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View Full Version : [3.5] MM2 monsters.... *Facepalm*



TroubleBrewing
2011-02-01, 11:58 PM
Man, I cannot get over how completely screwed up some of the CRs given in the Monster Manual 2 are. Not to mention the monsters with completely unclear abilities. For example: the Gambol (one of about 12 'apes with SLAs' in that book) has an ability called "haste" that grants it an extra partial action each turn. Is that a standard action? A move action?

senrath
2011-02-02, 12:02 AM
MM2 is 3.0 material. You'll need to get the free update to 3.5 that Wizards put out.

arguskos
2011-02-02, 12:08 AM
MM2 is 3.0 material. You'll need to get the free update to 3.5 that Wizards put out.
That doesn't fix everything though. For instance, the famous famous example, the Adamantine Horror, the CR 9 monster with Disintegrate and Disjunction at will!

Lurkmoar
2011-02-02, 12:09 AM
That doesn't fix everything though. For instance, the famous famous example, the Adamantine Horror, the CR 9 monster with Disintegrate and Disjunction at will!

That doesn't sound right...

Dusk Eclipse
2011-02-02, 12:12 AM
That doesn't fix everything though. For instance, the famous famous example, the Adamantine Horror, the CR 9 monster with Disintegrate and Disjunction at will!

Personally the Elemental Weird (CR 12-ish) who cas spells as a sorcerer 18 and have all divinations as a free action are the worst offenders in that book.

arguskos
2011-02-02, 12:20 AM
That doesn't sound right...
Maybe it's something about that book being broken as all hell? Yeah, I'll go with that. Seriously, MM2 is like the most poorly edited book written. Ugh.


Personally the Elemental Weird (CR 12-ish) who cas spells as a sorcerer 18 and have all divinations as a free action are the worst offenders in that book.
They're bad, but I still think the Adamantine Horror is worse, due to being able to be all "hey, Weird, haha" and ruin their **** instantly, every round, forever. Amusingly, the Elemental Weirds in Frostburn have the same broken Prescience ability. :smallbiggrin:

Neither is logical though. :smallyuk:

Tokuhara
2011-02-02, 12:21 AM
That doesn't sound right...

its right here on pg. 48 & 49

it has Implosion, Mordenkaiden's Disjunction, and Disintegration as At Wills

BobVosh
2011-02-02, 12:23 AM
Maybe it's something about that book being broken as all hell? Yeah, I'll go with that. Seriously, MM2 is like the most poorly edited book written. Ugh.

Toss between that, exalted deeds, and savage species.

arguskos
2011-02-02, 12:24 AM
Toss between that, exalted deeds, and savage species.
Savage Species, I'll grant in that fight. BoED? It's really not that bad. There's nothing so obviously broken as MM2 or Savage Species.

Jarian
2011-02-02, 12:25 AM
Toss between that, exalted deeds, and savage species.

I never understood why people think BoED is that level of bad. It has some interesting stuff, some good stuff, and a little bit of really bad stuff. Like holy-mindrape. And poison-that-isn't-really-poison.

But every awesome book has a little bit of bad with it.

I'm looking at you, Iron Heart Surge.

Tokuhara
2011-02-02, 12:25 AM
Toss between that, exalted deeds, and savage species.

Truth be told, Savage Species has saved my backside more times than any other, especially when playing a monster race, especially homebrew. I can whip up a race on the fly by categorizing 99.99% of all ability

BobVosh
2011-02-02, 12:33 AM
I never understood why people think BoED is that level of bad. It has some interesting stuff, some good stuff, and a little bit of really bad stuff. Like holy-mindrape. And poison-that-isn't-really-poison.

But every awesome book has a little bit of bad with it.

I'm looking at you, Iron Heart Surge.

The crunch is either weak or really strong, and the fluff is just flat out contradictory to most everything else.

IHS is fine so long as you excuse its poorly written form. *edit* And apply some appropriate nerfs.

Jarian
2011-02-02, 12:37 AM
IHS is fine so long as you excuse its poorly written form. *edit* And apply some appropriate nerfs.

"Iron Heart Surge is okay if you rewrite it entirely so it actually works in a manner approaching design intent and no longer ends suns"?

That doesn't sound okay to me. :smalltongue:

The_Snark
2011-02-02, 12:39 AM
My theory on the Adamantine Horror is that somebody forgot that 9th level does not correspond to 9th-level spells. I know the first time I was introduced to D&D, I was confused about why a 2nd-level spellcaster didn't get 2nd-level spells. (It would be more intuitive.)

Of course, you'd think a professional game designer would know the system a little better than that, but it seems slightly more likely than a professional game designer deciding that Disintegrate, Implosion and Mordenkainen's Disjunction were an okay challenge for your average level 9 party...


For example: the Gambol (one of about 12 'apes with SLAs' in that book) has an ability called "haste" that grants it an extra partial action each turn. Is that a standard action? A move action?

Actually, that one's not poor editing; partial action was a legitimate term in 3.0. It corresponds almost exactly to a standard action in 3.5, if I'm recalling correctly; the update just changed the name and defined it a bit more clearly.

But yes, overall that book is pretty bad. People always remember the under-CRed creatures, but there are some seriously overestimated CRs in there as well, especially at the higher end. The Leviathan is clearly inferior in every way to the Tarrasque (and shares most of its shortcomings) but is supposedly CR 25, the Ocean Strider is a pathetic threat compared to any other CR 18 monster...

I like Savage Species as a book, but it has both some serious balance issues and some terrible editing. The Anthropomorphic Animals table illustrates both problems nicely.

Tokuhara
2011-02-02, 12:44 AM
it seems slightly more likely than a professional game designer deciding that Disintegrate, Implosion and Mordenkainen's Disjunction were an okay challenge for your average level 9 party...

On what planet? That thing seems to be a walking TPK waiting to happen... That'd be the equivelant of a 1st level monster having Wish, Disjunction, Disintegrate, Meteor Storm but have 10HP and be considered "balanced"

Callos_DeTerran
2011-02-02, 12:55 AM
Maybe it's something about that book being broken as all hell? Yeah, I'll go with that. Seriously, MM2 is like the most poorly edited book written. Ugh.


They're bad, but I still think the Adamantine Horror is worse, due to being able to be all "hey, Weird, haha" and ruin their **** instantly, every round, forever. Amusingly, the Elemental Weirds in Frostburn have the same broken Prescience ability. :smallbiggrin:

Neither is logical though. :smallyuk:

I think it's because Elemental Weirds aren't really meant as a 'combat' encounter. I've seriously never gotten a quest that amounts to 'go kill the weird elemental seer that doesn't bother anybody or cause any problems. Why? Gave me a bad fortune cookie...or something'.

arguskos
2011-02-02, 12:56 AM
The crunch is either weak or really strong, and the fluff is just flat out contradictory to most everything else.
So.... like the rest of WotC, where the cruch varies wildly between crap and amazing, and the fluff is stupid.


IHS is fine so long as you excuse its poorly written form. *edit* And apply some appropriate nerfs.
Soooooooo, as long as you write it so it works as intended, it's fine? Sounds like it's unfine.

Every book has its little stupid stuff, but Savage Species and MM2 are chock-full of stupidity. What in MM2 DOESN'T scream "stupidly designed"?

EDIT: Elemental Weirds are broken in that if you turn into one, you suddenly win at everything forever now, which is just silly.

