Villainous Competition XL+1: Gojira! [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

jdizzlean

2021-06-05, 01:34 PM

Welcome to Round 40 of the Villainous Competition!

Previous Competitions

Round One: Leader of Armies (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?395046)
Round Two: Nature's Revenger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?400517)
Round Three: Double Agent (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?406015)
Round Four: Grave Keeper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?413480)
Round Five: Crime Lord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420704)
Round Six: Ultimate Predator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?430650)
Round Seven: Wicked Witch (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444478)
Round Eight: Master of the Tundra (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?461482)
Round Nine: The Power of Villainous Thinking (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?474230)
Round Ten: Henchman Are Villains Too (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?478068)
Round Eleven: The Higher They Rise The Harder They Fall (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?483052)
Round Twelve: Power Comes at a Price (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488846)
Round Thirteen: The Gadgeteer - You Are Not Batman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?491932)
Round Fourteen: The Thing That Should Not Be (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496091)
Round Fifteen: The Horsemen Are Drawing Nearer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?500829)
Round Sixteen: Burn Baby Burn (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503974)
Round Seventeen: It's Alive! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507768)
Round Eighteen: This is Heresy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?511933)
Round Nineteen: He Slimed Me! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516535)
Round Twenty: Elder Evil (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?521560)
Round Twenty-One: Yarr! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?527415-Villainous-Competition-XXI-Yarr!)
Round Twenty-Two: I Am The Night! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?531199-Villainous-Competition-XXII-I-Am-The-Night!)
Round Twenty-Three: Two Heads Are Better Than One! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?535437-Villainous-Competition-XXIII-Two-Heads-Are-Better-Than-One)
Round Twenty-Four: Wrong For The Right Reasons! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?541650-Villainous-Competition-XXIV-Wrong-For-The-Right-Reasons)
Round Twenty-Five: Keeper of the Gate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?550139-Villainous-Competition-XXV-No-Solicitors!)
Round Twenty-Six: Get In MY BELLY (Swallow Whole) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?556705-Villainous-Competition-XXVI-Swallow-Whole!)
Round Twenty-Seven: Multiple Personality Disorder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559748-Villainous-Competition-XXVII-Multiple-Personality-Disorder)
Round Twenty-Eight: Tiny Only! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?565176-Villainous-Competition-XXVIII-Bad-Things-Come-in-Small-Packages)
Round Twenty-Nine: Halloween Special (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?573496-Villainous-Competition-XXIX-A-Halloween-Special)
Round Thirty: One Feat to Rule Them ALL (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577930-Villainous-Competition-XXX-One-Feat-to-Rule-Them-ALL)
Round Thirty-One: In Cold Blood (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?582492-Villainous-Competition-XXXI-In-Cold-Blood)
Round Thirty-Two: oh HELL NO! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?586377-Villainous-Competition-XXXII-Oh-HELL-NO!)
Round Thirty-Three: The Do Over (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?589107-Villainous-Competition-XXXIII-The-Do-Over)
Round Thirty-Four: Sword and Board (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?600139-Villainous-Competition-XXXIV-Sword-and-Board)
Round Thirty-Five: I Shall Call Him Mini Me! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?605444-Villainous-Competition-XXXV-I-Shall-Call-Him-Mini-Me!)
Round Thirty-Six: The Broken Man (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612196-Villainous-Competition-XXXVI-The-Broken-Man)
Round Thirty-Seven: Yin and Yang (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?617485-Villainous-Competition-XXXVII-Yin-and-Yang)
Round Thirty Eight: Spooks and Spectres (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?621069-Villainous-Competition-XXXVIII-Spooks-and-Spectres)
Round Thirty Nine: Sorta Psuedo (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?625680-Villainous-Competition-XXXIX-Sorta-Psuedo)
Round Forty: Negative Nancy (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629291-Villainous-Competition-XL-Negative-Nancy)

We're a little different than most of the optimization threads. We run on CR instead of ECL.

Contestants:
You will need to present a write-up of your build with at least one of the following points: 5 CR, 10 CR 15 CR, 20 CR, and a "sweet spot" that you feel is the high point of the build, as well as presenting a fully-fleshed out 20 CR build in the table below. Feel free to present as many of these as you like, and please give a rundown of the build's abilities and playability at all of the levels you didn't show. The rules are as follows:

Secret Laboratory:
Competitors will be free to use any official 1st party (WotC) 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon Compendium is allowed, but Dragon magazine is disallowed. Unearthed Arcana is allowed. Unupdated 3.0 materials, as well as web exclusives by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion. Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Item Familiars and Taint are also banned from the competition. Leadership and all similar abilities are banned for sanity reasons.
Builds that are fully monstrous are allowed at no penalty. All class levels are to be added on as associated class levels.

Elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is the assumed ability score generation method.
Some monstrous characters can technically qualify for Epic feats as soon as their ECL is over 20. While regular Epic feats will be allowed, Epic Spellcasting and all other Epic feats that affect spells, psionic powers, or item creation are not permitted. Including these would give an unfair advantage over standard characters. For Incarnum characters, Epic Open Chakra feats are allowed; other Epic Incarnum feats are not. The Essentia Capacity increases for Epic capacity as described on p. 212. For all characters, please note that Racial Hit Dice do not count towards Epic Progression; use the regular progression even if the BAB ends up higher than 20.

Deadlines:
Contestants will have until July 14th, 0700 hours MST to create their builds and PM them to the Supreme Chancellor. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges will have until however long it takes to judge the builds and submit their scores. If no judges have scored by that point, only the scores of the first judge to submit will be counted. Deadlines are subject to extension as/if required.

Judging:
Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each build rated on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (exemplary) in each area: Originality, Build Elegance, Competence and Power, Memorable Villainy.
Keep these questions in mind when judging each category:
Originality - Is it unexpected?
Build Elegance - Is it mechanically pretty?
Competence and Power - Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
Memorable Villainy - Is this a villain with style? Will it be the BBEG players long to finally kill and then talk about for weeks?
Unearthed Arcana can be penalized for elegance if the specific feature seems unnecessary or makes the playing field unfair (In this case, you can give a 1 if it makes the field unfair.)
Power level is up to you. Cheese is acceptable, but should be kept to a sane level unless you're showcasing a new TO build you've discovered. As the Iron Chef competition states, a little cheddar can be nice, but avoid the mature Gruyere unless you're making a cheese fondue.
You may not judge if you entered the contest, unless you withdraw your submission.

Presentation:
Builds will be posted anonymously, in order to avoid the potential of bias towards a particular competitor. For this reason, please don't put your name in the build, as I'm likely to miss it when reviewing the entries!

Note:
There is now a hard limit on two (2) entries per competitor.

Using the table below, the easiest way to use it is to go to the top left of the private message, and click the little a/A icon. It allows you to see what you're writing.
Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, I'd like everyone to try to use the following table for their entry.

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

1
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

2
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

3
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

4
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

5
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

6
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

7
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

8
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

9
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

10
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

11
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

12
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

13
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

14
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

15
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

16
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

17
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

18
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

19
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

20
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

Code immediately below (spoiler).

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

1
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

2
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

3
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

4
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

5
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

6
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

7
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

8
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

9
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

10
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

11
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

12
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

13
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

14
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

15
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

16
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

17
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

18
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

19
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

20
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

You can use the table below for Spells.

Spells per Day/Spells Known
Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th

1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Code Immediately Below,
Spells per Day/Spells Known
Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th

1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Speculation:
Please don’t post or speculate on possible builds until the reveal, in order to avoid spoiling the surprise if a particular competitor is producing a build along those lines.
Once builds are revealed, please do not comment on errors or rules issues on entries unless you are a judge. If you have such a comment, wait until the final reveal to post it.

Get ready to share those Evil thoughts. This edition’s villain is:

Godzilla

Limitations

Must be Colossal in base form
Must feature one of the 4 main elements (fire, water, earth, air)
Energy Substitution, Energy or Arcane Admixture, their psionic versions, and all similar feats/abilities are banned
Must be Evil, N, or CN

We will award 1st through 3rd places, and a possible Honorable Mention.
So, start your evil plotting!

Submission:
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:

PM: Jdizzlean
Subject: Villainous Competition 41, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mail box.
More questions? PM me with Villainous Competition 41 Questions in the header.

Tips for submitting your entry, provided by Weaselguy:

- Use capitalization and punctuation, correctly.
- Make good use of Spoilers, for cleanliness.
- Don't forget your sources. If it's something that can be found in the contents section, then book title seems to be fine. Obscure stuff, may want to include page number too.
- DeviantArt has about 9 billion pictures that you can reference, I can almost guarantee you can find one there to fit your character.
- Make good use of tables. In addition to the Build table and the Spells table, I like doing one for my Ability Scores, just to keep it neat.
- Do a build stub at the top of your Build Table, something like Wizard 2/Fighter 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 10

As always: let's keep it nice.

I'll mention that again - LET'S KEEP IT NICE! Bickering, name calling and nasty comments on the entries or other forum members are not tolerated.

New competition rule: if I feel an individual has been overly disruptive during the course of competition discussion, I will not be accepting and revealing any entries from that individual, and they will also not be allowed to judge. Any judging they enter will not be taken into account for the final tally.

It's sad that it had to come to this, but here's a list of permanently banned (from this Villainous Competition) members:

Novolin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?148361-Novolin)
Yklikt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?133435-Yklikt)

jdizzlean

2021-06-05, 01:34 PM

Clarifications

Unearthed Arcana variant rules are limited: The variant character options (such as Wildshape Ranger and Thug Fighter) should not be penalized. Flaws and traits may be penalized by judges, whereas item familiars, gestalt, alternate skill systems, alternate magic systems, alternate crafting rules, generic base classes, LA buyoff, fractional saves/BAB, and bloodlines are banned. Anything not mentioned here is up to individual judges.

d20 Rokugan is not allowed material.

The Dragon Magazine update for Oriental Adventures is in use.

Leadership is banned. Any material that grants you leadership without you specifically taking it should be ignored and may not be traded away for another feat or ACF. Undead Leadership and Dragon Cohort are likewise banned. Wild Cohort and Obtain Familiar are allowed. If you are not sure if a specific feat violates the 'no leadership' rule, err on the side of caution, or ask me.

However, Leadership may be taken to qualify for another feat or class (such as the Great Captain feat or Legendary Leader prestige class), though a character still doesn't get its usual benefit in those cases. This is to allow characters to access unproblematic material that'd otherwise be made unavailable because of the Leadership ban.

On the subject of messaging the chair (me), a few guidelines:
- I am not here to give critiques on your build or guess how the judges might score it!
- For entries, please keep the entry to no more than 2 message, if at all possible.
- For entries, don't expect me to search through your entry and edit in or out material. Entries should be sent to me complete - if there is a later revision, re-submit the full build. PLEASE DON'T INCLUDE TEXT IN YOUR SUBMISSION YOU WANT ME TO EDIT OUT FOR THE POST - SUBMIT IT TO ME EXACTLY HOW I WILL POST THE FINISHED PRODUCT.
- Please make sure the name of your entry is clearly present in the message.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/11/arts/11GODZILLA1_SPAN/11GODZILLA1_SPAN-superJumbo.jpg

Everyone, have fun!

jdizzlean

2021-06-05, 01:35 PM

i don't have time to magazine dive right now. I'll get a ruling on the kaiju template later edited into this post as to whether it will be allowed or not.

it may be unpopular, but due to the 1 sided-ness of what i'm reading on the kaiju template, the following will be in effect for this round with it:

The kaiju template from dragon 289 will be legal, however, anyone submitting a build using it, will be REQUIRED to enter a second entry that does not use the template, failure to do so will result in the original build not being included in this competition :( .

Anthrowhale

2021-06-05, 02:13 PM

InvisibleBison

2021-06-05, 03:48 PM

I'll definitely be submitting a build this round - maybe two, if I can figure out how to make my second idea work.

3SecondCultist

2021-06-05, 04:03 PM

Godzilla, as commonly portrayed, doesn't quite fit 'evil'. Maybe Chaotic Neutral? Unpredictable and extremely destructive, but not going out of it's way to cause harm, and no real schemes to gain power at the expense of others.

I would definitely second this. Perhaps 'Neutral or Chaotic Neutral' instead of Evil for this round?

Thurbane

2021-06-05, 04:24 PM

Spare time is a rare commodity for me, but I'll do my best to get an entry in here. I have a bare-bones build in mind already.

loky1109

2021-06-05, 04:51 PM

I start thinking...

Qs.

Must feature one of the 4 main elements (fire, water, earth, air)
What does this means?
What element does feature Godzilla itself?

Must be Colossal
All time?

Thurbane

2021-06-05, 05:01 PM

I would hope that natural form must be Colossal, otherwise we're likely to just have a bunch of full casters with Shapechange.

I'm assuming the element reqs are deliberately vague, and could range from having a subtype, to dealing elemental damage with a special attack.

3SecondCultist

2021-06-05, 05:45 PM

Well I have a build idea, but I am going to wait on any decisions regarding alignment restrictions before going any further.

jdizzlean

2021-06-06, 09:18 AM

limitations on alignment changed, and 3rd post updated.

build away

loky1109

2021-06-06, 02:20 PM

I have an idea!

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-06-06, 02:47 PM

What does this means?
What element does feature Godzilla itself?

Godzilla would be (radioactive) Fire and to a lesser extent Water.

ciopo

2021-06-06, 03:12 PM

Uhm, how do we colossal at CR5 (or lower)? or is it a "must be" from (arbitrary CR, 20?) onward?

Thurbane

2021-06-06, 03:30 PM

jdizzlean

2021-06-06, 03:40 PM

Uhm, how do we colossal at CR5 (or lower)? or is it a "must be" from (arbitrary CR, 20?) onward?

Starting from CR 5 or lower has never been a requirement, AFAIK. If you look at previous comps, many entries start from higher CRs.

Do note, through, that some judges prefer entries that span a larger range of CRs, so that they can be a recurring villain.

I think they're referring to the template. if you're using the template, your first entry on the table will be whatever you're using (vermin, animal, mag animal, beast) with the template applied. so if your base form is a 1cr bug, your first entry on the table will be at cr16 with the template applied. you don't have to find a colossal sized thing at cr5, which i'm sure w/o looking doesn't exist :)

3SecondCultist

2021-06-06, 04:10 PM

I know a way to make a CR 7 Colossal creature... but it's really bad. :smalltongue:

NotInventedHere

2021-06-06, 08:25 PM

you don't have to find a colossal sized thing at cr5, which i'm sure w/o looking doesn't exist :)

There is in fact one (and as far as I can tell, only one) way to have a Colossal sized creature whose final CR is 5. It's incredibly boring and kind of a waste of 5 points of CR though.

loky1109

2021-06-07, 10:25 AM

Godzilla would be (radioactive) Fire and to a lesser extent Water.

Radioactive=Fire? This is... weak point. Water because it lives in water? Hm... I live in air, do I feature Air? How about birds?
___________________________________________

Welcome to Round 40 of the Villainous Competition!

Beni-Kujaku

2021-06-07, 10:50 AM

There is in fact one (and as far as I can tell, only one) way to have a Colossal sized creature whose final CR is 5. It's incredibly boring and kind of a waste of 5 points of CR though.

I see what you did there. I could go as low as CR 3‚ if we're willing to throw realism away.

GreatWyrmGold

2021-06-07, 11:21 AM

Radioactive=Fire? This is... weak point. Water because it lives in water? Hm... I live in air, do I feature Air? How about birds?
___________________________________________
How is equating radioactivity to fire "weak"? "Fire" isn't a specific material or even a specific chemical reaction; it's the name for one byproduct of a variety of reactions which produce intense enough heat that it makes the air glow. Radiation isn't exactly hot air, but it's close enough (especially for fantasy purposes).

Godzilla doesn't just live in water, it's a sea creature. The whole concept is that it's a majestic creature from the sea corrupted by atomic bomb tests. That doesn't work unless we acknowledge it has a connection to the sea. (And yes, birds are creatures of Air.)

Honestly, the weakness isn't that Godzilla is non-elemental—it's that the concept specifies one element, whereas Godzilla has intimate connections to two.

By the way, I've got a build in mind. I can't decide if it's brilliant or stupid.

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-06-07, 11:23 AM

Radioactive=Fire? This is... weak point. Water because it lives in water? Hm... I live in air, do I feature Air? How about birds?
___________________________________________

Fire because Godzilla has a full on fire breath (a highly radioactive one), and because he/she was born from the radioactive fires of a thermonuclear bomb. Water yes because Godzilla lives in the ocean, but that's not as strong a link as to fire. Similarly, I'd call any monster that spends most of its time airborne at least weakly Air-themed.

Of course, this is just my opinion. It's the judges you need to convince if you have a monster in mind.

NotInventedHere

2021-06-07, 11:29 AM

<removed speculation>

I suspect it would be improper speculation to give *too* many details < >, however much of a waste of 5 CR points I might consider the whole business. (I have found a *slightly* less completely awful way to be Colossal at CR8, but oddly enough, not at CR7, so I'm a little curious as to whether 3SecondCultist would be willing to do a stub after the builds are posted?)

Beni-Kujaku

2021-06-07, 11:33 AM

3SecondCultist

2021-06-07, 11:55 AM

I suspect it would be improper speculation to give *too* many details on things that might be both Colossal and CR10, however much of a waste of 5 CR points I might consider the whole business. (I have found a *slightly* less completely awful way to be Colossal at CR8, but oddly enough, not at CR7, so I'm a little curious as to whether 3SecondCultist would be willing to do a stub after the builds are posted?)

Sure. I need to double check some of the quick math that went into making the build, but it should not be a problem.

Also I have my build already finished. It’s… uh, it’s a thing. That exists. Honestly I might not even submit it, but I am proud of it all the same.

Beni-Kujaku

2021-06-07, 12:36 PM

I have a genius idea to use these in a campaign : the goal is to catch the attention of the gods on the destruction of Godzilla before too much is destroyed so that they create an aleax of it. They let the PCs control it and the final battle becomes Godzilla vs Mecha-Godzilla. Godzilla is helped by a mad wizard with buffs‚ so the PCs must choose to either go fight the wizard or control the mecha-Godzilla‚ who is quite dumb by itself

Thurbane

2021-06-07, 03:10 PM

There's a fair bit of speculation and pseudo-speculation going on here. :smallfrown:

GreatWyrmGold

2021-06-07, 07:34 PM

By the way, I've got a build in mind. I can't decide if it's brilliant or stupid.
Okay, the mechanical side is definitely stupid in the sense that I was stupid for trying to pull it off. But I like the fluff side too much to abandon the build. Aaaaaa

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-06-07, 11:05 PM

Okay, the mechanical side is definitely stupid in the sense that I was stupid for trying to pull it off. But I like the fluff side too much to abandon the build. Aaaaaa

I'm in a similar boat. My current scheme requires some real wacky nonsense, but the end result... is some even wackier nonsense. But at the end of the day, isn't that the best kind?

loky1109

2021-06-08, 09:25 AM

My current scheme requires some real wacky nonsense, but the end result... is some even wackier nonsense.

You talk about my build, don't you? )))

ciopo

2021-06-12, 03:46 PM

Heya, I got some questions

1: are we using these equivalencies for elemental damage? acid=earth, cold=water, lightning=air, fire=fire?

2: can a creature that has taken class level still advance his type HD ? example a 2HD, CR1 wolf , take one level of fighter (CR2), then advance the animal HD to 4 to increase it's size to large? or do the "advancing monsters" always have to happen before any class level?

3: kindaish the same, but with templates, inherited template will obviously be applied from when the creature "was born", but acquired templates can be applied at any point of time, right?

4: do we have to add 1 to the cr from our usage of the elite array?

5: is bumping up one size category from adding HD +1 cr for every size category, or only when we're starting from medium?

loky1109

2021-06-12, 06:52 PM

2: can a creature that has taken class level still advance his type HD ? example a 2HD, CR1 wolf , take one level of fighter (CR2), then advance the animal HD to 4 to increase it's size to large? or do the "advancing monsters" always have to happen before any class level?
No, you can't.

4: do we have to add 1 to the cr from our usage of the elite array?
No.

JyP

2021-06-13, 04:05 AM

I have an out-of-wack idea, nobody will expect my build (or the Spanish Inquisition) - let me participate :smallsmile:

GreatWyrmGold

2021-06-13, 10:56 AM

5: is bumping up one size category from adding HD +1 cr for every size category, or only when we're starting from medium?
I hope it's only medium—>large, because that's the assumption I made and I don't really want to rework it because

I've got a build in mind. I can't decide if it's brilliant or stupid.Okay, the mechanical side is definitely stupid in the sense that I was stupid for trying to pull it off.

NotInventedHere

2021-06-13, 11:14 AM

I have an out-of-wack idea, nobody will expect my build (or the Spanish Inquisition) - let me participate :smallsmile:

Pretty sure you don't have to, like, ask permission to participate, you can just submit a build :smallsmile:

Lionheart

2021-06-14, 10:02 AM

Managed to submit a build for this one, though not sure how well it's going to do.

The important thing is we all have fun :smallwink:

AvatarVecna

2021-06-14, 03:00 PM

...this competition would allow me to make something I've been wanting to do for awhile. I'm building.

EDIT: ...the requirement that it be the base form ruined my idea. I might still post it even though it's illegal for this contest, cuz it's still neat.

ciopo

2021-06-17, 10:45 AM

Beni-Kujaku

2021-06-18, 03:25 PM

May I kindly get a factcheck in how to count BAB and good/poor saves for creatures with more than 20 racial hit dice?

my understanding of "For all characters, please note that Racial Hit Dice do not count towards Epic Progression; use the regular progression even if the BAB ends up higher than 20." from the chair means I ignore what's written in https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/basics.htm .

I did find one chart, but it's online and seems to be for pathfinder, I'd rather be pointed at some 3.5 papery thing.
Anyway, My assumptions are :

good BAB is = RHD, example 40RHD = BAB +40
medium BAB is 3/4 HD, example 40RHD = BAB 30, plus same question about class levels as above
poor BAB is 1/2 HD, example 40RHD = BAB 20, plus etcetera

That is right. For some more concrete explanation, you can look at the elder Titan (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/titanElder.htm) for reference. It has 70 HD, and +70 BAB. However, it can still only do 4 iterative attacks. Also, it has all good saves, which amounts to 2+HD/2=+37 (that's exactly what you see in reflexes, since it has 10 in Dex).

If we add class levels, we simply add the BAB and saves related to that class, for example adding a first level of monk would mean HD goes to 41, BAB stays at 40 and all saves improve by 2

However, no. Epic progression starts as soon as you have 20 HD, counting Racial Hit dice and you take a class level. So your monk level will give you BAB+1=41 and no better saves.
Refer to Gerti Orelsdottr, page 294 of the ELH. She has 14 Racial hit dice and 5+4 class levels, all at 3/4 BAB. Without epic progression, she would have 10+3+3=16 BAB. With epic progression on her last 3 levels, she has 10+3+0+2=15 "BAB", -1 Size, +9 Str=+23 to hit, and that's what she has.

If we add enough class levels to gain a new feat, so at monk 2 in this example because we've reached HD 42, can we add an epic feat?

Yeah, you have more than 20 HD, so you can take Epic feats instead of normal ones.

Can a creature with 21+ RHD pick all feats as epic feats?, assuming that's the base creature I mean, before adding any class levels. can a base creature with 21 RHD have Damage reduction x8, for example? (assuming it has the constitution prerequisites) it is my understanding that it doesn't go through the process of gaining one HD at a time.

No, you must have at least 7 normal feats. Consider that the monster was once a baby and gained its racial hit dice one by one.

we can choose feats different from those published in the statblocks, right?

According to previous occurences of the competition, yes.

ciopo

2021-06-19, 02:39 AM

Thank you Beni-kujaku

2: can a creature that has taken class level still advance his type HD ? example a 2HD, CR1 wolf , take one level of fighter (CR2), then advance the animal HD to 4 to increase it's size to large? or do the "advancing monsters" always have to happen before any class level?

No, you can't.

Oh, that's a bummer, it would be much more smoother/interesting "storywise" if we could sprinkle the class levels "here and there" instead of having to frontload all the "advancing HD", it makes the growing up of the creature mostly unmemorable, since it will have very little to differentiate it from an average member of its species, other than elite array and feat choice.

Are there exceptions to that? I see the dragon from last round alternated soul eater levels with advancing the dragon age category, but maybe that's special to dragons?

I do agree with you / the reasoning for first doing all the "Improving monsters" and only after that adding class levels, for one to do otherwise would make a mess when RHD pushes into epic.

But it'd be a more interesting creature if it had the class levels added here and there.

Oh well

edit, to quote : "However, no. Epic progression starts as soon as you have 20 HD, counting Racial Hit dice and you take a class level. So your monk level will give you BAB+1=41 and no better saves.
Refer to Gerti Orelsdottr, page 294 of the ELH. She has 14 Racial hit dice and 5+4 class levels, all at 3/4 BAB. Without epic progression, she would have 10+3+3=16 BAB. With epic progression on her last 3 levels, she has 10+3+0+2=15 "BAB", -1 Size, +9 Str=+23 to hit, and that's what she has."

the new question : if I'm adding one class level to 23 Racial hit dice, do I gain 1 epic BAB, because I'm adding a"1st epic level", and so since I'm adding an "even level", it's the BAB that increases, or do I gain 1 epic saves, since I'm going from 23 to 24 HD, and thus gaining an "odd level" ?

Thurbane

2021-06-29, 04:31 PM

I've seriously been dragging my heels on this, but still hoping to have my entry wrapped up by the deadline.

I was contemplating two entries, but I'll be more than happy getting one in.

jdizzlean

2021-06-30, 04:03 PM

new deadline july 11

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-06-30, 06:01 PM

Sweet. I'll commit to getting my abomination done by then. (Is it just me, or did this whole month seemed to go by really fast?)

Thurbane

2021-06-30, 09:31 PM

new deadline july 11

Thanks. And sorry to keep being "that guy" :smallredface:

Sweet. I'll commit to getting my abomination done by then. (Is it just me, or did this whole month seemed to go by really fast?)

Definitely not just you.

Beni-Kujaku

2021-07-01, 04:11 PM

the new question : if I'm adding one class level to 23 Racial hit dice, do I gain 1 epic BAB, because I'm adding a"1st epic level", and so since I'm adding an "even level", it's the BAB that increases, or do I gain 1 epic saves, since I'm going from 23 to 24 HD, and thus gaining an "odd level" ?

This is your 24th HD, so you gain +1 save, no attack bonus, and a feat.

Thurbane

2021-07-01, 04:52 PM

This is your 24th HD, so you gain +1 save, no attack bonus, and a feat.

Actually, this comp has specific rules that go against the general Epic progression rules:

For all characters, please note that Racial Hit Dice do not count towards Epic Progression; use the regular progression even if the BAB ends up higher than 20.

AvatarVecna

2021-07-01, 05:08 PM

I should also be able to get my monster in by the new deadline.

JyP

2021-07-02, 12:27 PM

1st build submitted ! Now that it's done, let me check this kaiju template :smallbiggrin:

mattie_p

2021-07-03, 01:23 PM

One last cross-post, there's certainly a healthy group of active competitions here all modeled after the OG IC. Here's a Google doc (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG0-5sq4dL9Ooh7-QfXuyHzO4rXSz-CRcj29t6BeUVE/edit?usp=sharing) that I made, I am freely releasing it, that neatly serves as a virtual WYSIWYG editor for the bbcode tables for these sorts of competitions. Feel free to make a copy for yourself or link it as you like.

jdizzlean

2021-07-07, 04:31 AM

I'm having computer issues. I don't want to do the reveal from my phone, so builds will be posted whenever I get things sorted

loky1109

2021-07-07, 05:03 AM

I'm having computer issues. I don't want to do the reveal from my phone, so builds will be posted whenever I get things sorted
Do we have time until at least 23:59 MST Sunday July 11th?

I submited my builds.

NotInventedHere

2021-07-07, 07:08 AM

I'm having computer issues. I don't want to do the reveal from my phone, so builds will be posted whenever I get things sorted

Hey wait wait what

You said

new deadline july 11

Is that no longer the case??

loky1109

2021-07-07, 07:23 AM

Hey wait wait what
Is that no longer the case??
I can read jdizzlean's words in two different ways. There are good one and bad one. Bad one is whenever from now, good one - whenever from "after computer problem solving".

Anyway, jdizzlean, I wish your computer good health!

AvatarVecna

2021-07-07, 02:38 PM

Build is submitted, time to check out kaiju.

jdizzlean

2021-07-10, 12:23 AM

computer issues sorted. i'm dumb and listed the deadline on a workday, so i'll move it to July 14th, 0700 hours MST. give just a little extra time to anyone finishing up. Got a lot of great builds in my inbox I have likewise not had time to review, so this should be a great round!

PoeticallyPsyco

2021-07-13, 02:00 AM

How are the entries looking? I'm on the fence about whether mine is too cheesy to even bother with, but I'll put it together if we want/need more entries.

AvatarVecna

2021-07-13, 02:21 AM

How are the entries looking? I'm on the fence about whether mine is too cheesy to even bother with, but I'll put it together if we want/need more entries.

Previous post says "lot of great builds". Although honestly, I wouldn't worry about being cheesy. It's a kaiju round, most any path to being colossal all the time basically locks you into being a "big numbers" brute build. It can only get so bad without serious access to some kinda subsystem.

Personally, there's a particular cheesy build I'm hoping shows up (primarily because it wouldn't just be a big numbers brute, but rather a caster that happens to be colossal due to questionable feat interpretations). I considered doing it as my backup build but I figured somebody else already was and had put way more time into it than I could, so hopefully I get to see someone else's fun nonsense take on it.

GreatWyrmGold

2021-07-13, 08:26 PM

How are the entries looking? I'm on the fence about whether mine is too cheesy to even bother with, but I'll put it together if we want/need more entries.
I highly doubt that it's cheesier than mine.

3SecondCultist

2021-07-14, 04:08 AM

I did not get a full build in, but the idea I had was a lovely aged fondue.

I’ll post the build stub after the reveal (it was only complete at CR 20, which was part of the reason I did not bother making a full entry out of it).

AvatarVecna

2021-07-14, 12:22 PM

Excited to see the wacky builds on display.

EDIT: I think there was a miscommunication in the date/time maybe?

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:50 AM

date, no, time is relative :p

incoming builds

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:51 AM

1. Great Big Blue

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f4/c1/54/f4c154f39e8974aea799f03e861db689.jpg

Oberon shook his head to try and clear the worst of his hangover. One day, he told himself, he’d learn not to drink with the Norse pantheon anymore. Even with the constitution of one of the lords of the fey, he could barely keep up, and Thor was always playing some prank or other on him…
With a groan he realised once again, he’d been tricked by the god of thunder, as he realised that rather than the comely fey queen he expected to awake with, he found a literal whale in his bed.

--

Blue. That colour in dappled shades made up most of his early memory. There was a presence within the blue, a deeper hue, the warmth of his mother as she swam through the oceans. He swam close beneath her, comforted by her closeness. He knew there was something unusual about him, something not quite right, but he couldn’t fathom what it was. These were the happy times.

--

Blue awoke in fear. His mother was missing, that was the first thing he noticed. The blue was gone, and the soothing song of his mother was replaced by harsh, guttural sounds. Half in and half out of the water, Blue knew that something had happened to him, something caused by the small legged creatures that walked the shore nearby. They were pulling him onto the beach, their shouts and laughs ugly sounds that Blue could barely stand. He struggled, but couldn’t free himself. Searing pain lanced through him as they sliced the dorsal fin from his back. He struggled again, and his heritage woke in him. Butterfly wings sprouted from his back, and he lifted into the air, fleeing through the sky to escape his captors.

--

In the years that followed, Blue tried to find his mother, the great blue shape that was the only thing that could comfort him, but she was nowhere to be found. His small mind couldn’t comprehend the difference in their lifespans, or the passage of time. He had no way to know that she had died long ago, perhaps trying to protect him from the whalers, perhaps of old age or starvation as she trawled the seas looking for him.
Blue flew most of the time now. He missed the warmth of the blue above him, and tried to make the sky his mother. He swam close below her, wishing to be comforted by her closeness. When the loneliness grew too much he wept, and called for his mother.
Moved by his plaintive cries, Frigg, Mother Sky, took pity on Blue, and offered him her comfort. She would be the mother that he needed, and he would become one of the sky spirits that were her creatures.

--

With the comfort of the divine, Blue’s despair was soothed. While he could now accept the life he found himself in, he couldn’t forgive the whalers for separating him from his mother and for the bodily harm they visited on him. He embarks on a quest for revenge knowing only that his captors were human.
Every few years, a human city somewhere in the world is visited by Great Big Blue, the Cloud Whale. He calls to them in his stunted language, demanding that they bring him the whalers that wounded him in the past. The few citizens that do understand his words can’t fulfil his request. The whalers are long dead, centuries past, and no argument will make Blue understand that. When his demands are not met, Blue descends on the city with his air elemental companions. He calls whirlwinds and storms and physically crushes buildings until the humans are all fled and the city destroyed. His revenge still unsatisfied, he moves on to another city…

Stub: Cachelot Whale 7 Half-Fey 1 +8HD 2 Divine Crusader 10

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

7
Cachelot Whale (12HD)
+9
+8
+8
+4
Swim +8 racial, Spot +4 Racial, Listen +4 Racial
Alertness, Diehard (retrain to Quicken SLA), retrain to Wingover), Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Toughness (retrain to Weapon Focus: Bite)
Blindsight 120ft, hold breath, low-light vision.

8
Half-fey template
+9
+8
+8
+4
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 5

-
Immunity to Enchantment, Stat Boosts, d6 HD, Fey SLAs

9
+4 Fey HD (16 HD)
+11
+9
+10
+6
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 8
Knowledge Religion 1
Flyby Attack
+1 Dex

10
+4 Fey HD (Colossal) (20 HD)
+13
+10
+12
+8
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 4
Hover
Growth to Colossal, +1 Wis

11
Divine Crusader 1 (21 HD)
+13
+12
+12
+10
Listen 15, Spot 15, Swim 7, Sense Motive 9, Knowledge Religion 5
Power Attack
Aura, Air Domain

12
Divine Crusader 2
+14
+13
+12
+11
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 6
-
-

13
Divine Crusader 3
+15
+13
+13
+11
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 7
-
Electricity Resistance (5)

14
Divine Crusader 4
+16
+14
+13
+12
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 8
Improved Bull Rush
+1 Str

15
Divine Crusader 5
+16
+14
+13
+12
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 9
-
Weapon Specialization (Bite)

16
Divine Crusader 6
+17
+15
+14
+13
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 10
-
Acid Resistance (5)

17
Divine Crusader 7
+18
+15
+14
+13
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9, Knowledge Religion 11

Awesome Blow
Darkvision (60ft)

18
Divine Crusader 8
+19
+16
+14
+14
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 12
-
+1 Str

19
Divine Crusader 9
+19
+16
+15
+14
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 13
-
Resistance to Acid/Electricity 10

20
Divine Crusader 10
+20
+17
+15
+15
Listen 15
Spot 15
Swim 7
Sense Motive 9
Knowledge Religion 14
Snatch
Perfect Self

Str 10, Dex 13, Con 8, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 12
Whale Adjustments: +24 str, +2 Dex, +14 Con, -8Int, +4 Wis, -4 Cha
Str: 34 Dex: 15 Con: 22 Int: 6 Wis: 19 Cha: 8
Half-Fey adjustments: Dex+2, Con-2, Wis +2, Cha +4
Str: 34 Dex: 17 Con: 20 Int: 6 Wis: 21 Cha: 12
HD gains: +1 Dex, +1 Wis, +2 Str
Str: 46 Dex: 18 Con: 24 Int: 6 Wis: 22 Cha: 12

Colossal Fey
HP: 220 (20d6+140)
Initiative: +4
Speed: Swim 40ft, Fly 80ft (good)
Armor Class: 20 (-8 size, +4 Dex, +14 Natural), Touch 6, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +13/+46
Attack: Bite +22 (6d6+25)
Full Attack: Bite +22 (6d6+25), and tail slap +17 (2d6+8)
Space/Reach: 30ft/20ft
Special Attacks: Charm person at will, hypnotism 1/day, faerie fire or glitterdust 1/day, Detect law 3/day, sleep or enthrall 1/day, Protection from law 3/day, Tasha'a hideous laughter or suggestion 1/day, Confusion or emotion 1/day, Eyebite or lesser geas 1/day, Dominate person or hold monster 1/day, Mass invisibility 1/day, Geas/quest or mass suggestion 1/day, Insanity or mass charm 1/day, Otto's irresistible dance 1/day
Special Qualities: Blindsight 120 ft., hold breath, low-light vision, Immune to Enchantment spells and effects
Saves: Fort +17 Ref +16 Will +14
Abilities: Str: 44 Dex: 18 Con: 24 Int: 6 Wis: 22 Cha: 12
Skills: Listen +25, Spot +25, Swim +32, Sense Motive +15, Knowledge Religion +2
Feats: Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Weapon Focus (Bite), Flyby Attack, Hover, Quicken Spell Like Ability (Mass Invisibility), Wingover

Colossal Fey
HP: 280 (20d6+5d8+175)
Initiative: +4
Speed: Swim 40ft, Fly 80ft (good)
Armor Class: 20 (-8 size, +4 Dex, +14 Natural), Touch 6, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +16/+49
Attack: Bite +25 (6d6+27)
Full Attack: Bite +25 (6d6+27), and tail slap +20 (2d6+8)
Space/Reach: 30ft/20ft
Special Attacks: Charm person at will, hypnotism 1/day, faerie fire or glitterdust 1/day, Detect law 3/day, sleep or enthrall 1/day, Protection from law 3/day, Tasha'a hideous laughter or suggestion 1/day, Confusion or emotion 1/day, Eyebite or lesser geas 1/day, Dominate person or hold monster 1/day, Mass invisibility 1/day, Geas/quest or mass suggestion 1/day, Insanity or mass charm 1/day, Otto's irresistible dance 1/day, Turn Earth, Rebuke Air,
Special Qualities: Blindsight 120 ft., hold breath, low-light vision, Immune to Enchantment spells and effects, Resist Electricity 5,
Saves: Fort +21 Ref +17 Will +18
Abilities: Str: 45 Dex: 18 Con: 24 Int: 6 Wis: 22 Cha: 12
Skills: Listen +25, Spot +25, Swim +32, Sense Motive +15, Knowledge Religion +7
Feats: Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Weapon Focus (Bite), Flyby Attack, Hover, Quicken Spell Like Ability (Mass Invisibility), Wingover, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Weapon Specialization (Bite)
Air Domain Spells: Obscuring Mist 4/day, Wind Wall 3/day, Gaseous Form 3/day, Air Walk 2/day, Control Winds 1/day

Colossal Outsider (Native)
HP: 280 (20d6+5d8+175)
Initiative: +4
Speed: Swim 40ft, Fly 80ft (good)
Armor Class: 20 (-8 size, +4 Dex, +14 Natural), Touch 6, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +20/+54
Attack: Bite +30 (6d6+28)
Full Attack: Bite +30 (6d6+28), and tail slap +25 (2d6+9)
Space/Reach: 30ft/20ft
Special Attacks: Charm person at will, hypnotism 1/day, faerie fire or glitterdust 1/day, Detect law 3/day, sleep or enthrall 1/day, Protection from law 3/day, Tasha'a hideous laughter or suggestion 1/day, Confusion or emotion 1/day, Eyebite or lesser geas 1/day, Dominate person or hold monster 1/day, Mass invisibility 1/day, Geas/quest or mass suggestion 1/day, Insanity or mass charm 1/day, Otto's irresistible dance 1/day, Turn Earth, Rebuke Air,
Special Qualities: Blindsight 120 ft., hold breath, low-light vision, Immune to Enchantment spells and effects, Resist Acid + Electricity 10, Darkvision, DR10/magic
Saves: Fort +24 Ref +19 Will +21
Abilities: Str: 46 Dex: 18 Con: 24 Int: 6 Wis: 22 Cha: 12
Skills: Listen +25, Spot +25, Swim +32, Sense Motive +15, Knowledge Religion +12
Feats: Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Weapon Focus (Bite), Flyby Attack, Hover, Quicken Spell Like Ability (Mass Invisibility), Wingover, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Weapon Specialization (Bite), Awesome Blow, Snatch
Air Domain Spells: Obscuring Mist 4/day, Wind Wall 4/day, Gaseous Form 4/day, Air Walk 4/day, Control Winds 4/day, Chain Lightning 4/day, Control Weather 3/day, Whirlwind 3/day, Elemental Swarm 2/day

Complete Divine (Divine Crusader), Deities & Demigods (Frigg), Fiend Folio (Half-Fey)

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:53 AM

2. Wrath of Bittersea

The Wrath of Bittersea
https://i.imgur.com/X8a0PWn.gif
Symbiotic Advanced Baleen Whale/Darfellan Ranger (wild shape) 5/Master of Many Forms 3/Warshaper 5/Totemist 2/Swordsage 4

Akilu was born on a rock in the middle of the ocean. She was just another girl in her tribe, swimming with her extended family as they hunted fish, wove seaweed, and spoke with denizens of deeper waters and nearby islands alike. She loved chasing sharks, wrestling octopi, and digging for abalone.

But most of all, she loved the whales. So massive, yet strangely graceful. Overwhelmingly powerful, yet gentle to anyone who meant no harm. There were many kinds of smaller whales in the waters of Akilu’s home, but she found herself most drawn to the great humpbacks...among them, a singularly massive whale known as the Elder.

Nobody knew exactly how old the Elder was, only that he was old before any of the tribal elders were born. He was far larger than any other whale, not to mention wiser. His hide was covered in faint scars, a testament to the decades spent protecting his pod and lesser beasts of the sea from sahuagin hunters and feral sharks alike; the lack of fresh scars showed how long it had been since anything in the seas posed a real threat to him.
But when no danger was present, the Elder was just another whale. He watched calves when their mothers left to feed, leaped from the water to enjoy the sunlight, and gladly tolerated smaller creatures pestering him. Even darfellan children like Akilu, who loved to ride him when he breached, clinging to the barnacles growing on his skin.

Akilu was training to become a hunter, like her parents were. She learned how to find traces of great sea creatures who pass through an area, how to find her way home if she was swept away by a storm, how to invoke lesser nature spirits and their magic. Akilu proved to be exceptionally hardy, or at least stubborn, willing to hunt all day and long into the night if she wasn’t forced to rest.

One day in her adolescence, Akilu was sent to hunt sharks, as the tribe was in need of more sharkskin. She was tracking a great hammerhead, hoping to prove herself by thoroughly exceeding expectations, when she, too, smelled blood in the water. She followed the scent to a number of strangely mangled porpoise corpses—and the hammerhead chasing a lone porpoise calf.

Akilu slew and dressed the hammerhead as quickly as possible, and went to comfort the calf. It lay in the water, next to one of the mangled corpses, confused and frightened. Akilu looked over the corpse, trying to figure out what could have happened to it. No predator would have made such long, clean cuts, nor left so much meat on the carcass. The wasteful brutality of whatever had been done to these porpoises confused and frightened Akilu as well.

Suddenly, her form changed. She was no longer a darfellan, but a porpoise. After a moment, the calf turned to her for guidance; Akilu had none. She figured out how to transform back, gathered her things, and returned home with the calf in tow.

When Akilu told her story to the tribe’s elders, they had no wisdom to explain the mangled porpoises. But they could explain her shapeshifting. They explained that Akilu was a “sympathetic spirit,” one who could feel and understand another’s soul on such a fundamental level that she could not only feel what they felt, but mimic their physical form as well. There were only a handful of sympathetic spirits in the tribe, so their gifts were cultivated.

Akilu would no longer be a hunter. She would be a Peacemaker.

Akilu initially chafed at the pace of her new life. Peacemakers did not hunt; instead, they used their natural abilities to more easily commune with their neighbors, from the land-dwelling hadozee to the locaths of the depths. Akilu honed her shapeshifting abilities until she could join them, and learn of these other people and their ways.

She began to adapt to these ways, but whenever she could she swam the open seas. Her newfound powers gave her more options—fish to let her stay underwater longer, sea eagles to let her soar above the waves, octopi to let her squeeze through small spaces. But she still did what she enjoyed before, including playing with the oddly dwindling whale pods. She also met with the Elder, who was as massive and ancient now that she was near adulthood as he was when she was an infant, as willing to accept her childish impulses as he always was.

One day, when playing with the whales, she sensed the Elder’s absence and investigated. Tracking him down, she found him resting in (relatively) shallow water between two small islands. He was bleeding from several wounds, and had strange spears sticking out of him. Akilu did what she could for him, including getting one of the spears out, and hurried back to the tribe.

The Elders did not know what the spears were or who they might have come from, but they knew that anything willing and able to harm the Elder was worth investigating. So they sent Akilu with the senior Peacemakers to ask their neighbors what they might be and where they might be from.

The hadozee recognized it immediately. The spears were made of something called steel; sailors from distant lands with strange boats came by the hadozee’s island, sometimes trading steel knives and other goods for fish and fruit. They had seen those spears sometimes, on ships that reeked of lard and blood. They had no idea what the sailors used the strange spears for, but Akilu remembered the mutilated porpoises and had a dark suspicion.

The Peacemakers combed the oceans, searching for some of these sailors. Akilu was finally getting to do what she enjoyed most as part of her role as Peacemaker, but under the circumstances she could feel only dread.

The Peacemakers met with the elders at the tribe’s sacred stupa every full moon to discuss anything they had learned. While strange boats matching the hadozee’s description had been found, none were the lard-and-blood ships, and no sailors seemed to recognize the Peacemaker’s secondhand descriptions. Worst, some Peacemakers never returned.

During this time, Akilu was hastily trained in more warlike applications of her powers—how to make combine different spirits to create more powerful forms for combat, to enhance her physical form with their might, to summon the power of her soul as a shroud to prevent attackers from seeing her clearly.

