Getting Crazier: Let's read Lords of Madness!

[Darklord Xavez]

What are you favorite/least favorite parts of the book?

You know, the Book of Aberrations. Anybody? Anybody? *sigh*
-Xavez

[The Glyphstone]

You tease.:smallfurious: Came here hoping for a hilarious page-by-page commentary of LoM (which is, incidentally, one of my favorite supplements).

[Jair Barik]

Likewise

I do like me some Neogi and Tsochari.

[Lord Loss]

MIND FLAYERS WILL RULE SUPREME!!!

Now that that's out of my system, I thought It was to be a read-through as well, a-la-Tome of Horrors.

''Shakes Flindbar''

[BobVosh]

Me too. I was all like "oh snap, Rappy's madness is spreading here!"

I would do one if I wasn't unsure about the legality of doing it for a non-OGL book.

Anyway this book has some great fluff in it and a decent amount of crunch. It is an extremely solid book that I would recommend to anyone who wants a mindflayer villain especially.

[The Glyphstone]

Should be perfectly legal as long as you never quote anything verbatim or post rules text.

[Keld Denar]

See sig for favorite comment from LoM.

LoM also has some GREAT, albeit feat intensive, options for players. I have 2 different characters utilizing Deepspawn to great effect. Darkstalker is often cited as nearly essential for any sneaky character who doesn't want to get neutered at mid-high levels by dargons and other nasties with Blindsense/sight. Then there is the real gem that is Mindsight. AMAZING feat for anyone with telepathy (Mindbender dip anyone?). If you only have 5-10' telepathy (Ghostwise Halfling/Hellbred) it's less useful, since it only works out to the range of your telepathy, but for the 100' telepathy that Mindbender grants, it pretty much assures you to NEVER be snuck up on again except by like, invisible skeletons or such.

[subject42]

Mouthpick weapons made me facepalm pretty hard when I first saw them.

This was even before the facepalm meme got big. I just saw them and had to put my head in my hands until the cognitive dissonance went away.

[Tokuhara]

One of the things in LoM that hit me hard, as both a DM and a Player is the Alhoon. While awesome as a DM, it's truly scary from a player's standpoint. Sure, he's as venerable to being turned as any Lich, but he's a Mind Flayer Lich for god's sake! Mind Flayers are the only monsters that have ever TPK'd a group I was in (damn you, Mind Flayer Egoist/Arch Psion!) and many a lich have come dreadfully close.

Plus, then you have the Ulitharid (aka, SUPER MIND FLAYER!!!). Heck, if I join a group that does a Monsterous Campaign, I may run an Ulitharid out of respect. Maybe a Ulitharid Alhoon (made via Dread Necromancer).

Then we come to Beholder Mage, the single most confusing PrC in the book... I wanted to kick babies it was so confusing...

[Calmar]

Mouthpick weapons made me facepalm pretty hard when I first saw them.

This was even before the facepalm meme got big. I just saw them and had to put my head in my hands until the cognitive dissonance went away.

Yeah, that's pretty stupid. I wouldn't use a beholder anyways whe I need a melee monster...

[Adumbration]

See sig for favorite comment from LoM.

LoM also has some GREAT, albeit feat intensive, options for players. I have 2 different characters utilizing Deepspawn to great effect. Darkstalker is often cited as nearly essential for any sneaky character who doesn't want to get neutered at mid-high levels by dargons and other nasties with Blindsense/sight. Then there is the real gem that is Mindsight. AMAZING feat for anyone with telepathy (Mindbender dip anyone?). If you only have 5-10' telepathy (Ghostwise Halfling/Hellbred) it's less useful, since it only works out to the range of your telepathy, but for the 100' telepathy that Mindbender grants, it pretty much assures you to NEVER be snuck up on again except by like, invisible skeletons or such.

LoM also brings two more circumstantial yet universally useful feats: Quick Recovery and Aquatic Spellcasting.

[Keld Denar]

Yea, in fact, I just recommended Quick Recovery for to a cleric player in another thread active at this very moment. Its GREAT for clerics because it makes botching a save more forgivable and also gets you out of nasty no-save disables like Stun Ray and Blasphemy.

[Morph Bark]

The sections on Mindflayer and Beholder anatomy and society were great. Not a fan of the Neogi, Tsochari or that last one I am forgetting now. I also liked how Aberrant feats mesh together, though they aren't all that great on their own.

Also, grafts!

[Vizzerdrix]

Big fan of Aberrant Wildshape.