Claudius Maximus
2011-02-02, 01:03 AM
If you turn into any number of creatures you can win forever.

Which raises some questions, really. As a player of mine once liked to ask, how are there still people?

The_Snark
2011-02-02, 01:09 AM
On what planet? That thing seems to be a walking TPK waiting to happen... That'd be the equivelant of a 1st level monster having Wish, Disjunction, Disintegrate, Meteor Storm but have 10HP and be considered "balanced"

Exactly what I was saying. I figure that whoever wrote that must have not bothered to check what these abilities actually did.

The creative process as I envision it:


Crud, I've been putting this off all week and now the boss tells me he wants this shipped off to the printers on Monday? Okay, to work...

Man, working on Friday sucks. Maybe if I rush I can get done in time to meet Ron and Steve for pizza and bowling... yeah, that's a good idea.

... wait, somebody made these elemental weird thingies unable to move? That's terrible. Let's give it a few more levels of spellcasting to make up for it. Moving on... Phoenix... Ocean Strider... yeah, those things are gonna kick ass...

How many monsters was I supposed to write up again? I can't remember, let's toss in a couple more apes with random magical abilities. The art guys love drawing gorillas, right?

Okay, done! No, wait—I never wrote up the final boss for the clockwork spider dudes. Those things were awesome! Let's see, Adamantine Horror, level 9. Let's give him a few spells off the level 9 list and... done!

Jarian
2011-02-02, 01:14 AM
It's funny because it's true.

Draz74
2011-02-02, 01:16 AM
I'd say Serpent Kingdoms could also compete with Savage Species and MM2 for worst-edited book. (And no, Pun-Pun/the Sarrukh isn't the only crazy-broken thing in SK.)

BoED is pretty tame by comparison, although the Starmantle Cloak might single-handedly lift the book into the second tier of poorly-edited books, along with Tome of Magic (Truenamer, anyone?).

nyarlathotep
2011-02-02, 01:25 AM
I'd say Serpent Kingdoms could also compete with Savage Species and MM2 for worst-edited book. (And no, Pun-Pun/the Sarrukh isn't the only crazy-broken thing in SK.)

BoED is pretty tame by comparison, although the Starmantle Cloak might single-handedly lift the book into the second tier of poorly-edited books, along with Tome of Magic (Truenamer, anyone?).

Yes whoever wrote venomfire needs to be talked to.

Greymane
2011-02-02, 03:31 AM
I never understood why people think BoED is that level of bad. It has some interesting stuff, some good stuff, and a little bit of really bad stuff. Like holy-mindrape. And poison-that-isn't-really-poison.

But every awesome book has a little bit of bad with it.

I'm looking at you, Iron Heart Surge.

No you didn't. You were looking at it, which is observing it. That's an effect, and so it Iron Heart Surged your eyes away.

Jair Barik
2011-02-02, 03:41 AM
I'd say ToB is pretty appualingly edited. Not in the same manner mind as these other cases where things are clearly overpowered/underpowered (that is the case across all of the 3.5 books, that nothing really balances against anything else) but in that it is so awfully written. Descriptions that fail to match up to the abilities they describe, entire stat points missing from magic items, places where the writers seem to have had an intention to do something then not bothered writing it down in the crunch....

SiuiS
2011-02-02, 04:35 AM
On what planet? That thing seems to be a walking TPK waiting to happen... That'd be the equivelant of a 1st level monster having Wish, Disjunction, Disintegrate, Meteor Storm but have 10HP and be considered "balanced"

A 10 HP monster that deals 2d6 damage with a ray, Has an ability to do anything (which it probably can't use) can auto-dispel enemy buffs (since first level parties don't have many magic items) does sound almost balanced. Métier swarm is irredeemable, but only because it's damage is static, and not CL based. It is also one of those monsters that a DM can use to screw much higher level parties, though. That's not cool.

Runestar
2011-02-02, 04:52 AM
I thought MM2 was quite interesting in that its monsters could be quite lopsided in design (overwhelmingly strong in one area, very weak in another aspect). That's something you no longer see today.:smalltongue:

Also remember that this book was released soon after 3.0, so many design philosophies which seem like common sense today were still uncharted territory back then. So you see cr28 giants with +10 will saves. :smallsigh:


it has Implosion, Mordenkaiden's Disjunction, and Disintegration as At Wills

In all fairness, other monsters do get SoDs at cr9, such as the bodak, so I feel that being able to use implosion isn't that overpowering (since it targets only one PC at a time), though it is harder to ward against, since it is not resisted by death ward and the like.

In frostburn, the ice weird is cr15 (but still casts 9th lv spells), which I assume is the unofficial "revised" cr for the other weirds.

Some of the other monsters' crs also got revised in other splatbooks, such as the bone naga.

Quirinus_Obsidian
2011-02-02, 09:23 AM
its right here on pg. 48 & 49

it has Implosion, Mordenkaiden's Disjunction, and Disintegration as At Wills

That is a magnificent monster. Overpowered, maybe. But at the time the PCs will be fighting something like that, they will be overpowered as well. So it balances out. That kind of monster is made as a "quest to destroy monster" thing, or a "my players are getting too out of hand with magic items" thing. I like the former, per the fluff text on p49. The DC's for the (Sp)'s are decent, but not great.

Aharon
2011-02-02, 09:36 AM
In one of the last threads where the Adamantine Horror popped up as an example, someone proposed it is meant as a riddle monster - you have to find its weakness.

The weakness being that it lacks Concentration, so if you have marbles or something, you can force it to fail concentration checks and thus prevent it from using its SLAs.

Kyrthain
2011-02-02, 09:37 AM
That is a magnificent monster. Overpowered, maybe. But at the time the PCs will be fighting something like that, they will be overpowered as well. So it balances out. That kind of monster is made as a "quest to destroy monster" thing, or a "my players are getting too out of hand with magic items" thing. I like the former, per the fluff text on p49. The DC's for the (Sp)'s are decent, but not great.

The problem is, the "time the PCs will be fighting something like that" is apparently level 9.

Corronchilejano
2011-02-02, 09:42 AM
A 10 HP monster that deals 2d6 damage with a ray
A ray that if you SAVE it deals 5d6 damage, and if you dont deals 12d6. Minimum caster levels you know? Even if it was only 2d6, it STILL desintegrates you if you fall at 0 or less hp.


Has an ability to do anything (which it probably can't use)
Never seen a monster spend Xp to use Wish. RAW he doesn't have to since monsters don't really HAVE Xp.


It is also one of those monsters that a DM can use to screw much higher level parties, though. That's not cool.
It can screw up anyone.

Claudius Maximus
2011-02-02, 09:48 AM
The problem is, the "time the PCs will be fighting something like that" is apparently level 9.

Or lower, if it's supposed to be fought as a boss.

SuperFish
2011-02-02, 12:04 PM
I never understood how people can make such gross misinterpretations of Iron Heart Surge, myself.

It says "select one spell, effect, or condition currently effecting you with a duration of one or more rounds". The sun, itself, is not a spell, effect or condition. It may cause a condition that IHS may then remove, but it itself is not a spell, effect or condition. Best I could see it doing against the sun is removing dazzling from a creature with light sensitivity or ending a vampires "combustion countdown" (which would then be immediately re-applied).

Starbuck_II
2011-02-02, 12:16 PM
I never understood how people can make such gross misinterpretations of Iron Heart Surge, myself.