Finally, after more than half a year, Akilu found a boat stinking of lard and blood. She turned into a sea eagle and circled above the vessel for a moment. Its deck was soaked with blood around a massive grate, littered with gristle and filth. A handful of squat, hairy people were on top of the boat, cleaning it with long-handled brushes.

Akilu landed on the deck and transformed again, mimicking their form, introducing herself, and asking to speak with their leader. One of the people ran into a structure on the boat; a moment later he came out and asked Akilu to follow him belowdecks. She did, and before she knew it she was stuck in a cage. The boat’s “captain” spoke with her as requested, but on his terms.

The captain asked Akilu why she was there and what she wanted, and Akilu told him. She asked what their ship was doing, and he asked who sent her. She asked again what they was doing, and he demanded to know who sent her. She relented, telling them of her tribe, but before she could ask again what they were doing he left.

The captain returned occasionally to ask questions, mostly about her tribe. Other members of his crew came by more often, bringing food and water, and some of them were more willing to answer Akilu’s questions. She learned that they were hunting whales, mostly for their blubber, which could be rendered into oil for lanterns, which was hotly demanded in their homeland and hence could be sold for a great price.

Akilu was furious that they were hunting and killing such magnificent beasts for what seemed such a petty reason. Some of the sailors were confused, others angry at her, but some apologized. They weren’t happy about hunting and butchering whales either, but they were given no choice. They could serve this captain and help him profit off whale blubber, or they could beg for work at the docks, hoping that their next captain would be better.

Weeks passed, though it was hard to keep track of time in her cage. Twice, the captain let her out of the cage (on a lead, so she couldn’t fly away) and asked her to dance and transform for the crew’s entertainment. She was so glad to not be in the cage that she looked forward to the next time she would be asked to entertain.

Finally, something changed. A great commotion erupted on deck, and Akilu assumed the crew had just found another whale. After a few minutes, a great thud resonated through the ship’s hull, then a second and third. Finally, the hull broke, knocking Akilu’s cage from where it lay and into the water. She transformed into an octopus and swam through the bars of the cage, before taking a look around.

The Elder was there, battered and bleeding, along with other humpback whales. The boat Akilu had been trapped in was one of several she could see, all of similar shape and size. There were other things in the water...smaller boats, other people. Corpses. Flashes of magic shot from ships to the water and water to the ships.

Akilu fought as hard as she was able, but was forced to retreat before too long, lurking deep below the water and wondering what was going on.

Eventually, survivors explained it to her. The captain had contacted friendly whaler captains about this tribe of shapeshifting whale-people he had discovered, ones who cared deeply about the whales and could probably be persuaded to lead them to some great pod that they could slaughter together for a great profit.

Luckily, the tribe’s elders had recognized the ships as reeking of blood and lard. They agreed to the captains’ plan, and prepared an ambush for them. The elders and the Peacemakers contacted every aquatic tribe they could and gathered all their force for this one attack.

It was a slaughter. Three of the eleven ships were sunk and dozens of sailors killed, but at the cost of nearly every adult in Akilu’s tribe and hundreds warriors and shamans from their allies. Akilu saw her captor rescued by a nearby ship, and suspected the other captains were as well. The tribes fled, the whalers remained to harvest the dead whales.

The whalers lost so little of what they cared about—only the ships, really. But the tribes had lost everything.

Akilu found the Elder the day after the slaughter. He was mourning, as she was. Both had lost so much that day, and both let their sorrow drown the righteous anger they felt at an enemy they couldn’t strike. Both felt dread when they looked to the future, knowing not what would happen when the whalers returned.

This intense cocktail of similar emotions stirred Akilu’s sympathetic spirit. Unable to grasp or mimic the sheer breadth and depth of the Elder’s soul, the two of them subconsciously formed a deeper connection, slowing from soul to body and joining the two into one being. A being with the Elder’s experience and strength, and Akilu’s magic and knowledge. A being embodying the Wrath of the Bittersea.

This being came across a sailor, clutching a piece of driftwood and futilely trying to catch passing fish. The being recognized this sailor as one who had shown Akilu mercy, who had expressed concern with the whalers’ enterprise but felt powerless to do anything about it. The being took Akilu’s form, caught one of the fish, and swam up to speak with the sailor.

The two talked as the being guided the driftwood towards a nearby island, and they continued to talk afterwards. The sailor, whose name was Ulfgar, told the being of his homeland, a distant mountainous realm. He talked of the clan chiefs who ruled it, the guild leaders who directed artisans, the merchants who controlled trade. At the being’s request, Ulfgar told them about the ship he had sailed on, its captain, and as much as he knew about the other ten ships and their captains.

The being began to formulate a plan. After making sure Ulfgar was comfortable with the hadozee tribe who agreed to take him in, they took flight towards this unknown kingdom. First, they would track down those eleven captains and take vengeance on them—as the ones who had personally ordered the slaughter of those whales, who had tried to trick Akilu’s tribe into helping them, who had imprisoned Akilu herself, they were the highest priority.

But they wanted more than personally-satisfying vengeance. They wanted to make sure nothing like this would happen again. To do that, they needed to destroy this violent society from the top down. But they couldn’t kill such prominent people one by one; they would be discovered too quickly, and the others would find ways to defend themselves.

No, they had one shot. They would need to gather all the leaders of this society into one place, and kill them all at once. Then, perhaps, the world would be free from their violence.

Akilu: Darfellan Wild Shape Ranger 5/Master of Many Forms 3/Warshaper 2 (CR 10)

The Elder: 21-HD baleen whale (CR 9)

When merged, they become a CR 11 creature.

How to advance from there is a bit ambiguous. It’s probably more rules-accurate to advance both Akilu and the Elder by 1 CR for each CR increase, but that feels vaguely cheesey, so I’m leaving that as a separate option, titled “Elder Island” for reasons which will become clear.

https://i.imgur.com/PZocBzY.png
When the Wrath is CR 20, Akilu must be CR 19 and the Elder CR 18. I’d like to just keep adding HD to the Elder—keep it simple and un-cheesy.
But there’s a problem. Baleen whales are CR 6 and have 12 HD. Advancing them to CR 18 through HD alone would require an extra 36 HD. The maximum HD they can reach is 36...including their initial 12. That would put the Elder at CR 14.

That means I need to add templates. However, there are some pretty serious restrictions on the kind of templates I can add. For starters, they have to be at least marginally on-theme; it would be surprisingly easy to load up on CR +1 templates if I just turned the Elder undead first, but having a majestic natural creature actually be a heavily augmented zombie would be wrong.
But why do they have to be CR+1 templates? Simple—I need a separate version of the Elder for each CR. I guess I could just add and remove HD—have a 27-HD Elder, then a 24-HD one with the Monster of Legend template, then a 27-HD one with MoL—but that sees needlessly confusing.

I need four CR +1 templates. And I found three:
Warbeast. Pretty straightforward, aside from the fact that Combative Mount doesn’t give much and the Str/Con bonuses are odd. Well, and the fact that the Elder is specifically a symbol of wild animals and the Warbeast template is supposed to represent training an animal, but whatever.
Mineral Warrior. Okay, turning a literal whale of flesh and blood into a whale made out of stone is a big change, but it could still easily act as a symbol for nature. And I’m kinda desperate.
Horrid Animal. Oh hey, this sounds perfect! It gives some weird abilities, but some combo really well with Akilu’s—especially if Improved Natural Healing affects her fast healing or if the Improved Natural Attack thing applies to her Totemist weapons. Wait a second, it only applies to dire animals? Once again, I wish that there was a first-party Dire template...

Alright. I might need to cast my net a bit wider (and maybe slip in some inherited templates when nobody’s looking).

Half-fey. A whale with butterfly wings is pretty obviously ridiculous, and this reduces the Elder’s RHD by a step, but permanent flight makes the Wrath easier to use and fey are nature-ey.
Shadow Creature. Thematically odd, but gives some handy abilities, and frankly I’m willing to consider anything that isn’t directly opposed to the theme at this point.

Well. That’s exactly four templates that...kind of work. Now to figure out what order to apply them in.

Mineral Warrior. This is where the Elder turns from a magic whale into a magic whale-shaped island, which really changes the build’s identity in a way that makes it easy to label. Also, it absolutely needs to come before half-fey, because it removes fly speeds.
Warbeast doesn’t change much. And maybe we can pretend that it just represents the Elder becoming used to combat or something.
Half-fey. Flight is a big deal. Just maybe leave off the butterfly wings.
Shadow Creature. Obsidian whale-island?

(Seriously though, why are there so many undead-exclusive CR +1 templates?)

So with those templates and a bunch of extra HD, the Elder turns from an ordinary (if large) humpback whale to an even larger flying magical stone whale. It’s probably best to consider this the spirit of the Elder bleeding into the earth before somehow uniting with Akilu to form the Wrath, rather than a literal rock-fey-shadow war-whale.

TL;DR: Symbiotic Mineral Warrior Half-Fey Warbeast Shadow Fully-Advanced Baleen Whale/Darfellan Ranger (wild shape) 5/Master of Many Forms 3/Warshaper 5/Totemist 2/Swordsage 4

For the main Wrath, I chose the more conservative option of just adding class levels, as though they were being taken by the Wrath as a whole and not merely Akilu. Except that they increase Akilu’s stats when detached and don’t add Hit Dice to the Wrath of Bittersea.
Anyways, the Elder Island Option also adds these class levels to Akilu, so most of the build stays the same in that regard.

CRClassBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features
1Ranger 1+1+2+2+0Handle Animal 1 rank, Jump 4 ranks, Listen 4 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 4 ranks, Survival 5 ranksAlertness, TrackBDarfellan Traits (bite attack, echolocation, hold breath, racial hatred, swim speed); Fast Movement, Favored Enemy (animals), Wild Empathy
2Ranger 2+2+3+3+0Handle Animal 5 ranks, Jump 5 ranks, Listen 5 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 5 ranks, Survival 5 ranks——3Ranger 3+3+3+3+1Handle Animal 6 ranks, Jump 6 ranks, Listen 6 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 6 ranks, Survival 6 ranksEndurance[sup]B[/sup, DiehardNew Class Abilities
4Ranger 4+4+4+4+1Handle Animal 7 ranks, Jump 7 ranks, Listen 7 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 7 ranks, Survival 7 ranks—Animal Companion, Spell
5Ranger 5+5+4+4+1Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 8 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 8 ranks, Survival 8 ranksFeatsFavored Enemy (dwarves), Wild Shape
6Master of Many Forms 1+5+6+6+1Diplomacy 1 rank, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 9 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 9 ranks, Survival 8 ranksMultiattackImproved Wild Shape (humanoid), Shifter’s Speech
7Master of Many Forms 2+6+6+6+1Diplomacy 2 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 10 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 10 ranks, Survival 8 ranks—Improved Wild Shape (giant; Large)
8Master of Many Forms 3+7+7+7+2Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 11 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 11 ranks, Survival 8 ranks—Improved Wild Shape (monstrous humanoid)
9Warshaper 1+7+9+7+2Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 12 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 11 ranks, Survival 8 ranksShape Soulmeld (Fellmist Robe)Morphic Weapons
10Warshaper 2+8+x10+7+2Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 13 ranks, Listen 8 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 11 ranks, Survival 8 ranks—Morphic Body

CR”Class”Base Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsFeatures
6Baleen Whale (12 HD)+9+8+8+4Jump 15 ranksImproved Toughness, Improved Unarmed Strike, Leap Attack, Power Attack, Stunning FistBlindsight 120 feet, Hold Breath (8×Con), low-light vision
7+3 HD (15)+11+9+9+5Jump 18 ranksSuperior Unarmed Strike—
8+3 HD (18)+13+11+11+6Jump 21 ranksOpen Greater Chakra (waist)—
9+3 HD (21)+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks
Damage ReductionColossal Size

Note: CR refers to Akilu’s CR alone. The CR of the Wrath as a whole is one higher.

CRClassBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features
11Totemist 1+8+12+9+2Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 14 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 12 ranks, Listen 9 ranks, Survival 8 ranks—Meldshaping, Wild Empathy (again)
12Swordsage 1+8+12+11+4Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 15 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 13 ranks, Listen 10 ranks, Sense Motive 1 rank, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 1 rankExtra Readied ManeuverDiscipline Focus (Weapon Focus—Tiger Claw), Maneuvers, Quick to Act +1
13Totemist 2+9+13+12+4Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 16 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 14 ranks, Listen 11 ranks, Sense Motive 1 rank, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 1 rank—Totem Chakra
14Swordsage 2+10+13+13+5Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 17 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 15 ranks, Listen 12 ranks, Sense Motive 2 ranks, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 2 ranks—AC Bonus
15Warshaper 3+10+13+14+6Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 18 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 15 ranks, Listen 12 ranks, Sense Motive 2 ranks, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 2 ranksSudden RecoveryMorphic Reach
16Warshaper 4+11+14+14+6Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 19 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 15 ranks, Listen 12 ranks, Sense Motive 2 ranks, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 2 ranks—Morphic Healing
17Warshaper 5+11+14+14+6Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 20 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 15 ranks, Listen 12 ranks, Sense Motive 2 ranks, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 2 ranks—Multimorph
18Swordsage 3+12+15+14+6Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 21 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 16 ranks, Listen 13 ranks, Sense Motive 3 ranks, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 3 ranksVital Recovery—
19Swordsage 4+13+15+15+7Diplomacy 3 ranks, Handle Animal 8 ranks, Jump 22 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 17 ranks, Listen 14 ranks, Sense Motive 4 ranks, Survival 8 ranks, Tumble 4 ranks—Discipline Focus (Insightful Strike—Tiger Claw)

CRBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features
11+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)Damage Reduction, Improved Toughness, Improved Unarmed Strike, Leap Attack, Power Attack, Open Chakra (Waist), Stunning Fist, Superior Unarmed Strike; AlertnessB, DiehardB, EnduranceB, MultiattackB, Shape Soulmeld (Fellmist Robe)B, TrackBDetach
12+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)—Meldshaping, Wild Empathy (again)
13+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)Extra Readied ManeuverDiscipline Focus (Weapon Focus—Tiger Claw), Maneuvers, Quick to Act +1
14+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)—Totem Chakra
15+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)—AC Bonus
16+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)Sudden RecoveryMorphic Reach
17+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)—Morphic Healing
18+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)—Multimorph
19+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)Vital Recovery—
20+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks as bonuses to skill (see prior table)—Discipline Focus (Insightful Strike—Tiger Claw)

“The Elder Island option” refers to a version of the Wrath of Bittersea where both Akilu and the Elder advance in CR. This is probably more RAW-accurate, but feels cheesier, so I decided to make it an “option” rather than part of the core build.

Note: CR refers to the Elder’s CR alone. The CR of the Wrath as a whole is two higher.

CRAdvancement OptionBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSkillsFeatsClass Features
10+3 RHD (total 24)+18+14+14+8Jump 27 ranksDamage Reduction—[/tr]
11Mineral Warrior Template+18+14+14+8Jump 27 ranks(Note: Damage Reduction from the feats seems to stack with damage reduction added by the template?)Darkvision, Damage Reduction 8/adamantine, Earth Strike 1/day
12+3 RHD+20+15+15+9Jump 30 ranksFast Healing—
14Warbeast (adds 1 RHD)+21+16+16+9Jump 31 ranks—Speed increase, Combative Mount
13Half-fey Template+21+16+16+9Jump 31 ranks—Fey type, flight, immunity to enchantment, low-light vision, spell-like abilities
15+3 RHD (total 30+1)+23+17+17+10Jump 34 ranksGreat Strength—
16+3 RHD (total 33+1)+25+19+19+11Jump 37 ranksGreat Constitution—
17Shadow Template+25+19+19+11Jump 37 ranks—Cold resistance 15, darkvision 60 feet & low-light vision (again), shadow blend, speed increase; several special abilities (see below)
18+3 RHD (total 36+1)+27+20+20+12Jump 40 ranksGreat Constitution—
Select Shadow template abilities:
If each ability can be taken only once: +2 luck bonus on all saving throws; damage reduction 5/magic; evasion; fast healing 2; cast cause fear, mirror image, and plane shift 1/day each as spell-like abilities (caster level 5th, except for plane shift, which is 15th.
If certain abilities can be taken multiple times, and stack: +2 luck bonus on all saving throws, evasion, Fast Healing 4, cast mirror image 3/day as a spell-like ability (caster level 5th), cast plane shift 2/day as a spell-like ability (caster level 15th, to or from Plane of Shadows only).

11Symbiotic Template+15+12+12+7Jump 24 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusDamage Reduction, Improved Toughness, Improved Unarmed Strike, Leap Attack, Power Attack, Open Chakra (Waist), Stunning Fist, Superior Unarmed Strike; AlertnessB, DiehardB, EnduranceB, MultiattackB, Shape Soulmeld (Fellmist Robe)B, TrackBDetach; all special attacks & qualities of Akilu and the Elder[/tr]
12+3 RHD/Totemist+18+14+14+8Jump 27 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonus—Meldshaping, Wild Empathy
13Mineral Warrior/Swordsage+18+14+14+8Jump 27 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusExtra Readied ManeuverBDamage Reduction 8/adamantine, Discipline Focus (Weapon Focus—Tiger Claw), Earth subtype, Quick to Act +1, Maneuvers
14+3 RHD/Totemist+20+15+15+9Jump 30 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusFast HealingTotem Chakra
15Half-Fey/Swordsage+20+15+15+9Jump 30 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusJump 30 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonus—AC bonus, fey type, flight, immunity to enchantment, low-light vision, spell-like abilities

16Warbeast/Warshaper+21+16+16+9Jump 31 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusSudden RecoveryBCombative Mount, Morphic Reach
17+3 RHD/Warshaper+23+17+17+10Jump 34 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusGreat StrengthMorphic Healing
18+3 RHD/Warshaper+25+19+19+11Jump 37 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusGreat ConstitutionMultimorph

19
Shadow/Swordsage+25+19+19+11
Jump 37 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonus
Vital RecoveryB
Cold resistance 15, darkvision 60 feet & low-light vision (again), shadow blend, speed increase; several special abilities (see prior table)
20+3 RHD/Swordsage+27+20+20+12Jump 40 ranks; Akilu’s skill ranks added as skill bonusGreat ConstitutionDiscipline Focus (Insightful Strike—Tiger Claw)

(CR is total CR, not Akilu’s individual CR)

Beginning at CR 4, Akilu (or the Wrath) has a single first-level spell slot at caster level 2. This isn’t very useful at higher levels, but there are a couple of potentially relevant buffs. Jump and Primal Hunter both boost Jump checks, which is handy for Sudden Leap. When combat isn’t expected, she may prepare other useful spells.

Her Incarnum use is a bit more complicated.
At CR 9, Akilu gains the Shape Soulmeld (Fellmist Robe) feat and shapes the Fellmist Robe soulmeld.
At CR 11, Akilu and the Elder become the Wrath; Akilu can access the Elder’s Open Greater Chakra feat. However, it is not useful yet.
At CR 12, Akilu gains the ability to shape two more soulmelds (in addition to the Fellmist Robe) and a single point of Essentia. Most of the time, these will be the Winter Mask and Manticore Belt. The Belt will be bound to their waist chakra. The point of essentia is invested in the Manticore Belt meld.
At CR 14, Akilu gains another point of essentia, can shape another soulmeld, and can bind a soulmeld to her totem chakra. She will generally shape Girallon Arms and bind it to her totem chakra, in addition to all previous soulmelds. The second point of essentia is invested in the Manticore Belt meld, unless the Elder Island Option is used. In that case, the Manticore Belt meld will be replaced with the Wormtail Belt meld and the Essentia invested in Winter Mask instead.

Finally, we have maneuvers.
At CR 13, Akilu (and through her the Wrath) learns: Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Distracting Ember, Leaping Dragon, Moment of Perfect Mind, Sudden Leap, and Zephyr Dance.
Leaping Dragon, being their only stance, is their preferred stance. They usually ready Cloak of Deception, Counter Charge, Moment of Perfect Mind, Sudden Leap, and Zephyr Dance.
At CR 15, they learn: Comet Throw, Leaping Dragon. They generally start fights in Leaping Dragon, and change to Pearl of Black Doubt once engaged in melee. (They may change back to Leaping Dragon if necessary to escape.) Comet Throw replaces Counter Charge.
At CR 19, they learn Leaping Flame. Leaping Flame is readied alongside the other four.
At CR 20, they learn Desert Tempest. Desert Tempest replaces Zephyr Dance.

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:54 AM

Wrath continued

At CR 6, Akilu and the Elder are separate...and not all that interesting, to be honest.

Akilu has just gained the ability to shapeshift into other humanoids, and is learning the art of diplomacy. She’s still ready to fight if someone threatens her or her tribe, though. She’s quite fond of her shapeshifting powers, and is as likely to turn into a leopard as charge with her spear (depending on the exact situation).

The Elder is literally just a whale with better feats. He doesn’t even have any extra HD yet. The only differences are in feat choice. The big changes are Improved Unarmed Strike, Leap Attack, and Stunning Fist.
IUS gives the Elder an extra attack, letting him ram enemies with his...snout? Stunning Fluke lets him add a stun effect to these attacks, which I’m sure will surprise people who try to hunt him. And Leap Attack is just pretty good for charging.

This is the first level where Akilu and the Elder are the true Wrath of Bittersea—ie, when the Symbiotic template is applied.

It’s worth noting that the Wrath still has Akilu’s wild shape abilities—including the ability to wild shape into ordinary humanoids. If they want, the Wrath can transform into a form which is basically just Akilu, hiding away the whale. (I wonder what D&D’s designers would think of this.)

This fact should be exploited in the campaign around the Wrath, but it can come up in the actual boss battle. Their hundreds of hit points, wild shape healing, and bizarre True Form make for a perfect multi-stage boss battle.
The players encounter the Wrath in Akilu’s humanoid guise, but they will quickly transform into something else. Good choices include giant octopus, jungle giant, war troll, and zern. Whatever she chooses, she will add additional natural weapons via her Morphic Weapons feature, and also use unarmed strikes (thanks to the Elder’s Improved and Superior Unarmed Strike feats).
At some point, the Wrath will reveal their true form, using the Elder’s size and power to great effect. (At this level, the Wrath cannot actually fly. If they are encountered at this level, nautical combat is ideal.) Don’t forget Akilu’s bite attack—its reach is only 5 feet (10 feet starting at CR 16) and its damage is significantly lower than the Wrath’s other natural attacks (especially since it uses Akilu’s unimpressive Strength), but an attack is an attack.
When the Wrath is low on hit points, the Elder will forcibly expel Akilu to save her life. (In game terms, the Wrath will use the symbiotic template’s Detach feature.) While she will continue to fight, Akilu is relatively weak compared to earlier stages—this is mostly a victory lap. Akilu will attempt to escape if victory seems impossible, turning into a bird or fish, but the PCs should be able to catch her.

At this level, the Wrath is pretty straightforward. Their only unusual tricks (aside from Morphic Weapons) are Stunning Fluke and the Fellmist Robe soulmeld, which discourages ranged attacks. (Which is good, because the Wrath is built for melee.)

With access to martial maneuvers and stances, her totem chakra opened, and (if the Elder Island option is used) true-form flight, the Wrath of Bittersea’s core features are all in place.

The same rough outline of “stages” used at CR 11 works here, but with a few additions.

First, more soulmelds; Girallon Arms grants four claw attacks, Winter Mask adds nonlethal cold damage and (with a save) fatigue on every natural attack, and Manticore Belt grants wings (or Wormtail Belt grant a natural armor buff and Awesome Blow, though the latter isn’t much use since by RAW it can’t be done in a full attack or maneuver). And they still have the Fellmist Robe.

Then, maneuvers. As noted elsewhere, at this level the Wrath knows the Leaping Dragon and Pearl of Black Doubt stances. They will generally start combat in Leaping Dragon to help them close the distance to their enemies; once there, they will switch to Pearl of Black Doubt for defense. (This takes a swift action.)
They can ready five maneuvers, generally Cloak of Deception, Comet Throw, Moment of Perfect Mind, Sudden Leap, and Zephyr Dance. Sudden Leap lets the Wrath move as a swift action and then full attack (good for getting into combat quickly), Zephyr Dance evades an attack, Moment of Clarity boosts a Will save against some save-or-lose effect, and Cloak of Deception lets them turn invisible for a full flat-footed attack on some pesky rogue or something. Comet Throw is there so the Wrath has something interesting to do if they can’t make a full attack; “something interesting to do” is, after all, important for a boss monster.

Non-aquatic mobility in the Wrath’s true form is somewhat improved. The default has the Manticore Belt bound to the Elder’s waist chakra, giving a fly speed of 20 feet (clumsy) (increased to 30 feet by Akilu’s Fast Movement ability).

The Elder Island Option gives several additional options, since it adds two templates to the Elder (along with several hit dice). While the damage reduction provided by Mineral Warrior (which stacks with the Damage Reduction feat) is meaningful, and Earth Strike a potent buff to one attack, the half-fey’s wide array of spell-like abilities is probably going to affect play more. While the Wrath is primarily a melee attacker, it might be worth considering the use of something like insanity or dominate person in the first round if a full attack or Sudden Leap isn’t an option. The half-fey template also provides a fly speed of between (40*2)+10+10 feet and (40+10+10)*2, (good), letting the Wrath move around in their true form without any real difficulty.

At CR 20, the base Wrath of Bittersea gains little that its CR 15 counterpart lacked. They get a bit of fast healing, can change shape multiple times without expending wild shape uses (though since this doesn’t heal and Fast Wild Shape doesn’t apply, this isn’t useful in combat), reach increases slightly, and some maneuver-related stuff changes.

The suggested maneuvers to ready are Cloak of Deception, Comet Throw, Desert Tempest, Leaping Flame, Moment of Perfect Mind, and Sudden Leap. Desert Tempest and Sudden Leap are different ways of covering ground (or water) and attacking multiple times in the same turn; Leaping Flame is also useful for covering ground, though not on the Wrath’s turn. If a squishy wizard or rogue tries to hit the Wrath with a ray or arrow, they may promptly find themselves in melee.
In addition, the Sudden Recovery (and Vital Recovery) feats let one of these maneuvers be reused. This takes a swift action, but heals a couple dozen hit points.

If the Elder Island Option is taken, the numbers change. Nine more hit dice, significant boosts to Strength and Constitution, and the shadow template.

First off, the template increases speed by half, to somewhere between 140 and 180 feet, depending on order of operations on the templates and class abilities; the Wrath can effortlessly keep pace with a charging horse, and its top speed is somewhere between 60 and 80 miles per hour. It’s technically extraplanar now, which is weird, but everything about how I’ve applied these templates is weird. Shadow Blend is fun—the flying obsidian whale can now blend into the night sky, becoming all but invisible.

And then there’s the shadow template’s buffet-option abilities. The rules say to add one ability per four Hit Dice. Seven abilities are listed. The Elder has 37 HD.
If the abilities don’t stack, simply take each once. Some are meaningless (DR 5/magic means nothing at 20th level and is surpassed by the Mineral Warrior DR anyways), some are handy (evasion, mirror image), but none change much.
If the abilities can stack, then take:
+2 luck bonus on all saving throws
Evasion
Fast Healing 4 (2*2)
Mirror image 3/day
Plane shift 2/day (to or from Plane of Shadows only)
A +18 bonus to all saving throws might be better (or maybe +16 and evasion), but I’m trying not to construct this build out of pure cheese.

[/spoiler]

There are two ways to use the Wrath of Bittersea. The first is as a monster of the week—a well-worn role for kaiju to fill, after all. A bunch of dwarven nobles and patricians are attending a seaside event hosted by a mysterious patron, perhaps a boating race or a dinner cruise. They hire the PCs as covert security guards, just in case some foreign enemy decides to target the event.
(Or perhaps it’s a big fighting tournament that the PCs are invited to, though hosting an event that will draw strong people from around the globe is a very Villain Ball (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainBall) strategy.)

Either way, all of a sudden, the host transforms into a giant monster! If the PCs care about what’s going on, they can ask the piebald-skinned lady that pops out of the whale’s snout(?) after they defeat the big monster. If not, they can just kill her and ask the guests if they have any idea what the eff just happened—maybe someone recognizes the giant whale from a story one of their whaling captains told.
In this case, you should probably use a version of the Wrath a few levels above the player characters. A solo boss monster gets hit hard by the action economy, especially if it’s the only fight the PCs expect all day.

The other is to...actually build a campaign around the abuses of dwarven whalers and the system that produced them (and ideally other crimes, if only to buy time between Wrath-relevant adventures), hinting at the existence of some kind of shapeshifting force of vengeance from that distant realm all the while. Ideally, by the end of the campaign the players will feel like the Wrath has a point but is doing some tangentially-related evil stuff and so has to be stopped; I call this the MCU Method for writing complex villains.

A good place to start would probably be at the stage when the Wrath is revenge-killing the whaling captains. There are reports of the first several all turning up mauled to death by beasts in the middle of town—often in their own bedrooms!—so one of the last targets hires the PCs to protect him. When the PCs ask why the captain thinks he might be next, he tells them that the other mauled captains were all part of this big whaling expedition, and talks about their big plan—convince some local sea people to lead them to a big pod of whales—and how it went wrong.
The Wrath wild shapes into a fairly small animal to sneak into their target’s home before transforming into a larger animal to finish the deed. The Wrath should be a bit stronger than the PCs can directly handle at this point and not looking for a fight; it will only attack the PCs insofar as they prevent her from killing her target, and might wild shape into something with more reach if the PCs are just in the way. Once the captain has been killed, she’ll open or break down a window, transform into a bird, and fly away.
At this point, the adventure changes gears abruptly as the PCs need to prove their innocence in court. Hopefully the incident is memorable enough that the PCs remember that story about deceitful, murderous whalers. (And hopefully that story means they’re not too sore about not being able to save the captain.)

Ideally this should be followed up with other adventures where the PCs are hired by the region’s upper crust to protect themselves from the consequences of their own actions, for some consistent theming. Meanwhile, after eleven sensationally mysterious deaths and one high-profile acquittal, the Wrath is laying the groundwork for the big event.
They can’t just pop in one day, announce a big event, and invite all the most important dwarves in the realm. That would be extremely suspicious! They need to become famous enough that something like that seems reasonable.
So they create an alias—Ukali the orcish entertainer, perhaps—and prepare something or other. Perhaps they steal some noble’s heirloom and arrange a hunt that happens to find it. Perhaps they scrounge sunken treasure to fund a fighting tournament. Perhaps they sink a whaling ship and arrange a rescue mission to save the stranded sailors. In any case, they contact the PCs, perhaps to gauge the true intent of those guards they briefly fought.
There should be some hint that not all is as it seems. Perhaps Ukali has a suspiciously good suggestion on where to start looking for the heirloom (though it probably got stolen by trackable goblins or something in the meantime). Perhaps she’s watching the fighters at the tournament with a bit too much interest, asking them some odd questions about whalers or the upper class. Perhaps she “accidentally” throws the officers back to the sharks, because of course the PCs need to rescue the stranded sailors from sharks.

After a few adventures like that (interspersed with some kind of B-plot), add a reminder that whaling is a thing with some kind of high-seas adventure on a whaling vessel. The details don’t matter; it doesn’t even matter if they’re hired by the whalers or if the whaling ship is just taking them to their destination on their way to whaling grounds. It’s just something to remind them that whaling is a thing, and maybe remind them about that shapeshifter who was killing whalers a while back.
And then you have a final battle, much like the Monster-of-the-Week one.

Regardless of how much build-up there is to the actual attack, it ideally should be on some kind of extremely-sinkable boat. Either the event is inherently nautical, like the dinner cruise, or the event is followed up by a celebration on a boat. With as many natural attacks as the Wrath has, they should be able to knock a hole in the bottom of the boat in a single round of combat (see Stormwrack—most ship sections have 50 hp and 5 hardness). That will give PCs a moment to prepare and a bit of time pressure.

The Elder Island Option does reduce the need for the final combat to be next to or in water, since it gives the Wrath more maneuverability out of water; however, the boat provides other benefits for the encounter. It strands the targets away from easy (NPC) rescue, limits PC movement without limiting the villain in the same way, and helps the Wrath of Bittersea stand out as a marine monster in a way that they wouldn’t if they were encountered in an arena or something.

A contest rules issue: Is the Wrath of Bittersea, a being taking revenge on whalers for despoiling the oceans, truly a villain? Well, is Godzilla a villain? In its original incarnation, Godzilla was essentially written as Gaia’s vengeance for the not-quite-Charlie-Bravo-test; same themes of taking vengeance on mankind for damage to the environment, just on a greater scale and without an explicit sapience.

We’re pretending the designers remembered to add “or no armor” to the Swordsage’s AC bonus, right?

With regards to Initiator Level: While the Wrath’s initiator level is equal to half of their racial hit dice, I had Akilu learn maneuvers as though she was limited to her personal initiator level. (I’m not familiar enough with the ToB to know whether initiator level has a significant effect on anything except maneuvers known, but I wanted to point it out.)

Akilu took Multiattack at CR 6, even though her base form has no natural weapons. I took it on the assumption that she could qualify by wild shaping into a sea eagle or wildcat or something.

There may be some rules issues I missed or some tables reading the wrong thing or something. For instance, in the Elder Island Option I switched half-fey and warbeast at basically the last second (because fey can’t become warbeasts)—I’d be surprised if I corrected everywhere that affected something.

This isn’t really a rules issue with the build, but does Dancing Mongoose work with natural attacks? If so, I definitely should have taken it.

Why does 3.5 have no playable octopus-people? No cecaelia or whatever? I guess a whale-person merging with a whale makes more thematic sense than an octopus-person with a whale, but..okay, maybe I just like octopodes.

The Symbiotic template is one ripe for abuse, but I decided to try and deliberately avoid potential shenanigans. The host is as simple as possible, the guest...a bit less so but still just a person with class levels, and I gave both the same Elite Array distribution. Also a few other things, like not assuming the Elder Island option as default.
(For an Extra Cheese variant, increase the Elder’s Dexterity and Constitution by 2, Akilu’s Charisma by 2, and her Intelligence by 4. This will reduce the Elder’s mental abilities and Akilu’s physical, but those don’t matter to the complete symbiotic creature.)
I probably should have had the default option add further class levels’ Hit Dice to the Elder’s RHD, but I didn’t think of it until after making tables without them and I am not making another freaking table. Call it another accidental anti-cheese decision.

You might wonder why I chose the wild shape ranger option instead of a druid. The reason is simple: I just don’t like doing caster builds for these contests. I’d rather have a couple extra points of BaB than the hassle of figuring out which spells would be best for the build.

Argh, I thought combining Fellmist Robe and Pearl of Black Doubt to make ranged attacks really undesirable was a brilliant idea, then I saw PoBD only works on melee attacks anyways. Grr.

I’m pretty proud of the animation I made for this entry. I tried to get the Winter Mask and Fellmist Robe in there, but at best it was too busy and at worst it looked dumb. Morphic Weapons are a similar story, except the problem is more one of space or composition—adding tentacles of any significant size would require having a big chunk of the picture be just tentacle.

I realize I’ve been subtle about this, but I really, REALLY hate tables.

Complete Divine: Master of Many Forms
Complete Warrior: Warshaper, Improved Toughness
Epic Level Handbook: Damage Reduction (feat)
Magic of Incarnum: Totemist, Open Greater Chakra, Shape Soulmeld, all soulmelds
Savage Species: Symbiotic template
Stormwrack: Darfellan
Tome of Battle: Swordsage, Extra Readied Maneuver, Sudden Recovery, Superior Unarmed Strike, Vital Recovery, all stances and maneuvers
Unearthed Arcana: Wild shape ranger variant
Elder Island Option only:
Epic Level Handbook: Fast Healing, Great Constitution, Great Strength (feats)
Fiend Folio: Half-fey template
Manual of the Planes: Shadow template
Monster Manual 2: Warbeast template
Underdark: Mineral Warrior template

The following elite array distribution was used for both Akilu and the Elder: Strength 15, Dexterity 10, Constitution 13, Intelligence 8, Wisdom 14, Charisma 12.

Akilu solo attributes:
CR 1-3: Str 17, Dex 8, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 12
CR 4-7: Str 17, Dex 8, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 15, Cha 12
CR 8-9: Str 17, Dex 8, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 12
CR 10-11: Str 17+4, Dex 8, Con 13+4, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 12-15: Str 17+4, Dex 8, Con 13+4, Int 8, Wis 17, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 16-19: Str 17+4, Dex 8, Con 13+4, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)

The Elder solo attributes:
CR 6-7: Str 39, Dex 15, Con 24, Int 2, Wis 16, Cha 8
CR 8: Str 39, Dex 15, Con 25, Int 2, Wis 16, Cha 8
CR 9: Str 47, Dex 15, Con 30, Int 2, Wis 16, Cha 8
Further entries only apply to the Elder Island Option
CR 10: Str 48, Dex 15, Con 30, Int 2, Wis 16, Cha 8
CR 11-12: Str 50, Dex 15, Con 34, Int 1, Wis 14, Cha 6
CR 13: Str 53, Dex 15, Con 38, Int 1, Wis 16, Cha 6
CR 14: Str 53, Dex 17, Con 36, Int 1, Wis 18, Cha 10
CR 15: Str 54, Dex 17, Con 36, Int 1, Wis 18, Cha 10
CR 16-17: Str 54, Dex 17, Con 38, Int 1, Wis 18, Cha 10
CR 18: Str 54, Dex 17, Con 40, Int 1, Wis 18, Cha 10

The Wrath joint attributes:
CR 11-12: Str 47+4, Dex 15, Con 30+4, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 13-15: Str 47+4, Dex 15, Con 30+4, Int 8, Wis 17, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 17-20: Str 47+4, Dex 15, Con 30+4, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)

The Wrath joint attributes, Elder Island Option:
CR 11: Str 47+4, Dex 15, Con 30+4, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 12: Str 48+4, Dex 15, Con 30+4, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 13-14: Str 50+4, Dex 15, Con 34+4, Int 8, Wis 17, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 15: Str 53+4, Dex 15, Con 38+4, Int 8, Wis 17, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 16: Str 53+4, Dex 17, Con 36+4, Int 8, Wis 17, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 17: Str 54+4, Dex 17, Con 36+4, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 18-19: Str 54+4, Dex 17, Con 38+4, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)
CR 20: Str 54+4, Dex 17, Con 40+4, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 12 (Morphic Body)

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:55 AM

3. Tarrasque-er

Well, with the theme being Gojira and company, I feel that if I'm not making one of the Iconic D&D monster, then I'd be failing at giving proper homage to the genre.

ANYWAY! Here's our origin story :

Tarrasque-er was having a bad time, yet another wizard was parading about up there in the air with a (pick your favourite wish-granting creature) cohort and a bunch of commoner followers, up there they were snickering and doing a scry-conference with some other wizardly dude about "how many commoners are needed to kill a tarrasque" or some such banter.

Luckily for our protagonist, who was down there on the ground fainted at this point of time, during the scry bantering the wizard had a brainfart moment and said "I wish tarrasque wasn't such a pushover". In true malicious compliance venture, his wish came true. It was also the last wish of that (pick your favourite wish-granting creature) cohort, so when he later said "I wish the tarrasque be dead" and left, well, the tarrasque was down there.. merely fainted, but wish empowered!

Size/Type:
Colossal Magical Beast

Hit Dice:
48d10 + 816 (1084)

Initiative:
+7

Speed:
20 ft. , Swim 40ft.

Armor Class:
39 (-8 size + 7 Dex, +30 Natural), Touch 9, Flat-footed 32

Base Attack/Grapple:
+48/+84

Attack:
Bite +60 melee (4d8+20/15-20/×3)

Full Attack:
Bite +60 melee (4d8+20/15-20/×3) and 2 horns +55 melee (1d10+10) and 2 claws +55 melee (1d12+10) and tail slap +55 melee (3d8+10)

Space/Reach
30 ft./20 ft.

Special Attacks:
Augmented critical, frightful presence, improved grab, rush, swallow whole

Special Qualities:
Carapace, damage reduction 15/epic, immunity to fire, poison, disease, energy drain, and ability damage, regeneration 40, scent, spell resistance 32

Saves:
Fort +43, Ref +33, Will +20

Abilities:
Str 51 (12 +34 racial +5 inherent), Dex 24 (13 +6 racial +5 inherent), Con 44 (15 +24 racial +5 inherent), Int 11 (14(6) +5 inherent), Wis 19 (10 +4 racial +5 inherent), Cha 17 (8 +4 racial +5 inherent)

Skills (ranks):
Knowledge(The planes) 8(16) Listen 28 (16), Speak Language(common) (2) , Spot 32 (16), Swim 29(1)

Feats:
Water Heritage, Rapid Swimming, Planar Touchstone(The Heart of the Sea), Travel Devotion, Martial Study(Foehammer), Martial Study(Divine Surge), Martial Study(Divine Surge, Greater), Martial Stance(Aura of Chaos), Sudden Recovery, Improved Critical(Bite), Shape Soulmeld(Spellward Shirt), Open Heart Chakra, Shape Soulmeld(Blink shirt), Double Chakra(heart), Shape Soulmeld(Planar Chasuble), Open Soul Chakra, Shape Soulmeld(Keeneye Lenses)

Challenge Rating:
20

The idea is this, Tarrasque pre wish was a completely average tarrasque. the malicious "wish" is just an origin story to give us an excuse to use the elite array and take better feats, pretend he got a free psychic reformation or something like that, I guess?

I gave the 14 of the elite array to intelligence because I wanted for it to make sense that "smarter" feat choices will be taken

Water, oh water! why water? well, since Tarrasque-er is CR20, we only have the feats and possibly WBL to play around for the competition. One of the weakness of the tarrasque is flying, but giving him meaningful flight against an apprioriate level party is.. challenging, so I went for water because an aquatic enviroment is a good counter to flight, plus it covers the elemental theme of this round, so yay :).

That done, I wanted to cover weaknesses and maybe give some oomphy attack option.

I gravitated toward manouvers and soulmelds because they are some of the few things that can scale by HD, soulmelder level for the shape soulmeld feat is put at HD/2, same for initiator. Plus the competition specifically calls out the open heart chakra and open soul chakra as being allowed, and I felt like playing around with that.

So, why did I pick what I picked?

Travel devotion doesn't need much talking about, the usage is obvious, zip about. Our damaging gimmick is frontloaded on one attack, but the versatility of free movement is just too great to not consider, especially when comboed with our Rush(ex), if we must run away, we can do so with style with a round of 190 swim speed. so run plus devotion we yeet 950 ft in one round if we feel we must get the hell away :), or just double 190 to 380 if we're not allowed to "run" while swimming

Greater divine surge works great for us since we're immune to ability damage, it basically reads "do one attack, it's at +24 attack and deals 54d8 extra damage". and since' we're qualifying for it, given the amount of dices we roll for our gimmick, Aura of chaos makes a good amount of sense. Should be another 6d8 or so extra dices on the greater divine surge alone

Soulmelds, oh soulmelds! I admit I just wanted to play around with heart and soul binds, so why did I pick what I did?

Heart chakra, double bound, spellward shirt gives us immunity to 4 spells of our choice of 6th level or lower, and we can change them around every day to boot, this is great! I'm mostly leaning toward immuning us to divination effects, but even if we pick something not devoted to countering scry'n'die , we can cherry pick those disable spells we're most worried about. From a narrative point of view it make sense that we change to a spell that recently "almost ruined us" after a narrow victory/escape from an encounter with a PC party. Blink shirt gives us at will blink, for a juicy 50% miss chance that isn't negated by true sight! I feel it's a solid thing to have, and for extra fancyness/sinergy we might decide to choose four common force spells to be immune to?

Soul chakra, well our meldshaper level is 24, so we can make a gate as a CL equivalent of 24, so we can gate in a pit fiend once per week, for wish, of course. I'm not going to do particular shenanigans with this, but baseline +5 inherent to all abilities isn't much to ask about, is it? And possibly getting an adeguate suit of equipment appropriately sized for us.
I'm not going to list out the WBL, or do "broken" wish shenanigans, but for 2 feats,1/week wish is well worth it, even if it's just to give Tarrasque-er "learning experience" and a possible "curve" of her getting smarter/better over time in spite of being a static CR 20

Since we've opened it for the wish gate, we might as well take one other meld that can be bound to the soul, it's not like we need to keep the bind the chasuble more than once a week.

In the end I picked the Lenses because permanent true sight sounds like a solid pick for a feat, especially if we don't WBL our way to permanent ture seeing :)

Well, that's about it, I had fun tinkering in trying to make a different tarrasque (in all honestly I'm leaning hard on "it's the tarrasque" for the memorability component :D, surely you've heard of the Tarrasque!?) , but there isn't much design space to play with unless I started playing around with CR-decreasing templates or make some argument about willingly accept negative levels to lower our CR to then take class levels, but I didn't want to go down that inelegant way. Of course it'd be fairly stronger if we lost 1 RHD and gained one level of crusader, boom freed up 4 feats to do *other stuff*, but bleeeeh I want to stay simple. I'm just having fun imagining the intro wizard coming about looking for a new tarrasque to bully around in some new interesting way, when boom he get contigency-ported back to his demiplane because he got charged out of nowhere for 300ish damage

Can't really do a "showcase" at different CR, since we never stray below CR20, and there isn't really much to say on tactics either, since we only have *build decisions*. We can change around what four spells we feel like being immune to, but that's about it about the day to day.

Combat tactics is no more no less than pick a target, charge it, hope they die to greater divine surge, and if they don't, greater divine surge them again? We're still just a magical beast don't expect particularly fancy shtick from us!

