[3.5] Non-psionic Caller In Darkness

[Thurbane]

I'm looking at statting up a non-psionic Caller in Darkness for my own uses.

Aside from trying to convince me to use psionics, what SLAs would you suggest to replace its psi-like abilities?



At will



clairvoyant sense
clairvoyance


concussion blast
magic missile (?)


detect psionics
detect magic


ego whip
touch of idiocy (?)


mind thrust
orb of force (?)


3/day



death urge
crushing despair / song of discord (?)


psychic crush
power word disable (?)


psionic suggestion
suggestion (mass?)


1/day



co-opt concentration
?



All suggestion (other than use psionics) welcome. I'm trying to keep the equivalent SLAs around the same level where possible, and try to achieve the same, or similar, effects.

I'm sure there's a spell that allows you to steal control of other casters spells, but I'm struggling to find it (to replace co-opt concentration).

Cheers - T

[Dimers]

Psychic crush always struck me as most similar to slay living.

For spell-stealing spells, I can only suggest having the creature surrounded by a constant distort summons (BoVD) effect. :smallamused:

Are you looking for SLAs that match the psi effects as closely as possible, or just any thematic SLAs?

[Thurbane]

Psychic crush always struck me as most similar to slay living.

For spell-stealing spells, I can only suggest having the creature surrounded by a constant distort summons (BoVD) effect. :smallamused:

Are you looking for SLAs that match the psi effects as closely as possible, or just any thematic SLAs?

Good call on SLay Living.

As close as possible would be nice, but thematic if nothing matches.

[Fizban]

Concussion Blast is a no-save three target effect- so Magic Missile is significantly worse. Chain Missile still only has one missile per two caster levels, so at cl 7 it will deal "3d6" to the primary and "1d6" to three more targets, overall worse but closer than I expected (Force Missiles would require cl 8 to hit 4d6/2d6). Whelming Blast or Hail of Ectoplasm are 2nd level AoEs that are similar, but still allow saves.

Touch of Idiocy fails to allow the monster's Steal Essence ability to activate via dropping a stat to 0. Ray of Stupidity would be the replacement then. The point of the monster seems to be that it has various ways to knock people unconscious in order to absorb them, with some fallback damage effects if they're immune or make their saves. Ray of Stupidity has no save, so in that regard it makes many of the other effects superfluous (aside from also being the "wrong" stat).

Mind Thrust is a high damage/will save negates effect with no attack rolls and SR, I don't think Orb of Force is an appropriate replacement. There simply is no comparable spell either- Whelm is the closest, but it's 1d6/2 levels and nonlethal only instead of 1d10 per level, and the upgraded version Overwhelm is a full one-shot. I suppose you could Maximize or Twin it or something.

Death Urge is unique enough I'd say you should just short-text the ability- "One target in Medium range must attack and automatically crit themselves on a failed Will save." Otherwise Phantasmal Killer seems most appropriate, though it outright kills without a chance of leaving them unconscious via bleeding out (or close enough to tip over with more blasts) and thus runs cross-purposes to the monster.

Psychic Crush maps to Overwhelm.

Mass Suggestion will have a much higher DC and twice as many targets. Just use "Suggestion, but up to three targets within 15' of each other." Or Chain it for a DC penalty in exchange for the extra targets.

There's a Steal Summoning spell and various Dispels that can steal active effects, but no spell to usurp concentration I'm aware of- it has nothing to do with the rest of the monster anyway, so don't bother replacing it.

[Thurbane]

Good points. Let's look at the PLAs of the creature (ML 7th).


Clairvoyant Sense (2nd): fairly self explanatory.
Concussion Blast (2nd): medium range, 3d6 damage to 2 targets
Detect Psionics (1st): fairly self explanatory.
Ego Whip (2nd): medium range, 2d4 Cha damage (Will save for half)
Mind Thrust (1st): close range, one target, 7d10 damage (Will save negates)
Death Urge (4th): medium range, one target, automatically crits itself or provokes an AoO (Will save negates)
Psychic Crush (5th): close range, one target, dying and unconscious at -1 hp (Will save negates)
Psionic Suggestion (2nd): close range, as Suggestion, but 3 targets.
Co-Opt Concentration (6th): medium range, one target, steal control of a power that requires concentration (Will save negates)

[Miss Disaster]

The Caller in the Darkness is one of my favorite monsters. I've created a number of variants of them over the years to throw at my players. To note, this quote from SRD influences the various ways I've tweaked them:

"A caller in darkness is an incorporeal creature composed of the minds of dozens of victims who died together in terror. It seeks to draw others into its fearwracked, hellish existence. "

I see them as more fear-inducing undead than psionic damage-dealers. As a result, I would swap-out their psionic powers with similar-levelled magic spells with the Fear descriptor - especially those of the Illusion and Necromancy schools. Nightmare Terrain, Vision of Entropy, Spiritwall and Shadow Well are four spells I've used on the Caller in the Darkness chassis over the years. Flavor-wise, it always worked great!

