Advancing Mindflayers

[Gorthawar]

Hi all, I'm currently preparing to play Spiral of Manzessine (DU94) with my party and was wondering about associated and non-associated class levels for mindflayers. In this adventure (And in the City of the Spider Queen) all class levels directly increase the CR of the monsters which doesn't seem correct.

1. Did the rules change between 3.0 and 3.5? I only started DMing in 3.5.

2. Which classes and prestige classes should count as associated classes for mindflayers in your opinion?

3. Do you have any neat builds that you'd be willing to share?

Thanks a lot as always.

[Tarmor]

Rules for CR and class levels are the same in both 3.0 and 3.5 - I just looked them up. Are you confusing this with NPC Classes (rules the same in both editions): "For an NPC with an NPC class, determine her Challenge Rating as if she had a PC class with one less level for which you have -1 to the CR." I wouldn't be bothering with NPC classes for a Mind Flayer.

By "associate" classes do you mean Favoured class? (Associated/non-associated aren't terms I've ever heard of with Classes)

[Maat Mons]

I recommend you use the Psionic Mind Flayer, from Expanded Psionics Handbook. Assuming you use that suggestion, I recommend Psion be treated as associated, along with any prestige class that progresses manifesting. Anything else should be non-associated, in my view.



Edit:

By "associate" classes do you mean Favoured class? (Associated/non-associated aren't terms I've ever heard of with Classes)

Associated and nonassociated each have a paragraph on page 249 of the Monster Manual.

[Saintheart]

I don't think 3.0 was different, but I don't have my 3.0 DMG around to check. I doubt it was any different on this subject.

As it is, your instinct is right: non-associated class levels (e.g. Commoner, Expert, etc) increase CR by 0.5 until a monster's got as many non-associated class levels as it has HD, at which point it then becomes +1 CR for +1 class level.

An 8HD, CR 8 monster taking 8 levels in Commoner has a CR rating of 12 (8 + 0.5x8 = 12), all other things being equal, but after that point, it's 1-for-1, i.e. an 8 HD, CR 8 monster taking 9 levels in Commoner is CR 13 (8 + 0.5x8 +1x1 = 13).

That said: CR is not a mathematical exercise even under WOTC's formulae. It is at least in part a judgment call. WOTC's guidelines on monster advancement say that if a class level increases a monster's existing strengths, it should be deemed an associated class level and raises the CR by 1. Me, since I'm always adding a class level to a monster with an intent to increase its existing strengths, I tend to lean on class levels always being associated, but that's me.

Basically any full casting PC class - Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer - in my view should be treated as an associated class on a Mind Flayer. CR 1 for every level, depending on how inventive and how wide a range of spells they've got available. Mind Flayers have strong INT, WIS, and CHA, they're a walkup for casters and already have some potent stuff they can bust out at will, making a mage's job easier.

Any martial class I'd lean towards it being nonassociated because M. Flayers' Str and Con aren't even enough for Power Attack let alone Two Weapon Fighting, but that would require a look at the build, especially if the Flayer was leaning into X stat to Y bonus shenanigans.

[Beni-Kujaku]

An easy way to improve mind flayers would be to use the Expanded Psionics Handbook version and give them more psion levels. Or take the regular one and give them beguiler levels. One problem is that they are too frail and don't really have a use for their swift action. A few levels of warlock for defensive invocations can be nice (Dark One's Own Luck is nice, and a fog cloud is near mandatory to avoid being jumped in melee). Or two levels of Incarnate for Necrocarnum Circlet and one zombie following it around and Wind Cloak against ranged attacks.

Alternatively, you can go full melee (Swordsage, Totemist), but it's a bit weird considering your ability scores. In that case, using a shadow flayer (from Monster Manual 5) rather than a regular mind flayer may be better.

[Gorthawar]

Thanks a lot the advice. Unfortunately when I started this campaign 7 years ago I ruled out psionics and build the world around it accordingly. I'll have another look at the spells available for low level casters to see how well they mesh with the mind flayers before I finalize the encounters.

Any neat class/prc/spell combinations around that worked well with mindflayers for you?

[Maat Mons]

In that case, I’d consider all classes to be nonassociated. Consider the example in the Monster Manual, a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9. If Sorcerer is associated, as the book treats it, the CR winds up at 17. Would anyone claim, with a straight face, that a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9 is CR 17? The same CR as a 17th level Sorcerer? The abilities of a CR 8 monster added to the abilities of a 9th level Sorcerer very much do not add up to the abilities of a 17th level Sorcerer. It would be like claiming a Cleric 10 / Wizard 10 is in the same ballpark as a Cleric 20 or a Wizard 20. It’s just plainly not true.