From a story point of view, it makes sense to me that the four spells we will be immunte to are those that we almost died to, and that's best tailored to "recurring heroes". It's especially funny to me to think about if the wizard "hero" did metamagic reducer shenanigans with arcane thesis and so on, if we immune that thesised spell, it just puts a big smile on my face

I did not get "immune to nonlethal damage" from something on purpose, it's a low hanging fruit and being "immune to all damage" like that does nto make for a fun story, but I'm mentioning it because it would be something obvious to pick if we wanted to optimize more toward "invicibility"

Water Heritage: gain/improve swim speed by 20 ft. +4 on fort saves for holding breath
Rapid swimming: +20 to swim speed
Planar touchstone(The heart of the sea): can reroll fort saves for drowning, 1/day water breathing CL20 (5 uses/recharge)
Travel Devotion: 1/day 1minute of swift action to move up to speed
martial study: learn selected manouver and add class skill
Martial stance: learn selected stance
Foehammer: 1/encounter standard action attack deals 2d6 extra damage and bypasses DR
Divine Surge: 1/encounter standard action attack deals 8d8 extra damage
Greater Divine Surge: 1/encounter standard action attack deals extra 6d8 damage with optional take 1CON damage up to initiator level in exchange of +1 to attack and +2d8 to damage per IL, flat-footed until next turn
Aura of chaos: whenever a melee damage die rolls the max, reroll it and add
Sudden Recovery: 1/day swift action regain use of expended manouver
Shape soulmeld: learn selected soulmeld
Open chakra: can bind soulmelds/item to selected chakra
Double chakra: can have two soulmelds shaped and bound to selected chakra
Spellward shirt: Spell resistance 5, bound to heart : immunity to four 6th level or lower spells
Blink shirt: standard action teleport 10 ft., bound to heart : at will Blink as the spell, standard action
Planar Chasuble: gain some elemental resistence, bound to soul : 1/week gate
Keeneye lenses: +4 insight to spot checks, bound to soul : permanent true seeing

Shape soulmeld and martial study says that meldshaper level / initiator level is character level/2, someone might argue that since we have no class level, then our meldshaper/initiator level is 0. I take the reading that we add our racial hit dice to our character levle even if we don't have any class level, so we are a 24th level meldshaper and a 24th level initiator.
For soulmelds, the argument is strong, since it specifically says "A creature with no classes has a meldshaper level equal to its Hit Dice unless otherwise specified.", but the feat says "half the character level", so there is this bit of uncertainty

Unlike other soulmelds, Planar chasuble does not specify that the caster level of the gate is equal to our meldshaper level, I am extrapolating that we're using it at a CL/meldshaper level.

I've taken an alignment of Chaotic evil to be able to use Aura of chaos, and to be able to gate pit fiends for the wish, this goes all out of hte window if the "always neutral" alignment on the Tarrasque statbloc is taken literally

There might be some dispute on improved critical. Some might feel it doesn't stack with our (ex) Augmented critical. It is not central to our tactics anyway, it was more of a fun pick
Planar Handbook : Water Heritage, Planar touchstone
Stormwrack: Rapid swimming
Complete Champion: Travel Devotion
Tome of Battle: Initiator stuff
Magic of Incarnum: Meldshaper stuff

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:55 AM

4. The Wind that Wends

Hello!

I wanted to make a creature that "grows up", I want to start at a low CR and have "a life".

Luckily for me, I had took note of a creature that tickled my fancy for the Negative Nancy round, but I wasn't in time to submit something for it, so I didn't even have a stub prepared.

It's just serenpidity really, that that same creature fits my requirements of "from small to big" for this kaiju round!

Mini story : Vasuthants are eagerly hunted in the world of (sphere name), because they are very dangerous creatures if they are allowed to grow.

Our villain had the luck of favorable circumstances, between a rare talent for expansion and uncommonly fast flight, that allowed him to *survive* long enough to actually get big!

it's distinctive that unlike normal Vasuthants, it's whiteish/windy in color and makes much more use of his perfect flight, unlike his cousins that for some reason stick to the ground

Battle dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1 / Hexblade 2 / Paladin of slaughter 2 / Wilder 2
CE Vasuthant
Racial skill bonuses : Hide 4, Listen 2, Spot 2

CR 2
CR 5
CR 10 (Sweet spot)
CR 15
CR 20

Size/Type:
Small Undead
Large Undead
Gargantuan Undead
Colossal Undead

Hit Dice:
2d12+8 (26)
10d12+50 (120)
30d12+240 (440)
38d12+2d6 +1d8 +369 (632)
38d12+3d6 +1d8 + 4d10 +460 (748)

Class Levels:
-
-
-
B.Dancer 1 / F.Friend 1 / Wilder 1
B.Dancer 1 / F.Friend 1 / Hexblade 2 / P. of slaughter 2 / Wilder 2

Initiative:
+5
+3
+10

Speed:
Fly 30 ft. (perfect)
Fly 60 ft. (perfect)

Armor Class:
19 (+1 size, +5 Dex, +3 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 14
21 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +5 natural, +3 profane), touch 15, flat-footed 17
26 (-4 size, +2 Dex, +12 natural, +6 profane), touch 14, flat-footed 24
40 (+4 Armor, -8 size, +2 Dex, +17 natural, +6 profane, +9 Cha), touch 19, flat-footed 38
47 (+7 Armor, +3 Insight, -8 size, +2 Dex, +17 natural, +6 profane, +10 Cha), touch 33 (+10 Deflection), flat-footed 42

Base Attack/Grapple:
+1/+2
+5/+20
+15/+46
+20/+59
+23/+62

Attack:
Slam +3 melee (1d4+1)
Slam +11 melee (1d8+10)
Slam +26 melee (3d6+22)
Slam +31 melee (4d6+28)
Slam +34 melee (4d6+28)

Full Attack:
Slam +3 melee (1d4+1) and up to 4 enervating crushes (1d4+1 plus 1d4 Str)
Slam +11 melee (1d8+10) and up to 4 enervating crushes (1d8+7 plus 1d4 Str)
Slam +26 melee (3d6+22) and up to 4 enervating crushes (3d6+15 plus 1d4 Str)
Slam +31 melee (4d6+28) and up to 4 enervating crushes (4d6+19 plus 1d4 Str)
Slam +34 melee (4d6+28) and up to 4 enervating crushes (4d6+19 plus 1d4 Str)

Space/Reach (Expansion)
5 ft./5 ft.
10 ft./10 ft.
20 ft./20 ft.
30 ft./30 ft.

Special Attacks:
Enervating crush, improved grab, reality distortion

Special Qualities:
+2 turn resistance, blindsight, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to acid and cold, immunity to light, resistance to fire 5 and electricity 5, trap light, undead traits, unholy toughness
Easy luck, extra fortune, more luck than skill, Psychic Enervation, Wild Surge +1, AC bonus, unarmed strike
Elude touch, Hexblade's curse 1/day, Arcane Resistance, Aura of evil, detect good, smite good 1/day, Divine grace, deadly touch

Saves:
Fort +0, Ref +5, Will +4
Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +8
Fort +10, Ref +12, Will +18
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +24
Fort +43, Ref +43, Will +60

Abilities:
Str 13, Dex 20 (14 +6 racial), Con - (8), Int 6 (12), Wis 12 (10 +2 racial), Cha 19 (15 +4 racial)
Str +12 size, Dex -4 size, Cha +2 ability score increases
Str +16 size, Dex -2 size, Cha +5 ability score increases
Str +8 size, Cha +3 ability score increases
Str 49 (13 +36 size), Dex 14 (14 +6 racial -6 size), Con - (8 + 18 size), Int 6 (12), Wis 12 (10 +2 racial), Cha 30 (15 +4 racial +11 ability score increases)

Skills:
Hide 13, Listen 7, Spot 7
Hide 2, Listen 16, Spot 16
Listen 36, Spot 36
Listen 44, Spot 44, Tumble 8
Concentration 14, Listen 44, Psicraft 2, Spot 44, Tumble 8

Feats:
Hidden Talent(Expansion), Improved Grapple(B)
Air Heritage, Air Devotion, Flyby Attack
Great Flyby Attack, Improved Initiative, Superior Initiative, Eyes to the sky, Lucky Start, Survivor luck, Dumb luck
Make your own luck, Better Lucky than good, Umbelievable luck, Improved unarmed strike
Practiced manifester, Force of personality

Powers:
Expansion
Inertial Armor
Precognitive(defensive)

Power Points/Day:
2
8
38

CR
what am I doing?
HD
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skill ranks
New feats gained
New features gained

2
Base creature
2
+1
+0
+0
+2
Listen +5, Spot +5
Hidden Talent(Expansion), Improved Grapple(Bonus)
Enervating crush, improved grab, reality distortion, +2 turn resistance, blindsight, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to acid and cold, immunity to light, resistance to fire 5 and electricity 5, trap light, undead traits, unholy toughness

2+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
6
+3
+2
+2
+5
Listen 5+4, Spot 5+4
Air Heritage, Air Devotion
Ability Score Increase (Charisma), Size Increase (Small>Medium)

3+2
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
10
+5
+3
+3
+7
Listen 9+4, Spot 9+4
Flyby Attack
Ability Score Increase (Charisma), Size Increase (Medium>Large (+1CR))

5+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
14
+7/+2
+4
+4
+9
Listen 13+4, Spot 13+4
Great Flyby Attack
Ability Score Increase (Charisma)

6+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
18
+9/+4
+6
+6
+11
Listen 17+4, Spot 17+4
Improved Initiative, Lucky Start
Ability Score Increase (Charisma), Size Increase (Large>huge)

7+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
22
+11/+6/+1
+7
+7
+13
Listen 21+4, Spot 21+4
Superior Initiative
Ability Score Increase (Charisma)

8+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
26
+13/+8/+3
+8
+8
+15
Listen 25+4, Spot 25+4
Eyes to the sky
Ability Score Increase (Charisma), Size Increase (huge>Gargantuan)

9+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
30
+15/+10/+5
+10
+10
+17
Listen 29+4, Spot 29+4
Survivor luck, Dumb luck
Ability Score Increase (Charisma)

10+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
34
+17/+12/+7/+2
+11
+11
+19
Listen 33+4, Spot 33+4
Unbelievable Luck
Ability Score Increase (Charisma)

11+1
Advancing(+4 undead HD)
38
+19/+14/+9/+4
+12
+12
+21
Listen 37+4, Spot 37+4
Better Lucky than Good
Ability Score Increase (Charisma)

12+1
Fortune's Friend 1
39
+19/+14/+9/+4
+13
+13
+22
Listen 41, Psicraft +2 , Spot 41, Tumble +4
Make your own luck
Easy luck, extra fortune, more luck than skill

13+1
Battle Dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1
40
+20/+15/+10/+5
+13
+13
+22
Listen 41, Spot 41, Tumble 4+2
Improved unarmed strike
Ability Score Increase (Charisma), AC bonus, unarmed strike

14+1
Battle dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1 / Wilder 1
41
+20/+15/+10/+5
+14
+14
+23
Listen 41, Psicraft +2, Spot 41, Tumble 6

Wild surge +1, psychic enervation

15+1
Battle dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1 / Wilder 2
42
+21/+16/+11/+6
+14
+14
+23
Listen 41, Psicraft 2+2, Spot 41, Tumble 6
Practiced Manifester
Elude Touch

16+1
Battle dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1 / Hexblade 1 / Wilder 2
43
+21/+16/+11/+6
+15
+15
+24
Concentration +1, Listen 41, Psicraft 4, Spot 41, Tumble 6

Hexblade's curse 1/day

17+1
Battle dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1 / Hexblade 2 / Wilder 2
44
+22/+17/+12/+7
+15
+15
+24
Concentration 1+1, Listen 41, Psicraft 4, Spot 41, Tumble 6

Ability Score Increase(Charisma), Arcane Resistance

18+1
Battle dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1 / Hexblade 1 / Paladin of slaughter 1 / Wilder 2
45
+22/+17/+12/+7
+16
+16
+25
Concentration 2+1, Listen 41, Psicraft 4, Spot 41, Tumble 6
Force of personality
Aura of evil, detect good, smite good 1/day

19+1
Battle dancer 1 / Fortune's Friend 1 / Hexblade 1 / Paladin of slaughter 2 / Wilder 2
46
+23/+18/+13/+8
+16
+16
+25
Concentration 3+1, Listen 41, Psicraft 4, Spot 41, Tumble 6
-
Divine grace, deadly touch

CR
power points reserve
New Power learned
Manifester Level(Wild surge)
Charisma

1-14
2
Expansion
-
19-28

15
8
Inertial Armor
2(3)
29

16-17
35
Precognition, Defensive
6(7)
29

18-20
38
-
6(7)
30

CR
Rerolls #/day
Can reroll:

7
1
Initiative

10
3
Saves, Nat1 Save

11
5
-

12
6
Nat1 attack

13
8
Skill checks

I'm just happy using a creaturea PC party might encounter every time they level :) that's more or less all there is in my picking of the base creature, other than it having crossed my awareness recently.
Since it's a creature that has a reroll mechanics with her reality distorsion, luck feats felt like a natural pick to me, and I always take air heritage whenever I have a flyer, so I was already set up with partly satisfying the round parameters :) and I didn't want to go down the well trodden road to grappling optimization with what appears would make a mean grappler.
Boosting Charisma was decided before I settled on what classes I would finish the creature with, simply because we have a CHA to HP feature. A first pass was straight Wilder 8, with one lonely 4th level power. But we're immune to psychic reformation, so we didn't have much to choose from even if we did push for 3rd and 4th level powers. So I added battledancer, because another 10 to all AC (but especially touch AC!) was significant... it went downhill from there in the "CHA to X" "market choice", with the nice round 30 charisma, munchkin me frowned hard at ignoring the power of those well known conversions. It was a bit of a balancing act, because wilder 8 gave us some more beefy numbers to AC between insight, armor and shield bonus, plus the energy burst which was thematic. But +20 to all saves, well, it's significant.
I'm a little bit bummed I couldn't fit Ascetic mage in here.

Sorry that the story is sparse, it's not my forte, and this is a Kaiju round, story would be from the PC point of view by necessity.

Well, in the world of (X) Vasuthants are a "kill on sight" monster, because if they are given the time to grow they can get up to gigantic sizes and swallow whole whole settlements.

CR 2

tactics : well we're just the base creature, except with elite array and a differently picked feat :) Going for us compared to the baseline is a good bunch more HP between the higher charisma and one maximized die, and the gimmick of going up to medium size for 1 minute, twice a day . this let's us grapple one equal size creature, assuming PC's aren't bigger than medium. bend reality is a free action, so we could conceivably blow all 3 daily uses to fudge the grapple checks, once we have one PC grappled, let's maybe fly up with the one character we managed to grapple? if we're feeling particularly evil, that's about it for that character life, R.I.P. either of fall damage or of no save strength damage, but perhabs after we're dropped to below half HP we let it go and run away, yeah? :)
It even have built in concealment that can only be negated by darkvision of all things. It's a bit funny because we could argue that this is concealment that is not bypassed by true seeing :D if the PC party picked humans for the extra feat, they better be prepared to spend precious spell slot in getting darkvision!
Regardless of high level shenanigans with true seeing, this makes this critter quite deadly at this level, for characters without dark vision or low light vision at least.

story blurb: PC party first encountered The Wind That Wends (didn't have the name/title at the time yet) at level 2, they didn't think much of it at first except for the anomalous color, being whitish/airish instead of their usual black void of voidyness, they weren't too worried about it since it was still an infant at small size, but to their immense surprise it expanded to medium size, and almost grabbed one of them before flying away when it was almost dead! So unusual for the creatures, usually their undeath hatred/hunger for the living would make them stick around in a Do or Die fashion, but no, it ran away!

CR 5

tactics : the feats and the HD do us well, Flyby attack makes the "grab and drop" tactic much more viable, and we doubled our unladen air speed with our heritage blooming. Since we're the villian, we are unlikely to encounter the PC party more than 1/day, so Air devotion fits a niche with some sweet profane bonus to armor to cover for the lost Dex and the size malus. Plus, at these levels their martial characters are unlikely to have significant flight of their own, so the 50% miss chance is relevant for these levels. With the size up ( plus the gimmicky expansion! ) we do our signature grab and drop, yeah we're one dimensional, but what works works :D unless you'd rather mantain the grab and kill them death up there in the air, I suppose? Evil GM, bad!

story blurb: When next they encountered the anomalous Vasuthant, they were dismayed to see it had already grown to large size, and again unlike others of it's ilk, it seemed to enjoy aerial play! It was only an happy happestance that Maradin had featherfall prepared! Lugolos arrows kept swerving away from the creature, sorcery most foul!

CR 10 (sweet spot)

I'm calling the sweet spot, because we're finally able to be colossal, we were able at CR9 too, but CR10 is 2 more feats and the charisma going up from 25 to 26. Meanwhile ECL 9->10 is not a significant jump in power for the PC party, since they already had unlocked 5th level spells last level, but we unlock rerollign saves, which could well be significant now that the power of casters starts to spike up

Tactics : I boosted initiative, because it is ever important :), and with a mind of "this creature might be actively hunted now", I thought taking the divination spelltouched made sense. The Wind that Wends "readies manifesting expansion when someone teleports in" whenever she feels one of those arcane sensors, that way the gimmick of sizing up is preserved.
The gimmick is now extra sweet with great flyby, we have the strength and reach to grab four creatures without much hassle when we expand to colossal, so I sure hope the party learned their lesson and prepared freedom of movement or something like that. if it didn't let this be a teaching moment!

story blurb: "That mutated Vasuthant received an official designation, 'The Wind that Wends', the nickname sticked about, seeing how the wind and reality itself seems to bend the whims of fortune to it's advantage. It's most annoying! We were almost wiped last time we engaged. We thought we were preparing the perfect ambush, but as soon as we teleported there the damn creature expanded to such a size I've never seen any Vasuthant reach! What's worse it acted in the blink of an eye, and not even an half dozen of seconds passed and we were all picked up by the wretch and dragged up in the air, that was harrowing, I thank the scion for suggesting we put on these 'anklet of translocations', we'd probably all be dead otherwise, but we had to retreat. We'll get you some day, Wind that Wends!"

CR 15-20
What "luck build" woulnd't include at least 1 level of Fortune's Friend? it's quite critical since otherwise we'd be limited to the swift action/immediate action economy, so no more than one reroll per round. With Easy fortune, the rerolls are now basically free actions, so the tactic of overwhelming TWTW with multiple saves all in one turn, well, woulnd't work anymore :)
Battledancer gives us some much needed AC, especially touch AC. Originally here I had Wilder 2/ battledancer 1 at this CR, and Fortune's friend was at CR16. but in the end I decided to value unbounding the rerolls more than Elude touch.

After that, it's basically doubling down on adding charisma to the saves and getting a last bit of AC. I went for the precognitive insight bonus instead of Force Screen shield bonus because I wanted to apply it to touch AC. With the saves, adeguate touch AC and a fair chunk of HP, our position as a kaiju I feel it's cemented, because our offensive gimmick is simple, but we're fairly difficult to take down. The hexblade 1/day curse is cute and a bit on theme with "luck", since you can well fluff it as cursing one opponent with unluck :D. and DC 21 is passable. Not excellent for the CR, but should have a good 60ish % chance to stick on a melee enemy.

Tactics : they don't change much from what they were at CR 10, but now we have more rerolls, can reroll more than once per turn, and our statblock is beefier, the modus operandi didn't really change, Ready precogniton when you detect scrying, then grab and drop, or grab and keep grabbed I guess.

I am sad that there is no point on using expansion anymore once we hit colossal, except for the little boost in STR. but think about this : this is the villian, you the GM, made it, YOU are allowed to pretend Colossal++ exists, who cares that you're houseruling it?? So there! Boom Colossal++ villain, THE KAIJU-EST! 50FEET OF MINIATURE! *RAWR*

story : TWTW more dangerous than ever it seems almost impossible to affect it, what big enemy and so on :)

Enervating Crush: automatic damage and STR damage on grapples
Reality distorsion: 3/day free action reroll any d20
Unholy toughness: CHA bonus * HD bonus HP
Immunity to light: immune to effects with the light descriptor
Trap light:Constant 60ft shadow emanation, absorb magical and nonmagical light, grants concealment bypassed by darkvision
Air heritage: +30 to fly speed
Air Devotion: 1/day +1-6 profane AC and 50% miss chance to ranged weapons
Flyby Attack: can move-standard action-finish move while flying
Great Flyby Attack: full round action attack all within range in a line, moves without provoking AoO
Lucky start: +1 luck reroll, can reroll initiative
Eyes to the sky: automatically spot divination sensors
Survivor luck: +1 luck reroll, Immediate action reroll failed save
Dumb luck: +1 luck reroll, 1/day immediate action nat1 on save becomes nat20
Unbelievable luck: +2 luck rerolls, lowest save gets +2 luck bonus
Better lucky than good: +1 luck reroll, swift action nat 1 on attack becomes nat20
Make your own luck: +1 luck reroll, immediate action reroll skill check
Easy luck: using luck feats is now a free action
Extra fortune: +1 luck reroll
More luck than skill: 1/day +1 luck bonus to all skill checks
Ac bonus: CHA bonus to AC while unarmored
Wild surge: can manifest at +1 ML
Psychic enervation: 5% on Wild surge to be dazed and lsoe 2 PP
Elude touch: +CHA bonus as deflection to touch AC
Practiced manifester: +4 to ML
Hexblade curse: SU free action onet argets get -2 to all check, WIS save DC 21
Arcane Resistance: + CHA bonus to all saves vs spells
Force of personality: use CHA in place of WIS for will saves
Deadly touch: can heal up to 20/day HP an undead, or cause damage
Expansion: 1PP +1 size for min/ML, Augment 6PP for +2 size, Augment 2PP for duration 10min/ML
Inertial Armor: 1PP +4 AC for hour/ML, Augment 2PP for +1 AC
Precognition, defensive: 1PP for +1 Insight bonus to AC and saves, Augment 3PP for +1 more

I am using the Expanded psionic handbook Expansion, with the duraiton of 1 minute. if you rule that the SRD version is the correct one despite being no errata on the matter, well, I'm sad because 1 round expansion makes it completely unusuable as a gimmick. In that case, with much sadness we Hidden talent Inertial armor instead of expansion, and later on we learn Force Screen as our third power.

I was only half joking about the trap light negating true seeing. But the gist of it *IS* that the trap light (ex) grants concealment "because it's dark!", true seeing doesn't make you able to see in the dark!, so yay for built in miss chance!
Monster Manual 3 : Base creature
Complete Psionics : Hidden talent, practiced manifester feats
Expanded Psionic handbook : Wilder class, psionic powers
Planar Handbook : Air heritage feat
Complete Champion : Air devotion feat
Savage Species : Great flyby attack feat
Unearthed Arcana : Eyes to the sky feat, Paladin of Slaughter
Complete Scoundrel : "Luck" feats category, Fortune's Friend PrC
Complete Warrior : Hexblade class
Dragon compendium : Battle dancer class

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:57 AM

5. Ma'enloth

Ma’enloth, “Deathbringer of Lloth”

https://ibb.co/7tpMpny

It came as a decree that could not be ignored. The Dark Lady Lolth demanded for the first time that all the houses of Menzoberranzan work together to create her a monster of destruction, to be loosed upon the world. Thus, the high priestesses of Arach-Tinilith came together with the wizards and artificers of Sorcere, and the weapon masters of Melee-Magthere to design a monster worthy of their mistress.

The weapon masters, in charge of finding the best fighting forms, scoured the Underdark and surface for suitable monsters. The wizards were responsible for mastering a creation method to make the beast as big and strong as possible. Naturally, the high priestesses oversaw the whole process and provided any additional spells as needed.

As the years ticked by, and countless trials and error, they finally figured it out. A smaller body worked out better in the enlarging process, and one that was acclimated to the water would be able to be made tougher, with more potent attacks. In honor of her unholiness, they added additional legs, much like the spiders they so revere. Finally, for the finishing touches, the artificers created a mechanical version for the priestesses to conduct one final ceremony in Lolth’s honor. Three days of constant spell casting, to alter the attributes of the monster, and give it the horrid and much loathed drider appearance. This way no house would want the beast, and it could be set loose on a rampage that none would control.

It was killed by adventurers almost immediately, and went to the Abyss where Lolth makes her home. Although it had turned out to be a huge disappointment, the Dark Lady was quite fond of the utter chaos that this monster was, and bestowed upon it an honor that many would literally die to have. It would serve her purposes in the Abyss, or elsewhere if she so desired, as the paragon of her corrupted petitioners.

Using aquatic adaptation rules from Stormwrack, we have aquatic leopards, who can be made Titanic. When 2 Titanic aquatic leopards are bred in acid, you get an Acidborn Titanic Aquatic Leopard, who is then given the Arachnoid template, and then the Effigy template. 3 days of Greater Humanoid Essence constantly being cast on it allows the Drider template to be applied. Once it dies, it becomes a Exceptional Petitioner in the Abyss, then receives the Corrupted by the Abyss template, and then the Epic Paragon template.

PARAGON CORRUPTED BY THE ABYSS ARACHNOID ACID BORN TITANIC AQUATIC LEOPARD EFFIGY DRIDER EXCEPTIONAL PETITIONER

Colossal Aberration
Hit Dice: 2d8+16 (HP 56)
Initiative: +11
Speed: 90 ft (18 squares), climb 45 ft.
Armor Class: 77 (+11 Dex, +40 natural, -8 size, +12 insight, +12 luck), touch 37, flat-footed 66
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+47
Attack: Bite +48 melee (8d8+49+1d6 acid plus poison)
Full Attack: Bite +48 melee (8d8+49+1d6 acid plus poison) and 6 claws +48 melee (8d6+34+1d6 acid/19-20)
Space/Reach: 30 ft./20 ft.
Special Attacks: Crush, improved grab, increased damage, poison, pounce, rake 8d6+47, rend, trample
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft, SR 36, Mental immunity, Electricity and poison immunity, fire and acid resistance 10, acidic vapors, no planar commitment, cold resistance 10, DR 10/epic, Fast healing 20
Saves: Fort +21, Ref +24, Will +21
Abilities: Str 69, Dex 32, Con 27, Int 15, Wis 26, Cha 16
Skills: Balance +29, Climb +47, Hide +18, Jump +53, Listen +24, Move Silently +29, Spot +24
Feats: Blind-Fight, Combat Reflexes, Crush, Improved Critical (Claw), Improved Mutliattack, Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Improved Natural Attack (Claw), Multiattack, Power Attack, Rend, Snatch
Challenge Rating: 20
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Combat

Crush (Ex): As a standard action, Ma’enloth can jump or fall onto opponents, using its whole body to crush them. This attack is useful only against creatures at least three size categories smaller than it. A crush attack deals 4d8+56 bludgeoning damage and affects as many creatures as can fit under Ma’enloth’s body (see Large and Small Creatures in Combat in Chapter 8 of the Player 's Handbook). Each creature in the affected area must succeed on a Reflex save (DC 46). On a failure, the opponent is pinned and automatically takes crush damage each round the pin is maintained.
Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, Ma’enloth must hit with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can rake.
Increased Damage (Ex): Damage from Ma’enloth’s special attacks that do hit point damage is tripled.
Poison (Ex): Fort Save (DC 32), initial and secondary damage 2d8 Str
Pounce (Ex): If Ma’enloth charges a foe, it can make a full attack, including two rake attacks.
Rake (Ex): Attack bonus +48 melee, damage 8d6+47.
Rend (Ex): If Ma’enloth strikes the same opponent with two claw attacks, it automatically deals an extra 16d6+56 damage. It cannot grab an opponent at the same time it rends that opponent.
Snatch (Ex): Ma’enloth can choose to start a grapple when it hits with a claw or bite attack, as though it had the improved grab special attack. If Ma’enloth gets a hold on a creature three or more sizes smaller, it squeezes each round for automatic bite or claw damage.
Ma’enloth can drop a creature it has snatched as a free action or use a standard action to fling it aside. A flung creature travels 1d6×10 feet, and takes 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet traveled.
Trample (Ex): As a standard action during its turn each round, Ma’enloth can trample Huge or smaller opponents. This attack deals 3d8+56 damage. A trampled opponent can attempt either an attack of opportunity at a –4 penalty or a Reflex save (DC 46) for half damage.
Mental Immunity (Ex): Ma’enloth is immune to mind-influencing effects.
Acidic Vapor (Su): When Ma’enloth is slain, it discorporates into a cloud of noxious vapor. Anyone within 10 feet of it who fails a Reflex save (DC 20) takes 1d6 points of acid damage.
No Planar Commitment (Ex): Unlike most other petitioners, Ma’enloth can leave the plane it calls home.
Enhance Power (Su): The save DC of every special attack Ma’enloth has by virtue of its race increases by 4.
Fast Healing (Ex): While in the abyss, Ma’enloth heals 1 damage per round.
Resistance to Poison (Ex): Ma’enloth gains a +4 bonus on Fortitude saves against poison.

Skills: Ma’enloth has a +6 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks, a +8 racial bonus on Balance, Climb, and Move Silently checks, a +12 racial bonus on Hide checks, and a +14 racial bonus on Jump checks.
Ma’enloth can always choose to take 10 on a Climb check, even if rushed or threatened.

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Ability Scores
Feats
Class Features

2
Aquatic Leopard
+2
+5
+7
+2
Str 16, Dex 19, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Multiattack, Power Attack
gains swim speed instead of land speed, Improved grab, Pounce and Rake special attacks, +8 racial bonus to Jump, +4 racial bonus to Hide and Move Silently, +8 racial bonus to Balance and Climb

15
Titanic Template
+18
+23
+16
+15
Str +26(42), Dex -4(15), Con +14(29), Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Multiattack, Power Attack, +Great Fortitude, +Crush, +Improved Critical (Claw), +Improved Mutliattack, +Improved Natural Attack (Bite), +Improved Natural Attack (Claw), +Rend, +Snatch
HD becomes 25, size becomes Gargantuan, +20 natural armor, gains feats, ability score changes, gains Increased Damage (Ex) and Trample (Ex) special attacks

16
Acidborn Template
+18
+25
+16
+15
Str 42, Dex 15, Con +4(33), Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
No change
type changes to magical beast (augmented animal), +2 natural armor, gains natural weapons deal +1d6 acid special attack, gains immunity to poison and acid and Breathe Acid (Ex) special qualities

17
Arachnoid Template
+18
+25
+18
+15
Str 42, Dex +4(19), Con 33, Int -4(-), Wis 12, Cha 6
Feats
Type changes to aberration, +9 natural armor, gains four extra limbs with claw attacks, gains poison to bite special attack, gains immunity to mind-affecting special quality, +4 racial bonus to Hide, +6 racial bonus to Jump and Spot

18
Effigy Template
+18
+8
+11
+8
Str +4(46), Dex -2(17), Con becomes -, Int -, Wis becomes 11, Cha becomes 1
Loses all feats not related to natural attacks (Great Fortitude)
Type change to construct and loses all subtypes, +2 natural armor, loses arachnoid template poison, loses all special qualities, gains DR 15/adamantium (Su) special quality

20
Drider Template, while under effects of Greater Humanoid Essence
+18
+7
+12
+9
Str +4 (50), Dex +2 (19), Con +8(8), Int -, Wis +2(13), Cha +2(3)
No change
type change to aberration, size increases by 1 to Colossal, speed changes to 30 ft, climb 15ft, gains poisonous bite special attack, and spell like abilities, gains SR 36 special quality, alignment becomes CE

1
Exceptional Petitioner Template
+2
+2
+7
+4
Str 50, Dex 19, Con 8, Int -, Wis 13, Cha 3
Retains feats due to being exceptional
HD becomes 2, type becomes outsider, loses all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities, gains mental immunity special quality, gains electricity and poison immunity, fire and acid resistance 10, gains acidic vapor and no planar commitment special qualities

2
Corrupted by the Abyss Template
+2
+4
+6
+3
Str +4(54), Dex -2(17), Con +4(12), Int -, Wis -2(11), Cha -2(1)
No change
Type change to aberration, +4 natural armor, natural attacks increase by 1 die type per MM table 4-3, gains darkvision 60 ft, Enhance Power (Su) and Fast Healing (Ex) special qualities

20
Paragon Template
+2
+21
+24
+21
Str +15(69), Dex +15(32), Con +15(27), Int +15(15), Wis +15(26), Cha +15(16)
gains 2 bonus feats (Combat Reflexes and Blind-Fight)
gains max hp per HD and 12 bonus hp per HD, gains triple movement for speeds, gains +12 luck and insight bonus to AC, gains +25 luck bonus to attacks, gains +20 luck bonus to damage, special attacks gain +13 insight bonus, gains cold resistance 10, DR 10/epic, gains fast healing 20, gains +10 insight bonus to saves, gains +10 competence bonus to skill checks

Ma’enloth is a Colossal sized brute. It will hit almost anything that is in it’s reach, with a full-attack being able to put down creatures with 450 hit points or less on average. If it needs to charge it can pounce and do even more. Enemies it doesn’t kill can be grappled with improved grab, Snatch and Crush. DR and SR give it some defenses, along with some immunities and resistances. Admittedly, it has very, very low HP and against an optimized party it would definitely get swamped.

Monster Manual – Leopard, Snatch feat, Improved Natural Attack feat, Multiattack feat
Stormwrack – Aquatic adaptation rules
Monster Manual 2 – Titanic template
Dungeonscape – Acidborn template
Underdark – Arachnoid template
Complete Arcane – Effigy template
Web Article (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20011118a) – Drider template
Savage Species – Crush feat
Draconomicon - Rend feat, Improved Multiattack feat
Player’s Handbook – Power Attack feat, Improved Critical feat, Blind-Fight feat, Combat Reflexes feat
Manual of the Planes – Petitioner template, Exceptional petitioner rules
Expedition to the Demonweb Pits – Corrupted template
Epic Level Handbook – Paragon template

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:57 AM

6. The Tower of Angarngi

https://www.deviantart.com/jjcanvas/art/The-Tower-w-time-lapse-video-607589051

"Nine chances out of ten," murmured the Mouser dreamily, "the treasure house of Urgaan of Angarngi was looted some hundred years ago, by men whose bodies are already dust."
"It may be so," agreed Fafhrd. "Unlike men, rubies and emeralds do not rest quietly in their graves."

The Jewels in the Forest.

If you don’t know this novel from Fritz Leiber, READ NO FURTHER. First read the novel available freely on BAEN books website, and then come back ;-)

Great novel, right ? So now, let me try to simulate it through D&D rules, using Dungeonscape’s options : Encounter Traps, and Intelligent Traps. Because we have a Colossal Monster, but the main challenge is to go inside it.

THE TOWER - OUTSIDE CR 10
The Tower can be stated as a colossal animated object but which only uses blindsense (CR 10, Colossal Construct, Hit Dice 32d10+80 (256 hp), Initiative -3, cannot move, AC 11, Slam +25 melee (4d6+13), reach 30 ft., construct traits, 120-ft. blindsense, hardness 8, Fort +10, Ref +7, Will +5, Str 28, Dex 4, Con Ø, Int Ø, Wis 1, Cha 1). I would like to add trample special attack to it, but by RAW it would need hardness 10.

Let me note that we have a strange conundrum here : we are stating a monster, mainly to simulate combat encounters with PCs. However, by trope definition (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Kaiju) Giant Equals Invincible : kaijus are Too Big - they cannot be defeated by humans in combat.

INSIDE THE TOWER CR 10
Description :The tower of Urgaan of Angarngi is basically an octogonal tower with a dome ceiling as seen from the outside. Inside there’s only one room and a staircase leading to a higher floor. Note that the tower should be able to have many more floors… but we will discuss this (and the two smaller domes described in the novel) later, let’s stick to the novel for the time being. The tower has its own consciousness and a few powers, it is basically a colossal trap !
Type : Intelligent Magic Encounter Trap
Detection : Search DC 31 (well, first you would need PCs to have the idea that the tower itself is a trap)
Trigger :
Touch : the Tower uses 120-ft blindsense against its opponents to detect them : Listen +14 vs Move Silently checks. As an intelligent item : Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 18, minor powers : 10 ranks in Listen, hold person 3/day, darkness 3/day, greater power : cause fear at will, special purpose : slay all, dedicated power : symbol of fear*, all spells casted as 11th-level cleric, Ego : 18, Alignment : Neutral Evil. Language : a version of Common long being forgotten. (* : symbol of fear is not listed in special purpose item dedicated powers, but it would match the novel better - my main problem being that cause fear does not work on creatures with 6 or more Hit Dice).
Effects :

Once a PC is detected : the Tower triggers symbol of fear trap (CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (symbol of fear, 11th-level cleric, all creatures within 60 feet become panicked during 11 rounds, DC 20 Will negates))
If a PC is detected twice (fleeing from the Tower after succumbing to symbol of fear would surely cause a bad move silently check) : the Tower triggers a crushing wall trap (CR 7; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; no attack roll required (12d6, crush)) if the PC is inside a room or a Blade barrier trap (CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (blade barrier, 11th-level cleric, 11d6 slashing, DC 20 Reflex save half damage)) if the PC passes through a door or window leading to the outside.

Disarm : Disable Device DC 31. To disarm these traps, PCs need to remove a cemented block without being detected, and remove the diamond “brain” beneath… Which will trigger the 2nd trap.
Disadvantage : trap does not attack every square in the room each round (indeed, it’s by having too many foes that it was disabled by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser).

CROUCHING TOWER HIDDEN DIAMOND CR 10
Description : Removing the diamond means that the tower has lost its brain - so now it will behave like a beheaded chicken until it dies. However, the diamond itself is dangerous...
Type :Magic Encounter Trap
Detection :
Search DC 31 (well, first you would need PCs to have the idea that the diamond itself is a trap)
Trigger :
Touch : once the diamond is removed from the hole behind the cemented block

Effects :

the shaking Tower is treated as difficult terrain for land-based movements
all doors and windows spasmodically open and close : Blade barrier trap (CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (blade barrier, 11th-level cleric, 11d6 slashing, DC 20 Reflex save half damage))
the diamond is basically the tower’s psicrystal, as if the tower was a 11th-level psion. But it is also a slay living trap (CR 8; magic device; touch trigger; automatic reset; spell effect (slay living, 11th-level cleric, slay one living creature, DC 19 Fortitude negates but 3d6+11 damage instead)). Once the PC throws the crystal away, it will try to attack again (clumsily) and shatter a few rounds afterwards. Psycristal (Diminutive Construct, HD 11 (27 hp), Initiative +2, Speed 30 ft., Armor Class 21, attack +0, construct traits, hardness 8, psicrystal granted abilities, Fort , Ref +3, Will +11, Str 1*, Dex 15*, Con Ø, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 18)

Destruction :
Once the diamond is taken, PCs only have a few rounds to exit the Tower before an earthquake trap triggers, those remaining inside are pinned under rubbles (CR 8; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); no reset; spell effect (earthquake, 13th-level cleric, 65-ft. radius, 8d6 bludgeoning damage, DC 15 Reflex half, pinned under rubbles)
Disadvantage : trap does not attack every square in the room each round.

Now let’s talk about all this unused space in the Tower of Angarngi… Maybe it grows over time ? It would be relatively easy to raise the level of traps, as we used spells for a 11th-level cleric. Anyway we have a great concept, a colossal intelligent trap… And we have way more options through D&D traps than simply crushing anyone who goes in it. So yes, as we have an intelligent dungeon, dungeon rules should be used to make it grow - not monster rules.

So it’s where I would like to talk about a fun manga, Delicious in Dungeon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicious_in_Dungeon). Where a whole ecology of dungeons themselves is defined, how they start, how they evolve, and how elves have to come to the rescue before they generate a waaagh! of monsters. Seems the main power of dungeons, outside of being able to reorganize themselves and grow over time, is to summon weird fauna and treasures.

The Tower of Angarngi, alas, is very touchy, which is not very compatible with monster summoning. Maybe it will grow less sensitive over time, and be able to animate all those adventurers' skeletons. And maybe add some underground levels, in true D&D dungeon sense… However, we will hit D&D constraints pretty soon anyway : the Tower was designed for low fantasy adventure, with no spellcasters as PCs (even though a stereotypical cleric falls prey to it). Nondetection shenanigans and ways to circumvent pesky spells to keep the big surprise will become necessary.

As we are in a kaiju challenge, we need more than a lone tower isolated on the fringe of civilization - we need a BBEG for a whole campaign, a kaiju able to compete with Gojira, Mothra, etc. So here is a bit of backstory :

Recently in the Great Plains, some strange dome shaped mounds seem to grow in random places - tribes are talking about a giant subterranean mole. However, after a few months, these mounds grow again as strange towers emerge from the ground, shaped like towers from human cities. These towers also have doors, windows and inside rooms - but animals are soon afraid to go near it and explorers mysteriously disappear… It seems each tower has its own evil consciousness and personality and various powers !

As these towers are sprouting like mushrooms, dwarves soon discover the harsh truth : an intelligent dungeon mother node has grown beyond size in the Underdark - it now grows aboveground to trap and consume unwary surfacers, and disseminate strange monsters on an unsuspecting world. Human adventurers guilds are created to eradicate the towers, but they are not efficient enough. Soon Gojira will awaken to battle the strange lifeform… But the 5 biggest towers can also emerge from the ground as a Titanic Stone Hand (https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/the-stone-sinister-production.jpg) able to grasp Gojira itself ! (like the Hand of God (https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/319755642283682211/) from Berserk).

Like I said before, the trick here is that this kaiju - like other kaijus - should NOT be killed by a human team through usual battles against animated objects, however overpowered they are : only other kaijus are able to fight such colossal foes in the stories (I think colossal creatures are somewhat underwhelming as stated through D&D rules - there's a gap on rules to destroy stone walls or throw big stones one the one hand, and colossal monsters which are way weaker on the other hand).

Each tower should be stated as a specific dungeon, with the goal to remove its brain from the inside… Once free, Gojira will be able to exterminate the mother node through its radioactive breath !

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 12:59 AM

7. Irralisk

First I thought increase Irralisk's HD to 156, add multiheaded template to increase it more, and apply paragon template but... Why would I? Irralisk already is absurdly powerful. I take monster with most CR in official books and do with it THIS. I don't need more cheese.

https://i.playground.ru/e/f2LRmiUaeN1TEF06WYO49Q.gif

Irralisk, Great Prismatic Dragon, one of the primordials once been in great hubris decided to colorise grayness of Shadow plane by his rainbow shine.
This design solution didn't seem to please inhabitants and between them were found beings powerful enough to resist Irralisk with distinction. He was lured into place of the almost ended ritual of the Shadow-Bounding, and once the dragon entered the inside circle the mystery was completed.

Irralisk's soul was bound with Shadow by ties stronger than adamantium as result of the ritual. And this was not all: at the moment when ritual ended, dozens of various spells were falling on the dragon. They didn't damage hard, but stunned and dazed instead. Each, even short, loss of consciousness or disorientation ripped off small parts from Irralisk's soul. That happened until almost nothing, only a stub remained. Take it and the shiny fighter against grayness will die. His enemies, however, didn't risk killing one of the primordials. Nobody can predict how this action would affect the universe and who will come with revenge. Instead of killing, Irralisk, who can't fight back anymore, had been spelled with eternal stasis and his corpse had been hidden in a secret sepulcher.

Many centuries have gone. Mountains were crashing and rising. Seas were freezing, drying and filling again. Sentients were coming into the world and leaving it. Irralisk was lying untouched in his sepulcher. But it was changed once. Sun was extinguished and from his glacial tomb Father Llymic - horrible embodiment of a mote of alien thought - had risen. It just so happens Irralisk's sepulcher and Elder Evil's tomb were in close proximity. Earthquake happened and Irralisk's sepulcher opened up when Father Llymic's tomb collapsed. And no matter how alien thought begets Father Llimic, he can't miss the opportunity to get such a powerful spawn in his brood. One dispel magic and just one touch of monstrous claw. This is enough to chill the remaining small shard of Irralisk's soul. Dragon opened his eyes, but he already was an icy spawn - the greatest champion of the Light had turned to Darkness. World was doomed...

