The LA-assignment thread: Making monster PCs VI-able

[Zaq]

So, some ways to "see through the eyes of others":

• Animal Lord PrC: Animal Perception
• Chain of Eyes spell
• Dreaming Puppet spell
• Forest Eyes spell (may not work ?)
• Knight of the Raven PrC: Sight Link (not at all ideal, a lot of drawbacks)
• Planar Exchange spell
• Psibond Agent PrC: Forced Sense Link
• Share Husk spell
• Tamer of Beasts PrC: Animal Senses
• Wall of Eyes spell (see through an immobile wall)

...there's probably more I've missed.

If you can find a way to draw a seal without hands, bind Malphas and get The Bird. Three levels, a feat and a level, or three feats.

Anyway, the summoning ooze. I love the concept. Does "a maximum of twice its Hit Dice in creatures per day" measure number of creatures or number of HD those creatures can have, like animate dead?

I'm honestly pretty tempted to give this one +0. You have few if any body slots, but you can also summon things that have appendages to open doors for you. Summoning is about the most versatile trick in the game, and this automatically scales with whatever HD you tack on. Five RHD is a lot when the RHD suck so badly, but still, this is an actually interesting trick. Notice also that it's a standard action, which is neat. Semi-decent numbers help a bit as well. Oh, and a bonus to Hide and Move Silently for some reason?

I think I can be willing to go with +0 here. I'd consider playing one in a game that would accept the flavor, and I never go for LA/RHD critters at all. The fact that this one has such an interesting spin built-in is enough to sway me that it's worth trying. Maybe go for an ardent with Practiced Manifester for minimal advancement loss, still getting actual summoning on top?

[martixy]

Here's mine. I think someone else posted a link to theirs in there.
Note that I was going on the theory of "Just reduce ECL, hope the excess HD don't cause issues." Looks like I got a dozen monsters into the first Monster Manual before deciding it wasn't worth my time.

Oh! Now I get your name. Good one. Wonder if I should steal that.

For me, I have a somewhat similar methodology, except I'm going on the basis of reducing ECL by lowering RHD, so as not to mess with the fundamental premises of the system.

In fact, here's the thread I started:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...rejected-Redux

It explains the methodology, and starts things off.
Waiting for any input on the first entry.
Then again, there's a chance it won't take off(probably a good), in which case I'll stop waiting for input on the entries, and just start assigning values myself, to the best of my ability.

[OgresAreCute]

I think people are overstating the value of this summoning ability. Summon Monster I isn't very good and get it at ECL 5 at the earliest, which is pretty cruddy. At ECL 15 you only have Summon Monster VI, which is 4 levels behind curve already and doesn't progress beyond that. You'll be summoning CR 5-6 critters to fight at level 15. Doesn't sound that great to me. Add to that the fact that you're seriously deficient in basic orifices and manipulators, and I'll say this is a -0.

[Random Sanity]

I think people are overstating the value of this summoning ability. Summon Monster I isn't very good and get it at ECL 5 at the earliest, which is pretty cruddy. At ECL 15 you only have Summon Monster VI, which is 4 levels behind curve already and doesn't progress beyond that. You'll be summoning CR 5-6 critters to fight at level 15. Doesn't sound that great to me. Add to that the fact that you're seriously deficient in basic orifices and manipulators, and I'll say this is a -0.

What she said. A summon ability that's already behind the level curve and only falls further behind as you go is good for an OOTS-style trap-eating parade and that's about it.

Ooze immunities would be nice on RHD that weren't complete garbage in every other respect. You have no social interaction abilities, no skills to speak of, no equipment slots, and your saves are going to be horrible no matter what class you pick to try and salvage this as a PC*.

-0. End of discussion.


* - It's possible for paladin class features to partially offset the save issue, but a martial with no weapon or armor slots is dead the first time a beatstick monster targets them, so that's a wash.

[Celestia]

I think people are overstating the value of this summoning ability. Summon Monster I isn't very good and get it at ECL 5 at the earliest, which is pretty cruddy. At ECL 15 you only have Summon Monster VI, which is 4 levels behind curve already and doesn't progress beyond that. You'll be summoning CR 5-6 critters to fight at level 15. Doesn't sound that great to me. Add to that the fact that you're seriously deficient in basic orifices and manipulators, and I'll say this is a -0.

