Refining monster feats

[DragonIceAdept]

I'm looking to improve various monsters by swapping out their feats.

To start with, I'm interested in the bar-lgura. One of its greatest strengths is its versatility, as it can do just about everything--telekinetic blasting, brawling, sneaking, or utility. Its feats, though, are quite boring - Dodge, Mobility, and Run. What are some better ones to give it?

They do qualify for Shock Trooper and have Pounce, so Power Attack + Improved Bull Rush + Shock Trooper could be brutal.

Darkstalker + Mindsight could go very well with their sneakiness.

Improved Initiative is always great.

What about telekinesis? They can't qualify for Skilled Telekinesis since it's a SLA, not a supernatural ability.

[Biggus]

For the bar-Igura, Ability Focus (abduction or one of its SLAs) wouldn't be a bad idea. Improved Initiative always useful, with its high Dex that would give it +8.

In general, Savage Species and Draconomicon are the main places to look for monster-specific feats.

Some which are useful for a wide variety of monsters (other than those already mentioned) include Improved Toughness, Improved Critical, Improved Natural Attack, Danger Sense (if they benefit heavily from going first; requires Improved Initiative), Multiattack, Rapidstrike if they can qualify, Steadfast Determination (if their Con is much higher than their Wis; requires Endurance), Practised Spellcaster and Quicken Spell if they're casters and Quicken SLA if their SLA caster level is high enough.

Edit: ha, I see you pre-empted me on the Improved Initiative while I was typing...

[Glimbur]

Tome of Battle can be a lot of fun to add to monsters too. 1/fight can be plenty for a swift action jump or a strike. Stance is a bigger investment but bigger benefit.

[Zarvistic]

Supernatural transformation would be good alone, but then you could also get skilled telekinetic.

[DragonIceAdept]

Awesome finds all around. I especially like the idea of Martial Stance (Punishing Stance) and Supernatural Transformation (telekinesis).

[H_H_F_F]

Awesome finds all around. I especially like the idea of Martial Stance (Punishing Stance) and Supernatural Transformation (telekinesis).

I think supernatural transformation + skilled telekinetic is right on the money.

As for feats for monsters, in general... I've made a post a while back about replacing the Tarrasque's feats (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?629977-New-feats-for-the-Tarrasque). There are a lot of good feats to put on "big strong brute" type monsters in that thread.

[Saintheart]

For completeness, Oscelamo's guide to being Ra's al Ghul (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?133604-3-X-Being-Ra-s-al-Ghul-Oslecamo-s-guide-to-DM-s-0-3) (completed minmax forum version here (https://storm-shelter.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=507.0)) is still good advice for tinkering with monsters, and a bit more succinct than Ur-Priest's magisterial guide to all things monster (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?207928-Urpriest-s-Monstrous-Monster-Handbook).


And on all things Tome of Battle, remember that taking Martial Stance has a feat tax cost, namely the Martial Study feat that is its prerequisite. Also, you can only take Martial Study a maximum of 3 times.

[DragonIceAdept]

For completeness, Oscelamo's guide to being Ra's al Ghul (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?133604-3-X-Being-Ra-s-al-Ghul-Oslecamo-s-guide-to-DM-s-0-3) (completed minmax forum version here (https://storm-shelter.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=507.0)) is still good advice for tinkering with monsters, and a bit more succinct than Ur-Priest's magisterial guide to all things monster (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?207928-Urpriest-s-Monstrous-Monster-Handbook).


And on all things Tome of Battle, remember that taking Martial Stance has a feat tax cost, namely the Martial Study feat that is its prerequisite. Also, you can only take Martial Study a maximum of 3 times.

This is really useful. Thank you!

[Saintheart]

And just to add my bit of completely conflicting opinion thus contributing to the normal analysis paralysis one gets on this forum :)

I think you're actually better served by picking something like Improved Bull Rush or Improved Trip than Supernatural Transformation (telekinesis).

If this is the BoVD Bar-lgura we're talking about, then let's sit back for a second and look at it. It's CR 5. It's a monster, so it's meant to fight parties. So it's only really meant to be a challenge or threat to parties of level 5 or less. How common is meaningful Spell Resistance on a level 5 PC? (You get nothing from it becoming a (Su) ability in terms of caster level, because you've got 6HD.)

Next thing is looking at the strength of the telekinesis options. What is the SR-vulnerable feature that we want to shore up? I assume it's the ability to do bull rush, disarm, trips, or grapples remotely. The problem is that it uses your BAB (+6) and your INT (+1) or CHA (+1) score for all those maneuvers, which are both well under your STR score (+4). And you have to stand around concentrating to make that work, too. If you want to do that kind of stuff, Improved Trip or Improved Bull Rush also remove the risk of taking AoOs and give you pluses on your STR score's use of the ability, which make it much more potent.

