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

[Metastachydium]

Why in the Nine Hells is this a Humanoid? (…) The monster itself is a as bland mechanically as its encounter design is.

Oh, I know you and your thread are, in actual fact, already happy about this thing! (And not even without reason. It could be kinda solid with, well, a lot less bad, BAD HD.)

[Beni-Kujaku]

Oh, I know you and your thread are, in actual fact, already happy about this thing! (And not even without reason. It could be kinda solid with, well, a lot less bad, BAD HD.)

That's my secret, captain. I'm always happy about a monster here. Either right now, or by anticipation.

That said, I'm really not sure what unique thing you could do with that type. Is there even something that would synergize with high strength and natural weapons that is reserved for Humanoids?

[Metastachydium]

That's my secret, captain. I'm always happy about a monster here. Either right now, or by anticipation.

That said, I'm really not sure what unique thing you could do with that type. Is there even something that would synergize with high strength and natural weapons that is reserved for Humanoids?

Enlarge Person, Inhuman Reach, all manners of low-level power boosts with Alter Self (Mountebank – now a real combat beast!)… Humanoid type being garbage in terms of traits is counterbalanced quite well but the basic assumption underlying the game that Everybody's Gonna Play a Humanoid.

[Paragon]

Charm Person !

[Debatra]

Giragonne
PDF Link

Size & Type: Large Magical Beast
Space/Reach: 10'/10'
HD: 11, 17 (Huge)
Speed: 50', Fly 20' (Poor)
Ability Scores: Str +6, Dex +8, Con +8, Int +4, Wis +4, Cha -2 - Net +28, one penalty
Natural Armor: 8
Natural Weapons: Two Primary Hooves (1d8) OR one Primary Kick (3d8+2xStrMod)
Skill List: Bluff, Diplomacy, Listen, Perform (Comedy), Spot
Body Shape: Quadruped
Speech (Languages): Yes (Common, Draconic, Elven)
CR: 9
WotC LA: -
Our LA: -0

A satirical creature that breaks the fourth wall to comment throughout its article. Its Favored Class is Bard.

It's immune to charm, compulsion, and silence; and it can spit in an 80' line every 1d4 rounds to trap targets the same as a tanglefoot bag.

It has a handful of CL11 SLAs, with save DCs based on its Charisma:

At Will - Grease
3/Day - Baleful Transposition, Tasha's Hideous Laughter
1/Day - Otto's Irresistable Dance

It also has a +5 racial bonus to the sace DCs for its SLAs. Note that this does not specify for its racial SLAs, so it might also apply to any you gain by other means.

[danielxcutter]

Even if just for the racial SLAs… those ones aren’t all that bad, actually. Not great of course, but you could build primarily martial while throwing down a Grease to knock a big brute monster with no Balance ranks on its butt now and then. And Magical Beast means access to Rapidstrike!

[liquidformat]

I am just not seeing anything more than -0 LA; At 11 RHD I expect the creature to not have any negative stat bonuses especially not when you have SLAs keyed off said negative. And while the SLAs are kind of cool over all this creature just seems far below par for so many RHD.

[danielxcutter]

I mean that +5 to the DCs means it's effectively got a +8 to Charisma for the SLAs. Quicken SLA for 3/day Grease as a Swift action probably isn't that bad in combat either, since anything without 2 ranks in Balance is automatically flat-footed. Which opens up wonderful opportunities for the rest of the party such as "no Dex to AC" and "Sneak Attack, bitch." Also, Magical Beast RHD are full BAB. And the RHD's not that much higher than the CR.

[loky1109]

I'd say +0. It has not awful HD, not bad stats even with 1-1/2 penalties (technically Str is -2 for large).
Is its spit breath weapon? If yes - it good base for dragonfire adept. If no... Warlock, truenamer, maybe some other.

[remetagross]

It's not the awfulest monster out there.

What kind of action is this spit attack? You can take this Deadly Spittle feat to turn your line into a 15ft cone, which is much more likely to take out the entire battlefield.
This +5 to DCs of SLA's means if you take any of the half-something templates, your (usually very sweet) offensive SLA's get a lot of oomph. Combine with Magic in the Blood to turn any 1/day into 3/day. Mmmh, there's definitely a little something to be done here. And don't some vestiges grant SLA's anyway? Or, indeed, DFA/Warlock.

Tell you what...I'll go for LA+0 as well. The stat mods are low, the flight speed is subpar, but...I feel there's almost enough interesting stuff in that statblock to do something useful out of it.

