Illithid Savant Brain Acquisition Question

[HaikenEdge]

Yes, I know that Illithid Savant is broken beyond belief, but this isn't really a discussion of that. Rather, this is a question regarding the roleplaying aspect of the Illithid Savant class.

Since an Illithid Savant has to eat the brain of a target to gain their own class features, is there any reason why the Illithid Savant couldn't go grave robbing the burial places of high level characters who died of natural causes, given that nowhere in the class description does it specify the brain in question has to be fresh? Of course, this assumes the illithid savant in question has the intestinal fortitude to eat a decaying brain, but that's neither here nor there.

Honestly, I kind of like the idea of an illithid savant that goes raiding the tombs of high level characters (say, legendary figures in history) because he doesn't want to risk taking on living legends, and am curious as to whether my understanding of the text is correct.

[CIDE]

In theory it'd work but brains don't exactly last long on a corpse.

[Crake]

In theory it'd work but brains don't exactly last long on a corpse.

Yeah, the brain doesn't last long after death, I'd give you a few rounds, maybe a minute or two tops, after someone died before the brain started to lose it's potency as a source of memories and experience.

Edit: One possible way to do it though. Get your illithid to dominate a variety of decent leveled clerics who can cast resurrection on the heros, then when they come back naked, knock them out and eat their living brains.

[HaikenEdge]

Yeah, the brain doesn't last long after death, I'd give you a few rounds, maybe a minute or two tops, after someone died before the brain started to lose it's potency as a source of memories and experience.

Edit: One possible way to do it though. Get your illithid to dominate a variety of decent leveled clerics who can cast resurrection on the heros, then when they come back naked, knock them out and eat their living brains.

I'm not exactly sure where exactly the "has to be fresh" part is coming from; I'm reading the class features, and nowhere does it actually say the brain has to be fresh, from a living body, or even in one piece, which was why I was asking the question in the first place.

Yes, I understand that the brain begins to decompose faster than almost any other organ in the body, but I'm just not finding it in the rules text within the prestige class that the brain has to be anything other than consumed.

[Piggy Knowles]

All the corpses of the great dead heroes are either buried beneath fiendishly dangerous and well-guarded tombs, or else have long since been reanimated by fledgling necromancers trying to make a name for themselves. I mean really, who keeps the body of a super powerful being just buried in some cemetery? That's just asking for trouble.

Besides, most Illithid Savants are too busy looking for other Illithid Savants to consume, in an effort to get extra uses of their main ability.

[Emperor Tippy]

The first thing that an Illithid Savant should eat is the brain of a Truenamer with Conjunctive Gate.

From there it can just gate in anything that it wants to eat the brains of.

There is also the fun of making a Simulacrum or Ice Assassin of yourself, having it True Mind Switch with a human, and then eating its brain. That is assuming that your DM won't let you eat the snow brain of a regular Simulacrum or Ice Assassin.