The LA-assignment thread VII: LA LA Land

[DeTess]

+1LA for this creature. pretty good stats, full BaB and a set of PLA's that are a pretty good substitute for class features puts it over the border for +0 for me.

[Zaq]

I’m on the border between +1 and +0. The PLAs aren’t bad but don’t scale. The numbers are reasonably numbery, I guess. Regen is good to have.

This doesn’t affect my judgment of the LA, but does anyone else think it’s weird that the phthisic’s mind thrust is explicitly at a lower ML than its other PLAs?

I can see the argument that this is stronger than the troll; it clearly is. I can also see the argument that the troll is overvalued.

Quick back-of-the-envelope sketch vs. something ECL 0... better numbers than a human psychic warrior, but the human will scale better. Beats a human barbarian pretty handily, especially once the phthisic takes a single barb level and also gets pounce. Slightly comparable to human duskblade—higher base numbers, lower spike damage, vaguely similar back-pocket utility. I think the duskblade is the closest comparison. The human will scale better, but the phthisic isn’t put to shame.

I’m currently okay with +1 as a recognition that the numbers and the PLAs are fairly reasonable for 6 RHD but then the regen gives you just a bit more than you can reasonably pick up with 6 class levels (while still getting anything comparable to the non-regen tricks the phthisic has).

[Thurbane]

I'm not comfortable assigning an LA due to my lack of psioinics knowledge, but I do have to comment on the Phthisic: it made it to my list of worst monster names in 3.5.

I challenge anyone to read it out loud without sounding like Daffy Duck.

[danielxcutter]

Okay, that Int damage doesn't have a save?! Wow, anything that can make enemies into dumbasses via extreme nommings is pretty amusing, regardless of power.

[Elkad]

Ickfish. I'm in at a solid to high +1. Great stats, including mentals (Paladin?), full BAB, and the powers are just a bonus. Sure, they aren't great, but they have uses (well maybe not body adjustment, other than fixing a bit of fire damage)
Int bite gives an auto-win vs animals, and it's a free secondary attack with a nice rider the rest of the time.
Even if fights are so fast Regeneration doesn't matter, it still saves using any resources on healing, which has it's own value on a PC.

Troll revisited. I still think this is worth a +1. Lower end of the scale, but there.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I'm not comfortable assigning an LA due to my lack of psioinics knowledge, but I do have to comment on the Phthisic: it made it to my list of worst monster names in 3.5.

I challenge anyone to read it out loud without sounding like Daffy Duck.

The H's are silent. You can pronounce it ptisic or tisic. This should make it simpler.

Also count me in for the troll at +0. Sticking to +1 for this cutie though.

[Lans]

Honestly? I'm going with LA +1.

Those huge ability boosts will be an absolute monster when you take into account the fact that most PCs won't have stats of 10 and 11 across the board. Also, Intelligence damage is nothing to dismiss.

REVISION:

LA +0. They shouldn't lose 9th level maneuvers.

Losing 9th level maneuvers isn't like losing losing 9th level spells.

Flesh Ripper is a full round action save or die melee attack.
Mountain Stone Strike is essentially 3-4*targets HD in damage.
Shadow Hand is Save or possibly be inconvenienced
Tornado Throw is ???
Time stand stills effect is comparable to a fighter with the weapon supremacy line.
The other 3 seem pretty good but not ground breaking

[Remuko]

So honestly, I feel like the troll would fall under 'very similar base monster that might deserve an update'.

Everyone, you can vote for the regular troll's LA again if you desire so. If you only vote on the phthisic's LA, I will assume you don't have a particular opinion on the troll, so keep that in mind.

+0 for the old troll on top of my vote for the Phthisic

[Caelestion]

If we classify both the troll and the phthisic as both LA +0, we are actively conceding that level adjustments are a joke and there is no point to this entire exercise.

The H's are silent. You can pronounce it ptisic or tisic. This should make it simpler.

I think it's closer to say that either the PH or the TH are silent. I've found fisikos, thigh-sick and thisik.

[danielxcutter]

Losing 9th level maneuvers isn't like losing losing 9th level spells.

Flesh Ripper is a full round action save or die melee attack.
Mountain Stone Strike is essentially 3-4*targets HD in damage.
Shadow Hand is Save or possibly be inconvenienced
Tornado Throw is ???
Time stand stills effect is comparable to a fighter with the weapon supremacy line.
The other 3 seem pretty good but not ground breaking

Tornado Throw and Flesh Ripper are highly dependent on certain statistics - the former on movement speed and trip modifiers, the latter on the target being vulnerable to crits and a high Strength(and possibly whether you grabbed Blade Meditation(Tiger Claw) or not). Meh if you don't, but possible to boost like whao.

[GreatWyrmGold]

On topic, that 1d4 int damage is going to trivialize any encounter with animals (tho 8RHD already does that). You can 1-shot dire tigers, leviathans, and go toe to toe with a mountain giant. Yes I'm leaning on some of the worst monsters from MM2, but it's still worth thinking about the breadth of enemies that can be downed in one bite.