It says "select one spell, effect, or condition currently effecting you with a duration of one or more rounds". The sun, itself, is not a spell, effect or condition. It may cause a condition that IHS may then remove, but it itself is not a spell, effect or condition. Best I could see it doing against the sun is removing dazzling from a creature with light sensitivity or ending a vampires "combustion countdown" (which would then be immediately re-applied).

No, it was the Customer Service/Faq answer.
Antimagic field affecting the Warblade: you don't just end the effecting of you. You end the source (the whole spell).

So Sun is source as fatigue from sun thus you end the sun.

Doug Lampert
2011-02-02, 12:25 PM
Never seen a monster spend Xp to use Wish. RAW he doesn't have to since monsters don't really HAVE Xp.

He doesn't NEED XP. It's a Spell-like ability.

To quote the SRD:

A spell-like ability has no verbal, somatic, or material component, nor does it require a focus or have an XP cost. The user activates it mentally. Armor never affects a spell-like ability’s use, even if the ability resembles an arcane spell with a somatic component.

DarkEternal
2011-02-02, 12:29 PM
No, it was the Customer Service/Faq answer.
Antimagic field affecting the Warblade: you don't just end the effecting of you. You end the source (the whole spell).

So Sun is source as fatigue from sun thus you end the sun.

Honestly, I just ruled that it ends whatever you feel, what effects you. It pretty much lowers the power of the ability tremendously, but it's a level 3 maneuver, it's not supposed to end sun's. So basically, for the AMF, it makes all of your items and magic and stuff work for a turn before they are supressed again, similar as if you were in a cloudkill area or something. Basically, gives you the chance to move, use your ability for one turn in an AMF field or whatever you want. Ideal? No. But the players in the Iron Heart school never complained.

Corronchilejano
2011-02-02, 12:31 PM
He doesn't NEED XP. It's a Spell-like ability.

To quote the SRD:

That was my point. A CR1 monster with free-to-use wish? Lulz.

SuperFish
2011-02-02, 01:06 PM
No, it was the Customer Service/Faq answer.
Antimagic field affecting the Warblade: you don't just end the effecting of you. You end the source (the whole spell).

That goes completely against RAW, let alone RAI.

dextercorvia
2011-02-02, 01:26 PM
That goes completely against RAW, let alone RAI.

No the RAW is fine. Antimagic Field is a spell effecting you -- threfore it can end it. The Sun is neither a spell, effect or condition.

If you were standing near enough to a Wall of Fire, you could end it. If you were standing in a pool of lava, you could not remove the lava.

Corronchilejano
2011-02-02, 01:30 PM
No the RAW is fine. Antimagic Field is a spell effecting you -- threfore it can end it. The Sun is neither a spell, effect or condition.

If you were standing near enough to a Wall of Fire, you could end it. If you were standing in a pool of lava, you could not remove the lava.

What if the sun is a spell from a god?

gomipile
2011-02-02, 01:49 PM
What if the sun is a spell from a god?

Then I'd say that you should have had a god who rolled his clouds of impure hydrogen up into little balls, the punishment is much less severe.

Douglas
2011-02-02, 01:59 PM
No, it was the Customer Service/Faq answer.
Antimagic field affecting the Warblade: you don't just end the effecting of you. You end the source (the whole spell).

So Sun is source as fatigue from sun thus you end the sun.
That's different - AMF is a spell, which is on the list of categories of things IHS can end. The sun is not. The sun is also not a condition, and I expect you'd be hard pressed to find a DM that would rule the sun is an effect. As the sun is not a spell, condition, or effect, IHS therefore cannot end it.

"Dazzled", though, that is a condition and IHS can end it.

Arguing that IHS can put out the sun is like arguing that dispelling a spell kills the spell's caster.

Lans
2011-02-02, 02:26 PM
But yes, overall that book is pretty bad. People always remember the under-CRed creatures, but there are some seriously overestimated CRs in there as well, especially at the higher end. The Leviathan is clearly inferior in every way to the Tarrasque (and shares most of its shortcomings) but is supposedly CR 25, the Ocean Strider is a pathetic threat compared to any other CR 18 monster...

Leviathan is aquatic which makes it slightly better at coping with flying things than the land bound tarrasque.

Doug Lampert
2011-02-02, 02:55 PM
That was my point. A CR1 monster with free-to-use wish? Lulz.

Not what you said. You said

Never seen a monster spend Xp to use Wish. RAW he doesn't have to since monsters don't really HAVE Xp.

Which is DEAD WRONG! First, monsters and NPCs have XP, there are even rules for figuring changes in their loot value based on XP they've spent, figuring costs they charge for services based on XP costs, and IIRC rules in the DMG stating that they earn XP the same way a PC does.

If a monster gets wish as a spell, say from having caster levels (see Dragons), then the monster DOES need to spend wish to cast wish, and this limits his ability to use it.

If on the other hand a PC gets wish as a spell-like then he does NOT need to spend XP to use the wish.

It has nothing to do with whether the character has XP or not. Just the rules of the ability.

Czin
2011-02-02, 05:45 PM
its right here on pg. 48 & 49

it has Implosion, Mordenkaiden's Disjunction, and Disintegration as At Wills

Ah yes, implosion, one of the worst save or dies due to the need for full round concentration, though of course, that's why an Adamantine Horror has all the other horrors.


I'd say ToB is pretty appualingly edited. Not in the same manner mind as these other cases where things are clearly overpowered/underpowered (that is the case across all of the 3.5 books, that nothing really balances against anything else) but in that it is so awfully written. Descriptions that fail to match up to the abilities they describe, entire stat points missing from magic items, places where the writers seem to have had an intention to do something then not bothered writing it down in the crunch....
Don't you mean http://1d4chan.org/images/4/48/The_Book_of_Weeaboo_Fightan_Magic.jpg


But yes, overall that book is pretty bad. People always remember the under-CRed creatures, but there are some seriously overestimated CRs in there as well, especially at the higher end. The Leviathan is clearly inferior in every way to the Tarrasque (and shares most of its shortcomings) but is supposedly CR 25, the Ocean Strider is a pathetic threat compared to any other CR 18 monster...
Yeah the Leviathan, less hit points than the tarrasque, no ability to rapidly recover hit points, no regeneration so it takes lethal damage, far less attacks, heck, if the Tarrasque had a swim speed it would probably already have eaten the Leviathan.

The Corpse Tearer Linnorm also seems over-CR'd to me, compare it to the highest Cr'd monsters in the MM1 (The Great Wyrm True Dragons) and you'd see that the Corpse Tearer Linnorm would lose to pretty much all of them handily. Compare the Linnorms to the Great Wyrm dragons, the Linnorms have far, far less hit dice and far fewer attacks. But the most egregariously over CR'd linnorm is the Gray linnorm, I'm sorry but a 13 hit dice monster simply is not CR 20 material.

I mean seriously, even an totally unoptimized level 20 party would be far from expending a fifth of their resources after slaughtering a Gray Linnorm. Every other monster with a CR of 20 would eat a Gray Linnorm for breakfast, hell even the Adamantine Horror would be able to kill the Gray Linnorm as long as it went first.

Ragitsu
2011-02-02, 05:48 PM
Don't you mean http://1d4chan.org/images/4/48/The_Book_of_Weeaboo_Fightan_Magic.jpg

Sick of 4chan polluting the internet.

