CR 18ish Mindflayer BBEG [3.5]

[hymer]

How do you turn the MM mindflayer into an actual CR 18? I mean, I could slap 10 class levels of something on one, and by RAW I have a CR 18 creature. But it wouldn't really be on par with what you expect from CR 18, would it?
Anyone know of a good mindflayer-complementary build? If we can avoid psionics, I'll be happy, mostly for fluff reasons.

For clarity, I've heavily refluffed mindflayers for this purpose (they look like beautiful humans and are commonly LN) and slightly recrunched them (Word of Recall in place of Plane Shift; they don't have tentacles, but have a comparative means of attack; and they're not aberrations, they're humanoids). They're basically lesser Istari, sent/created by several gods to help stopping some refluffed titans from rendering a continent uninhabitable. After their mostly succesful mission, some chose to hang around rather than go back, and this BBEG is one of these.

[Rubik]

Why on earth would you EVER want to avoid psionics? You can very (very, VERY) easily refluff to being not-squidhead, instead just being mental magical might, depending on power selection. Use the psionic mindflayer (it's not in the SRD, so check the one in the XPH). It's treated as being a telepath, so add PrC levels, or just add more telepath. That's DEFINITELY a CR 18 right there.

Also, illithid savant, from Savage Species.

[hymer]

It's too alien in the wrong sort of way. As I said, I'll be happy if we can avoid it. If psionics is the only answer, so be it.

Edit: Oh, I like Ilithid Savant already. Thanks! :) Still, other suggestions are welcome.

[Crake]

It's too alien in the wrong sort of way. As I said, I'll be happy if we can avoid it. If psionics is the only answer, so be it.

Edit: Oh, I like Ilithid Savant already. Thanks! :) Still, other suggestions are welcome.

Illithid Savant Thrallherd is a hilarious way to give the guy literally any feat/skill/class ability he wants, considering a Thrallherd can dictate what his thrall has and gets a new one of equal power 24 hours after it dies, no -2 cumulative penalty on the leadership score for each dead thrall like normal leadership. That might make him a little overpowered though, so you might want to tone down his level to make up for the obvious increase in CR having extra feats/skills/class abilities would cause.

Thrallherd makes for excellent BBEG fluff too, essentially dominating a bunch of followers.

Edit: Thrallherd is however a psionics PrC, so might not be your cup of tea.

[hymer]

Thanks anyway. I'll take a look at Thrallherd and should I like it, I promise to go easy on my players. :)

I really like the Illithid Savant. I'm probably going to make him such a one, though he doesn't eat brains (of course). He keeps exceptional people in hibernation and draws from their power instead (the hibernation thing is very pertinent from a fluff perspective). This also keeps him fairly stationary, apart from the occasional jaunt, a fairly decent excuse to keep Orcus on his Throne.

[Runestar]

Use the psionic version, add 2 lvs of ur-priest, then stack lvs in psychic theurge (the cleric/psi version of mystic theurge). You can end up with 9th lv powers and divine spells.

BOVD has soul eater, but I am not sure how well it stacks up in combat.

Underdark has the illithid body tamer prc (you give up use of your mindflayer SLAs for combat-related bonuses).

Kudos if anyone can find a non-caster way to make it a viable cr18 npc. :smalltongue:

[Tokuhara]

Soul Eater is a PrC that honestly is my personal panda (must keep the PrC Viable). It can be nasty, especially on a creature with lots of natural attacks. The stacking of Negative Levels is scary and can utterly hose a PC, especially if the Natural Attack Crits.

[Tokuhara]

To explain my above point:

I hopped onto a 20th level Gestalt 3.P game with a player who was a Tiefling Synthesist Summoner 19/White-Haired Witch 1//Beastmorph Vivisectionist Alchemist 7/White-Haired Witch 3/Soul Eater 10

He took every Natural Weapon Evolution, Every Natural Weapon Discovery, used his hair as a natural weapon, and dealt 2 negative levels with each. He also bought (through the Extra Discovery feat) the ability to Reuse Potions and used it on a Potion of Persisted Greater Magic Fang +5 every morning. He'd then Mutagen up and Armor up, we'd enter a fight and he'd pounce into the flurry of claw-claw-bite-hair-wing-wing-stinger-pincer-hoof-hoof-slam-tentacle-gore for a grand total of 26 negative levels, 3d6 sneak attack, and they become a wight under his control.

[Runestar]

Well, the issue is that the mindflayer is not a combat-oriented monster to begin with. It has relatively few hp and poor defences for its cr, and the DCs of its SLAs will not scale with lv.

I think that to make it an effective cr18 npc, you basically have to make it give up everything that makes it uniquely a mindflayer.

[hymer]

@ Runestar: Agreed on what mindflayers are for. Having it eat the brain (so to speak) of a caster (but why stop at one?) is what I'm looking at right now, hoping to avoid the psionics. I'd really rather my players never thought 'aberration' let alone 'illithid' when dealing with this guy. Thanks!

@ Tokuhara: I'll get out my BoVD and see what soul eater does. The whole PF reference is rather beyond me, I'm afraid. Thanks!

Edit: I can see the soul eater requires nonhumanoid to enter. Maybe I can fudge it a bit, though. I'll have to change up the feats and stuff on my base BBEG too, to get him to qualify. But it does seem to require the rather frail BBEG to get into melee to use most of the fun stuff.

[Tokuhara]

Not Entirely.

If you wanted to, a CR 18 Shadow Dragon/Soul Eater would actually qualify. And we all know that dragons are worthy encounters by themselves.

