Illithid Savant Optimization

[emoryss1]

The illithid Savant can gain class features, special attacks, special qualities and more by eating brains. My question is what would the best special attack and qualities be to consume.

[CIDE]

I just want to first point out that the usual interpretation by most people is that the IS can only gett he features of a single brain and--for whatever reason-- needs to also eat the brains of other IS's to continue getting more. Which isn't what the class features say. With that out of the way let's get to your question.

I think first and foremost you'd want to grab the abilities of young/weaker creatures that scale with level or hit dice. That way there's no risk that the owner of the brain you're after can end you before your best abilities come on line. So, things like a young phaerimm would be amazing.

[Buufreak]

On the contrary, the popular opinion is IS has a limit on the number of abilities you can get from brain munching. The purpose of eating the brains of other IS's is to increase this limit.

[CIDE]

On the contrary, the popular opinion is IS has a limit on the number of abilities you can get from brain munching. The purpose of eating the brains of other IS's is to increase this limit.


That's what I said. And it's an interpretation that I completely disagree with based on the wording of its class features. I'm not even sure where this interpretation came from, honestly. Especially on a board where a great many people jump to the greatest or most powerful interpretation of a passage.

[Venger]

That's what I said. And it's an interpretation that I completely disagree with based on the wording of its class features. I'm not even sure where this interpretation came from, honestly. Especially on a board where a great many people jump to the greatest or most powerful interpretation of a passage.

It came from that being what the class does. If you consume another is then you get all its uses of the consume ability like you would get all a druids uses of wild shape. The problem is the existence of this class in the first place. It is plainly unbalanced and there's a reason it sees little use in practical play

[emoryss1]

On the topic of limited brains, my DM is sort of crazy and is allowing me to get the feats, skills, and such from EACH brain I acquire.

[Buufreak]

That's what I said. And it's an interpretation that I completely disagree with based on the wording of its class features. I'm not even sure where this interpretation came from, honestly. Especially on a board where a great many people jump to the greatest or most powerful interpretation of a passage.

Again to the contrary, from the way you have typed and worded it, it is seemingly impossible to gain anything beyond the first brain. Which is wrong. There is indeed a limit, but it isn't 1.

[CIDE]

It came from that being what the class does. If you consume another is then you get all its uses of the consume ability like you would get all a druids uses of wild shape. The problem is the existence of this class in the first place. It is plainly unbalanced and there's a reason it sees little use in practical play

The class states "A consumed brain". There's only two ways to possibly look at this; Either you can eat only a single brain or there is no limit. In either case eating the brains of another IS does absolutely zero to help you out except toget the second IS's skill ranks or feats. Trying to eat a second IS to get it's usage of class abilities will consume your own (single and/or unlimited) usage and leave you with one more/unlimited usage.


Again to the contrary, from the way you have typed and worded it, it is seemingly impossible to gain anything beyond the first brain. Which is wrong. There is indeed a limit, but it isn't 1.

Recheck the passage. Each of the following sections read the same way but the first part about aquiring skills reads as follows:


Acquire Skill (Ex):
At 1st level, an illithid savant can acquire one skill known by a creature whose brain he has consumed, chosen at the time of consumption. He permanently gains all of the creature’s ranks in that skill (but not racial or ability score bonuses to the skill modifier) even if his new total is more ranks than the illithid savant’s current character level would normally allow. This skill becomes a class skill for the illithid savant, and he may buy more ranks in the skill if the new ranks do not cause him to exceed his maximum ranks in the skill. At 4th, 6th, and 8th level, the illithid savant can acquire
and use one additional skill from a brain.

Either way you're simply wrong. It's either "A consumed brain" in the sense that it's any consumed brain with no upward limit or there is a limit of just one brain. In regards to the wording, though, when compared to other classes it's more likely the first option.