True enough, but by 8th or 9th level you're not going to be facing a lot of animals. It's sort of like a cleric's turn undead ability; it makes a character very potent against one type of foe (animals or non-RHD-inflated undead), but doesn't do a lot against most other enemies.
I'd instead look at how it lets the troll down Intelligence 10-15 enemies in 4-6 bites regardless of hit points. That could change tactics significantly (assuming no SoD spam); the troll charges the biggest, dumbest enemy in the room while the party focuses on other enemies. This works best if the troll can find some way to use a natural attack multiple times per round (haste, maybe?) or if enemy hit points are high enough that it takes several full attacks to take down the big bruisers, and requires that no nasty casters be on hand to trivialize encounters faster than you can say "quickened grease". Thus, it's most potent at high-level but not high-optimization games.

That I know? No. Would I be surprised? Not at all.

Fair enough.

If we classify both the troll and the phthisic as both LA +0, we are actively conceding that level adjustments are a joke and there is no point to this entire exercise.

That's the kind of inflammatory statement that requires some kind of support if you want to be taken seriously. If you had phrased it some other way it wouldn't, but you said doing what you don't like would make all seven threads a pointless joke, and it's hard for me to read it any other way because you didn't justify your statement.
So what if you think it's obvious? It's clearly not, since you have to tell people that the supposedly-obvious thing is true.

[Caelestion]

That's the kind of inflammatory statement that requires some kind of support if you want to be taken seriously. If you had phrased it some other way it wouldn't, but you said doing what you don't like would make all seven threads a pointless joke, and it's hard for me to read it any other way because you didn't justify your statement.
So what if you think it's obvious? It's clearly not, since you have to tell people that the supposedly-obvious thing is true.

Quite apart from the fact that the phthisic is clearly better than the troll, if LA +0 can be extended all the way from half-elves and half-orcs to phthisics, then LA +0 is becomes so wide-ranging that it's almost useless. Besides, I explicitly didn't say that all seven threads were a pointless joke, but at this point, what we're (mostly) saying is "if it doesn't have spell-casting, it doesn't need LA" and that absolutely doesn't need pages and pages of arguments to use that as a rule of thumb, now does it?

[liquidformat]

If we classify both the troll and the phthisic as both LA +0, we are actively conceding that level adjustments are a joke and there is no point to this entire exercise.

For the Troll I think it comes down to what is regen 5 worth?

If we look at a Troll without regen 5 it has net 18 ability scores, with Str and Con notable standouts with +12 each. The strength advantage of the troll is mitigated by their loss of BAB which not only puts them slightly behind in damage but also in taking PRCs. In the first 6 levels they have similar hp to a water orc barb2/warblade4 but will soon jump ahead if it takes d12 hp classes, otherwise stay compatible. The Trolls NA and dex bonus would give it a natural bonus to AC. And its horrendous cha and int mean the troll is pretty useless outside of combat even compared to your standard barb. Over all ignoring regen the troll falls behind a barbarian 6 and will stay behind much less when you start adding warblade, fighter, and prcs into the mix; I think regen 5 is a powerful enough and relevant enough ability that it brings the troll up to par with a tier 3 beat stick.

[Caelestion]

I can see the argument for the troll, yes, but the phthisic has average Intelligence and excellent Wisdom and Charisma and is thus absolutely better outside of combat. "This creature has horrible mental scores" or "horrible Intelligence" is brought up an awful lot as being (quite reasonably) a crushing disadvantage, but the phthisic explicitly does not suffer from those problems and yet has all the same perks (and more besides) as a standard troll.

[liquidformat]

I can see the argument for the troll, yes, but the phthisic has average Intelligence and excellent Wisdom and Charisma and is thus absolutely better outside of combat. "This creature has horrible mental scores" or "horrible Intelligence" is brought up an awful lot as being (quite reasonably) a crushing disadvantage, but the phthisic explicitly does not suffer from those problems and yet has all the same perks (and more besides) as a standard troll.

Yep, between the very nice mental stats and the grab bag of PLAs/special qualities is why I voted +1 on fish sick... The troll just barely skirts by into +0 territory, the fish sick blows a water orc barbarian/warblade out of the water. Between the PLAs, NA, resistances, int damage on bite, and regen this is like giving full bab and a second good save to a psychic warrior which already is a very good advantage compared to a tier 3 class before you add in the net 36 ability mods... Heck I think there is an argument to be made to give fish sick +2 la though I think it falls short of that it is still close...

Another way to look at this is if we give the Troll the Phrenic template at 6 rhd it is a pretty fair comparison to the fish stick. The Troll only starts to outpace the phthisic around level 9-11 when it gets save or loose powers.

[javcs]

Conventional troll is +0.
Psitroll is +1.

[ViperMagnum357]

As per my initial post, revising my vote for fish stick up to LA +1. I probably undershot the value of those PLAs, which was the deciding point for me between 0 and +1.

[Remuko]

Quite apart from the fact that the phthisic is clearly better than the troll, if LA +0 can be extended all the way from half-elves and half-orcs to phthisics, then LA +0 is becomes so wide-ranging that it's almost useless.

