Sarrukh RAW vs RAI or just broken? Any fixes?

[redking]

Here is the Sarrukh. (https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/block/Sarrukh_(Progenitor_Race))

Manipulate Form
Manipulate Form (Su): At will, a sarrukh can modify the form of any Scaled One native to Toril, except for aquatic and undead creatures. With a successful touch attack, it can cause one alteration of its choice in the target creature's body. The target falls unconscious for 2d4 rounds due to the shock of changing form. A successful DC 22 Fortitude save negates both the change and the unconsciousness. Sarrukh are immune to this effect. A sarrukh may use this ability to change a minor aspect of the target creature, such as the shape of its head or the color of its scales. It may also choose to make a much more significant alteration, such as converting limbs into tentacles, changing overall body shape (snake to humanoid, for example), or adding or removing an appendage. Any ability score may be decreased to a minimum of 1 or increased to a maximum equal to the sarrukh's corresponding score. A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it.

The change bestowed takes effect immediately and is permanent. Furthermore, the alterations are automatically passed on to all the creature's offspring when it breeds with another of its unmodified kind.

Typical physical alterations that sarrukh often bestow with this ability include the following.

Arm. The touched creature sprouts a humanlike arm that ends in a viciously clawed hand. The sarrukh may, at its option, change an already existing appendage (such as a tentacle) into an arm, or cause a new arm to sprout from a spot of its choice. The creature can manipulate small items and wield weapons with the new appendage as effectively as a normal human can with a hand. The creature also gains a claw attack as a natural attack (base damage 1d8 for a Medium creature). The claw is a secondary attack if the subject already has a different primary attack, or primary otherwise.
Leg: The touched creature sprouts a humanlike leg. The sarrukh may, at its option, change an already existing appendage (such as a tentacle) into a leg, or cause a new leg to sprout from a spot of its choice. A pair of such legs gives the creature the ability to walk upright, and four legs give it the ability to move like a quadruped. The creature loses any ability it previously had to constrict with its lower body. Its speed remains the same as it was before the alteration unless it now has more than two legs. In that case, it moves at a speed typical for a quadruped of its size category.
Tentacles: The touched creature sprouts a tentacle. The sarrukh may, at its option, change an already existing appendage (such as an arm) into a tentacle, or cause a new tentacle to sprout from a spot of its choice. The subject can now wield a melee weapon in each tentacle acquired. Furthermore, the creature gains a slam attack as a natural attack (base damage 1d8 for a Medium creature). The tentacle is a secondary attack if the subject already has a different primary attack, or primary otherwise. The subject also acquires the improved grab special attack if it didn't already have it.
Humanoid Torso. A humanoid torso replaces the subject's previous torso. The subject loses any special attack or special quality dependent on its previous torso (such as constrict or improved grab).
Snake Torso. A snake torso replaces the subject's previous torso, granting it the constrict and improved grab special attacks if it didn't already have them. Its speed remains the same as it was before the alteration.
Wings: The subject sprouts feathery wings from its back. These appendages grant it the ability to fly at its previous land speed with average maneuverability.
Omnidirectional Eyes: The subject can move its eyes independently from one another and visually process all the information so acquired. The creature gains a +4 bonus on Spot cheeks but takes a -2 penalty to Charisma.
Increase or Decrease Size: The subject's size category changes by one step. All the usual bonuses or penalties for such a change apply normally.

For the life of me I can't work out the RAI for this ability. I suppose its just broken. Anyone have a fix for this?

[Psychoalpha]

The Sarrukh are near godlike creatures who are responsible for the creation and evolution of entire races. In FR they created 'the yuan-ti, nagas, pterafolk, asabi, lizardfolk, troglodytes, tren, and many other Scaled Ones'. They're literally referred to as a Creator Race.

Soooo... in that context, the ability seems like one that's intentionally broken. It's like saying that a god's ability to always roll a natural 20 is broken. Sure, taken in a vacuum, but it's perfectly fitting with what it is. It's just not something players should be able to get their hands on without repercussions. I generally find just saying "Hey, no. K?" to be enough. :p Or I just tell them they can do whatever they want with it and roll with the nonsense. Depends how I'm feeling about the campaign.

But there's really no way to limit the power that doesn't negate the point of the power, outside of something simple (and mostly useless) like 'No creating new abilities, only duplicating existing ones.' See? Pointless. One Sarrukh could just grant a kobold the ability to use Wish 3/day as a Spell-Like Ability. Or whatever.

[Zaq]

Fix in what sense? What's the intended end result?

I mean, yeah, it's broken to hell and back, but it's broken in a way that makes me say that the only real solution is to make sure that a sarrukh never appears on camera. Ever.

Do you want a sarrukh to actually show up in your game? If so, what do you want that sarrukh to do, and what do you want its role (quest-giver? Antagonist? Monster to kill for points? Neutral NPC? Untouchable deific figure?) to be?

[redking]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, the Sarrukh is like a living McGuffin. Their powers are pretty awesome - they are gods among scaleykind. The kind of fix I am talking about is twofold. 1. What if it was a PC? And 2. The stated capabilities of manipulate form does not seem to correspond with the situation that the sarrukh are in. They could revive their empire easily with this ability. I prefer not think that they do not do so simply because they choose not to do so.

A fix would be some sort of limitation or costs on the abilities.