[Paragon]

Good BAB from RHD, great SLAs even though the +5 DC to saves is the reasons they might see the light of day at all, good stat bonuses (+8 Con is always good), 8 NA and Rapidstrike is available.
Even considering the 11HD, this is an easy LA+1 for me

[Beni-Kujaku]

I don't know... Its bonus to SLAs only means it has 18 Cha but a penalty to all social skills. +38 to your stats at ECL 11 is about par, but the body shape isn't good. Its SLAs are not bad, but Grease is questionable at the level where everything starts flying, and keeps a lower DC than an actual 6th level invocation like Painful Slumber of Ages, or a Noxious Blast/Eldritch Cone that an 11th level warlock could throw infinitely at that level. Otto's Irresistible Dance with a save is little better than hold monster, especially 1/day (and no, loky, you can't take Magic in the Blood, you're not one of the listed races and it's a 1st level feat), and Tasha's Laughter will never work since most of your enemies aren't Magical Beasts (or, I mean, it will work as well as a regular level 2 spell cast by a human, which is not very much at ECL 11). It could use Fey Legacy and gain Charm Monster 1/day with a higher DC than anyone else, but I'm not sure it's that good when a warlock is finishing Hellfire Warlock and initiators start using Greater Insightful Strike and War Leader's Charge to reliably deal massive damage.

The problem is that if it runs out of SLAs (which it will really fast, considering they're all Will negates and SR:Yes except Grease, so it will be Grease spamming all the way), it doesn't have much to do. Its natural weapons are simply bad, and it has no hands, so it can't wield any weapons. It's hooves or monk Unarmed Strikes.

Still, Grease spamming and strong mind-affecting SLAs are not bad, I just don't think they're quite enough at ECL 11. If it had one or two fewer RHD, or if it was an Outsider or a dragon (hell, even a Fey), I'd have gladly said +0, but right now I'll go with LA-0.

[Remuko]

im teetering between strong -0 and weak +0 myself, ill wait before making a definitive answer, but as i like to err on the side of playability, if the matter gets resolved without me updating consider -0 my vote

[liquidformat]

I mean that +5 to the DCs means it's effectively got a +8 to Charisma for the SLAs. Quicken SLA for 3/day Grease as a Swift action probably isn't that bad in combat either, since anything without 2 ranks in Balance is automatically flat-footed. Which opens up wonderful opportunities for the rest of the party such as "no Dex to AC" and "Sneak Attack, bitch." Also, Magical Beast RHD are full BAB. And the RHD's not that much higher than the CR.

Oh I had missed that +5 to the DCs, that brings it up to a high -0 but still don't think it is enough to be +0.

[H_H_F_F]

im teetering between strong -0 and weak +0 myself, ill wait before making a definitive answer, but as i like to err on the side of playability, if the matter gets resolved without me updating consider -0 my vote

Same page.

[Frostmoon]

+0 from me. At-Will Grease, even while attached to a negative Charisma, is still very, very useful, and the tanglefoot bag-esque ability is a good disruption tool, too. It's definitely a weird little critter, what with both a very clear playstyle idea (AoE disruption tactics) and a wonky statline that doesn't exactly push it towards any particular class, but it's certainly playable.

[danielxcutter]

How good are its immunities, by the way? I doubt they're enough to shift the vote either way, but having immunity to charm, confusion, and silence is probably better than not having it. Though not being a caster probably means silence immunity isn't as useful.

[Paragon]

Favored class is Bard so I'm thinking the author didn't want them to be unable to perform

[Temotei]

How good are its immunities, by the way? I doubt they're enough to shift the vote either way, but having immunity to charm, confusion, and silence is probably better than not having it. Though not being a caster probably means silence immunity isn't as useful.

Immunity to silence is interesting, at the very least, if only because you can have a silence spell on you and talk/cast anyway while most others won't be able to do that around you. Limited in application because of 11 HD, though.

Immunity to charm and confusion are cute. Nice little bonuses, unlikely to come up often, but decent when they do.

[H_H_F_F]

Yeah, okay - I'm officially voting -0 on this. It's really close, but I can't figure out a path forward that really capitalizes enough on all the goodies to make it worth it at 11 HD. If it was 9, perhaps...

[Beni-Kujaku]

Immunity to silence is interesting, at the very least, if only because you can have a silence spell on you and talk/cast anyway while most others won't be able to do that around you. Limited in application because of 11 HD, though.

Immunity to charm and confusion are cute. Nice little bonuses, unlikely to come up often, but decent when they do.

I think the point is that it breaks the fourth wall. You can't silence with a spell someone that makes jokes IRL, and both charm and confusion affect how the character thinks, which obviously doesn't affect the "player", contrary to compulsions, which affects how the character acts, on which the player doesn't have any impact if the DM chooses so.

[emulord]

If you optimize with some prestige class could be +0, but since that isn't assumed I think -0 is more appropriate. Poor Flying, a few SLAs that don't scale, and bad HD type prevent it from being playable usually.

Was trying to figure out Sublime Chord, or some other class, but most of the "Ability to cast 3rd level spells" means spellcasting feature, not specific SLAs, so making prerequisites would be difficult.

