The LA Assignment Thread XII: the LA-bors of Heracles

[Tzardok]

It's a mindless creature with psionics, which is pretty nonsensical in my mind. But, it's just unusual for a Vermin to have any kind of magical abilities at all: most templates that would grant a vermin a magical ability would also change it into a Magical Beast, so it feels like the zap crab should just be a Magical Beast, instead of a Vermin.

Maybe it's because I've been reading so much 3.5 Dark Sun stuff, but I don't really have a problem with that. Dark Sun is chock full of animals and vermin with psionic powers, and some of them (and some psionic undead and constructs) are mindless. This could be a creature living there (would be quite rare; Dark Sun doesn't have a lot of sea left).

[Blue Jay]

a quick google search tells me theyre called a "cast" or a "consortium".

You know, I think I've heard "cast of crabs" before. But most terms of venery (e.g., "murder of crows" or "parliament of owls") probably aren't "real" (i.e., they probably weren't ever in common use), so I feel like it's probably more accurate to say that there isn't a "proper" word for a group of crabs.

Maybe it's because I've been reading so much 3.5 Dark Sun stuff, but I don't really have a problem with that. Dark Sun is chock full of animals and vermin with psionic powers, and some of them (and some psionic undead and constructs) are mindless. This could be a creature living there (would be quite rare; Dark Sun doesn't have a lot of sea left).

Dark Sun is a pretty big outlier for things like that. It's also unusual in using the Animal type for a lot of fantastical creatures. Most monsters of the Animal type are actual animals that exist in the real world, or are at least closely based on real-world animals (e.g., the Eberron dinosaurs). Dark Sun throws that tradition out completely, so it's not surprising that it would also buck typing trends in other ways.

But, regardless of whether or not you have a problem with it, it is pretty unusual, and it's one of several things about this monster that are just slightly odd. So, it just feels like an oddball monster to me.

[Debatra]

Gajusian Crawler

A surprisingly good fit actually.

Size & Type: Huge Vermin
Space/Reach: 15'/15'
HD: 10
Speed: 30', Climb 20'
Ability Scores: Str +16, Dex +4, Con +4, Int -, Wis +0, Cha -8 - Net +16, one penalty
Natural Armor: 8
Natural Weapons: One Primary Bite (2d6 plus poison) or Primary Slam (1d6)
Skill List: Climb, Hide (+8 racial), Move Silently (+4 racial), Spot (+4 racial)
Body Shape: Spider
Speech (Languages): No
CR: 6
WotC LA: -
Our LA: __

Sonic Resistance 10, as well as both Power Attack and Improved Bull Rush as bonus feats. Not terrible to start with, aside from being a vermin.

The poison from your bite deals 1d8 Strength damage for both initial and secondary damage. Between the higher damage and the poison, I'm not sure why the slam attack is even there since you have to pick between the two.

We have yet another 3.0 Psionic creature, meaning attack/defense modes. As for parsable abilities, you have at-will Chameleon, Control Light, and Create Sound, as well as 3/day Nondetection, all at ML10.

When in combat, the psionic crystals on your back begin to vibrate, generating an almost inaudible hum. Creatures other than Sonic Crawlers within 60'must make a Con-based will save each round to avoid taking a -2 to attacks and saves from the distraction. Casters an Manifesters have to make a 15+Spell/Power Level Concentration check to do their thing as well.

Finally, you can make webs up to eight times a day, trowing them up to 50' as a touch attack to entangle a creature of up to Large size. Creatures caught in the web must make either a DC28 Escape Artist check or a DC34 Strength check to escape. You can also lay them as traps, requiring a DC20 spot check to avoid. If a creature moves (or is moved, such as with your Bull Rush) onto a web, they are treated as if you hit them with it, though they may get a +5 to their checks to escape if they can grab something to pull themselves toward as leverage. The webs can also be destroyed, having 14 HP and the rather odd DR of 5/fire. 3.0...

Also, you have enough psionic crystals attached to your hide to make a suit of medium armor.

[danielxcutter]

Well, if it’s medium armor then at least you’ll be more use to your party alive then.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Can you stop making Psionic Vermin and then giving them bonus feats to compensate for their mindlessness? My Lolth, you have a type for that! It's called Magical Beast (Psionic)!

Oh yeah, and LA -0. If it had actual good stats, maybe, but these are worse than a brown bear's. Sonic Hum is an interesting ability (though making a Will save each turn for each creature on the battlefield will get old REALLY fast), but the fact it's unfriendly means your party will hate you as much as the opponent. A damn shame too, since its Web is actually good. A touch attack, basically at will, that entangles and immobilizes creatures? What's not to love? But no hand, only one useable natural attack (strong as it is) and low intelligence do not leave much to interpretation, especially with such irrelevant PLAs.