Czin
2011-02-02, 05:53 PM
Sick of 4chan polluting the internet.

/tg/ is actually a pretty nice place, while it's anarchic in the extreme since moderators show up once a blue moon and anything that isn't outright illegal goes, it's relatively civil. Most of the garbage comes from /b/, which sadly drives internet culture as a whole.

Jarian
2011-02-02, 05:55 PM
Don't you mean http://1d4chan.org/images/4/48/The_Book_of_Weeaboo_Fightan_Magic.jpg

You will take your blasphemies and you will get off of my internet right now, mister, or else... or else...

Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike!

...what? :smallconfused:

/tongueincheek

SurlySeraph
2011-02-02, 05:56 PM
Savage Species, I'll grant in that fight. BoED? It's really not that bad. There's nothing so obviously broken as MM2 or Savage Species.


I never understood why people think BoED is that level of bad. It has some interesting stuff, some good stuff, and a little bit of really bad stuff. Like holy-mindrape. And poison-that-isn't-really-poison.

Amulet of Retaliation, Paralyzing weapons, Starmantle Cloak, channeling celestials, and a few of the spells are overpowered. Most of the PrCs and feats are OK, half of them no one would ever take but that's the case in every book. The main issue with BoED is that the fluff is so egregious.

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2011-02-02, 06:02 PM
Serpent Kingdoms is definitely the best-edited book, it's just edited on the premise that villainous snakefolk are forces of unstoppable destruction.

mikethepoor
2011-02-02, 06:49 PM
I'm surprised no one's mentioned the mountain giant yet. As printed, it has 30 hit dice and an LA of -5. There are no errata for this either.

Czin
2011-02-02, 06:52 PM
I'm surprised no one's mentioned the mountain giant yet. As printed, it has 30 hit dice and an LA of -5. There are no errata for this either.

No, it's ECL is 25, I have the book here with me. But the Mountain giant is seriously over cr'd, a Great Wyrm Red Dragon would kill it dead with ease.

Starbuck_II
2011-02-02, 06:54 PM
I'm surprised no one's mentioned the mountain giant yet. As printed, it has 30 hit dice and an LA of -5. There are no errata for this either.

I've say with 30 Racial, you paid enough. You deserve to play one at ECL 25.

mikethepoor
2011-02-02, 06:54 PM
No, it's ECL is 25, I have the book here with me. But the Mountain giant is seriously over cr'd, a Great Wyrm Red Dragon would kill it dead with ease.

Yes, and it has 30 hit dice, which means its LA is effectively -5.

Czin
2011-02-02, 06:57 PM
Yes, and it has 30 hit dice, which means its LA is effectively -5.

Having 26 levels in any class is preferable to 30 hit dice in giant. The only monstrous hit dice that are even close to worth it for PCs are Dragon and Outsider (for the all good saves, excellent/decent hit dice, full BAB, and the great/excellent skill points) and even then, you'd just be a fancier version of a fighter without the weapons proficiencies and uber-rapid bonus feats.

Ragitsu
2011-02-02, 06:58 PM
No, it's ECL is 25, I have the book here with me. But the Mountain giant is seriously over cr'd, a Great Wyrm Red Dragon would kill it dead with ease.

One could argue that dragons are over-powered. Which, they tend to be.

Runestar
2011-02-02, 07:00 PM
Yeah, because classes like paladin, barbarian and warlock don't reek of anime stereotypes themselves...:smallmad:

mikethepoor
2011-02-02, 07:02 PM
Having 26 levels in any class is preferable to 30 hit dice in giant. The only monstrous hit dice that are even close to worth it for PCs are Dragon and Outsider (for the all good saves, excellent/decent hit dice, full BAB, and the great/excellent skill points) and even then, you'd just be a fancier version of a fighter without the weapons proficiencies and uber-rapid bonus feats.

I'm not saying it's worth it, I just think it's interesting that there is somehow a monster with negative LA.

Czin
2011-02-02, 07:02 PM
One could argue that dragons are over-powered. Which, they tend to be.

A pit fiend would kill a Mountain Giant with ease, it can just fly around it and spam fireballs until the giant is dead, the giant can't do any lethal damage to the Pit fiend so it would have the upper hand.

The mountain giant can't really compete with the tarrasque either, it's one advantage is the ability to throw rocks, otherwise, it is completely outmatched (save for intelligence, but that's what awakened/heavily templated tarrasques are for.) The instant the tarrasque gets within reach, the mountain giant is doomed.

Virtually the only MM2 monsters with a CR over 20 that are even close to deserving it are the hellfire wyrm and the phoenix.

The Rabbler
2011-02-02, 07:04 PM
I'm surprised no one's mentioned the mountain giant yet. As printed, it has 30 hit dice and an LA of -5. There are no errata for this either.

using savage species rules, wouldn't this mean that you could start up a mountain giant level 1/warblade level 5 and rock out with 6 HD in the middle of a level 1 party?

Greenish
2011-02-02, 07:06 PM
I'm not saying it's worth it, I just think it's interesting that there is somehow a monster with negative LA.It's not the only one.

LOTRfan
2011-02-02, 07:07 PM
using savage species rules, wouldn't this mean that you could start up a mountain giant level 1/warblade level 5 and rock out with 6 HD in the middle of a level 1 party?

No, negative LA just causes the Savage Species rules to have a nervous breakdown.

Czin
2011-02-02, 07:07 PM
Yeah, because classes like paladin, barbarian and warlock don't reek of anime stereotypes themselves...:smallmad:

The Paladin is based mostly on warrior saints who would often benefit from rather overt examples of divine intervention and were typically described as having martial prowess beyond that of mere mortals. Barbarians are based on well, raging barbarians and berserkers like those of my direct Ancestors, the mother friggin' vikings. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker) The Warlock is based on people like Faust who get great power from dark forces, for the price of their souls later on, a price that said forces may try to collect early.

Really a lot of tropes that seem animeish were stolen from European folklore and myth, the west has had a much greater impact on Japanese culture than Japanese culture has had on the west but that's a topic for another thread.

mikethepoor
2011-02-02, 07:08 PM
It's not the only one.

There's more? Other than the xvart, which isn't true?

Greenish
2011-02-02, 07:12 PM
There's more? Other than the xvart, which isn't true?Well, to be honest, I was thinking of the smurf, but there's also the infamous Incarnate Construct.

mikethepoor
2011-02-02, 07:14 PM
Well, to be honest, I was thinking of the smurf, but there's also the infamous Incarnate Construct.

I don't think that's a race in and of itself so much as it is a template that can be applied to an existing race.

Czin
2011-02-02, 07:17 PM
Well, to be honest, I was thinking of the smurf, but there's also the infamous Incarnate Construct.

Dresses like Billy mays and starts talking in his voice

Do you want to make your party's martial members completely redundant? Are you not worried about your Charisma score? Then become an incarnate golem so that you too can have a negative LA and make your party's fighter cry like a little girl as you completely and utterly outshine him! For the price of only $19.95 all this can be yours!

But wait there's more!!! Call right now and we'll make you an incarnate mithril golem so that you can break the action economy too! And we'll not just double, but triple our offer, so that nearly the whole party can join in on the fun!