[AvatarVecna]

I am currently in the midst of creating an Illithid Savant myself (one gestalted with Wizard and that has a Thrallherd dip, to make things easier). The first thing I'll recommend is that, if your DM is allowing you to use Illithid Savant, he'll probably also let you play the Savage Progression Mind Flayer race from Savage Species. You'll be a full Illithid (rather than a lesser one), and the class doesn't require you to Extract a brain, just to consume one. Gestalt or no, I recommend Wizard, Psion, or Wilder as the lead-up to this class: Mind Flayer Wizard 7/Illithid Savant X (or, if you wanna get super-cheesy, {Psion or Wilder} 5/Thrallherd 2/Illithid Savant X) will have a great time.

As to your actual question about what the best abilities to snag are, I have to say that it's pretty hard to top spellcasting, although there's certainly some useful abilities out there if your DM is cool with serious cheese (which, let's face it, they'd have to be if they truly understood what they were letting you do). Here's a few I found browsing through the SRD.

Consuming the brain of a Barghest (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm) can get you the Feed ability, which destroys the body completely, has a 50% chance of causing even things like Wish and Miracle to fail to raise the dead person, and takes you one third of the way to a Barghest Upgrade (+1 Outsider HD, +1 Str, +1 Con, and +1 natural armor). Outsider HD are fantastic, although not nearly so much as actual casting, so that's an issue if your DM is counting it against your ECL (although either way, this can get to epic quickly if you eat enough bodies). The Str/Con/AC improvements stacking is also pretty useful if you want to be good at hitting things and at surviving hits (and makes Faerie Mysteries Initiate far less necessary, which is good since the Region requirement would likely mean having to concoct one hell of a backstory).

Blink Dogs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/blinkDog.htm) have at-will, continuous Blink (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blink.htm), as well as 1/round free action Dimension Door (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionDoor.htm). Eating the brain of one of these things will give you a pretty substantial mobility boost on the battlefield.

Of course, can't get too far into a list of useful core abilities without touching on the Choker (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/choker.htm)'s Quickness ability.

Once you get high enough level to do so reliably, there's financial sense in killing a Balor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm): in addition to looting a Large +1 Vorpal Longsword from its corpse, you can also eat its brain and steal its "Vorpal Sword" special attack to get another one. :smalltongue: Yeah, okay, that's obviously not how it's supposed to work, but the designers being stupid and making an item a special attack doesn't mean you should be cheated out of your class ability. :smalltongue:

A Destrachan (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/destrachan.htm) has 100 ft Blindsight. Hell yeah! Even better, the ability clarifying that they lose their blindsight when deafened is a completely separate ability (although the one you steal to get blindsight still mentions their hearing in the fluff text, but that's not mechanics).

Not super-optimized, but worth noting that the Capsize ability of the Dragon Turtle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTurtle.htm) varies based on the size of the boat rather than the size of the Dragon Turtle. Whenever you need to blow off steam, just use some esoteric ability to turn into a guppy while still possessing all your abilities, then go be a **** to fishermen.

If you're wanting your final form to spend its time duking things out in melee with dual weapons, and you want to mitigate the penalties a bit, Ettin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ettin.htm) has you covered with Superior Two-Weapon Fighting. Even the epic feat "Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting" doesn't fully remove the penalty. It doesn't have too much else to offer, but you'll at least get double the usual skills out of this corpse since Ettins have two brains you can eat.

I've generally avoided mentioning Telepathy since you can probably pick it up easily (assuming you aren't a full Illithid and thus already have it), but I can't not mention the Formian Queen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/formian.htm)'s Telepathy, on account of its enormous 50 mile range. Sure, you have to be aware of the creature you're trying to talk to, but geez.

Noble Djinni and Efreeti (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htm), of course. Can only grant the wishes to non-genies, but then...you're not really a genie, now are you?

Stone Giants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giant.htm) have a fantastic starting range for thrown boulders: 180 ft, and you can upgrade that with tons of stuff (Far Shot will double it, Distance weapon will double it, there's some MIC item that'll double it again, Ranged Weapon Mastery adds 20 to the base, and just with all of that, you'll have five 1600ft increments with your thrown boulders, giving you a max range of 8000ft, or just over 1.5 miles). You'll wanna eat a Hulking Hurler to really capitalize on this range advantage, though.

