The LA-assignment thread

[javcs]

I think the argument at the time was "Epic levels are already busted beyond relief, so why does it matter if a solar is better than a cleric?" But to me it brings up echoes of Tippy's analysis of high-level spellcasters vs. gods—yes, you have godlike powers, but the gods have the same godlike powers while also having actual god powers, so they can do everything you can do plus unlimited free miracles and whatnot. Gods win every time.

It's kind of like that for solars—as overpowered as casters normally are, solars are that with free wishes, a limitless army of free minions, and a bunch of other powerful abilities that are difficult for normal characters to get their hands on. And the argument of epic levels already being irreparably broken cuts both ways, because it means that the LA isn't anywhere near as costly as it would be for a lower-level character.

I believe the relevant point goes more or less along the lines of "yes, this is better than a straight caster of its racial casting ability of equal level, but at its level, the relative advantage it possesses is not worth any more LA".
Sure, the Solar's better than a Cleric 22 or Cleric 24. Sure, a Formian Queen is better than a Sorcerer 20 But the Cleric 22 or 24 isn't really all that much weaker in relative terms, and the same goes for the Sorcerer 20.
At least, in any game where playing a Solar or Formian Queen is on the table, I'm going to make the assumption that there's a decent level of practical optimization going on, even if it's only on a utterly dependent on handbooks/guides level.

[Daedroth]

My bet on Frost Worm is LA+0

PD: Really, Dire Stirge said "Not on this thread", so don't keep talking about Solar and Formian Queen please

[Flickerdart]

Who wants to run an Epic Gestalt monster game, and be a Solar//Formian Queen?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Look: this debate has been going on for a week now, and I'm honestly getting a bit tired. Can we accept that the +0 and +2 sides aren't going to agree any time soon, accept +1 as a viable compromise, and move on to the next monster?.

You posted formian queen two days ago. Now I am just confused by what you mean by a week.

[khadgar567]

Who wants to run an Epic Gestalt monster game, and be a Solar//Formian Queen?

ow. come on stirge said discus it else were and you just put now recruiting for most broken monster gestalt game add.

[Divayth Fyr]

You posted formian queen two days ago. Now I am just confused by what you mean by a week.

The fact that the discussion started before the Queen got posted.

[Inevitability]

Frost Worm

According to their description, frost worms are 40 feet long and 5 feet in diameter, and weigh 8000 pounds. Assuming they're cilinder-shaped, they're ridiculously rare at only 40 kilograms a cubic meter, which is less dense than styrofoam. If submerged in liquid hydrogen, they would float.

Frost Worms have 14 magical beast RHD, and are Huge. Their strength and constitution are quite high, their other stats average or cripplingly low. Movement-wise they can crawl and bury, even through ice. The worms have a single natural attack, but a mouthpick weapon is probably a better choice. They've also got the cold subtype, which is slightly detrimental in the average campaign but useful if one wants to go for a swim in liquid hydrogen.

Their various special abilities are more interesting. The unimaginatively named 'Cold' is a source of minor bonus damage against foes with natural attacks, but the breath weapon is very nice (though the recharge time kills it). Death Throes will probably do more harm than good and is unlikely to happen anyway (and how is the worm nonmagically turning to ice and exploding, anyway?).

Finally, there's the worm's unique ability Trill, a giant AoE that stuns, doesn't seem to have a set duration, is easy to immunize your allies to, and isn't even immediately broken when affected individuals get attacked. It's entirely possible for a frost worm to stun the entire battlefield then continue trilling as its allies fight the stunned enemies one by one. That said, as a sonic mind-affecting stun there's a lot of ways to be immune.

In the end, I don't think frost worms need a positive LA. 14 HD is a big price to pay for what's essentially a save-or-suck and boosted melee abilities. On the other hand, -0 LA seems unnecessary too: frost worms can, with the right optimization, contribute effectively to a party.

[ZamielVanWeber]

The fact that the discussion started before the Queen got posted.

Fair enough. Thank you.

As for the frost worm -0 may be appropriate. It is huge (long) which sucks, death throes means you cannot be raised by Raise Dead, which sucks, your natural attack routine is awful so it mandates a mouthpick weapon more than usual, and you are missing out on a pile of magic item slots.

The only thing I see frost worm bringing to the table is a really solid grapple mod and that is beaten by a spell that showed up 5 levels ago.

[Daedroth]

Shrieker would be a fun one to assignate LA.... one of the few creatures capable of "nothing at all", literally. Its the creature equivalent of a nerfed Alarm spell.

Dire Strige, for that one you will requiere a brand new LA, "LA Really?"