Runestar
2011-02-02, 07:20 PM
The Paladin is based mostly on warrior saints who would often benefit from rather overt examples of divine intervention and were typically described as having martial prowess beyond that of mere mortals. Barbarians are based on well, raging barbarians and berserkers like those of my direct Ancestors, the mother friggin' vikings. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker) The Warlock is based on people like Faust who get great power from dark forces, for the price of their souls later on, a price that said forces may try to collect early.

Balderdash!!!:smallfurious:

Why the warlock is anime'ish
I'm so sick of people bringing the Warlock into my games. It's too much anime inspired munchkinry for my taste and detracts from my Dungeons and Dragons experience.

The first ability a Warlock gets is his Eldritch Blast, which can be spammed ALL DAY LONG as a RANGED TOUCH ATTACK for 1d6 per TWO LEVELS! As if that wasn't bad enough, he can make attacks out to 250 feet with one blast shape invocation. Since Warlock abilities are inherited, that means the Warlock can be a little girl flying about in the air and blasting people. It's like watching Sailor Moon in action, it really is. I can almost hear a Warlock saying "In the name of the moon, I shall punish you!" every time an Eldritch Blast is used.

And that's not all; their class abilities come straight out of anime as well.

Warlocks get Damage Reduction, Energy Resistance and a limited Fast Healing ability. Wow, the ability to ignore damage taken and heal from injuries quickly? It comes up so often in anime that I bleach my brain at the thought.

UMD related skills, the ability to craft items as if they were real magic users? I guess that makes the Warlock into some sort of Dark Magician Girl.

Prestige Classes? There's a prestige class for warlocks, alright. It's called Hellfire Warlock and its primary benifit is to be able to Kamehameha things to death.

Invocations? Let's see what those give you.

Fell Flight lets you fly all day long. Gee, I wonder where I've seen characters flying all day long before? Maybe it was the same anime that had people who could use Flee the Scene at will, the power that lets you teleport away and leave a major image of yourself behind to distract opponents. These abilities are so totally ripped off of Dragonball Z (ever watch the first fight between Goku and Vegeta?) that it's not even funny.

Spiderwalk lets you run up walls and do the kind of acrobatic you only see in wuxia inspired stuff like Ranma and the Matrix. (Seriously, who else moves on walls like a Spider, man?)

Crawling Eye, for instance, detatches your eyeball and lets it go around spying for you, which is exactly what Naruto's Gaara of the Sand does in the written Chunin Exam (1:16). Come on, this one's so blatantly anime that I can't believe no one else has picked up on it yet.

Finally, they get the invocation Chilling Tentacles, and we all know what inspired those.

I don't have time to go through the others in a systematic fashion, but my first impressions were that they were too anime and I'm sure everything else is as well because that is a reasonable generalization, like how most wizard spells are blasting spells.

In short, I hate warlocks because their flavor and power level does not fit in with my medieval European inspired fantasy world with kung-fu monks.
Why the Barbarian and Ranger are anime'ish
I have banned barbarians for similar reasons. I mean, their main class feature is grunting to "power up", they're uncannily fast for no particular reason, they can avoid surprise attacks like some kung fu master, and they also get the power to resist mind control by believing in themselves. Seriously? Plus they have at least two PrCs which let them turn into invincible monsters by channeling their emoness. One of them makes them Large and gives them natural weapons. But even more ridiculously, the other PrC is some Dangerous Forbidden Technique thing where you might die or go insane every time you use it.

And don't get me started on rangers, who are swordsmen with magic powers who hold vendettas and keep telling everyone how invincible their fighting style is. Even when it's something ridiculous like wielding two of the same weapon at once. Plus, animals love them because they're just that awesome. Can you say "Mary Sue"? They even get powers which let them show up mysteriously then leave, and you can't follow them because the grass is too thick or something stupid like that. And, I am seriously not kidding here, if a ranger takes special interest in you he can always find you and you take a penalty to Sense Motive checks to understand his cryptic sayings. WTF godmodding.

I'll stick to my warblade for realistic campaigns, thank you very much. None of these silly special attacks and transformations, they'll kick sand in your eyes to catch you off balance then stab you. They don't go for that stupid "soul of the sword" stuff either, where a samurai is living death while holding a katana but can't kill a kitten if you hand him an axe; a weapon is a weapon. Insert pointy end into opponent - what is so hard about that to figure out?

And last but not least, the Paladin himself.
Let's get started on the paladin class. Aka the "Shonen protagonist" class.

Ridiculous from level 1. You are so much better at sensing peoples' feelings than everyone else that you can tell someone is a bad guy even if all the other ninjas in your village Captains of the Gotei 13 members of your party are fooled. Likewise, you can objectively tell if someone isn't really a bad person. And on top of that, you get to declare that an enemy is arbitrarily less able to dodge your attacks and more damaged by them (even if it isn't actually possible for your attacks to deal that much damage) just because you are the protagonist and you have plot armour. You can do this EVERY DAY. Finally, you get an aura blasting out of you at all times which can make bad guys blind at high levels because they can't take how shonen you are.

Level 2 gets you literal plot armour. That dragon's breath? That giant crushing you? That mind control? Sorry, it doesn't work because you believe in yourself. Seriously, it's based on Charisma, which is how strong your personality is. Every Shonen protagonist ever has this. Just as an added insult, the more a PC invests in this, the more people like him. They also get healing powers, because that's the kind of thing you throw on to Mary Sues as an afterthought. Plus it lets them get up again when they're bleeding to death because they believe in themselves (yep, based on Charisma again).

At 3rd level you believe in yourself so much that you never get scared. Ever. And you can encourage your allies not to be scared too, because they're obviously total chickens without you. You are also immune to disease, which is... I don't even know. Even shonen characters just recover from disease faster, or use it as an excuse for when they lose. Now it's just getting silly.

At 4th level you can shoot beams of love from a handheld trinket that harm those with wicked hearts... okay, I take back what I said about the immunity to disease. This is generic enough to anime that you can be Sailor Moon now. Plus with the right feats you can shoot your lasers at yourself and instead of getting hurt you get more powerful, Conservation of Energy be damned. Oh, and gods begin lending you their power. Let me repeat that. Gods begin lending you their power. Who cares about your DM's setting and his story? Why the heck would any god go out of its way to do this, even if there were eighty million of them? Oh, that's right, because this is the class which makes you the utterly flawless protagonist and reshapes the story to ignore the other players.

At lv5 you get to use the Summoning Jutsu. 'nuff said.

At this point the paladin stops gaining any new abilities and you just have to take their word for it that they're getting stronger, just like every other shonen protagonist.
:smallwink::smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

Czin
2011-02-02, 07:25 PM
*snip*

Don't make me invoke the angry spirits of my ancestors.
http://magickalgraphics.com/Graphics/Culture/Asatru/norse44.jpg
They don't take to being mistaken for other people very well.
:wink:

arguskos
2011-02-02, 07:29 PM
:smallwink::smalltongue::smallbiggrin:
Sir, this post is made of victory and delicious. You sir, win the internet, for what it's worth. :smallcool:

DeltaEmil
2011-02-02, 07:41 PM
The soul of Runestar still burns with the flames of victory.

Runestar
2011-02-02, 07:45 PM
I can't take credit for all that info (came from various posters in BG, http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10832.0), but this work of brilliance is too good to just let it languish there, rather than sharing with the larger populace.:smallsmile:

TroubleBrewing
2011-02-02, 08:06 PM
Thank god it was a joke. I mean, jeez.

