The LA-assignment thread VII: LA LA Land

[Mike Miller]

How about "The LA-Assignment Thread +VIII: Way Too Much for Vampirism"

This is my vote

[Remuko]

This is my vote

i concur with this.

[ViperMagnum357]

I’m partial to “I have no mouth and I must S,V,M”.

this is my vote.

[remetagross]

How about "The LA-Assignment Thread +VIII: Way Too Much for Vampirism"

Sorry guys didn't get it

[Zaq]

I’m partial to “I have no mouth and I must S,V,M”.

The eternal classic! But I still like [V, S, M] not [S, V, M]. (My brain does not parse “[S, V, M]” as sounding like “scream,” and [V, S, M]” is the actual correct order.

How about "The LA-Assignment Thread +VIII: Way Too Much for Vampirism"

This is also quite clever!

[Thurbane]

Alright, I've been procrastinating, let's do this thing:

The Spectacular Spiderpus

• Medium Aberration (extraplanar) (10 ft reach with tentacles).
• 9RHD: Aberration HD are pretty bad - medium BAB, 1 good save, d8 hp, 2 skill points/level.
• Speed 20 ft, climb 20 ft: climb speeds are always nice, but this guy is way slow.
• +8 natural AC, +4 deflection: pretty solid.
• 4 tentacle rakes and a bite: not bad, but low damage - you'd probably need precision damage or another rider effect.
• Improved grab: good, but as always, grappling isn't a great shtick for a medium creature, that's already down 3 BAB.
• Shadow strands: the convoluted wording of this ability hurts my brain a little. I remember how much I hated reading this when I ran one as an encounter. Net effect seems to be varying levels of concealment, and makes it harder for creatures to move away from you. Not sure how to feel about this.
• Spell-like abilities: 3/day—confusion, darkness, suggestion, tongues, web; 1/day—shadow walk; CL 13. Pretty decent, but not mind blowing at ECL 9+.
• Strength damage: 2d4 on a bite. Pretty good, but if you use a mouthpick weapon, you miss out.
• All-around vision: bonus to spot and search and can't be flanked. Nice, but not amazing.
• Cold resistance 10: meh.
• darkvision 60 ft: meh.
• DR 5/magic: basically irrelevant at your starting level.
• Fast healing 3: again, I love fast healing of any kind, but I know others value it lower that I do. At the very least, you don't need to expend any resources on OOC hit point healing.
• Shadow jump: pretty decent, actually. The daily distance limit hurts a little, but still a solid special ability.
• Shadowstuff armor: +4 deflection to AC (noted above) and +10 to hide. Quite nice. - how many gp would this cost as a slotless item?
• SR 16: OK-ish, but not that great at your ECL.
• Sunlight vulnerability: a little different than the usual version. Do sunglasses (or whatever the D&D version is called) fix this?
• Tentacle regeneration: despite the name, this is actually a weakness. Unlike the vast bulk of other creatures, enemies can specifically target your body parts. You get them back in day. Yay, I guess? Is there any way to cheese this as having "regeneration" to meet reqs etc?
• Str +6, Dex +8, Con +2, Int +4, Wis +6, Cha +6: net +32, no penalties! OK, not ground breaking at your starting level, but still very nice.
• Small-ish but decent racial skill list. Effectively +8 to Climb and +10 to Hide. I've certainly seen worse racial skill sets.

Weird body type/shape; and do you actually have manipulative digits? Unsure. Not sure how dexterous or suited to handling object the tentacles are. You can speak, which is one less headache to deal with.

What's the class progression for this guy? Off the top of my head, I would imagine ToB and focusing on natural attacks/grappling. If you were large, rather than medium, I'd be more comfortable with that path. There a few ways to get size increases on non-humanoids, but most are fairly costly. Also, you're only going to get to IL 15 by ECL 20.

This guy is a real mixed bag of abilities. You get some neat stuff in your hodge-podge, and nice ability mods. Downsides are 9 pretty bad RHD, being a medium creature shoehorned into grappling, weird body shape with no hands to speak of.

I'm going to vote (a very weak) LA +0 - your shopping list of meh to OK-ish abilities plus ability score mods mean I would consider playing one.

[DeTess]

I think a +0 is fine for this one. It'll make a passable sword-sage and gets some weird abilities. I think it could do better than +0 if its abilities had been just a bit more focussed, but sometimes quantity provides enough quality on its own.

