[3.5] Looking for a Replacement Host

[Halae]

Hello, ye playgrounders! I'm having a bit of a building Dilemma. See, a friend and I worked up this awesome build for gestalt - specifically, making use of the symbiote template found in savage species to strap a human into a Yellow Musk Creeper from the Fiend Folio. This resulted in a rather measly strength and dexterity (10 and... 14, I believe) but a constitution score of 21, and the ability to put everything from my point buy into mental stats, on top of a laundry list of interesting powers, including regeneration.

I was signing up for an arena game, when I realized something: Fiend Folio, the book that the Yellow Musk Creeper is from, is not on the allowed sources list. As such, I need a replacement for my build if I want to keep it viable. It can be any humanoid, plant, animal, or vermin of at least huge size, and the more special abilities and qualities for me to make use of the better.

[JeminiZero]

If this problem is arising due to limitations in sourcebooks, then before we give any advice, you need to tell us what sourcebooks ARE allowed.

[Halae]

That's fair, yeah. Give me a moment to type them all out.

Arms & Equipment Guide
Champions of Ruin
Champions of Valor
Complete Adventurer
Complete Arcane
Complete Champion
Complete Divine
Complete Mage
Complete Psionic
Complete Scoundrel
Complete Warrior
Draconomicon
Dragonmarked
Dragon Magic
Dragons of Eberron
Drow of the Underdark
Dungeon Masters Guide II
Dungeonscape
Eberron Campaign Setting
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Explorer’s Handbook
Five Nations
Forge of War
Frostburn
Heroes of Battle
Heroes of Horror
Lords of Madness
Magic of Eberron
Magic of Faerun
Magic of Incarnum
Manual of the Planes
Miniatures Handbook
Monster Manual II
Monster Manual III
Monster Manual IV
Monster Manual V
Planar Handbook
Players Guide to Eberron
Players Guide to Faerun
Races of Destiny
Races of Eberron
Races of Faerun
Races of Stone
Races of the Dragon
Races of the Wild
Sandstorm
Savage Species
Caveat
Secrets of Sarlona
Secrets of Xen’drik
Spell Compendium
Stormwrack
Tome of Battle
Tome of Magic
Underdark
Unearthed Arcana
Weapons of Legacy

It's even in alphabetical order!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Battlebriar from MM3 is probably one of your best choices, assuming you get its special attacks. Between Improved Grab and Impale, your opponents probably won't be able to do much at all. Throw on an Antimagic Field if you can, no Freedom of Movement or other magical buffs of any kind and your opponents probably won't even pose a threat to you.

[Halae]

Unfortunately, the Battlebriar is way overlevelled for what I want, and the warbound impaler, which is its little cousin is too small to be used with a medium creature Admittedly though, they'd both make fairly scary symbiotes.

For the record, the Gestalt level 13

[dspeyer]

Perhaps a Desmudo War Bat from MMII? All good physical stats, flight, blindsight.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You could hilariously switch your race to Kobold, and use Slight Build (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a) to be considered tiny and use a medium size host. Bonus points if you tell someone to 'start the reactor' as you die.


So, you need a Huge creature of up to 12 HD (Host's HD, +1 LA for Symbiote) or up to 13 HD (gestalt +1 LA next to the first racial HD)? How about some template-fu, since the Host creature's base LA technically doesn't get counted? I'm disappointed that your source list doesn't include anything that contains the Paragon template. Add Shadow Creature (LoM) to whatever you use, the Shadow Blend ability is amazing.

The Giant Banded Lizard in Sandstorm is a poisoner. Get Rapidstrike from the Draconomicon, Virulent Poison in Savage Species, Ability Focus: Poison. Pick up Snatch for Multisnatch from the Draconomicon, to Improved Grab your opponent with your bite and hold them at a -10 to strike them with your claw attacks from outside the grapple, ignoring their Dex/dodge AC bonuses. I'd even pick up some sneak attack to take Craven in that case, considering not even Uncanny Dodge would help them. Again, AMF is absolutely necessary for anything focused on grappling.

[Halae]

I'll admit, I'm a bit disappointed at some of the sources myself. But, you're correct - Template stacking is the way to go here :smallbiggrin:

The giant banded lizard is an interesting choice, certainly. Too many of my opponents are focused on grapple and immune to poison to make it a really effective choice, though.

The bat is a good choice though - blingsight should help me deal with the guys who like concealment and hiding (which happens a lot), Flight keeps me out of range of the nonfliers, and as stated they're pretty good on physical stats.