[Troacctid]

I believe the relevant point goes more or less along the lines of "yes, this is better than a straight caster of its racial casting ability of equal level, but at its level, the relative advantage it possesses is not worth any more LA".
Sure, the Solar's better than a Cleric 22 or Cleric 24. Sure, a Formian Queen is better than a Sorcerer 20 But the Cleric 22 or 24 isn't really all that much weaker in relative terms, and the same goes for the Sorcerer 20.
At least, in any game where playing a Solar or Formian Queen is on the table, I'm going to make the assumption that there's a decent level of practical optimization going on, even if it's only on a utterly dependent on handbooks/guides level.

If it takes a significant amount of PO to be better than what a monster character is doing out of the box, that's probably a sign that the LA is too aggressive.

In general, I think monsters with 9th level casting need to be treated very differently than other epic monsters like balors and dragons. The key is that a level adjustment simply doesn't matter the way it used to—you've got basically everything you want, so delaying one or two levels doesn't matter, because what are you actually delaying? Like, a third or two thirds of a feat? SLA Wish is clearly better than two thirds of a feat, right?

[Inevitability]

If it takes a significant amount of PO to be better than what a monster character is doing out of the box, that's probably a sign that the LA is too aggressive.

In general, I think monsters with 9th level casting need to be treated very differently than other epic monsters like balors and dragons. The key is that a level adjustment simply doesn't matter the way it used to—you've got basically everything you want, so delaying one or two levels doesn't matter, because what are you actually delaying? Like, a third or two thirds of a feat? SLA Wish is clearly better than two thirds of a feat, right?

Troacctid, I have asked for people to take this discussion elsewhere multiple times now. I would be happy to follow and participate in this conversation if only it would be moved to another thread: there's no need to clutter up this one with a few pages of back-and-forth arguing about the subtle ways in which epic levels change LA's.

Thanks in advance.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The following are my comments on Dire_Stirge's more recent LA assignments. Well, most of them are on the side comments surrounding them, but still.

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(Whirlwind Blast is bad even for blasting)

Quite, though it compares favorably with reach and thrown weapons. The range is slightly better (unless you can eat a -2 or more to your thrown weapon attack), you might hit a couple enemies if you line it up right, the damage is better (higher barring a very high Strength score or a high one with a reach weapon, and untyped), and guaranteed to deal a little damage even on a successful saving throw. On the downside, evasion, possible friendly fire, and you can't sneak attack with it.
It's not great compared to comparable class features (spells, eldritch blast, etc), but it's not without a place.

I'm getting Planetar flashbacks from this. Who at WotC decided to create not one, but multiple under CR'ed cleric-casting celestials?

They were probably thinking in terms of celestial subtypes, rather than celestials altogether. "Hey, eladrins don't have a clericky species. We should add one."

So what LA to give here? +4 seems like a minimum, but even then I'm having trouble seeing people pick cleric over this. Full casters being stronger than other classes, I think a LA of +6 fits best here.
Now to steel myself for the flood of disagreement...

At-will healing, teleportation, flight, incorporeality, greater invisibility, (minor) buffs, charms, illusions, mind-reading, dispelling, paralysis, and lights? Even without anything else, I'd be willing to lose a few levels for that. Combined with all that else, +6 seems reasonable.
Since the people arguing for +5 and +7 are roughly equal in number, I'd say the overall consensus is that you're right. Some people would always play an ECL 16 ghaele, some never would, and that's the best you can hope for.

After browsing a few hundred pictures, I've come to the conclusion there's two ways to portray air elementals: 'mist person' and 'tornado person'. Ironically, both these things are closer to water than air.

I'd wager that clouds are more air than water (by volume, and probably weight as well). My intuition is that if they were mostly water, they'd clump together until they formed chunks of water large enough that they couldn't stay aloft.

8 HD this time. The DR is pretty neat, but the increase to ability scores is much smaller compared to the small --> medium jump. The extra slam isn't that impressive either. I doubt there will be many medium creatures to whirlwind around by this level, too.

Never discount the possibility of humanoids with class levels and possibly templates. They're quite common boss monsters, if nothing else.

Several creatures have had their LA updated to '-0' as per the community's suggestion.

This was a good suggestion.
...Obvious, but I'm saying it anyways.

Just noted that according to their description earth elementals look like the material from which they're conjured, which I guess is pretty cool. The only problem: what happens when you try to summon one on a ship, or up in the air?