[Dimers]

Sorry guys didn't get it

I'm not sure I get the joke either, but I think it's a reference to the vampire's WotC-assigned LA of +8.

I remain in favor of "but must [V, S, M]".

[Luccan]

I'm not sure I get the joke either, but I think it's a reference to the vampire's WotC-assigned LA of +8.

I remain in favor of "but must [V, S, M]".

That seems correct. I'll echo the vote, however we arrange it. Though like last time it was getting a lot of votes, its competition only has one chance to be relevant.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

For build, I'm thinking Totemist 2 into Umbral Disciple into Telflammar Shadowlord (though you could stick Totemist after TS instead). Shape Dread Carapace for damage and bind Blink Shirt to totem for at will 2/turn teleportation. Use that to proc Shadow Pounce at extreme close range and the native teleportation at longer ranges so you don't need to keep essentia invested in combat. For the 3rd meld, Girallon Arms if you want to grapple, or pick up an Open Chakra feat for something fancier.

[ExLibrisMortis]

For build, I'm thinking Totemist 2 into Umbral Disciple into Telflammar Shadowlord (though you could stick Totemist after TS instead). Shape Dread Carapace for damage and bind Blink Shirt to totem for at will 2/turn teleportation. Use that to proc Shadow Pounce at extreme close range and the native teleportation at longer ranges so you don't need to keep essentia invested in combat. For the 3rd meld, Girallon Arms if you want to grapple, or pick up an Open Chakra feat for something fancier.

While this type of build would work, to some extent (you still have a low to-hit and damage), it's also an ECL 15ish build, and it's competing with everything from anthro-squid psychic warriors to younger dragons with the same levels. I don't think the shadowsquid is that good, even when optimizing specifically for the things it can do.

[remetagross]

I'm not sure I get the joke either, but I think it's a reference to the vampire's WotC-assigned LA of +8.

I remain in favor of "but must [V, S, M]".

Thanks mate! I'll vote for [V,S,M] too.

[Caelestion]

I think that this creature will probably do all right at LA +0.

[Netbrian]

I vote +0, since it looks like we have at least some people making the case that the abilities add up to something interesting.

Also, I vote for "Way Too Much for Vampirism".

[Lapak]

I also like Vampirism for the next thread.

[Caelestion]

I never liked the Ellison reference, but the vampirism one is both apt and timely.

[Inevitability]

Slightly belated votes.

-0: 5 votes
+0: 7 votes

LA will be updated to +0, afterwards expect another update.

[Inevitability]

Death Dog

Jokes about canines and alignment have been done to death.

These dogs are 2 RHD magical beasts. Their chassis isn't anything out of the ordinary: good physical stats, a small wisdom boost, a charisma penalty, and a large intelligence penalty (note that death dogs are by default sapient, though). They get two 1d6 bite attacks, both of which carry a disease and allow for a free trip attempt.

Is this worth playing? At level 2, I can see death dogs being fairly competent party members. The additional head helps keep their damage output high, and your rogue and fighter will be grateful for the tripped enemies. However, as magical items start to become more important and martials get their iteratives, the death dog will rapidly become less useful.

In a low-level campaign, this is viable, and for that reason I'm inclined to go with +0. At higher levels, don't bother.

[danielxcutter]

Well... double biting Rapidstrike?

[Covenant12]

Ugh. Just fat-fingered and lost a detailed explanation, not happy just now.

LA: +0. With effort I think it keeps up with Orc barbarian/warblade or Ogre beatstick, with less skills and no hands.

Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike are on the table, though painful in feat cost. Improved Natural Attack(bite) with Large size can make them 2d6+Str and have a good chance of tripping.

Once beatsticks get their iteratives, I think you need to advance the doggie to 4 RHD and large size.
Stats at 4 RHD: Str +12, Dex +2, Con +8, Int -6, Wis +2, Cha -4. 4d10 hps with great Con, +4 BAB, +4/+4/+1 Fort/Reflex/Will with stat bonus to all three. And +5 Natural armor, with barding you need a lot of help to put on.
Scent and +4 racial Spot/Listen are great at level 2, but it will be very hard to max ranks in Spot/Listen/Survival, so you likely have one good skill, likely spot or survival.

You do a bit less damage with base hit (Large 2d6 with a feat sadly), but Str is high and you are giving a lot for free trip. Level 2 barbarian dip is always promising, pounce and Improved Trip feat at -6 Int are quite solid. 50' move helps there too.
Then into ToB classes, I think you get by. Large without reach is a bit sad, but you should be functional.