I like monsters with several names like that. It hints at a story, a scholar naming them then people using another name, or people from two different countries with different languages that both encounter the same monster. The tralusk, the ibixian, now the gajusian, and all the devils... It gives a sense of interconnected world.

[Tzardok]

Dark Sun is a pretty big outlier for things like that. It's also unusual in using the Animal type for a lot of fantastical creatures. Most monsters of the Animal type are actual animals that exist in the real world, or are at least closely based on real-world animals (e.g., the Eberron dinosaurs). Dark Sun throws that tradition out completely, so it's not surprising that it would also buck typing trends in other ways.

I'd disagree with that. Other settings also invent new animals, like Faerûn's rothe, just to a lesser extent. I'd argue that being fantastic is not an argument against animal, as long as it is something that could theoretically exist in our world. And most of the Dark Sun animals are (if you take away their psionics, which, fair, in Dark Sun practically everything is psionic) normal animals, just weird looking and adapted to a very hostile enviroment.

But, regardless of whether or not you have a problem with it, it is pretty unusual, and it's one of several things about this monster that are just slightly odd. So, it just feels like an oddball monster to me.

Yeah, that's fair. It is odd, even with my heightened tolerance for odd stuff.

We have yet another 3.0 Psionic creature, meaning attack/defense modes. As for parsable abilities, you have at-will Chameleon, Control Light, and Create Sound, as well as 3/day Nondetection, all at ML10.

I suggest the following psi-like abilities for 3.5:
At will - Chameleon, Control Light, Create Sound, Empty Mind* (+6 to Will saves); 3/day - Escape Detection, Mental Barrier* (+5 deflection to AC, 2 rounds); 1/day - Psychic Crush (DC 15). Manifester Level 10. Save DC is based on Wis.

*Augmentations already included.

Edit: Y'know, I think I should gather all those conversion and collate them in my homebrew thread. Or make a concerted effort to convert everything and publish that. Hmm...

The webs can also be destroyed, having 14 HP and the rather odd DR of 5/fire. 3.0...

I think that's not a 3.0-ism, but the result of someone for whom 3.5 is very new not getting terminology right.

Sonic Hum is an interesting ability (though making a Will save each turn for each creature on the battlefield will get old REALLY fast), but the fact it's unfriendly means your party will hate you as much as the opponent.

Yeah, it would be nice if that ability either had a "once you fail the save, you take the penalty until end of encounter/you don't hear it anymore/etc." rider or a "if you succeed your save, you are immune for the rest of the day" rider, preferably both.

[Metastachydium]

Can you stop making Psionic Vermin and then giving them bonus feats to compensate for their mindlessness? My Lolth, you have a type for that! It's called Magical Beast (Psionic)!

"And here, you can see the creature's armour consisting of the psionic crystals so commonly produced by the bodies of real-world arachnids."

I'd disagree with that. Other settings also invent new animals, like Faerûn's rothe

And let's not forget the Chordevoc, the birdy with the blindsense beard! (I like birds.)

[Prime32]

Haven't been around for a while, but I had some suggestions/requests for the archive thread:

Spoiler

Show

First is collapsing the entries for dragons (and other things with multiple advanced versions) once they hit the threshold for -0. E.g.

Monster name	Estimated LA	Estimated ECL
White Dragon, Wyrmling	+1	4
White Dragon, Very Young or older	-0	6~36

Right now the sheer length of the dragon blocks makes the Monster Manual harder to navigate while not providing much useful information.

Second is listing the individual LAs for Past Life, or even splitting the DMG2 post into "NPC Unique Abilities (Past Life)" and "NPC Unique Abilities (Other)" folders. Since taken individually, Past Lives make up over 1/3 of the abilities in the book.

And the last one is including a list of things that can be used to make monsters more playable, like the various awaken spells or the Ghostly Grasp feat - things that are generally assumed to be in use when making ratings. Mentioning this because I just remembered that "The Calling" (Book of Vile Darkness p32) exists, a mechanic exclusive to evil monsters which provides them with free weapon and armor proficiencies (plus some other things) and is handy for meeting prereqs.
If this is too much to fit in the OP, then it could be a link to another thread.

[loky1109]

This sonic spider is -0 LA for me.