A question-answering column on the (3.5-era) WotC site tackled the question of summoning monsters into thin air (using lions and earth elementals as examples, for pouncing and crushing, respectively). The column-writer suggested taking the rule prohibiting summoning monsters into an environment which can't support them literally, which would prevent both summoning earth elementals in midair and summoning lions on top of rickety platforms.
As for ships...if wood elementals aren't your thing, there's probably enough dirt and grime around. (Or the description is referring to a burrowing elemental and not one being summoned.)

Remember: any druid can just get a small earth elemental companion and have it scout.

Not any druid, only a druid with the right feat. And we all know how many feats are crucial for a strong druid build, right?
The idea of an earth elemental rogue is enticing, especially if I could consistently sneak up on enemies and sneak attack from the walls. But it's not enticing enough to warrant losing a die and a half of sneak attack damage and three levels of other goodies.

I considered writing a long post on the logical (im)possibilities of living fire that doesn't need fuel or oxygen here, then I remembered magic.

Might as well complain about fluids remaining in consistent forms, or rocks being able to move themselves semi-intelligently.

Vortex is inferior to Whirlwind, melee ability is inferior to an earth elemental's... I'm not seeing any reasons to play those...
...and the horribad Water Mastery. -4 to attack and damage rolls if your foe is touching the ground is very annoying.

It's kind of a shame that water elementals are flat-out worse than basically every other species of elemental, unless you're lucky enough to be in a large body of water, in which case it's maybe a bit better (if your party can leverage your advantages by knocking enemies into the water).

Just how many subraces did WotC feel the need to include?

It's elves, so as many as can be shoehorned in.
Side note: If we assume most elves pick professions/classes which suit their (sub)racial ability bonuses...it's a step more surprising that elves haven't taken over the world. +2 Intelligence on most wizards, +2 Strength or no Constitution penalty on the soldiers, drow and aquatic special forces...and don't get me started on the special elven prestige classes.

...though it shouldn't be hard to convince the DM that filchers can wield weapons...

"You need two hands to wield a greatsword!"
"Um...the filcher has four hands."
"Exactly! That's too many hands!"

So what would fit this guy? Etheral Jaunt fits some sort of sneaky character, so maybe a Swordsage with Assassin's Stance? Skillmonkey might be difficult with that Int penalty, and Marauders get a bonus to Wis.

If it wasn't for the Intelligence penalty, I'd say rogue. Even without a mouthpick weapon, we're talking the equivalent of a (mundane) short sword with 1.5xStr, sneak attacking potentially every other round. Though I don't know enough about the Nine Swords classes to think of them.

How ironic: my last post as an ettin is about them.

Good timing.

In the end, I just can't see the queen being played at epic levels when people could also have actual epic spellcasting. +0 LA.
*braces self for tsunami of disagreement*

20th-level sorcerer or equivalent versus Queen Formian.
The sorcerer can, of course, take the form of the queen with shapechange or similar, though without the spells and spell-like abilities so I'm not sure why I'd bother; there are better targets. Similarly, the queen could So at heart, we're looking at three more levels of sorcerer spells plus less dependence on shapechange (and hence less vulnerability in antimagic fields) versus the Queen's spell-like abilities, assorted supernatural abilities, and formian traits.
The SLA's are solid. In combat, dictum, hold monster, and order's wrath seem like the best bets; at-will AoE damage (admittadly outclassed by a properly-shaped eldritch blast), a save-or-die, and a short-range saveless slew of negative status effects on any nonlawful creature near you. (It's bad if you have bards or barbarians or their like in the party, but if you're hanging out with an upper-tier being of law, you're probably lawful yourself.) Out of combat, you have various divination spells including divination, as well as charm monster. That's a respectable array of spells, but I don't think I'd sacrifice more than one level for them. Certainly not one level and mobility. Fast healing 2 has its uses, most obviously in healing outside of combat. Spell resistance has a solid chance of blocking level-appropriate casters' spells, and almost entirely protects you from partial casters' effects. The other abilities are, of course, situational. Oh, and let's not forget the benefits of the formian queen being a formian...telepathy and the hive mind, Outsider hit dice, and another smattering of minor immunities (starvation, hold oerson, etc).
All of that...my gut says it might be worth two levels of sorcerer, but three plus needing to rely on magic for mobility...+0 works for me. But I can see the argument for having LA.

The following is my responses to assorted other comments.

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If its a bad ability explanation (not uncommon with WotC) and we go with the second interpretation the LA changes?

That would essentially give you two full attacks. So yeah, that's gonna increase the LA.

But...It says "1 Hand" in the corner...THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!

You can wield it in one hand, you just don't have to.

