Illithid Savant

[Darius Kane]

I understand that it's ambiguously worded and can be easily abused. But from my reading it seems like the intent was to allow the illithid to permanently acquire only a limited number of skills and abilities, because it says "one" and then says "on later levels you can acquire additional one/two/three" (paraphrased). Regardless of RAW or RAI, that's how I'm going to rule it. Now, under this interpretation, is it still abusable? I assume there's still some ability somewhere that will make it cheesy no matter how you houserule it?

[Snowbluff]

Um, yeah. Eating other Illithid Savant who have acquired their own sets of whatever would still be one, would it not?

Munching Wildshape and then Improved Wildshape could be messed up as well. But that's wildshape.

Spellcasting.

[Darius Kane]

Um, yeah. Eating other Illithid Savant who have acquired their own sets of whatever would still be one, would it not?
Acquiring abilities that you already have is kinda pointless. :smallconfused:

[The Glyphstone]

Acquiring abilities that you already have is kinda pointless. :smallconfused:

I think the idea is to eat the 'Acquire class feature' of a 9th or 10th level Savant, thus gaining yourself 3 class feature 'slots' for the price of only one of your 'slots'. You use one of these three to eat another 10th level Savant brain, repeat in the same way you abuse Candles of Invocation.

[Snowbluff]

Acquiring abilities that you already have is kinda pointless. :smallconfused:

Well, you would, in theory, learn everything they learned through the same method.

[Darius Kane]

Wasn't there a rule somewhere that a character can't have/use similar/the same abilities? Like Monk and Swordsage Wis to AC not working together?

[HunterOfJello]

The ability to cherry pick which abilities you get for your class from ANY other class, PrC, or monster is still insanely abusable.

Wildshape will be first on the list of things people go after. You also get 4 bonus feats from any list you like, as long as you meet the prereqs.

If you want to know which of the most powerful Special Attack and Special Qualities would be available, I'd suggest taking a look at that Pun-Pun thread they had on mixmax. There's sure to be a list of absurdly powerful abilities that could be obtained that way. An easy and powerful one would be Aptitude Focus from a level 10 Chameleon. Since Aptitude Focus is not spellcasting, you can gain the ability to cast up to 6th level spells as a wizard, cleric, or druid as you like. (You can also can change midday to suddenly gain a full list of spells from a different list than what you were using.)

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest going after the Regeneration 40 ability of the Tarrasque (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm). Now the Illithid Savant is immune to lethal damage (!!!) and can only be killed by raising its nonlethal damage to it's hp+10 and using a Wish or Miracle on it. I'd rate that under God Tier as a class feature.

[Arcanist]

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest going after the Regeneration 40 ability of the Tarrasque (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tarrasque.htm). Now the Illithid Savant is immune to lethal damage (!!!) and can only be killed by raising its nonlethal damage to it's hp+10 and using a Wish or Miracle on it. I'd rate that under God Tier as a class feature.

Go a step further and steal 9th level spells from a Wizard, make an Ice Assassin of an Aleax of you, order them to shapechange into a form with a brain and eat them both to become Invincible to everything except you :smalltongue:

[Darius Kane]

Well, first you have to find and defeat the creature with the desired ability.

Wildshape I'll rule that you still have to revere nature and have a Neutral alignment.

Gaining "Spellcasting" without being a caster (or monster with casting) will never be possible in my games, no matter if it's RAI or not.
I'll rule it that an Illithind Savant will be able to add a prepared or known spell from the brain owner's list to his own spellcasting list (chosen at the time of the eating), or if he's not a spellcaster, he'll gain that spell as an SLA, lets say, 1/day.

[Arcanist]

Gaining "Spellcasting" without being a caster (or monster with casting) will never be possible in my games, no matter if it's RAI or not.
I'll rule it that an Illithind Savant will be able to add one chosen spell from the brain owners to his own spellcasting list, or if he's not a spellcaster, he'll gain that spell as an SLA, lets say, 1/day.

EHHHHHHH~ I'd be against that, because the trick only requires one casting of Ice Assassin, a scroll of Shapechange for the Aleax and tools that buff up UMD. Personally? I'd just flat out rule that Spellcasting isn't an ability at all (a "Na" is what I think it's called?) or whatever is a fancy way to say that they can't take it for being an Illithid Savant :smalltongue:

EDIT: Regardless, giving them Ice Assassin as a SLA even 1/day is a little unfairly OP, since they can use it to make an Ice Assassin of the Wizard they killed for it :smalleek:

[Darius Kane]

First they have to find someone with Ice Assassin and eat his brain. Not guaranteed to be easy or possible, considering that the person must be a caster and high enough level to know IA.

[Arcanist]

First they have to find someone with Ice Assassin and eat his brain. Not guaranteed to be easy or possible.

Not saying it is. Just saying that it is a possibility. Better to be prepared for the end of the world, then to be shocked when it ends :smalltongue:

[Darius Kane]

I first worry about what's actually possible, not what's theoretically possible. I give my players clear warnings that in my games RAW isn't the Bible.

[Arcanist]

I first worry about what's actually possible, not what's theoretically possible. I give my players clear warnings that in my games RAW isn't the Bible.

Hey, it's a "heads up" for a reason. No reason to listen to it :smallsmile:

[Darius Kane]

I... did. :smallconfused:

[Arcanist]

I... did. :smallconfused:

... I know :smallconfused: (I'm slightly confused by your comment here... :smalltongue:)

[Darius Kane]

I did listen to your heads up.

[Arcanist]

I did listen to your heads up.

I know :smallsmile:


I first worry about what's actually possible, not what's theoretically possible.

Which I completely agree with. A DM cannot plan like Batman (unless they are Batman).


I give my players clear warnings that in my games RAW isn't the Bible.

Which is exactly what I do as well (unless it's obscenely hilarious, BUT! that is immediately retcon'd thereafter) :smallsmile: I wrapped up by saying that just because it's logical advice, doesn't mean you have to use it.

"We're not so different you and I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20B4Dvk_9cY)" :smalltongue: In fact, most DM's do this, since RAW only holds ground in an internet discussion and in practice means diddly, but I'm generalizing here so let's move on~

[Crake]

I think if you're gonna make so many houserules to a class like this you may as well just ban it from your campaign because eventually its gonna become a rather useless class.

[Darius Kane]

It's an interesting class. Why would I ban it?
And fixing a broken class doesn't make it "useless". Quite the contrary.

[Runestar]

It was clearly designed as a "Build your own monster" prc for DMs to customise the mindflayer. While you could in theory give it insane abilities like a tarrasque's regeneration, the designers likely intended for more "reasonable" choices like a troll's regeneration or some other cr-appropriate ability.

As the DM, you have the final choice about what powers to give it, so I am not particularly worried.