The LA-assignment thread III: Now in HD!

[No brains]

What if a tojanida had a mount? Just buying a mule could solve its speed issues at low levels. I also think flying brooms and carpets have their own speeds.

[ZamielVanWeber]

What if a tojanida had a mount? Just buying a mule could solve its speed issues at low levels. I also think flying brooms and carpets have their own speeds.

I was thinking the same thing but with its absolutely weird body shape I am not sure it could use most, if any, mounts or a broom of flying. If it has a face slot (maybe?) winged mask is an option. Being a dispel check away from being crippled is worrisome regardless.

[Celestia]

I agree with Inevitability's ratings.

[Inevitability]

Treants

Intelligent, forest-guarding trees? That's ent-irely original.

A treant's plant RHD means it has all kinds of spiffy immunities. Sadly, they also mean it has plant RHD, which is a lot like an aristocrat's but with worse skills. Anything making up for these seven levels of suck?

The answer: kind of. Treants are Huge, with +18 to strength and a not-insignificant bonus to constitution as well. All mental stats are boosted somewhat, too. -2 dexterity is annoying, but not very. The fire vulnerability, however, is a major problem that's going to need compensating for in some way.

Treants also have +13 natural armor (quite good), DR 10/slashing (nice), Trample (meh), and the ability to deal double damage against objects with full attacks (which seems kind of unnecessary in most cases).

Their main ability is Animate Trees, which effectively creates two slower treants under the treant's control. Ask your DM whether they stick around after the control wears off (RAW implies they do) and whether they have the ability to animate trees themselves. I recommend finding some way to move them with you, because the full round it takes before they join a fight and the restricted range of biomes the ability functions in mean the trees won't be that useful otherwise.

Another important question to ask your DM is going to be whether treants can use items. They do seem to have fingers in the picture, and there's undoubtedly nothing quite as awesome as a 30-foot-tree swinging an enormous sword around, but it could be argued they can't quite manipulate objects.

In the end, I think that treants deserve +0 LA. They have some major disadvantages, but the createable tree-servants are pretty neat and the high strength, huge size, and ability to wield weapons (you know, probably) make up for a lot of them.

[Nifft]

Treants

I hadn't previously noticed that the Treant was showing the viewer its butt-hole.

Anyway.

Ability scores are pretty great: +18 Str, -2 Dex, +10 Con, +2 Int, +6 Wis, +2 Cha => net +36

Treants also have +13 natural armor (quite good), DR 10/slashing (nice), Trample (meh), and the ability to deal double damage against objects with full attacks (which seems kind of unnecessary in most cases).

I think +0 is too low for all the goodies you get.

I'm picturing an Unarmed Swordsage -> Fist of the Forest (literally) getting Wis and Con both to AC, plus some fun with Tiger Claw jumping maneuvers.

I think they're almost qualified for Ur-Priest just from their racial saves -- a couple levels of Binder and/or Swordsage and you're good to go.

Not sure if I'd give them LA +1 or +2, let's go with +1 for now.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I'm picturing an Unarmed Swordsage -> Fist of the Forest (literally) getting Wis and Con both to AC, plus some fun with Tiger Claw jumping maneuvers.

Not that strong. A fairly middle-of-the-road t3 melee type. A good build, using a treant's strengths, though by the time it comes online, draconic polymorph and Wild Shape have been doing it better for a while.

I think they're almost qualified for Ur-Priest just from their racial saves -- a couple levels of Binder and/or Swordsage and you're good to go.

Bit of an unfair comparison, the one PrC that is t1 by itself. Also not that strong. I mean, Ur-Priest is strong. Treants, not so much. The earliest entry for Ur-Priest is ECL 6. The earliest entry for a treant is ECL 9. If you want to Ur-Priest, you can do it better with any number of high-WIS creatures. Treants will be behind on spell level all the way to 16th, when they finally reach parity. Adding LA +1 to that isn't necessary.

Needless to say, I support LA +0.

[Zancloufer]

I hadn't previously noticed that the Treant was showing the viewer its butt-hole.

Anyway.

Ability scores are pretty great: +18 Str, -2 Dex, +10 Con, +2 Int, +6 Wis, +2 Cha => net +36



I think +0 is too low for all the goodies you get.

I'm picturing an Unarmed Swordsage -> Fist of the Forest (literally) getting Wis and Con both to AC, plus some fun with Tiger Claw jumping maneuvers.

I think they're almost qualified for Ur-Priest just from their racial saves -- a couple levels of Binder and/or Swordsage and you're good to go.

Not sure if I'd give them LA +1 or +2, let's go with +1 for now.

They also eat 7 levels of bad RHD. d8 HP, one good save, and 3/4 BaB. They are pretty much locked out of casting and even a Martial class they don't get their 4th attack until level 18. Also worth nothing if you go pure ToB classes they cap out at 13th for powers known and 16th for effective strength.

So overall all they make (Outside of Ur Priest which is just dumb on it's own) is a decent martial that sacrifices a fair bit of flexibility for some numbers and immunites.