Attribute
Base
Racial and Size
Half-Dragon
Brood spawn
Levels
Feats
Total

Strength
15
+62
+8
+6
+7
+2
100

Dexterity
10
+0

10

Constitution
14
+54
+2
+2

72

Intelligence
12
+54
+2

68

Wisdom
8
+54

+2

64

Charisma
13
+54
+2
+4

+1
74

Brood Spawn Shadow-Bound Half-Prismatic Dragon Prismatic Dragon, Great wyrm Warlord of Utterdark-3

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Vile Feats
Class Features

66
78 HD
+78
+41
+41
+41
Skills
Power Attack,
Weapon Focus (bite),
Weapon Focus (claw),
Cleave,
Flyby Attack,
Great Cleave,
Improved Critical (bite),
Improved Initiative,
Improved Bull Rush,
Snatch,
Blinding Speed,
Dragon Breath,
Combat Reflexes,
Toughness,
Dire Charge,
Blowhard,
Draconic Aura (PowerPHBII),
Enlarge Breath,
Improved Snatch,
Multiattack,
Improved Multiattack,
Rend,
Pain Mastery,
Extended Reach,
Fast Healing,
Iron Will,
Spellcasting Harrier
Willing Deformity,
Apostate,
Deformity (Eyes),
Evil Brand,
Evil’s Blessing,
Vile Natural Attack,
Vile Deathstrike,
Epic Evil Brand,
Deformity (Skin)*7
Prismatic Dragon Abilities

68
Half-Dragon
+78
+41
+41
+41

Half-Prismatic dragon Abilities

68
79 HD
+79
+41
+41
+41
Skills

69
80 HD
+80
+42
+42
+42
Skills

Deformity (Skin)

69
81 HD
+81
+42
+42
+42
Skills
Superior Initiative

70
82 HD
+82
+43
+43
+43
Skills

70
83 HD
+83
+43
+43
+43
Skills

71
84 HD
+84
+44
+44
+44
Skills
Improved Sunder

71
85 HD
+85
+44
+44
+44
Skills

Deformity (Skin)

72
86 HD
+86
+45
+45
+45
Skills

72
87 HD
+87
+45
+45
+45
Skills
Epic Reputation

73
88 HD
+88
+46
+46
+46
Skills

73
89 HD
+89
+46
+46
+46
Skills

74
90 HD
+90
+47
+47
+47
Skills
Blinding Speed
Deformity (Skin)

74
91 HD
+91
+47
+47
+47
Skills

75
92 HD
+92
+48
+48
+48
Skills

75
93 HD
+93
+48
+48
+48
Skills
Great Charisma

76
94 HD
+94
+49
+49
+49
Skills

76
95 HD
+95
+49
+49
+49
Skills

Deformity (Skin)

77
96 HD
+96
+50
+50
+50
Skills
Great Strength

77
97 HD
+97
+50
+50
+50
Skills

78
98 HD
+98
+51
+51
+51
Skills

78
99 HD
+99
+51
+51
+51
Skills
Great Strength

78
Shadow-Bound
+99
+51
+51
+51

Shadow-Bound Creature Abilities

17
Brood Spawn
+99
+51
+51
+51
102 max, 37 skills: Appraise, Bluff, Concentration, Craft (alchemy), Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Gather Information, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (all), Listen, Search, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Spot +102 (24); Hide, Speak Language, Move Silently, Intimidate, and any other 9 skills +51
Improved Critical (claw)

Icy Touch, Breath Weapon, Spell-Like Abilities, Blindsight, DR 10/magic, Ice Step, Immunities (ability damage, ability drain, cold, mind-affecting spells and abilities, polymorph, and petrification), Light Sickness, Sonic Vulnerability, SR 25, Resistances to Electricity and Fire 20

17
100 HD
+100
+52
+52
+52
Same

Deformity (Skin)

17
101 HD
+101
+52
+52
+52
Same

17
102 HD
+102
+53
+53
+53
Same
Suppress Weakness

18
Warlord of Utterdark-1
+103
+53
+53
+53
Bluff +1, Concentration +1, Craft (alchemy) +1, Diplomacy +1, Intimidate +24, Jump +1, Knowledge (arcana) +1, Knowledge (the planes) +1, Knowledge (religion) +1, Spellcraft +1

Darkvision, bulwark of evil +1

19
Warlord of Utterdark-2
+103
+54
+54
+54
Bluff +1, Concentration +1, Craft (alchemy) +1, Diplomacy +1, Intimidate +24, Jump +1, Knowledge (arcana) +1, Knowledge (the planes) +1, Knowledge (religion) +1, Spellcraft +1

Vile strike +1

20
Warlord of Utterdark-3
+104
+54
+54
+54
Bluff +1, Concentration +1, Craft (alchemy) +1, Diplomacy +1, Heal +17, Intimidate +8, Jump +1, Knowledge (arcana) +1, Knowledge (the planes) +1, Knowledge (religion) +1, Spellcraft +1
Overcome Weakness
Deformity (Skin)
Dark god’s blessing 1/day

On CR 17 Irralisk has started as champion of darkness. But he already is the ultimate death machine. ~3600 HP, 97 AC, ~150 AttBonus, minimum 4d8+46+2d6 damage by one claw attack (not including PA), and ability to do full attack charge with six natural attacks from 700 feet in first round... Only SR is low - 25. And moreover any time when you deal serious damage to him, he is becoming stronger via Pain Mastery feat. Just before he will die he will have Strange of ~170 points. Plus, remember about Spell-Like Abilities and Breath Weapon every d4 rounds, if you don’t have enough.
If a 17-level party anywhere can defeat him... This will be a miracle!

Now Irralisk is favorite Father Llymic's child and the main Warlord of Father's army. He isn't so different compared with 17 CR, the only serious thing is Overcome Weakness - now Irralisk isn't afraid of sonic at all.
Irralisk easily fulfills all requirements to become a warlord of utterdark. Skills and feats aren't worth even mentioning, and special ritual is simple, too. Father Llymic is an evil outsider and has 24 HD and, therefore he can perform it.
As Warlord Irralisk is some good. He not only can overwhelm Father Llymic's enemies personally, but with Draconic Aura, Epic Evil Brand, and Bulwark of Evil inspires allies saves and damage. This isn't very great bonuses, but still useful.

You, definitely, can't use Irralisk (don't matter CR 17 or 20 - these numbers aren't an approximation to reality) in any regular game. World saving with such enemy is near impossible. But you can employ him as a scare factor in horror games about, for example, stalkers of survivors that live in the Plane of Shadow and are forced to search for any supplies in frozen post-apocalyptic ruins. Or maybe your game is epic and PCs are trying to retake this world back. Maybe it even isn't their world. Or Father Llymic planes capture another Material plane (or Outer plan? How about Hell?) and PC's goal isn't about retaking something, but about pre-emptive strike.

As write in template's description

A brood spawn gains skill points as an outsider and has skill points equal to (8 + Int modifier) × (HD + 3).
which is why I didn't enter any skills in build table before applying template. As well as racial abilities. Anyway they all will be lost. And this is very good. One of racial abilities was very very bad. I'm talking about Shadow Curse. This SQ was responsible for Irralisk's negative levels and when it gone, negative levels are going, too.
Another thing is vile feats. As we can see in the Brood Spawn Ogre entry it has Abominable Form and Willing Deformity bonus feats. So Irralisk should have his vile feats, too.
This isn't clear if Irralisk dragonblood or dragon after transformation or not and has his draconic aura bonus of +1 or +4. But even if he isn't, we can simply add to him three HDs more before transformation or replace one of his existent feats with Dragontouched.

Half-Dragon template needed for one purpose - Dragon Breath feat. After transformation Irralisk is still meeting prerequisites: he has 6 HD, has breath weapon, and still is Half-dragon. So he can use his new breath weapon every 1d4 rounds. Why did I take a half-prismatic dragon? Main reason is the theme Champion of the Light. This half-dragon has the best thematic breath weapon for Irralisk. I expected anything like that from Half-Radiant dragon, but his Breath Weapon somehow is Line of force. Anyway if I take any other (non-lung) dragon literally nothing changes because of brood spawn template.

SRD, PHB - Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Critical, Improved Initiative, Improved Bull Rush, Combat Reflexes, Iron Will, Improved Sunder, Toughness
SRD, Epic Level Handbook - Prismatic Dragon, Superior Initiative, Epic Reputation, Blinding Speed, Great Charisma, Great Strength
Draconomicon - Fast Healing, Spellcasting Harrier, Rend, Suppress Weakness, Overcome Weakness, Improved Snatch, Improved Multiattack, Enlarge Breath, Dire Charge
Dragon Magic - Draconic Aura
PHBII - Draconic Aura Power
Monster Manual - Snatch, Multiattack, Flyby Attack, Half-Dragon
Savage Species - Extended Reach, Blowhard, Pain Mastery
Races of the Dragon - Dragon Breath, Half-Prismatic Dragon
Heroes of Horror - Willing Deformity, Deformity (Skin),
Elder Evils - Deformity (Eyes), Apostate, Evil’s Blessing, Vile Natural Attack, Brood Spawn
Exemplars of Evil - Evil Brand
Epic Insights (Web (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20030810a)) - Warlord of Utterdark, Epic Evil Brand, Vile Deathstrike,

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 01:00 AM

8. Xokhtohm

Very first feeling experienced by Xokhtohm in its live was pain. Burning and tearing muscles with cramps pain from a lot of lightning bolts striking one by one. Very first that Xokhtohm listened, after chew through flesh of its dead parent, was words coming from freaks with limbs that was leaving cave:
– Storm in the dungeon! Awesome! How cool you electrocuted this eye-tyrant!
– Moradin is great. As he had created me with his Thunder Blessing I smite his enemies with my Thunder bolts.
– Moradin, this is the name of my enemy! - recognize newborn Xokhtohm.

Xokhtohm had been wandering for too long, as was usually been in young beholders. It was a time of multiple ordeals and hazards. Some of them Xokhtohm overcomed only because of absorbed at birth lightning force, its personal thunder curse. It brought Xokhtohm power over lightning, but also rewarded it with permanent never-ending pain.
However, all has its end - Xokhtohm's wandering ended, too. It was unlucky enough to attract the attention of Hive Mother ??? (name!), when Xokhtohm gets next to Hive Mother's city. Two electrocuted by lightning gazers was enough to attract Hive Mother. It wanted to find and punish who broke control, but instead it met a young beholder with curious markings on its body. This find didn't upset Hive Mother and ??? immediately dominate the new subject.

Xokhtohm hated Hive Mother. Xokhtohm hated all other beholders in the city. Hate is normal condition for beholder in fact. But, all this hate found it hard to compete with Xokhtohm feelings to its main foe, the source of her continuing torment - Moradin. And furthermore, living in city had many indisputable conveniences: always available food and at the same time posibility to torture weaker two in one embodied in the form slaves. Between others frequently had been found dwarves - almost equally hated things, as their god, damn him! Xokhtohm used to love torturing they, dispersing their bodies piece by piece or eating alive. It even was almost ready to forgive Hive Mother for subordinate status for this opportunity. Almost.

Cohabitation and opportunity to torment dwarves, however, had a downside. One day, nasty midgets gathered with a large force and basely attacked the city. With perfidy and surprise they can kill the Hive Mother and majority of oldest beholders. After this, the dwarves started exterminating all others, who had lost centralized leadership. But dwarves overestimated their potential nevertheless and were forced to retreat after killing only half inhabitants. But it was obvious they will come back, they just need lick wounds.
All beholders and beholderkins started praying to Great Mother. Xokhtohm started praying, too. It wasn't oldest among the survivors. It didn't pray harder than the other. But it was the one who was blessed by the Great Mother. Maybe the goddess saw its potential. Or its birthmark and gifted powers played a significant role. Or perhaps the point was, Xokhtohm prayed about help in killing dwarves, when other about salvation. Nobody knows. But the fact remains that it was Xokhtohm chosen by Great Mother to carry out her divine power.
Even with the assistance of Xokhtohm, who became cleric, victory over dwarves turned out very hard and not final. When intruders were driven back a couple miles from the city - a significant distance for caves - Xokhtohm ordered all passage to this side collapsed. Great Mother apparently decided it was enough and recalled granted powers. Her blessing, however, has left its mark - Xokhtohm started to grow up to evolve into the new Hive Mother.

Such a transformation doesn't happen fast - It took two long years. And all these two years the city was preparing for the final decision of the dwarf question. Xokhtohm remembered all too well its main enemy's name and sought to destroy him with all its soul. Power of this desire and rage was so strong, Xokhtohm didn't stop its growth until it became twice larger than regular Hive Mother. It took two years more, but it was worth it. And, anyway, the first two years were not enough for full preparation - without an iron guiding will the overlord beholder's colony can't act with full effectiveness.

But the day had come. Preparation was over, Xokhtohm's growth stopped. Revenge campaign started. It wasn't like dwarves forgot about beholders. They believed that then, four years ago they inflicted irreparable losses. And the fact that the enemy itself had taken refuge behind a series of passless logjams perceived only as victory. And plus, the obstacle seemed unbridgeably. They were so wrong. Xokhtohm has raised many masters of delicate proficiency with disintegration, almost finesse. They easily penetrated the path to dwarven settlement, especially since Hive Mother itself was leading them. Its skills in architecture, engineering and dungeoneering in addition to mastery of disintegration had enabled it to avoid mistakes.

The assault was swift and violent. Xokhtohm wasn’t interested in dwarves as slaves, only as meat and screaming toys. Settlement didn’t collapse immediately, however, the dwarves were resisting fiercely. Somebody unsuccessfully tried to break through out of the city, but paths had collapsed or led to ambush. Somebody tried to kill as many enemies as they could. In most it's affecting slaves and beholderkins, but several beholders had been seriously wounded, too.
At some point Xokhtohm noticed a group of dwarven warriors, women and children were breaking through to somewhere in the settlement's center. This was not clear. Xokhtohm pursued hated runts until it breaked into a big dead end cave. Xokhtohm came right after the last dwarf - Hive Mother had to spend a few moments expanding the entrance. It looked at the cave and understood where dwarve were rushing - there was a greate portal on the far wall and survivors were ending to pass through it. Only a few dwarves remained.
– Moradin, I go to you! - they said with pathetic stepping into the shiny wall. But not all can do this. One keeled into the portal as a stone statue. Another grabbed his chest and dropped dead in half step. Third flew into the dimensional passage as a cloud of dust after disintegration altogether.
– Moradin! This is the way to my enemy! - roared Xokhtohm and charged to the portal. Maybe, if dwarves ran in silence Xokhtohm let they go. Well, except those whom it kills on this side. But they said they were going to Xokhtohm’s greatest enemy!!! It just can’t contain its fury!

Passage through the portal was unusual. Xokhtohm, not really, passed through portals anytime before, but something was definitely wrong. However, had no time to think about it: Hive Mother found itself in another cave full of dwarves. And it needed to kill all of them. Xokhtohm disintegrated and destroyed probably two or three dozen ugly humanoids when it realized: dwarves don’t fight back and even almost don’t run away. And… They are transparent… As Xokhtohm is. So, here's the thing! It has lost body! In the first moment it made Xokhtohm furious again - nasty midgets setting a trap for it. But, when Xokhtohm destroyed all ghosts and calmed down a bit, it understood: there were no traps. Not for it, it is far more likely that dwarves were deceived and entrapped here without their bodies. Furthermore… Xokhtohm rather enjoyed its new existence. Eye rays are still accurate. No hunger or thirst and, the main thing, no this endless pain! Yeah, moving is slow, but who cares? Who was Xokhtohm running from? In fact, this condition has more merits than flaws. Xokhtohm should give thanks to Great Mother for this luck. Goddess, besides giving it part of her heritage, had pointed the way to freeing of curse that seemed to be eternal.
Nobody knows if the point was in the attention of the Great Mother or Xokhtohm had it from birth suppressed by suffering, but Hive Mother suddenly felt itself far more perfect than it accustomed. It's thought was running faster, understanding of hidden things became deeper, and willforce shined upon as flash of lightning.

Leaving the cave-trap was a piece of cake. Whoever closed the only exit with a force wall, he definitely wasn't counting on the visit of beholder. Disintegrating eye-ray quickly removed the obstacle.
Xokhtohm’s live became easy and full with simple pleasures: kill somebody, torture faced dwarf, turn drow squad into sculptural composition. An almost pure joy. Only inconvenience was the inability to manipulate material objects. But Xokhtohm compensated for this by developing amazing mastery in telekinesis.

Attribute
Base
Racial
Size
Disembodied
Paragon
Level
Feats
Total

Strength
8
+14
+16
No

38

Dexterity
14
+4

+15
+1

34 (+12)

Constitution
12
+12
+8
No

32

Intelligence
13
+10

+15

38 (+14)

Wisdom
10
+6

+15

31 (+10)

Charisma
15
+14

+15
+10
+14
68 (+29)

Disembodied Paragon Advanced Hive Mother Master of the Unseen Hand-5

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

16
Aberration-20
+15
+6
+6
+12
Hide +23
Intimidate +23
Kn (Religion) +5
Kn (Arcana) +18
Kn (Dungeoneering) +23
Listen +23
Search +11
Spot +23
Survival +12
Concentration +11,5
Agile Tyrant,
Focused Antimagic,
Iron Will,
Force of Personality,
Disintegration Finesse,
Skilled Telekinetic,
True Believer (Great Mother),
Quicken Spell-Like Ability (Call Lightning Storm)
All-Around Vision,
Command beholder,
Eye rays,
Improved grab,
Swallow whole,
Antimagic cone,
Flight

19
Stormtouched
+15
+6
+6
+12
-
-
Immunity to electricity,
Electricity healing,
Call lightning storm (Sp),
Control weather (Sp)

20
Aberration-24
+18
+8
+8
+14
Hide +23
Intimidate +27
Kn (Religion) +5
Kn (Arcana) +27
Kn (Dungeoneering) +27
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +11
Listen +23
Search +11
Spot +23
Survival +12
Concentration +13,5
Improved Darkvision

21
Aberration-28
+21
+9
+9
+16
Hide +23
Intimidate +31
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +31
Kn (Dungeoneering) +31
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +27
Listen +23
Search +11
Spot +23
Survival +12
Concentration +15
Extraordinary Concentration,
Great Charisma

22
Aberration-32
+24
+10
+10
+18
Hide +23
Intimidate +35
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +35
Kn (Dungeoneering) +35
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +35
Listen +23
Search +19
Spot +23
Survival +12
Concentration +17
Great Charisma

23
Aberration-36
+27
+12
+12
+20
Hide +23
Intimidate +39
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +39
Kn (Dungeoneering) +39
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +39
Listen +23
Search +31
Spot +23
Survival +12
Concentration +19
Great Charisma,
Great Charisma

24
Aberration-40
+30
+13
+13
+22
Hide +23
Intimidate +43
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +43
Kn (Dungeoneering) +43
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +43
Listen +23
Search +43
Spot +23
Survival +12
Concentration +21
Great Charisma

25
Aberration-44
+33
+14
+14
+24
Hide +23
Intimidate +47
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +47
Kn (Dungeoneering) +47
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +47
Listen +27
Search +47
Spot +27
Survival +12
Concentration +23
Great Charisma,
Great Charisma

26
Aberration-48
+36
+16
+16
+26
Hide +23
Intimidate +51
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +51
Kn (Dungeoneering) +51
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +51
Listen +31
Search +51
Spot +31
Survival +12
Concentration +25
Great Charisma

27
Aberration-52
+39
+17
+17
+28
Hide +31
Intimidate +55
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +55
Kn (Dungeoneering) +55
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +55
Listen +31
Search +55
Spot +31
Survival +12
Concentration +27
Great Charisma,
Great Charisma

28
Aberration-56
+42
+18
+18
+30
Hide +35
Intimidate +59
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +59
Kn (Dungeoneering) +59
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +59
Listen +35
Search +55
Spot +35
Survival +12
Concentration +29
Great Charisma

29
Aberration-60
+45
+20
+20
+32
Hide +39
Intimidate +63
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +63
Kn (Dungeoneering) +63
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +63
Listen +39
Search +55
Spot +39
Survival +12
Concentration +31
Great Charisma,
Great Charisma

0
Disembodied Spirit
+45
+20
+20
+32
-
-
Disembodied Spirit Abilities

15
Paragon Creature
+45
+20
+20
+32
-
Great Charisma
Paragon Creature Abilities

16
Master of the Unseen Hand-1
+46
+20
+20
+34
Hide +39
Intimidate +63
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +63
Kn (Dungeoneering) +63
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +63
Listen +39
Search +55
Spot +39
Survival +12
Concentration +47
-
Improved caster level,
Versatile telekinesis

17
Master of the Unseen Hand-2
+47
+20
+20
+35
Hide +39
Intimidate +63
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +63
Kn (Dungeoneering) +63
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +63
Listen +39
Search +55
Spot +39
Survival +12
Concentration +63
-
Telekinetic wielder,
Sustained concentration

18
Master of the Unseen Hand-3
+48
+21
+21
+35
Hide +39
Intimidate +66
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +66
Kn (Dungeoneering) +63
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +63
Listen +39
Search +55
Spot +39
Survival +12
Concentration +66
Spellcraft +5
Epic Prowess
Full attack telekinesis

19
Master of the Unseen Hand-4
+49
+21
+21
+36
Hide +39
Intimidate +67
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +67
Kn (Dungeoneering) +63
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +63
Listen +39
Search +55
Spot +39
Survival +12
Concentration +67
Spellcraft +18
-
Improved violent thrust,
Telekinetic flight

20
Master of the Unseen Hand-5
+50
+21
+21
+36
Hide +39
Intimidate +68
Kn (Religion) +6
Kn (Arcana) +68
Kn (Dungeoneering) +63
Kn (Architecture and engineering) +63
Listen +39
Search +55
Spot +39
Survival +12
Concentration +68
Spellcraft +31
-
Fling skyward

Colossal Aberration (Incorporeal)
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Initiative: +12 (+12 Dex); Senses: all-around vision, darkvision 120 ft., Listen +59, and Spot +59
Languages: Beholder and Common, and speak numerous other local languages as well

AC: 46 (-8 size, +12 Dex, +28 deflection +12 insight, +12 luck), touch 46, flat-footed 34
Hit Dice: 60d8+1380 (1860 hp)
Fort +30, Ref +42, Will +55 (+70 against mind-affecting)
Speed: fly 60 ft. (Perfect)
Space: 30 ft./20 ft.
Base Attack +45; Grapple -
Attack: Eye rays +82 ranged touch
Full Attack: Eye rays +82 ranged touch
Damage: -
Special Attacks/Actions: Command beholder, eye rays, improved grab, swallow whole, spell-like abilities
Abilities: Str -, Dex 34, Con -, Int 38, Wis 31, Cha 67
Special Qualities: antimagic cone, flight, rejuvenation, fire and cold resistance 10, DR 10/epic, SR 43, fast healing 20
Feats: Agile Tyrant, Focused Antimagic, Iron Will, Force of Personality, Disintegration Finesse, Skilled Telekinetic, True Believer (Great Mother), Quicken Spell-Like Ability (Call Lightning Storm), Improved Darkvision, Extraordinary Concentration, Great Charisma*14
Skills: Hide +45, Intimidate +101, Kn (Religion) +30, Kn (Arcana) +87, Kn (Dungeoneering) +87, Kn (Architecture and engineering) +87, Listen +59, Search +79, Spot +59, Survival +32, Concentration +41

Command Beholder (Sp): dominate monster at will, only against beholders and beholderkin CL 35, Will DC 81

Eye Rays (Su):
Charm Monster: Will DC 81
Charm Person: Will DC 81
Disintegrate: Fortitude DC 81
Fear: Will DC 81
Finger of Death: Fortitude DC 81
Flesh to Stone: Fortitude DC 81
Inflict Critical Wounds: Will DC 81
Sleep: Will DC 81
Slow: Will DC 81
Telekinesis: Will DC 81, attack bonus +73 (Combat Maneuver) or +98 (Violent Thrust)

Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): 3/day greater dispel magic, haste, and see invisibility (CL 15), 1/week call lightning storm (quicken) (Reflex half DC 43), control weather (CL 75)

Now Xokhtohm is free of its body and starting its new happy live. You can meet with Xokhtohm in any dungeon. If you aren't dwarf it even maybe don't attack you. However, rumors about big ghostly violent beholder begin to appear. And this rumors are only running more and more. Xokhtohm's abilities and power can look almost godlike and you can't understand this is true or exaggerated rumors.
Somebody even (maybe PCs themselves) can kill Xokhtohm, but due its rejuvenation it comes back.

Colossal Aberration (Incorporeal)
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Initiative: +12 (+12 Dex); Senses: all-around vision, darkvision 120 ft., Listen +59, and Spot +59
Languages: Beholder and Common, and speak numerous other local languages as well

AC: 46 (-8 size, +12 Dex, +28 deflection +12 insight, +12 luck), touch 46, flat-footed 34
Hit Dice: 60d8+1380 plus 3d4+36 (1908 hp)
Fort +31, Ref +43, Will +58 (+73 against mind-affecting)
Speed: fly 60 ft. (Perfect)
Space: 30 ft./20 ft.
Base Attack +48; Grapple -
Attack: Eye rays +86 ranged touch
Full Attack: Eye rays +86 ranged touch
Damage: -
Special Attacks/Actions: Command beholder, eye rays, improved grab, swallow whole, spell-like abilities, telekinetic wielder, full attack telekinesis
Abilities: Str -, Dex 34, Con -, Int 38, Wis 31, Cha 67
Special Qualities: antimagic cone, flight, rejuvenation, fire and cold resistance 10, DR 10/epic, SR 43, fast healing 20, improved caster level, versatile telekinesis, sustained concentration
Feats: Agile Tyrant, Focused Antimagic, Iron Will, Force of Personality, Disintegration Finesse, Skilled Telekinetic, True Believer (Great Mother), Quicken Spell-Like Ability (Call Lightning Storm), Improved Darkvision, Extraordinary Concentration, Great Charisma*14, Epic Prowess
Skills: Hide +45, Intimidate +104, Kn (Religion) +30, Kn (Arcana) +90, Kn (Dungeoneering) +87, Kn (Architecture and engineering) +87, Listen +59, Search +79, Spot +59, Survival +32, Concentration +76, Spellcraft +29

Command Beholder (Sp): dominate monster at will, only against beholders and beholderkin CL 35, Will DC 82

Eye Rays (Su):
Charm Monster: Will DC 82
Charm Person: Will DC 82
Disintegrate: Fortitude DC 82
Fear: Will DC 82
Finger of Death: Fortitude DC 82
Flesh to Stone: Fortitude DC 82
Inflict Critical Wounds: Will DC 82
Sleep: Will DC 82
Slow: Will DC 82
Telekinesis: Will DC 82, attack bonus +77 (Combat Maneuver) or +102 (Violent Thrust)

Full Attack Telekinesis (Ex): +79/+74/+69/+64

Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): 3/day greater dispel magic, haste, and see invisibility (CL 15), 1/week call lightning storm (quicken) (Reflex half DC 43), control weather (CL 78)

In this spot Xokhtohm is able to do all that it should be able. Nothing important new wouldn't appear. Xokhtohm is master of telekinesis now. It can use this ability to attack with weapons, to activate magic items, to attack with telekinesis itself. And all this in addition and simultaneously with its other eye-rays.

Colossal Aberration (Incorporeal)
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Initiative: +12 (+12 Dex); Senses: all-around vision, darkvision 120 ft., Listen +59, and Spot +59
Languages: Beholder and Common, and speak numerous other local languages as well

AC: 47 (-8 size, +12 Dex, +29 deflection +12 insight, +12 luck), touch 47, flat-footed 35
Hit Dice: 60d8+1380 plus 5d4+60 (1940 hp)
Fort +31, Ref +43, Will +60 (+75 against mind-affecting)
Speed: fly 60 ft. (Perfect)
Space: 30 ft./20 ft.
Base Attack +50; Grapple -
Attack: Eye rays +88 ranged touch
Full Attack: Eye rays +88 ranged touch
Damage: -
Special Attacks/Actions: Command beholder, eye rays, improved grab, swallow whole, spell-like abilities, telekinetic wielder, full attack telekinesis, improved violent thrust, fling skyward
Abilities: Str -, Dex 34, Con -, Int 38, Wis 31, Cha 68
Special Qualities: antimagic cone, flight, rejuvenation, fire and cold resistance 10, DR 10/epic, SR 45, fast healing 20, improved caster level, versatile telekinesis, sustained concentration, telekinetic flight
Feats: Agile Tyrant, Focused Antimagic, Iron Will, Force of Personality, Disintegration Finesse, Skilled Telekinetic, True Believer (Great Mother), Quicken Spell-Like Ability (Call Lightning Storm), Improved Darkvision, Extraordinary Concentration, Great Charisma*14, Epic Prowess
Skills: Hide +45, Intimidate +107, Kn (Religion) +30, Kn (Arcana) +92, Kn (Dungeoneering) +87, Kn (Architecture and engineering) +87, Listen +59, Search +79, Spot +59, Survival +32, Concentration +78, Spellcraft +55

Command Beholder (Sp): dominate monster at will, only against beholders and beholderkin CL 35, Will DC 84

Eye Rays (Su):
Charm Monster: Will DC 84
Charm Person: Will DC 84
Disintegrate: Fortitude DC 84
Fear: Will DC 84
Finger of Death: Fortitude DC 84
Flesh to Stone: Fortitude DC 84
Inflict Critical Wounds: Will DC 84
Sleep: Will DC 84
Slow: Will DC 84
Telekinesis: Will DC 84, attack bonus +80 (Combat Maneuver) or +105 (Violent Thrust)

Full Attack Telekinesis (Ex): +80/+75/+70/+65

Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): 3/day greater dispel magic, haste, and see invisibility (CL 15), 1/week call lightning storm (quicken) (Reflex half DC 44), control weather (CL 80)

Xokhtohm has reached the peak of the telekinesis, it literally can do every conceivable things with this magic. But in truth, it isn't change very much from sweet spot. Several not very helpful abilities, minor improvements of already exists. Xokhtohm has reached its top. A further growth can be to its true divinity, but this will be another story.

"The creature's hit points are equal to the victim's hit points at the time the separation occurred" says in the disembodied spirit template. This is strongly ambiguous wording if we'll go advancing monsters. Hit points will not raise with new levels? Or will it not decrease after removing the Constitution? Will hit points maximize and add by paragon template? Nobody knows. I calculate hp as the maximum variant. But if you think differently, you can use 930 hp. This is the amount without any increasing and maximizing after passage through the portal.

Answer is simple: up to the DM. But I have some ideas.
First, you can use a resurrection or true resurrection spell together with some method of persuasion Xokhtohm to agree to be raised.
Second, you can find Xokhtohm's dead body and use its parts as weapons. Literally. This is in the spirit of magic, but highly unreliable, as I think.
Third, you can not kill Xokhtohm, but trapping it in some cage, although Xokhtohm's disintegration will be a problem.
Next, let's raise Xokhtohm as undead. It still is alive, remember that? And how will rejuvenation work in this case... Who knows? All the more you can convert it into some undead that lose all SQs and Xokhtohm will not rejuvenate through this.
And the last, you of course can use any method to destroy or entrap Xokhtohm's soul.

Lords of Madness - Hive Mother, Focused Antimagic, Agile Tyrant, Disintegration Finesse, Skilled Telekinetic
SRD - Iron Will
SRD, Epic Level Handbook - Paragon Creature, Great Charisma, Improved Darkvision, Epic Prowess
Dwarven Portals (Web (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030924a)) - Disembodied Spirit
Complete Warrior - Master of the Unseen Hand
Monster Manual - Quicken Spell-Like Ability
DMG II - Stormtouched (unique NPC ability)
Complete Adventurer - Extraordinary Concentration, Force of Personality
Complete Divine - True Believer

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 01:02 AM

9. Megalon

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/85/Megalon_kaiju.png

https://cdn.inprnt.com/thumbs/cd/92/cd922faab56837733e110fa27f2a0e88.jpg

Build Stub: Incarnate Colossal Animated Object, Entomanothrope (Devastation Beetle), Dragonfire Adept 5/Fist Of The Forest 3
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Elite Array: 13/15/NA/NA/14/12
Animated Object: +18/-6/NA/NA/-10/-10

Pre-Incarnate Attributes: 31/9/-/-/4/2

Incarnate Construct: +0/+0/Set to 13/Set to 12/+0/Set to 3

CR 5 Attributes: 31/9/13/12/4/3

Entomanothrope Base: +0/+0/+0/-2/+2/+0
Entomanothrope HD: +0/+1/+21/+0/+10/+0

Giant Form Attributes: 31/10/34/10/16/3

Entomanothrope Transformation: +32/+20/+36/+0/+0/+0

CR 15 Attributes: 63/30/70/10/16/3

HD from Class Levels: +0/+0/+2/+0/+0/+0

CR 20 Attributes: 63/40/72/10/6/3

CR
Build
BAB
Base Fort
Base Ref
Base Will
Skill
Ranks
Feats
Features

5
Incarnate Construct
Colossal Animated Object
+24
+18
+10
+10

6
Dragonfire Adept 1
+24
+20
+10
+12
Jump +20
Dragontouched
Improved Unarmed Strike
Breath Weapon 1d6
Least Invocation: ?

13
Entomanothrope (Devastation Beetle)
+120
+86
+52
+54
Handle Animal +4 (cc)
Jump +144
Listen +48
Spot +48
Survival +4 (cc)
Cleave
Endurance
Enlarge Breath
Great Cleave
Great Fortitude
Maximize Breath
Quick Reconnoiter
Power Attack
Steadfast Determination
Superior Unarmed Strike

Fast Healing 43

14
Fist Of The Forest 1
+121
+88
+54
+54
Listen +1
Spot +1
Fast Healing
AC Bonus
Fast Movement
Feral Trance 1/day
Primal Living
Unarmed Damage

15
Fist Of The Forest 2
+122
+89
+55
+54
Listen +1
Spot +1

Uncanny Dodge
Untamed Strike

16
Fist Of The Forest 3
+123
+89
+55
+55
Listen +1
Spot +1

Feral Trance 2/day
Scent
Unarmed Damage

17
Dragonfire Adept 2
+124
+90
+55
+56
Listen +2
Spot +2
Fast Healing
Breath Effect: Sickening Breath
Scales +2

18
Dragonfire Adept 3
+125
+90
+56
+56
Listen +2
Spot +2

Breath Weapon 2d6
Least Invocation: ?

19
Dragonfire Adept 4
+126
+91
+56
+57
Listen +2
Spot +2

Dragonkin

20
Dragonfire Adept 5
+126
+91
+56
+57
Listen +2
Spot +2
Fast Healing
Breath Weapon 3d6
Breath Effect: Weakening Breath

This is the hybrid stat block, with vermin changes noted.

Size/Type
Colossal Giant (Shapechanger)

Hit Dice
2d10+161d8+4860 (5595 hp)

Initiative
+17

Speed
40 ft (70 ft in vermin form)

Armor Class
102 (-8 size, +10 Dex, +60 natural, +30 Con), touch 42, flat-footed 92

BAB/Grapple
+122/+163

Attack
Unarmed +139 (12d6+26, 19-20/x2) or Bite +138 (25d10+36, 20/x2)

Full Attack
Unarmed +139/+134/+129/+124 (12d6+26, 19-20/x2) and Bite +133 (25d10+36, 20/x2)

Space/Reach
30 ft / 30 ft (30 ft / 20 ft in vermin form)

Special Attacks
Acid Cloud, Breath Weapon 1d6, Curse of Entomanothropy, Feral Trance 1/day, Trample 30d10+36, Untamed Strike

Special Qualities
AC Bonus, Darkvision 300 ft, DR 20/-, Entomanothropic Command, Entomanothropic Immunities, Fast Movement, Invocation, Primal Living, SR 60, Uncanny Dodge

Saves
+121/+65/+84

Abilities
Str 63, Dex 30, Con 70, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 3

Skills
Handle Animal 4 (+0), Jump 164 (+190), Listen 50 (+53), Spot 50 (+53), Survival 4 (+7)

Feats
Cleave, Dragontouched, Endurance, Enlarge Breath, Great Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Unarmed Strike, Maximize Breath, Quick Reconnoiter, Power Attack, Steadfast Determination, Superior Unarmed Strike

Epic Feats
Fast Healing 44

Environment
Any

Organization
Solitary

Challenge Rating
15

Treasure
None

Alignment
Neutral

Advancement
-

Level Adjustment
-

Normally, in Iron Chef, there is a push to perform as well as you possibly can - because even if you go overboard, the DM can always throw bigger numbers or more broken builds your way. It doesn't matter as much if you break things. In Villain Competition, though, you're putting forth builds for the DM - builds that ostensibly will be facing a relatively normal party with normal optimization (even if that might be "normal for forum members"). Builds that go too far aren't too difficult in a competition that builds on CR, but it's a fine line you need to walk.

Separate from that issue is a fine line elsewhere in the system to walk: the kaiju archetype. The big strong brute that's relatively straightforward to fight but is just too big and strong to actually take on in a fight unless you're basically playing a superhero. It sucks, but generally for their CR brutes tend to be the easiest fights, not the hardest, and this makes it difficult to deliver a kaiju experience. Even a great wyrm dragon has to be careful attacking a metropolis because there's high-level NPCs available to kick their **** in, even if the PCs aren't around to do that job, and dragons are honestly better equipped for plowing through armies of low-level NPCs than most brutes are, just because they have a (sort of) at-will AoE.

Typically, a kaiju scene in a movie isn't about killing the monster, it's about surviving the monster. You may as well try to kill a hurricane for all you're going to actually have any effect. You're chipping away at a volcano with a sword while the lava steadily flows downhill towards you. Kaiju are forces of nature and it would take something truly exceptional like a team of superheroes or a friendly kaiju or a giant robot to actually have a chance at success. Even nuclear detonation isn't necessarily an option. This dynamic is difficult to pull off for PCs because they have a tendency to just rush in and beat up the thing, because they're used to even the toughest fights being at least theoretically winnable. The game is designed around letting them be heroes by murdering monsters, why should this particular Colossal brute be any different?

You want a kaiju? Fine. Let's make a kaiju.

Awhile back, I noticed something fun for this competition in one of the templates: Lycanthropes effectively "multiclass" into Animal, and they get CR increase based on their HD increase. However, that CR increase is a flat +6 for any HD increase higher than 20. Normally, adding 20 Animal HD would be CR +5, but Lycanthropy gives other advantages too, so that's fair...as long as there's not too many animals that have way more HD than 20. If you found one that was, say, 60 HD, well suddenly CR +6 is looking a tad low, isn't it? But hey, I don't make the rules! This kind of combo, getting an absurd number of bad Animal HD, seemed pretty fitting for a kaiju round - making a big brute that can't just be shot to death, where you need a clever solution because straightforward combat will fail.

However, I did run into a few problems: first, you have to be a Humanoid or Giant within one size of the animal to be a legal lycan, and the lycan in question has to be predator or omnivore or something that would have proper natural weapons to transfer the disease. Because of this specific competition, I need the base form to be Colossal as well, not "merely" gargantuan, and there's only one Colossal Humanoid or Giant...and it's like CR 26? What's more, Colossal animals were also in short supply, and most of them were whales and thus wouldn't really qualify for lycanthropy in the first place.

I guess I could point out a technicality that the advancement section of a statblock isn't the end-all-be-all of advancement, and that advancing by HD (even more than what is listed in the table) is still legal, just very rare to find in the wild. But that feels like a copout, saying that I'm not merely a were-whale, I'm a were-superwhale. It's in the same ballpark as saying I'm a were-"template-stacking whale", and that would honestly feel like cheating to me. I need to find a monster that can actually qualify as-is to feel like I'm staying within the rules

That's a definite set of problems, and it means I need to get creative.

First, the Colossal Humanoid or Giant problem. This one is relatively simple to solve: Incarnate Construct can apply to any construct, and if the base construct was Large or Larger, they become a Giant of the same size. So find a Colossal Construct, apply the template, and boom! It also halves their CR (which is usually fair, given it takes away immunities, SAs, and SQs). Of course, Colossal Constructs also aren't very common - there's a few in the epic handbook, but my best bet is gonna be the Colossal Animated Object from the Monster Manual. CR 5 for a nice pile of giant HD with no skills or feats...it's probably fair? Eh.

Now for my lycan form. After some searching, I become discouraged about using animal forms - most of the viable ones don't get nearly as many HD as I was hoping - and so I turn to an alternative. There is an online article for an alternative lycanthropy - entomanothropy, which is like lycanthropy but for Vermin instead of Animals, and is as flat +7 for HD over 20. And boy did I hit the jackpot:

1) Vermin tend to have a small pile of immunities.

2) Colossal Vermin with tons of HD are really really common - there's even a handful in the MM.

3) Entomanothrope explicitly gives you HD bumps to attributes for the multiclassed Vermin HD, even though getting the vermin form is already giving you huge attribute benefits. Nice!

4) Mind-Affecting Immunity even though the template acknowledges that you'll have an Int score and thus a mind, unlike most vermin. You get immunity and skills/feats, what a deal!

5) Entomanothrope has a weird interaction that gives it really good synergy with Incarnate Construct.

That last one is going to need some explaining. So, as I said earlier, Constructs tend to be mindless, and Incarnate Construct doesn't give you feats if you didn't already have them. It sucks, but it halves your CR, so it's probably fair. Entomanothrope effectively lets you "multiclass" into Vermin, which also typically doesn't get feats...except you're doing so as a Humanoid or Giant, who usually does. The way the template handles this is, you take the HD feats you had pre-template and any bonus feats the vermin form gets. If that equals the number of feats you should have from HD (or more), then nothing extra happens. If, however, you have fewer feats from non-vermin HD and vermin form than your new HD total would indicate, you gain bonus feats sufficient to bring your feat total to where it should be. This means that Entomanothrope will retroactively give you feats for the construct-turned-giant HD, even though Incarnate Construct would usually deny you those feats!

So I do a bit of searching looking for good Colossal vermin forms, and I eventually hit on the perfect one: the Devastation Beetle from the ELH. 128 HD, CR 50, and an absolute monster. If I had absolutely no class levels, a Colossal Animated Object --> Incarnate Construct --> Entomanothrope (Devastation Beetle) would be CR 12 with 160 HD and some epic monster features. Now this is a kaiju!

...but we're not quite done yet. We need to handle that elemental affinity requirement, and I know exactly what I wanna do for that. I want a breath weapon that isn't an issue for PCs to deal with, but that's devastating for a town of NPCs, that can be pumped out relatively frequently. To that end, before the Entomanothrope template is applied, I take a level of Dragonfire Adept. This gives me a breath weapon with a 0 round cooldown by default, albeit a weak one that deals 1d6 fire damage in a 15-ft cone. But the trick is, the reason I did the level before the template is so I could use a few feats from the giant pile of feats to give myself Metabreath feats. Maximize Breath will make it a flat 6 fire damage, and Enlarge Breath will let me increase the area - and it can be explicitly stacked with itself to create much larger areas in exchange for drastically increasing the cooldown.

Of course, this gets into the fun of Metabreath: if I do a normal breath that takes 0 rounds to cool down, it takes a standard action to use; if I do a maximized breath that takes 3 rounds to cool down, it takes a standard action to use; if I do a 10xEnlarged Breath that takes 10 rounds to cool down, it takes a standard action to use. All the cost is after I've used the breath, it's not requiring me to spend a minute (or however long) charging it up.

Finally, I have a level in Fist Of The Forest, because Con to Touch AC is honestly just icing on the cake covering one of my few remaining weaknesses, but also because it's kinda thematic to make our fire-spewing, acid aura kaiju into an avenger in nature's service. It really feels like Godzilla now! Oh, and the reason I took the unarmed stuff is because that lets me make use of iteratives for better damage - not that I really need to attack things directly often, since I can usually just trample. But gotta beat down them buildings!

And so it's all come together. The PCs are mid-level and getting some pretty powerful spells and feats. They've beaten some serious foes and are now almost the biggest shots in town even if they're in a metropolis. There's a few people here who could maybe take them in a fight, but those townies are soft and not built for combat like you are.

And then it comes over the horizon. The horns blow. Panic sets in. Guards begin evacuating everybody they can. People are fleeing their homes, and the king comes to the party, asking if there's anything they can do to hold it off. The party, of course, will try their best, because slaying monsters is their job. And something big enough to scare a town will have a lot of loot!

But they can do nothing. Their weapons can't penetrate its hide, spells bounce off or fail to have any effect whatsoever, it's too big to cage or 'port away, and it's generally faster than the party.

It ignores them. It has no interest in engaging the insects at its feet, it's here to delete this eyesore city and let nature take over once more. The party approaches in for melee and feel like they're melting. A casual breath from it lights everything on fire. It glances at them as if considering a lazy punch, then just runs towards the city without stepping on them. Such little effort it would take to squash them, but that would slow down its approach to the town, and why waste time with these insignificant specks?

The party 'ports back to town ahead of it, their bodies and egos shattered. They set the remainder of their resources and energy to assisting with the evacuation, saving people's lives and livelihoods before this unstoppable monster arrives and wreaks havoc. The NPCs come to assist in holding it off as long as they can, for what little good it will do. Magical barriers are erected, but it leaps over them. Vines and spikes arise to cage it, but it crashes through them without a care in the world. Enormous explosions fly towards it, but the wounds heal in a matter of seconds as if they'd never existed. The monster responds in kind with a cone of fire half a mile long that torches everything. The powerful PCs and their NPC allies are fine, but buildings and possessions and citizens burn helplessly.

Efforts now turn away from slowing the thing down, and just protecting the citizenry from the devastation while the toughest insects try to get the things attention, potentially giving their lives just to buy a round or two for the fleeing masses. When the dust has settled, the city is wrecked and the monster moves on. The population has been cut in half, surely, and many of the powerful NPCs are dead. The party stares at the beast's back as it moves on, uncaring for the lives it has ruined. They will get vengeance for the slight against their town and their ego. Next time, they'll be more powerful, and they'll be prepared. Next time, they'll make it pay for everything it's done.

AC 102, Touch AC 42, SR 60, DR 20/-, Fast Healing 132, 5590 HP. It only fails Ref or Will saves on a natural 1, can't even fail Fort saves on a nat 1, and is immune to mind-affecting effects. Its full attack DPR is 445.5 (and it will hit on anything but a nat 1); even a single hit from it will be a major blow to a mid-level character, if not outright lethal. Its trample averages 201 damage to every creature Gargantuan or smaller that's in a 140 ft by 30 ft path in front of it. Its 60 ft acid aura does 6d6 per round - even being near this thing for long enough will kill a mid-level party that isn't prepared! The acid aura and fire breath can easily be fluffed as radiation effects, and this becomes easier later when the breath weapon can become acid as well.

Maybe the party is lucky and has a handful of "no-SR no-save no-attack-roll just screw you" spells available, but frankly unless they're cheesed to hell and back, they won't have the action economy for their damage to outpace its fast healing, or the sheer number of slots needed to carve through all those HP even if the fast healing was turned off. They're not prepared for this fight, and even if they were, they simply aren't powerful enough to kill it. The whole town working together isn't powerful enough to kill it.

You could give every guard in town a MW composite longbow designed for their Str, have them all fire arrows at this thing, and the crits that got past the DR still wouldn't be enough to warrant it turning its attention away from the town and towards the insects. You could maybe whittle it down if you did that for an hour, but in the meantime it's going to be torching everything in sight.

This is the sweet spot because it's the point where the PCs are most helpless. They may well have 7th level spells at this point, but it doesn't matter: unless they're employing some pretty unconventional tactics like swarming it with allips, they don't really have a chance. Even that's not as much of a guarantee as it is against the Tarrasque, because this thing has magic unarmed strikes and Great Cleave! The usual tactic of a single one won't have a chance. And that's still your best chance to delay it indefinitely. And it's got a decent Wisdom for tanking some of that drain anyway.

Now this is a kaiju fight: where even the PCs, for as powerful as they are, will have to focus on staying out of its way and rescuing civilians, because engaging the beast in combat is ineffective at best and immediately deadly at worst.

