Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Quaraphon

Hey, this one actually has an official level adjustment! *sees it's +5* Nevermind...

As Inevitability said,

A disappointing -0 LA overall. With like... four or five hit dice trimmed this might've been a decent playable monster.

The quaraphons are blue centaur-like creatures with two mouths and four eyes. They are strictly an alternative to orcs as "that one primitive tribe living in the outlands". Their description is so full of plothooks that it's almost funny. Their deafening bellow can be heard across the plains to attract the PCs attention, and a lot of wandering patrols specifically looking for trouble (that is, looking for strong opponents in the same area as the PCs) if they don't investigate. They have a disliked leader for them to overthrow, wise elder females to talk to, they have "hermeets" every 10 years with all the tribes where anything can happen (*wink* introduction of a villain stealing the tribe's prized possessions *wink*), and their members befriending the party any spellcaster get exiled, which can very easily lead to a quest to gain acceptance of the tribe. And on top of that, they have a built-in way to make plot-relevant quaraphons more memorable: each of them has differently placed eyes and mouths. The exilee might be "that one quaraphon with all eyes vertically aligned", the leader would be "the big quaraphon with eyes between his two mouths". They are designed as flavourful and memorable background characters, and it shows.

On the other hand, to allow DMs to make really unique quaraphons of any class, the base creature has basically nothing except numbers for it. Deafening Bellow is its only ability and is a ridiculously weak AoE on a large zone dealing 2d6 damage and deafening people. Apart from that, it's just a Large aberration with 9 RHD, regular beatstick stats (+10 Str, +12 Con, -4 Int, +4 Wis, +7 NA), and a few natural attacks crucially not necessitating hands (one bite, two hooves). Sadly, that's all. I think I will agree with Inevitability and say 4 RHD, DLA-3, this to minimize the loss of BAB. It might even be a bit too strong at 4 RHD, but losing 2 BAB on top of 5 levels of class features would be too high a price in my opinion.


That's all for today! Until next time, where we will review the Rage Drake --another very beatsticky monster-- I hope you will try to use the quaraphon in one of your games, maybe in a one-shot? They're sure to surprise all players except the most savvy ones in the art of 3.5!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Rage Drake

"Drakes claim to be dragons, until the dragons show up." - Snapping Drake, Magic the Gathering

A rage drake is what you send to fight your players when an actual Young Adult red dragon would be too much, and they don't want to fight children, even dragon children. It's also much easier to run in combat, since it doesn't have spells, doesn't have a breath weapon, and doesn't fly. This might have been by design, and some people think that mages created the rage drakes to be able to use thephysical abilities of a dragon without its pride and intelligence. Of course, this failed, since while they don't have the greed and cunning of a red dragon, they are just as evil and cannot be tamed except by the most powerful individuals.

- 14 Dragon RHD is typical of a Large creature, and just a bit much for what it offers.
- +16 Str, +6 Dex, +12 Con, -6 Int, +2 Wis, +0 Cha, +8 NA, total +30. These are pretty expected stats for its CR, even a bit low. Would be nice if it wasn't that dumb.
- Two claws, one bite. Standard issue package. Sad that you don't have hands (especially with all the riders on its bite).
- Rage, Pounce, rake (claw), improved grab (bite), Worry, 60ft movement speed. Wow. That's actually a really good routine. High strength, rage and five attacks can deal a lot of damage, and 60ft movement speed means absolutely nothing can escape it on the ground. Rake triggers both on a charge and on a successful grappling bite. And Worry means creatures get stunned for 1 round each time you grab them, to add even disagreement for the target.

So, what is this great attack routine worth? Quite a lot, actually. Especially considering the full BAB, and the fact that Rage is a prerequisite for many feats and prestige classes. In fact, a rage drake can enter immediately into Bear Warrior, for example. For all of this, and despite that abysmal intelligence, I think the rage drake would be a decent 9 RHD. And giving it 14 BAB and much more HP would probably be worth a strong DLA-3.


Next time, we will review a combat-centered Fey, which is about as anthetical as a cunning Ooze, and which actually controls Oozes. See you then for the Ragewalker!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Ragewalker

"These are five hundred years of dead people's weapons that the ragewalker has gathered. After a while, he stopped actually killing people himself and started hanging around the battlefields, letting others do it for him."
"How many souls has he..."
"Forced to kill one another? Oh, two millions... -ish. He calls it his... *sigh* '#Lifehack'. "
- One expert describing, from a safe distance, a ragewalker fanning the flames of conflict and slicing people in half.

The ragewalker embodies the primal rage of combat. As a Large Fey, he really can't fight by himself. Half BAB, d6 HD? Yeah right. On the other hand, it has a lot of abilities that make people just bash each other instead of him.
First, its ability scores are extremely good. +8 Str, +14 Dex, +8 Con, +0 Int, +4 Wis, +14 Cha, total +48, no penalty.
It goes well with its 50ft speed, two claws and GMW'd spiked chain to do some damage.
Then, it can rebuke and control Living Spells. That's probably the least useful rebuking pool I've seen. And it even uses only half of its HD as the ETL.
Its much more interesting ability is Induce Rage Frenzy. When the ragewalker is closer than 10ft from you, you make a Will save or start attacking the closest person in melee, whoever that is, and lose the ability to speak, cast spells, and is "incoherent", which probably means they can't manifest powers or use spell-like either. That's pretty good, as it's basically a save-or-lose for everything that doesn't rely only on melee attacks. It's unclear how that ability interacts with maneuvers, but even if it prevents the use of maneuvers, its radius is so small that you'll probably get attacked first by the affected people. You might want to invest in Widen Supernatural ability.
It has some buffing and battlefield control abilty, with Wall of Fire, Wall of Blades and Greater Magic Weapon 3/day, all at CL20. GMW notably is pretty good, and having a free +5 on your weapon will come in handy.
And finally, it has good defense for ECL around 12-14: complete immunity to nonepic ranged weapons that even throws them back to their shooter, Grafted Armor and Natural Armor for a total of +12 AC, SR 4+HD, DR 10/cold iron, a cloud of weapons dealing 2d6 to anyone adjacent, and fast healing 5. Hanging around the battlefield, remember? I suppose that's why it has so many RHD too (22 of them), so that it doesn't go down easy.

The ragewalker is very very bad. Its main ability is borderline unuseable, and the rest is very unfocused. Still, the stats are good, the SLAs are good and the defense is varied at least. 12 RHD, DLA-7. What do you think?