Speaking of giants, Cloud Giants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giant.htm) have Oversized Weapon, an ability that references a specific size rather than a size relative to the size of the person possessing the ability. Slap this ability on your medium mind flayer and wield a Gargantuan Morningstar in two hands with no penalty.

Hydra (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm) doesn't offer you much beyond the Fast Healing (although that can be quite nice), but the fact that you can kidnap/capture one Hydra and feed off its brains forever is pretty sweet. Depending on how willing your DM is to put up with BS, you might convince him that taking a pyro-/cyro-hydras breath weapon multiple times should each count as a separate breath weapon on a separate timer; if you can convince them of this, soon enough you'll be pouring out dozens of breath weapons every turn, decimating anything that gets near you without being immune to fire and cold...but your DM will probably see these shenanigans coming.

In regards to the "how does this work" debate, my assumption is that the number of times you can use your own class ability is limited to one use per target per iteration you possess. To clarify that rather confusing sentence: if I'm an Illithid Savant 3, and I eat a guy's brain, I get to steal all his skill ranks in one skill, one feat he possesses, and one class feature he possesses. I can't eat his brain a second time to gain other skills that guy had, because his brain has already been consumed. However, if I eat the brain of another Illithid Savant 3, and I use my "Acquire Class Feature" ability to steal his "Acquire Skill" ability, the next time I go to eat somebody's brain, I'll get to eat two skills instead of one even though I haven't reached "Acquire Skill 2" yet, because I picked up a second iteration of Acquire Skill 1 from another Illithid Savant.

[CIDE]

Consuming the brain of a Barghest (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm) can get you the Feed ability, which destroys the body completely, has a 50% chance of causing even things like Wish and Miracle to fail to raise the dead person, and takes you one third of the way to a Barghest Upgrade (+1 Outsider HD, +1 Str, +1 Con, and +1 natural armor). Outsider HD are fantastic, although not nearly so much as actual casting, so that's an issue if your DM is counting it against your ECL (although either way, this can get to epic quickly if you eat enough bodies). The Str/Con/AC improvements stacking is also pretty useful if you want to be good at hitting things and at surviving hits (and makes Faerie Mysteries Initiate far less necessary, which is good since the Region requirement would likely mean having to concoct one hell of a backstory).

To add to this there's the dusk giant. Or, at least, I think it's the dusk giant. It has a similar ability but it's not capped at 18 HD like the barghest is. Also, why would the barghest ability give an Illithid outsider hd? I would understand if it's Feed ability specified outsider HD but it doesn't. They'r'e functionally outsider HD, though. But not really.

I'd have to find and reread the Dusk Giant entry to see what it specifies on the matter. Then again in a game like this where an IS is allowed I wouldn't see the issue with a thought bottle and intentionally losing levels only to regain the experience dumped into class levels instead since these are artificial hd.


In regards to the "how does this work" debate, my assumption is that the number of times you can use your own class ability is limited to one use per target per iteration you possess. To clarify that rather confusing sentence: if I'm an Illithid Savant 3, and I eat a guy's brain, I get to steal all his skill ranks in one skill, one feat he possesses, and one class feature he possesses. I can't eat his brain a second time to gain other skills that guy had, because his brain has already been consumed. However, if I eat the brain of another Illithid Savant 3, and I use my "Acquire Class Feature" ability to steal his "Acquire Skill" ability, the next time I go to eat somebody's brain, I'll get to eat two skills instead of one even though I haven't reached "Acquire Skill 2" yet, because I picked up a second iteration of Acquire Skill 1 from another Illithid Savant.

The wording suggests that if you ate a brain at level 1 you'd unlock the additional features from X brain as you reach aditional levels. You don't have to eat the brain again nor does it suggest that; just that as you level up you unlock more features of an already consumed brain. You obviously can't exceed the limit posed by the class feature for the total number of skills, feats, etc. But you can reach that max.