Size/Type
Colossal Giant (Shapechanger)

Hit Dice
168d8+5208 (5964 hp)

Initiative
+17

Speed
40 ft (70 ft in vermin form)

Armor Class
102 (-8 size, +10 Dex, +60 natural, +30 Con), touch 42, flat-footed 92

BAB/Grapple
+126/+168

Attack
Unarmed +144 (16d6+26, 19-20/x2) or Bite +144 (25d10+36, 20/x2)

Full Attack
Unarmed +144/+139/+134/+129 (16d6+26, 19-20/x2) and Bite +139 (25d10+36, 20/x2)

Space/Reach
30 ft / 30 ft (30 ft / 20 ft in vermin form)

Special Attacks
Acid Cloud, Breath Weapon 3d6, Curse of Entomanothropy, Feral Trance 2/day, Trample 30d10+36, Untamed Strike

Special Qualities
AC Bonus, Breath Effect, Darkvision 300 ft, DR 20/-, Dragonkin, Entomanothropic Command, Entomanothropic Immunities, Fast Movement, Invocations, Primal Living, Scent, SR 60, Uncanny Dodge

Saves
+124/+66/+88

Abilities
Str 63, Dex 30, Con 72, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 3

Skills
Handle Animal 4 (+0), Jump 164 (+190), Listen 59 (+62), Spot 59 (+62), Survival 4 (+7)

Feats
Cleave, Dragontouched, Endurance, Enlarge Breath, Great Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Unarmed Strike, Maximize Breath, Quick Reconnoiter, Power Attack, Steadfast Determination, Superior Unarmed Strike

Epic Feats
Fast Healing 46

Environment
Any

Organization
Solitary

Challenge Rating
20

Treasure
None

Alignment
Neutral

Advancement
-

Level Adjustment
-

This time, the PCs are more powerful, and they're better prepared. They don't have to protect a town from devastation, they've tracked the beast to its lair. It's busy resting in preparation for its next assault on civilization - and while its breath weapon has grown more powerful in the time since the party last faced it (and can now be acid), it's largely the same beast. They've had time to learn about its strengths and weaknesses, to prepare items and spells that will be particularly effective against it, to research strategies for getting around its indomitable defenses, to seek out artifacts or rituals that could be used to weaken or slay it. It's still a rough fight for high-level PCs, but if they're putting in the effort, they'll be able to beat it - and unlike most fights, they'll feel like it's a victory earned through hard work.

It's time to kill a kaiju.
I know what you're thinking. "Now wait a minute! My players might optimize more than I'd like them to, but I feel like stapling a CR 10 monster to a CR 50 monster and calling it CR 12 is maybe a bit much." Well, you coward, this particular trick is actually quite versatile! This particular "going all out" version is more for making a proper kaiju for this particular contest. There's still a few fun things you can do to take advantage of it without going completely overboard.

For starters, you could use a lesser vermin. One of the Colossal from the monster manual oughta do the trick: they won't have epic features like that absurd trample or the Acid Aura or the SR 60 and DR 20/-, and while they can still take a pile of epic feats and get a pile of HD bumps, they won't be nearly as significant. Additionally, because of the limits on this contest requiring Colossal, pulling this trick in a home game is easier because you don't need a Colossal Animated Object (or a Colossal Vermin, for that matter). A huge construct-turned-giant turning into a gargantuan bug will still be plenty powerful.

You could also skip Incarnate Construct entirely: there's huge giants in existence, and even a Huge Humanoid (the Constrictor Naga in OA). That would allow you to get a gargantuan form without any issues, and would feel far less cheaty. This is also getting to the point where Huge and Gargantuan Animals become an option again - in particular, Rocs are an option now, as well as lesser animals that have had the Titanic template applied (assuming that doesn't feel like cheating to you). A were-roc sounds awesome to me, personally.

If you're a Medium-Huge Giant or Humanoid, you also have the Legendary Bear or Tiger from Epic Level Handbook as an option, which have close to 20 HD but still give a definite HD-vs-CR advantage, while still not having too much epic nonsense stacked on top to make things unfair, and there's a lot of other high-HD animals that are also interesting to play with. If you still wanna play around with some cooler vermin forms without going full epic, the Astral Kraken and the Century Worm have interesting features without having too many HD (20 and 40 respectively). The Astral Kraken isn't even taking advantage of the entomanothrope CR trick, so that's one more way you can avoid feeling like you're cheating.

Overall, there are tons of ways to take advantage of the lycanthrope/entomanothrope CR trick and the incarnate construct+entomanothrope trick to great effect without breaking the game as hard as this build does. And of course, at the end of the day this build is just "big numbers" - I'm sure there's some cheesy tactics that can be used to undermine it without too much trouble, I just don't expect most parties to have the resources to pull them off without having prepared to do so ahead of time. So find the combo that works for your party and throw a kaiju at them. I'm sure they'll have a blast.

Complete Adventurer: Quick Reconnoiter
Complete Champion: Fist Of The Forest
Draconomicon: Enlarge Breath, Maximize Breath
Dragon Magic: Dragonfire Adept, Dragontouched
Epic Level Handbook: Devastation Beetle, Fast Healing
Monster Manual: Colossal Animated Object
Online: Entomanothrope (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040621a)
Player's Handbook: Cleave, Endurance, Great Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack
Player's Handbook 2: Steadfast Determination
Savage Species: Incarnate Construct
Tome Of Battle: Superior Unarmed Strike

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 01:03 AM

10. Ixalli

Ixalli, Guardian of the Hollow World

"Are you... entirely sure about this, oh High Druid? Wouldn't a more... aggressive thunder-beast be better suited to protecting the Children of Ka from intruders from the World Above, one that more closely matches Ka's divine form?"

"No, my student. The omens were quite clear: Ka demands that only the greatest, strongest and most colossal of His children may be permitted to bear his blessings in this task. This creature, which I have named Ixalli in honour of our eternal sun, is the one that shall protect us - its form purified by our magic, its mind enlightened to Ka's glory by my blessing. It shall be our civilisation's guide and guardian, my successor as High Druid, a wise and powerful being that shall channel Ka's divine power like nothing before! Already, it has taken as its herald and companion one of our mightiest swordtooths, honouring His form. Soon it - um. What is it doing?"

"It appears to be dealing with the latest intruders by punching them very hard in the face, oh High Druid. And setting them on fire."

"... Perhaps I shall consult the omens again."

https://www.elventower.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/L-Yggdrassaur.png

Ixalli, Guardian of the Hollow World
(Associated elements: Earth, Fire)

Awakened Magebred Seismosaurus Unarmed Swordsage 8
N Colossal Magical Beast (Augmented Animal)
HD 34d8+8d8+462 (654hp)
Str 49 (+19)
Dex 16 (+3)
Con 33 (+11)
Int 18 (+4)
Wis 16 (+3)
Cha 17 (+3)

Total BAB: +31/+26/+21/+16
Total Base Saves: Fort +21/Ref +25/Will +16
Saves: Fort +32, Ref +28, Will +19
Speed 30ft (Magebred: Swift Breed)
base AC: 20 (-8 size, +12 natural, +3 Wis, +3 Dex)
Attack: Unarmed Strike +43 (12d6+19), or +41/+41 (12d6+19, 12d6+9)
Tail Slap +42 (4d10+28)
Full attack: Unarmed Strike +43/+38/+33/+28 (12d6+19 x4), or +41/+41/+36/+31/+26 (12d6+19 x4, 12d6+9 x1) (Snap Kick), Tail Slap +37 (4d10+9 as secondary natural attack)
Unarmed Strike damage: 12d6+19 / 12d6+9 (Snap Kick bonus attack)
Tail Slap 4d10+28 / 4d10+9 (as secondary natural attack)
Trample 10d10+28

Wild Cohort – Gishath, Warbeast Tyrannosaurus
18d8+11d8+1d8 (base + Wild Cohort bonus HD + warbeast bonus HD) = 30d8+210 (348hp)
Spd 50ft (40ft+10ft warbeast bonus)
AC 27 (-2 size, +3 Dex, +16 natural)
Str 36 (+13), Dex 17 (+3), Con 24 (+7), Int 2 (-4), Wis 17 (+3), Cha 10 (+0)
BAB: +22
Attack: +33 Bite (3d6+19)
Base Saves: Fort +17, Ref +17, Will +10
Saves: Fort +24, Ref +20, Will +13
SA: Improved Grab, Swallow Whole, Weapon Of Ruin, Slayer's Fury, Destiny Strike
SQ: Low-light vision, scent, DR 5/-, Unbreakable Body, Unstoppable Tenacity
Feats: Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, Martial Study (Douse The Flames), Martial Study (White Raven Tactics), Leap Attack, Epic Destiny (Blade of Ragnarok)
Skills: Jump +29 (8r), Listen +11 (7r), Spot +11 (7r)
Combative Mount (Ex): A rider on a trained warbeast mount gets a +2 circumstance bonus on all Ride checks. A trained warbeast is proficient with light, medium, and heavy armor.
Evasion (Ex): If an animal cohort is subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, it takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw.
Devotion (Ex): An animal cohort's devotion to its master is so complete that it gains a +4 morale bonus on Will saves against enchantment spells and effects.
Improved Evasion (Ex): When subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, an animal cohort takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw and only half damage if the saving throw fails.

Abilities Initial Magebred Seismosaurus Maximised Awaken 36HD 40HD Final
Str 15 +34 = 49 49
Dex 14 +0 = 14 +1 = 15 +1 = 16 16
Con 13 +20 = 33 33
Int 8 Fixed: 2 Fixed: 18 18
Wis 12 +4 = 16 16
Cha 10 +4 = 14 +3 = 17 17

CR Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Reflex Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
12 Awakened Magebred Seismosaurus +25 +19 +19 +10 Concentration 18, Tumble 18, Handle Animal 18, Jump 18, Listen 37, Spot 37, Balance 2 Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike) (B), Wild Cohort, Dodge, Snap Kick, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Knockback, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Knock-Down, Combat Reflexes, Great Throw Trample 10d10+28, darkvision 60ft, low-light vision, scent, excellent learner, swift breed
13 Unarmed Swordsage 1 +25 +19 +21 +12 Concentration 28(+10), Tumble 18, Handle Animal 18, Jump 18, Listen 37, Spot 37, Balance 2 Improved Unarmed Strike (B) Quick To Act +1, Discipline Focus (Weapon Focus, Shadow Hand)
14 Unarmed Swordsage 2 +26 +19 +22 +13 Concentration 38(+10), Tumble 18, Handle Animal 18, Jump 18, Listen 37, Spot 37, Balance 2 Adaptive Style AC Bonus
15 Unarmed Swordsage 3 +27 +20 +22 +13 Concentration 40(+2), Tumble 26(+8), Handle Animal 18, Jump 18, Listen 37, Spot 37, Balance 2
16 Unarmed Swordsage 4 +28 +20 +23 +14 Concentration 41(+1), Tumble 35(+9), Handle Animal 18, Jump 18, Listen 37, Spot 37, Balance 2 Discipline Focus (Insightful Strikes, Diamond Mind)
17 Unarmed Swordsage 5 +28 +20 +23 +14 Concentration 42(+1), Tumble 41(+6), Handle Animal 18, Jump 18, Listen 37, Spot 37, Balance 5(+3) Sudden Recovery Quick To Act +2
18 Unarmed Swordsage 6 +29 +21 +24 +15 Concentration 43(+1), Tumble 43(+2), Handle Animal 18, Jump 18, Listen 43(+7), Spot 38(+1), Balance 5
19 Unarmed Swordsage 7 +30 +21 +24 +15 Concentration 44(+1), Tumble 44(+1), Handle Animal 19(+1), Jump 18, Listen 44(+1), Spot 43(+5), Balance 5 Sense Magic
20 Unarmed Swordsage 8 +31 +21 +25 +16 Concentration 45(+1), Tumble 45(+1), Handle Animal 22(+3), Jump 18, Listen 45(+1), Spot 45(+1), Balance 5 Superior Unarmed Strike Discipline Focus (Defensive Stance, Diamond Mind)

Level Class Maneuvers Known Maneuvers Readied Stances Initiator Level
1st Unarmed Swordsage 6 4 1 18
2nd Unarmed Swordsage 7 4 2 19
3rd Unarmed Swordsage 8 5 2 20
4th Unarmed Swordsage 9 5 2 21
5th Unarmed Swordsage 10 6 3 22
6th Unarmed Swordsage 11 6 3 23
7th Unarmed Swordsage 12 6 3 24
8th Unarmed Swordsage 13 7 3 25

Suggested Maneuvers Known:
Swordsage 1: Diamond Defense, Shadow Blink, Mountain Tombstone Strike, Inferno Blade, Moment Of Perfect Mind, Emerald Razor, Stance Of Alacrity
2: Time Stands Still, Hearing The Air
3: Cloak Of Deception
4: Quicksilver Motion (Emerald Razor -> Irresistible Mountain Strike)
5: Shadow Noose, Balance On The Sky
6: One With Shadow (Shadow Noose -> Enervating Shadow Strike)
7: Diamond Nightmare Blade
8: Disrupting Blow

CR 12:
At its initial level, Ixalli is basically just an optimised version of a traditional Seismosaurus – that is to say, it's a fairly basic giant slab of HP, dependent on purchasing magic items to shore up its many weak points like an inability to fly and a vulnerability to Will-based save-or-die spells. It is, however, a *giant* slab of HP, averaging 530hp (more than twice that of the equal-CR classic, the Purple Worm), with a 25ft reach and an enormous 40ft x 120ft space (thanks to the MM2 3.5 update conspicuously failing to update its space/reach to 3.5 standards). That's a lot of room to make its Combat Reflexes enabled AoOs, each of which triggers a free-action trip attempt due to Knock-Down (we are more-or-less incapable of *not* dealing at least 10 points of damage unless facing a truly staggering amount of DR, and have a +16 size bonus to the trip check itself on top of our massive Str score), automatic unarmed strike damage with Great Throw (plus the ability to reposition the enemy anywhere within our enormous threatened area, opening up quite a few tactical options), and a free bull-rush attempt with Knockback, all of which should combine to make Ixalli extremely difficult to approach. (And Magebred brings it up to equal speed to most PCs, which means if it catches you in its threatened area you're going to have trouble safely retreating too). If facing too many enemies to deal with them all by AoO-ing them back, Trample them. Note that as using the Tumble skill isn't an action but is just part of moving, you can Tumble while Trampling, Monster Hunter Uragaan style. (Honestly I just put Tumble into this build because the mental image of a giant diplodocid dinosaur curling up and rolling nimbly across the battlefield was too hilarious *not* to share.)
Gishath provides a solid flanking companion, a counter to DR and regeneration which might otherwise allow enemies to escape Ixalli's damage (as HP damage is our only attack vector at this level) and a way of chasing out anyone hiding down small passages. Since Gishath has its full Wild Cohort bonus HD from the start, it also has the ability to give Ixalli a 1/fight White Raven Tactics extra turn. (I checked, there's no rule explicitly stating Int 2 animals can't take Martial Study or maneuvers generally. Ixalli must just be an extraordinarily good trainer.) We're still vulnerable to a flying warlock sniping Ixalli and Gishath to death without magic item support, unfortunately.

CR 13:
One level of Swordsage is immediately a massive improvement, because Ixalli's 34HD convert immediately to 17 initiator levels. This means we can pick up to 9th level maneuvers from our very first Swordsage level. We do still need to worry about the 'X maneuvers from this school' prerequisites, but there are a few excellent high-level maneuvers such as Shadow Blink and Mountain Tombstone Strike with no such prerequisites. Diamond Defense provides a solid defense against Save-or-lose spells, adding +18 to a save and being recoverable immediately if we're willing to bunker down (as you can take both a full-round action and a swift/immediate action). Flying enemies can still be a pain without a flight item, but Will saves should be less of an issue with Diamond Defense and Moment of Perfect Mind, and Shadow Blink gives us a swift-action move for effective pounce.
Note that the FAQ explicitly states that, like feats, you may use maneuvers/stances as prerequisites for other maneuvers/stances gained at the same level, so you do not have to select exclusively from the (fairly limited) pool of 0-prerequisite maneuvers, or select your stance from the level 1 stances and the 2 level 3 stances with no prerequisites. Discipline Focus can be applied to any school that uses unarmed strikes; we don't need to be using Strikes or Boosts of the specified school to get the bonus.

We would gain Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat, but we already picked it up as a regular feat in Ixalli's RHD to let us squeeze in Snap Kick early and improve our combat options at CR 12. (If you're okay with using the feat retraining rules, retrain away that original regular-feat version for something else now that you have it as a bonus feat. The build as-presented does not assume any use of the retraining rules.)

CR 15:
3 levels into Swordsage, Ixalli has gained a nice little AC bonus to offset the enormous Colossal size penalty to AC, a couple of extra maneuvers and a second stance. Adaptive Style allows it to spend a full-round action to re-ready all its maneuvers (both the book itself and the FAQ are extremely clear that this is how the feat works, you get all your maneuvers refreshed), providing substantially increased endurance in prolonged fights, or just the ability to spam its favourite boosts and strikes every other round.

CR 20:
As a level 8 Swordsage, we gain Sense Magic, clearly the most vital and key part of... no, I'm kidding, Sense Magic is worthless even if you get it at actual level 7 rather than at level 19. Defensive Stance for a free +2 to your saving throws and a 7th readied maneuver are nice. Depending on your maneuvers known, you should have a solid suite of utility, defensive and offensive options, shoring up the previously mentioned issues like your low Will save and flying opponents, and providing ways to shut enemies down completely or pounce and kill them in a single turn.
Items:
It's up to you whether Ixalli has a WBL based on its CR or based on its HD. The latter obviously gives it a *lot* of cash to throw around to shore up its various weak points. Note that Ixalli, being a gigantic dinosaur, will struggle to use a number of standard magic items; however, it still has a head with two eyes, a neck, front and rear limbs, shoulders, a torso and a waist. Diplodocid dinosaurs are even known to have had a distinctive clawed thumb on their front legs, which you might be able to argue gives them somewhere to put a pair of rings. Most items may need to be custom-made in order to fit such a tremendous wearer, though, and as far as I can tell there are no specific guidelines on pricing for non-armour Colossal magic items. The PHB, DMG and Rules Compendium note that magical armour, shields and weapons made for a Medium humanoid will not resize to suit a non-Medium non-humanoid user, but say nothing about other items. By a strict RAW reading, a normal human-made ring of protection +1 or cloak of Charisma +2 will therefore happily resize to fit Ixalli perfectly. This may get a rulebook thrown at your head.
Good magic items, if you can source them, include Bracers of Armour to shore up Ixalli's terrible AC, a Necklace of Natural Weapons, a Fanged Ring (Improved Natural Attack doesn't stack as far as I can tell, but the extra Con damage is nice, especially since you'll already be throwing out Con damage with Mountain Tombstone Strike), a casting of permanent Greater Magic Fang (not *technically* an item as such, but close enough), the standard big-six stat boosters (Belt of Giant's Strength, Cloak or Vest of Resistance, Ring of Protection, etc.), and some source of flight. Also, it would be polite to get Gishath a Headband of Intellect +2 and a Pearl of Speech, so that it can actually use intelligent tactics on its own and talk to you; technically nothing in Wild Cohort or Awaken says explicitly that an Awakened animal stops qualifying as a Wild Cohort, but, c'mon. (As an Awakened animal, Ixalli itself can already talk just fine. Somehow.)

Won't Awaken increase CR?
Animals and magical beasts gain +1 CR per 3 RHD advanced, and Awaken only advances RHD by 2 - applying the 'always round fractions down' rule, and noting that there is no specification that there is a minimum of +1 CR, we don't get any CR increase from the extra 2 HD. A seismosaurus also does not increase in size by going from 32 to 34 HD. There is therefore no CR increase involved.

If you're feeling incredibly cheesy:
The 3.5 Monster Manual updated the 'Trample' special ability. In 3.0 it was a standard action that you could take during your turn by moving over an opponent; in 3.5 it has instead become a full-round action involving moving twice your speed. But the MM2 descriptions, including of the Seismosaurus, say 'As a standard action during its turn each round, seismosaurus can trample opponents at least one size category smaller than itself.', and nothing in the MM2 3.5 Update document changes that specific section from 'standard action' to 'full-round action'. (And that update document specifically *does* say, only a few entries further up, 'See Monster Manual glossary for revised definition of rake'.) And specific trumps general, including on things like 'what sort of action is it to do this?'. So, technically, as a standard action during its turn each round, a seismosaurus can move twice its speed and trample any opponent it moves over.

This will *definitely* get a rulebook thrown at your head if you try it at an actual table.

Seismosaurus, Warbeast template: MM2 p72, p219
Magebred template: ECS p295
Tyrannosaurus, Improved Natural Attack: MM p61, p304
Wild Cohort: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a
Swordsage, Adaptive Style, Martial Study, Snap Kick, Sudden Recovery, Superior Unarmed Strike: ToB p16, p28, p31, p32, p33, p33
Various Maneuvers: ToB, pages: too many to feasibly list individually. p52-94.
Great Throw: OA errata ( http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20060413a )
Knockback: Races of Stone p142
Knock-Down: Deities & Demigods p51
Shock Trooper: CW p112
Leap Attack: CA p110
Epic Destiny: https://web.archive.org/web/20090218080723/http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080428
Fanged Ring: Dragon Magic p101
Pearl of Speech: MIC p118
Names: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=519243, https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=435378
Art: Lluis Abadias / https://www.elventower.com/246-luminaria-an-iggdrasaur-settlement/

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 01:04 AM

11. The Unnamed God

This adventure starts in an usual D&D way, about exploring a recently discovered island - it seems natives are not interested in the outside world, live mostly naked, and are separated in two social classes, laborers and warriors. The warriors wear distinctive clothes, use strange weapons (like magic missile wands) and wear strange masks… But maybe they will conquer all the outside world afterwards !

Will the players recognize the reference before encountering the strange kaiju which dominates this island and then throw their dice at the DM ?

ALL HAIL ZARDOZ

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/UUWNYR1pW4BEahkjySqzboZm3bpOKvKn_SwQL8Wz2RU4PUHi5J ff_5zjaUA_vPOng-CrRjYrZHZyTT6bUf2yTREB3DPfcpEPouqTPvQn4S6tO9vibOXb 2WMSjP4rZkqCIldAn6wC

Zardoz!
Praise be to Zardoz!
Praise be to Zardoz!
Praise be to Zardoz!
Zardoz speaks to you, his chosen ones.
We are the chosen ones.
You have been raised up from brutality
to kill the brutals
who multiply and are legion.
To this end Zardoz, your god,
gave you the gift of the gun.
The gun is good.
The gun is good.
The penis is evil.
The penis shoots seeds
and makes new life to poison
the earth with a plague of men,
as once it was.
But the gun shoots death and purifies
the earth of the filth of brutals.
Go forth and kill.
Zardoz has spoken.
Guns! Guns!

Half-Earth Elemental, Kaiju, 3-HD Vargouille CR 20
(manual of the planes, dragon magazine #289)

Str
Dex
Con
Int
Wis
Cha
natural armor

Vargouille
10 (+0)
13 (+2)
12 (+2)
5 (-6)
12 (+2)
8 (-2)

Elite array
14
15
13
8
12
10

Small to Medium
+4
-2
+2

Medium to Large
+8
-2
+4

+2

Large to Huge
+8
-2
+4

+3

Huge to Gargantuan
+8

+4

+4

Gargantuan to Colossal
+8

+4

+5

Kaiju
+4

+4
2

+20
+15

Half-Earth Elemental
+4
-2
+4

+3

TOTAL
58 (+24)
9 (-1)
41 (+15)
2 (-4)
14 (+2)
28 (+9)
+32

Size/Type:

Colossal Outsider (Earth, Evil, Extraplanar)

Hit Dice:

43d8+645 (829 hp)

Initiative:

-1

Speed:

Fly 30 ft. (poor) (6 squares)

Armor Class:

33 (-8 size, -1 Dex, +32 natural), touch 1, flat-footed 33

Base Attack/Grapple:

+43 / +83

Attack:

Bite +59 melee (4d6+36 plus poison)
or Energy Ray +34 ranged touch (15d6 electricity damage, 300-ft range, every 1d4 rounds)

Full Attack:

Bite +59 melee (4d6+36 plus poison)

Space/Reach:

40 ft./20 ft.

Special Attacks:

Shriek (range 240 feet, Fort DC 47) (Su), kiss (Fort DC 50) (Su), poison (Fort DC 47) (Ex), spell-like abilities 1/day as a 20th-level spellcaster (magic stone, soften earth and stone, stone shape, spike stones, wall of stone, stoneskin, earthquake, iron body, elemental swarm (earth), plane shift), Trample (4d12 damage, Dex DC 51 for ½ damage) (Ex), Ray Attacks (Su), Shockwave (Dex DC 51 or fall prone) (Ex)

Special Qualities:

Darkvision 120-ft, immune to disease, earth, mind-influencing effects, damage reduction 25/+5, Electricity resistance 50, spell resistance 30, no breath (Ex), reflect spells (Su).

Saves:

Fort +38, Ref +22, Will +25

Abilities:

Str 58, Dex 9, Con 41, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 28

Skills:

Intimidate +55 (+16 size vs Medium sized creatures), Listen +48, Move Silently +45, Spot +48

Feats:

Battle Roar, Thunderous Roar, Stunning Roar (Will DC 40)

Zardoz is this cult 70s movie where we can find a Giant Flying Head seen as a god, who vomits guns for barbarian exterminators. Unlike the movie where this is only a flying device, Zardoz is designed here as a strange kaiju monster.

As it can speak Infernal and has epic level score to Intimidate, it will pose no problems to corrupt mortals and spread its strange philosophy. Zardoz sees all (it can even spot unmoving invisible creatures) and moves strangely without making any noise (as an Outsider, I considered it gained 8 -4 (Int) skill points per level, all used on 4 class skills).

In combat, Zardoz can shriek (as it is a mind-affecting fear effect, it does not work on other kaijus though), roar, and roar again through the kaiju feats - then it gets serious through energy rays and bites. If seriously threatened, I guess Zardoz will use elemental swarm to vomit earth elementals or plane shift to retreat. For extra kaiju special effects, iron body can represent how Zardoz powers up ! On the defense side, alongside armor class, a bag of hit points, damage reduction, immunities and spell resistance, please note the nasty ability to reflect spells right to the casters.

As an Outsider, this is clearly an invading monster from another dimension, which will be opposed by all other kaijus. Note that the incongruous kiss ability of the vargouille could be used to infect a whole world - once Zardoz intimidates a tribe, soon the heretics will suffer the god’s kiss. So we can develop a whole campaign about vargouilles slowly invading, followed by barbarian tribes with strange effective weapons, until adventurers are able to take on Zardoz itself. Alas, I did not find an easy way to “scale” vargouilles between Small and Colossal sizes - another way to do it would be to use half-elemental template on beholders to scale the monsters a bit, and then simulate a whole alien invasion from outer space...

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 01:05 AM

12. Kekikike

Kekikike Book-Bane

NE Advanced Winged Cachalot Whale Bard 3/Warblade 6

It began with a noise in the sky.

The people of Delville looked up in confusion as they heard a loud, rhythmic clicking sound rain down from above. Some peered upwards, looking for the source of the noise, while others headed towards the Grand Library at the center of town, to see if any of the sages could identify the sound.

A few minutes after the sound began, those watching the sky cried out in shock as the source became apparent: A massive, golden, winged whale, its mouth engulfed in flame, dove down out of the sky and towards the Grand Library.

The whale hit the Library like a meteor, smashing through the gilded roof and into the main stacks, its clicking growing faster and louder. Librarians fled, some carrying armloads of books and others seeking only to save themselves, as the whale began biting at the books and smashing them with its tail. Town guardsmen began to arrive, but none wanted to be the first to draw the whale's wrath, so they waited outside, hoping an adventurer would appear and save the day.

But salvation was not to come, only the crash of shattering bookcases, the roar of flames, and the endless, furious clicking. Fifteen minutes after it had arrived, the whale burst out of the burning ruins of the Grand Library and soared away into the sky.

Kekikike is the son of a half-gold dragon cachalot whale, who through a mysterious quirk of heritage has enormous size, draconic wings, and far greater intelligence than a typical whale. In his youth, he tried repeatedly to convince his draconic grandfather, who was a noted scholar, to teach him things, but was repeatedly rebuffed. Eventually, in an attempt to put an end to Kekikike's incessant nagging, his grandfather explained that while Kekikike was smart for a whale, by draconic standards he was a blithering moron and far too stupid to be any sort of scholar. While this did lead to Kekikike ceasing to pester his grandfather, it also had profound effects on his personality: Angered and ashamed by his grandfather's rebuff, and convinced that his grandfather loved learning more than his family, Kekikike decided to seek out and destroy any and all repositories of knowledge he could find.

Elite Array: Str 13, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 15
After racial adjustments: Str 45, Dex 18, Con 28, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 11
16 HD boost: Cha 12
20 HD boost: Str 46
24 HD boost: Str 47
28 HD boost: Str 48

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

11
20 HD winged cachalot whale
+15
+12
+12
+6
Spot +23
Dragontouched, Power Attack, Improved Sunder, Shock Trooper,
Endurance, Steadfast Determination, Improved Natural Attack (bite)
Fly 60 ft (perfect)

12
Bard 1
+15
+12
+14
+8
Perform (sing) +3, Spot +24
Dragonfire Inspiration
Bardic music, bardic knowledge, countersong, fascinate, inspire courage +1

13
Bard 2
+15
+12
+15
+9
Knowledge (local) +3, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +25
-
-

14
Bard 3
+16
+13
+15
+9
Knowledge (local) +6, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +26
-
Inspire Competence

15
Warblade 1
+17
+15
+15
+9
Knowledge (local) +8, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +26
Song of the White Raven
Battle clarity, weapon aptitude, maneuvers

16
Warblade 2
+18
+16
+15
+9
Knowledge (local) +10, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +26
-
Uncanny dodge

17
Warblade 3
+19
+16
+16
+10
Knowledge (local) +12, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +26
-
Battle ardor

18
Warblade 4
+20
+17
+16
+10
Knowledge (local) +14, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +26
Song of the Heart
-

19
Warblade 5
+21
+17
+16
+10
Knowledge (local) +16, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +26
Improved Initiative (bonus feat)
-

20
Warblade 6
+22
+18
+17
+11
Knowledge (local) +18, Perform (sing) +3, Spot +26
-
Improved Uncanny Dodge

Spells per Day

Level
0lvl
1st

12th
2
-

13th
3
1

14th - 20th
3
2

Spells Known:
0th: Detect magic, know direction, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, read magic
1st: Charm person, grease, inspirational boost

Maneuvers known: Diamond Defense, Iron Heart Surge, Mithril Tornado, Steel Wind, War Leader's Charge, White Raven Strike
Stances Known: Leading the Charge, Dancing Blade Form

Kekikike is never a particularly subtle fighter, and he's at his least subtle here, as he has not yet developed any advanced techniques. When attacking a town, he approaches from high in the air and surveys the town until he spots a building he believes to be a library. Then he starts singing, dives down and attacks. He generally prioritizes destroying books over attacking people, unless the people look like they mean to attack him. He's also perfectly willing to flee a losing battle, or even one that seems more challenging than he expected.

A level of warblade lets Kekikike pick up several powerful combat options. Leading the Charge and War Leader's Charge add a combined 48 points of damage to his charge attack, and Steel Wind and White Raven Strike offer higher damage on post-charge attacks. His additional Bard levels also allow him to learn inspirational boost, doubling the damage of dragonfire inspiration.

This is mostly the same as CR 15 but with higher numbers. Mithril Tornado lets Kekikike punish a party that tries to swarm him, and Diamond Defense can augment a critical saving throw, but for the most part his combat techniques are unchanged from earlier in his career.

Savage Species: Winged Template
Dragon Magic: Dragontouchedm Dragonfire Inspiration
Eberron Campaign Setting: Song of the Heart
Complete Warrior: Shock Trooper
PHBII: Steadfast Determination
Tome of Battle: Warblade, Song of the White Raven

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 01:06 AM

that's quite a crop! anyone brave enough to take on judging this?

Thurbane

2021-07-15, 03:13 AM

Great entries everyone...quite the varied crop.

Main one I was working on was an Awakened* Mineral Warrior Colossal Monstrous Crab/ X 6. Awaken possible due to Lord of Flies 9. Couldn't really decide on last 6 class levels. Maybe Warblade for defensive options, maybe Dragonfire Adept so it could assume a humanoid form.

I really wanted to make an homage to Crabulon, but I couldn't find any "half-machine" templates that would work.

The other I looked at briefly was an Advanced Half-Illithid Stegosaurus. I personally think it's really silly that Stegosaurus' can reach Colossal in D&D, but hey, that's what Serpent Kingdom says.

Can't commit to judging, sorry, my IRL is a bit of a hot mess at the moment.

JyP

2021-07-15, 03:55 AM

Let me list :

1. Great Big Blue : Half-Fey Cachalot Whale Divine Crusader In The Clouds
2. Wrath of Bittersea : Baleen Whale fusion with Darfelan Wild Shape Ranger
3. Tarrasque-er : Water Themed Tuned Tarrasque
4. The Wind that Wends : lucky psionic Advanced Vasuthant (a black orb of nothingness with tentacles)
5. Ma'enloth : Mecha Aquatic Arachnoid Leopard Drider from the Abyss Acid Oceans
6. The Tower of Angarngi : Animated Tower Dungeon Mushrooms
7. Irralisk : Crystal Shadow Prismatic Great Wyrm Dragon
8. Xokhtohm : Hive Mother Beholder Ghost In The Underdark
9. Megalon : Giant Mecha Beetle Transforms Into Mecha Beetle Giant
10. Ixalli : Awakened Seismosaurus Swordsage From The World Below And Its Pet
11. The Unnamed God Zardoz : Roaring Stone Head From Outer Space
12. Kekikike : Winged Cachalot Whale Bardblade

ciopo

2021-07-15, 04:07 AM

I was workshopping an awakened(lord of flies) llolth-touched (colossal) spider of legend, but there were no class levels that pleased me

AvatarVecna

2021-07-15, 07:33 AM

I was hoping to see somebody do something like Venerable Half-Dragon Kobold Wizard 18 with dragonwrought feat. Just see how PC nonsense stacks up when you just make them arbitrarily Colossal. I ended up not doing that as a backup build cuz I'm not really as deep into those shenanigans as I'd like to be to make a build like that.

3SecondCultist

2021-07-15, 08:10 AM

Well these are some ridiculous builds! I am not disappointed by the amount of fun creativity shown in the thread here, and ultimately I'm glad that I didn't submit my build as it wouldn't have held up to most of what was on here.

My idea was to riff off of a hybrid of Godzilla and King Ghidorah: a Multi-Headed Monstrous Advanced Plesiosaurus of Legend. By combining one of the lowest CR'd Gargantuan animals with the various templates from Savage Species, I would have had a CR 20 build of a creature with something like 70 Constitution for quadruple digit hp, permanent Spell Turning and immunity to mind-effecting, but most importantly the hideous combination of Heighten Breath, Enlarge Breath, and Maximize Breath with eleven separate 10d6 sonic Breath Weapon attacks to turn it into a living natural disaster. If it ever breached the surface, it could unleash a 660 damage cone of an arbitrary range (let's say a few hundred miles), with everyone effected making 11 separate DC 85 Reflex saving throws for half. And since the damage type was sonic, it would break objects. I also gave it Tempest Breath to create tornado-level winds, so all forests, cities, and anything above the surface would get wiped out by a single round of exhalation. :smallwink:

It wasn't really a villain though, so much as 'the eldritch monster that the real BBEG wakes up if the PCs fail to stop them on time'. Hilariously powerful and really difficult to counter, but actually writing a story about this thing was not really that exciting to me.

loky1109

2021-07-15, 02:12 PM

Can participants vote HM?

JyP

2021-07-15, 04:45 PM

Can participants vote HM?
I guess so ? from usual competitions :

We will award 1st through 3rd places, as well as a shout-out for honorable mention. The honorable mention prize is given to the most daring or unexpected build. Judges, contestants and guests alike are invited to vote for honorable mention via PM. If there are no votes, Honorable Mention will go to the chairman's favorite build.

GreatWyrmGold

2021-07-15, 10:08 PM

Three weird whale-monsters (one fairy crusader, one symbiotic nature's avenger, one flying skald), an awakened dinosaur martial artist, an undead blob-of-shadow gish, a spectral beholder queen, a spider-leopard-fish-robot-person, a giant rocky Zardoz head, a living castle, a deliberately under-CR'd fire-breathing castle werebeetle, a shiny deliberately under-CR'd dragon, and a slightly polished tarrasque.

That's a lot of builds. I look forward to reading all of them (except mine) and figuring out which one I think deserves an Honorable Mention...when I have more time.

jdizzlean

2021-07-15, 11:39 PM

Can participants vote HM?

yes, absolutely. as can anyone else :) I already know my vote, but i'll keep it to myself :)

loky1109

2021-07-18, 08:52 AM

Well, well, well, what do we see?...

Tree different whales. Ok, this is predictable. All with wings. This isn't predictable.

One big dino. This is predictable, too.

Three different CR-cheese entries. Of course predictable.

One Tarrasque with some alterations. IMO, too simple, but this isn't bad.

One mess of templates petitioner. Ok. This is unpredictable. Very quickwittedly.

Only one Kaiju, but! Vargouille! Wow!

One very ordinary entry, without some cheese or many templates, only good selected base creature, that can grow to colossal on its own. +8 class level of dips in 4 classes.

And one tower. This is even not monster. This is kind of dungeon with traps. I'm not sure how calculate its CR. But it is brilliant! My HM here.

As I see there are some mistakes in the builds. And some controversy points. But all entries are great. Some are regular monsters for one encounter or full campaign, some are almost unkillable forces of nature (or not nature), some have their own story, some have reference to popular culture.
You did colossal work!

mattie_p

2021-07-18, 09:34 AM

Alrighty playground. I have a week off of work and there's rain in the forecast nearly every day, so not like I'm going outside. I got a stack of books and I'm not afraid to use them. So I'm in to judge.

Let's talk Kaiju. Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, Pacific Rim. Worm has the Endbringers. Worth the Candle (which just finished yesterday) has the ___________. Look hard enough and you find Kaiju in a lot of places in stories. That's what you're up against. Are you worthy?

Here's my judging rubric for this competition.

Baseline score is 3, with ad-hoc adjustments up or down. I will do my best to be consistent across entries. I will read through each entry in detail before scoring any of them. In accordance with the primary source rules, the description of my ad-hoc adjustments is the primary source, not the sum that I provided. If the sum doesn't match the adjustments, the adjustments are correct.

Originality/Innovation (Is it unexpected?)
Is the build boring? What new tricks did you find or use? Does it look like the other entries? Are you unique in some way? Bonuses will be awarded for using races, classes, concepts, feats that others did not. Penalties will be assessed for "expected" tricks, and may be assessed if multiple entries use the same overall build. If it seems "vanilla" you will be assessed a penalty of some sort. How did you decide to kick your entry up another notch? Known cheese? Or something unique and flavorful?

Build Elegance (Is it mechanically pretty?)
How does the build feel? Is it chopped and ugly, with small, unjustified dips? Are the dips completely justified and rationale? Do you meet the pre-requisites for each feat and class when you take it? Obscure classes and feats that get you what you need will not be penalized, nor will 1-2 level dips that make sense, both at the time you took it and with regards to the overall flavor of the ingredient. Bonuses will be awarded for smart, legal decisions that get you towards your goal, obtaining unique, synergistic features. Penalties will be assessed for not meeting pre-requisites at the time you took a class or feat, for dips that do not add to the flavor of the dish sufficiently (in comparison to a different dip), and for questionable reading of the rules. Is the entry RAW legal without too many shenanigans? Calculating your bonuses and stats correctly helps. Any arguments about RAW will be addressed here (aside from qualification for the secret ingredient, if any). Despite it falling second in the standard judging list, this is generally what I score first.

Citing Sources: Please do. I reserve the right to penalize an entry if they use an arbitrary number of sources without citing book and page number.

Power and Competence (Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?)
How strong is this character compared to other entries? Is this character a one-trick pony? How does it function if that trick doesn't work? Bonuses will be awarded for being more powerful than the other competitors, as well as over-all utility. Penalties will be assessed for being weaker, overall, than other competitors. How do you compare to a "typical" X in various scenarios?

Memorable Villainy (Is this a villain with style? Will it be the BBEG players long to finally kill and then talk about for weeks?)
The chair gave 4 criteria that must be met. Colossal in form. Feature a fundamental element. Energy Substitution/Admixture or the like is banned. Alignment requirements.

Kaiju are forces of nature, and they need to come back for sequel movies. They essentially ignore mundane weaponry as beneath them, often barely even noticed. Only an equally matched opponent threatens their existence. Kaiju also serve a story purpose. They are often metaphors for something, or impart a moral lesson. They also have their own purpose, often inscrutable, but they are trying to accomplish something.

Is this creature something worth making a summer blockbuster movie about? Or would a $100 million dollar special effects budget be wasted on this entry?

Finally, how does your story (if any) grab me? Does it blend seamlessly with the build? Does it make sense? Length really does not matter too much, a well-written paragraph may well be awarded more points than a one-page boring story. The story (if any) should be like a miniskirt - short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the essentials. You will not be penalized for lack of a story, but it may provide a bonus. Is it adaptable for other settings? If I were the DM, could I plant rumors of this creature in the next gaming session?

GreatWyrmGold

2021-07-18, 02:05 PM

Tree different whales. Ok, this is predictable. All with wings. This isn't predictable.
I guess Whales aren't very threatening if they're stuck in the water.

Worm has the Endbringers.
Always a little surprising when I see someone reference Wildbow's stuff so far from the fandom's normal stomping grounds.
Incidentally, none of the Endbringers would qualify as kaiju for the purposes of this competition. The Simurgh is about 15 feet tall, making it only Large; Leviathan's 30-foot height puts it at the upper edge of Huge; and Behemoth is only Gargantuan. (Weightwise, they're probably too heavy for Colossal, but size categories probably ignore such dimensional shenanigans.)

Khonsu, being between Leviathan and Behemoth in height, is probably Gargantuan. I'm not sure how big Tohu is, but I always imagined it as being smaller than the Simurgh. Bohu, on the other hand, is probably too tall to be Colossal—roughly a quarter of a mile tall!

We don't get precise height figures for many of the Titans, but most of them would fail the elemental qualification.

loky1109

2021-07-18, 02:21 PM

I guess Whales aren't very threatening if they're stuck in the water.

Yep. I agree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrv9c-udCrg

mattie_p

2021-07-18, 02:32 PM

Always a little surprising when I see someone reference Wildbow's stuff so far from the fandom's normal stomping grounds.
Incidentally, none of the Endbringers would qualify as kaiju for the purposes of this competition. The Simurgh is about 15 feet tall, making it only Large; Leviathan's 30-foot height puts it at the upper edge of Huge; and Behemoth is only Gargantuan. (Weightwise, they're probably too heavy for Colossal, but size categories probably ignore such dimensional shenanigans.)

They fill the same ... ecological niche? Narratological niche! I think that's a suitable term for this sort of thing. (Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. Learned something new today).

For that matter, Godzilla, perhaps the quintessential kaiju and the foundational example of the genre, itself doesn't qualify for this competition. The OG Godzilla (I watched the 1954 version today with subtitles for "background research purposes") was perhaps 50 meters or 165 feet tall, too large for colossal, and has only grown since then.

NotInventedHere

2021-07-18, 02:55 PM

Worth the Candle (which just finished yesterday)
Wait *what*? I need to catch back up with that ASAP...

ciopo

2021-07-18, 03:13 PM

Yeah, and boy was that a romp.

Also, insert joke about "What ____ ____?" Here

Thanks Mattie_p, for judging

GreatWyrmGold

2021-07-18, 04:29 PM

They fill the same ... ecological niche? Narratological niche! I think that's a suitable term for this sort of thing. (Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. Learned something new today).
Well, aside from the Simurgh—kaiju are very rarely masterminds,.

For that matter, Godzilla, perhaps the quintessential kaiju and the foundational example of the genre, itself doesn't qualify for this competition. The OG Godzilla (I watched the 1954 version today with subtitles for "background research purposes") was perhaps 50 meters or 165 feet tall, too large for colossal, and has only grown since then.
Colossal has, legally, no defined upper bound. Even if we assume that it only reaches to 128 feet, 165 is still well within Colossal+.

mattie_p

2021-07-18, 04:52 PM

Yeah, and boy was that a romp.

Also, insert joke about "What ____ ____?" Here

Thanks Mattie_p, for judging

I don't know what you're talking about? I think I mentioned Worth the Candle as an example of the genre lacking that niche. Check my post again. :smallwink:

loky1109

2021-07-18, 04:57 PM

I was hoping to see somebody do something like Venerable Half-Dragon Kobold Wizard 18 with dragonwrought feat. Just see how PC nonsense stacks up when you just make them arbitrarily Colossal.

How can dragonwrought Venerable Half-Dragon Kobold Wizard 18 be Colossal? Please explain it to me.

GreatWyrmGold

2021-07-18, 08:03 PM

> dragonwrought kobold
> half-dragon

Five gold says it relies on some kind of dragon- and/or true-dragon-related shenanigans.

AvatarVecna

2021-07-18, 09:37 PM

How can dragonwrought Venerable Half-Dragon Kobold Wizard 18 be Colossal? Please explain it to me.

> dragonwrought kobold
> half-dragon

Five gold says it relies on some kind of dragon- and/or true-dragon-related shenanigans.

That's essentially the idea. It's something I've seen done here and there as silly nonsense, but I'm not entirely sure it works? In any case, I'm not exactly well-versed enough in those kobold shenanigans to properly make it work, so I was hoping somebody else would go that route - somebody who was familiar with those shenanigans and had enough time to get a real build together. Anywhere, here's the thing that would do it.