Since the LA-assignment just restarted after 3 weeks of hiatus, I too will pick up the pace. See you next time for Elder Redcap and Prismatic Roper.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Between the Ragewalker and the Redcap, there are the Rakshasas. And they divided the thread so much that Inevitability posted a poll to redefine the rules of LA-assigning. It's this poll who defined the target of the thread as "similar class to the monster's role in a party, but no less than Tier 4". It's honestly pretty interesting to read, and impressive that the LA-assignment thread went on for so long without having that kind of wake-up call earlier.

Elder Redcap

The elder redcap is a psychotic gnome sporting a red phrygian cap, a comically large scythe and thinly-veiled creepy Little Red Riding Hood/bogeyman vibes. Unfortunately, it also has 12 Fey RHD on a martial chassis, which doesn't do it any favor.

Regular redcaps (4 RHD) got a +0 in the original thread for their weird way of advancing. You see, their cap, like all French Revolution symbols, becomes more powerful the more blood flows around it. It absorbs some of the essence of creatures it is drenched with the blood of, and bestows it to the redcap, giving it +1 in all physical stats and +1/2 natural armor per HD, with no mention of not including class levels. It also means that young redcaps are basically always bloodthirsty, since killing literally makes them stronger, and groups of redcaps generally act as crazed murderous gangs. The only thing preventing them from slaughtering each other until there's only one left is the elder redcaps' (very relative) wisdom, who at least point them towards humanoids to kill. Also, if you wondered how there can be elders when they don't reproduce sexually, it's because they literally bud, bearing youngs as humps on their back until they are big enough to be "born" and live on their own. Maybe another reference to Grimm's tales, where witches are generally humped?

-Small Fey. Off to a bad start.
- +12 Str, +10 Dex, +12 Con, +2 Wis, +2 Cha, +5 Natural armor. Physical stats would be pretty good with a few HD less, natural armor is bad.
- Eldritch Stone give them +1 to hit and damage when using slings. Ok I guess.
- Powerful Build. Very good. At least the redcap can wield a Medium scythe now. It's no guillotine but it will do.
- DR 10/Cold Iron. Expected.

Basically, that's just what a regular redcap becomes when it gains 8 more RHD using its cap's ability. Removing these bonuses as we reduce the RHD would not make sense (we'd just go back to regular redcap). We consider the elder redcap still has high physical score even if we reduce its RHD.
Compared to a regular redcap, it gets +8 Str, Dex and Con, +4 natural armor and +5 DR. That's all. The stats are really good but gaining more Fey RHD is... less than ideal. Something like four more RHD? 8 RHD as a conservative estimate. And since more Fey RHD doesn't help you, DLA-3.

Prismatic Roper

Okay, I'm... 90% sure that's not what a roper looks like. Too many tendrils, no mouth, no eyes, and a decidedly un-stalagtite-like appearance. Still, the prismatic roper, like the roper, is an underground ambush predator, but uses magic to lure people in instead of just mimicking an inanimate object. They're also apparently used as guardians by various aberrations in Eberron.

- Large aberration with 9 RHD. Even with all the good here, it isn't worth as much as an ogre mage.
- +12 Str, +4 Dex, +6 Con, -6 Int, +2 Wis, +4 Cha, +11 Natural armor. Would be decent beatstick stats, but -6 Int is honestly crippling, and makes Combat Expertise difficult to attain. Unfortunate.
- 4 tendrils, 20ft reach, and poison (1d6 Dex/Paralysis, no listed duration, but will probably never come up). We'll make a battlefield controller of it yet! Sad that it only has...
- 10ft movement speed. That's a problem. A battlefield controller must absolutely be able to position themselves.
- Color Spray 3/day. Would not even be good if it fully affected anyone above 5 HD
- Hypnotic Coloration: The Prismatic Roper can change its coloration to either match its surroundings (+20 to Hide in underground environments) or Fascinate people nearby (Will or must approach the roper until woken up by someone attacking). Honestly seems pretty good, but works weirdly with the rest of the abilities.

The roper doesn't know if it wants to be a rogue using tendrils for sneak attacks or a battlefield controller tripping people around. And it sucks at both due to its low movement speed and intelligence. 6 RHD, DLA-2.

What do you think of these guys? Next time, we will review the orcish butcher aberrations, the Rot Reavers!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Rot Reaver

When others lick their blade to test its sharpness, the rot reaver tests it by licking the wounds it inflicts on its enemies. The rot reaver has exactly one interesting characteristic, it's that it's a living creature feeding on negative energy, and capable of opening conduits to the Negative Energy Plane to animate zombies around it. Having so much negative energy in it, it can unleash it to rebuke undead as a cleric of its HD without relying on a deity to do so. Weirdly, it cannot just feed directly on the NEP and has to create undead then eat them, which is... just necrophagy with extra steps. I wonder if you could Animate a corpse that you have swallowed somehow and still feed on it.

This particular diet is likely the only reason why the rot reaver is an Aberration instead of a Monstrous Humanoid, but having a suboptimal type is just one more nail in the coffin of viability. The rot reaver is just disppointing all around. Medium Aberration with 10 RHD, ability scores worthy of a 4 RHD creature (+4 in all physical, -4 Int, +2 Wis, +4 Cha, +7 natural), can lick people for 1 Con damage, but only when it hits with its +1 handaxe, and can animate the dead but only control one time its HD instead of 4 times. It just tries to do what a cleric does, but not only does it fail to do so, it only does an extremely narrow part of what a cleric is capable of. At least it's only "Usually Neutral Evil", so a neutral rot reaver could take a level of cleric and get two pools for DMM and devotion feats, I guess. Taking 4 levels of dread necromancer allows you to bypass your limit on number of undead (with Command Undead spam) and gets you infinite out-of-combat healing. But then again, a dread necro of the same ECL would do the same, better. I guess the most interesting thing to do is rogue/swordsage, with Travel Devotion and/or Divine Might to use your Rebuke Attempts (can you use Divine Might on your tongue attack?) and using your weak zombies to flank and get Sneak Attacks. With that in mind, probably 6 RHD, DLA-3 would be good?

Necrothane: Just a big advanced rot reaver with no size increase, but actually decent stat increases, for a total of +6 Str, +4 Dex, +8 Con, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +8 Cha, but no change to its +7 natural armor. 9 RHD, DLA-8.


And it doesn't even have a good name in french! It's just putréfiant, "putrefier/rotter". I'll admit I was initially intrigued by the whole negative energy thing, but it's kind of a surface level monster, all things considered. Next time will be quite short, we will review the goodest freak of nature there is, the Runehound!