Shadow Dragons get bite-claw-claw-wing-wing-tail (12 negative levels) and a Breath Weapon that deals a cone of negative levels. Your creature has 8HD worth as a dragon (d12) and 10 in d8, giving him reasonable HD not including a dragon's constitution modifier. Plus its a spellcaster, and you could be truly dispicable and give it the Ravening psychosis (Dragon 313) and the Wyrm of War Sovereign (Dragons of Faerun). Turn its sorcerer levels into initiator levels (ToB:Bo9S) with Tiger Claw and presto. You have a scary final boss.

Negative levels are scary to players. And if this is the BBEG, if one player is dropped to level 0, they died in the "Boss Fight." And if you need to up the Encounter CR, add some Drow with class levels.

Do try and have fun, and kill one PC for me :smalltongue:

[hymer]

Shadow dragons aren't exactly mind flayers, though. :smallbiggrin: But thanks anyway.

[Rubik]

It's too alien in the wrong sort of way. As I said, I'll be happy if we can avoid it. If psionics is the only answer, so be it.Consider two human caster-types.

One concentrates, mutters some nonsensical syllables, throws out a hand, and a fireball explodes across the room.

The other concentrates, mutters some nonsensical syllables, throws out a hand, and a fireball explodes across the room.

Which one is manifesting a [fire] Energy Ball using made-up words so his enemies think he's got weaknesses he really doesn't (verbal and somatic components), and which one is casting a Fireball?

If psionics is too alien, so is spellcasting.

But seriously, psionics has very little required fluff. Crystal can be turned into wood or metal or whatever, and tentacles can become ethereal grappling arms if you want. Say they're racial SLAs, or a refined kind of magic that doesn't require jumping around singing "I'm a little teapot," or any number of other things. Honestly, it models fantasy spellcasting in a lot more fiction that I've read than Vancian spellcasting does.

[hymer]

Thanks Rubik.

[The_Snark]

If you'd really prefer not to use the psionic version of the illithid (which is very easy to advance; just add telepath levels, which stack with its natural psionic talent), my advice is to strip out the SLAs and add spellcasting equivalent to an 18th-level sorcerer (or cleric, or whatever spellcasting class seems most appropriate to you). Add some Hit Dice too, just to keep saves and HP up to snuff. Presto.

It's a little less interesting than the Illithid Savant option, but unless the BBEG's source of power comes up in-game (maybe the PCs have to weaken him by rescuing the hibernating victims?), then the players aren't likely to know or care either way. And it's much easier to balance; the Illithid Savant ranges from weak to ludicrously overpowered, depending on what feats and special abilities you steal. You're probably better off giving your BBEG spellcasting/other special abilities by DM fiat and eyeballing the CR increase, rather than relying on Illithid Savant's "this is +10 CR, honest."

[Runestar]

Anyways, I think it is safe to assume that at higher lvs, PCs are either flat-out immune to negative lvs (soulfire armour property, death ward) or can find a way to restore them at a moment's notice.

You can throw on the paragon template, but that would be cr23.

I don't like that all high-lv encounters essentially boil down to mage battles (including the use of high-lv SLAs). I would still like to see viable high-cr melee opponents, if possible.

Another option is to simply tack on the half-illithid template onto any creature of cr15 or less (since the template is cr+3 itself). You still get tentacles, mental stat boots, mind blast 1/day (and the DC scales with racial HD) and most of the SLAs (not at-will, but sufficient within the context of a 5-round combat.

[Tokuhara]

Hmmm....

Half-Illithid Beholder Beholder Mage 1/Ur Priest 1/Mystic Theurge 10??

[hymer]

@ The_Snark: You've got a definite point there. Thanks.

@ Runestar: As for viable high-CR melee, I've found Eldritch Giants to command considerable respect from players. They're kinda gishy, but their full attack is what brings the pain. I'd call them melee.
½Illithid, is that Lords of Madness? I'll look it up.

@ Tokuhara: LOL. Commence the TPK!

[Runestar]

@ The_Snark: You've got a definite point there. Thanks.

@ Runestar: As for viable high-CR melee, I've found Eldritch Giants to command considerable respect from players. They're kinda gishy, but their full attack is what brings the pain. I'd call them melee.
½Illithid, is that Lords of Madness? I'll look it up.

@ Tokuhara: LOL. Commence the TPK!

Half-illithid is from the fiend folio or Underdark (A FR splatbook). I don't think it is in lords of madness.

[hymer]

Thanks! I found it available online, too, though I don't trust that completely. "Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature -3." Hmm...

[Seharvepernfan]

Here are the mind flayers from my homebrew/houserules.

Mind Flayers
Medium Aberration
+4 Int, +2 Wis, +2 Cha, -2 Str, -2 Con
four tentacle attacks (1d3), improved grab with tentacles
Mind Blast - 60ft. cone (DC 10 + 1/2 HD + Cha Mod) - 1d3+1 rounds of stun, every 1d4+1 rounds
Brain Extract
Telepathy (?ft.)
Spell Resistance 11+HD

Just switch the aberration to humanoid, add in the spell-like abilities that you prefer, and add an LA or two. For class, I suggest beguiler or something along those lines.

[hymer]

Whoah. What kind of LA do you slap on something like that?
The beguiler suggestion is great, regardless. I like BEEGs with plenty of skill points, and the spells are right up Mind Flayer Alley.

[Runestar]

Thanks! I found it available online, too, though I don't trust that completely. "Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature -3." Hmm...

http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/halfillithid.shtml

If this is the website you are referring to, it is accurate. Cr is +3, but otherwise, the rest of the information seems correct. :smallsmile:

[hymer]

Thank again, Runestar! Good to know.