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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Upgrading Single-Target Gaze-Attack to the Real Thing



namor
2015-09-02, 06:59 AM
Hi fellow forum members,

As a GM, i just *love* gaze attacks. An upcoming encounter involves a vampire sorceress. While vampires are pretty cool, their gaze attack is not.
It costs a standard action to affect a single creature, rendering it rather useless in combat at higher levels (~15).

Unfortunately, I cannot find a monstrous feat, template or monster prestige class to "upgrade" a limited gaze attack such as a vampires to a real gaze attack, that works passively and affects every creature within range.

Since I am GM, I can always homebrew, but I find it hard to map the idea to rules.
One option is to devise a template that "upgrades" gaze attacks. How much CR adjustment is it worth?
Another option is to modify the vampire template. Again, I would need to come up with a CR adjustment.
A monstrous feat is the third option, but I think it is too strong for a single feat. Maybe multiple incremental feats?

What are your thoughts and ideas on this matter?

noob
2015-09-02, 09:34 AM
The upgrade the creature receive from the improvement depends of the kind of gaze attack.
one creature like the vampire who have a pretty serious gaze might have huge FP improvement and you need testing for knowing how much it improves but it is very likely to give giant threats like the medusa which is broken if you start taking improved gaze feats for freely Turning into stone tons of people with a very high save(because +4 for the saves thanks to feats is a little too much when you add up a +3 from the cape and other kind of things)
If you follow the guidelines of the manual of monsters adding a powerful power is generally a +2 to the FP(never use those guidelines they even says themselves it is wrong and that it needs re-balancing by play-test) but here it is not adding a powerful power it is instead giving a power so great that from it you can create an entire dangerous monster to a monster who already had powers.

namor
2015-09-02, 10:16 AM
If you follow the guidelines of the manual of monsters adding a powerful power is generally a +2 to the FP(never use those guidelines they even says themselves it is wrong and that it needs re-balancing by play-test) but here it is not adding a powerful power it is instead giving a power so great that from it you can create an entire dangerous monster to a monster who already had powers.

You raise an interesting point. A full-fledged gaze attack threatens the party passively, i.e., without inhibiting other combat maneuvers by the creature. I agree that in a way, adding such a gaze attack it is like adding a new monster to the monster. Then again, this "adding a (*) monster to the encounter" idea equals exactly +2 in the (exponential) challenge rating metric. So the fact that a new power behaves more like an additional monster does not per se stop us from making a static CR adjustment.


The upgrade the creature receive from the improvement depends of the kind of gaze attack.
one creature like the vampire who have a pretty serious gaze might have huge FP improvement and you need testing for knowing how much it improves but it is very likely to give giant threats like the medusa which is broken if you start taking improved gaze feats for freely Turning into stone tons of people with a very high save(because +4 for the saves thanks to feats is a little too much when you add up a +3 from the cape and other kind of things)

Then again, the power of the gaze attack is supposedly reflected in the CR of the base creature.
A full-fledged vampire gaze attack would indeed add a lot of power to the vampire, potentially doubling its offensive. The gaze attack does not, however, add to defenses (HP,AC,SR,DR,...) or stop the vampires weaknesses which are reflected in the CR. You still only need to defeat one creature and the faster you do it or the more you exploit vampire weaknesses, the less effect does the gaze attack have on the encounter.

(*) actually "a monster with the same challenge rating" or "the same monster"

redwizard007
2015-09-02, 09:21 PM
Dominate (Su): A vampire can crush an opponent’s will just by
looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except
that the vampire must use a standard action, and those merely
looking at it are not affected. Anyone the vampire targets must
succeed on a Will save or fall instantly under the vampire’s influence
as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). The
ability has a range of 30 feet.


So, if I'm reading your post right then the bolded portion is what you are trying to change. You want to make this an actual gaze attack. Consider the following points...

-Is this constant ability or an action of some type? If constant, can he turn off the ability?
If it were me I'd go constant and suppressible.

-Would you let a player have these abilities?
Probably not, and with good reason. But there is no reason you ever need to make this available to them.

-How do you implement this in game?
If it were me, I'd make this a signature ability of a specific individual and embrace the +2 CR you guys were kicking around. If high level vamps are going to be a major part of your campaign then you could substitute a different SA upgrade for other individuals or make this a class feature for a vamp NPC paragon class.

-Consider the fluff.
I've always thought of the vamp dominating a single slave (a la Renfield) with shear force of will and a bit of dark magic. Making this a gaze attack changes things a bit. I'd consider leaving the focused gaze as is and giving unintentional eye contact a related effect such as Hypnotism without the HD restriction.



As a side note. Did anyone else realize this is an ability (as written in the MM) that vamps can use each round and that it's duration is 1 day/level. Why don't vamps rule the world?