Though, you did bring up an additional point that I hadn't considered about the usefulness of eating another IS. Even without a limit to the number of brains you can consume if you had the second IS brain and its class features you could--as you mentioned-- gain additional skills, feats, and class features that your own class levels couldn't give you. Not a bad idea if you can find someone with that many useful features.

[Buufreak]

Either way you're simply wrong. It's either "A consumed brain" in the sense that it's any consumed brain with no upward limit or there is a limit of just one brain. In regards to the wording, though, when compared to other classes it's more likely the first option.

Ya know, at this point I could go one of three ways. The first, most obvious one, is to call you a pretentious something or another for such a remark, because while you think I am simply wrong, I think you simply haven't read a single word I have typed. I could make a remark about how opinions are much like a certain orifice, and the crude comments that would accompany such a comparison. Finally, I could say we will agree to disagree.

I'll go ahead and let you decide which one, champ. Because you earned it.

To what the OP was asking, I think I will clarify. You can indeed pull from as many brains as you would like, however, because of the class features of the prestige class Illithid Savant itself, there is an imposed limit. Not on the brains you eat, and not on your pool of crap to choose from, but the amount of choices you are allowed to make. That's the purpose of eating the brains of other Illithid Savants, to increase that amount of choices, with the obvious being the higher the level of the Illithid Savant consumed, the more choices you will be allowed to make. Any faulty interpretation made by anyone else based on my wording is, well, faulty, and such a person needs a severe lesson in reading and comprehension.

[CIDE]

Ya know, at this point I could go one of three ways. The first, most obvious one, is to call you a pretentious something or another for such a remark, because while you think I am simply wrong, I think you simply haven't read a single word I have typed. I could make a remark about how opinions are much like a certain orifice, and the crude comments that would accompany such a comparison. Finally, I could say we will agree to disagree.

I'll go ahead and let you decide which one, champ. Because you earned it.



I'd say the exact same thing about you, though. Especially in regards to the fact that you haven't read anything I've typed. You've started your posts with an "achtuualllyyy" type opening only to retype the exact same thing I just typed. THAT is pretentious and warranted my response to you. But, if you want to play the victim and ride off on your high horse then by all means, go right ahead.



To what the OP was asking, I think I will clarify. You can indeed pull from as many brains as you would like, however, because of the class features of the prestige class Illithid Savant itself, there is an imposed limit. Not on the brains you eat, and not on your pool of crap to choose from, but the amount of choices you are allowed to make. That's the purpose of eating the brains of other Illithid Savants, to increase that amount of choices, with the obvious being the higher the level of the Illithid Savant consumed, the more choices you will be allowed to make. Any faulty interpretation made by anyone else based on my wording is, well, faulty, and such a person needs a severe lesson in reading and comprehension.

Passive aggresive, much? I wasn't dismissing your opinion but the consensus. Which, obviously, I whole heartedly disagree with. That said, you've circled back around and once again agreed with me. I will admit that eating more IS brains for other purposes had never occured to me prior to this and I already called my bad on that point in an earlier post. But, too many people go the other direction and choose to eat other IS brains for the sole purpose of increasing the pool of brains you're allowed to eat.

[emoryss1]

Thank you all for the replies!
I don't know how I didn't realize the obvious ones such as the genie's Wish ability or the Blink Dogs Blink. All great suggestions :smallwink:

[CIDE]

Thank you all for the replies!
I don't know how I didn't realize the obvious ones such as the genie's Wish ability or the Blink Dogs Blink. All great suggestions :smallwink:

Unfortunately constructs aren't available. There's some with some pretty awesome abilities. Including (but not limited ot) the Zodars 1/year wish. Multiple sources of wish? Yes, please. I think the Phaerimm is one of my favorites, still. Even better if you can find (and somehow beat) a level 10 beholder mage. Especially if you can get beholder grafts for the last one.