[Temotei]

Easy LA -0 to me. Web is interesting, their hum is cool but party-unfriendly, and they have a few other nice features, but they're not worth 10 Vermin RHD.

[danielxcutter]

*incidental trombone music*

Yeah, LA -0, easy decision. Next monster?

[Debatra]

Yeah, that's a pretty clear -0.

[Debatra]

Crystal Gargoyle

Size & Type: Small Magical Beast (Psionic)
Space/Reach: 5'/5'
HD: 3, 4 (Medium), 7 (Large)
Speed: 40', Fly 70' (Average)
Ability Scores: Str -4, Dex +6, Con +6, Int -4, Wis +0, Cha -4 - Net +0, three penalties
Natural Armor: 5
Natural Weapons: Two Primary Claws (1d4), one Secondary Bite (1d6), one secondary Gore (1d6)
Skill List: Hide, Listen, Spot
Body Shape: Winged Humanoid-ish
Speech (Languages): Yes (Common, Terran)
CR: 4
WotC LA: -
Our LA: __

There's also an aquatic version that uses their wings to propel themselves through water at their fly speed. It's not clear if they can still fly or suffer any other downside for this, but feel free to assume this is strictly better if only in a niche way. I doubt adding a swim speed is going to be the straw that bumps this up a level.

Similarly to their stone cousins, Crystal Gargoyles have no need to eat or breathe, and can hold perfectly still (requiring a DC20 Spot check to notice they're alive). These are also immune to cold, have DR 15/magic (whcih is actually still relevant at this level), and Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat. They get a +4 racial bonus to Hide checks when concealed against stone, and a +10 bonus when concealed in water or against ice.

You have Charm Person and Inflict Pain as once/day PLAs, at ML3. You also have the once/day SLA to unleash a burst of light from your crystal body, treated as a CL3 Color Spray, but in a 40' radius burst instead of a 15' cone. Unfortunately, the save DC is based on your penalized Charisma. Still potentially handy though.

[danielxcutter]

Huh, could be a nice chassis for a rogue-type. Four natural attacks and a good Dex bonus.

Ooh, and I just realized this qualifies it for the Rapidstrike line as well.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I like the small touch that if you advance them to Medium size, they gain the exact same ability scores as the regular 3.0 gargoyle. Since it's so clearly based on the previous gargoyle, I also think that the DR 15/+1 should be updated to DR 10/Magic, like the regular gargoyle.

This also make me realize that the Gargoyle was a Magical Beast in 3.0 and changed to Monstrous Humanoid only in 3.5. I guess it wasn't "magical" enough. And in general, a lot more things were updated than I expected. The gargoyle's flying speed went from 75 to 60ft, its walking speed from 45 to 40, its strength went from 11 to 15, and of course the whole type changed. Makes you wonder why when most creatures got almost no change.

In the end, an advanced crystal gargoyle (4 RHD) compared to a 3.5 gargoyle has better speed, -4 Str, +1 natural armor, Weapon Finesse, Cold Immunity, charm person and inflict pain as PLAs (both not bad abilities to have, but the 1/day hurts a bit, and they will become outdated quickly. Maybe Practiced Manifester?), and that weird color spray effect (good but unfriendly and becomes less strong with time). And it's a Magical Beast, which changes next to nothing except slightly more HP. That seems enough for +0, if a bit low on stats. The small version has even worse ability scores, but they are very well positioned, with penalties to your dump stats and bonuses to the important ones, with even better AC and to-hit than the big version. As was already said, this is definitely rogue material (which also offsets the hit to Int), and if I'm not completely convinced I'd play this at +1, I think it's slightly too strong for +0. LA+1

[Tzardok]

There's also an aquatic version that uses their wings to propel themselves through water at their fly speed. It's not clear if they can still fly or suffer any other downside for this, but feel free to assume this is strictly better if only in a niche way. I doubt adding a swim speed is going to be the straw that bumps this up a level.

As the non-crystal kapaocinth loses its fly speed I'd assume the same goes for this one too.
I'm also not sure wether it should retain Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat; in 3.0 number of feats for monsters was calculated differently, and by the 3.5 rules it's missing one feat. If I were to convert it, I'd just change Weapon Finesse from a bonus feat to a regular feat and be done with it.

I like the small touch that if you advance them to Medium size, they gain the exact same ability scores as the regular 3.0 gargoyle. Since it's so clearly based on the previous gargoyle, I also think that the DR 15/+1 should be updated to DR 10/Magic, like the regular gargoyle.

This also make me realize that the Gargoyle was a Magical Beast in 3.0 and changed to Monstrous Humanoid only in 3.5. I guess it wasn't "magical" enough.