Size
One important element of dragon advancement is increasing size. The dragons that don’t reach Colossal size by the great wyrm stage can never reach it according to the standard advancement rules. When advancing a dragon, consider its basic size group: lesser (white, black, brass, and copper dragons), ordinary (green, blue, and bronze dragons), greater (silver, red, and gold), or epic (force and prismatic). A dragon that is Tiny as a wyrmling is in the lesser group, a dragon that is Small as a wyrmling and never reaches Colossal size is in the ordinary group, and a dragon that is Small to Large as a wyrmling and reaches Colossal by the great wyrm stage is in the greater group. A lesser dragon becomes Colossal when it gains two age categories (6 Hit Dice) beyond great wyrm. It increases to Colossal+ when it gains an additional four age categories (12 HD). An ordinary dragon becomes Colossal when it gains one age category (3 Hit Dice) beyond great wyrm. It increases to Colossal+ when it gains an additional four age categories (12 HD). A greater dragon becomes Colossal+ when it gains four age categories (12 HD) more than it needed to reach the Colossal size.

Epic dragons, already Colossal+ by the time they reach the great wyrm stage, do not increase in size thereafter. Use the information presented under the epic dragon entry, below, to determine the statistics of a Colossal+ dragon.

This isn't a thing for true dragons, just dragons. "A dragon that is Tiny as a wyrmling is in the lesser group" or "A dragon that is Small as a wyrmling and never reaches Colossal size is in the ordinary group" would apply to kobolds if kobolds had some way to count as a wyrmling when they're a child, which I think there's a way since I've seen people do this but I'm not 100% sure? And it doesn't specify racial HD so that could just be class levels, and your kobold (supposedly) becomes Colossal at HD 7 and Colossal+ at HD 19.

I found it funny partially because you'd have to be like...wizard 18 or whatever, because if you went wizard 19, you'd be Colossal+ and be disqualified from the contest.

loky1109

2021-07-19, 04:07 AM

This isn't a thing for true dragons, just dragons. "A dragon that is Tiny as a wyrmling is in the lesser group" or "A dragon that is Small as a wyrmling and never reaches Colossal size is in the ordinary group" would apply to kobolds if kobolds had some way to count as a wyrmling when they're a child, which I think there's a way since I've seen people do this but I'm not 100% sure? And it doesn't specify racial HD so that could just be class levels, and your kobold (supposedly) becomes Colossal at HD 7 and Colossal+ at HD 19.

I found it funny partially because you'd have to be like...wizard 18 or whatever, because if you went wizard 19, you'd be Colossal+ and be disqualified from the contest.
I see... But this doesn't work. Venerable != great wyrm.

AvatarVecna

2021-07-19, 04:14 AM

mattie_p

2021-07-19, 04:59 AM

I see... But this doesn't work. Venerable != great wyrm.

That's my thought as well. Nonetheless, I've seen people argue that it works. Since I'm not really on the up-and-up on why they think it should work, I didn't end up making that build, but I was hoping somebody would so I could see a build that was basically just dragonwrought shenanigans.

There's two tables on page 39 of Races of the Dragon that describe Kobold ages. The first lays out the 12 age categories of true dragons and assigns an age range in months or years. The second describes the "traditional" aging effects of middle age, old, and venerable. That's why some people argue that it works. Nevertheless, I don't have to make a judgement on it because no one submitted such an entry, so I'll leave my opinions on the matter out.

Thurbane

2021-07-19, 04:48 PM

Yeah, DWK cheese has been hotly debated ever since the release of RotD. Probably not worth launching into a 3 page back and forth here. :smalltongue:

mattie_p

2021-07-19, 04:58 PM

There's only like 2 active threads debating it currently on this forum. I don't think we need a third!

AvatarVecna

2021-07-19, 06:10 PM

There's only like 2 active threads debating it currently on this forum. I don't think we need a third!

Especially since nobody actually submitted such a build. I just thought it would be funny because it's such a VC thing to happen: 14 people build proper monsters, and one person somehow still managed to just build a full caster who happens to be colossal.

JyP

2021-07-20, 09:37 AM

Well, there's a case to be made about Earth-616 Godzilla (https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Godzilla_(Earth-616)) suddenly being reduced to a minuscule lizard size or human size in New York by Pym particles... So it would have been fun to stat Godzilla himself then reduce its size. Maybe by using a dragon as a basis ?

a red dragon is sufficient to cover Medium size (wyrmling) up to Colossal size(Great wyrm)
then we would need to reduce size again... maybe through dungeonbred template, or by comparing to smaller dragons.

GreatWyrmGold

2021-07-20, 10:59 AM

So, random thoughts on the builds.

The three whales are very different from each other. We have Oberon's wild (sea) oats on an eternal quest to find his non-immortal mother, a quarter-dragon who hates books because his grandpa thinks he's an idiot, and a surprisingly-mundane whale who fused with the local diplomat and wants to take vengeance on whalers. Interestingly, each has a different elemental alignment—Great Big Blue is air, Kekikike is fire, and the Wrath of Bittersea is water (or earth with the Elder Island Option). I kinda want to make an earth/water whale to complete the full set.

Aquatic incarnum tarrasque is a tarrasque with neat tricks. Really makes me wish the chair decided to move the CR cap to 30 like I remember someone suggesting.

what am I doing?
What a mood.
Anyways, using a creature the PCs can encounter at every level is pretty cool. And it's a smoky undead kaiju, which is pretty unique!

Ma'enloth...eh. Any shenanigans which massively reduce CR are a turn-off for me, I prefer my kaiju to be a bit more thematically-rich (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbwagsE5iSE) than "evil god wanted a monster of the week," and I'm not sure what a "ARACHNOID ACID BORN TITANIC AQUATIC LEOPARD EFFIGY DRIDER" is supposed to be even before becoming a paragon abyss-corruptedcorrupted petitioner. That last point wouldn't be so bad if you threw together some art of what that monster might look like, the way the Wrath of Bittersea's author did, but you didn't, so...
It's hard to judge on anything but a mechanical level, and that makes it very boring to me. Especially since the mechanics boil down to "What if the tarrasque was a glass cannon, and also a spider?"

The Tower of Angarngi is a neat idea. I'm not sure it technically follows the contest rules, but I like it!

I'd like to thank whoever made Irralisk for clearly marking the abilities that don't survive the Brood Spawn template. That almost makes up for the CR-reduction cheese. You know, in case the half-prismatic-dragon prismatic dragon wasn't silly enough. ("other half also prismatic dragon." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0555.html))

Xokhtohm is like a fusion of a monster-of-the-week kaiju like Ma'enloth and the more thematic kaiju I mentioned when critiquing it. Xokhtohm is a monster created by those it wishes to destroy, by a dwarven cleric taking too much joy in the pain of their enemies...but at the same time, she's still a paragon of a species known for extreme xenophobia.
Third time pointing out I dislike CR-reduction cheese on principle.
Speaking of which, Disembodied Spirit prohibits you from taking anything but a single move action per turn. The description doesn't mention this. Are you misinterpreting that line as "The spirit loses its attacks, and on an unrelated note can't double move"?

What is Megalon, exactly? A statue turned into a giant turned into a beetle-man? (I mean, the real answer is obviously "a guy in a fancy rubber suit," but that's never stopped me before. Come to think of it...tokusatsu shows in a D&D world could be a lot more flexible, considering that your rubber-suit actors could be anything between halflings and ogres in size—or wider, if you can find less-common races eager to enter showbiz.)
But for all that its visual design makes it look like a Power Rangers villain, in play it's more like an Endbringer (https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Endbringers). It's basically unstoppable (without the right SoD and a good spell resistance check), and all you can do is mitigate the damage. In theory. (Rise of the Runelords's Black Magga is supposed to be like that, but when I ran it the party alchemist panicked and killed it in two rounds.)
Granted, this is just a step removed from the CR-reduction cheese, and not much of a step. But for some reason, it doesn't bug me as much here.

There should have been more dinosaurs. (I'd have probably made a dinosaur if I'd known there would be this few.) For that matter, more dinosaurs should be Colossal. And this dinosaur has a pet dinosaur, so that helps balance the scales.
Aside from that...it's a well-designed initiator brute.

Dragon Magazine is specifically disallowed, which seems like it'll take the wind out of Zardoz's sails. The build also seems to be short on the kinds of details this kind of contest generally expects, like a build table. But a giant flying stone head is a neat idea.

I'm not a judge, so my thoughts don't have any effect on scoring. But I can have an effect on HM. I personally think my entry is the most unexpected, but I'm super biased on that. Other than that, the werebeetle, kung-fu dinosaur, and living tower are competing for the spot. Angarngi doesn't seem to have a full 20-level build, which knocks it out of the running pretty quickly, but Megalon and Ixalli are closer. I think I'll have to give my HM to Ixalli; Megalon's unstoppable juggernaut schtick is cool, but it got there with moderate CR-reduction cheese. Plus, kung fu dinosaur.

mattie_p

2021-07-22, 03:49 PM

So team, quick update from the judge here. I'm not going to read any of your commentary but I appreciate you keeping it in spoilers so help me avoid undue influence.

I've finished the second re-read of each entry and I'm well on my way toward my goal. I expect to have published results by maybe Saturday or Sunday. Lots of notes on each build, the playground never ceases to surprise me.

AvatarVecna

2021-07-22, 10:14 PM

My HM goes to Wrath Of The Bittersea. I like how the weirdness of the build means that it can be interpreted in a few different ways. It allows a DM employing this build to have it be weaker or stronger as is fitting for the party. Symbiote as a way to get a colossal creature with class levels opens up a lot of possibilities for shenanigans.

Thurbane

2021-07-22, 11:06 PM

My HM goes to Ixalli.

Along with Kekikike and Great Big Blue, I actually understood what the heck was going on with the build.

Most of the others gave me varying degrees of Wis damage trying to decipher. :smallbiggrin:

Speaking of that, how about a "Back to Basics" round at some point; no more than 1 or 2 templates (heck, maybe even no tempates), no were-devastion this or were-legendary that, no Epic stuff, no Incarnate Construct, no Shapesand, no simulacrums, no Tauric, no Symbiotic etc. You know, something a pre-epic party might actually stand a chance against. :smalltongue:

If you were worried about that creating a field full of Wizard 20 or similar, maybe there could be reqs for a certain number of RHD.

GreatWyrmGold

2021-07-23, 03:02 PM

Sounds like it could be interesting, though we'd need some sort of solid criteria for what qualifies as a "basic" build.

(And I think that capping allowable class levels is a better idea than requiring a certain number of RHD; otherwise, your hypothetical Wiz-20 wannabes would just find the lowest-CR monster with the required HD and fill the rest with wizard levels.)

loky1109

2021-07-24, 01:33 PM

I think were-cheese (and over sorts of cheese) is in many ways thing of this round. This was very firsts in my mind, when I heard "only Collosal size".
I saw similar builds only few times in all previous rounds. Maybe I remembered only part, but anyway they are smaller part.

"Back to Basics" could be interesting. Or could not to be. Only this restriction looks too much generally. It needs some additionals.

Thurbane

2021-07-24, 05:16 PM

Yeah, the reqs for "Back to Basics" probably need a fair bit of tweaking.

I love this comp, more so than any other forum comp, but the TO level entries layering a dozen templates ,spell effects and getting an absurd number of HD (I mean in a Kaiju round, massive HD was to be expected, of course. I mean more generally in other rounds) don't do much to inspire me for BBEGs at my table. If I was to eyeball the CRs, there's no way I could use most these pre-epic.

Again, just to clarify, not aimed at any entries this round, general observation on the comp. Kaiju round might not have been the best time for me to mention this, in hindsight. :smalltongue:

In short, I like that VC can be used as a TO showcase, but the entries that really stick with me are the ones where I think "Man, that would be a great encounter for my party!". :smallsmile:

mattie_p

2021-07-27, 10:41 PM

Alright team, a few things to get out of the way before reavealing the judgement. Several of my books and references got used heavily in this. (41 total books measured 25-3/4 inches when stacked!) I paid particular attention to Monster Manual 3.5, p 290-294 (Also, 295-302, but less so, as that is about making a brand new monster from scratch). Savage Species p6-8, Basics of Monster Characters, was essentially permanently open except when I had to flip elsewhere in the book. P11 (Skill Points and Feats) was also important. Special Callout to Urpriest's Monstrous Monster Handbook (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?207928-Urpriest-s-Monstrous-Monster-Handbook) which should be required reading for this competition (and probably for GreatWyrmGold's Monstrous Adventure Competition as well).

I've been involved in Iron Chef and it's sister competitions over a span of years, but I have to admit being a little unfamiliar with the Villainous Competition. I haven't participated in previous ones, so my rulings may not quite follow prior precedents. If I'm way out of bounds, chair, please let me know. This competition is about creating a monster to challenge a party, so it's built from the DM perspective, not from the perspective of a player trying to convince a DM to permit something. From that standpoint, things that would make me squint in other competitions will merit a pass here provided you try to sell it. But it's not unlimited license.

I basically checked all the things. This is an optimization contest, after all. If you selected templates, I ran through them in order that you indicated, checking pre-requisites at every change and manually adjusting ability scores on paper. When you applied feats, I checked them in the order that you indicated, at the hit dice that were implied (for creatures that start with a lot of racial hit dice, I still checked them in order, first to last, checking hit dice, BAB, saves, skills, as applicable). I purchased and downloaded Dragon 289 from Paizo so I could read for myself what the Kaiju template. Every entry has a 1-page hand-written sheet of paper filled with notes and feedback. I left no stone unturned in my quest to find the best submitted Kaiju.

I left opening notes intact for each based on my initial reading before I got into weeds. As a reminder, baseline score in each category is 3, with ad-hoc adjustments up or down. In accordance with the primary source rules, the description of my ad-hoc adjustments is the primary source, not the sum that I provided. If the sum doesn't match the adjustments, the adjustments are correct.

Great Big Blue: 11.5
Oberon getting punked by Thor, nice. Whale - how we getting intelligence? Probably from Oberon. Sould have liked a narrative and tactics at key levels.

Originality: 3. Whales were popular (-0.75). Half-fey is a nice touch (+0.5). No ToB or MoI, really. Way to buck the trends in recent competitions (+0.25).

Elegance: 3. Got a little sloppy applying the template. Check MM 291-2. You got 2 STR from nowhere. Half-fey changes skill points per hit die. Incorrectly calculated saves with fey hit dice (should keep animal saves) (-0.25). The Feat Quicken SLA is implied at 3HD. Requires 10HD. Mass invis is gained at 13HD (-0.25). Overall wasn't challenging to understand, most everything that I needed to check was obvious (+0.5).

Power and Competence: 2.5 Natural flight/mobility (+0.25) 9th Level spells and some good SLAs (+0.5). Armor class is low at just 20, DR is nothing to celebrate (-0.5). HP Pool pretty low, a CR equivalent party could probably kill Big Blue pretty quickly (-0.25). No DR/Regen (-0.25). 2 Attacks per round, (you miscalculated damage on both (bite 8d6+17, tail slap 2d6+8)) it's not really a lot. Maybe you mostly magic them? - (-0.25).

Memorable Villainy: 3 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Air (+0.25). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Unknown (-0.25). You have a statblock at key levels but without suggested tactics it's hard to see how this would be anything but the monster of the week (-0.25). A flying whale that dies to a pounce-charger is not the next summer blockbuster (-0.25).

Wrath of Bittersea 9.5 -> 9.75
Storywise, seems like Akilu could have wildshaped into something and escaped her cage/leash. How the _____ does the symbiotic template work? Looks ... a lot like leadership. Nice adaptation notes. Did I mention I hate symbiotic creatures?

Originality: 3 Whales were popular (-0.75). Symbiotic was ... not expected (+0.5). I'll also give you a little extra credit for wildshape (+0.25).

Elegance: 1 This ... really looks a lot like leadership: taking Akilu, leveling her up, becoming symbiotic with her, and then detaching her to operate independently. Being leadership adjacent merits a penalty: I want to make my stance on this perfectly clear and offer zero incentives to move in this direction (-1). To avoid this sort of penalty from me in the future, take an unmodified creature (no extra hit dice, no class levels) as the guest, and do not mention it again. Also, the Symbiotic template made my brain hurt. You, the constructor, seemingly didn't know how to interpret it, so I got several different versions I had to wade through. (-0.5). What I decided was this: The symbiotic creature is a single creature. Class levels, skill ranks, and feats are taken by the symbiotic creature as a whole. "A symbiotic creature can use a special attack of either the host or guest but cannot use both in the same round (unless ...)." If they detach, Wrath or Akilu can do a special attack, Wrath doesn't get double actions per round for detaching. Now, you miscalculated ability scores based off the array you said you were using and gave the Elder 3 extra points in Dex, which means you don't qualify for Stunning Fist (-0.25). At 6 hit dice there is no way that Wrath has the needed 8 ranks in Jump cross-class, and doesn't yet have Power Attack, to qualify for Leap Attack (-0.25). Wrath also took some ... unusually complicated feats (IUS, SUS, Open Chakra - waist (does the whale even have a waist?)) prior to becoming symbiotic, which seems inelegant (-0.25). I checked your maneuvers you seem to qualify for those. Below minimum score = 1.

Power and Competence: 2.5 Wildshape offers a lot of utility and mobility (+0.25). Armor class is low with nothing really padding it (-0.5). No DR/Regen (-0.25). HP Pool pretty low, a CR equivalent party could probably kill the Wrath pretty quickly (-0.25). The meldshaping and maneuvers do offer a lot of both benefits and boosts to power. Only two natural attacks from the base creature, but totemist adds more (+0.25).

Memorable Villainy: 3.25 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Unknown (I mean you live in the water but you're taking maneuvers like Leaping Flame and Desert Tempest) (-0.25) No penalty.. No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Unknown (-0.25). The story and adaptation notes helps sell the villainy a little (+0.25). I'm a little disappointed that there were no statblocks offered at various CRs, I'd have to do a lot of manual calculations to add it into a game (-0.25). Is this a blockbuster? I see it as a tragic antihero story, not a blockbuster, but should get some traction at the boxoffice.

Tarrasque-er 11.75 -> 12.25
So, it's the tarrasque, but modified, right? Just making sure I'm not missing something. Oh! We're abusing Gate and Wish. Cool, cool. I hope you did your feats in order or something.

Originality: 1.5 So it seems like you went to the d20SRD monster filter and used the size and CR filters and picked the only monster there at Colossal CR20. I'm not saying you did, it just totally looks like you did. I mean, at least pick a Garngrath or something (-1.5).

Elegance: 2 No templates or any added racial hit dice so this will be pretty easy to read, thank you (+0.5). But there was sloppy feat selection order. Planar touchstone feat at RHD 6, no way to have 8 skill ranks needed (-0.25). Martial Study (Greater Divine Surge), at 18HD you have IL 9, needs IL15 (-0.25). Martial Stance (Aura of Chaos), at 21HD you have IL 10, needs IL 11 (-0.25). Let's talk Planar Chausible and Gate shenanigans. If you're going to sell this, even as a DM, you really need to have your ducks in a row, which you don't. Wish has the following language:
Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies. Once a week is not in immediate succession. You should have asked your called being for tomes. Speaking of your called being, you said that you were Chaotic Evil so you could gate in Pit Fiends. Pit Fiends are Lawful Evil Devils. You can gate in CE Balors, but they cannot use wish (-0.5) (-0.25). Improved Critical. You said:
There might be some dispute on improved critical. Some might feel it doesn't stack with our (ex) Augmented critical Here's what the PHB says:
This effect doesn’t stack with any other effect that expands the threat range of a weapon I don't know why you picked this at all (-0.5) (-0.25).

Power and Competence: 4.5 So it's the tarrasque. Decent AC with solid HP pool. Decent SR (+0.25). Good DR / Regen (+0.5). Strong Attacks (+0.5). Meldshaping + Maneuvers (+0.25).

Memorable Villainy: 4 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Water (+0.25). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Evil (+0.25). If there's a blockbuster, this is like part 4. When they start running out of ideas so they bring back the monster from the first movie but add some stuff too it. It'll sell tickets, but it's not defining the genre.

The Wind that Wends 16.25 -> 16.5
Grows up? How small are we starting with - oh, I guess "small." I see Expansion, you get to Colossal organically? Inorganically? Can this creature really get that many hit dice? I guess I'll find out. You're going to make me check pre-reqs for every feat aren't you.

Originality: 4.5 Vasuthant doesn't roll around very much IMO (+0.5). Luck Feats (+0.25). CHA based kaiju? (+0.5). I'm on board. No ToB or MoI gets a small boost here (+0.25).

Elegance: 3 There's a fluff pre-req to Eyes to the Sky that you don't address. Kinda close enough Force of Personality you don't cite a source. Hidden Talent you cite the wrong source. Individually one would slide, collectively, (-0.5) (-0.25). Re: Expansion. You said
if you rule that the SRD version is the correct one despite being no errata on the matter There is errata on the matter. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata) Please double check your work (-0.25). Overall wasn't challenging to understand, most everything that I needed to check was obvious (+0.5).

Power and Competence: 3.5 Good peak AC (+0.5), although it really is a burst before it drops back to moderate levels (-0.25). Natural flight (+0.25). No DR / Regen (-0.25). Average sized HP Pool to play with. One decent attack (-0.25). Luck feats and CHA to everything (+0.5).

Memorable Villainy: 4.5 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Air (+0.25). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Evil (+0.25). So there's only one attack a round, but that's potentially one citizen each round going into the gullet of this black shadow to be slowly digested over the course of the movie (+0.25) Available at nearly every CR means the potential for lots of sequels (+0.25).

Ma'enloth 10.75 -> 11.25
Short backstory. Sounds like we're abusing death? Looks like I'm going to have to check, like, a billion templates here. Wait - colossal with 56 hit points? Are you missing a digit or two? 450HP per full attack, you mind if I check your work? Well I'm going to check your work.

Originality: 5 Wow, there's a lot going on here. I can't say I was expecting , frankly, any of this monstrosity (in a good way) of a creature. Leopard into arachnoid effigy. Taking the arachnoid effigy, continuously casting greater humanoid essence in order to apply the drider template to an already arachnoidish creature? Instagib and come back as a petitioner. Let's just give you a 5.0 and move along.

Elegance: 2.25 A few challenges here. You got fancy here. Too fancy. I think. Ma'enloth can only take the Improved Natural Attack feat once. Note the wording of that feat against Improved Natural Armor -> "Special: A creature can gain this feat multiple times." Improved Natural Attack lacks this wording (-0.25). The Acidborn template requires the base creature to have the (aquatic) subtype. Aquatic adaptation allows Ma'enloth to hold their breath, not be fully aquatic. Does not meet pre-requisite (-0.25). There's ... some very weird interactions with nonabilities. I'm going to discuss INT here. The arachnoid template subtracts 4 INT from your base of 2 to get -2 (It says to treat 0 and below as - or mindless). Not 0, it is a null score, a non-ability. Effigy doesn't change INT. I carefully read through all the humanoid essence line of spells, none of them award an INT score. Drider doesn't award an INT score. Now you get to petitioner. You claim that Ma'enloth is an exceptional petitioner. The text for petitioners (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineMinions.htm#petitioners) states that "In general, petitioners who become divine servants are creatures that originally had at least 1 Intelligence and 1 Wisdom." You have no intelligence score, which makes me squint. It's legal though. But I don't think you can claim that you are exceptional when you don't normally qualify at all (-0.25). Also, you cited as source MotP, when it was reprinted in Deities and Demigods and is also in the SRD. Please use the most recent version which would be the SRD (-0.25).

Power and Competence: 1 We need to return to the INT score thing because it's going to hurt you here too. "Mindless creatures do not gain feats or skills, although they may have bonus feats or racial skill bonuses." The Arachnoid template, where you first become mindless, doesn't have a line about retaining feats if you become mindless (unlike Effigy, which allows it). The default rule is to lose all feats and skill ranks, and this is going to cost you in power (-0.5). Good peak AC (+0.5). Decent SR (+0.25). Good DR / Regen (+0.25). Decent Attacks (+0.25) (remember you lost feats, so not as good as you recorded). The HP Pool is extremely poor for a Kaiju (-1). One last thing, but it's a doozy. You lose your CON score with effigy. Jumping through all the hoops above doesn't restore it at any point. Doesn't matter much because you're dying anyway and becoming a petitioner. Corrupted by the Abyss changes type to Aberration, and Paragon keeps Aberration. The problem is that neither template gives you a CON score. Let's check the SRD on non-abilities. (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#nonabilities) "Any living creature has at least 1 point of Constitution. A creature with no Constitution has no body or no metabolism." Aberrations eat, sleep, and breath, so that rules out the no metabolism part. Corrupted by the Abyss requires a corporeal creature (i.e. one with a body), so you don't have the (incorporeal) subtype. That leaves one alternative: they are not a living creature but a dead one. It appears that as soon as Ma'enloth becomes an Aberration, they die because they have no CON score (-2). Minimum = 1.

Memorable Villainy: 3 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Unknown/None (-0.25) Looks like you went for acid. No extra points, but removing penalty. No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: You recorded alignment as CE. Mindless creatures like vermin are N. Either would be acceptable, but due to the conflict I will neither penalize nor reward. After the analysis, this seems like more flash than bang. Setting aside the dead thing, if you were alive, I think the warlock is one-shotting you (-0.5).

The Tower of Angarngi 12 -> 12.25
You're a tower. This is going to be interesting. Do I have to read your book recommendation before I judge? I'll take it under consideration. -- I considered it and decided to pass for now. Is there a rule that the villain needs to be an actual creature? ** Checks OP ** Well I guess it's technically a creature anyway.

So this one is tough to judge. I'll do my best, but know that as a non-standard creature I had to use a very different rubric to an extent.

Originality: 5 I can only judge originality from within the context of this round. Within this context I will agree that your submission is quite original. Someone else submitted an animated object, but only after heavily templated. You submit a CR 10 colossal animated object as a building, not to be destroyed, per se, but to be conquered. Unorthodox thinking and breaking paradigms should be rewarded in the appropriate locations, so take a 5.

Elegance: 2 Dude, like statting out traps is hard. I'm on page 74-75 of the DMG for this. Base CR for a magic trap is CR 1. +6 for the spell level of Symbol of Fear. Search 31 is +2. Disable Device 31 is +2. CR is currently 11. Then there are two dependent traps (crushing wall, blade barrier), contingent on the 1st trap being triggered. I'll handle those last. (By the way, I checked on a "intelligent magic weapon" with the specs you provided, it works out to be approximately 160,000 gp, or equivalent of a +9 item. That works out to a 20th level treasure per MIC. I don't know how this affects CR, but there it is.) And then if you bypass the first trap, another trap triggers. I'm going to call that an independant trap and calculate again. Magic Trap is base of 1. Blade Barrier is a +6 for the spell level. I won't add +5 for Slay living, call it an ad-hoc +1. Search 31 is +2. Disable 31 is +2. Shaking tower is another +1 ad hoc. Call it CR 13. Per page 49 of the DMG, 13 + 11 = 14. That's D&D math in a nutshell. Earthquake is a level 8 spell as well. Not sure how this factors in. Anyway, I think your CRs are off on your traps. Maybe with all the effects combined we can call the combined effect of entering the tower CR 16? It's hard to tell. A little cleaner design implementation for how you came up with your CRs would have been extremely helpful. I'm deducting a point from elegance, and calling this a 2.

Power and Competence: 2 Even at CR 16, which is a little higher than your suggested CRs, I don't think that traps are going to slow down a dedicated group of Tomb Raiders. DC 20 saving throws are certainly achievable without going overboard on optimization. A couple divinations should reveal the secrets of the tower before they enter - I didn't see any anti-scrying or the like built into the program here. Without other occupants of the tower, traps will eat up gameplay time in a session but not otherwise provide a serious threat to a party of adventurers. I'm eyeballing this at a 2 as well.

Memorable Villainy: 3.25 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Unknown/None (-0.25) Stone creature. No penalty. No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Neutral Evil (+0.25). This is more like a single camera horror movie than a Kaiju movie. I'm thinking more Blair Witch, less Pacific Rim. If that's the effect you're going for then you achieved it, but I think your intent conflicts with the intent of this round (-0.5).

Irralisk 12.5 -> 12.75
So, there's this. Starting at CR 66 and going from there. Oh, um, you're going higher. Is this like rolling over or divide by zero or something? Oh template cheese there we go. Do you keep all those feats? You realize I need to check them all? -- I'm so glad I have a week off from work or this would take a month.

Originality: 2.5 Vile Feats: I don't think it should be automatically assumed that every VC should feature service to an Elder Evil in exchance for feats (-0.5). So I know I expected to see at least 1 very high CR creature get cheesed down in CR via templates (-1). But I can't say I expected it to be the prismatic dragon (+0.5). Broodspawn was a nice find (+0.25). No ToB or MoI gets a small boost here (+0.25).

Elegance: 1 OK, you're a half-prismatic dragon, and the other half is ALSO prismatic dragon? That's ... just a whole prismatic dragon. I'm not actually going to penalize you for this here, although it did make me squint. You took feat blinding speed without meeting the pre-requisite (needs Dex 25, you have 10) (-0.25). Draconic Aura feat is in Dragon Magic, not PHB2 as you mentioned twice? (-0.25). Extended Reach requires a "tentacle, feeler, or pseudopod," (-0.25). You took feat blinding speed a second time, still without meeting the pre-requisite (needs Dex 25, you have 10) (-0.25). Vile Feats: Without laying out your skill ranks it is impossible to know if you "know of" the Elder Evil's existence (-0.25). Elder Evils lays out the possible bonus feats for service to an Elder Evil on page 11. The following feats do not appear on the table: Vile Deathstrike, Epic Evil Brand, Deformity (Skin) (-0.75). You didn't list the source for Shadowbound template (-0.25). Minimum score: 1.

Power and Competence: 5 I mentioned half dragon made me squint. You took it to get an extra breath weapon. But it's going to cost you here. Half-dragon's speed overwrites the base creature. It gets a fly speed of twice it's land speed. You have flight 120', not 350 (-0.25). (Also, Broodspawn makes you lose the "special actions" of the base creature including in your case two breath weapons, giving you a single breath weapon once a day in exchange, so it was a legal but sub-optimal move here). Good natural flight (+0.5). Good peak AC (+0.5). Decent SR (+0.25). Decent Attacks (+0.25). Tremendous HP Pool (+1). Exceeds 5. Maximum score.

Memorable Villainy: 4.25 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Maybe Ice? It's not listed as one of the 4 anyway (-0.25) Changed to no penalty on 8/3/2021. No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Don't actually list alignment that I could see (-0.25). So I'd say this is a proper Kaiju. Huge heap of hit points, basically going around, doing it's thing, ignoring mortals. There's a weakness of course, and if I were a sorcerer even if I didn't have a high enough knowledge roll to properly identify this thing, it looks pretty much like a dragon, so I'd do a thing against dragons like Assay Spell Resistance + Maximize ocular spell shivering touch to take it down. Researching this weakness would of course be a big part of the movie, you could have a couple scientists working and sneak in a little romance and love interest or something. I would totally watch this movie (+1).

Xokhtohm 15.5 -> 15.75
I keep reading this name as "Stockholm," I'm going to call you that in my head. Oh - a beholder! Hive Mother! Another entry going over 20 before resetting. Disembodied, interesting. That's ... a lot of charisma feats.

Originality: 3.75 As with Irralisk, I expected to see at least 1 high-CR creature get cheesed down in CR via templates (-1). But a beholder is a fine choice, a classic D&D foe (+0.5). Really didn't expect disembodied spirit, what with the no standard action thing and being caught in walls of force (+1). No ToB or MoI gets a small boost here (+0.25).

Elegance: 3 I added up your skill ranks at CR 16, looks like you treated all 3 knowledge skills as in-class, however, you only get 2 (-0.25). You are missing alertness and recorded the last feat at 20 HD instead of 21, and on the table you take quicken SLA for an ability you don't have until the next row (no penalty). At CR 21 you took 2 feats, but you only get a single feat at the 27th hit die (-0.25). CR 25 should have 1 feat, CR 26 should have 2 (2nd sloppy table entry gets a -0.25 penalty). At CR 27 you took 2 feats, but you only get a single feat at the 51st hit die (-0.25). Overall wasn't challenging to understand, most everything that I needed to check was obvious (+0.5). Master of the Unseen Hand when you're incorporeal is a nice touch (+0.5).

Power and Competence: 4.5 Good peak AC (+0.5). Natural flight (+0.25). No DR / Regen (-0.25). Good sized pool of HP + you have self-healing (+0.5). I was pretty sure no one would go disembodied, but you found a way to make it work, by simply having every action be free or swift. Master of the Unseen Hand adds some utility to telekinesis, but by my reading you can either use Sustain Force as a move action or use the violent thrust as a free action. Concentration is tough when you don't have a standard. No full attacks with your telekinesis'd weapon, but you have other options (like eye rays) (+0.5).

Memorable Villainy: 4.5 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Lightning - not one of the fundamental elements (-0.25) Changed to no penalty on 8/3/2021. No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Evil (+0.25). So there's no "attacks" per round, but you're shooting laser beams of irresistable spells with a high enough DC only a nat 20 is saving the victim. I imagine Xokhtohm going around dungeons, looking for and interrogating dwarves before killing them. The lack of physical violence hurts with the mental image of a Kaiju. Seems more like a horror movie with an invisible stalker? But honestly there's still a log going on here in your favor (+0.5). And with rejuvenate and a tricky death scenario, sounds like there might be sequels (+0.25).

Megalon 17.25
With a name like Megalon, is this a shark? Nope! Incarnate Construct Entomanothrope got it. With apparently 120 hit dice or something. Nice analogy to the hurricane. Nice template abuse. Ooh- adaptation notes, useful.

Originality: 4 Ahh, the sweet RAW CR cheese of Lycanthropes and Entomanothropes. I was expecting this (-0.5). But either I was the only one or everyone else Vizzini'd themselves out of it (+0.5). Colossal Animated Object Incarnate Construct. Probably the first thing in people's heads and so the last thing anyone did. But you realized that the two fit together like a hand in a glove, so I call it beautiful and original (+1).

Elegance: 3.5 So grabbing as many hit dice as you did means you put yourself at risk in feat selection. But you didn't do too badly despite that. Dragonfire Adept's breath weapon is used "at will," and the time between breaths is not expressed in rounds. Thus you do not qualify for Enlarge Breath [Metabreath] (-0.25) nor Maximize Breath [Metabreath] (-0.25). The Cleave feat requires Power Attack, and yet you selected Cleave before PA (-0.25). Also, I'm not going to ding you for this, but ... hilariously, Devastation Beetle doesn't qualify for Entomanothrope. Don't believe me? Check the Update Booklet for 3.5 (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a). Now look at page 11. I'll wait. Devastation Beetles get their type changed to Dragon (Fire)! And no, the Errata (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a) doesn't fix that either! It's an obvious typo where the table got messed up so no penalty. Just thought I should point that out. This is the level of detail I bring you as a judge. Are you not amused? Anyway, as I was saying, This is simple and elegant, made it very easy to check everything (+0.75). Fist of the Forest blends well with your (un)natural CON score (+0.5).

Power and Competence: 5 Great peak AC (+0.5). No flight (-0.25). Good DR and Fast Heal (+0.25). Tremendous HP Pool (+1). Great SR (+0.5). Great Attacks (+0.5). You have one weakness but I'll talked about it in memorableness. Not much else to say. Exceeds maximum score - 5.

Memorable Villainy: 4.75 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Fire (due to the tiny size of the breath weapon I award you no points, but also no penalty). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (+0.25). So this is pretty much a classic Kaiju - enormous size, virtually unkillable. Between DR, fast healing, and thousands of hit points what to do? As you indicate, I'm feeling a two-parter. Part 1 is the rampage. Part 2 is the revenge of the mortals on the Kaiju. After seeing it battle for a while, they figure out it is an entomanothrope. They break out the spellcaster and cast break enchantment (SR No) spell. If Megalon rolls a natural 1 on the will save to remove the "curse", they cast Alter Fortune (No save, no SR) to force a reroll. You're going to be making that save every single time. Classic Achilles heel, but takes time to find the cure (+1).

Ixalli 12.5 -> 12.75
Picture shows a dinosaur with a city on its back. I hope we get a dinosaur with a city on its back. Oh, awakened cheese. And you have a Wild Cohort T-Rex partner. Swordsage, ok.

Originality: 4 I can't believe no one else picked DinosaurTM! Aaaaaaand, if that wasn't enough, it's a dinosaur with a pet dino. It's Dinos all the way down! Take a +1.

Elegance: 1 So your ability score table correctly sussed out that you have to be fully grown before you can get awakened. Your CR table doesn't follow the same rule, which made things a challenge. In order to be a target of awaken you must be a legal creature. While the seismosaurus "virtually" grows from a single HD, I don't think you can awaken a baby seismosaurus by 3.5 RAW (young template is PF I believe). Magebred is inherited, Awaken is "acquired" - not actually a template even, but because someone has to cast a spell that's the only way I can see applying it. So I don't see how you are taking Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Knockdown, and Great Throw (all of which require INT 13) legally (-1). You also seem to have 13 feats in your first row when you should only have 12 (-0.25). Your skill ranks reflect having INT 18 through all hit dice, which isn't the case (-0.25). I checked all your swordsage maneuvers, you meet the pre-reqs for them as you aquire them - no issues. I'm going to have to insist on the 1st swordsage stance being 1st level though, as that is what is indicated in ToB (-0.25). I ... don't see how you are training your pet T-rex to take martial study for manuevers that you don't even have yourself. 22 Ranks in Handle animal is decent, but not really enough to invent brand new uses of the handle animal skill (-0.25).

Power and Competence: 3.25 Armor class is low with nothing really padding it (-0.5). No DR/Regen (-0.25). HP Pool I'll call average. No SR. Pretty good Attacks (+0.5). Manuevers and stances offer extra oomph (+0.25). Pet T-Rexes are awesome (+0.5).

Memorable Villainy: 4.5 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Earth and Fire? So you say, I really don't see it. I'm guessing you're training to claim it from your manuevers, but they're all over the map. If you had taken 100% stone dragon I might buy it (-0.25) In the spirit of my position on this evolving I'm removing the penalty, but not otherwise granting full points in this sub category. No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Neutral (+0.25). So Dinosaurs are a classic for Kaijus. It fits the mental picture right away. We don't even have to try to imagine the movie, they're already out there. And there are two of themmmmmm..... I like it. Fits the bill, it's putting butts in seats and money in the bank (+0.75).

The Unnamed God 13.75 -> 14.25
Never saw Zardoz. Are you going to make me watch it too? Nope, you gave a succinct summary instead. Thanks. And our first and apparently only Kaiju-templated Kaiju. **Downloading Dragon 289 **

Originality: 4 I know Vargouille! They're small little wing-a-ling floating heads. We got a Kaiju one? Awesome! (+0.5). And the only Kaiju-templated Kaiju. Vizzini was strong this round (+0.5). And I know that Kaiju are associated with cult-classic movies, but I don't think Zardoz is the one they usually associate (+0.25). Sad face for originality :(, the Kaiju template adaptation suggests using vargouille (-0.25).

Elegance: 2 So with a Kaiju-in-a-box I guess it is still unfortunately possible to have some elegance errors. The written Kaiju template requires Animal, Magical Beast, or Vermin. You're an outsider (-0.25). But, I'm sure you're getting your dispute ready right now - because of the adaptation - right? I'd be thinking it too. See here's the other thing, the "Kaiju Crazy" sidebar says, "When using the kaiju template on the creature types listed above, you should take these things into account and adjust the CR." In other words, interpretation is needed, there's no RAW rule. Eyeballing an animal Kaiju, +40 hit dice is +15 CR. Or basically 13 CR of hit dice with an ad-hoc of +2. If we did the same with outsider hit dice for a vargouille Kaiju, that works out to +20 CR of hit dice with an ad hoc of +2. You get a penalty for not considering the ramifications of this (-0.25) which is included in the penalty for exceeding the CR mentioned below. From the template: Feats: A kaiju retains any of the bonus feats possessed by the base creature and has an additional feat plus one per every 4 Hit Dice above 32." At 41 hit dice you have earned 2 feats by the template. You took 3 (-0.25). The Kaiju template says, "Skills: A kaiju possesses 1 skill point per Hit Die." The Crazy! sidebar mentions adjusting BAB and saves, it doesn't mention skills. You have too many ranks assigned (-0.25). Half-Elemental Template requires INT 4, you have INT 2 (-0.25). This is simple to read, easy to check everything (+0.5). If you factor in what I believe to be a more accurate CR for the (modified) Kaiju template, you have exceeded the CR target of 20 by 6 (-0.75).

Power and Competence: 3.75 Armor class is kinda low (-0.25). Decent DR (+0.25). HP Pool I'll call average above average (+0.25). Pretty good Attacks (+0.25). Acceptable SR (+0.25).

Memorable Villainy: 4.5 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Earth (+0.25). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Evil. Not sure what brand, but you have the subtype so I'll give you credit (+0.25). So Zardoz is notoriously bad, and you are making the sequel here in villain form. That's ... evil. Flying giant screaming head is pretty epic for a Kaiju though. I think this is a decent presentation (+0.5).

Kekikike 12.5
Another whale with wings. Sounds Hawaiian? Hmm, son of a half-dragon. How are you getting smart - I don't think Dragontouched does it? Wings? You'll forgive me but I'll check.

Originality: 2.75 Whales were popular (-0.75). Wings - meh. Bard?? OK, I'm curious, consider me hooked (+0.5).

Elegance: 2.5 Shock Trooper requires Improved Bull Rush (-0.25). If you look at page 58-59 of the PHB, you see that you pick feats (Step 7) before you pick Class features (step 9). As you have no maneuvers at this point, you do not meet the pre-requisites (-0.25). You have insufficient ranks in Perform to meet the pre-req of Song of the Heart (-0.25). The implied order in which you listed your maneuvers indicates you will have IL 12 for CR 15, or insufficient to take Diamond Defence (-0.25). The rest of the Maneuvers I have no issue with. This was simple to read, easy to check everything (+0.5).

Power and Competence: 3 Without a stat block I'll admit I'm just "winging it" here - get it? Armor class is low with nothing really padding it (-0.5). No DR/Regen (-0.25). NO SR to help you out. HP Pool I'll call average. Decent attacks (+0.25), and manuevers and stances offer extra oomph (+0.25). Flight = Yes (+0.25). Solid performance.

Memorable Villainy: 4.25 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Fire (+0.25). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Neutral Evil (+0.25). So a book burning Kaiju. That's definitely a story purpose. I guess we could incorporate that into the movie of the week. We could use it as a metaphor for something else that's evil and burning books. And then when the good guys win we can all feel good for watching this movie. (+0.25)

Edit: After interpreting disputes parts 1 of X. Includes Irralisk, Xokhtohm, Megalon, and a not-yet-read dispute from Zardoz but change anyway after mulling for a week.

Edit 2: After round 2 of disputes. Angarngi, Zardoz, Wrath of the Bittersea

Edit 3: After round 3 of 3 for disputes. Tarrasque-er, The Wind that Wends, Ma'enloth. Final decision on Xokhtohm.

loky1109

2021-07-28, 02:57 AM

I now in the forest. I'll send my disputes, when come home, approximately sunday.

Khedrac

2021-07-28, 03:23 AM

mattie_p

2021-07-28, 06:16 AM

May I say that as a lurker to this competition I am incredibly impressed by the way you have presented your judgements. You seem to have gone into excruciating detail checking the entries, even going to the length of buying a copy of a dragon issue to check the template details! Your judgements are also clear and well written, with plenty of details for people who want to check the judgement.

Awesome, just awesome.

Thank you kindly. I tried to make the judgments enjoyable to read, and I do believe that I "showed my work." Buying the mag isn't all that impressive, just $5 for the pdf, but worth it in my opinion. I'll read the rest of the issue at some point and recoup my investment that way.

I now in the forest. I'll send my disputes, when come home, approximately sunday.

Disputes are, of course, permitted by the rules of the competition. Any judgment, no matter how well documented, is inherently subjective.

That said, I am disappointed that no individual submission made any effort to make my job easier by citing page numbers within the rule books. I will insist that if you have a dispute of my interpretation of the RAW, you cite book and page in your dispute, or hyperlink the appropriate WotC article.

ciopo

2021-07-28, 06:36 AM

That said, I am disappointed that no individual submission made any effort to make my job easier by citing page numbers within the rule books. I will insist that if you have a dispute of my interpretation of the RAW, you cite book and page in your dispute, or hyperlink the appropriate WotC article.

Speaking for just myself : I would had cited page numbers if I knew that before I submitted, or even before the reveal, since I did send revisions to Jdizzlean and one more revision to add page numbers would be fair. I know I thought "damn, I wish I knew that" when I read your judge criterias on page 3, but that ship had sailed by then :P

for my own judging criteria, just the book is enough, and so that's all I've put in my entries.

mattie_p

2021-07-28, 06:49 AM

I ended up not penalizing lack of page numbers. I did penalize incorrectly cited sources or lack of citation.

However, specifically for disputes, I think I'm within my rights to insist that any discussion of the RAW include a detailed reference.

Lionheart

2021-07-28, 09:41 AM

Thanks also from me for the comprehensive judging!
Don't think I have any disputes, just wish I'd been as thorough putting my build together as you were judging!

JyP

2021-07-28, 12:38 PM

Thanks a lot for judging mattie_p!

You have put a lot of effort in it, I am impressed and somewhat intimidated :smallredface: - let me echo Lionheart here, I just wish I'd been as thorough putting my build together as you were judging! :smallsmile:

mattie_p

2021-07-28, 01:12 PM

So I always try to be thorough, both for my enjoyment (and I throughly enjoyed the process of judging) but also to give each competitor their due.

Everyone who judges has their own style. I mean no disrespect here to anyone else who judges anything, but my method is to try to dive at least as deep into the character as the cook did. I usually learn something new, and I hope every competitor learns something from the experience, even if I am critical about components of their final product.

AvatarVecna

2021-07-31, 10:53 AM

One joke build I was considering was an Assassin Vine that only has HD upgrades. It would be intentionally core only and absolute garbage, just as Wizards of the Coast intended.

JyP

2021-08-02, 03:26 AM

One joke build I was considering was an Assassin Vine that only has HD upgrades. It would be intentionally core only and absolute garbage, just as Wizards of the Coast intended.
I wonder if you could repurpose it as a patch of Razorvine (with half-fiend template) coming from the Lower Planes - which somehow gains some sentience or is infested with a swarm of cranium rats from Sigil (swarm-shifter template).