[Beni-Kujaku]

It's been quite a while here with no comments, I'm just wondering if people are still reading and enjoying my rants. Is there something that makes my posts less enjoyable than before? Are the current monsters just that forgettable? Or was the concept flawed from the beginning and just petered out?

Would anyone prefer that I don't give my own estimates and let other people discuss the negative LA, with the risk that no negative LA is assigned for a long time?

[loky1109]

I read, I just have nothing to say.

[martixy]

As one of the OG champions of the cause, I'm glad the effort is going live and well.

[Metastachydium]

No-no-no-no-no. Don't give up on it, unless you tire of the project! I'm reading it regularly (my currently somewhat impaired ability to focus on stuff permitting); it's a really neat thing (and you're doing swimmingly: I mean, you already outdid the three previous threads combined!); MM3, specifically, is a book that's dear to me; and I thoroughly enjoy your being sardonic at WotC's expense. It's just, well, the only kind of LA I really dare to regularly assign is the WotC-style one ("aim too high" is an easy rule to follow); even at the regular RLA thread, I really only chime in when something seems blatantly obvious to me and isn't voiced by anyone else or if I get some sort of sudden revelation and this is harder.

Also, don't worry. From among the regulars, Remetagross was busy with stuff recently (we are in a game together; that's how I know that), whereas the mighty Great Wyrm has a habit of popping in and out of the forum. I'm sure traffic will increase again.

[LecternOfJasper]

Your write-ups are thoroughly enjoyable, and you are a gentleman and a scholar. I don't get to play 3.5 enough to have an intuitive grasp of the balance of these things, but I'm learning that from these threads moreso than anything, so I appreciate the help!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I still read whenever there's a new post, but I don't usually have much to contribute to the discussion.

[Remuko]

I still read whenever there's a new post, but I don't usually have much to contribute to the discussion.

this. im doing the same

[Beni-Kujaku]

As one of the OG champions of the cause, I'm glad the effort is going live and well.

And I am glad to see that people value this niche aspect of the game enough to have searched for new ways of doing it. The whole size adjustment thing you imagined was really quite an interesting idea, for example (if a bit unwieldy to use for actual rating) and an important part of monster advancement that often gets ignored. Hope you're enjoying the ride you started.

No-no-no-no-no. Don't give up on it, unless you tire of the project! I'm reading it regularly (my currently somewhat impaired ability to focus on stuff permitting); it's a really neat thing (and you're doing swimmingly: I mean, you already outdid the three previous threads combined!); MM3, specifically, is a book that's dear to me; and I thoroughly enjoy your being sardonic at WotC's expense. It's just, well, the only kind of LA I really dare to regularly assign is the WotC-style one ("aim too high" is an easy rule to follow); even at the regular RLA thread, I really only chime in when something seems blatantly obvious to me and isn't voiced by anyone else or if I get some sort of sudden revelation and this is harder.

Also, don't worry. From among the regulars, Remetagross was busy with stuff recently (we are in a game together; that's how I know that), whereas the mighty Great Wyrm has a habit of popping in and out of the forum. I'm sure traffic will increase again.

Damn, I can't say no to such enthusiasm ^^ Don't worry, I didn't intend to stop this beautiful little project there, just to better understand the readers and what they thought of the thread lately. Thanks for the update on remetagross, tell him to hang in there, and that I wish him well (not only him, btw. Everyone here helps to shape the Playground into the great place that it is, and you all deserve the best IRL).

Your write-ups are thoroughly enjoyable, and you are a gentleman and a scholar. I don't get to play 3.5 enough to have an intuitive grasp of the balance of these things, but I'm learning that from these threads moreso than anything, so I appreciate the help!

Thank you for these kind words. Happy to help! If even one person has a more enjoyable game because of this thread, then it will be a victory!

I still read whenever there's a new post, but I don't usually have much to contribute to the discussion.

this. im doing the same

I read, I just have nothing to say.

Thank you for your trust, everyone. I mean it. Knowing there are people appreciating my work almost makes up for going through statblocks like the skullcrusher ogre :P

[Beni-Kujaku]

Runehound

"Go, my dog! Fetch the brain of my enemies! Fetch!"

The runehound is one of the coolest designs of the whole book. A blind dog, covered in rune, with its maw in the middle of its back, doesn't really appeal to me at first glance, but the whole thing is weirdly well put together, and feels like it "makes sense", both as an encounter and as a creature in the world. In Eberron, they act as the tracking hounds of various nefarious organizations, including but not limited to the daelkyrs' and the dolgaunts' armies. Never heard of the dolgaunts? Don't worry, I didn't neither. And after seeing what they look like, I can say I wish I still didn't.

The runehounds are preternaturally good at tracking, to an exaggerated degree. They have Track as a bonus feat, +20 to Survival checks when tracking intelligent creatures, and an absolutely enormous 500ft Blindsight to hunt down hiding fugitives. And if they try to run away? 50ft movement speed will probably be enough to not get left in the dust, and its ability to spew Web-like goo balls from up to 100ft away will slow the target down enough that the rest of the army can catch up. On top of that, it has Fast Healing 3, a 10ft reach with its weird serpent-like neck (Mouthpick? Mouthpick. At least if it doesn't prevent Vile Spew.), DR 5/Silver and pretty good physical stats for its RHD, despite the hit to Int (+10 Str, +4 Dex, +6 Con, -6 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Cha). This will help if it has to actually subdue an enemy in melee.

Is the runehound worthy of +0 LA? Barely not. If it had just one less HD it'd be a solid +0, but as it is now the lack of limbs, difficulty communicating, low BAB and lost class levels don't make up for the nice toys.

I am leaning towards LA -0, though only just, probably 1 RHD too much for +0.

I think if it had one less RHD, might be persuaded to give it a +0, but as is, I can't give it anything other than a -0.

-0: 11 votes
+0: 9 votes

At least the final rating is quite clear here. That's a clear 4 RHD, DLA-0.