Maybe. Or maybe it wasn't beast-like enough; I at least imagine gargoyles usually as humanoid in their basic shape.

And in general, a lot more things were updated than I expected. The gargoyle's flying speed went from 75 to 60ft, its walking speed from 45 to 40, its strength went from 11 to 15, and of course the whole type changed. Makes you wonder why when most creatures got almost no change.

I personally am of the opinion that those changes should be included in this creature when converting it to 3.5.

[loky1109]

It's LA +1 for me.

[liquidformat]

Maybe. Or maybe it wasn't beast-like enough; I at least imagine gargoyles usually as humanoid in their basic shape.

What about Bronx?

On a more serious note, a lot of medieval weren't humanoid so I think that was where they were coming from in 3.0.

As far as Crystal Gargoyle goes I will go with +0 just like the standard gargoyle, with a -4 the Cha it will take some decent investing to make Charm Person, Color Spray, and Inflict Pain useful so I am not seeing an argument for those being enough to bump this up to +1 from +0.

[Frostmoon]

The Crystal Gargoyle gets a +0 from me; not actively bad, and it has some neat tricks, but said "neat tricks" are tied to a bad CHA save, so.

___

Sooooo. My brother found something potentially interesting. There are actually three Call of Cthulhu D20 online monsters hanging out: the Rat-Thing (from the Jenkin Lives article), the Shantak, and the Y'golonac (both of which are from Gods and Monsters). While this isn't 3.5 D&D, exactly, they are first-party and explicitly D&D-compatible.

EDIT: And we just found four more! The Spider of Leng, Star-Spawn of Cthulhu, Terror From Beyond (these three are from here), and Azathoth (from here).

EDIT x2: And for fully-fledged 3.5 stuff, here's the online Sylvan Stag.

[loky1109]

Sylvan Stag is good find, but CoC d20 monsters are slightly not. Yeah, them are great, but it's different d20 system, not D&D 3.x

I'm not sure if we should examine them as part of this thread.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Could we move on to the next monster?

[Paragon]

Considering flight, 4 natural attacks and +6 to Dex and Con, you can make really great Dex based fighter with Ardent or Psywar (no Wis penalty).

It's LA+1 for me as well. The Cha based SLA with -4 to Cha prevent it from being +2 to me.

[Debatra]

Sorry about the delay, folks.

+1 - Beni-Kujaku, loky1109, Paragon
+0 - liquidformat, Frostmoon

+1 edges out. Mutant Gargoyle is next.

[Debatra]

Mutant Four-Armed Gargoyle

PDF Download Link

Size & Type: Large Humanoid (Earth)
Space/Reach: 10'/10'
HD: 21
Speed: 40', Fly 80' (Average)
Ability Scores: Str +20, Dex -2, Con +10, Int -2, Wis +0, Cha +0 - Net +26, two penalties
Natural Armor: 23
Natural Weapons: Four Primary Claws (2d8), one Secondary Bite (2d6), one Secondary Gore (2d6)
Skill List: Hide, Listen, Spot (+2 racial for all three)
Body Shape: Four-armed winged humanoid
Speech (Languages): Not specified, but the one in the PDF has a parchment with written runes.
CR: 11
WotC LA: -
Our LA: -0

Hey, it's been a while since we've had an Epic monster.

It has DR 10/-, the usual Gargoyle Freeze ability, and its racial Hide bonus increases to +8 when hiding against stone. If it hits with at least two of its claws, it can Rend for an additional 2d8+(StrModx2).

And that's it. See you guys tomorrow.

[H_H_F_F]

Yeah, -0. Next.

Cool monster though.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Why in the Nine Hells is this a Humanoid? Gargoyles are either Magical Beasts or Monstrous Humanoids. Which makes this creature the single best choice as a form for something like an Ogre Mage, a Slaad or a Rakshasa. The picture is nice, I imagine it's from the 1E Tomb of Horrors and reproduced in the 3E version?

Obviously -0, of course. The monster itself is a as bland mechanically as its encounter design is. And yes, we're talking "when the PCs enter the room, the gargoyle in suspended animation in the middle animates and attacks them. It has a collar of gems to reward them for the fight.".

[loky1109]

With 21 HD answer is obvious - -0.

[H_H_F_F]

Why in the Nine Hells is this a Humanoid?

I did wonder about that, it's the main reason I said it was a cool monster.

[remetagross]

21 RHD? LA-0, no need to dwell more upon it.

[Paragon]

LA -0 and next !!!!