=> this would have a War of Worlds vibe, with alien red vines creeping everywhere and slowly taking over native flora and fauna.

mattie_p

2021-08-03, 07:17 AM

AvatarVecna

2021-08-03, 07:32 AM

So it's been about a week since I posted my judging. And it has been about two weeks since the chairman has posted on the forums. Hopefully he's just on vacation or something.

I know there are a couple disputes out there. I think at this point it is fair game for competitors to publicly post their disputes, and I'll respond accordingly. I will not lower anyone's score as a result of the disputes anyway.

Almost three weeks. And yeah, it's worrying. But don't wanna let the contest die...

Unfortunately I've had to do an inbox purge since I sent both my build and dispute, so I'll have to get the latter typed back up.

I do have a bit of a general question though: how much tolerance is there nitpicking about other people's builds?

mattie_p

2021-08-03, 07:41 AM

H_H_F_F

2021-08-03, 08:34 AM

Oh man, I felt like this round stood in place for a while, but since I didn't participate I didn't notice how long it's been. Hopefully Jdizzlean is doing alright.

Would anyone be interested in serving as an interim chair for the next round, once all disputes have been settled and medals distributed? Hopefully we'll get the chair back 'till then...

mattie_p

2021-08-03, 08:48 AM

I would suggest we make progress on finishing this round for now. In my opinion, anything else is premature at this point. Will probably take several days just for disputes, at a minimum.

loky1109

2021-08-03, 09:03 AM

I know there are a couple disputes out there. I think at this point it is fair game for competitors to publicly post their disputes, and I'll respond accordingly. I will not lower anyone's score as a result of the disputes anyway.

Okey.

You took feat blinding speed without meeting the pre-requisite (needs Dex 25, you have 10) (-0.25). ... You took feat blinding speed a second time, still without meeting the pre-requisite (needs Dex 25, you have 10) (-0.25).
My bad, but as I see, you penalize me twice for one mistake.

Draconic Aura feat is in Dragon Magic, not PHB2 as you mentioned twice? (-0.25).
Draconic Aura feat is in Dragon Magic as I mentioned.
There is a Draconic Aura (Power) in PHB2 in Dragon Shaman class. Feat gives me aura, aura is in PHB2.

Extended Reach requires a "tentacle, feeler, or pseudopod," (-0.25).
I think the dragon tail is quite like a tentacle. But I agree, this isn't clear RAW.

Vile Feats: Without laying out your skill ranks it is impossible to know if you "know of" the Elder Evil's existence (-0.25).
Of course I know. Father Llymic is the first I saw after I was born. And:

Mentally, all brood spawn are extensions of Father Llymic’s. thoughts. They carry out his desires without any need for communication. (EE, p. 36)
The Brood Spawn Ogre example has no Knowledge ranks, at all, but he has two bonus Vile Feats.
Plus, as it is written in PHB (p. 58-59) skill points are spend before feats choice, so I first take all Knowledge to 102 ranks when apply template and second take Vile Feats.

Elder Evils lays out the possible bonus feats for service to an Elder Evil on page 11. The following feats do not appear on the table: Vile Deathstrike, Epic Evil Brand, Deformity (Skin) (-0.75).
I can't give you a good counter-argument, but I don't agree that this list is exhaustive. And if this is true, we have a problem: some creatures can't level-up because they can't select the bonus Vile Feat - they take all that they can or need to take feats that are inappropriate. Without possibility to take Deformity (Skin) I would have this problem, too.

Element: Maybe Ice? It's not listed as one of the 4 anyway (-0.25).
Ice is water. Literally. And cold is strongly connected with water in D&D.

Alignment: Don't actually list alignment that I could see (-0.25).
Yes, my bad. But anyway I am Brood spawn, so I am "Always chaotic evil" as written in template description.

Half-dragon's speed overwrites the base creature. It gets a fly speed of twice it's land speed. You have flight 120', not 350 (-0.25).
We have this WE: Half-Dragons: Twice as Much Fun (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20031128a).
There are several examples of Half-dragons, including Azuria, half-silver dragon/half-djinni. She has Spd 20 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect) as regular djinni.

(Also, Broodspawn makes you lose the "special actions" of the base creature including in your case two breath weapons, giving you a single breath weapon once a day in exchange, so it was a legal but sub-optimal move here)
No, not once a day, but every 1d4 rounds.
I wrote this in entry:

Half-Dragon template needed for one purpose - Dragon Breath feat. After transformation Irralisk is still meeting prerequisites: he has 6 HD, has breath weapon, and still is Half-dragon. So he can use his new breath weapon every 1d4 rounds.
This isn't so sub-optimal as you pointed out.

I added up your skill ranks at CR 16, looks like you treated all 3 knowledge skills as in-class, however, you only get 2 (-0.25).
In Hive Mother description written:

Skills: Knowledge (any two) +28
Can take any two. This means Hive Mother has all Knowledge skills in-class and can select any. Or do you think different Hive Mothers have different in-class skill lists? This is weird.

Master of the Unseen Hand adds some utility to telekinesis, but by my reading you can either use Sustain Force as a move action or use the violent thrust as a free action. Concentration is tough when you don't have a standard. No full attacks with your telekinesis'd weapon, but you have other options (like eye rays) (+0.5).
And this is the reason why I take the Extraordinary Concentration feat. With Concentration +68 I always make a check with DC 40 and Concentrate on Telekinesis as swift action. So full attacks are still in game.
And even if Xokhtohm doesn't have Extraordinary Concentration, Concentration is needed only from the second round, on the first round it isn't needed.

Element: Lightning - not one of the fundamental elements (-0.25).
Lightning is a representation of the Air not a separate element. There isn't pure air damage in D&D, only Lightning and Sonic.

Yes. They both are mine.

AvatarVecna

2021-08-03, 09:09 AM

If you're using it as an example where you believe I'm inconsistent in my judgment and are using it as evidence, I'd say that's fine. If you're negging them to make your entry look better, I'd say save it please. There's a lot of wiggle room there, hopefully it's helpful for you

That's fair. does it count as calling out inconsistency if I feel certain builds were given a lot more careful scrutiny than others? :smalltongue:

It doesn't really make my entry look better because they're not even anywhere close to threatening my placement, but it bothers me enough that I feel a need to comment regardless: Great Big Blue's most impressive kaiju move (which features in their fluff write-up even) is the "summon a swarm of elementals" move. GBB's spells per day are just wrong: even ignoring how they're apparently getting +1 spell/day per level from attribute (which isn't how bonus spells/day from attributes ever works), but they have Cha 12 on a Cha-casting class. They can't cast Divine Crusader spells higher than 2nd level at all. Some of my other nitpicks are more a matter of interpretation than anything else, but this one is just very blatantly incorrect, and an example of how I think certain builds received a more thorough look than others.

(And to balance this out a bit, I'll point out something about my build that you missed as well. >.>)

With a name like Megalon, is this a shark? Nope! Incarnate Construct Entomanothrope got it. With apparently 120 hit dice or something. Nice analogy to the hurricane. Nice template abuse. Ooh- adaptation notes, useful.

When I wanted a name, I looked for existing "really big beetles" in pop culture. Basically all I found really quickly was this one-off villain from Ying-Yang-Yo (terrible show, don't watch it) and...a creature from the Godzilla canon named Megalon (https://godzilla.fandom.com/wiki/Megalon). So I took the name for my entry, as well as the picture to serve as my hybrid form.

An important note for the adaption: I mention the Constrictor Sinomen Naga as a Huge Humanoid option for abusing things, but it's since been pointed out to me that part of the Dragon Magazine OA updates changed the OA Nagas to be Monstrous Humanoids, making them ineligible for lycanthropy or entomanothropy. That doesn't harm my build exactly, but it means that one of the better options for adapting this nonsense isn't on the table.

Originality: 4 Ahh, the sweet RAW CR cheese of Lycanthropes and Entomanothropes. I was expecting this (-0.5). But either I was the only one or everyone else Vizzini'd themselves out of it (+0.5). Colossal Animated Object Incarnate Construct. Probably the first thing in people's heads and so the last thing anyone did. But you realized that the two fit together like a hand in a glove, so I call it beautiful and original (+1).

I think for this particular competition, people have been giving Incarnate Construct a bit of a wide berth ever since somebody layered it multiple times to bring in some triple-digit CR monstrosity that constantly cloned itself (or something like that). Uh, this isn't really a dispute, just a neat lil contest history tidbit, I guess. Explaining why people don't use it more.

Elegance: 3.5 So grabbing as many hit dice as you did means you put yourself at risk in feat selection. But you didn't do too badly despite that. Dragonfire Adept's breath weapon is used "at will," and the time between breaths is not expressed in rounds. Thus you do not qualify for Enlarge Breath [Metabreath] (-0.25) nor Maximize Breath [Metabreath] (-0.25). The Cleave feat requires Power Attack, and yet you selected Cleave before PA (-0.25). Also, I'm not going to ding you for this, but ... hilariously, Devastation Beetle doesn't qualify for Entomanothrope. Don't believe me? Check the Update Booklet for 3.5 (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a). Now look at page 11. I'll wait. Devastation Beetles get their type changed to Dragon (Fire)! And no, the Errata (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a) doesn't fix that either! It's an obvious typo where the table got messed up so no penalty. Just thought I should point that out. This is the level of detail I bring you as a judge. Are you not amused? Anyway, as I was saying, This is simple and elegant, made it very easy to check everything (+0.75). Fist of the Forest blends well with your (un)natural CON score (+0.5).

I feel there's an RAI argument that could be made about DFA, but this is a pretty RAW-dependent entry so I can let the breath weapon slide. However, I take issue with the Cleave bit:

1) The feats are all gained simultaneously upon gaining the template, so the specific order they were gained in doesn't actually matter by RAW.

2) Even if order mattered, the feats were not "taken" in the order they were presented in - the presentation was just me putting the feats in alphabetical order, which is a thing I do when I gain multiple feats simultaneously because it looks better to me.

I can understand if you're skeptical and wanna leave the penalty, but just know that when I was building, Power Attack was not "taken after" Cleave in any meaning of the phrase.

*squints*

I'll be honest, checking that Devastation Vermin were still Vermin type was not on my list of things to check for in the errata/updates. That's hilarious. But as long as we're talking about "technical reasons that this build isn't RAW-compliant, even though it would be allowed by RAI", take a closer look at Entomanothrope. Here, let me quote the relevant passages:

"Entomanothrope" is a template that can be added to any humanoid or giant (referred to as the base creature). Entomanothropy as an affliction works exactly as the lycanthropy affliction does, except that the entomanothrope never runs the danger of assuming the alignment of the vermin type (as vermin really have no moral or ethical sense). Entomathropy can be cured in the same way as lycanthropy.

Size and Type: The base creature's type does not change, but the creature gains the shapechanger subtype. The entomanothrope takes on characteristics of some monstrous vermin (not swarms) no more than one size category larger than the base creature (referred to as the base vermin). Entomanothropes can also adopt a hybrid form that combines features of the base creature and the vermin. The hybrid form is the same size as the base creature's size. Entomanothropes can assume vermin forms one size smaller than the base creature size, regardless of the normal size of the vermin type. For example, an entomanothrope that is humanoid and Large monstrous scorpion could become a Small monstrous scorpion, though its hybrid form would be Medium and its normal vermin form would be Large.

That's all pretty normal and standard, nothing weird going on here...

Curse of Entomanothropy (Su): Any humanoid or giant of size Small to Huge that is hit by an entomanothrope's bite or sting attack in vermin or hybrid form must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or contract entomanothropy. The curse can be passed through claw attacks if the hybrid or vermin form does not have a bite or sting attack. Afflicted entomanothropes cannot pass on the curse of entomanothropy.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/325/887/1c3.jpg

Power and Competence: 5 Great peak AC (+0.5). No flight (-0.25). Good DR and Fast Heal (+0.25). Tremendous HP Pool (+1). Great SR (+0.5). Great Attacks (+0.5). You have one weakness but I'll talked about it in memorableness. Not much else to say. Exceeds maximum score - 5.

It probably doesn't change much (and I got max score anyway), but if it helps, SweetSpot!Megalon has a long jump of 200 ft and a high jump of 50 ft, has 20/30 ft reach (vermin/hybrid). It's still not a fly speed, and they can easily get peppered by a flying kiter without any risk to the flier, but they're not quite as helpless against airborne opponents as most creature with no fly speed or ranged weapon are. It's a relatively small issue, though.

(Also, while I fully understand why it's the case here, it's a little hilarious to me that Fast Healing 132 is considered "good" instead of "great" or "tremendous". The amounts of fast healing that really matter are 0, 1, and "enough", and this definitely isn't "enough".)

Memorable Villainy: 4.75 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Fire (due to the tiny size of the breath weapon I award you no points, but also no penalty). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (+0.25). So this is pretty much a classic Kaiju - enormous size, virtually unkillable. Between DR, fast healing, and thousands of hit points what to do? As you indicate, I'm feeling a two-parter. Part 1 is the rampage. Part 2 is the revenge of the mortals on the Kaiju. After seeing it battle for a while, they figure out it is an entomanothrope. They break out the spellcaster and cast break enchantment (SR No) spell. If Megalon rolls a natural 1 on the will save to remove the "curse", they cast Alter Fortune (No save, no SR) to force a reroll. You're going to be making that save every single time. Classic Achilles heel, but takes time to find the cure (+1).

If the fire breath isn't considered significantly big, then it becomes the second-most elemental thing I have, depending on how much weight you give fluff-mechanic relations. Typically, the four classical elements are each somewhat tied with a particular kind of elemental damage: fire and fire, water and cold, air and electricity, earth and acid. The 6d6 acid aura with significant AoE and no action requirement is still a big threat all on its own, and it's still delivering the "force of nature" feel that is the point of the elemental requirement, even if it technically doesn't say "earth attack" or something similar. Fire was given more precedent in the build because of its ability to affect large areas, but the aura is part of the same "radiation-ish" package, and the result of the judgement makes the aura the more significant portion.

As far as the weakness goes, I feel a need to point out a caveat: you're right, but you're also metagaming. Maybe the players can figure out after a bit of observation that this thing switching between bipedal and quadrupedal forms is a -thrope of some kind, but the characters need to employ either Knowledge checks (base DC 173 to even recognize what it is, possibly more if you decide that templates/template-stacking makes it harder to recognize a creature for some reason) or info-gathering divination spells that don't care saves/SR (which typically revolve around you asking questions to a deity or something - and that depends on you asking the right questions, and for the players to know the right questions, they either need to ask an awful lot of them or they need to metagame).

But the strategy can work fairly easily besides that, and honestly a party might well be able to hit ridiculous knowledge DCs or cast tons of divinations to get tons of questions (at least once the dust has settled after the initial encounter). There's other strategies that can work okay as well - Megalon's only real defense against ability damage/drain is to just...not get hit, and/or to succeed on saves. There's no miss chance or resistance to ability damage/drain, so if it gets swarmed by enough enemies capable of it that some of them get nat 20s, Megalon can go down fairly quick. I'm sure there's some other nonsense strats too. Yours has gotta be one of the more elegant, though.

Oh man, I felt like this round stood in place for a while, but since I didn't participate I didn't notice how long it's been. Hopefully Jdizzlean is doing alright.

Would anyone be interested in serving as an interim chair for the next round, once all disputes have been settled and medals distributed? Hopefully we'll get the chair back 'till then...

I could serve as interim chair (I've even got an idea for a contest), but I think it's best to hold off on that until it's actually time to call things one way or the other. We can give the chair another week or two to show up before we move on without them, if only because disputes will take some time.

JyP

2021-08-03, 10:14 AM

Okay, I was the culprit for Angarngi and Zardoz :redface:

here would be my disputes !

Hi mattie_p, the Tower of Arngargi turns its eyeless senses upon you (thanks for judging !)

Elegance: 2 Dude, like statting out traps is hard. I'm on page 74-75 of the DMG for this.
Well - as is written on the first line of the build block :
let me try to simulate it through D&D rules, using Dungeonscape’s options : Encounter Traps, and Intelligent Traps.
=> so it's not stated primarily through DMG rules, but Dungeonscape rules. The block description here directly comes from Dungeonscape in fact (hence the disadvantage section for example) (Encounter Traps : page 120, Intelligent Trap : page 132)

Base CR for a magic trap is CR 1. +6 for the spell level of Symbol of Fear.
=> by dungeonscape guidelines, I use intelligent traps options there - symbol of fear cost is included in intelligent trap CR increase

A little cleaner design implementation for how you came up with your CRs would have been extremely helpful.
=> it's mostly through Dungeonscape guidelines - it's why I include CR for each individual trap (most are around CR 7 or 8 and here it's DMG rules), with +CR on top for intelligent encounter trap which is coming from Dungeonscape.

Power and Competence: 2 Even at CR 16, which is a little higher than your suggested CRs, I don't think that traps are going to slow down a dedicated group of Tomb Raiders. DC 20 saving throws are certainly achievable without going overboard on optimization. A couple divinations should reveal the secrets of the tower before they enter - I didn't see any anti-scrying or the like built into the program here. Without other occupants of the tower, traps will eat up gameplay time in a session but not otherwise provide a serious threat to a party of adventurers. I'm eyeballing this at a 2 as well.
=> Yes, I was more on an encounter trap CR 10, so adventurers around 8th to 10th level. As said in the We're Only Making It Stronger section :
the Tower was designed for low fantasy adventure, with no spellcasters as PCs (even though a stereotypical cleric falls prey to it). Nondetection shenanigans and ways to circumvent pesky spells to keep the big surprise will become necessary
... for higher CRs and/or higher fantasy settings. Thinks more Lankhmar or Conan than Forgotten Realms (it was the risk of scripting a low fantasy novel in D&D rules here, magic availability is not the same in usual D&D settings). The novel is about two famous thieves raiding the tower, seeing skeletons and remains or previous adventurers... and they only succeed through a bit of luck, as a NPC cleric and a NPC villager attracts the wrath of the tower on the side.

Memorable Villainy: 3 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Unknown/None (-0.25).
Well, we are talking about an animated stone tower there. But right, it should be written somewhere, even though it's not an information provided for traps usually.

This is more like a single camera horror movie than a Kaiju movie. I'm thinking more Blair Witch, less Pacific Rim. If that's the effect you're going for then you achieved it, but I think your intent conflicts with the intent of this round (-0.5).
You are right - as stated here, this is an encounter trap - a surprise which will only work the first time... So a fun event which can be placed in a lot of campaigns. It's why I added 2 other sections after the build to expand a bit. As said in the entry :

Let me note that we have a strange conundrum here : we are stating a monster, mainly to simulate combat encounters with PCs. However, by trope definition Giant Equals Invincible : kaijus are Too Big - they cannot be defeated by humans in combat.
So my aim was to reconcile D&D and Kaiju to have both possible as a D&D campaign or in a Kaiju movie :

- in a D&D Campaign : as Kaijus are Too Big, they cannot be vanquished through combat. You need to involve PCs through various quests and shenanigans so they can find a way to neutralize it - but usually these efforts are meaningless. Here the solution is to go inside the kaiju, with true and tried D&D spirit : a Dungeon. I provide also some background for a D&D campaign - with underground dungeons suddenly breaking through the surface world, and involve other kaijus. Thus, I provide a way to neutralize some parts of a titanic dungeon parasite, towers being only some small tendrils. There are ways to scribe more towers for a campaign, and a background justification for dungeon strangeness - and PC powerlessness after all, how can they compete with dungeons sprouting everywhere ?

- in a Kaiju movie : what better way to show off D&D in a Kaiju movie than by using Animated Dungeons ? We already have titanic lizards, insects, dragons and robots in kaiju movies, so all sorts of beasts but no titanic flora monsters that I know of.

To conclude : I provide mainly narrative tools to reconcile Kaiju movies and D&D campaigns, but by the competition's spirit I guess I would need to provide 15th-level and 20th-level dungeons on top of the 10th-level adaptation of the Tower of Angargi. It was too big a task for me, but I am happy to share my One Weird Trick to all other DMs in the Playground :smallwink:

HI PUNY MORTAL mattie_p - GUN IS GOOD ! ZARDOZ IS SPEAKING

Elegance: 1.5 So with a Kaiju-in-a-box I guess it is still unfortunately possible to have some elegance errors.

*ZARDOZ flies away in shame :smallredface: *

All your remarks hit the mark - it is truly a detailed review, thanks a lot :smallsmile:

Feats: A kaiju retains any of the bonus feats possessed by the base creature and has an additional feat plus one per every 4 Hit Dice above 32." At 41 hit dice you have earned 2 feats by the template. You took 3 (-0.25).
I don't know how you compute this ? Zardoz has 43 HD, not 41 and to continue the quote :

Thus, a sea lion kaiju (46 Hit Dice) would have a total of four feats
Sea Lion Kaiju : 0 (bonus feat from base creature) +1 (additional feat) +1 (36 HD) +1 (40 HD) +1 (44 HD) = 4 feats
Zardoz : 0 (bonus feat from base creature) +1 (additional feat) +1 (36 HD) +1 (40 HD) = 3 feats

(by the way I removed the Weapon Finesse (B) from the Vargouille - it's more an unwritten rule that small creatures have it, not bigger ones usually - and anyway this feat would be useless with Zardoz's low Dex).

jdizzlean

2021-08-03, 11:41 AM

sorry, life has been.. interesting. i didn't mean to leave anyone hanging.

Megalon dispute

Before I get into it, I wanna say thanks for stepping up to the plate to judge this. There's a couple builds where, if I weren't competing, would've probably turned me off of judging this round myself. Good on you for sticking it out! Additionally, I'd like to ask whether it would be...appreciated if contestants point out things about builds that weren't addressed in the judging? >.>

With a name like Megalon, is this a shark? Nope! Incarnate Construct Entomanothrope got it. With apparently 120 hit dice or something. Nice analogy to the hurricane. Nice template abuse. Ooh- adaptation notes, useful.

Megalon (https://godzilla.fandom.com/wiki/Megalon) is a kaiju who has fought Godzilla, and is the source of the pic I have for the hybrid form. A ghastly enormous humanoid-beetle thing. I basically got to the end of making this monstrosity, googled to find giant beetles in various media, and found a couple examples, but it's a pretty sparse field. There was a big beetle in an episode of "Ying Yang Yo", Megalon from the Godzilla franchise, and...like, that's it. It's not super-common, and since one of the possible names was in the Godzilla lore...it was the obvious choice.

Adaption notes are, I think, essential when you're pulling cheese in Villain Comp. The DM needs to scale things properly to the party, and not every party deserves to face this monstrosity. There are plenty of more fair combinations that still take advantage of -thrope cheese, Incarnate Construct cheese, or both. I just went with the biggest because I've been wanting to use this trick for awhile and didn't wanna go smalltime for the kaiju round. :smalltongue:

Originality: 4 Ahh, the sweet RAW CR cheese of Lycanthropes and Entomanothropes. I was expecting this (-0.5). But either I was the only one or everyone else Vizzini'd themselves out of it (+0.5). Colossal Animated Object Incarnate Construct. Probably the first thing in people's heads and so the last thing anyone did. But you realized that the two fit together like a hand in a glove, so I call it beautiful and original (+1).

I'm honestly having trouble remembering if anybody has done lycan cheese in this contest prior to this. I know I've been on the lookout for it the past few rounds since I realized this was a possibility sometime around Halloween. It's possible it's shown up before, but at the very least it's probably not constantly on people's minds the way some things are.

I think people have gotten kinda cagey about Incarnate Construct after it was used in one of the earlier rounds like a dozen times on the same build. Even so, I'm about 95% sure that "Incarnate Colossal Animated Object" is the lowest CR "Colossal creature" there is, and that 5% is because there might be some weird huge/gargantuan creature that gets to use HD advancement to hit colossal earlier than CR 5.

I definitely love the synergy between Entomanothrope and Incarnate Construct though. It's just *mwah*, and I'm not sure if I'm the first who found that particular combo's power but I might be? Probably not, but still. Exciting thoughts.

Elegance: 3.5 So grabbing as many hit dice as you did means you put yourself at risk in feat selection. But you didn't do too badly despite that. Dragonfire Adept's breath weapon is used "at will," and the time between breaths is not expressed in rounds. Thus you do not qualify for Enlarge Breath [Metabreath] (-0.25) nor Maximize Breath [Metabreath] (-0.25). The Cleave feat requires Power Attack, and yet you selected Cleave before PA (-0.25). Also, I'm not going to ding you for this, but ... hilariously, Devastation Beetle doesn't qualify for Entomanothrope. Don't believe me? Check the Update Booklet for 3.5. Now look at page 11. I'll wait. Devastation Beetles get their type changed to Dragon (Fire)! And no, the Errata doesn't fix that either! It's an obvious typo where the table got messed up so no penalty. Just thought I should point that out. This is the level of detail I bring you as a judge. Are you not amused? Anyway, as I was saying, This is simple and elegant, made it very easy to check everything (+0.75). Fist of the Forest blends well with your (un)natural CON score (+0.5).

Normally, I'd argue that DFA not being able to use metabreath feats is kinda dumb, and that they essentially have a breath weapon with a recharge time that can be measured in rounds (0 is a number), but at the same time I can see that it's not really RAW, and given how dependent this build is on abusing RAW, it's not good to mix an RAI argument into the mix. Especially when the big breath weapon was more a contingent choice just in case the acid aura wasn't considered "elemental" enough to meet the contest prerequisites. I can let this go.

I will, however, contest the penalty regarding Cleave. Firstly, the feats aren't taken in any particular order, because all the feats are gained simultaneously upon gaining the Entomanothrope template. Secondly, the reason they're listed in the order they are isn't the order they were taken in, but alphabetical order. This is a thing I do when I receive multiple feats simultaneously, since gaining feats simultaneously means the order they were "taken" in doesn't matter. I can understand if the penalty will remain, but I maintain that when the character was built, the feats weren't taken in the wrong order, I just didn't present it in a way that would make that crystal-clear.

*squints*

...of all the things I thought I'd have to worry about, "Devastation Vermin aren't Vermin anymore" was not one of them. That's hilarious.

Power and Competence: 5 Great peak AC (+0.5). No flight (-0.25). Good DR and Fast Heal (+0.25). Tremendous HP Pool (+1). Great SR (+0.5). Great Attacks (+0.5). You have one weakness but I'll talked about it in memorableness. Not much else to say. Exceeds maximum score - 5.

I feel kinda bad nitpicking a category I maxed out in, and this isn't really even disagreeing with anything you said, but also...I have an average long jump of 200 ft, and an average high jump of 50 ft. And I have 20 or 30 ft reach. Yeah, sure, it's not a fly speed - it's going to have real problems navigating gravity-less areas, and flying foes can still stay out of my reach if they realize how high up I can leap. But I'm not quite as helpless stuck on the ground as I appear from my speeds.

Memorable Villainy: 4.75 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Fire (due to the tiny size of the breath weapon I award you no points, but also no penalty). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (+0.25). So this is pretty much a classic Kaiju - enormous size, virtually unkillable. Between DR, fast healing, and thousands of hit points what to do? As you indicate, I'm feeling a two-parter. Part 1 is the rampage. Part 2 is the revenge of the mortals on the Kaiju. After seeing it battle for a while, they figure out it is an entomanothrope. They break out the spellcaster and cast break enchantment (SR No) spell. If Megalon rolls a natural 1 on the will save to remove the "curse", they cast Alter Fortune (No save, no SR) to force a reroll. You're going to be making that save every single time. Classic Achilles heel, but takes time to find the cure (+1).

Acid is usually associated with Earth in the fluff, and while I think it's less significant than the big breaths I was aiming for, it's definitely more significant than the piddly thing my breaths have been reduced to. That being said, the whole reason I got the breath weapon in the first place is that I was nervous about something exactly like this happening: that despite the general elemental associations (fire damage = fire, cold = water, electricity = air, acid = earth) that I wouldn't get credit for this particular requirement. If you still think it shouldn't count, then fair enough. But I think it should.

Yeah, I imagine that with time to gather intel, plan a strategy, and acquire resources, any team worth throwing Megalon at will have this problem handled. Heck, it's possible the team that faced him at CR 15 could've solved the issue if they weren't blindsided. This is true of another few methods as well (such as ability damage/drain, as mentioned in the write-up, which Megalon has to hope his SR/saves will keep him safe). It's what I like about the design: it's such a cheating Big Numbers build that unless the PCs are also cheating, they can't just win a straightforward fight. They're gonna have to be creative. But as long as they're unprepared for the first encounter, the almost certainly lose, and then the second encounter they almost certainly win. They'll find a way. And that's good. That's a good arc for a kaiju boss monster.

Hello Mattie_p , thanks for judging!, I'm going to reply in red where I dispute, and in blue where I'm more musing than disputing ( but I'm not going to say no if they result in an upward adjustment =) )

So, it's the tarrasque, but modified, right? Just making sure I'm not missing something. Oh! We're abusing Gate and Wish. Cool, cool. I hope you did your feats in order or something.

Originality: 1.5 So it seems like you went to the d20SRD monster filter and used the size and CR filters and picked the only monster there at Colossal CR20. I'm not saying you did, it just totally looks like you did. I mean, at least pick a Garngrath or something (-1.5).
No I didn't, but if that's what it looks like to you, that's what you're going to judge me for, so not much I can say about it. My first thought was colossal animate object and my second thought was colossal vermins for what it's worth, I was finagling templates when I had the lightbulb moment "wait a minute, DnD ALREADY has an established Kaiju! I can't not homage it!" I knew this wasn't going to feel original since Tarrasque is like, the most "let's fix this" creature ever, but whew 1.5 stings!

Elegance: 1.75 No templates or any added racial hit dice so this will be pretty easy to read, thank you (+0.5). But there was sloppy feat selection order. Planar touchstone feat at RHD 6, no way to have 8 skill ranks needed (-0.25). Martial Study (Greater Divine Surge), at 18HD you have IL 9, needs IL15 (-0.25). Martial Stance (Aura of Chaos), at 21HD you have IL 10, needs IL 11 (-0.25). Let's talk Planar Chausible and Gate shenanigans. If you're going to sell this, even as a DM, you really need to have your ducks in a row, which you don't. Wish has the following language: Once a week is not in immediate succession. You should have asked your called being for tomes. Speaking of your called being, you said that you were Chaotic Evil so you could gate in Pit Fiends. Pit Fiends are Lawful Evil Devils. You can gate in CE Balors, but they cannot use wish (-0.5). Improved Critical. You said: Here's what the PHB says: I don't know why you picked this at all (-0.5).
The feats are ordered/grouped by theme/cohesiveness, I didn't think about the unlock order at all, other than leave epic ones for HD 21+. There are a bunch of "shape soulmeld X" that I could have frontloaded. That aside, that's a statblock and not a leveling table, the "proper way" would be to list the feats in alphabetical order. I accept the elegance penalty here because I haven't listed any other way to surmise in what order I took the feats, I feel I'd have more ground to stand on if I listed them alphabetically but I feel it would still be an elegance hit because of the "Missing information: feat buy order", so the point is taken, and sorry about this

Re: Planar chasuble, I feel I have some finagling angle here. First argument I have is that when using the call creature feature of the gate spell, I do not need to specify the target plane, merely the creature name or type. If any exists in a plane I have access to, then all is good in the world? =)
The second, stronger, argument I have is in how planar chasuble is worded in relation to it's intended class, the incarnate. It matches by the alignment axis, not the specific alignment. It makes the example of a lawful incarnate being considered native to Celestia AND Baator. The wording for the gate chakra binding is the same, minus the example. My argument is therefore that as a CE entity, I am considered native to "all evil" and "all chaotic" planes and that I can open a gate to any of those. I'm sure I could argument something about wish, but I left it mostly vague on purpose because that's not a rabbit hole I wish to go down in, other than maybe make a little nudge/wink toward "hey, we get to use WBL unlike usual kaiju, isn't that worth something on power?"

Re: improved critical, "but is an extraordinary quality an effect? I suppose we go with different interpretations and I leave that at that, no harm no foul ^^".

Power and Competence: 4.5 So it's the tarrasque. Decent AC with solid HP pool. Decent SR (+0.25). Good DR / Regen (+0.5). Strong Attacks (+0.5). Meldshaping + Maneuvers (+0.25).

Memorable Villainy: 4 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Water (+0.25). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Evil (+0.25). If there's a blockbuster, this is like part 4. When they start running out of ideas so they bring back the monster from the first movie but add some stuff too it. It'll sell tickets, but it's not defining the genre.

Hello Mattie_p , thanks for judging!, I'm going to reply in red where I dispute, and in blue where I'm more musing than disputing ( but I'm not going to say no if they result in an upward adjustment =) )

Grows up? How small are we starting with - oh, I guess "small." I see Expansion, you get to Colossal organically? Inorganically? Can this creature really get that many hit dice? I guess I'll find out. You're going to make me check pre-reqs for every feat aren't you.

Originality: 4.5 Vasuthant doesn't roll around very much IMO (+0.5). Luck Feats (+0.25). CHA based kaiju? (+0.5). I'm on board. No ToB or MoI gets a small boost here (+0.25).

Elegance: 2.75 There's a fluff pre-req to Eyes to the Sky that you don't address. Force of Personality you don't cite a source. Hidden Talent you cite the wrong source. Individually one would slide, collectively, (-0.5). Re: Expansion. You said There is errata on the matter. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata) Please double check your work (-0.25). Overall wasn't challenging to understand, most everything that I needed to check was obvious (+0.5).
that we are scried is heavily implied in the CR10 "adventurers point of view" blurb, how else would they know where to teleport?

I have no excuses for missing a source and missourcing hidden talent, my apologies.

Expansion: I know of that errata, which is a sore point for me because it only addresses the augment without addressing the original duration, making the errata'd version (snip) Duration :1min/level(D) (snip) If you spend 2 additional power points, this power’s duration is 10 minutes per level rather than 1 round per level. which is unhelpful to me in regard to decide if the original duration is or isn't 1 minute (same as Enlarge person) or nerfed to 1 round for ??? reasons. And since in the context of this contest I am the GM, I fiat it to 1 minute because it makes for a "cool encounter gimmick". "There's no errata on this" in my entry specifically refers to the original duration.

Power and Competence: 3.5 Good peak AC (+0.5), although it really is a burst before it drops back to moderate levels (-0.25). Natural flight (+0.25). No DR / Regen (-0.25). Average sized HP Pool to play with. One decent attack (-0.25). Luck feats and CHA to everything (+0.5).
Also permanent concealment which is esplicitly only bypassed by darkvision/low light vision? Humans beware! You wanted that extra feat? NOW PAY FOR IT!

Memorable Villainy: 4.5 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Air (+0.25). No energy substitutions included (+0.25). Alignment: Chaotic Evil (+0.25). So there's only one attack a round, but that's potentially one citizen each round going into the gullet of this black shadow to be slowly digested over the course of the movie (+0.25) Available at nearly every CR means the potential for lots of sequels (+0.25).

Minor point of order : our one attack is applied to DEXMOD targets thanks to great flyby, I don't know if I'm to put this under power or memorability, but the "snatchy" is therefore more than one citizen each round. it's TWO citizens each round :P or more if we finagle dex boosting items/spells/effects somehow. Also, okay about no DR, but we have a little bit of regen from the STR draining, especially if there are handy citizen to terrorize within our range, and I feel I should point out that undead immunities are very good and I'm not even paying for the "no CON" flaw they comes with, given the CHA to HP we're rolling with.
[/QUOTE]

Hi mattie_p, the Tower of Arngargi turns its eyeless senses upon you (thanks for judging !)

Elegance: 2 Dude, like statting out traps is hard. I'm on page 74-75 of the DMG for this.
Well - as is written on the first line of the build block :
let me try to simulate it through D&D rules, using Dungeonscape’s options : Encounter Traps, and Intelligent Traps.
=> so it's not stated primarily through DMG rules, but Dungeonscape rules. The block description here directly comes from Dungeonscape in fact (hence the disadvantage section for example)

Base CR for a magic trap is CR 1. +6 for the spell level of Symbol of Fear.
=> by dungeonscape guidelines, I use intelligent traps options there - symbol of fear cost is included in intelligent trap CR increase

A little cleaner design implementation for how you came up with your CRs would have been extremely helpful.
=> it's mostly through Dungeonscape guidelines - it's why I include CR for each individual trap (most are around CR 7 or 8 and here it's DMG rules), with +CR on top for intelligent encounter trap which is coming from Dungeonscape.

Power and Competence: 2 Even at CR 16, which is a little higher than your suggested CRs, I don't think that traps are going to slow down a dedicated group of Tomb Raiders. DC 20 saving throws are certainly achievable without going overboard on optimization. A couple divinations should reveal the secrets of the tower before they enter - I didn't see any anti-scrying or the like built into the program here. Without other occupants of the tower, traps will eat up gameplay time in a session but not otherwise provide a serious threat to a party of adventurers. I'm eyeballing this at a 2 as well.
=> Yes, I was more on an encounter trap CR 10, so adventurers around 8th to 10th level. As said in the We're Only Making It Stronger section :
the Tower was designed for low fantasy adventure, with no spellcasters as PCs (even though a stereotypical cleric falls prey to it). Nondetection shenanigans and ways to circumvent pesky spells to keep the big surprise will become necessary
... for higher CRs and/or higher fantasy settings. Thinks more Lankhmar or Conan than Forgotten Realms (it was the risk of scripting a low fantasy novel in D&D rules here, magic availability is not the same in usual D&D settings). The novel is about two famous thieves raiding the tower, seeing skeletons and remains or previous adventurers... and they only succeed through a bit of luck, as a NPC cleric and a NPC villager attracts the wrath of the tower on the side.

HI PUNY MORTAL mattie_p - GUN IS GOOD ! ZARDOZ IS SPEAKING

Elegance: 1.5 So with a Kaiju-in-a-box I guess it is still unfortunately possible to have some elegance errors.

*ZARDOZ flies away in shame :smallredface: *

All your remarks hit the mark - it is truly a detailed review, thanks a lot :smallsmile:

Feats: A kaiju retains any of the bonus feats possessed by the base creature and has an additional feat plus one per every 4 Hit Dice above 32." At 41 hit dice you have earned 2 feats by the template. You took 3 (-0.25).
I don't know how you compute this ? Zardoz has 43 HD, not 41 and to continue the quote :

Thus, a sea lion kaiju (46 Hit Dice) would have a total of four feats
Sea Lion Kaiju : 0 (bonus feat from base creature) +1 (additional feat) +1 (36 HD) +1 (40 HD) +1 (44 HD) = 4 feats
Zardoz : 0 (bonus feat from base creature) +1 (additional feat) +1 (36 HD) +1 (40 HD) = 3 feats

(by the way I removed the Weapon Finesse (B) from the Vargouille - it's more an unwritten rule that small creatures have it, not bigger ones usually - and anyway this feat would be useless with Zardoz's low Dex).

Memorable Villainy: 3 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Unknown/None (-0.25).
Well, we are talking about an animated stone tower there. But right, it should be written somewhere, even though it's not an information provided for traps usually.

This is more like a single camera horror movie than a Kaiju movie. I'm thinking more Blair Witch, less Pacific Rim. If that's the effect you're going for then you achieved it, but I think your intent conflicts with the intent of this round (-0.5).
You are right - as stated here, this is an encounter trap - a surprise which will only work the first time... So a fun event which can be placed in a lot of campaigns. It's why I added 2 other sections after the build to expand a bit. As said in the entry :

Let me note that we have a strange conundrum here : we are stating a monster, mainly to simulate combat encounters with PCs. However, by trope definition Giant Equals Invincible : kaijus are Too Big - they cannot be defeated by humans in combat.
So my aim was to reconcile D&D and Kaiju to have both possible as a D&D campaign or in a Kaiju movie :

- in a D&D Campaign : as Kaijus are Too Big, they cannot be vanquished through combat. You need to involve PCs through various quests and shenanigans so they can find a way to neutralize it - but usually these efforts are meaningless. Here the solution is to go inside the kaiju, with true and tried D&D spirit : a Dungeon. I provide also some background for a D&D campaign - with underground dungeons suddenly breaking through the surface world, and involve other kaijus. Thus, I provide a way to neutralize some parts of a titanic dungeon parasite, towers being only some small tendrils. There are ways to scribe more towers for a campaign, and a background justification for dungeon strangeness - and PC powerlessness after all, how can they compete with dungeons sprouting everywhere ?

- in a Kaiju movie : what better way to show off D&D in a Kaiju movie than by using Animated Dungeons ? We already have titanic lizards, insects, dragons and robots in kaiju movies, so all sorts of beasts but no titanic flora monsters that I know of.

To conclude : I provide mainly narrative tools to reconcile Kaiju movies and D&D campaigns, but by the competition's spirit I guess I would need to provide 15th-level and 20th-level dungeons on top of the 10th-level adaptation of the Tower of Angargi. It was too big a task for me, but I am happy to share my One Weird Trick to all other DMs in the Playground :smallwink:

Symbiotic deserves an Elegance deduction, but that's because it's a complicated and easily-abusable template, not because it's "Leadership-adjacent". (I want to lose points for the right reasons, darnit!)

Element was water. I thought that was clear from the fact that it was a whale/whale-person hybrid fighting to avenge the whalers' depredations upon the ocean, but I guess it could have been more explicit.

The idea behind the Wrath was basically combining the kaiju with the priestesses that I vaguely remembered some kaiju (e.g. Mothra) being associated with. I also leaned hard into the "Gaea's vengeance" vibe that a lot of kaiju gave off, obviously. I don't expect this to affect the judgement, I just wanted to point them out somewhere and there's not really a good place to do so.

First off huge thanks for the wonderful critique. I only have a couple things to dispute since you were spot on for a lot of things that I made mistakes on.

Ma'enloth can only take the Improved Natural Attack feat once. Note the wording of that feat against Improved Natural Armor -> "Special: A creature can gain this feat multiple times." Improved Natural Attack lacks this wording (-0.25).”

Monster Manual Errata says that I can take Improved Natural Attack multiple times. Honestly I myself didn’t even realize this otherwise I would have put it in the sources. Had a double take once you pointed it out and looked it up.

“But I don't think you can claim that you are exceptional when you don't normally qualify at all (-0.25).“

In the creating a petitioner rules it doesn’t require 1 Int and 1 Wis. In the descriptive text it does say that yes, but as you acknowledge it says generally. I would say that since he technically qualifies outside of the ‘generally’ clause that would, by definition, make Ma’enloth exceptional.

“Mindless creatures do not gain feats or skills, although they may have bonus feats or racial skill bonuses…The default rule is to lose all feats and skill ranks, and this is going to cost you in power (-0.5).”

For my own education so I don’t make the mistake again, where is this rule found? The way I see it is the monster already has the feats. Anything that comes after won’t apply. But it isn’t gaining what it already has. I understand the logic that comes from some templates saying they keep certain feats, but is there a hard rule somewhere I missed?

You took feat blinding speed without meeting the pre-requisite (needs Dex 25, you have 10) (-0.25). ... You took feat blinding speed a second time, still without meeting the pre-requisite (needs Dex 25, you have 10) (-0.25).
My bad, but as I see, you penalize me twice for one mistake.

Draconic Aura feat is in Dragon Magic, not PHB2 as you mentioned twice? (-0.25).
Draconic Aura feat is in Dragon Magic as I mentioned.
There is a Draconic Aura (Power) in PHB2 in Dragon Shaman class. Feat gives me aura, aura is in PHB2.

Extended Reach requires a "tentacle, feeler, or pseudopod," (-0.25).
I think the dragon tail is quite like a tentacle. But I agree, this isn't clear RAW.

Vile Feats: Without laying out your skill ranks it is impossible to know if you "know of" the Elder Evil's existence (-0.25).
Of course I know. Father Llymic is the first I saw after I was born. And:

Mentally, all brood spawn are extensions of Father Llymic’s. thoughts. They carry out his desires without any need for communication. (EE, p. 36)
The Brood Spawn Ogre example has no Knowledge ranks, at all, but he has two bonus Vile Feats.
Plus, as it is written in PHB (p. 58-59) skill points are spend before feats choice, so I first take all Knowledge to 102 ranks when apply template and second take Vile Feats.

Elder Evils lays out the possible bonus feats for service to an Elder Evil on page 11. The following feats do not appear on the table: Vile Deathstrike, Epic Evil Brand, Deformity (Skin) (-0.75).
I can't give you a good counter-argument, but I don't agree that this list is exhaustive. And if this is true, we have a problem: some creatures can't level-up because they can't select the bonus Vile Feat - they take all that they can or need to take feats that are inappropriate. Without possibility to take Deformity (Skin) I would have this problem, too.

Element: Maybe Ice? It's not listed as one of the 4 anyway (-0.25).
Ice is water. Literally. And cold is strongly connected with water in D&D.

Alignment: Don't actually list alignment that I could see (-0.25).
Yes, my bad. But anyway I am Brood spawn, so I am "Always chaotic evil" as written in template description.

Half-dragon's speed overwrites the base creature. It gets a fly speed of twice it's land speed. You have flight 120', not 350 (-0.25).
We have this WE: Half-Dragons: Twice as Much Fun (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20031128a).
There are several examples of Half-dragons, including Azuria, half-silver dragon/half-djinni. She has Spd 20 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect) as regular djinni.

(Also, Broodspawn makes you lose the "special actions" of the base creature including in your case two breath weapons, giving you a single breath weapon once a day in exchange, so it was a legal but sub-optimal move here)
No, not once a day, but every 1d4 rounds.
I wrote this in entry:

Half-Dragon template needed for one purpose - Dragon Breath feat. After transformation Irralisk is still meeting prerequisites: he has 6 HD, has breath weapon, and still is Half-dragon. So he can use his new breath weapon every 1d4 rounds.
This isn't so sub-optimal as you pointed out.

I added up your skill ranks at CR 16, looks like you treated all 3 knowledge skills as in-class, however, you only get 2 (-0.25).
In Hive Mother description written:

Skills: Knowledge (any two) +28
Can take any two. This means Hive Mother has all Knowledge skills in-class. Or do you think different Hive Mothers have different in-class skill lists? This is weird.