Exactly. If this thing started with SM III at level 5 and then kept up, that would be one thing. I might even consider giving it +0 if it summoned at will instead of having this weird HD limit, but as is, its summoning is a neat trick and nothing more.

[ExLibrisMortis]

LA -0 for the summoning ooze. The summoning ability starts off low and scales badly. It's not going to compete with a t3 or t2 summoner.

[GreatWyrmGold]

If you can find a way to draw a seal without hands, bind Malphas and get The Bird.

If there wasn't such a harsh limit on the summons you could do per day, I'd suggest summoning a monkey to do it for you.

Anyway, the summoning ooze. I love the concept. Does "a maximum of twice its Hit Dice in creatures per day" measure number of creatures or number of HD those creatures can have, like animate dead?

Which might still be a viable option if the DM rules it's "number of creatures".

I think people are overstating the value of this summoning ability. Summon Monster I isn't very good and get it at ECL 5 at the earliest, which is pretty cruddy. At ECL 15 you only have Summon Monster VI, which is 4 levels behind curve already and doesn't progress beyond that. You'll be summoning CR 5-6 critters to fight at level 15. Doesn't sound that great to me.

That's true. There might still be value if you could just keep summoning monsters (a fiendish rhino per round or a mob of hound archons seems just dangerous enough to serve as a full-combat distraction, or at least a way to keep area effects off of the party), but...you can't.

[liquidformat]

Not enough bang for your buck, while it is cool you could get into fiendbinder without a caster class it would take you about 7 hd and by then you could get in by having 7 wizard levels so that isn't anything impressive. What we have is a monster with a bucket full of immunities which doesn't completely compensate for the missing pretty much every item slot, especially when you still have to compensate for all the other things it is missing (hands, eyes, ears, mouth) Heck even the standard pearl for granting talking is worthless in this case since it has no mouth to begin with. When you add in the horrible rhd and the fact that there isn't any good place for this lump to go I can't see a valid +0 argument, even at 1 rhd I don't think this thing is playable until you hit at least level 10 when you have enough wealth to attempt offsetting its metric ton of issues that must be resolved to be playable.

-0 with you

[danielxcutter]

Just to be clear, the summoning is based on the RHD, right?

[jindra34]

Just to be clear, the summoning is based on the RHD, right?

The monster specifies HD not RHD so the default assumption is NO.

[Thurbane]

As far as I'm concerned, the Summoning is icing on the cake.

The appeal, to me, is that this is one of the most "playable out of the box" oozes. I mean, that's not saying much, but at least you don't have to go dumpster diving through splat books and negotiating with the DM to get an Int score.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The monster specifies HD not RHD so the default assumption is NO.

I thought he was talking about the number of monsters you can summon. IE, can you summon two monsters per character's HD or two HD of monster per HD?

[danielxcutter]

I thought he was talking about the number of monsters you can summon. IE, can you summon two monsters per character's HD or two HD of monster per HD?

Well, I was asking about the summoning scaling too, but also about that I guess.

Interestingly, a fully advanced Summoning Ooze has 15 RHD at CR 10, equal to that of a Fire Giant or Sand Giant, so if you're a DM, in theory you would be able to add caster classes as non-associated class levels and still get 9ths at CR 20... of course the body shape problem is a thing, but still food for thought!

Edit: While unlikely to change the LA evaluation, the Ssvaklor has a psionic version in the sidebar too. This among other things is why I think we should do the XPH after finishing the MMIII.

[javcs]

I think the Summoning Ooze is the closest to playable oozes get.

However ... it's still a -0.

It might be able to slide into the bottom of +0 if the summoning ability didn't have the HD cap on it, or even if the cap was a limit on how many HD worth of summons you could have out at a time, sort of like the HD caps on controlling undead. Still wouldn't be very good, and there are better options for most of what you get.

[Inevitability]

I think the Summoning Ooze is the closest to playable oozes get.

I mean, some of the living spells were pretty playable at least.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I mean, some of the living spells were pretty playable at least.

I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be that, for summoning spells.

[Prime32]

One interesting thing to note about the Summoning Ooze is that it has a caster level of 20.