[Pippin]

Consuming the brain of a Barghest (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm) can get you the Feed ability, which destroys the body completely, has a 50% chance of causing even things like Wish and Miracle to fail to raise the dead person, and takes you one third of the way to a Barghest Upgrade (+1 Outsider HD, +1 Str, +1 Con, and +1 natural armor). Outsider HD are fantastic, although not nearly so much as actual casting, so that's an issue if your DM is counting it against your ECL (although either way, this can get to epic quickly if you eat enough bodies). The Str/Con/AC improvements stacking is also pretty useful if you want to be good at hitting things and at surviving hits (and makes Faerie Mysteries Initiate far less necessary, which is good since the Region requirement would likely mean having to concoct one hell of a backstory).

Blink Dogs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/blinkDog.htm) have at-will, continuous Blink (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blink.htm), as well as 1/round free action Dimension Door (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dimensionDoor.htm). Eating the brain of one of these things will give you a pretty substantial mobility boost on the battlefield.

Of course, can't get too far into a list of useful core abilities without touching on the Choker (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/choker.htm)'s Quickness ability.

Once you get high enough level to do so reliably, there's financial sense in killing a Balor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm): in addition to looting a Large +1 Vorpal Longsword from its corpse, you can also eat its brain and steal its "Vorpal Sword" special attack to get another one. :smalltongue: Yeah, okay, that's obviously not how it's supposed to work, but the designers being stupid and making an item a special attack doesn't mean you should be cheated out of your class ability. :smalltongue:

A Destrachan (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/destrachan.htm) has 100 ft Blindsight. Hell yeah! Even better, the ability clarifying that they lose their blindsight when deafened is a completely separate ability (although the one you steal to get blindsight still mentions their hearing in the fluff text, but that's not mechanics).

Not super-optimized, but worth noting that the Capsize ability of the Dragon Turtle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTurtle.htm) varies based on the size of the boat rather than the size of the Dragon Turtle. Whenever you need to blow off steam, just use some esoteric ability to turn into a guppy while still possessing all your abilities, then go be a **** to fishermen.

If you're wanting your final form to spend its time duking things out in melee with dual weapons, and you want to mitigate the penalties a bit, Ettin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ettin.htm) has you covered with Superior Two-Weapon Fighting. Even the epic feat "Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting" doesn't fully remove the penalty. It doesn't have too much else to offer, but you'll at least get double the usual skills out of this corpse since Ettins have two brains you can eat.

I've generally avoided mentioning Telepathy since you can probably pick it up easily (assuming you aren't a full Illithid and thus already have it), but I can't not mention the Formian Queen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/formian.htm)'s Telepathy, on account of its enormous 50 mile range. Sure, you have to be aware of the creature you're trying to talk to, but geez.

Noble Djinni and Efreeti (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htm), of course. Can only grant the wishes to non-genies, but then...you're not really a genie, now are you?

Stone Giants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giant.htm) have a fantastic starting range for thrown boulders: 180 ft, and you can upgrade that with tons of stuff (Far Shot will double it, Distance weapon will double it, there's some MIC item that'll double it again, Ranged Weapon Mastery adds 20 to the base, and just with all of that, you'll have five 1600ft increments with your thrown boulders, giving you a max range of 8000ft, or just over 1.5 miles). You'll wanna eat a Hulking Hurler to really capitalize on this range advantage, though.

Speaking of giants, Cloud Giants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giant.htm) have Oversized Weapon, an ability that references a specific size rather than a size relative to the size of the person possessing the ability. Slap this ability on your medium mind flayer and wield a Gargantuan Morningstar in two hands with no penalty.

Hydra (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm) doesn't offer you much beyond the Fast Healing (although that can be quite nice), but the fact that you can kidnap/capture one Hydra and feed off its brains forever is pretty sweet. Depending on how willing your DM is to put up with BS, you might convince him that taking a pyro-/cyro-hydras breath weapon multiple times should each count as a separate breath weapon on a separate timer; if you can convince them of this, soon enough you'll be pouring out dozens of breath weapons every turn, decimating anything that gets near you without being immune to fire and cold...but your DM will probably see these shenanigans coming.
Some of these are SLAs or (Su) abilities though, aren't they? How do you do that?