Master of the Unseen Hand adds some utility to telekinesis, but by my reading you can either use Sustain Force as a move action or use the violent thrust as a free action. Concentration is tough when you don't have a standard. No full attacks with your telekinesis'd weapon, but you have other options (like eye rays) (+0.5).
And this is the reason why I take the Extraordinary Concentration feat. With Concentration +68 I always make a check with DC 40 and Concentrate on Telekinesis as swift action. So full attacks are still in game.
And even if Xokhtohm doesn't have Extraordinary Concentration, Concentration is needed only from the second round, on the first round it isn't needed.

Element: Lightning - not one of the fundamental elements (-0.25).
Lightning is a representation of the Air not a separate element. There isn't pure air damage in D&D, only Lightning and Sonic.

H_H_F_F

2021-08-03, 12:24 PM

Life does get far too interesting some times... good to hear from you!

mattie_p

2021-08-03, 01:21 PM

Hey, welcome back, jdizzlean. We were worried a little! I understand you are probably understating things, but posting means you're breathing.

I'm drafting responses for the disputes, might take a few days. I'm going to tackle them in chunks. At least one batch will be today.

ciopo

2021-08-03, 01:58 PM

I was juut about to copypaste from the outbox, and maybe refine a tiny bit, that Jdizzlean snuck back, oh well.

Welcome back! I hope all is well

mattie_p

2021-08-03, 03:31 PM

Batch one of several for disputes:

So as I mentioned in my initial judgement post, I haven't really participated or even observed previous rounds of VC. So some of the history may be lost. In some ways that's beneficial - as a fresh set of eyes I'm not clouded by history. But in other ways it might not - there are community norms that I might not adhere to.

That's fair. does it count as calling out inconsistency if I feel certain builds were given a lot more careful scrutiny than others? :smalltongue: It doesn't really make my entry look better because they're not even anywhere close to threatening my placement, but it bothers me enough that I feel a need to comment regardless: Great Big Blue's most impressive kaiju move (which features in their fluff write-up even) is the "summon a swarm of elementals" move. GBB's spells per day are just wrong: even ignoring how they're apparently getting +1 spell/day per level from attribute (which isn't how bonus spells/day from attributes ever works), but they have Cha 12 on a Cha-casting class. They can't cast Divine Crusader spells higher than 2nd level at all. Some of my other nitpicks are more a matter of interpretation than anything else, but this one is just very blatantly incorrect, and an example of how I think certain builds received a more thorough look than others.

I'll admit that despite my methododical analysis, I missed things. I didn't exactly use a stopwatch to check how much time I spent per entry, but it would have been measured in hours each. Some of the time invested ended up being going down rabbit holes that didn't end up affecting scores at all or even merit mention in the judgement. So if I missed something, I feel it is more due to oversight than a difference in level of scrutiny for various entries. As an example, I'll post my note page for GBB.

https://i.imgur.com/XNetvMP.jpg

As you can see, I didn't circle CHA as their casting stat. Despite having the Divine Crusader right in front of me, (C.Div. 33), I neglected to check that (that part is actually on p34). I assumed WIS because at 22 it's high enough for 9ths, but I didn't highlight that either. Because I "know" that Favored Soul is "the" divine charisma caster (as if there can be only one) I didn't check.

GBB did not mention alignment, but I checked and saw that a pre-req for Divine Crusader was alignment matching the chosen deity. I checked Frigg's, it is Neutral which matches the criteria for the competition. But I penalized there anyway because if the chair announces alignment as a criteria, I feel that each competitor should at least mention it instead of assuming that the judge can extract that information.

Every entry had a similar page written up, I'm not going to post them all.

There's one common theme to my judgement in nearly every entry which I'll mention before going into details on individual disputes: the gaining of feats and skills by hit dice. I'm going to spoiler this for length because it is a pretty detailed argument for the way I carried this out.

I mentioned I consulted heavily with MM and Savage Species. I'll note the following general rules.
The creature’s Hit Dice equal the number of class levels it has plus its racial Hit Dice. A creature’s "monster class" is always a favored class. ...

A monster’s total Hit Dice, not its ECL, govern its acquisition of feats and ability score increases. For example, a 1st-level minotaur barbarian has a total of 7HD. It has three feats (for its 1st, 3rd, and 6th HD). ... When it adds its 3rd level of barbarian, the minotaur becomes a creature of 9 hit dice and gains its fourth feat.
This might be listed under Monsters and Class Levels, but it indicates that there is an order that feats are acquired, and that it is the same order that PCs acquire levels and feats alongside.

I also mentioned that I carefully reviewed the section of MM for creating a custom monster. It has the following text for feats.
All monsters have a number of feats equal to 1 + (1 per 3 HD). Monsters must meet the prerequisites for feats, just as characters must. If your creature concept begs for a feat for which the creature does not qualify, consider altering the creature so that it qualifies for the feat, or assign the feat as a bonus feat. (It is acceptable for a creature to have a bonus feat for which it does not meet the prerequisites.)

I found that text to be prescriptive to entries here, not optional. It was each competitors job to alter the base creature to qualify for each feat they selected, and to select feats that the creature qualified for.

Savage Species p8 (which pre-dates 3.5 anyway), has the following text for feats, which is supportive of the above argument.
As with ability scores and skills, you may choose to keep the feats of the base creature if you wish. The character always retains any racial bonus feats. If you wish to exchange any of the creature's other feats for different ones, choose the same number as the base creature has, excluding bonus feats ... When adding class levels, compare the total of the creature's hit dice plus class levels ... if you added enough class levels to gain one or more additional feats, select them now.

Savage species also has savage progressions for many non-standard creatures, allowing them to be used starting from level 1, when otherwise having too many hit dice and/or level adjustment would preclude it. It spells out on each sample savage progression that feats are acquired by hit dice one-by-one, not en-masse. See appendix 1, starting at p152.

One last rules quote, this is from the OP of the competition.

Some monstrous characters can technically qualify for Epic feats as soon as their ECL is over 20.

Remember that ECL equals Hit Dice + class levels + LA, This is a clear indication within the scope of the competition that some standard feats must be selected prior to epic levels, and that hit dice need to be counted to ensure there are sufficient hit dice to attain epic feats. As I don't believe there is published LA for any of the base creatures selected for the competition, I ignored LA and just used total hit dice.

There has to be some method to equitably judge between a base creature that starts with 2 hit dice (and one feat) and a base creature that starts with 48. Out of fairness to all entries, I used one criteria to check all feats, namely that feats are selected in order printed by the entry, and acquired at HDs 1, 3, 6 ... Skill ranks are acquired the same way, and I did check for cross-class from the base monster.

Finally, it is well known that WotC monster stat-blocks are bad. They are notoriously incorrect for applying their own RAW to their sample creatures. As part of a character optimization contest, I do have high standards for the entries. Yes, that means I am asking for more from each competitor than WotC gave. Appeals to published stat blocks will be considered with a grain of salt.

Whew. Anyway. I'll try to focus on the merits of each of your arguments here.

My bad, but as I see, you penalize me twice for one mistake.
Irralisk took the same feat twice. I believe it to be two separate mistakes, each penalized once.

Draconic Aura feat is in Dragon Magic as I mentioned.
There is a Draconic Aura (Power) in PHB2 in Dragon Shaman class. Feat gives me aura, aura is in PHB2.
It doesn't work that way. Despite using the same name, the two Draconic Auras are completely different. The feat is on page 16 of Dragon Magic, and references a specific list of Auras found on page 86. The Power Aura on page 87 (continued from 86) gives you a caster level bonus to overcome SR - which will be useless for you after you lose spellcasting. What you reference in PHB2 is a class feature of the Dragon Shaman, a class which you do not take. You cannot take a feat from one book with a set list of benefits, then apply it to borrow a class feature from another book. PHB2 was printed prior to Dragon Magic, it can't supercede the text of the feat published 4 months later.

Of course I know. Father Llymic is the first I saw after I was born. And: (EE, p. 36) The Brood Spawn Ogre example has no Knowledge ranks, at all, but he has two bonus Vile Feats.
Plus, as it is written in PHB (p. 58-59) skill points are spend before feats choice, so I first take all Knowledge to 102 ranks when apply template and second take Vile Feats.
I was certain that my demerits on feats would be disputed by at least one competitor. So please review my spoilered discussion above, which is essentially my counter-argument.

Aside from the ogre being a sample creature, it took this acquired template when it is first created. The creator didn't try to advance the creature by another 21 hit dice before applying the template. Even then, you started as a wyrmling, not a great-wyrm, and lived for at least 2,400 years, before acquiring the template. For the number of bonus elder evil feats you selected, you would have had to have served since 1HD. Hit dice are acquired one-by-one, and skills and feats selected at each (even if they are only implied). Without knowing what skills you took as a dragon prior to acquiring the shadowbound and broodspawn templates, it is impossible to determine if you knew of Father Lymic. I find that inelegant, and thus the penalty.

I can't give you a good counter-argument, but I don't agree that this list is exhaustive. And if this is true, we have a problem: some creatures can't level-up because they can't select the bonus Vile Feat - they take all that they can or need to take feats that are inappropriate. Without possibility to take Deformity (Skin) I would have this problem, too.
I'd probably do it too as a DM making an epic challenge for a party, but I feel in char-op competitions I have to apply by the RAW.

Ice is water. Literally. And cold is strongly connected with water in D&D.

I had a week to think this over, and so I'll buy this to a limited extent. I will remove the penalty and adjust the judgement to reflect. The chair had ample time to clarify the intent behind the elemental aspect, and I believe the OP is clear on the subject. Focusing on one of the 4 listed elements is required for full marks. (-0.25) -> (+0), Net benefit +0.25 to memorable villainy. I'll double check all other competitors here as well.

Yes, my bad. But anyway I am Brood spawn, so I am "Always chaotic evil" as written in template description.
See my note about GBB's alignment way up at the top of this post. I did read that in the template, but for unique creatures "Always" means "whatever the PC or DM wants" so it needed to be explicit.

We have this WE: Half-Dragons: Twice as Much Fun (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20031128a). There are several examples of Half-dragons, including Azuria, half-silver dragon/half-djinni. She has Spd 20 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect) as regular djinni.
I mentioned sample creatures way up above too. I'll note that within the web enhancement you reference, Tibulliax has the template applied correctly, as does Gustinian, Asphixiloric, Aurumpente, Kelotrik. The Wyvern uses the same rules as the Djinni. Regardless of sample creatures, the half-dragon template specifies a maximum flight speed of 120 feet.

No, not once a day, but every 1d4 rounds.
I wrote this in entry:
Half-Dragon template needed for one purpose - Dragon Breath feat. After transformation Irralisk is still meeting prerequisites: he has 6 HD, has breath weapon, and still is Half-dragon. So he can use his new breath weapon every 1d4 rounds.This isn't so sub-optimal as you pointed out. When the broodspawn template is applied, Irralisk's type changes. It additionally loses all other subtypes, which would include the augmented subtype associated with dragon. As you're no longer half-dragon, you lose the benefit of that feat.

In Hive Mother description written: Can take any two. This means Hive Mother has all Knowledge skills in-class and can select any. Or do you think different Hive Mothers have different in-class skill lists? This is weird. I'll accept that it's weird, and I kind of see your point. The base creature says that any two have a +28. Let me compare this to a cleric so maybe you can see my point here. A PHB-only cleric (especially a non-denominational cleric) can pick any two domains. Doesn't matter which two. But it only gets two. Taking the third - without some other means - can't legally happen. I feel it's the same here with the knowledge skills.

And this is the reason why I take the Extraordinary Concentration feat. With Concentration +68 I always make a check with DC 40 and Concentrate on Telekinesis as swift action. So full attacks are still in game.
And even if Xokhtohm doesn't have Extraordinary Concentration, Concentration is needed only from the second round, on the first round it isn't needed. This one was tough to parse, and I didn't put all my final notes into the published judgement so I acknowledge that I wasn't clear here. There's limited feats that affect supernatural abilities. Extraordinary concentration references concentrating on spells. Generally that's assumed to include SLAs, but not Supernatural abilities (like the eye rays), even if they reference a spell. I'll admit, though, that your new argument has merits. However, this line of thinking wasn't clearly mentioned in your write-up. I'm going to sit on this one for a day or so, if you don't mind, while I think it over. It would possibly be reflected in power where your entry already did quite well.

Lightning is a representation of the Air not a separate element. There isn't pure air damage in D&D, only Lightning and Sonic. As with Irralisk, (-0.25) -> (+0), Net benefit +0.25 to memorable villainy.

When I wanted a name, I looked for existing "really big beetles" in pop culture. Basically all I found really quickly was this one-off villain from Ying-Yang-Yo (terrible show, don't watch it) and...a creature from the Godzilla canon named Megalon (https://godzilla.fandom.com/wiki/Megalon). So I took the name for my entry, as well as the picture to serve as my hybrid form.

An important note for the adaption: I mention the Constrictor Sinomen Naga as a Huge Humanoid option for abusing things, but it's since been pointed out to me that part of the Dragon Magazine OA updates changed the OA Nagas to be Monstrous Humanoids, making them ineligible for lycanthropy or entomanothropy. That doesn't harm my build exactly, but it means that one of the better options for adapting this nonsense isn't on the table.

A lot of references go over my head, I'm not Drax, you know. I was trying to push through a bunch of Kaiju movies "for research" on my vacation the other week but Amazon Prime only had the OG Godzilla, others were unavailable to rent. So I rented Pacific Rim after that and called my research done. Now that you mention it, though, while growing up I frequently went to my grandmother's house and watched monster movies when they came on broadcast back in the day, so I certainly watched it at some point.

I gave implied points for adaptation notes in memorable villainy, as that helps individual DMs bring them to life in their own campaigns. And if a DM is truly slinging about the CR cheese at the table, I hardly think something like applying an illegal template is going to stop them. Or they can have the creature take the human heritage feat.

I think for this particular competition, people have been giving Incarnate Construct a bit of a wide berth ever since somebody layered it multiple times to bring in some triple-digit CR monstrosity that constantly cloned itself (or something like that). Uh, this isn't really a dispute, just a neat lil contest history tidbit, I guess. Explaining why people don't use it more.
If you or anyone has a link to that round I'd appreciate it, just for perspective for a potential next time judging.

I feel there's an RAI argument that could be made about DFA, but this is a pretty RAW-dependent entry so I can let the breath weapon slide. However, I take issue with the Cleave bit:

1) The feats are all gained simultaneously upon gaining the template, so the specific order they were gained in doesn't actually matter by RAW.

2) Even if order mattered, the feats were not "taken" in the order they were presented in - the presentation was just me putting the feats in alphabetical order, which is a thing I do when I gain multiple feats simultaneously because it looks better to me.

I can understand if you're skeptical and wanna leave the penalty, but just know that when I was building, Power Attack was not "taken after" Cleave in any meaning of the phrase.

So I hear what you're saying here, and I addressed it at length above before I got into individual disputes. I had no way of knowing how any individual competitor added feats, so I made an assumption that worked the same way for every competitor. Since you're the only competitor to use *-thropy CR cheese, I had to make a special assumption for you to level the playing field, namely that you somehow used a Savage Progression (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031114a) to apply the benefits of the template, similar to how it is used in Iron Chef (although there the typical intent is for early entry skill rank cheese via afflicting and curing, not for CR cheese). In IC, competitors using lycanthropy have to gain 1 HD at a time, so I used the same standard here, as it is a sister competition.

*squints*

I'll be honest, checking that Devastation Vermin were still Vermin type was not on my list of things to check for in the errata/updates. That's hilarious. But as long as we're talking about "technical reasons that this build isn't RAW-compliant, even though it would be allowed by RAI", take a closer look at Entomanothrope. Here, let me quote the relevant passages:

Curse of Entomanothropy (Su): Any humanoid or giant of size Small to Huge that is hit by an entomanothrope's bite or sting attack in vermin or hybrid form must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or contract entomanothropy. The curse can be passed through claw attacks if the hybrid or vermin form does not have a bite or sting attack. Afflicted entomanothropes cannot pass on the curse of entomanothropy.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/325/887/1c3.jpg

Curse you - fine print of Curse of Entomanothropy! See that's an example of no matter how much detail I pursue, there's always something to miss.

It probably doesn't change much (and I got max score anyway), but if it helps, SweetSpot!Megalon has a long jump of 200 ft and a high jump of 50 ft, has 20/30 ft reach (vermin/hybrid). It's still not a fly speed, and they can easily get peppered by a flying kiter without any risk to the flier, but they're not quite as helpless against airborne opponents as most creature with no fly speed or ranged weapon are. It's a relatively small issue, though.

(Also, while I fully understand why it's the case here, it's a little hilarious to me that Fast Healing 132 is considered "good" instead of "great" or "tremendous". The amounts of fast healing that really matter are 0, 1, and "enough", and this definitely isn't "enough".)

There's a lot of things that potentially go into Power, and so I gave little spot modifiers to each competitor in all of them. You were way over 5 though, so no worries on that front.

If the fire breath isn't considered significantly big, then it becomes the second-most elemental thing I have, depending on how much weight you give fluff-mechanic relations. Typically, the four classical elements are each somewhat tied with a particular kind of elemental damage: fire and fire, water and cold, air and electricity, earth and acid. The 6d6 acid aura with significant AoE and no action requirement is still a big threat all on its own, and it's still delivering the "force of nature" feel that is the point of the elemental requirement, even if it technically doesn't say "earth attack" or something similar. Fire was given more precedent in the build because of its ability to affect large areas, but the aura is part of the same "radiation-ish" package, and the result of the judgement makes the aura the more significant portion.

As I mentioned with Irralisk and Xokhtohm above, I think the chair made the intention behind the round very clear. I awarded full marks for embracing one of the 4 listed. Had I penalized you here, I would have removed the penalty and made it neutral. You're already neutral, so no change.

As far as the weakness goes, I feel a need to point out a caveat: you're right, but you're also metagaming. Maybe the players can figure out after a bit of observation that this thing switching between bipedal and quadrupedal forms is a -thrope of some kind, but the characters need to employ either Knowledge checks (base DC 173 to even recognize what it is, possibly more if you decide that templates/template-stacking makes it harder to recognize a creature for some reason) or info-gathering divination spells that don't care saves/SR (which typically revolve around you asking questions to a deity or something - and that depends on you asking the right questions, and for the players to know the right questions, they either need to ask an awful lot of them or they need to metagame).

But the strategy can work fairly easily besides that, and honestly a party might well be able to hit ridiculous knowledge DCs or cast tons of divinations to get tons of questions (at least once the dust has settled after the initial encounter). There's other strategies that can work okay as well - Megalon's only real defense against ability damage/drain is to just...not get hit, and/or to succeed on saves. There's no miss chance or resistance to ability damage/drain, so if it gets swarmed by enough enemies capable of it that some of them get nat 20s, Megalon can go down fairly quick. I'm sure there's some other nonsense strats too. Yours has gotta be one of the more elegant, though.
I gave + or - 0.25 points in each of the 4 criteria the chair laid out, and an additional +/- 1 point on an ad-hoc for memorability / how good a movie is it. Since you got a 1 there, I won't award more. Having an Achilles heel like this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If anything it helped you achieve full marks. I don't know about you but when I DM I don't want to actually kill all the PCs, despite my cursing at dice when they fail me. I want to present a challenge - up to them to figure out how to overcome it.

Note for Zardoz before reading your dispute: I think I essentially penalized The Unnamed God twice for CR - once for the Kaiju Crazy! outsider adaptation CR and again once for going over CR. I'm going to remove a -0.25 penalty in elegance.

AvatarVecna

2021-08-03, 04:40 PM

you don't have to find a colossal sized thing at cr5, which i'm sure w/o looking doesn't exist :)

It must have seemed like such a safe bet... :smalltongue:

I'll admit that despite my methododical analysis, I missed things. I didn't exactly use a stopwatch to check how much time I spent per entry, but it would have been measured in hours each. Some of the time invested ended up being going down rabbit holes that didn't end up affecting scores at all or even merit mention in the judgement. So if I missed something, I feel it is more due to oversight than a difference in level of scrutiny for various entries. As an example, I'll post my note page for GBB.

Didn't mean it as a huge criticism, more tongue-in-cheek. There's plenty enough detail in all the entries, and I know firsthand how much effort it takes even for bad judging let alone good judging.

Remember that ECL equals Hit Dice + class levels + LA, This is a clear indication within the scope of the competition that some standard feats must be selected prior to epic levels, and that hit dice need to be counted to ensure there are sufficient hit dice to attain epic feats. As I don't believe there is published LA for any of the base creatures selected for the competition, I ignored LA and just used total hit dice.

There has to be some method to equitably judge between a base creature that starts with 2 hit dice (and one feat) and a base creature that starts with 48. Out of fairness to all entries, I used one criteria to check all feats, namely that feats are selected in order printed by the entry, and acquired at HDs 1, 3, 6 ... Skill ranks are acquired the same way, and I did check for cross-class from the base monster.

Finally, it is well known that WotC monster stat-blocks are bad. They are notoriously incorrect for applying their own RAW to their sample creatures. As part of a character optimization contest, I do have high standards for the entries. Yes, that means I am asking for more from each competitor than WotC gave. Appeals to published stat blocks will be considered with a grain of salt.

The only thing I'll address from this batch (because again, I can live with the penalty - it's borne almost purely from my sloppy presentation) is that Megalon is a particularly weird case, for starting out as a creature with epic HD and no feats, and then gaining all their feats at once - several of which are explicitly retroactive because of the template interaction. it's not just that Entomanothrope is a weird edge case, it's that Incarnate Construct --> Entomanothrope is even weirder and edgier. One could make an argument that I don't need to take any non-epic feats, but as I wasn't intending to do that, and that's not even the actual point of contention, it's a sidenote at best? Eh. No real dispute here.

A lot of references go over my head, I'm not Drax, you know. I was trying to push through a bunch of Kaiju movies "for research" on my vacation the other week but Amazon Prime only had the OG Godzilla, others were unavailable to rent. So I rented Pacific Rim after that and called my research done. Now that you mention it, though, while growing up I frequently went to my grandmother's house and watched monster movies when they came on broadcast back in the day, so I certainly watched it at some point.

No worries. I'm not expecting extra points for cute references or anything, I just felt it was worth sharing since you didn't recognize it. :smallsmile:

I gave implied points for adaptation notes in memorable villainy, as that helps individual DMs bring them to life in their own campaigns. And if a DM is truly slinging about the CR cheese at the table, I hardly think something like applying an illegal template is going to stop them. Or they can have the creature take the human heritage feat.

There's definitely ways around it. I just wanted to add the addendum since it was a pretty recent bit of knowledge for me that was directly relevant.

If you or anyone has a link to that round I'd appreciate it, just for perspective for a potential next time judging.

Fun fact: while searching for the thread in question, I found out that I'm not the first person to combine Incarnate Construct and Entomanothrope. They even used a Devastation Vermin!

Unfortunately, while I found the self-replicating Incarnate Construct, they only took the template once. That contest was "VC XVII: It's Alive!". The contest with stacked Incarnate Construct was the previous contest, VC XVI: Burn Baby Burn!". For some reason, the two had been blended in my head.

A fair warning if you decide you wanna read through them for history's sake: if you saw the warning at the end of the Villain Comp OP and thought "wait, why are they mentioned by name as being banned from villain comp?", these two specific threads are why. Those threads are longer than most VC threads because there is a lot of controversy and banned posters to wade through.

So I hear what you're saying here, and I addressed it at length above before I got into individual disputes. I had no way of knowing how any individual competitor added feats, so I made an assumption that worked the same way for every competitor. Since you're the only competitor to use *-thropy CR cheese, I had to make a special assumption for you to level the playing field, namely that you somehow used a Savage Progression (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031114a) to apply the benefits of the template, similar to how it is used in Iron Chef (although there the typical intent is for early entry skill rank cheese via afflicting and curing, not for CR cheese). In IC, competitors using lycanthropy have to gain 1 HD at a time, so I used the same standard here, as it is a sister competition.

That's fair enough. Ultimately, the penalty exists because I presented my build in a weird way and didn't make sure to specify that my i's were dotted and my t's were crossed. Just know that in my heart when I was building, the feats were taken in "the right order". NO further dispute on this point.

Curse you - fine print of Curse of Entomanothropy! See that's an example of no matter how much detail I pursue, there's always something to miss.

Yup. Didn't catch it until after I'd submitted the build, and didn't really feel like dismantling it. I guess I could use a Savage Species wish ritual to get the template but ehhhhhhhhh? In general I expect that this, like the "Devastation Vermin aren't Vermin" is just designer oversight rather than intentional design. Worth mentioning if we're discussing a pure RAW approach, but otherwise the kind of thing a DM could handwave away without it keeping them up at night.

There's a lot of things that potentially go into Power, and so I gave little spot modifiers to each competitor in all of them. You were way over 5 though, so no worries on that front.

*nodnod*

As I mentioned with Irralisk and Xokhtohm above, I think the chair made the intention behind the round very clear. I awarded full marks for embracing one of the 4 listed. Had I penalized you here, I would have removed the penalty and made it neutral. You're already neutral, so no change.

Fair enough.

I gave + or - 0.25 points in each of the 4 criteria the chair laid out, and an additional +/- 1 point on an ad-hoc for memorability / how good a movie is it. Since you got a 1 there, I won't award more. Having an Achilles heel like this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If anything it helped you achieve full marks. I don't know about you but when I DM I don't want to actually kill all the PCs, despite my cursing at dice when they fail me. I want to present a challenge - up to them to figure out how to overcome it.

I don't disagree, and it's good to have weaknesses on this side of the screen. I'm more just clarifying that it's going to require a bit more in-universe work than just watching the battle, and it's certainly not a strategy they'll figure out mid-fight unless they're basically legally-cheating enough to beat it fair and square. Not really a dispute as much as a dialogue cuz I like talking about my thoughts.

loky1109

2021-08-03, 05:47 PM

Another disputes.

For the number of bonus elder evil feats you selected, you would have had to have served since 1HD.

I don't think so.

Any intelligent and evil creature can swear service to an elder evil if the creature knows of its existence. Doing so grants the creature one bonus feat, plus an extra bonus feat for every five character levels or Hit Dice.
As I read feats given retroactively. If you are 1st level when start service EE - take one, if you are 100th level - take twenty one. And before acquiring Brood spawn template Irralisk definitely doesn't know about Father Llymic and has no Vile feats.

And we have example. Brood Spawn White Dragon in EE, p. 44. It is Mature adult White Dragon before transformation because after transformation it can't advance as dragon and can't grow to huge size. But it has 5 bonus Vile feats.

When the broodspawn template is applied, Irralisk's type changes. It additionally loses all other subtypes, which would include the augmented subtype associated with dragon. As you're no longer half-dragon, you lose the benefit of that feat.
Half-dragon isn't type or subtype. This is template that Irralisk still has.

The base creature says that any two have a +28. Let me compare this to a cleric so maybe you can see my point here. A PHB-only cleric (especially a non-denominational cleric) can pick any two domains. Doesn't matter which two. But it only gets two. Taking the third - without some other means - can't legally happen. I feel it's the same here with the knowledge skills.
I feel it's very different.

I went in MM1. Dragons description.

Skills: All dragons have skill points equal to (6 + Int modifier, minimum 1) × (Hit Dice + 3). Most dragons purchase the following skills at the maximum ranks possible: Listen, Search, and Spot. The remaining skill points are generally spent on Concentration, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Sense Motive, and Use Magic Device at a cost of 1 skill point per rank. All these skills are considered class skills for dragons. (Each dragon has other class skills as well, as noted in the variety descriptions.)

And

Mature Adult Blue Dragon: ... Skills and Feats: Bluff +28, Concentration +16, Diplomacy +32, Hide +11, Intimidate +30, Knowledge (arcana) +14, Knowledge (nature) +13, Listen +30, Search +28, Sense Motive +28, Spellcraft +30, Spot +30;

Adult Green Dragon: ... Skills and Feats: Bluff +20, Concentration +15, Diplomacy +13, Hide +0, Intimidate +25, Knowledge (arcana) +18, Knowledge (nature) +18, Listen +25, Move Silently +20, Search +23, Sense Motive +11, Spellcraft +25, Spot +25, Swim +16;

Very Old Red Dragon: ... Skills and Feats: Appraise +31, Bluff +37, Concentration +28, Craft (trapmaking) +18, Hide +2, Intimidate +39, Jump +48, Knowledge (arcana) +31, Knowledge (local) +31, Knowledge (religion) +31, Listen +37, Search +37, Sense Motive +37, Spellcraft +39, Spot +37, Use Magic Device +22;

Plus.
Yuan-Ti Pureblood stat block: Skills: Concentration +7, Disguise +4*, Hide +3, Knowledge (any one) +5, Listen +4, Spot +4
Yuan-Ti Purebloods as Characters: Racial Skills: A yuan-ti pureblood’s monstrous humanoid levels give it skill points equal to 7 × (2 + Int modifier). Its class skills are Concentration, Disguise, Hide, Knowledge (any), Listen and Spot.

As we see "Any" means "All are in-class". "Any two" is only two because of amount of skill points.

I'm going to sit on this one for a day or so, if you don't mind, while I think it over.
You can think it as much time as you need.

mattie_p

2021-08-03, 09:46 PM

Disputes: Round 2 of ??. Might be 3 batches if I handle them in groups of about 3. Kinda got inundated with them all today.

Hi mattie_p, the Tower of Arngargi turns its eyeless senses upon you (thanks for judging !)

Elegance: 2 Dude, like statting out traps is hard. I'm on page 74-75 of the DMG for this.
Well - as is written on the first line of the build block :
=> so it's not stated primarily through DMG rules, but Dungeonscape rules. The block description here directly comes from Dungeonscape in fact (hence the disadvantage section for example) (Encounter Traps : page 120, Intelligent Trap : page 132)

Base CR for a magic trap is CR 1. +6 for the spell level of Symbol of Fear.
=> by dungeonscape guidelines, I use intelligent traps options there - symbol of fear cost is included in intelligent trap CR increase

A little cleaner design implementation for how you came up with your CRs would have been extremely helpful.
=> it's mostly through Dungeonscape guidelines - it's why I include CR for each individual trap (most are around CR 7 or 8 and here it's DMG rules), with +CR on top for intelligent encounter trap which is coming from Dungeonscape.

I did read through this during judging, but there was only a single CR 10 encounter trap for comparison (Razor Pendulums Trap). One of my favorite traps that I've run was an encounter trap - The Grinder from Eyes of the Lich Queen (p42-43). So I'm somewhat familiar with the concept. However, the implementation here was such a curveball compared to the creature entries that I might have missed some nuance.

For the CR10 comparison trap: Search and disable were DC 25 - although multiple disable device checks would have been required - and it had complications in that the got AOE attack rolls on every square in the room. Several means to bypass the trap included in the text: chop all the pendulums down, sleight-of-hand a key from one of the pendulums and unlock the door, pick the lock on the door. So your device was harder to find and disable, symbol of fear as the primary effect was probably weaker than the pendulums, crushing wall and blade barrier as secondary were probably stronger effects. It's easy to look at the sample CR 10 trap and then look at Table 6-1 on p121 and see how everything lines up neatly and precisely.

Where I was going with this was: the build table is essential for creature entries so that the judge can independently check your work and measure the CR of the final creature and the decisions leading into it for accuracy. What I saw in your entry was essentially, the finished stat blocks, without the creator "showing your work."

Like if you had a little table with Base CR = 6 for magic trap, +3 for Intelligence, +1 ad hoc for secondary traps contingent on failing the first = CR`10. Anything at all like that would have been helpful. Which is why I was leaning back on the DMG for search DCs and the like, because it gets built from the ground up. Encounter traps using the rules in Dungeonscape get set from the top down, where the CR is established first, and then you use Table 6-1 to figure out search, damage, attack rolls, etc, based on the CR. I'm fine with that too, but you didn't demonstrate how each entry met that CR either via some type of comparison for my ease of judging. Some numbers were higher than the suggested CR would indicate, some were lower. Based on the entry as presented - I think I'm going to stand at a 2.

Power and Competence: 2 Even at CR 16, which is a little higher than your suggested CRs, I don't think that traps are going to slow down a dedicated group of Tomb Raiders. DC 20 saving throws are certainly achievable without going overboard on optimization. A couple divinations should reveal the secrets of the tower before they enter - I didn't see any anti-scrying or the like built into the program here. Without other occupants of the tower, traps will eat up gameplay time in a session but not otherwise provide a serious threat to a party of adventurers. I'm eyeballing this at a 2 as well.
=> Yes, I was more on an encounter trap CR 10, so adventurers around 8th to 10th level. As said in the We're Only Making It Stronger section :
... for higher CRs and/or higher fantasy settings. Thinks more Lankhmar or Conan than Forgotten Realms (it was the risk of scripting a low fantasy novel in D&D rules here, magic availability is not the same in usual D&D settings). The novel is about two famous thieves raiding the tower, seeing skeletons and remains or previous adventurers... and they only succeed through a bit of luck, as a NPC cleric and a NPC villager attracts the wrath of the tower on the side.

I have to take the entries as written. I know you mention later on that you might have done CR 15 and 20 versions but ended up not doing so. Drawing those versions up would actually have done you some good here, because then there would have been a broader spectrum of power to draw on.

Memorable Villainy: 3 Colossal in form (+0.25). Element: Unknown/None (-0.25).
Well, we are talking about an animated stone tower there. But right, it should be written somewhere, even though it's not an information provided for traps usually.

Several competitors took issue with the way that I'm judging the elemental aspect. I'm finding it's challenging to draw a line. I mean if I remove the penalty from The Wrath of the Bittersea below, I should probably let you slide with being made of stone, and I will do so. But I'm not going to award full marks for the elemental aspect, as I feel you didn't really embrace that portion of the criteria. (-0.25) -> (+0).

This is more like a single camera horror movie than a Kaiju movie. I'm thinking more Blair Witch, less Pacific Rim. If that's the effect you're going for then you achieved it, but I think your intent conflicts with the intent of this round (-0.5).
You are right - as stated here, this is an encounter trap - a surprise which will only work the first time... So a fun event which can be placed in a lot of campaigns. It's why I added 2 other sections after the build to expand a bit. As said in the entry :

So my aim was to reconcile D&D and Kaiju to have both possible as a D&D campaign or in a Kaiju movie :

- in a D&D Campaign : as Kaijus are Too Big, they cannot be vanquished through combat. You need to involve PCs through various quests and shenanigans so they can find a way to neutralize it - but usually these efforts are meaningless. Here the solution is to go inside the kaiju, with true and tried D&D spirit : a Dungeon. I provide also some background for a D&D campaign - with underground dungeons suddenly breaking through the surface world, and involve other kaijus. Thus, I provide a way to neutralize some parts of a titanic dungeon parasite, towers being only some small tendrils. There are ways to scribe more towers for a campaign, and a background justification for dungeon strangeness - and PC powerlessness after all, how can they compete with dungeons sprouting everywhere ?

- in a Kaiju movie : what better way to show off D&D in a Kaiju movie than by using Animated Dungeons ? We already have titanic lizards, insects, dragons and robots in kaiju movies, so all sorts of beasts but no titanic flora monsters that I know of.

To conclude : I provide mainly narrative tools to reconcile Kaiju movies and D&D campaigns, but by the competition's spirit I guess I would need to provide 15th-level and 20th-level dungeons on top of the 10th-level adaptation of the Tower of Angargi. It was too big a task for me, but I am happy to share my One Weird Trick to all other DMs in the Playground :smallwink:

There's appealing aspects to what you say. "Too big to kill" is definitely true for kaiju. I think the vision you present could be a powerful force in a campaign, it just wasn't all presented in a complete format for the competition.

In summary, I don't think I slammed you too hard despite a very non-standard entry. I mean, pre-disputes, I judged you higher than I did a tarrasque, so take that to the bank. I want to encourage off-the-wall entries, but if you're going to break the paradigm and stand out, you gotta truly sell the idea on the page. Invest hardcore in a single weird line of text and take to heights of absurdity never before seen. Convince me that the traps in the gullet of your Kaiju are the hardest of hard-core traps for the CR. Abuse trap CR rules to the max and show me how something that does 20d6 of damage really is CR1 by RAW. All that takes more detail in the entry than was presented. I hope you, and others, continue to pursue excellence in unique ways. I challenge you to do better next time.

HI PUNY MORTAL mattie_p - GUN IS GOOD ! ZARDOZ IS SPEAKING

Elegance: 1.5 So with a Kaiju-in-a-box I guess it is still unfortunately possible to have some elegance errors.

*ZARDOZ flies away in shame :smallredface: *

All your remarks hit the mark - it is truly a detailed review, thanks a lot :smallsmile:

Feats: A kaiju retains any of the bonus feats possessed by the base creature and has an additional feat plus one per every 4 Hit Dice above 32." At 41 hit dice you have earned 2 feats by the template. You took 3 (-0.25).
I don't know how you compute this ? Zardoz has 43 HD, not 41 and to continue the quote :

Sea Lion Kaiju : 0 (bonus feat from base creature) +1 (additional feat) +1 (36 HD) +1 (40 HD) +1 (44 HD) = 4 feats
Zardoz : 0 (bonus feat from base creature) +1 (additional feat) +1 (36 HD) +1 (40 HD) = 3 feats

(by the way I removed the Weapon Finesse (B) from the Vargouille - it's more an unwritten rule that small creatures have it, not bigger ones usually - and anyway this feat would be useless with Zardoz's low Dex).

I'll confess I mis-read that line - even after I quoted it! - somehow skipping over the "and has an additional feat", everything between "base creature" and "plus one". Also, seeing it in print - it's weird how in 3.0 PCs got feats every 3 HD and monsters got feats every 4 HD. But I digress. You took 3 (-0.25) -> 0.

Symbiotic deserves an Elegance deduction, but that's because it's a complicated and easily-abusable template, not because it's "Leadership-adjacent". (I want to lose points for the right reasons, darnit!)
I agree, it is extremely complicated and easily abusable. I can deal with complicated - I think this round proves it. Collectively, y'all threw the kitchen sink at me. You just happened to abuse it in a way that was leadership-adjacent. Leveling up the guest before attaching. Trying to detach and get double actions. Trying to level up both the base creature and the guest simultaneously in different career paths after being conjoined into a single creature. My head hurts already just remembering diving into your entry. I stand by my assessment that the particular implementation of symbiotic template by this entry was leadership adjacent should be firmly discouraged.

What I think you missed abusing and that I probably would have allowed was realizing that the mind of the symbiote is within the "guest," nearing death by PC so detaching the guest, then finding another host to re-form the symbiote. That could have led to some sequel movies (PCs: did we destroy the whole thing?? Did we get it this time??) and possible points in the Memorable Villainy. ((Cue a bunch of symbiotes in upcoming rounds escaping death via this means. Sorry future judges.))

Element was water. I thought that was clear from the fact that it was a whale/whale-person hybrid fighting to avenge the whalers' depredations upon the ocean, but I guess it could have been more explicit.
I don't think I can see my way to getting you full marks here. It certainly wasn't explicit even in the way that others who were penalized for para-elements (Ice, Lightning, Acid, etc) were. The other whales went in different directions and were pretty obvious (Air, Fire). I mean I was exploring your maneuver selection for intent. But maybe I missed the forest for looking at the details of a knot in the trunk of a tree. I can remove the penalty but not give the bonus. (-0.25) -> (+0).

jdizzlean

2021-08-03, 11:42 PM

to clarify:

there will be one dispute, and one rebuttal.

please continue to send them to me in lieu of posting outright. things are still hectic, but I should be able to post without significant delays

mattie_p

2021-08-05, 07:55 PM

Round 3 of disputes and my responses.

Re: Planar chasuble, I feel I have some finagling angle here. First argument I have is that when using the call creature feature of the gate spell, I do not need to specify the target plane, merely the creature name or type. If any exists in a plane I have access to, then all is good in the world? =)
The second, stronger, argument I have is in how planar chasuble is worded in relation to it's intended class, the incarnate. It matches by the alignment axis, not the specific alignment. It makes the example of a lawful incarnate being considered native to Celestia AND Baator. The wording for the gate chakra binding is the same, minus the example. My argument is therefore that as a CE entity, I am considered native to "all evil" and "all chaotic" planes and that I can open a gate to any of those.

On further review of the wording of Planar Chasuble, I believe your interpretation, in particular your second point, to be correct here. You still have to name the plane, but you have access to 5 of the 9 alignments. I will withdraw the portion of the elegance penalty assessed regarding planar alignment for the subject of your gate.(-0.5) -> (-0.25). Net gain (+0.25)

Re: improved critical, "but is an extraordinary quality an effect? I suppose we go with different interpretations and I leave that at that, no harm no foul ^^".

Your dispute has nothing to do with my adjustment here, but it's an appropriate place to respond. In most of my elegance penalties I assessed a (-0.25) for an individual error. I gave you a (-0.5) for this, I am changing it to (-0.25) to align with the standard penalty. Net gain (+0.25)

that we are scried is heavily implied in the CR10 "adventurers point of view" blurb, how else would they know where to teleport?

I'll call this close enough. Between this and a situational second attack per round I'll remove half of the (-0.5) penalty in elegance. Net gain (+0.25)

Expansion: I know of that errata, which is a sore point for me because it only addresses the augment without addressing the original duration, making the errata'd version (snip) Duration :1min/level(D) (snip) If you spend 2 additional power points, this power’s duration is 10 minutes per level rather than 1 round per level. which is unhelpful to me in regard to decide if the original duration is or isn't 1 minute (same as Enlarge person) or nerfed to 1 round for ??? reasons. And since in the context of this contest I am the GM, I fiat it to 1 minute because it makes for a "cool encounter gimmick". "There's no errata on this" in my entry specifically refers to the original duration.

So this is an interesting argument. I advise you next time to bring it up in your initial entry. If you're engaging in something where the RAW is questionable, I feel the best place to bring it up is right away in your entry, and list your rationale there. I'm going to have my assessment stand here.

Monster Manual Errata says that I can take Improved Natural Attack multiple times. Honestly I myself didn’t even realize this otherwise I would have put it in the sources. Had a double take once you pointed it out and looked it up."

So funny story. As you can probably tell, I love the physical books, and vastly prefer them to other media. I do have the errata for all of them printed and in the back of each of the books. One of the things you can't do with printed hardcopy books and errata is "ctrl-F" to search for a word or words. Most of the errata documents list the corrections in page number order. Monster Manual doesn't. I skipped to the back pages of the errata looking for it. Egg is on my face. Penalty removed. Net gain (+0.25)

In the creating a petitioner rules it doesn’t require 1 Int and 1 Wis. In the descriptive text it does say that yes, but as you acknowledge it says generally. I would say that since he technically qualifies outside of the ‘generally’ clause that would, by definition, make Ma’enloth exceptional.

Making an exception for Ma'enloth doesn't make Ma'enloth exceptional. It hardly mattered anyway due to the next point that we're going to discuss.

For my own education so I don’t make the mistake again, where is this rule found? The way I see it is the monster already has the feats. Anything that comes after won’t apply. But it isn’t gaining what it already has. I understand the logic that comes from some templates saying they keep certain feats, but is there a hard rule somewhere I missed?

So for this one the explanation is a litle in depth. For build table purposes in this competition, it is generally assumed that you take a leopard for 2CR, then you add a template for +X CR, then you add another template for +X CR. But what is happening is that all the inherited templates are acquired simultaneously at birth, not sequentially. So while a leopard has an INT score of 2, if it gets the arachnoid template then the int score is reduced to the point where the creature is mindless. (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#nonabilities)

The mindless ability means it gains no skills or feats. Recall that I referenced extensively Chapter 5 in MM, "Making Monsters." I determined that going through the monster creation means doing those steps in sequence, namely, Type, Size, Subtype, Hit Dice, Ability Scores, Initiative, Speed, Armor Class, Attacks, Special Attacks, Special Qualities, Saves, Skills, Feats....

Ability scores are set before skills and feats, and are factored in after all relevant templates are applied in the type and subtype steps. This is why Kekikike was able to be an intelligent winged whale after all. If Ability scores were applied before the template was applied, it would be an animal with INT set to 2. But as it was a Magical Beast, instead there was a modifier of -8 on their elite array ability scores, allowing an array score of 14 to become a final INT of 6.

So, because ability scores are set before skills and feats, Ma'enloth has the mindless trait before it can select feats, and gets none.

Effigy creatures change this rule, of course, because they specify that despite the mindless trait, they keep some (but not all) feats. But effigy is an acquired template, anyway, not inherited as arachnoid is. In other words, a creature has to be complete before an acquired template can be applied. Inherited templates are built into the DNA of the creature from day 0. Acquired templates take a "finished" creature and further modify it.

The order that templates are applied is extremely important in something like this, where you have to keep all these in mind.

This one was tough to parse, and I didn't put all my final notes into the published judgement so I acknowledge that I wasn't clear here. There's limited feats that affect supernatural abilities. Extraordinary concentration references concentrating on spells. Generally that's assumed to include SLAs, but not Supernatural abilities (like the eye rays), even if they reference a spell. I'll admit, though, that your new argument has merits. However, this line of thinking wasn't clearly mentioned in your write-up. I'm going to sit on this one for a day or so, if you don't mind, while I think it over. It would possibly be reflected in power where your entry already did quite well.
After review, it wasn't clearly delineated in your writeup, and it won't affect placement. Judgement stands.

My initial post has been updated with all of my responses to the disputes. As my position evolved on the "Elemental" requirement, I also updated Ma'enloth and Ixalli in those categories to avoid pre-emptive disputes.

For the record, scores, sorted placement order, are as follows:

Megalon 17.25
The Wind that Wends 16.5
Xokhtohm 15.75
Zardoz 14.25
Irralisk 12.75
Ixalli 12.75
Kekikike 12.5
Tarrasque-er 12.25
The Tower of Angarngi 12.25
Great Big Blue 11.5
Ma'enloth 11.25
Wrath of the Bittersea 9.75