The formian queen automatically fails any and all reflex saves, strength checks (trip, bull rush) and dexterity checks. With str -- and dex --, she cannot, by RAW, exert any physical force on an object, and she is unable to move any of her appendages.

Of course, by that very same RAW logic, a mouse could bull rush her off a cliff.

Feats in general become unusable when you switch into a form that doesn't support them. Racial feats are no different. If you want all the benefits of a form change, you must suffer all the drawbacks.

That's logical if the feat is supposed to represent something unusual about a race's physiology or biology or something, but not so much if it's an aspect of a creature's mind or soul.

And now, a GWG PSA.

In general, I think monsters with 9th level casting need to be treated very differently than other epic monsters like balors and dragons. The key is that a level adjustment simply doesn't matter the way it used to—you've got basically everything you want, so delaying one or two levels doesn't matter, because what are you actually delaying? Like, a third or two thirds of a feat? SLA Wish is clearly better than two thirds of a feat, right?

There's also a problem which comes in general at high levels—spellcasters can break the game even without going out of their way. I don't think anyone can claim a 20th-level fighter, however optimized, could outshine a 20th-level primary caster with a Mr. Welch streak.
The problem is that both high-level spellcasters and monsters with fewer spellcasting levels and a smattering of SLAs can both break the game. The places they break best are different, but the question of if (say) a fomorian queen breaks the game at the same level of a 20th-level sorcerer or a 22nd-level one is kind of a silly one. It depends more on playstyle, and both are going to outdo a 30th-level ogre barbarian if they try.

[Inevitability]

Not any druid, only a druid with the right feat. And we all know how many feats are crucial for a strong druid build, right?
The idea of an earth elemental rogue is enticing, especially if I could consistently sneak up on enemies and sneak attack from the walls. But it's not enticing enough to warrant losing a die and a half of sneak attack damage and three levels of other goodies.

No feats necessary.

I'd wager that clouds are more air than water (by volume, and probably weight as well). My intuition is that if they were mostly water, they'd clump together until they formed chunks of water large enough that they couldn't stay aloft.

Fact is, air is invisible and so is water vapor. The parts of clouds we see are just miniscule floating water droplets. It depends on your definition of 'cloud', of course, but what the average person considers to be a cloud is just water.

There's also a problem which comes in general at high levels—spellcasters can break the game even without going out of their way. I don't think anyone can claim a 20th-level fighter, however optimized, could outshine a 20th-level primary caster with a Mr. Welch streak.
The problem is that both high-level spellcasters and monsters with fewer spellcasting levels and a smattering of SLAs can both break the game. The places they break best are different, but the question of if (say) a fomorian queen breaks the game at the same level of a 20th-level sorcerer or a 22nd-level one is kind of a silly one. It depends more on playstyle, and both are going to outdo a 30th-level ogre barbarian if they try.

Dear GWG and anyone else still talking about this,

Please. Take. This. To. Another. Thread.

Yours sincerely,

Dire_Stirge

[Inevitability]

Fungus

Q: What fungi are unspeakably evil?
A: Lichen!

Shrieker

Terrible joke has been made, time for what's perhaps the weakest 3.5 monster. A commoner has his one weapon proficiency, bats can fly away, even toads have at least something they can do in combat. Shriekers? They stand motionlessly, get hit, and make loud noises as they do so.

So what's a shrieker made of? The ability scores are horrendous, the racial HD do nothing but grant some immunities, and Shriek is more annoying than useful as there's no way to switch it off. I guess one could give them a few manifester or invocation-user levels and hope the resulting build can keep up with the party, but once more there's just no reason to do that. -0 LA.

Violet Fungus

In the long history of imaginative D&D names: the violet fungus. Stuff by the same designer that didn't make it into the MM include the scarlet cilate, indigo slime mold and azure aquifex.

Violet Fungi have 2 plant RHD. They have pretty good strength and constitution scores, but suffer minor hits in charisma and dexterity (as well as completely missing intelligence). Interestingly for a medium creature, they've got reach, which somewhat makes up for the 10 feet move rate.

These fungi have four natural tentacle attacks, all of which inflict poison that deals strength and constitution damage. That's pretty neat, especially at this level.

I'm torn between +0 and +1 LA on those, but in the end will be going with +0 (albeit a strong one). Criticism is, as always, welcome.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Violet fungi make for pretty good melee BFC-types, either full attacking, or going Dragonfire Adept (con boosts poison and breath weapon) and using Entangling Exhalation with tentacle AoOs. The speed is problematic, and probably takes some fixing, but it's not much worse than a dwarf or halfling, given the Quick trait. I think it could get LA +1, once you got past the intelligence issue. Then again, I suppose tentacles don't let you wield weapons or use certain skills, that could be problematic. I think I'd rather play an orc crusader 4 than a violet fungus crusader 1.