This lets you take item creation feats for rods and staves sooner than normal. It lets you take Obtain Familiar + Improved Familiar to gain companions like winter wolves or beguilers or wyrmling dragons (or if you're using Dragon magazine, stuff like high-HD incorporeal swarms). It qualifies you for Acolyte of the Skin, which gives you... skin, if you ever need that for pedantic reasons.

[Celestia]

One interesting thing to note about the Summoning Ooze is that it has a caster level of 20.

This lets you take item creation feats for rods and staves sooner than normal. It lets you take Obtain Familiar + Improved Familiar to gain companions like winter wolves or beguilers or wyrmling dragons (or if you're using Dragon magazine, stuff like high-HD incorporeal swarms). It qualifies you for Acolyte of the Skin, which gives you... skin, if you ever need that for pedantic reasons.

Oozes lack the manipulating limbs to craft items, and if one of the best tricks available to it is acquiring a pet that's better than it, then it's clearly not very impressive on its own.

[liquidformat]

One interesting thing to note about the Summoning Ooze is that it has a caster level of 20.

This lets you take item creation feats for rods and staves sooner than normal. It lets you take Obtain Familiar + Improved Familiar to gain companions like winter wolves or beguilers or wyrmling dragons (or if you're using Dragon magazine, stuff like high-HD incorporeal swarms). It qualifies you for Acolyte of the Skin, which gives you... skin, if you ever need that for pedantic reasons.

I think you are missing the important part of wear fiend, and that is, it gives you eyes! Also you can technically enter straight into it from your first class level since peaceful contact and Ritual of Bonding are both fluff, though it would be smart to have at least one caster class level first...

[Inevitability]

Votes for the summoning sludge:

-0 LA: 10 votes
+0 LA: 7 votes

Rating will remain unchanged.

Next monster, the susurrus, shall be up soon.

[Inevitability]

Susurrus

Susurrus
\su̇-ˈsər-əs\
Noun
1. a whispering or rustling sound

With etymologies out of the way, let's have a look at these guys. These creatures are aberrations (somewhat unsurprisingly) with 8 RHD. Ability scores are nothing out of the ordinary, with high strength, good constitution and charisma, and average-to-low stats everywhere else.

Two natural claw attacks are kind of meh, +9 natural armor has its uses, 40 ft. land and 20 ft. climb is decent speed-wise. 60 ft. blindsight isn't bad to have (but being sightless beyond that radius is less great).

The susurrus has a number of undead-focused abilities: always-on Detect Undead, a weird rebuke-based Hold Undead, and free Ghost Touch. Furthermore, it gets Improved Grab and Barbed Defense (which deals piercing damage to melee attackers and grapplers).

Ultimately, I'm just unimpressed by the susurrus. When not facing undead foes, it has a chassis comparable to the ogre's but with twice the RHD and little extra to show for it. Against undead, it has a notable niche with Dronesong, but that's too situational to greatly impact the rating. I'm simply not convinced this stacks up to ECL 8 martials, so -0 LA it is. If you want to balance this for player use, remove three HD and it should be fine.

[ViperMagnum357]

Susurrus: Net +20 abilities is par for 5 RHD not 8. The +9 natural AC is a little over average, and 40 ft speed is bang on average for a Large biped. Weaksauce Blindsight out to 60 ft-usual problems I mentioned in the last entry, plus much weaker because it is sound-based and can be foiled by specific magical effects. So Really, REALLY bad: in addition to the usual blocks for Blindsight, any fog based magical effect-and there are quite a few-will blind you, alongside the plentiful, low level and easily accessible Silence effects.

In return, you get two claw attacks, a mediocre climb speed, Improved Grab and some Barbs for grappling damage, treat all your physical attacks as Ghost Touch, turn your natural AC into Deflection versus Incorporeal (overlaying rather than stacking with the Deflection bonus you will eventually get for general use), an at-will 1st level spell, and the ability to make a Rebuke check to inflict the effects of a 3rd level spell usable against Undead. Altogether, that seems like a lot, but in practice you are looking at maybe 5 or 6 class levels worth of features on 8 Aberration RHD, and about 6 levels worth of net abilities/natural AC also coming up short. Those 8 RHD cost you 2 points of BAB and lock you into 8 levels of 1 good save and 2 + Int skills to go with -4 racial Int and 3 class skills. Yuck.