[Mike Miller]

I feel like they could be +1, but I can't quite convince myself. I vote +0

[Nifft]

They also eat 7 levels of bad RHD. d8 HP, one good save, and 3/4 BaB. They are pretty much locked out of casting and even a Martial class they don't get their 4th attack until level 18.

Some builds don't need full BAB -- maybe Psychic Warrior is a better baseline, that's a T3 (at best) and has good Str synergy.

Psychic Warrior using a King of Smack build could even take advantage of the native Huge size, and as a Claw user it's not going to miss the lack of iteratives -- the +18 Str more than makes up for that.

[javcs]

I lean towards +0. Perhaps a strong +0,

Also, DR 10/slashing isn't really that great. Slashing damage is pretty common, after all.

[Lans]

What if it went ardent instead of psywarrior?

[Remuko]

I'll agree with +0 on Treant. Theyre good but not that good

[Nifft]

What if it went ardent instead of psywarrior?

Then usually you'd need to spend feats to get claw-powers and Expansion, but you might get away with the write-your-own-spell-list ACF if your DM is swayed.

== == ==

Thinking about this more, maybe the Bear Warrior class is a better comparison? That gets you a comparable Str bonus without any RHD.

But then again, Bear Warrior does stack with Treant strength...

I dunno.

[ExLibrisMortis]

But then again, Bear Warrior does stack with Treant strength...

Yeah, that's kind of the problem with shapeshifting. For a theoretical variation on Team Primeval, I was playing around with a monstrous gestalt with a primordial ogre mage titan (the Dragonlance ogre titan), which is a really nice base race, but then I realized I could simply shapechange into a pit fiend and get most of those stat boosts for 'free' (a lot cheaper than 5 RHD and +6 LA (that was already adjusted far down, original LA is +13)). In the end, I decided to just give myself a stack of LA for free, to at least encourage myself to think about interesting race combos (it turns out there aren't a lot of nice +INT templates, but I did find Illurien (MMV), which is cool).

From mid to high levels, base race stats are in an unhappy place. Shapeshifting is not obscure or high-OP, as your Bear Warrior example shows, or a basic core druid/wizard, but it's harmful to the value of physical stats.

[No brains]

I lean towards +0. Perhaps a strong +0,

Also, DR 10/slashing isn't really that great. Slashing damage is pretty common, after all.

I have to agree here. Most of the weapons used by strong weapon-users are slashing. Swords, axes, and even claws. THE classic magic weapon, the flaming sword, doubly ruins your day.

Arrows and bites are the big things that I can see slashing DR protecting against, but there are arrows that do slashing damage and many things that have one bite also have two claws.

Maybe if it had better HD than the d8 from plant type, the extra DR would count for something, but this only lets it get on a competitive level some of the time.

That 13 natural armor does seem pretty good though. Is a stock treant still at the level that AC still means anything? I know that at high levels, it can be hard to make your AC worthwhile.

[Nifft]

Arrows and bites are the big things that I can see slashing DR protecting against, but there are arrows that do slashing damage and many things that have one bite also have two claws.

I just looked up the Bite rules and boy was I surprised: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#bite

Bite
The creature attacks with its mouth, dealing piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage.

Claw or Talon
The creature rips with a sharp appendage, dealing piercing and slashing damage.

Gore
The creature spears the opponent with an antler, horn, or similar appendage, dealing piercing damage.

Slap or Slam
The creature batters opponents with an appendage, dealing bludgeoning damage.

Sting
The creature stabs with a stinger, dealing piercing damage. Sting attacks usually deal damage from poison in addition to hit point damage.

Tentacle
The creature flails at opponents with a powerful tentacle, dealing bludgeoning (and sometimes slashing) damage.

[javcs]

Wait, TENTACLES sometimes do slashing damage?
That's the only surprise for me. But slashing tentacles?

[Amidus Drexel]

Wait, TENTACLES sometimes do slashing damage?
That's the only surprise for me. But slashing tentacles?

I would assume the description is referring to barbed tentacles, which are comparable to claws as far as slashing ability is concerned. See: several species of real-life squid.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Net +36 to stats, with the only negative being a measly -2 Dex while the biggest is a whopping +18 STR, trivially breaking STR40 on the player's hands.

+13 NA will go a long, long way, put on some simple +2 plate or such and you are hitting and AC in the mid-30s by level 7~8. A charging, raging Barbarian would find it hard to hit you on the first iterative. God help anything else.

While I agree DR/Slashing isn't as good as, say, DR/Cold Iron, it still covers a surprising amount of things, and it's a pretty high value too.

It's a monster with 7 HD and CR 8, therefore, I feel the LA should be, at a minimum, +1.

Lets not forget that, at LA +1, so ECL 8, you can summon another two CR8 monsters to fight for you, at will. You are a one-man ECL11 encounter straight out of the gate, not considering the heightened stats, magic items and better feats a PC would have.

[Thurbane]

I feel compelled to post this:

"You know who I'm gonna miss? That tree guy."

[ExLibrisMortis]

Lets not forget that, at LA +1, so ECL 8, you can summon another two CR8 monsters to fight for you, at will. You are a one-man ECL11 encounter straight out of the gate, not considering the heightened stats, magic items and better feats a PC would have.