Acquire Special Attack or Special Quality (Ex): At 5th level, the illithid savant permanently gains one special attack or special quality of a consumed brain's owner.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Note that virtually ALL abilities in the entire game are considered either special attacks or special qualities (aside from skills, feats, and the individual spells under the special attacks collectively known as spellcasting), whether racial or class-based, which means those two illithid savant class abilities are pretty interchangeable.

You are also considered to have eaten a creature's brain if you have the swallow whole ability and swallow an entire creature. Note that the brain is part of the body, and you eat the creature's whole body, so...

You can then vomit 'em back up and have them survive the experience intact.

Also, the very best class abilities to gain in tandem are a high level psion's manifesting, followed by the convert-spell-to-power erudite's spell-and-power learning mechanic. Technically that's 2.

After that, perhaps the most efficient is a high level legacy champion's ability to advance other classes. Dip one level in one class, then eat a legacy champion to advance that class, gaining large numbers of abilities for the price of one. Feel free to use those levels for more illithid savant (and more legacy champion abilities).

After those, try a greater (or ethereal) doppelganger's ability to mimic whole personalities. You gain everything but their divinely granted abilities this way.

[PrismCat21]

Some of these are SLAs or (Su) abilities though, aren't they? How do you do that?

Spell-like Abilities are generally listed under Special Attacks. You're second quote lists Special Attack as something that can be acquired.

[magic9mushroom]

The illithid Savant can gain class features, special attacks, special qualities and more by eating brains. My question is what would the best special attack and qualities be to consume.

The best special attack to eat is Manipulate Form from the Sarrukh (Serpent Kingdoms), provided you can get access to a loyal servant (e.g. familiar or animal companion) that's a legal target for the ability.

The best special quality to eat is Alter Shape from the Hagunemnon a.k.a. Hagnumemnon a.k.a. Protean from the Epic Level Handbook. Do not expect it to go down without a fight, though you may be able to bribe or coerce one into letting you have one of its brains (since it can regenerate them as a free action).

Both of these abilities are "crown jewels", inasmuch as they grant carte blanche to get or bestow arbitrary abilities (though the Hagunemnon is limited to (Ex) abilities that exist).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Eating a hagunemnon's shapeshifting ability means you have to spend a move action each round to hold your form, else you're an ever-shifting mass of plasmotic goo and random body parts.

[magic9mushroom]

Eating a hagunemnon's shapeshifting ability means you have to spend a move action each round to hold your form, else you're an ever-shifting mass of plasmotic goo and random body parts.

Yup. But you're an amazingly-powerful ever-shifting mass of plasmotic goo and non-random body parts*.

*You do get to choose what your shapes are, you just can't have the exact same set in successive rounds.

[Bphill561]

As mentioned above, a Legacy Champion is a must. You have such a high ECL by the time Illithaid savant's stealing abilities kick in, you might as well max them as quickly as possible. Resurrection is an option as well to repeat the process.

For the same high ECL reason, the Brainstealer dragon from dragon magazine #337 is an interesting possibility. A wyrmling has 7HD with an LA of +5, which is 3 full levels less than a standard mind flayer. It also has similar stats and size with the improved dragon type. It would be up to your DM if a Mind-Flayer Dragon hybrid counts as mind-flayer, but I have played on successfully in the past.

[Crake]

Some of these are SLAs or (Su) abilities though, aren't they? How do you do that?

Oi lads, I didn't realise this particular Illithid Savant had thread necromancy capabilities.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Oi lads, I didn't realise this particular Illithid Savant had thread necromancy capabilities.Emulating wish to cast raise thread.

[Pippin]

Oi lads, I didn't realise this particular Illithid Savant had thread necromancy capabilities.
Sweetie, this thread acquired all special qualities long ago.