It's so focused in its abilities, the runehound definitely feels like an artificial lifeform created to serve as hounds, hence the runes symbolizing the dweomer used at its creation. But then, why do wild packs of those exist? How do they reproduce? Who created them in Faerun, where we can't blame every aberration on the daelkyr? The answer is we don't know. The statblock is absolutely barren when it comes to lore or origin of the runehound, and it's maybe the only complaint I have against what is otherwise a really enjoyable monster. As a person once said on RPGnet: "You can’t just plop down a cool design and a statblock and expect people to use it. You need to explain how it fits into the world."
Next time, we will review the salt mummy. And considering how many RHD it has, it being salty doesn't really surprise me much.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Salt Mummy

You really can never be sure to be safe with criminals in the D&D world. It's hard enough to kill them, since rogues all have high Dex and can go in hiding before you can catch them, or escape any nonmagical prison, but even if you succeed, you're far from done. If the corpse is left to rot, it becomes a Mohrg. If they are killed while planning a coup, they become Sepulchral Thieves, and even if you bury the corpse properly, there's a chance there just happens to be a salt vein nearby, and you'll have a Salt Mummy on the loose in no time. Of course, since it's so easy, some evil clerics intentionally bury criminals in a salt-filled coffin in the hope of creating a Salt Mummy. To these clerics, I have something to say: Are ya stupid? It costs about 1000 gp in fine salt to fill such a coffin, and all that for a glorified zombie only marginally better than a simple skeleton bear, and definitely more expensive, even not counting the investment to reach the 24 equivalent turning levels necessary to control it. And what do you get for your effort? A self-healing undead dealing a few dehydration damage on each hit, and with none of the mummies' abilities.

- 12 Undead RHD, Medium size. Off to a great start. No reach, low BAB and middling HP are never good on a beatsticky monster.
- +16 Str, -2 Dex, no Con, -4 Int, +0 Wis, +6 Cha, total +16, +9 Natural armor. Wow, that's... Impressively bad. Similar or worse than a brown bear's stats (as a reminder, a 6 RHD animal rated here as worth 5 RHD). Strength doesn't do everything in a fight, and even less outside.
- Fast Healing 10, Unholy Toughness. That's actually good. These abilities give you some much needed durability.
- Dehydrating Impact (+4d6, Fort half, on each touch, including slam attacks). Just don't shake people's hand on the street.

The Salt Mummy doesn't have much going for it, especially not its type. I guess a Monk/Unarmed Swordsage could make it work, giving it 2 or 3 more attacks on which to put Dehydrating Impact. That said, this one ability will be useless if you use weapons, which is sad. 6 RHD, with the Undead immunities making the difference with the brown bear despite the lower BAB. DLA-4. The Salt Mummy really needs more BAB than it has.


I want to see a Salt Mummy with a red Santa cap, employed to dry people coming back from ski with snow-soaked clothes. Speaking of water, our next monster is the Sea Tiger! See you next time, and merry christmas to all!

[Frostmoon]

From one very cool, almost usable-at-its-base-level critter (the Runehound) to one rather bland extra-dehydrated mummy...dang. XD The Runehound's a critter that could easily be used in the Monstrous Competition, and genuinely excites me to figure our what classes suit it. The mummy is, uh, well. Uhm. XD 6 HD sound okay, I think?

[dhasenan]

I want to see a Salt Mummy with a red Santa cap, employed to dry people coming back from ski with snow-soaked clothes.

This is the kind of insight I follow this thread for.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Sea Tiger

This monster makes me so irrationally mad.

You see, in 3.0, there was that creature type called Beast. It was for not-quite animals but with no magical or supernatural abilities, and they all (except the gray render, which should probably have been a Monstrous Humanoid in the first place) had 2 Int. It was the realm of hippogriffs, dinosaurs, girallons... and sea lions. Sea lions are the 3e version of what will be later called sea cat in 3.5 (why change the name? Why not!). Now, they removed the type for 3.5, and changed basically all Beasts into Magical Beasts, except dinosaurs and the roc. Now, I have a lot to say about this (why only the roc? If you're going to include mythological animals, why not the sea cat, why not the hippogriff and why not the girallon?), but I could understand it as a will to balance the access of druids to powerful Animals, though these "Beasts" are really not that unbalanced with existing animals. What I cannot excuse, however, is that in the next book (remember, MM3 is the first Monster Manual published for 3.5), the sea tiger, described as a mammal "similar to the sea lion", clearly derived from it and designed as another variation of the sea cat, was classified as an Animal, completely breaking the link between the two before it even existed. The imaginary dinosaurs of the book (especially the infamous fleshraker) were also classified as Animals and threw the whole animal companion balance out the window, which makes it completely unjustifiable to have the sea lion and other previous Beasts as Magical Beasts. I don't mind questionable design choices, but I hate these kinds of inconsistencies.

At least it's an interesting monster with original abilities, huh? Well of course not, what did you expect? It's "just an animal" after all. Pitiful ability scores for a Huge creature with 10 RHD (+8 Str, +2 Dex, +6 Con, -8 Int, +4 Wis, -6 Cha, +10 Natural), standard claw-claw-bite routine (at least the bite deals decent damage, too bad you can't enjoy it since you'll be using a Mouthpick weapon instead), not even the aquatic subtype, and a blindsight worse than a porpoise's as its sole ability. And that's supposed to be the same CR as a baleen whale? 4 RHD, a weak DLA-4, and be gone with it. Were it not Huge, it might have been even lower.


There's no need to put interesting lore on an animal, move along citizen. And since I don't have the courage to diss the art, you can go to the original thread, they did it very well for me. Next time, another thing that looks like a real-world animal, but this time with varied and interesting abilities, the Seryulin!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Seryulin

Look at that sahuagin! He looks so happy to do slug rodeo!

So, you want to play a sea slug faster than a heavy horse? It's more common than you think! The seryulin is a giant slug constantly oozing with a slimy goo (damn, lots of synonyms for sludge here). This gives it the ability to escape any way to entangle it, to entangle its opponents, and to somehow protect both it and its rider from paralysis. Yeah, I'm not sure how being covered with slug slobber makes you immune to Hold Monster, but it replicates all non-grappling applications of Freedom of Movement, so that's neat. That makes the seryulin an honestly great creature to ride. It is sentient (Int 8, racial mod -1) and can understand Aquan, so you don't need to command it in battle, and gives you a discount version of Freedom of Movement, as well as great mobility (50ft land and swim) and decent offense with two slams dealing 1d6 bonus damage and a bite (making it one of the six creatures currently covered by the LA thread with both several slams and other natural weaponry, all of them being in the MM3).
Your slime even protects your rider from... Your slime. What? Anyway, the seryulin can 1/day spray a 20ft radius with its sticky substance, making them entangled (no save, casters must make DC 15 Concentration checks to cast spells), and immobilized (Ref negates) until they deal some damage to the goo with a slashing weapon, succeed on a pretty hard Str check, or 2d4 rounds have passed. Really a great ability to have, especially since it doesn't affect the rider (though it isn't otherwise friendly).
You might want to act as a mount even when playing the seryulin as a PC, if one person in the party has some ranks in Ride, or even your cohort.