[Thurbane]

The Caller in the Darkness is one of my favorite monsters. I've created a number of variants of them over the years to throw at my players. To note, this quote from SRD influences the various ways I've tweaked them:

"A caller in darkness is an incorporeal creature composed of the minds of dozens of victims who died together in terror. It seeks to draw others into its fearwracked, hellish existence. "

I see them as more fear-inducing undead than psionic damage-dealers. As a result, I would swap-out their psionic powers with similar-levelled magic spells with the Fear descriptor - especially those of the Illusion and Necromancy schools. Nightmare Terrain, Vision of Entropy, Spiritwall and Shadow Well are four spells I've used on the Caller in the Darkness chassis over the years. Flavor-wise, it always worked great!

That's an interesting and flavorful approach. Only problem is when the party has immunities/resistances to fear/mind-affecting attacks.

[Segev]

Not trying to convince you to use psi, but is there a reason you can’t use the abilities as written and just call it spell-like instead of psi-like? Again, not trying to convince you, just curious what your reason is.

You’ve gotten good suggestions I probably can’t add to, but i usually like to know what the specific need is before trying to make suggestions, since often it’s easy to get caught up in solving the wrong problem if you don’t know what the solution being asked for is wanted.

[afroakuma]

Not trying to convince you to use psi, but is there a reason you can’t use the abilities as written and just call it spell-like instead of psi-like? Again, not trying to convince you, just curious what your reason is.

I suspect it was hinted at here:


That's an interesting and flavorful approach. Only problem is when the party has immunities/resistances to fear/mind-affecting attacks.

[Nifft]

That's an interesting and flavorful approach. Only problem is when the party has immunities/resistances to fear/mind-affecting attacks. Is this the whole party?

If so, then the monster based around mind-affecting fear might not be the best thing to throw at them, unless you want them to feel awesome about having that particular immunity, which is nice.

In that case, it doesn't really matter what most of the powers do -- they're effectively wasted turns, in that you'll roll some dice, smile evilly, and ask a player for some kind of a mind-affecting fear save, then you'll look horribly betrayed when the PC turns out to be immune, and the player will feel awesome -- so not really wasted, but not really an effect where you need other details.

Pair it with some spooky poltergeist type undead and they'll have a relatively easy fight, but with some legitimate challenges.

[Thurbane]

No, this isn't for a particular party, so no existing immunities are in play.

More a though exercise and for possible future use in my game.

[DrMartin]

is this 3.5 only? paizo did some psionic-inspired spells in horror adventures.

as far as actual suggestions, you could use Blast of Force (spell compendium) for concussive blast - it doesn't target multiple foes but it does have a rider effect. Alternatively you could use Shockwave (from Sharn: city of towers), although that is a straight upgrade.

Dread Word is a source of Charisma damage at range but it really stinks, especially compared to ego whip. I would sub it for Phantasmal Assailants, which is thematically fitting and has potential to deal lots of ability damage.

[Segev]

No, this isn't for a particular party, so no existing immunities are in play.

More a though exercise and for possible future use in my game.

I repeat my question, then. Again, not to try to persuade you to use psionics, but because I'm not sure what you're going for: Why not just use it as-written, but say its abilities are magic rather than psionic? What's the goal in altering it to spells that are written as spells rather than "spell-like abilities" that use the text of "psionic powers?"

[Thurbane]

I repeat my question, then. Again, not to try to persuade you to use psionics, but because I'm not sure what you're going for: Why not just use it as-written, but say its abilities are magic rather than psionic? What's the goal in altering it to spells that are written as spells rather than "spell-like abilities" that use the text of "psionic powers?"

Hard to explain, just it would fit better in my game to use existing spells as SLAs. And partially as a thought exercise in matching existing spells.

I can, and have, in the past run the monster exactly the way you suggest (i.e. just using the existing powers, and calling them SLAs instead of PLAs, when I ran EtCR). I'm just considering alternatives.

[Segev]

Hard to explain, just it would fit better in my game to use existing spells as SLAs. And partially as a thought exercise in matching existing spells.

I can, and have, in the past run the monster exactly the way you suggest (i.e. just using the existing powers, and calling them SLAs instead of PLAs, when I ran EtCR). I'm just considering alternatives.

That's fair.

For co-opt concentration, the closest analog spell I can find is steal summoning from Complete Mage, which takes over a summon spell.