Thurbane
2011-02-02, 08:06 PM
Meh...X is anime, Y isn't anime. These debates are usually totally pointless, as what is and isn't anime based will vary from person to person.

Person A says this is anime, person B says it's based on folklore and mythology, and the merry go round turns and turns.

I don't think I've ever seen one side convince the other that they are wrong...I mean, we're talking opinions, not facts, after all.

MeeposFire
2011-02-02, 08:19 PM
Meh...X is anime, Y isn't anime. These debates are usually totally pointless, as what is and isn't anime based will vary from person to person.

Person A says this is anime, person B says it's based on folklore and mythology, and the merry go round turns and turns.

I don't think I've ever seen one side convince the other that they are wrong...I mean, we're talking opinions, not facts, after all.

On anything remotely subjective you can probably count the number of people changing their minds, who actually participated in the debate, on your hands.

Runestar
2011-02-02, 08:31 PM
No, negative LA just causes the Savage Species rules to have a nervous breakdown.

I thought savage species was a very good idea, just that it ended up being marred by poor implementation, and outdated mechanics (it was half 3.0/3.5). If the designers could spend so much time creating monster class progressions, why couldn't they devote a bit more energy towards determining more reasonable ECLs? :smallmad:

MeeposFire
2011-02-02, 08:36 PM
I thought savage species was a very good idea, just that it ended up being marred by poor implementation, and outdated mechanics (it was half 3.0/3.5). If the designers could spend so much time creating monster class progressions, why couldn't they devote a bit more energy towards determining more reasonable ECLs? :smallmad:

I think they wanted to keep "normal" character races to be better. They wanted monster choices to be the roleplaying choice not the power choice. Even so they still mostly failed at that, though I do enjoy my Savage Species book.

Thurbane
2011-02-02, 08:46 PM
I really like SS. Pardon my ignorance, but apart from Anthro Animals (which are either hilariously overpowered, or underpowered, depending on which one), what exactly are the problematic/broken parts of SS?

Qwertystop
2011-02-02, 08:47 PM
On anything remotely subjective you can probably count the number of people changing their minds, who actually participated in the debate, on your hands.

Don't be ridiculous!

You could count them on the fingers of one foot.:smallamused:

MeeposFire
2011-02-02, 08:49 PM
Don't be ridiculous!

You could count them on the fingers of one foot.:smallamused:

I whole heartily disagree! And I will conveniently ignore your small text!

LOTRfan
2011-02-02, 08:49 PM
I thought savage species was a very good idea, just that it ended up being marred by poor implementation, and outdated mechanics (it was half 3.0/3.5). If the designers could spend so much time creating monster class progressions, why couldn't they devote a bit more energy towards determining more reasonable ECLs? :smallmad:

I don't know. Personally, I loved Savage Species. First supplement I ever bought, because I wanted to play monsters. I mean, its fun in a gestalt game, but it could have been implemented better.



I really like SS. Pardon my ignorance, but apart from Anthro Animals (which are either hilariously overpowered, or underpowered, depending on which one), what exactly are the problematic/broken parts of SS?

I'd like to know as well (well, besides the Feral template).

Runestar
2011-02-02, 09:02 PM
I really like SS. Pardon my ignorance, but apart from Anthro Animals (which are either hilariously overpowered, or underpowered, depending on which one), what exactly are the problematic/broken parts of SS?

As I mentioned pretty much all the monster classes. They are typically too weak for their ECL (exception being at the lower lvs, where some are actually comparable, or even stronger than equivalent clases).

For instance, I feel the astral deva and trumpet archon are not quite strong enough to be pegged at ECL20. Based on my observations, I feel the deva is ECL15-16 tops, the trumpet archon maybe ECL17. Hound archon is likely ECL8-9 tops.

The various giants and elementals are not worth the paper they are printed on. Don't even get me started on the ogre mage (ECL12?!?), drider (ECL10) and raksasha (ECL14).

The selection of monsters is also a little suspect, I feel they should have picked those which would make heroic PCs. Some like magmin or water elemental are just plain unplayable, IMO. :smallannoyed:

arguskos
2011-02-02, 09:30 PM
As I mentioned pretty much all the monster classes. They are typically too weak for their ECL (exception being at the lower lvs, where some are actually comparable, or even stronger than equivalent clases).

For instance, I feel the astral deva and trumpet archon are not quite strong enough to be pegged at ECL20. Based on my observations, I feel the deva is ECL15-16 tops, the trumpet archon maybe ECL17. Hound archon is likely ECL8-9 tops.

The various giants and elementals are not worth the paper they are printed on. Don't even get me started on the ogre mage (ECL12?!?), drider (ECL10) and raksasha (ECL14).

The selection of monsters is also a little suspect, I feel they should have picked those which would make heroic PCs. Some like magmin or water elemental are just plain unplayable, IMO. :smallannoyed:
The converse is that there's a few which are stupidly powerful, like the Ghale Eladrin, and anything else that gets casting. They're just poorly balanced.

Let's not even start on the templates in that book. :smallsigh:

Thurbane
2011-02-02, 09:31 PM
But aren't the relative power of the monster classes really more a problem with the RHD and LA of the monsters to begin with, than the class system introduced in SS?

The_Snark
2011-02-02, 09:56 PM
The converse is that there's a few which are stupidly powerful, like the Ghale Eladrin...

The ghaele is actually a great example of what he's talking about. At low levels, it's essentially a cleric with full base attack bonus and all good saves and 8+Int modifier skills/level and a bunch of class abilities. As you get to higher levels, though, the missing HD start mattering a little more, and when it stops gaining spellcasting at level 14 it goes downhill rapidly. By the time the ghaele hits level 20, it's pretty unimpressive; it loses 6 levels of spellcasting compared to a cleric, and with only 10 HD it's pretty fragile.

The trumpet archon is even worse; at the beginning of its career it casts as a cleric of a higher level than it actually is (e.g., 5th-level cleric casting at level 3). Plus outsider hit dice and flight and other racial goodies. The astral deva doesn't get spellcasting, but it's still awfully front-loaded.

But in general, I think Thurbane is right; a lot of the monster classes have their abilities nicely spread out, but end up being weak because the base monster has more LA than it deserves.


Leviathan is aquatic which makes it slightly better at coping with flying things than the land bound tarrasque.

Oh- good point, actually, I hadn't thought of that. And since things like Assay Spell Resistance didn't exist at the time it was written, its SR 36 probably seemed like enough to protect it from lower-level spellcasters.

Not a terribly impressive monster by today's standards, but I suppose I can see how they might have thought it would be.

awa
2011-02-02, 09:59 PM
if you look at their example in the acid test they even admit that the la it comes out with is far to high.

the emancipated spawn is basically 3 dead levels

there are of course many other problems but most of them have already been mentioned

Arutema
2011-02-02, 10:50 PM
using savage species rules, wouldn't this mean that you could start up a mountain giant level 1/warblade level 5 and rock out with 6 HD in the middle of a level 1 party?
No, because you must finish your "savage progression" before taking levels in a PC class.

How do people miss that rule?

Hammerhead
2011-02-02, 11:04 PM
How do people miss that rule?
Wishful thinking?

Seriously, dropping that rule would make the book way more interesting, for pretty much everyone. Angels might become the most powerful divine casters around, but that's actually kind of reasonable.

MeeposFire
2011-02-02, 11:06 PM
Wishful thinking?