[Starscream]

Love this book. Mind Flayers and Beholders are some of my favorite monsters ever. However, I've never been a big fan of Aboleths. Hate running them as a DM, hate encountering them as a player. I know they're inspired by the Cthulu mythos, but c'mon, there are guys with tentacles for faces a few pages over. Let them be the campaign's Lovecraftian horrors.

Favorite LoM feat: Darkstalker. Never play a rogue without taking that one at some point.

[BobVosh]

I've started a LR of LoM Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9115612#post9115612). Later posts will be long, as I will have far more time before needing to leave.

[Zaydos]

I love LoM. I had an ullitharid cerebromancer as my BBEG (changed him from a telepath to an egoist though), and they talked about him... well till we stopped really talking (my little brother who played that game still loves the BBEG).

I like the updated beholder-kin (I'd say new, but they were in earlier editions), and the fluff for mind flayer society and... well I just love the book. I got a lot of use out of it. Didn't use the feats much, though.

[awa]

the mouth pick is a legacy thing they had them in second edition to despite being stupid then too

[democritic]

Great book. Currently running a Fleshwarper, house-ruled a bit because they're rather poorly thought-out requirement-wise, but the flavor can't be beat.

[Blackfang108]

the mouth pick is a legacy thing they had them in second edition to despite being stupid then too

What's so stupid about them? It makrs perfect sense to me that there are some Beholders who enjoy Melee fighting.

I've found it a godsend for my ECL 22 Duskblade who gos semi-permanently morphed into a Dire Wolf. Yay, I have more than one attack again!

[SuperCracker]

I liked this book. I recently ran an adventure using many of the monsters in it.

I threw one Zeugalak at my party. Round 1 it almost killed three of them.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Mouthpick weapons made me facepalm pretty hard when I first saw them.

This was even before the facepalm meme got big. I just saw them and had to put my head in my hands until the cognitive dissonance went away.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm personally a fan of the mouthpick for transforming medicore bite attacks into something more useful. Plus, it makes me think of Zolo from One Piece, which ain't a bad thing.

As for the book itself, I'm a fan of the Aboleths, even though underwater adventuring is a pain.

[Yora]

No love for Aboleths yet?
I love them fishies. The only problem I have with them, which is shared by almost all aberrations, is their assexual reproduction. They are just endlessly creating more clones of themselves. I don't know of any life more advanced than bacteria that do that exclusively. I'm okay with magical and psionic creatures from nightmare dimensions, but higher life forms just can not evolve that way. :smallbiggrin:
Ilithids and Tsorchar are also great creatures, however the Grell seem just too mundane. They have a freaky anatomy, but there's nothing else about them, that is special in any way. They are not stranger than a worg or an ettin. For an aberration, that's just boring.

[Keld Denar]

Don't Grell kinda have that hive-mind setup going for them? I could have sworn that they were societal creatures that are all interconnected through some bond which makes them particularly vicious. Oh, and they have a high frequency of spellcasters, which is always fun.

My level 15 Living Greyhawk group faught a CR20 Advanced Beholder Hive-Mother that utilized a lot of feats and magic items LoM. The lens that twins an eye ray is nasty when the bugger has DC34 saves and the ability to focus its AMF eye on a single target (so they can't move out of it) was particularly nasty considering it was flying out of reach so our 2 melee had a tough time getting to it as it would surpress our all our items (Winged Cloaks/Phoenix Cloaks) every time we'd get close to it, then attempt to Swallow Whole as we fell though its threatened area. Oh, and it had Tomb Tainted Soul so that it could shoot itself every round with the Inflict Critical ray for 4d8+20 HP healed a round.

Nasty bugger named Stormeye...vile vicious SoB.

[Starscream]

Although a Beholder certainly has better things to do to PCs than float toward them with a sword held in its tongue, the Mouthpick makes perfect sense for when Beholders fight each other.

Merely by looking at each other with their central eyes, they cancel out each other's eye rays. In that situation you can either A) Close your eye and hope your opponent is courteous enough to do the same, B) have a truly epic staring contest, C) Just bite at each other lamely, or D) break out the Mouthpicks.

[Keld Denar]

Except that Mouthpick Weapons are a +1 equivalent enhancement, instead of being some kind of exotic weapon. That means if you are a beholder, and another beholder looks at you with his AMF eye, your +1 mouthpick greatsword turns into a masterwork greatsword and falls out of your mouth.

