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View Full Version : [3.x] Evil Campaign Character - Flayerspawn Psychic?



RTGoodman
2009-06-09, 12:21 AM
One of my friends is getting ready to run an epic (story-wise, not level-wise) Evil campaign, and he told me to go ahead and start thinking up a character. Basically any source is okay as long as I can get a hold of it.

I've been thinking for a while that, for an Evil campaign, I want to play a Human Telepath/Flayerspawn Psychic, but I'm not so sure. I hear it is broken in that it doesn't work as intended (something about the mind blast part), so I was wondering if (1) someone can tell me what to look out for and (2) give suggestions as how to fix anything actually wrong with the Flayerspawn Psychic PrC.

If not, what are some suggestions for cool Evil characters? The campaign will be a good mix of combat and role-playing, and promises to have a very cool story-line. I'm already thinking, if the Flayerspawn Psychic doesn't work out, maybe a Whisper Gnome Wizard (with a dash of Fatespinner, Shadowcraft Mage, and/or other PrCs). I dunno though - the groups I play with know basically nothing of optimization, so I don't want to blow the whole thing out of the water, but I DO want something pretty cool. Ideas?

arguskos
2009-06-09, 12:34 AM
Play a supervillain. No, really. Play a traditional "evil maniacal laugh" type evil masterming supervillain. Cackle a lot. It might be a touch cheesy, but you can make a pretty serviceable supervillain with D&D spellcasting and some good RP. I think it'd be fun anyways. :smallamused:

Call yourself something involving a fancy title, like "baron" or "lord". It always sounds pretty neat for evil masterminds.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2009-06-09, 01:09 AM
Flayerspawn Psychic grants... poor BAB (1/2), poor saves (one good two bad), poor skill points (2/level) but decent class skills, poor HD (d6) but it could be worse, 6/10 manifesting, three bonus illithid feats, and the illithid blast feat along with improvements to it. Those three bonus feats plus illithid blast may or may not be worth the loss of four levels of manifesting. It costs two feats (Illithid Heritage and Practiced Manifester), grants three feats from a very small selection, and gives you a 5/day 60-foot cone of stun.

From reading Illithid Blast for the first time just now, I've gathered a few things from it:

It grants a Psi-Like Ability usable 1/day, which requires a standard action and the expenditure of your psionic focus to use. You stun everything in a 15-foot cone for 1d4 rounds, with a Will DC of (10 + 1/2 HD + Cha modifier). You can take the feat Ability Focus to add +2 DC, as with any special attack that allows a saving throw.

Creatures immune to critical hits, such as undead, constructs, elementals, plants, and oozes, are also immune to stunning and therefore immune to this. Creatures immune to mind-affecting attacks, such as anything with Int as a nonability and anything with a Mind Blank effect, is also immune to this. As a Psi-Like Ability, you must roll to overcome any power resistance that a potential target has. On top of that, the DC is fairly difficult to boost apart from increasing your Cha score, increasing your level/HD, and taking Ability Focus.

The feat's description says you also must spend powerpoints to use it, but then it doesn't say how many. Furthermore, Psi-Like Abilities never cost any powerpoints and are always considered to be augmented by as much as your manifester level allows, for free. The part about spending powerpoints to use Illithid Blast is likely from an earlier version and is the result of poor editing.


Flayerspawn Psychic increases your Illithid Blast to 5/day instead of 1/day, eventually increasing it to a 60-foot cone and a 3d4 round stun duration. IMO this is a very poor signature ability, not worth losing four levels of manifesting for. As for your other three bonus feats, Illithid Grapple/Extraction are extremely weak choices, Illithid Enthusiast looks extremely lacking, and Illithid Skin is one of those feats that should have been +1 natural armor for every illithid feat you possess, rather than +1 for each feat spent on it. Illithid Grapple/Extraction would only be useful in a build that is already focused around being an amazing grappler. The bonus illithid feats I would pick are Illithid Legacy, Greater Illithid Legacy, and Illithid Compulsion.

I would definitely recommend that everyone just pretend this prestige class doesn't exist. It's one of those cases of sacrificing power for flavor, yet it's trying to imitate one of the most powerful creatures in the game. It would only be playable in an extremely low-powered game or with a lot of houserules to improve it.

RTGoodman
2009-06-09, 01:10 AM
Could work, but I think the campaign is supposed to be darker, grittier, and more serious than your standard "evil overlord" supervillain. One problem is that we don't know anyone else that's definitely in yet, so I can't pick based on what everyone else does like a usually do.

I'm so lost when I have free reign to pick whatever I want... :smallsigh:


EDIT: Yeah, it is a bit worse than I though, too, then. I was thinking (don't have the book on me) that it gave Mind Blast at-will and more than 3 bonus feats. Losing manifester levels would be as bad since we probably wouldn't get high enough level for it to matter anyway, but that and the fact that I was going more for the "eat brains" selection of feats anyway means it'd probably just be terrible. I could probably pull it off depending on group, but I'm not sure now.

arguskos
2009-06-09, 01:47 AM
Could work, but I think the campaign is supposed to be darker, grittier, and more serious than your standard "evil overlord" supervillain. One problem is that we don't know anyone else that's definitely in yet, so I can't pick based on what everyone else does like a usually do.

I'm so lost when I have free reign to pick whatever I want... :smallsigh:
Perhaps, though if you think about it, you can do an evil mastermind with a sinister twist. Look at the Joker from Dark Knight (note that I DO NOT suggest you play him, its been overdone). He is a good evil mastermind, and suitably sinister and dark.

For another, less common, example, take Jon Irenicus, main villain from Baldur's Gate 2. He's an evil bastard. Period. There's no debating it. He's the evil mastermind to the hilt, but he's not cheesy or overdone. He's cold, calm, collected, ruthless. "Once, my thirst for power was everything. Now I hunger only for revenge. And I WILL HAVE IT!" To quote the man himself. :smallwink:

In any evil game, I think that playing some kind of tricky mastermind-type character who is reminiscent of a supervillain is probably a good plan. Your goals can be as diverse as genocide, world domination, or revenge on Billy from grade school (for the less serious games).

I'd say that the evil mastermind route is worthy of consideration.