The only problem of the seryulin is the 10 Aberration RHD that it has, which its lowish stats (+10 Str, +2 Dex, +4 Con, -2 Int, +4 Wis, +2 Cha, total +20) and okay but disappointing defense (+10 NA, acid resistance 10, can't be tripped, DR 5/piercing or slashing, probably the single weakest kind of DR in the game) are definitely not worth.

In the end, the seryulin is a very flavorful monster, with interesting abilities, not much lore but doesn't need much (we know it eats sharks and seals and loves the taste of sahuagins, which makes the creature's art that much more hilarious, considering the sahuagin is probably actually doing rodeo trying to avoid the slug putting him down and gobbling him up). It just needs a few RHD less to actually be playable. Maybe something like 5 RHD, DLA-4? Yeah, that sounds fair. Maybe the -4 DNLA would be a bit strong.


Greater Seryulin, 21 RHD: And then, there's the greater Seryulin. Gained 11 RHD, put the two stat increases in Dex, gained a size category and related ability scores. That's all. No, that doesn't make the Seryulin worth an epic character. 7 RHD, DLA-11


I would very well see a Seryulin as a Sonic character. "Seryu the Slug" would continue the trend of unusually fast animals while still having some actual tricks up his... sleeves? Eyestalks. Tricks up his eyestalks. Next time, we will look at the unionization of the tiny Zelda feys against the exploitation of healing powers. See you then for the Shimmerling Swarm!

[loky1109]

It's a monstrous Onychophora.

[Beni-Kujaku]

It's a monstrous Onychophora.

Is that a centipede earthworm with spiderman powers!? Lolth save us all!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Shimmerling Swarm

Individually, a shimmerling is a record-breaking Fey, being both the only Fine Fey, and by far the stupidest Fey in the game (with Int 1, the second one being the Caliento with Int 5). They act like some mix of hummingbirds and glowworm, eating flower pollen and probably using their natural ability to radiate colored light to attract sexual partners or for long distance communications. But even with perfect flying and 22 Dex, they're too weak to make any kind of impact on big threats, such as big animals, or to avoid the dangers of moving away from a dangerous change in their environments. That's why up to 10,000 shimmerlings can get together to form a shimmerling swarm. They combine their intelligence (with a hive mind reaching an intelligence of 7, probably due to them communicating with each other through their light) and their ability to shed light, to the point that they can dazzle or even fascinate creatures in a wide radius.
Sadly, 11 RHD is a bit too much to pay to play such a collection of creature.
The shimmerling swarm has all the best abilities a swarm can ask for. Perfect fast flying, Fine size, so immune to weapon damage, and very high dexterity for Evasion (-10 Str, +12 Dex, -4 Int, +4 Wis, +8 Cha are pretty interesting stats, if overall a bit low). Fey is also one of the very best RHD for a swarm, since swarms don't much care about BAB, and they absolutely need the skills for more versatility.
The problem is... Everything else. Both of the swarm's abilities are big unfriendly area of effects that will inconvenience (read, dazzle and fascinate) your allies more often than your enemies, and even take a standard action to deactivate. And the swarm not only has a hivemind (so no mind-affecting immunity), but is reduced to Int 1 if they fall below 1 HP/HD (they could at least have made it progressive). It's a rare way to be able to reallocate your skill points if your DM allows that (the example statblock has lower skills when it has 1 Int rather than 7), but most DMs probably won't allow that, or might even say that you revert to an NPC when below this threshold.
Still, their stats are not bad, and they are able to speak, which is extremely rare for a swarm. They also have hands. I'm not going to try to abuse any of this with "each individual shimmerling could carry a wand" or something like that, but being able to finely manipulate items could mean a shimmerling swarm could perform somatic and verbal components. Having Diplomacy and Sense Motive as well as a Charisma bonus could let it act as a face. I could see one becoming a pretty fine warlock or dragonfire adept, or an exemplar later. Maybe a dip in Marshal or a few levels in bard. There's not a lot of options, and the reason why is: a swarm without any inherent offensive ability is not a great character. 5 RHD, DLA-5


It's very interesting to see a humanoid-shaped swarm, and humanoid-shaped creatures with animal-like intelligence. They're basically thousands of tinkerbells, each with all the common sense of a moth flying into a flame, and so chaotic that even when they fathom the idea of working together, they are still as intelligent as an orc. I love how they only assemble to flee safely from a threat but the only common thought in the swarm is always to fight back and take revenge on the thing that wronged them. Truly precious confused little glow-elves. Next time, we will remain on the theme of swarms, but with a much less cute one: the Shredstorm (also a great name)!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Shredstorm

This is a tornado composed of magical ninja stars. That is so cool. But so dumb. But so cool. I want a Sharknado sequel with that thing as the main threat, and Jeff Goldblum telling everyone, with the voice of someone who knows he is saying something very intelligent, that this is a very natural occurence, as all the ninja stars people keep at home get magnetized by thunderstorms and start flying towards each other. We'll make millions of dollars, believe me.

I really love how someone in the D&D universe once sat at a table, thought long and hard about how best to break fortifications, then concluded "Like, adamantine weapons go through hard stuff, right? But the guy who has them in his hands, he can get killed. And then, like, the enemy has our adamantine weapons. So, hear me out, what if, like adamantine weapons wielded adamantine weapons? But adamantine weapons make narrow cuts, right, so they can't go through their own cuts. But! We can, like, make them, like, really tiny! That way, they can cut the enemy walls, and then go through their own cuts!". And then everybody agreed and paid 85 grand just to make that a reality.