Definitely LA -0 up in here. I think you would have to shave 2 RHD to approach LA +0. Even then, the Int hit on so many RHD probably skewers any caster, party face or skill monkey, and Blind past 60 ft with many complications within probably leaves out scout. So the usual fall back of martial looks best-even Initiator looks iffy. Anything Large or bigger with Improved Grab has potential, but there is little here to work with.

[Zaq]

As is somewhat disappointingly common, the susurrus is a cool picture, a somewhat interestingly oddball encounter, and a poor PC. -0.

Before reading it for the context of this thread, I has always thought that the dronesong ability was always on, rather than activated, which made it somewhat more interesting against undead. Unfortunately, that seems to not be the case. Doesn't affect its rating as a PC, but still, slightly disappointing.

It's still a cool picture.

[Thurbane]

Another monster designed purely for use as a monster. If you were an undead hunter, might be fun to have one as a cohort or something.

They were a plant creature when they were introduced in 1E Fiend Folio, from memory.

At half the HD, maybe LA +0, but 8 Aberration HD mean LA -0.

[unseenmage]

...

... These creatures are aberrations (somewhat unsurprisingly) ...

...

Weird question, would a medium Suusur-whatever become a humanoid if built as an effigy then incarnate construct-ed?

Is that body humanoid enough?

I ask because until you pointed it out I was unsure of type. It's not quite as.. squamous as I'd expect of the run of the mill abberation.

[Thurbane]

Weird question, would a medium Suusur-whatever become a humanoid if built as an effigy then incarnate construct-ed?

Is that body humanoid enough?

I ask because until you pointed it out I was unsure of type. It's not quite as.. squamous as I'd expect of the run of the mill abberation.

It effectively lacks a head, so I'm not sure it would be humanoid enough for Incarnate Construct. If it was allowed, it would be a Giant, since it's large.

I kind of preferred the earlier edition versions where it was a plant monster that hated/preyed on undead...

[Zaq]

It effectively lacks a head, so I'm not sure it would be humanoid enough for Incarnate Construct. If it was allowed, it would be a Giant, since it's large.

I kind of preferred the earlier edition versions where it was a plant monster that hated/preyed on undead...

The fluff text does explicitly describe it as "humanoid."

"This headless humanoid shape appears to be covered in glass shards..."

How humanoid something explicitly headless can be is, of course, a different question. Incarnate construct is a bizarre game element at the best of times.

Edit: I just noticed something dumb. Dronesong functions as a hold undead spell, right? There is no such spell, at least not in the 3.5 PHB. There's halt undead and hold monster, but no hold undead.

They almost certainly meant halt undead, but who can say?

[Thurbane]

Edit: I just noticed something dumb. Dronesong functions as a hold undead spell, right? There is no such spell, at least not in the 3.5 PHB. There's halt undead and hold monster, but no hold undead.

They almost certainly meant halt undead, but who can say?

Good call. Not picked up in the errata, either...

[Zaq]

Good call. Not picked up in the errata, either...

This might be one time where WotC's sometimes troubling habit of over-explaining what certain abilities do (which often leads to dysfunctions when the "convenient" explanation doesn't match the referenced ability) did its job. We know from the text that an undead affected by Dronesong "cannot move and doesn't want to." That's actually pretty useful for figuring out how to rule the ability, and it's not exactly the same as halt undead. Very similar, but not quite exactly the same.

I do love how obnoxious the ability is when you try to parse out exactly how it works. It's like a rebuke attempt (but not really), but then it works like "hold" undead (but not really), but then it works kind of as its own thing. Kind of sends the reader on a bit of a wild goose chase.

Hmm. Also interesting is this complete sentence in Dronesong's description: "This ability functions as a rebuke undead attempt from an evil cleric of a level equal to the susurrus's Hit Dice." Full stop. It then specifies that undead who would be rebuked or commanded by this rebuke attempt follow new rules, but it doesn't say anything to the effect of "this ability is like a rebuke undead attempt" or "this ability functions similarly to a rebuke undead attempt." It straight up is a rebuke undead attempt that just doesn't actually rebuke undead.

I'm sure you can all see where this is going by now. That means that a susurrus could potentially use other abilities that key off of rebuke undead. 8 RHD is still too many for that to be the peg on which we hang our rating hats, but still, that makes it slightly closer to being usable, don't you think?

[No brains]

There are some humanoids that have no heads, like hitmonlee and those old-timey drawings of guys without a neck.