[JNAProductions]

In that case, I’d consider all classes to be nonassociated. Consider the example in the Monster Manual, a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9. If Sorcerer is associated, as the book treats it, the CR winds up at 17. Would anyone claim, with a straight face, that a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9 is CR 17? The same CR as a 17th level Sorcerer? The abilities of a CR 8 monster added to the abilities of a 9th level Sorcerer very much do not add up to the abilities of a 17th level Sorcerer. It would be like claiming a Cleric 10 / Wizard 10 is in the same ballpark as a Cleric 20 or a Wizard 20. It’s just plainly not true.

Welcome to 3rd edition!
Please, sit next to the Ogre Wizard 14 (CR 15) and the Stone Giant Wizard 14 (CR 15).

Or, another way to put it, CR is wonky as all heck.

[Saintheart]

In that case, I’d consider all classes to be nonassociated. Consider the example in the Monster Manual, a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9. If Sorcerer is associated, as the book treats it, the CR winds up at 17. Would anyone claim, with a straight face, that a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9 is CR 17? The same CR as a 17th level Sorcerer? The abilities of a CR 8 monster added to the abilities of a 9th level Sorcerer very much do not add up to the abilities of a 17th level Sorcerer. It would be like claiming a Cleric 10 / Wizard 10 is in the same ballpark as a Cleric 20 or a Wizard 20. It’s just plainly not true.

CR is wonky, of course, but we form that conclusion with 20 years' hindsight and not operating under the same assumptions as presumably the writers were when they wrote that system. Said assumptions being:

1. The readers are casual gamers and casual DMs, not optimisers.

2. The readers will be playing a default 4-man team of meatshield+skillmonkey+healer+blaster wizard, and combat strategies that assume d6s of energy damage are significant (and battlefield control isn't), healing in combat is efficient, rogues can easily get behind opposition to flank, and fighters are just as good at level 16 versus level 4 because they've been getting +1s to their BAB and feats every second level.

3. The readers won't be playing with full sourcebook access but with Core plus a smattering of others, depending on how much the DM's budget holds out.


That said, I think WoTC gets a bad rap sometimes because of a common misunderstanding around what CR actually means. We know CR is an estimate of what constitutes a 'moderate challenge' for a party of that level. The underlying issue, never made completely explicit, is: D&D rates challenge by reference to the game being one of attrition, i.e. a CR equivalent encounter should consume 20-25% of a party's daily resources. That issue is not quite the same as rating how dangerous an opponent is, or how difficult. CR simply does not function well as - and might not even have been intended as - a good measure of difficulty of an encounter. Even judicious feat selection will throw CR ratings off.

I am not saying CR's perfect. I mean, even NPC levels always being nonassociated can cause misleading CR estimates if you're judging by how dangerous something is. Let’s take a CR 2 Frost Folk as the example.

A Frost Folk Warrior 5 is CR 5. It gets 9d8 hit dice (40 hp before CON bonus), BAB +9, Fort +8, Ref +6, Will +5, and 4 feats from its HD. It also gets +1 to an ability score.

A Frost Folk Fighter 3 is also CR 5, but it has 4d8+3d10 hit dice (34 hp before CON bonus), BAB +7, Fort +7, Ref +6, Will +5, 3 feats from HD and 2 feats from Fighter. No increases to ability score (not enough HD).

Are these ‘equivalent’ challenges to justify the same CR? Maybe. Both monsters can (and should) take Power Attack – hitting things in melee is the main thing Frost Folk are meant to do. But if they do, all other things being equal, the Warrior does better with Power Attack: the Warrior’s BAB is higher (Power Attack being gated by maximum BAB). And the Frost Folk Warrior 5 gets more NPC gear to play with because he has more class levels than the Fighter.

But even if they’re equivalent at CR 5, it gets wobblier with more levels. By RAW, a Frost Folk Warrior 10 and a Frost Folk Fighter 8 are both CR 10. And the Warrior still has a better BAB: +14 vs +12. But the Fighter 8 has 5 more feats than the Warrior. Those feats can be used on Leap Attack, Shock Trooper, Improved Trip, Improved Bull Rush, etc., etc. A competently-built Fighter is likely to be more challenging than a Warrior, even with fewer class levels, because the Fighter has more force multipliers by dint of his feats.

Maybe all that can be said on this exercise is that CR remains a very rough guess. Even from the frame of reference of "Will this creature take 25% of our resources to take down?", it depends greatly on how you build the monster, what tactics you use, and what synergies you find from the monster's inherent abilities with the class levels you put on it. And even then it depends on the party using default, low-end strategies to kill it, not sophistication. Let alone that some spells in Core are broken as hell, before you go anywhere near metamagic.