All the Level Adjustment numbers vary widely because the # of RHD has to be factored in. This thing has a bunch of them, a human or an orc doesnt. Those extra levels are a lot.

[liquidformat]

All the Level Adjustment numbers vary widely because the # of RHD has to be factored in. This thing has a bunch of them, a human or an orc doesnt. Those extra levels are a lot.

At the same time rhd aren't inherently bad, it is just what you are getting for them that makes them good or bad.

[danielxcutter]

At the same time rhd aren't inherently bad, it is just what you are getting for them that makes them good or bad.

Yup! That's why Gloura are considered playable despite having 7 Fey RHD and LA +2 - casting as a 7th-level Bard and great stats probably has something to do with that. Also, Fey HD do have a lot of skill points.

[Covenant12]

I was leaning to +1 for the unpronounceable guy before liquidformat's breakdown. That argument was better than the one I was thinking of. I also think it edges out a 6th level water orc beatstick, this assumes normal weapon use but that looks like the idea. That's before regen, scent, and usable PLA's. +1 seems right, +0 I think no beatstick would take +0 LA 1 RHD races. +6 Cha allows paladin/blackguard dips as well, on top of two good saves and great stats.

Troll I'd lean to strong end of +0. Giant levels are really, really bad. But at least 6 of them is a sweet spot. Rend is nice, but you likely go weapons at some point and at -2 BAB I'm not sure its one trick is that amazing. And with those mental stats it is just one trick. (plus scent, but still) I think troll at +1 stacks up very poorly to ToB classes so isn't quite justified.

[Blue Jay]

I like pronouncing it straight up: "fthissik". I don't recommend it for nonnative English speaker, though.

I'm just going to echo liquidformat on this one: phthisic LA +1 and troll LA +0.

[Mystic Muse]

Phtisic LA+1, original troll +0

[Dimers]

I don't see a ton of power difference between the troll and phthisic. I say LA +1 for both. They compare fine against level 7 beatsticks built from class levels.

[Thurbane]

Troll	Phthisic
Large Giant	Large Monstrous Humanoid
6 RHD	6 RHD
+5 natural AC	+8 natural AC
+4 BAB	+6 BAB
2 claws 1d6, bite 1d6	2 claws 1d6, bite 1d6
Rend	Mind feed, psi-like abilities
Darkvision 90 ft., low-light vision, regeneration 5, scent	Damage reduction 10/magic, darkvision 60 ft., regeneration 5, resistance to cold 10, scent
One good save	Two good saves
+12 Str, +4 Dex, +12 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha (net +18)	+12 Str, +2 Dex, +10 Con, +6 Wis, +6 Cha (net +36: no penalties)
Listen, Spot	Listen, Move Silently, Spot

I don't know how some people are saying these two creatures are close in power and versatility. Unless you rule Phthisic unable to wield items, they are ahead in pretty much every area. Again, I freely admit a lack of knowledge in psionics, but if I compare Rend to the suite of PLAs the Phthisic has, it fares not too badly there as well. Mind Feed can take some low Int opponents out of the fight after a hit or two, no save. And that is still allowing hands to be free.

If we're going back to revisit the troll, I'd give it a solid LA +1; I can only therefore give the Phthisic a minimum of LA +2. I know many will (vehemently) disagree, but in the grand scheme of things, my votes will be subsumed by the bulk of lower votes, so don't panic.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Phthisic don't qualify for Primordial Giant .

LA +0 for the troll, +1 for its psionic cousin.

[Caelestion]

Another way to look at this is if we give the Troll the Phrenic template at 6 rhd it is a pretty fair comparison to the fish stick. The Troll only starts to outpace the phthisic around level 9-11 when it gets save or loose powers.

Given that we established that the phrenic template was fairly balanced at +2 LA, even if we then say that the troll is a (beefy) +0, wouldn't the phthisic then clearly be worth +2 LA, until at least it has three more HD/class levels and possibly even as many as five extra?

[MisterKaws]

Given that we established that the phrenic template was fairly balanced at +2 LA, even if we then say that the troll is a (beefy) +0, wouldn't the phthisic then clearly be worth +2 LA, until at least it has three more HD/class levels and possibly even as many as five extra?

Phrenic doesn't have RHD, so the +2 is needed to balance it against two class levels. With Phthisic, you're already paying six levels up front, so we really only need to decide whether it's worth a seventh or not. I voted for the unpopular +0* though I doubt it will matter in this swarm of +1s. I just think this race is way too tanky(and on the higher side damage-wise) on the early levels, though the lack of scaling makes it impossible to give it an LA higher than +2.

[Aniikinis]

I keep forgetting to reply to these threads when I'm on the site.

Anyways, for the troll I'll give a +0 and +1 for the Misspelling of a Magic: the Gathering affliction in the shape of a troll

[Inevitability]

Troll votes:
+0: 14 votes
+1: 3 votes


Psytick votes:
+0: 4 votes
+0*: 1 vote
+1: 15 votes
+2: 1 vote

Troll will be updated to +0, pssittic will go to +1.