Mechanically, a shredstorm is a swarm of Fine Constructs. At first glance, it should be absolutely unbreakable, but Construct immunities don't do much for a swarm, already immune to basically all mind-affecting and death effects. And the construct type is really suboptimal for a swarm. No intelligence, almost no skills, no Con to boost your HP, Fine size so no Construct bonus HP, and no good saving throw to ensure you're going to die to the first Fireball coming your way. I guess that still makes you immune to Circle of Death and Waves of Exhaustion. 90ft (perfect) flying is always good, but -4 Str, +12 Dex, _ Con, _ Int, +0 Wis, +0 Cha is really bad.
The blades also count as both adamantine and magic to hit incorporeal creatures and to bypass damage reduction. That's really good. The bane of all swarms have always been damage reduction, which reduces their already weak damage output to basically nothing. Still, the scaling of swarm damage is so slow that it should not matter much in the long run. The most interesting thing about the Shredstorm is that the blades are magnetized. By dynamo effect, moving magnets can create an electrical current. That makes the shredstorm immune to electricity, able to deal 2d6 additional damage per swarm attack, and to fire a CL 14 Lightning Bolt once per 2d6 hour. But once again, none of that scales, and it's only pure damage. The question is, as often with swarms, "where to go next?". I am tempted to suggest Acolyte of the Skin. It would give you something to do with your standard action, but mostly just to be able to say "I'm not a demon, I'm ten thousand shurikens in a trenchcoat!". It's honestly pretty hard to find a prestige class whose very prerequisites are not a huge hurdle for a creature who will not be a caster, who can't make regular attacks, who can't play any instrument (no voice, no hands), and with one skill point per level with no class skill. The only option I found would be the Purple Dragon Knight, with Marshall levels before. I'd even consider going PsyWar despite the non-manifesting racial hit dice. Maybe Noble or Dragon Chaman, but I'm not convinced... Do you have an idea? Anyway, 4 RHD, DLA-8, in other words: don't play that.


Great monster, awful PC. That should be the title for the next iteration of this thread. Next time, we will have another pretty good monster, the natural evolution and fusion of two iconic monster manual 1 monsters: the Shrieking Terror!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Shrieking Terror

Look at how happy she looks eating a person alive! Note that we don't see a head on the victim, which means she probably already created a vargouille off of them.

Checking the Book of Erotic Fantasy... Hmmm, yes, outsiders with the evil subtype can breed with anything except celestials, including Magical Beasts. We're good, crossing a vargouille and a hydra does make a perfectly viable offspring!

More seriously, this is actually the logical conclusion of a vargouille kissing a hydra. Hydras only have one brain, located at the base of its necks. Changing one into a vargouille would obviously make the whole package fly away, not just one head. Obviously, the result is this amalgamation of the five heads of the original hydra, but with vargouille wings instead of the rest of the body. This has... Interesting implications for the anatomy of the hydra, considering the wings are supposed to be sprouting from the creature's ears. It would mean a hydra's ears are located at the base of its necks, which was never written anywhere as far as I know. It's also great to have a hydra as the monster to showcase vargouilles variations, considering the hydra is already known for its high variability. Hydras, pyrohydras, cryohydras, Lernean hydras, thessalhydras... It seems like the lineage hydras share with dragons extends beyond the occasional breath weapon and to the propensity to share their genes with anything to make weird new hybrids (look up thessalmeras, they're a sight to behold). It's still weird that the shrieking terror is an aberration and not an outsider like the vargouille. I guess it makes a bit of sense considering other corrupted hydras (namely, the thessalhydra) are also aberrations, and that most unnatural hybrids (see Symbiotic) are aberrations too.


Mechanically, the shrieking terror has honestly interesting abilities, but the fact that it's all shackled to 15 RHD is what kills the viability of the creature. It's also, suprisingly for something that is basically half of a Huge creature, medium-sized. This is a big problem for the viability of the creature, but I have a theory about it. I think it's a reference to the first draft of the hydra for 3rd edition. In Dragon Magazine #272 (one of the last instances before 3e), we can find the "Ecology of the Hydra", giving us a bit of previously unseen information (like the fact that female hydras have shorter horns or the disposition of heads on the creature), the fact that dragons like to eat hydras (always nice to have more information on creatures' diets), and prospective informations on what hydras would look like in 3rd edition, notably the fact that the damage on their bites was supposed to scale. Apart from the Str bonus (apparently unchanged), a 5- or 6-headed hydra would deal 1d6 damage, a 7- or 8-headed would deal 1d8 damage, a 9- or 10- headed would deal 2d6 and a 11- or 12h headed hydra would deal 2d8 damage with each bite. Maybe the hydras would have grown in size with each "category", with the 5-headed one being Medium and the 12-headed one being Gargantuan as it was in 2e. Or maybe they didn't normalize the "size equals better natural weapon damage" thing yet. In any case, it's probably to match this first draft in spirit that they gave the 12-headed hydra Improved Natural Weapon (bite) in 3.5. And the shrieking terror does the same, with the 5-headed one dealing 1d6 per bite and the 10-headed one dealing 2d6 per bite. Of course, the only way for that to be possible was to make it Medium, and to have the 10-headed one be Large with Improved Natural Weapon (Bite). Which is why they are what they are now.

- 15 RHD on a Medium Aberration. That is the opposite of good, and I'm not talking about the terror's alignment.
- +2 Str, +8 Dex, +4 Con, -6 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Cha, +7 natural armor. Hahaha! That's a joke, right? Because that's not really funny. Only +2 Str? That's pathetic.
- Regrowing heads. Like a hydra, the shrieking terror can grow up to twice its regular number of heads at the beginning of the day if one ally has a small knife, and can attack all 10 times without requiring a full-round action. Surprisingly, this is called Pounce in the statblock, though it doesn't really have the same effect. Like the hydra, it also gives it the Combat Reflexes feat as a bonus feat. Also like the hydra, the shrieking terror is made and unmade by this ability.
- Kiss, Poison. These abilities are flavorful but overall useless. The poison prevents the opponent from healing damage from your bites (few enemies heal in combat, but it might come up once in a blue moon) and Kiss transforms a paralyzed opponent into a vargouille (basically a worse version of coup-de-grace, with as many saves as the creature has heads, but the transformation only occurs in 1d6 hours. There's no mention of changing a hydra into a shrieking terror.)
- Shriek. Wow. A half-friendly (24h immunity if you use it on your friends each morning) 60ft burst that paralyses everyone that is neither blind nor deaf with fear for 2d4 rounds. Already quite potent, but the kicker is that it gets a +1 racial bonus to DC for each of the terror's head! What were they thinking? It's already quite ridiculous when a CR 10 creature is throwing DC 24 Save-or-Lose, but a PC playing it would have up to +10 to such a DC. This ability single-handedly solves any combat situation against non-construct non-undead non-plant non-vermin creatures. Basically the definition of a pony's one trick.