Seriously, dropping that rule would make the book way more interesting, for pretty much everyone. Angels might become the most powerful divine casters around, but that's actually kind of reasonable.

Reasonable possibly in your mind, but not in a game context.

Hammerhead
2011-02-02, 11:09 PM
Reasonable possibly in your mind, but not in a game context.
Have to maintain 3e's finely tuned balance, eh?

MeeposFire
2011-02-02, 11:12 PM
Have to maintain 3e's finely tuned balance, eh?

They should try. Unfortunately they decided to ignore the most basic problems. Besides in this context forcing you to get all your racial traits before your class traits is only fair considering that all other races have to do that (granted most get theirs at first level).

Runestar
2011-02-03, 05:49 AM
But aren't the relative power of the monster classes really more a problem with the RHD and LA of the monsters to begin with, than the class system introduced in SS?

Well, SS was responsible for assigning the LAs to the monsters before breaking them down into class lvs. MM3.5 proceeded to copy those LAs. So SS is still responsible to some degree, IMO.

Seriously...ECL19 fire giant. ECL14 earth elemental. ECL12 ogre mage. ECL12 treant. ECL10 drider.

I shudder to imagine how weak and unoptimized the sample fighter19 PC must be for it to be deemed comparable to a fire giant PC. What did they do, have him take only toughness feats? :smalleek:

faceroll
2011-02-03, 06:44 AM
The sylph is a pretty messed up monster. Look at its sorcerer casting.


The problem is, the "time the PCs will be fighting something like that" is apparently level 9.

There are so many threads where a half dozen posters circlejerk themselves to how awesome wizards are by level 9 and how they can take over the whole world.

Pelor forbid that anything should actually challenge a wizard....


I really like SS. Pardon my ignorance, but apart from Anthro Animals (which are either hilariously overpowered, or underpowered, depending on which one), what exactly are the problematic/broken parts of SS?

Some feats and spells, like a Natural Spell for anyone who could turn into an alternate form and a feat that turns spell like abilities into supernatural abilities. Only a big problem when combined with the XPH, but that was all unintentional combos.

And the feral template is pretty boss.

Illithid Savant is potentially horrendously broken, but then, much of it being broken relies on Gate abuse, and if you're abusing Gate, you aren't actually that good at D&D.

Runestar
2011-02-03, 07:11 AM
There are so many threads where a half dozen posters circlejerk themselves to how awesome wizards are by level 9 and how they can take over the whole world.

Pelor forbid that anything should actually challenge a wizard....

By that logic, anything which can challenge a wizard means that it will probably trivalise the other non-caster players. Disjunction actually hurts non-casters more than casters, wizards can at least hedge against disintegrate via ray deflection, displacement or good old mirror image (which also helps defend against implosion).


Illithid Savant is potentially horrendously broken, but then, much of it being broken relies on Gate abuse, and if you're abusing Gate, you aren't actually that good at D&D.

People rage about how it is broken, but I have yet to see a combination of abilities which would prove unsurmountable against a group of players of appropriate level. What's the worst that could happen? Tarrasque regeneration? Wish 3/day? :smallconfused:

Don't forget, a mindflayer is already ECL15. By the time you steal your 1st ability, you are already lv20, and wizards started breaking the game 3 lvs ago.

Eldan
2011-02-03, 07:34 AM
I don't actually know the exact text of Illithid Savant, but I've heard people argue you can steal class features with it. I think one that was mentioned was the Factotum's Action-economy-screwyness.

FMArthur
2011-02-03, 08:35 AM
It isn't arguable that it can steal class features. That's one of its class features, plain as day.

Most cheese I've seen just involves becoming a mind flayer at lower ECL through magical means. The cheese itself is highly convoluted and situational, however it does technically allow the most powerful characters possible through chains with other Illithid Savants. One 7th level Illithid Savant with two Acquire Class Feature uses remaining sucks out a wizard's brain and gains a spell of each level. Another with two Acquire Class Feature uses remaining sucks out that one's brain to gain its Acquire Class Feature ability and still has two uses remaining as well as the extra casting. Continue from there...

Conceivably a person could start a cult with enough absurd diplomacy checks with this as its goal. You might not even need any unwilling subjects at all with resurrections involved.

Personally I would have no problem allowing an Illithid Savant since under ordinary circumstances this kind of abuse is not especially practical. They have a theoretically unlimited power cap but I doubt it would happen that way in real play.

Corronchilejano
2011-02-03, 09:09 AM
Not what you said
That's not the point. The point I wanted to make refered to someone stating that a CR 1 monster with disintegrate, disjunction and wish was a balanced monster for lvl 1 characters. He stated the monster couldn't use wish, I disagreed.

The point is that a CR 1 monster that can USE wish is in NO way balanced.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2011-02-03, 02:53 PM
I'm surprised no one's mentioned the mountain giant yet. As printed, it has 30 hit dice and an LA of -5. There are no errata for this either.Fail. There is an update though. "LA--"

Starbuck_II
2011-02-03, 03:24 PM
The ghaele is actually a great example of what he's talking about. At low levels, it's essentially a cleric with full base attack bonus and all good saves and 8+Int modifier skills/level and a bunch of class abilities. As you get to higher levels, though, the missing HD start mattering a little more, and when it stops gaining spellcasting at level 14 it goes downhill rapidly. By the time the ghaele hits level 20, it's pretty unimpressive; it loses 6 levels of spellcasting compared to a cleric, and with only 10 HD it's pretty fragile.

The trumpet archon is even worse; at the beginning of its career it casts as a cleric of a higher level than it actually is (e.g., 5th-level cleric casting at level 3). Plus outsider hit dice and flight and other racial goodies. The astral deva doesn't get spellcasting, but it's still awfully front-loaded.

But in general, I think Thurbane is right; a lot of the monster classes have their abilities nicely spread out, but end up being weak because the base monster has more LA than it deserves.

True, but that kind of shows that Ghaele is pretty balanced. Trumpet is just weird though.

stainboy
2011-02-03, 04:52 PM
That doesn't fix everything though. For instance, the famous famous example, the Adamantine Horror, the CR 9 monster with Disintegrate and Disjunction at will!

Pages behind, but anyway...

The Adamantine Horror is a puzzle monster. If you let it cast, you lose, but it has no ranks in Concentration, no Constitution score, Small size, and no special ways to get out of melee. Keep grappling it and it'll never get a spell off. (Better yet, AMF, then grapple it.)

There's only one of them in existence, and killing it would stop the creation of new Clockwork Horrors, so taking out that one Adamantine Horror is probably a goal the party spends some time working on. You're never going to run into 1d6 Adamantine Horrors in the woods. The party would presumably fight it knowing about its weaknesses in advance.

awa
2011-02-03, 06:35 PM
im away from my books but i believe the horror had a very good iniative and the errata gave it extremly good hide and move silently.
not just that it would normally have lesser horrors around and if one knows where you are they all do it. even one casting of disjunction will destroy more than a quarter of your wealth by level.
so getting the jump on this critter is far from easy.
A level 9 party should be able to beat it pretty easily with out losing half their gear or their lives.

Czin
2011-02-03, 07:04 PM
Pages behind, but anyway...

The Adamantine Horror is a puzzle monster. If you let it cast, you lose, but it has no ranks in Concentration, no Constitution score, Small size, and no special ways to get out of melee. Keep grappling it and it'll never get a spell off. (Better yet, AMF, then grapple it.)