If I had to look at improvements for this thing, I'd lean harder into its stealth capacity. It gets Darkness (and freaking Dispel Magic) at will! And invisibility twice per day, and it can goddamn pounce. Give it a level in Rogue, replace Dodge and Mobility with Craven and an Ambush feat like Staggering Strike. Give it something that allows it to see normally in darkness, and you've then got something with that can close from 40 feet out as a swift action, does 2 x 1d6+10 damage and staggers the target for a round.

[DragonIceAdept]

And just to add my bit of completely conflicting opinion thus contributing to the normal analysis paralysis one gets on this forum :)

I think you're actually better served by picking something like Improved Bull Rush or Improved Trip than Supernatural Transformation (telekinesis).

If this is the BoVD Bar-lgura we're talking about, then let's sit back for a second and look at it. It's CR 5. It's a monster, so it's meant to fight parties. So it's only really meant to be a challenge or threat to parties of level 5 or less. How common is meaningful Spell Resistance on a level 5 PC? (You get nothing from it becoming a (Su) ability in terms of caster level, because you've got 6HD.)

Next thing is looking at the strength of the telekinesis options. What is the SR-vulnerable feature that we want to shore up? I assume it's the ability to do bull rush, disarm, trips, or grapples remotely. The problem is that it uses your BAB (+6) and your INT (+1) or CHA (+1) score for all those maneuvers, which are both well under your STR score (+4). And you have to stand around concentrating to make that work, too. If you want to do that kind of stuff, Improved Trip or Improved Bull Rush also remove the risk of taking AoOs and give you pluses on your STR score's use of the ability, which make it much more potent.

If I had to look at improvements for this thing, I'd lean harder into its stealth capacity. It gets Darkness (and freaking Dispel Magic) at will! And invisibility twice per day, and it can goddamn pounce. Give it a level in Rogue, replace Dodge and Mobility with Craven and an Ambush feat like Staggering Strike. Give it something that allows it to see normally in darkness, and you've then got something with that can close from 40 feet out as a swift action, does 2 x 1d6+10 damage and staggers the target for a round.
I'm looking at the FC1 version, not the BoVD one, but iirc they're quite similar.

This is some good advice all the same! What about Mindsight so it can operate in darknss?

[Bohandas]

Tome of Battle can be a lot of fun to add to monsters too.
or Magic of Incarnum

[Saintheart]

What about Mindsight so it can operate in darknss?

I like Mindsight, but the targets revealed by it still get the benefit of total concealment, i.e. no sneak attack and 50% miss chance. I think Mindsight is more of a scouting and intel tool than a combat tool; I'd look for something that allows actual sight in darkness, maybe even in the monster's gear/ treasure depending on whether you want to give it class levels.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Ancestral Relic (with alignment restrictions removed) to give monsters access to magic? A lot of late game bruisers could use SOMETHING to allow them to function as something other than slabs of HP.

[Saintheart]

Another way to improve this monster (on a level in Rogue and with Craven) is to just put a one-handed weapon in one of its hairy paws. (I also had a chance to look at the FC1 version. There's even more of a case to lean into its STR and stealth, it has even greater STR than its BoVD version and therefore better claw and bite attacks.)

The monster has Pounce which looks superficially useful, and we have 2 claw attacks and a bite on a full attack, but natural weapons don't benefit from iteratives like normal weapons do.

But this creature has BAB +6, which means if armed with a weapon that it's proficient with it would have four attacks:

+6/+1 from its one-handed weapon as the primary weapon, with full STR bonus to damage.
- One claw as a secondary natural weapon, with half STR bonus to damage. This attack takes a -5 penalty.
- One bite as a secondary natural weapon, with half STR bonus to damage. This attack takes a -5 penalty.

But given the creature's STR is +6, that would mean an BAB+STR full attack of +12/+7/+7/+7, composed of weapon/weapon/claw/bite, since the claw and bite are secondary natural attacks and all take a penalty of -5. (No, the BAB doesn't start at -5. The wording is clear that you take a penalty of -5 on the attack roll.

You use a one-handed weapon because a two-handed weapon by definition locks out both claw attacks, and more attacks are more attacks. And we don't really care about the half STR bonus to damage, because what we really want is sneak attack conditions and, therefore, Craven with its +6 damage to each strike.

"But he isn't proficient with any weapons!" Yes he is, he has the Outsider type. They're automatically proficient with all martial weapons. So go and find the biggest damage dice you can find on a one-handed martial weapon and go and have fun.