[NichG]

Make it like spell research, where the Sarrukh has to first research the mechanism behind the new ability, have it assigned a spell level, and then have it require a corresponding number of racial HD to unlock as usable for the recipient as per a Savage Species progression. Remove the direct modification of ability scores and instead have a table of net non-negative bonus cap vs RHD, and creatures progress into the ability boosts as they level.

Unreasonable effects are blocked at the spell research stage - if it should be an Epic spell or SDA, you can't do it (or optionally, a Sarrukh deity could modify the SDAs of a fellow reptilian deity, but probably best not to try to go there). Or even, the Sarrukh could implant a species with potential such that if any happened to become a god in the future, they would get a specific ability at that time.

[Sereg]

For a start, make it unstackable with itself.

[Psychoalpha]

Q1. What if it was a PC?
A1. Then you're letting people start their PCs as CR21 monsters and arguably all balance considerations are laughable at that point? >_>

Q2. The stated capabilities of manipulate form does not seem to correspond with the situation that the sarrukh are in. They could revive their empire easily with this ability. I prefer not think that they do not do so simply because they choose not to do so.
A2. Why don't dragons utterly dominate the economic and political landscapes of any given fantasy setting where they're even remotely common? They're more or less the richest creatures on the material planes, virtually immortal on the scale of most mortal creatures, etc, etc, etc. The point at which you start worrying about why monsters aren't doing what you would if you had their power/wealth/etc is the point at which any game world is going to break down for you.

The Sarrukh aren't trying to create world conquering god-kings, they're trying to create servant races. The balancing act between strong enough to survive but not strong enough to become a threat to their creators some day is not an easy one to strike, especially if different Sarrukh disagree on exactly what that balance is or even if it should be a concern. Add in the interference of divine beings with far more foresight than the Sarrukh (and this is Faerun so you KNOW gods and their agents get involved somehow), and it seems perfectly believable that they haven't restored their empire and conquered the world. The same way nobody else really has (or certainly not for long).

[Psyren]

The best way to balance this ability is to remove the part of Manipulate Form that lets you add or remove special abilities without any restrictions. The ability as a whole isn't that bad until you hit that sentence and balance flies screaming out of the window.

If that part of it must exist, it should be a very specific/restricted list of abilities, with some GM-controllable clause like "rumors of greater Sarrukhs with the ability to grant powers outside of this list persist, but all records of such powerful beings have faded beyond myth and legend."


Q1. What if it was a PC?
A1. Then you're letting people start their PCs as CR21 monsters and arguably all balance considerations are laughable at that point? >_>

Q2. The stated capabilities of manipulate form does not seem to correspond with the situation that the sarrukh are in. They could revive their empire easily with this ability. I prefer not think that they do not do so simply because they choose not to do so.
A2. Why don't dragons utterly dominate the economic and political landscapes of any given fantasy setting where they're even remotely common? They're more or less the richest creatures on the material planes, virtually immortal on the scale of most mortal creatures, etc, etc, etc. The point at which you start worrying about why monsters aren't doing what you would if you had their power/wealth/etc is the point at which any game world is going to break down for you.

The Sarrukh aren't trying to create world conquering god-kings, they're trying to create servant races. The balancing act between strong enough to survive but not strong enough to become a threat to their creators some day is not an easy one to strike, especially if different Sarrukh disagree on exactly what that balance is or even if it should be a concern. Add in the interference of divine beings with far more foresight than the Sarrukh (and this is Faerun so you KNOW gods and their agents get involved somehow), and it seems perfectly believable that they haven't restored their empire and conquered the world. The same way nobody else really has (or certainly not for long).

All of this, couldn't have said it better myself.

[Bronk]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, the Sarrukh is like a living McGuffin. Their powers are pretty awesome - they are gods among scaleykind. The kind of fix I am talking about is twofold. 1. What if it was a PC? And 2. The stated capabilities of manipulate form does not seem to correspond with the situation that the sarrukh are in. They could revive their empire easily with this ability. I prefer not think that they do not do so simply because they choose not to do so.

A fix would be some sort of limitation or costs on the abilities.

1: Up to the DM.

2: In the quote you provided in the opening post, you missed the line that says "The Sarrukh are immune to this effect" (edit: it wasn't included in the link either). That comes at the end of the first paragraph from the original text, and could very well indicate that Sarrukh are actually immune to the entirety of Manipulate Form.

[LordTC]

Don’t ever allow a Sarrukh in your games. Manipulate Form is a busted ability that has the flaw of being able to grant manipulate form. If a player ever gets control of a Sarrukh they may well decide to get Manipulate Form and take advantage of it an a whole plethora of ways to effectively make Pun Pun 2.0.

[Jervis]

I once used a Sarrukh claw as a mccguffin for a planes hopping BBEG. He crafted it onto his hand and did the predictable. But yeah you can’t balance manipulate form. Players aren’t suppose to have access to it and giving it to them will destroy your game. Even just giving your snake familiar wish 3/day, which is low end cheese for the ability, means they have something stronger than planar binding cheese.

[RandomPeasant]

Manipulate Form isn't so much "broken" as it is "unfinished". It says you can do "whatever" and then gives a couple of examples of what "whatever" might mean that are pretty crappy. People assume that because it doesn't explicitly limit "whatever", you can do literally anything with it. Which is a bit like trying to abuse the greater effects part of wish, but whatever. The thing where you can loop your stats up to infinity is plenty broken anyway.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: can Manipulate Form give you the power of Thread Necromancy?