The shrieking terror is weirdly designed, being based on a melee-oriented monster but having extremely low Str, BAB and damage, and on the other hand having an overpowered mass save-or-lose. The shrieking terror doesn't need much more power, it needs a way to help its allies in and out of combat after its shriek. Rogue is a good class for it, with both high skills to balance the abysmal Int and sneak attack to help on the multiple attacks. Being a cleric also sounds good, to deal with undead (rebuke? No, of course not, use Command Undead, like a real person), or to gain a few buffs and utility. In any case, 8 RHD should be good, and DLA-4 if you want to have an even more absurd DC compared to a regular spellcaster (at ECL 12, a human spellcaster's max spell DC before feats is 16+rolled ability, and that of a DNLA 5-headed shrieking terror is 30+rolled ability modifier).


10-headed Shrieking Terror, 20 RHD: Basically an advanced shrieking terror who reaches Large size, and gains regular size stat bonuses. But it also gets 10 heads. And you know what that means? +20 racial bonus on your shriek ability!! Also 10 bites, if you want to be a totemist, a Thayan Gladiator or a Kensai and put hundreds of riders on it. Now that I think about it, it would probably be a good thing to do. I think this is worth at least 14 RHD (as a reminder, regular spellcaster: 17+rolled ability; you: 41+rolled ability.) And DLA-5, more RHD only gives you a few HP more and better BAB.


This is a... surprisingly good monster, for a combination of two random monsters from MM1. We already have several people commenting in the original thread how freaky it looks, and it makes people think what could happen for other creatures. What could a vargouille kissing an illithid give? A vargouille kissing an Umber Hulk or a Medusa? All-around great creature, if you're not trying to play one. Next one will be one much more silly creature: the Siege Crab!




Also, some more room for thought: the shrieking terror has human faces. "But it's supposed to be hydra heads, and those don't look human!" Oh, no, they don't. But you know what kind of hydra has human-like faces and strikes fear into the heart of men with its pleas?

[dhasenan]

- Shriek. Wow. A half-friendly (24h immunity if you use it on your friends each morning) 60ft burst that paralyses everyone that is neither blind nor deaf with fear for 2d4 rounds. Already quite potent, but the kicker is that it gets a +1 racial bonus to DC for each of the terror's head! What were they thinking? It's already quite ridiculous when a CR 10 creature is throwing DC 24 Save-or-Lose, but a PC playing it would have up to +10 to such a DC. This ability single-handedly solves any combat situation against non-construct non-undead non-plant non-vermin creatures. Basically the definition of a pony's one trick.

In other words, if you try playing this creature, you will wake up screaming every day, in case you wanted more realism at your table.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Siege Crab

Read Toriko, it's a good manga. Also it has something called a Crabbus, which immediately makes it top 3 of all time.

Okay, so, the Siege Crab. It's a big crab with a lid on its underbelly that people can enter to use it as a vehicle. That begs so many questions. First, the Siege Crab is "mutated from a normal crab". Why? Why a crab instead of something like an elephant, or a Dragon Turtle? Wouldn't it be easier than to mutate a 3 inches large animal into a 30ft tall vehicle? Second question: how do you change a living creature like that into a machine like that? The Siege Crab is more construct than magical beast, with no intelligence, and linked to a coral circlet. Whoever wears the circlet can order the Crab. And it's somehow even dumber than a Construct, with only in-the-moment orders. Like the Shrieker Fungus, the Siege Crab isn't a monster as much as it is an environmental hazard, a plot point that will stay in the garage but can be used by the PCs once they steal the coral circlet.
But really, none of that has any importance. It's a crab in which you can ride. I want one in my campaign, and I want to have Mecha fights with it against a Siege Golem from Cityscape (yes it exists, yes it's an animated catapult, and yes it's awesome).

- 20 RHD on a Gargantuan Vermin. If the fact that no beatstick above 12 RHD ever got LA+0 didn't tell you we're gonna reduce that, get a hint.
- 60ft land and swim speed. Cool. With the 15ft reach, we should be able to make a good, mobile grappler.
- +20 Str, -4 Dex, +10 Con, _ Int, +0 Wis, -8 Cha, +23 Natural Armor, +10 Deflection to AC. I'm surprised it even has 2 Cha when golems have 1. Apart from that, the Dex and Int are too low to make a good battlefield controller, and the rest isn't even that good, except the bonus to AC, which is admirable, only beaten by 5 non-dragon creatures in the Monster Manuals (pit fiend, ancient night twist, Garngrath, the Scouring Stanchion and the surprisingly CR 10 Thrym Hound)
- 4 claws with Improved Grab and Constrict. The only thing you do well, but you do it really well.
- DR 15/Adamantine, resistance bonus of +8 to saves. Somehow it still has lower Reflex than a Large Air Elemental
- Great Cleave and Power Attack as bonus feats. Sure, those are useful.
- Shielded Compartment: 4 creatures can ride inside the crab. They get +10 deflection to AC, +8 to all saves, cover and concealment, but can only attack with ranged attacks. It's a bit of a niche ability, but it's both flavorful and quite powerful if your party has ways to attack from inside.


It's been surprisingly long since we had a pure big beatstick like that. Since the Rage Drake, but even the Rage Drake had something interesting in the sheer accumulation of combat abilities it had. In fact, the Rage Drake feels like it's about even in power level with the Siege Crab. Better ability scores, type and special attacks, equivalent natural attacks, much worse defenses and one size smaller. 9 RHD, DLA-8


Greater Siege Crab, 32 RHD: Because of course they wouldn't resist the temptation to make an advanced version. Basically no difference except the size category and the assorted stats. A weak 12 RHD, DLA-16.


This one got a laugh from me. Not a total waste of space, but still quite a basic monster. Next time, a monster with an ability much too complicated for its overall effectiveness, it's the Skindancer!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

The Siege Crab is almost elegant in its simplicity. It's a mecha, that you can ride, and almost nothing else. 10/10, would include in campaign.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Skindancer

Spoiler: Rejected art

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The skindancer is yet another creature with a weird name translation. And the reason why is twofold. First, the way english (and, to a greater degree, german) can just combine one noun and one verb to create a new word like "skindancer" doesn't exist in french, and forces translator to go through hoops to have a semi-literal translation sound good. Skindancer would translate to "danse-peau" or "danseur de peau", neither of these being particularly appealing. And the second reason is, it's a garbage name. Seriously. The skindancer is a kind of frog-reptile-thing that doesn't dance, and has no ability related to skin (its hide does shift in response to attacks, but that's more like a shell or a carapace than skin). Something like "adaptationer" or "shellshifter" would have been much better in my opinion. It's hard to pinpoint what part of the current name is important, if any. In the end, the skindancer is called "Peaussier" in french. That's the job name of the guy who prepares and dyes animal skins to make various kinds of leathers for multiple uses. Once again and like for the hag, pretty niche choice of word, but I feel like the name is spot on, keeping the reference to skin while making more explicit the fact that the skindancer's skin changes to fit various uses. Better than "dancer", at least.