[Troacctid]

Here's what it might look like as a savage progression at LA +0.

Base stats: +2 Con, -2 Dex, -2 Cha, low-light vision, mindless, plant traits, natural armor +2

Level	HD	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special
1	1d8	+0	+2	+0	+0	2 tentacles (1d4, 5 feet), poison (1d4 Str), natural armor +3, +2 Str, +2 Con
2	2d8	+1	+3	+0	+0	4 tentacles (1d6, 10 feet), poison (1d4 Str + 1d4 Con), natural armor +4, +2 Str, +2 Con

I think it's okay—stronger than most melee classes, until you realize you're not getting any feats or skill points, which definitely takes you down a few pegs. The problem is it leans a little heavily on mindlessness as a balancing factor, which is not something I'm a fan of for PCs. I favor leaving it at LA —, but for the purpose of this endeavor, 0 seems fine.

If you gave it an Intelligence score so that it could get feats, I could see it warranting LA +1, but as written I don't think you can go higher than +0.

[flare'90]

If you gave it an Intelligence score so that it could get feats, I could see it warranting LA +1, but as written I don't think you can go higher than +0.

Maybe you can use awaken to get an Int score?

[Troacctid]

Awaken gives you two more RHD and changes you into a magical beast, removing your plant type immunities (assuming you're using the usual trick of turning into an animal to make yourself a valid target). Frankly, at that point, I'd say you're a -0.

[Thurbane]

Well there you go...I'd always assumed Awaken works on any plant type creature, but it's specifically only trees (or animals).

[khadgar567]

I think there is awaken plant in somewere in internet

[Inevitability]

I think there is awaken plant in somewere in internet

Undoubtedly, but I can't start taking everything on the internet into account.

[khadgar567]

Undoubtedly, but I can't start taking everything on the internet into account.

not you stirge but if dm wants to use your work he needs to consider that again not you.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Presumably, you could take an undead fungus and awaken that, instead.

[Daedroth]

Presumably, you could take an undead fungus and awaken that, instead.

Nope, an awakened udnead cannot have more int than it had in life

If its a bad ability explanation (not uncommon with WotC) and we go with the second interpretation the LA changes?
That would essentially give you two full attacks. So yeah, that's gonna increase the LA.

Well, a possible response could be "No, still sucks, LA-0"

[javcs]

As for creatures with "--" for one or more abilities, the Sentry Ooze Template from Dungeonscape would seem to imply that application of a template that increases the "--" stat(s) would replace the "--" with the template's adjustment to that ability. Or, at the very least, it sets a precedent for doing so.
On the other hand, even if the DM accepts/uses that, pretty much any template with stat increases is going to have a positive LA. And even then, you're probably still looking at a significant investment before the modifier is no longer negative.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Nope, an awakened udnead cannot have more int than it had in life

You're right. That cuts down options. Awaken only works on trees, awaken undead results in an error (what is "no more than --"?), and plant-type creatures don't have any +0 LA templates that add intelligence (I think?).

[javcs]

You're right. That cuts down options. Awaken only works on trees, awaken undead results in an error (what is "no more than --"?), and plant-type creatures don't have any +0 LA templates that add intelligence (I think?).

Might have to do some template stacking if none of the templates that can be applied to "any corporeal creature" add to Intelligence. But I'm pretty sure templates with positive stat modifiers, per the book, all have an LA or CR increase, and that will probably remain the case throughout this reassignment of LA thread.

But still, if you need to stack templates and effects before a creature is even remotely viable, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't have LA.



Although, and this is arguably house rule territory, I'd probably rule Awaken Undead to either result in the minimum possible Int or go for a cap of 10 or 11, on the grounds that a 10/11 has a +0 modifier and "--" stats are treated as having a +0 modifier.

[Daedroth]

You're right. That cuts down options. Awaken only works on trees, awaken undead results in an error (what is "no more than --"?), and plant-type creatures don't have any +0 LA templates that add intelligence (I think?).

We there's a LA+1 one here: Celestial.

I think LA+0 is fair, given the need of a LA+1 template to have an int score.

[Inevitability]

awaken undead results in an error (what is "no more than --"?)

Well, the article for the fiendish gelatinous cube seems to rule that — is less than 3, so whatever intelligence score you'd end up with would be insufficient for sentience.

[Hurnn]

Get PaO'ed into a tree, then get awakened and dispell PaO. Should work and get you 3d6 int wis and cha.