There's only one of them in existence, and killing it would stop the creation of new Clockwork Horrors, so taking out that one Adamantine Horror is probably a goal the party spends some time working on. You're never going to run into 1d6 Adamantine Horrors in the woods. The party would presumably fight it knowing about its weaknesses in advance.
The thing is that you are almost never going to face the Adamantine Horror on it's own, if you can get to it, or it deems you a big enough threat to deal with you personally; it's probably going to bring a hell of a lot of other clockwork horrors with it to back it up.

Runestar
2011-02-03, 07:38 PM
The thing is that you are almost never going to face the Adamantine Horror on it's own, if you can get to it, or it deems you a big enough threat to deal with you personally; it's probably going to bring a hell of a lot of other clockwork horrors with it to back it up.

Which then raises the EL of the encounter.

If your party is higher lv, they are more likely to be tougher, better prepared and able to deal with whatever it throws at them.

Hmm...looking at the clockwork horrors, it appears they have fairly weak defenses (poor saves) and low hp (adamantine horror has just 98 hp). They are just begging to be blinded by glitterdust (which disables implosion), and imposes a 50% miss chance on disintegrate. 1 round of concentrated attacks should deal enough damage to bring it down as well. :smallsmile:

Czin
2011-02-03, 07:47 PM
Which then raises the EL of the encounter.

If your party is higher lv, they are more likely to be tougher, better prepared and able to deal with whatever it throws at them.:smallsmile:

Or your DM could use it as an end of the adventure/campaign encounter which by definition are an excuse to make the PCs fight an battle with an ECL that's well above their own APL (average party level.) Since CR is to indicate when a party should be fighting this as a normal battle and not an climactic encounter (by definition a party of a healbot cleric, blaster wizard, fighter tank, and sneaky stabby skillmonkey rogue should expend about a fifth of their resources during a fight against something with a CR equal to their APL) it's not inconceivable that a party would make the mistake of doing this battle before their levels are in the double digits.

So imagine that you had to deal with a hundred electrum horrors, twenty gold horrors, four platinum horrors, and the adamantine horror itself as a typical level nine party (above list of healbot cleric, blaster wizard, fighter tank, and sneaky stabby skillmonkey rogue) for the end of the campaign fight. I'm sure you wouldn't be so confident after that, even an fairly optimized level nine party consisting of a fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric would have trouble with this

Runestar
2011-02-03, 08:16 PM
So imagine that you had to deal with a hundred electrum horrors, twenty gold horrors, four platinum horrors, and the adamantine horror itself as a typical level nine party (above list of healbot cleric, blaster wizard, fighter tank, and sneaky stabby skillmonkey rogue) for the end of the campaign fight. I'm sure you wouldn't be so confident after that, even an fairly optimized level nine party consisting of a fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric would have trouble with this

Why should I be confident when facing such odds? That encounter's EL is way off the scale, it would come as no surprise if the party does fall. It is more of throwing overwhelming odds at the party, and less of the adamantine horror's broken nature.

The rogue is deadweight here, as his sneak attack is useless. At least replace him with a beguiler or something. I need to be built for endurance, so replace blasty wizard with focused specialist conjurer. You need some way of still being useful in case of being disjuncted, so replace fighter with warblade (which is less gear-dependent when it comes to damage).

That said, being cr4, the electrum and gold horrors should not pose too much of a problem for a group of 9th lv PCs. It's attack of +5 and +9 respectively will have problems penetrating the PC's AC of at least 25-26, even with charging/flanking bonuses.

Resist energy protects against their lightning attacks. Only problem is the adamantine horror's disjunction, which can instantly strip away everyone's buffs and magic items, so the moment it appears, everyone must focus attention on it (which I concede can be problematic with so many mooks clogging up the battlefield).

Seems like Wall of X, Glitterdust (sculpted), evard's tentacles and solid fog are going to be the MVPs here. :smallsmile:

faceroll
2011-02-03, 08:59 PM
By that logic, anything which can challenge a wizard means that it will probably trivalise the other non-caster players. Disjunction actually hurts non-casters more than casters, wizards can at least hedge against disintegrate via ray deflection, displacement or good old mirror image (which also helps defend against implosion).

So?


People rage about how it is broken, but I have yet to see a combination of abilities which would prove unsurmountable against a group of players of appropriate level. What's the worst that could happen? Tarrasque regeneration? Wish 3/day? :smallconfused:

Try a Phane's ability to travel through time.


Don't forget, a mindflayer is already ECL15. By the time you steal your 1st ability, you are already lv20, and wizards started breaking the game 3 lvs ago.

Typically involves PAO abuse.


The thing is that you are almost never going to face the Adamantine Horror on it's own, if you can get to it, or it deems you a big enough threat to deal with you personally; it's probably going to bring a hell of a lot of other clockwork horrors with it to back it up.

Come on. It's CR 9. At that point a wizard's got astral projection thanks to planar bound nightmares and a whole mess of teleportation effects to get the party close. A tanglefoot bag has a pretty good chance of foiling its casting.


(by definition a party of a healbot cleric, blaster wizard, fighter tank, and sneaky stabby skillmonkey rogue

Why make this assumption when using CR? This is, in part, what makes tier 1 "overpowered". If you just use tough monsters against Tier 1 and don't reward them for having class features that are more powerful than entire classes, then they aren't really that overpowered.

FMArthur
2011-02-03, 09:22 PM
Listen.

Guys.

Meenlocks.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_83.jpg

The Rabbler
2011-02-03, 10:01 PM
Listen.

Guys.

Meenlocks.


... what about them?

EDIT: oh.

starwoof
2011-02-03, 10:07 PM
I am so conflicted on meenlocks. They almost look really awesome, but then you get to the saggy bug-person thing and the stupid fluff and its a total turn off.

awa
2011-02-03, 10:10 PM
no ones saying that its impossible for a party abusing cheesy mechanics or that has been specifically built around killing the horror to do so merely that it is far more deadly than its cr of 9 suggests. Even if all it did was cast disjunction then drop dead it would still use up more than a quarter of the parties resources because of lost magic items.

If it can reliable kill even one level 9 pc than it is far more powerful then its cr suggests.

cr is designed for an average party the fact that a strong heavily optimized party can kill it proves nothing

CockroachTeaParty
2011-02-03, 10:36 PM
Meenlocks are awesome. Every time I've used them against my players, they've run away in terror. Fun fact: I've never seen a meenlock killed before.

true_shinken
2011-02-05, 08:59 AM
Balderdash!!!:smallfurious:

I'm sigging this.

faceroll
2011-02-05, 09:48 AM
Listen.

Guys.

Meenlocks.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_83.jpg

Doesn't MM2 also have Moonrats and Moonbeasts? There are some really awesome, terrible, totally balls out 3.0 monsters I need to include in my campaigns.

Roderick_BR
2011-02-05, 10:45 AM
Man, I cannot get over how completely screwed up some of the CRs given in the Monster Manual 2 are. Not to mention the monsters with completely unclear abilities. For example: the Gambol (one of about 12 'apes with SLAs' in that book) has an ability called "haste" that grants it an extra partial action each turn. Is that a standard action? A move action?
As senrath said, it was 3.0. Partial action was a designed rule. Check surprise round, spell Slow, and zombies. It all dealt with partial actions. Now all those places simply says "can take only a single move action or standard action each turn."

The CR is all messed up, though.