[Gorthawar]

In that case, I’d consider all classes to be nonassociated. Consider the example in the Monster Manual, a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9. If Sorcerer is associated, as the book treats it, the CR winds up at 17. Would anyone claim, with a straight face, that a Mind Flayer Sorcerer 9 is CR 17? The same CR as a 17th level Sorcerer? The abilities of a CR 8 monster added to the abilities of a 9th level Sorcerer very much do not add up to the abilities of a 17th level Sorcerer. It would be like claiming a Cleric 10 / Wizard 10 is in the same ballpark as a Cleric 20 or a Wizard 20. It’s just plainly not true.

The more I looked at it the more I came to the same conclusion. Especially with my party being fairly optimized and with access to a lot of books. A mindflayer cleric 5 didn't feel sufficiently strong. Will have to see how the mindflayers Cloistered Cleric 2 / Contemplative 7 does instead. Still only access to 5th level spells compared to the 6th level spells in the party who is at lvl 11. Thanks a lot.

[Chronos]

As an illustration of how the monster CR advancement rules are just guidelines, and you should always sanity-check them, consider what happens with monsters that have a lot of HD for their CR. For instance, a Greater Elemental has 21 HD, for CR 9. Elementals are mostly brute monsters, so classes like Fighter or Barbarian would probably be associated, but most caster classes wouldn't be. So consider what happens when an elemental takes, say, 20 levels of sorcerer. That's a non-associated class, and it's fewer levels than the monster's HD, so it adds only 10 to its CR, for a total of 19... while a human sorcerer 20 would have a CR of 20. And both sorcerers have, on average, the same Cha score, and the elemental also has a ton more HP, better AC, better saves, better chance to hit with rays, and all of its other elemental abilities (like undispellable flight or Earth Glide).

[Anthrowhale]

Please, sit next to the Ogre Wizard 14 (CR 15) and the Stone Giant Wizard 14 (CR 15).

Surely we can do better than that? It's almost reasonable.

You need challenge rating < HD/2 to get something particularly off kilter.

[JNAProductions]

Surely we can do better than that? It's almost reasonable.

You need challenge rating < HD/2 to get something particularly off kilter.

I mean, without the Elite Array, the three stat boosts the Ogre gets raises their Intelligence to a whopping 9, meaning they can't cast.
The Stone Giant only gets to Intelligence 14 with their five (since they started at 14 HD they get one in two hit dice), but I think we can safely agree 4th level spells are better than no spells.

[Maat Mons]

Monster Manual page 294 says any monster with PC class levels gets the elite array. Also, according to page 291, monsters get gear based on ECL, not CR, so the Ogre has gear as a 20th level NPC and the Stone Giant has gear as a 32nd level NPC. That’s 220,000 gp for the Ogre and 689,7000 go 689,700 gp for the Stone Giant. In either case, easily enough to fit in a Headband of Intellect +6.

[Anthrowhale]

Chronos's Greater Elemental illustrates class level > CR. I'm wondering if you can push it further?

Fiendish (via Vile Death) Zombie Cleric 20 is CR 18, giving an advantage of 2. Is it possible to get an advantage of 3, 4 or 5?

W.r.t. stats, note also that monsters receive an ability bonus every 4 HD of class levels.

[Maat Mons]

I'm pretty sure the record involves casting Incarnate Construct on a Greater Stone Golem. You should wind up with 42 class levels on a CR 29 creature.

[Crake]

As an illustration of how the monster CR advancement rules are just guidelines, and you should always sanity-check them, consider what happens with monsters that have a lot of HD for their CR. For instance, a Greater Elemental has 21 HD, for CR 9. Elementals are mostly brute monsters, so classes like Fighter or Barbarian would probably be associated, but most caster classes wouldn't be. So consider what happens when an elemental takes, say, 20 levels of sorcerer. That's a non-associated class, and it's fewer levels than the monster's HD, so it adds only 10 to its CR, for a total of 19... while a human sorcerer 20 would have a CR of 20. And both sorcerers have, on average, the same Cha score, and the elemental also has a ton more HP, better AC, better saves, better chance to hit with rays, and all of its other elemental abilities (like undispellable flight or Earth Glide).

Easiest fix to this problem is probably the following:

Nonassociated Class Levels

If you add a class level that doesn’t directly play to a creature’s strength the class level is considered nonassociated, and things get a little more complicated. Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by ½ per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice or its original CR, whichever is lower. At that point, each additional level of the same class or a similar one is considered associated and increases the monster’s CR by 1.

Levels in NPC classes are always treated as nonassociated.