Neat idea, crappy delivery. I'd like to see more epic non-magical beholder on beholder mouthpick duels.

[Zaydos]

Oh the eye lenses :smallsmile:
My warlock player loved those, once he took them off the dead corpses of various beholder kin (they can be used by holding them in hand with ray spells and spell-like abilities). He only used one of the 2 or 3 he got.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Except that Mouthpick Weapons are a +1 equivalent enhancement, instead of being some kind of exotic weapon. That means if you are a beholder, and another beholder looks at you with his AMF eye, your +1 mouthpick greatsword turns into a masterwork greatsword and falls out of your mouth.

Neat idea, crappy delivery. I'd like to see more epic non-magical beholder on beholder mouthpick duels.

THIS WEEK AT THE MEGADOME! WATCH AN EPIC DUAL BETWEEN TWO EYE TYRANTS WILLING TO RISK IT ALL! FAME, FORTUNE, THE CHANCE TO EAT THE ENTIRE CROWD! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

Even with the chance of death, I'd pay money to see some epic beholder swashbucklings!

[BobVosh]

THIS WEEK AT THE MEGADOME! WATCH AN EPIC DUAL BETWEEN TWO EYE TYRANTS WILLING TO RISK IT ALL! FAME, FORTUNE, THE CHANCE TO EAT THE ENTIRE CROWD! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

Even with the chance of death, I'd pay money to see some epic beholder swashbucklings!

So worth it, it isn't even funny. The mouthpick falcon picture is amazing.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

So worth it, it isn't even funny. The mouthpick falcon picture is amazing.

Hold on... Do you mean "falcon" (http://www.seabreeze.us/files/PeregrineFalcon.jpg) or "Falcon" (http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/7881.gif), because either way, that's a win.

[BobVosh]

Hold on... Do you mean "falcon" (http://www.seabreeze.us/files/PeregrineFalcon.jpg) or "Falcon" (http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/7881.gif), because either way, that's a win.

Well, one mouthpick wields the other. Although the poor bird gets a -4 to hit for the wrong size weapon (caption falcon), Cpt Falcon can use his sun maneuvers to deliver a flaming kick from the birds mouth. Obviously I didn't mean falchion >.>

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Well, one mouthpick wields the other. Although the poor bird gets a -4 to hit for the wrong size weapon (caption falcon), Cpt Falcon can use his sun maneuvers to deliver a flaming kick from the birds mouth. Obviously I didn't mean falchion >.>

I think it's funnier this way as we're quickly approaching "Yo dawg" levels of falcon here.

[Darklord Xavez]

Likewise

I do like me some Neogi and Tsochari.

Tsochari are AWESOME. They WEAR OTHER PEOPLE'S FLESH, FOR GOD'S SAKE!


Mouthpick weapons made me facepalm pretty hard when I first saw them.

This was even before the facepalm meme got big. I just saw them and had to put my head in my hands until the cognitive dissonance went away.

I hate mouthpick weapons as well. Beholders aren't supposed to carry weapons. I'm just glad you can't have a mouthpick bow...


One of the things in LoM that hit me hard, as both a DM and a Player is the Alhoon. While awesome as a DM, it's truly scary from a player's standpoint. Sure, he's as venerable to being turned as any Lich, but he's a Mind Flayer Lich for god's sake! Mind Flayers are the only monsters that have ever TPK'd a group I was in (damn you, Mind Flayer Egoist/Arch Psion!) and many a lich have come dreadfully close.

Plus, then you have the Ulitharid (aka, SUPER MIND FLAYER!!!). Heck, if I join a group that does a Monsterous Campaign, I may run an Ulitharid out of respect. Maybe a Ulitharid Alhoon (made via Dread Necromancer).

Then we come to Beholder Mage, the single most confusing PrC in the book... I wanted to kick babies it was so confusing...

Alhoons are great. As are ularithids. Their mouth tentacles have reach! What can be cooler than that (besides your Ularithid Alhoon).


The sections on Mindflayer and Beholder anatomy and society were great. Not a fan of the Neogi, Tsochari or that last one I am forgetting now. I also liked how Aberrant feats mesh together, though they aren't all that great on their own.

Also, grafts!

Maybe you're forgetting either Aboleths (which are really fun once you're read some Lovecraft) or the Grell (who look like floating brains but aren't).

The Aberrant feats are sorta weird. They only work well if you have a lot of them, so you really have to be serious about growing those wings and tail.

Also, grafts!
-Xavez
P.S. My computer's spell check hate me for this post.