[Debatra]

We do try to avoid highly-optimized builds, yes. (Though if something specific gets enabled, like an infinite loop, it's obviously worth discussing.)

Though Magical Beast RHD aren't bad. D10, full BAB, two good saves. Only two skill points, but you can't have everything (unless you're an Outsider).

[loky1109]

I found two monsters that aren't in Thurbane's list.
It's "fixed" version of Rust Monster and Scarecrow (download link).

[loky1109]

Also I found d20 Modern Police Robot converted to D&D 3.5

[Beni-Kujaku]

I agree that the Scarecrow, as well as the previously presented Sylvan Stag, should be added to the MM6. However, the Rust Monster is the same with only its main ability rewritten a bit, and the MM6 never bothered with different versions of existing monsters. The Police Robot would have been good, if it didn't refer so much to d20 Modern, both in equipment and abilities (what does Wound Rot do? Unclear, unless you read the d20 Modern books). In that regard, it's even worse than the d20 CoC monsters, who at least could be used in 3.5 with little to no adaptation nor external reading. I don't think we should include CoCd20 monsters, and I don't think we should include the robot.

Speaking of new monsters, what about doing the Glacierdrak (and the Glitterhaunt, since the Drak is way too epic for anything other than -0)? There doesn't seem to be anymore discussion on the Giragonne:

-0 : 4 (Liquidformat, Beni-Kujaku, Remuko, H_H_F_F)
+0 : 3 (loky1109, remetagross, Frostmoon)
+1 : 1 (Paragon)

Since the median value is just between -0 and +0, maybe you'd want to weigh in, Debatra?

[loky1109]

However, the Rust Monster is the same with only its main ability rewritten a bit, and the MM6 never bothered with different versions of existing monsters.

Well, there is fixed ogre mage from similar Mike Mearls's article in the Thurbane's table and there are some changes in addition to monster's Rust SA in the Rust Monster fix. Different skills, climb speed, more Str, bigger bite damage.

The Police Robot would have been good, if it didn't refer so much to d20 Modern, both in equipment and abilities (what does Wound Rot do? Unclear, unless you read the d20 Modern books).

While I agree with your points I think I should argue a little.
Equipment we could find in the same article or it's pretty obvious.
But yes, William Canavan didn't convert it enough in some parts. Well, for me degree of issues looks similar to issues with 3.0 psionic monsters with their Attack/Defense mods.

[danielxcutter]

Also for me the text is broken here and there, making it a lot harder to read. Is that just me?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Since Debatra hasn't posted in more than a month and it's been a week since I sent him a PM, and in order to progress a bit before the thread dies, I've written a stub for the next creature, trying to follow his formatting. I'll obviously let Debatra continue being the chair as soon as he gets back.

Glacierdrak

Size & Type: Colossal Dragon
Space/Reach: 30'/20' (30' with bite)
HD: 44
Speed: 40', Burrow 40' (Ice Glide), Climb 40'
Ability Scores: Str +36, Dex -2, Con +26, Int -6, Wis +6, Cha +10 - Net +70, two penalties
Natural Armor: 33
Natural Weapons: One Primary Bite (2d8, 19/20/+1d6) and 2 Secondary Claws (4d6)
Skill List: Climb, Hide, Listen, Spot
Body Shape: Dragon
Speech (Languages): Yes ("understands a few words in Draconic, but has little interest in conversation")
CR: 28
WotC LA: -
Our LA: -0

Because having a non-spellcasting stupid dragon sure makes a good epic-level challenge. The Glacierdrak is an immense drake (not a true dragon, so none of the advantages) with big bonuses to Str and Con and everything else mediocre, a few defensive abilities (DR 20/- is decent, SR 36 is useless, immunity to cold and mind-affecting is good but only par for ECL 44), a large radius Frightful Presence (500ft) and a weird bite. Not only does it do less damage than the Drak's claws, the way its critical is written seems to imply that critting with it only adds 1d6 damage (probably a typo and it always deals 2d8+1d6). On a crit, it also stuns the target for 2d6 rounds unless they make a Str-based Fort save.

However, the most interesting ability of the Drak is its gaze attack. Just straight-up 6d6 Dex damage per round to everyone in a 120ft radius unless the person watching makes a Cha-based Fort save, and the Dex damage becomes Con damage if the creature already has 0 Dex. The problem, like all gazes, is how party-unfriendly it is, which will make the Glacierdrak refrain from using it as often as it could.

All in all, no amount of ability damage is worth starting so deep into epic, see you soon.

[Metastachydium]

(Actually, +36 on a Colossal creature is roughly the equivalent of +4 on a Medium one. Not that impressive. And it can't even fly (despite the misleading image)! Yeah, this one's all yours, Beni.)