[Blue Jay]

I'm usually not a proponent of mouthpick weapons, but mouthpick TWF is kind of an entertaining thought.

I'll agree with LA +0 for the death dog.

[Zaq]

I'm usually not a proponent of mouthpick weapons, but mouthpick TWF is kind of an entertaining thought.

I'll agree with LA +0 for the death dog.

Technically, there's no reason you couldn't put mouthpick on a double weapon in the first place. Don't even need the feat: mouthpick automatically grants proficiency as long as you're wielding it with your mouth. (Which is a line I'd never noticed before, actually. Is there a way to arbitrarily apply mouthpick to an improvised weapon? Because that would be not only hilarious but also one of the only ways to get proficiency with improvised weapons. May need its own thread later.)

Of course, now the death dog can have two double weapons.

[ViperMagnum357]

I am going to go with LA +0 on the Death Dog, mostly because advancing 2 RHD plays to its strengths and keeps it full BAB. Not getting the reach increase as a quadruped hurts a lot, but that speed is very good and I think there is just enough to keep pace with a well built martial.

[Efrate]

+0 for Cerberus's younger brother. You are pigeonholed but you at least have the stuff to make make the most of it.

Incarnum would be fun, do you get 2 brow crown and throat binds? Because that has huge potential. That is 3 free double chakra feats which is neat. MOAR blending!

[ExLibrisMortis]

Is there a way to arbitrarily apply mouthpick to an improvised weapon?

The problem is that improvised weapons aren't weapons, so they can't normally be made masterwork or enchanted to have a +1 bonus. An artificer could use an infusion, bypassing the usual masterwork/+1 requirements, but the relevant infusions target weapons only, which brings us to the same problem once again. Using polymorph any object (say) to turn something into a legal target would work, of course, but that's rather inelegant, in my opinion. At that point, why not turn it into an alchemical gold fullblade and keep it there, since you get free proficiency anyway?


I agree with +0 for the dog.

[Netbrian]

I'm usually not a proponent of mouthpick weapons, but mouthpick TWF is kind of an entertaining thought.[/B].

This I'd have to see.

I vote +0 too. Disease and poisons are really one of those things with wildly different power levels for PCs versus monsters, huh -- "look, two weeks from now, that orc is going to be hurting, I promise."

[Blue Jay]

Technically, there's no reason you couldn't put mouthpick on a double weapon in the first place. Don't even need the feat: mouthpick automatically grants proficiency as long as you're wielding it with your mouth.

Yeah, weird. I had kind of mentally added a "1 mouth = 1 hand" rule to mouthpicks, but it really doesn't have that limitation, does it? And Lords of Madness has an image of a mouthpick falchion, which is a two-handed weapon. Double weapons are much more of a stretch, though.

-----

Also, what's with the death dog's disease being a nameless disease? You'd think it would be called "death dog fever" or "bilious mange" or something. But nope: it's just "a disease."

[danielxcutter]

What kind of disease is it even? Super-rabies?

[Thurbane]

Why do you ask, two dogs?

• Medium Magical Beast
• 2 RHD (full BAB, 2 good saves, d10 HD, 2 skill points): aside form having 1 RHD you can swap for your first RHD, or having 2 Outsider or Dragon RHD, you're in a decent position.
• 50 ft move: nice.
• +3 natural AC: not bad.
• 2 bites 1d6: OK-ish.
• Disease: virtually meaningless in combat.
• Trip: free trip attempt - not half bad if you can pump the numbers high enough.
• Darkvision 60 ft., lowlight-vision, scent: decent suite of senses.
• Str +4, Dex +4, Con +4, Int -6, Wis +2 Cha -4: net +4. Meh. The hit to Int is the worst.
• Small but useful racial skill list. +4 racial bonus to Listen and Spot. And all the track related stuff that goes with Scent.

No language noted. Non-humanoid in form. Gear and class progression may be issues. You can at least use a Pearl of Speech. No hands/manipulative appendages concerns me more.

Borderline +0, But I'm calling it as LA -0 due to gear issues, and the hit to Int.

[Dimers]

I think a whirling frenzy barbarian is the closest analog of at least Tier 4, for extra attacks and stat bumps. And I think any PHB race barbarian would be fine compared against a death dog in combat and much better at 90% of everything out of combat. I vote LA -0.