Don't forget the animated trees are part of the treant's CR. That's why they are CR 8. A treant alone, without that ability, would be CR 6.

Leaving aside the issue of CR, the animate trees SLA has some downsides for a PC. It's not 100% clear what parts of the spell liveoak are overwritten. I'm assuming at least the targeting (doesn't have to be a huge healthy oak near your home, sacred place, or thing you wish to protect) and the command phrase. That leaves:

• 10 minute casting time, then a one-round wait for it to uproot itself. Per tree, naturally.
• 10' speed of the resulting tree.
• Doesn't keep fighting if you are knocked out or send it scouting.
• Doesn't fit through doors or in dungeons. Suppose this one's not so bad, if you are a treant anyway .

An ECL 7 or 8 treant won't have the native ability to bring their animated trees along, because that requires flight magic, or at least some speed buffs.

As a treant, apart from the ability to slowly create slow minions, polymorph duplicates your entire suite of abilities. There's practically nothing treants do that's actually special. It's going to be tier 4 even with LA +0.

[lord_khaine]

Net +36 to stats, with the only negative being a measly -2 Dex while the biggest is a whopping +18 STR, trivially breaking STR40 on the player's hands.

I support this, it seems to easy to make a melee char that outperforms every other melee party member purely though raw numbers. +18 Str is a significant number for a melee char. And so is the massive boost to con and NA.

[zlefin]

i'm inclined to be on the safe side and call treant a +1
it's an awfully lot of sweet goodies for a martial (full or gish).
on trample: if i'm reading the trample entry right, it doesn't require straight line movement, unlike charge. At any rate, it gives the treant a solidly useable AoE attack (admittedly one that will become less useful over time, and risks taking a lot of AoOs).

Just the first level in a class does a lot (regardless of class), because the default treant has no equipment; getting to add in equipment is a big bump to power.

as an aside; how often does the CR to HD comparison exactly matchup with what the thread decides is the appropriate LA?

[Celestia]

I'd say the treant a +0. It's probably a strong +0, but it's not strong enough for +1. The detriments are harsh enough to counteract the benefits.

[Nifft]

as an aside; how often does the CR to HD comparison exactly matchup with what the thread decides is the appropriate LA?

You know how a level 12 NPC Wizard is CR 12, and a level 12 NPC Fighter is also CR 12?

Well, if the CR behaves more like a primary caster, then it's probably closer to the appropriate LA.

I'd say the treant a +0. It's probably a strong +0, but it's not strong enough for +1. The detriments are harsh enough to counteract the benefits.

Could you enumerate those?

All I could see was vulnerability to Fire, which is easily compensated -- in fact doing so is standard practice if you have access to Frostburn, or the opposite (vulnerability to Cold) if you have access to Sandstorm.

[Daedroth]

You know how a level 12 NPC Wizard is CR 12, and a level 12 NPC Fighter is also CR 12?

Well, if the CR behaves more like a primary caster, then it's probably closer to the appropriate LA.



Could you enumerate those?

All I could see was vulnerability to Fire, which is easily compensated -- in fact doing so is standard practice if you have access to Frostburn, or the opposite (vulnerability to Cold) if you have access to Sandstorm.

Awfull RHD (Cleric Chasis without good will save), debatable use of certain body slots and need to adquire Huge armors, wich are expensive and not a common loot.

[ZamielVanWeber]

A moderate +1 or a very strong +0. Plant traits are amazing, plant HD are not. Those stat mods go a long ways toward fixing those plant HD (with interest). Huge id a mixed bag at this point. The racial trails leave me feeling meh with two exceptions: vulnerability to fire (ouch!) and Animate Trees. Aside from the slow speed (10 feet, really) having two more treats is not bad early on and usable late game at least. Technically the ability to subject to DM whims but assuming a vindictive DM seems counterproductive.

[lord_khaine]

Those are as such not awful HD, they are more or less the default ones. d8 hp, medium BAB, one good safe. Thats more or less the average. There are lots of high tier classes whose HD is much worse.

And as for aquiring armor, thats not really worth considdering an issue. The price increase for making a set of armor huge is *4. Of the base 100-1500 gp that a set of armor costs. Thats vanishing in the 27k budget that a level 8 PC has.
Also its not even significant if the treant goes with one of the armor alternatives there is.

[danielxcutter]

Those are as such not awful HD, they are more or less the default ones. d8 hp, medium BAB, one good safe. Thats more or less the average. There are lots of high tier classes whose HD is much worse.

Said classes are all full casters, such as Psion.

And as for aquiring armor, thats not really worth considdering an issue. The price increase for making a set of armor huge is *4. Of the base 100-1500 gp that a set of armor costs. Thats vanishing in the 27k budget that a level 8 PC has.
Also its not even significant if the treant goes with one of the armor alternatives there is.

Hmm... you know, I forget if bigger armor costs more to enchant. Does it? For some reason I think I've seen this somewhere, but I'm not sure at all...

[Nifft]

Said classes are all full casters, such as Psion.

Rogue is a full caster, good to know.

Excellent insight.