refers to. Reference to removed material? Something that needs outlining?

Oh, wow, that's in reference to removed material. Initial the Thorn had an ability that increased the amount of non-lethal damage he inflicted, by an amount similar to sneak attack. I forgot about that clause when I reverted it to sneak attack to keep things more open and clearer. I suppose the closest analogue would be to say they 'take an extra 50% damage from any of the Thorns attacks that deal non-lethal damage'.

• "These weapons are particularly cumbersome and bestow a -1 penalty to attack rolls, armour class, and skills relating to movement..." - Initially, on reading this, I thought the penalty applied to the thorn. Clarify?
• "Further saves against the Thorn's slumbering shots ability are made at an addition -1 penalty per stuck slumbering arrow, bolt or bullet ontop of any it may be taking from having non-lethal damage, or the attacks being non-lethal." - run on sentence that goes off rails. Fix/clarify?

Also fixed/clarified, thanks very much for taking the time to review the Thorn, and all the other creature on the unfinished list. The class itself has now been updated.

I'm sorry I haven't really been that active for making comments and critique lately, between holidays and classes starting up I haven't had much time to sit down. I will continue to endeavour to find that time, though, as I really do like helping things along with this project.

[AugustNights]

@ Hyudra, Re Werescorpion: Werescorpion never published in a book, but entomanthrope is a wizards ordained template. Ordained? Okay-ed? Made.

[NineThePuma]

A number of Kython classes are mistakenly listed as Base classes when they are, in fact, optional (mutually exclusive) PrCs.

Just reiterating, cause no one addressed it =V

[The Antigamer]

Just reiterating, cause no one addressed it =V

War Troll is also, since we're pointing things out.

[Hyudra]

Fixed the erroneous entries made by another thread OP, once upon a time.

Responses to changes to Basilisk would be welcome (see changelog or my post a 1/2 page back with changelog in it.)

Since Manticore (which may need a few more tweaks to respond to comments) and Basilisk are in finishing stages, am considering what monster I want to do next. Storm Giant is an extensive work in progress, and I'm left to figure out what to do while I plunk away on that.

I'd love to do Chimera, but that's been called by Kobold-Bard, sadly.

As far as discussion points for the thread, what would people think of the following rules (Just to generate conversation)?:

• Can't call dibs on any monsters unless you've more or less kept up with your monsters-in-progress. (ie. If you've got 3+ monsters on the unfinished list, no calling dibs).
• Limits on # of monsters you can call dibs on, with added #s to veteran thread members who get their stuff done. For example, I've got little problem with Gorgondantess calling dibs on as many monsters as he has, but MagicYop has two or three called monsters & something like five to seven unfinished monsters pending completion.
• If a monster goes unfinished due to a lack of response to critiques for 1 month or longer (See Bleakborn, etc), and is reasonably done, it may be polished up & reposted by a veteran thread member.

[Kobold-Bard]

@Hyudra: I am interested with the Chimera, but I'd never stand in the way of love I'll do something else.

[Mystic Muse]

Hyudra, would you mind putting this version of the Styx Dragon in the "Finished monsters" list? It clears some things up and I got rid of some errors from the previous version, including cleaning up the table, capitalizing the names of abilities, and removing the EX and SU tags since that was easier than writing them in on every ability that needed them. It seems to keep getting removed from the list and replaced with the previous version and I can't imagine why.

[Gorgondantess]

Fixed the erroneous entries made by another thread OP, once upon a time.

What were those?

As far as discussion points for the thread, what would people think of the following rules (Just to generate conversation)?:

• Can't call dibs on any monsters unless you've more or less kept up with your monsters-in-progress. (ie. If you've got 3+ monsters on the unfinished list, no calling dibs).
• Limits on # of monsters you can call dibs on, with added #s to veteran thread members who get their stuff done. For example, I've got little problem with Gorgondantess calling dibs on as many monsters as he has, but MagicYop has two or three called monsters & something like five to seven unfinished monsters pending completion.
• If a monster goes unfinished due to a lack of response to critiques for 1 month or longer (See Bleakborn, etc), and is reasonably done, it may be polished up & reposted by a veteran thread member.

Honestly, I don't really think we need hard and fast rules. Just guidelines- as in, "If you want to make a new monster and you have 2 unfinished, ask". "If you haven't touched your monster in months and haven't made clear you're going to finish it, it may be finished for you by another", etc.

Anyways, tonight I'm going to sit down and have a long, hard chat with the Pseudonatural Creature. Hopefully I'll finish it within the next several hours. And not get frustrated, throw my hands up and go to something else. >.>