Effigies. So many choices.

[Ursus the Grim]

A player of mine has been trying to decide on what creature to base an Effigy off of, and I've been trying to narrow the choices down to one or two ideas.

Dire Tiger looks like a pretty good choice, but I don't feel like dealing with an "and then" monster.

I considered Legendary Bear, but its already got a ton of HD and is pretty inflexible when it comes to advancement. It also loses most of its feats.

Ironclad Mauler and Razor Boar caught my eye, but they lose effectiveness when they lose their special qualities.

Then I saw the Beast of Malor from Monsters of Faerun. In 3.0 it was a shapeshifter, but in 3.5, its a magical beast, eligible for the Effigy Template. However, its claw damage is small and it can't advance.

The player's a Sorceror, ECL 18 and effective effigy level of 22. Let's pretend she's got all her WBL.

I don't want to go larger than Large. But I'd like to recommend something interesting. Hence not just saying "tiger/ape/bear" and their dire incarnations.

If size wasn't an issue, I'd give her the Dread Linnorm, but that's just silly, and I don't feel like any template-stacking shenanigans.

Suggestions?

[visigani]

Break the rules.

Allow her to make an Effigy of a Giant. Probably a Hill Giant because they're rather mundane on the whole.Maybe let her take a feat for it... or restrict her to only Giants of that type?

In essence she'd be greating a big thug... but although the STATS would say Hll Giant she could adjust the various fluff involved how she liked and if she made a compelling creature you could advance its abilities as you go.

The neat thing about effigies is that they can be a creative outlet for the player to develop something they themselves could not be via a character.


Consider "filling out" the Effigy class to ten levels, adding a few interesting perks along the way.

For some reason this makes me think of "Pygmalion". Allow that to be your basis for creation. Allow them to create something they want to be, or something their character would love. Theres a reason they're making effigies rather than out and out constructs. Why not explore that from an emotional standpoint?

[Ursus the Grim]

Thats a great concept, but I'm going to hesitate on fixing up the prestige class for them. I've got enough half-baked homebrews right now. An effigy, I believe can be slapped onto a giant already, but the problem is most of them advance by character class, so we can't have a 22HD hill giant, and again, size comes in. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with what she wants out of the effigy though.

[Tvtyrant]

Gargantuan Centipede is only 12 HD and gets them a gargantuan grappler. It has almost double the real centipedes health (average 126), DR7/adamant, better strength and two 3d6 slams to add to its single bite. It costs 1000 XP (steep) but its all from HD, and only 20000 GP.

By contrast a Dire Bear costs the same XP, 5,000 GP, has 100 HP average, and 2 1d6 slams. It is also much worse at grappling, and doesn't get to use its special qualities.

So the gargantuan centipede gets you 30 extra health, 4d6 more damage a turn and a better grapple mod for 15,000 GP and no extra XP.


Edit: Scratch that. Go with a 12 headed Hydra for 14 attacks a turn at the same HD. You could also go for a 5 headed hydra to really cut down on XP costs, though it would lack the umph of the 12 header. Still cost a lot in GP, but the xp cost drops to like 400. And you get 7 attacks a turn.