The skindancer, at its core, is a big beatstick (15 RHD Large Monstrous Humanoid) with expected stats (+12 Str, +6 Dex, +18 Con, -6 Int, +6 Wis, -4 Cha) and exactly one interesting ability: it gains DR 15 and resistance 20 to respectively the last kind of weapon and energy damage it took. Combined with sky-high Constitution, AC (7 NA, 6 deflection) and saves (great stat repartition for saves overall higher than even some outsiders with similar amounts of HD), the skindancer is made as a tank, and nothing much else. Its offense is limited to 2 slams with Trip, that will get replaced most of the time by a weapon (having hands and full BAB tends to lead to that). Which means that even if its DR and energy resistance were continuous and always applicable, it would still have gotten LA-0 in the original thread. As everyone on this forum should know by now, contributing as a PC is more than not dying. I honestly think that one level of sorcerer (if you invest a bit in charisma, or if you are playing with pathfinder and you can use the Wis-based variant sorcerer there), one level of swordsage/crusader, then Abjurant Champion would be an interesting advancement. You increase your already absurd AC, gain new ways to contribute (maneuvers are good, crusader maneuvers can make you a forced target to use your impassable defense, swift action Dispel with CL=BAB too), and you perpetually have a cat familiar on your shoulder that can nibble you each round for 1 slashing, piercing and bludgeoning damage, refreshing your DR 15/- for the round. All in all, the skindancer is interesting, but requires to dig deeper to make something out of it.

Spoiler: People who do my job for me

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They've got maybe twice the RHD they should, I think.

Having such weak net abilities just seals the deal: the Skindancer has appropriate net for around 8 RHD, and the Crab is hovering around 5 RHD if you gave a free Int of 10. No thank you.

Skindancer is -0 in my book mostly due to the number of HD. If it had less I'd easily say it's a +0(7-9) or +1 (6>).

Let's go for 7 RHD and DLA-6, and see you next time for the Slaughterstone constructs, two bloodthirsty constructs that I could see in Gunnm: Last Order without any problem.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Slaughterstone Constructs

Oh my Gond, D&D has Terminator Displacer-beast-shaped Transformers! This is everything I've ever wanted! And it makes absolutely no sense! I love it!

The slaughterstone constructs are supposed to be stone machines made by dwarves, that explicitly look like six-legged cats with weapons on their back, that can restructure their components and reshape themselves to move through tunnels (and yes, they were created before the actual Transformers franchise. Suck it, Hasbro! Wait, Transformers was initially produced by Hasbro? I had no idea, but it makes so much sense...). But then again, they have hinges, rivets, electrical wires, finely honed mandibles, carapace and blades, and legs that seem like they work with pistons, with even exhaust fumes around the behemoth's head, hinting at a gas-based fuel. They're just absolutely not stone, they're definitely metal, created in Eberron by the dwarven house Kundarak the same way Warforged are crafted by the human house Cannith.

Slaughterstone Behemoth, Huge, 29 RHD: It's big, it kills people, and it's made of rocks. Yup, it's a slaughterstone behemoth. Hard to make a more nonspecific name. The SSB is a dumb (really dumb, -8 Int, -10 Cha) beater with one job: hold a tunnel by making everyone around it fall prone, and dazing those that don't. The 5-ft "fall prone" aura and the 4 slams with Dazing Blow and +26 Str are good on their own, but no weapon, no utility, no Con bonus, no mental stats... mean that you'll prefer a war troll 95% of the time. Natural armor 28 is incredible, DR 10/Adamantine is good, SR HD-6 is awful, and resistance 10 to all energies is quite nice. Don't understand why they didn't just make it Hardness 10. In the end, the most interesting part of the monster is how they chose to make the Dazing Blow and Thunder Step DCs Wisdom-based. They probably wanted to make them Con-based (since it's based on the SSB's weight) then remembered that Constructs don't have Constitution. Oops! Anyway, Unarmed Swordsage is an exceedingly obvious advancement choice, to gain more traction from Dazing Blow and capitalize on the Wisdom-based DCs. A weak 9 RHD (mainly due to Dazing Blow and the ridiculously high natural armor), DLA-15 (wow, that's a lot of DNLA, and it still doesn't make Dazing Blow's DC as high as it would have been as Str-based).

Slaughterstone Eviscerator, Large, 15 RHD: Basically the same, with insane natural armor (+20), great strength (+18), and awful everything else. It doesn't have Thunder Step or Dazing Blow, but instead its four natural attacks are adamantine +2 2d8+Str (18-20/+3) longswords. Those are great, but they don't make up for Dazing Blow. Enhanced Mobility also very much helps (can move 15ft then full attack a la Pounce), though I'm still not convinced it makes up for Daze. SR 5+HD on top of all of it is probably enough, though. Yeah, Dazing Blow is busted, if only it was Str-based. I guess a weak 8 RHD with a lot of bad and a few really good points for the SSE. DLA-5, since there's basically nothing to scale except SR.


And that's it for dwarven "stone" contructs. See you next time for "One of the most attractive of oozes", the snowflake ooze. It's gonna be fun.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Snowflake Ooze

Aaaaah! I'm melting! Melting I say! Oh, the oozeanity, the pain! It's unbearable! .... Just kidding. I am snooooow! I don't have nerves!

The snowflake ooze looks like a "giant snowflake", which its official art doesn't reflect at all. Otherwise it's basically just a typical Medium ooze (blindsight, decent Str and Con (+10 each), no Int, 1 everywhere else, no natural armor, one slam with Improved Grab and Constrict, and Split (*)). It also has Airy like the plague brush (20% miss chance against piercing weapons. Spectacular), and some cold damage (2d4 on slam, 1d6 in a 5ft aura). I really have nothing much to say here, it's an awful monster that makes an awful PC. Despite the (very relative) offensive prowesses and high HP that prevents me from just saying 1 RHD, there's really nothing workable here. Oh yeah, and it has a 15ft speed as well. If you thought you'd be able to catch up to your opponents to grapple them. 1 RHD, LA+1, DLA-4. And even then, it will become weak around ECL 3 or so.

See you next time for the Ssvaklor.