Monster Mash VIII: Half-adventurers half-monsters

[Beni-Kujaku]

Monster Mash #8


This competition is for monstrous adventurers, in part to experiment with the possibilities they offer and in part to make use of the revised level adjustments which Inevitability and Debatra have spent five years assigning.
Adventurers designed for this contest must be of a monstrous race. For the purpose of this contest, “monstrous race” excludes all races designed for PC use, unless their level adjustment has been increased by one or more templates. “Monstrous race” is a somewhat vague category, by necessity. No simple set of rules can exclude every single PC race without also excluding some genuine monsters. Entries which flout this rule with borderline-monstrous races risk a penalty to their Monstrosity score.


For the purpose of this competition, all races use the modified level adjustments listed in the LA Assignment Archive (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?624825). Races with a -0 level adjustment are treated as if they had a +0 level adjustment. Monsters not rated at the time an entry is submitted and who haven't had an official level adjustment may not be used. You are allowed to play monsters not rated in the LA assignment thread only if they got an official level adjustment.
Some races' level adjustments include asterisks. These monsters have traits which render them unsuitable for PC use, such as a wight’s spawn creation, a dryad’s tree dependency, or a genie’s wishes; check the linked posts in the archive. For the purpose of this contest, those races do not possess those traits. In cases where it's unclear which traits are removed, please contact the chair for clarification.

Round Theme: Half-adventurers half-monsters

The quintessential monster is the one that can still appeal to the common audience. Could I become that? Nature versus nurture, redemption, healthier hybrids... The child of two races can be a very interesting character. Or a monste of the week. Your choice!


The monster character must possess at least one of the "Half-something" templates published in D&D.



To note: The base untemplated creature can of course also be monstrous. Using a half-template that was not reassigned an LA is also allowed, and uses its regular LA.

Contestants
You will need to present a full build for your entry, from its first level to level 20. Also required is a rundown of how your build works at lower levels, to demonstrate that it is a functional character that could be played in a real game.
Traditionally participants in similar competitions give "snapshots" of tactics and abilities at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. Depending on the monstrous race chosen, your character may be unavailable at lower levels; in that case, instead give snapshots at various levels where it is playable. These snapshots should be roughly evenly distributed among what levels it is available at.


32 point-buy is the presumed creation method.
If you do use a different point-buy, please make your case for its necessity in your entry. Keep in mind that for using exceptionally large or small point-buys may warrant deductions in elegance and/or power.
If the monster you're cooking with has no intelligence, or an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, consider the intelligence as 3 (-8 racial modifier). It still retains any immunity to mind-affecting abilities it may have.

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.
Official Errata and 3.5 updates to 3.0 content are considered valid regardless of whether their sources would otherwise be legal. This includes the 3.5 update of Oriental Adventures given in Dragon Magazine, and the 3.5 updates of Dragonlance Campaign Setting content given in later third party Dragonlance books.
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.

Specific bans:

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. Any variant of Leadership, such as 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.

Because this contest involves creating a build up to level 20, no race with a base ECL higher than 20 is allowed.
The Dragonlance Campaign Setting is allowed, but the subsequent books for Dragonlance are considered 3rd party, and are therefore not eligible, despite the "WotC approved" status of those books. The same holds for Oriental Adventures (1st party) and the subsequent Rokugan books (3rd party).
The Illithid Savant and Beholder Mage prestige classes are specifically banned due to their extreme potential for abuse.


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, Power, Elegance, and Monstrosity.
Scores of zero may be applied in cases of exceptional misconduct (plagiarism earns a 0 in Originality, failure to meet prerequisites earns a 0 in Elegance, non-monstrous races earn a 0 in Monstrosity, etc); otherwise, all entries should receive at least one full point in each category.
Originality: Is it unexpected or novel?
Power: Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
Elegance: Is it mechanically straighforward or “pretty”?
Monstrosity: Is the monstrous character’s race used?

Elegance and Monstrosity demand further elaboration.
Elegance measures how skillfully you put your build together, and whether you sacrificed flavor for power. Use of flaws is considered in poor taste, and judges are asked to take a dim view of this option, taking it into account while grading. Other things that will cause penalties here are excessive multi-classing, and classes that don't fit the concept.
A legal source's relative obscurity should not be considered as penalizing Elegance, excepting the aforementioned issues with Unearthed Arcana. Using conflicting setting material may result in a penalty to Elegance at the judges' discretion, but a book's relative obscurity may not. In that same vein, drawing solely from the Core 3 (and the d20 SRD) should not be punished for lacking Originality.
Monstrosity measures how necessary the entry’s monster race was to the submission. We want to build monstrous adventurers here, not standard Iron Chef builds with a few racial hit dice at the start. Builds which could not function without the monstrous features of their race earn high Monstrosity scores, while builds which could work on any PC race with no changes will take Monstrosity penalties. Builds using non-monstrous races will also take penalties to Monstrosity. For rounds with specific restrictions on the monster race, this category will also include making good use of the mandatory component.

Presentation
Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, I'd like everyone to try to use the following table for their entry.

NAME OF ENTRY


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



Code immediately below (spoiler).

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



For entries with spellcasting, use the following table for Spells per day and Spells Known. (Spells Known only if necessary, i.e. Sorcerer or Bard, but not Wizard or Warmage)

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 (spoiler)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
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


Alternatively, you may use this spreadsheet created by (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BG0-5sq4dL9Ooh7-QfXuyHzO4rXSz-CRcj29t6BeUVE/edit?usp=sharing) mattie_p (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?66256-mattie_p).
For other systems (Psionics, ToB, Incarnum, etc.) keep track of PP/maneuvers/essentia separately, preferably in a nice neat list or table.

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.

Deadlines

Contestants will have until 23:59 GMT Saturday 1st of April to create their builds and PM them to the chair. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges will have until 23:59 GMT Saturday 8th of April 2023 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.

Submission
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:
PM: Beni-Kujaku
Subject: Monster Mash #, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mailbox.

More questions? Either ask in the thread or PM me with Monster Mash Questions in the header. Please use PMs for any questions relating to a specific build to avoid violating rules against speculation.

Houserules/Clarifications
D&D 3.5 is far from a perfect system, and inflated level adjustments are far from the only example of this. Many rules are ambiguous, absent, or just badly-written. I make no claim to fixing the system, but feel some “house rules” are in order:

Bonus feats that are granted even if you do not meet the prerequisites do not require you to meet the prerequisites in order to use.
All creatures are proficient with any natural weapons they may have or acquire.
Monsters with racial hit dice may gain an additional hit die instead of taking a character level. This functions as advancing a monster this way would under other circumstances. You cannot advance any monster beyond the maximum number of racial hit dice noted in its Advancement entry. You can advance that way before, after, or in-between taking actual class levels.
The DC of a monster's supernatural ability is 10+1/2 number of Hit Dice+mod. This includes class levels.
Able Learner's benefit applies to the level you take it.
Weapons from soulmelds are considered to be magic weapons.
Unarmed Swordsage grants Improved Unarmed Strike at level 1.
Spelltouched feats are legal and can be taken just like any other feat when you meet the prerequisites and have the feat slot available.
Possessing innate spellcasting from your race is treated as a spellcasting class for the purposes of prestige classes which provide new spells per day, an increase in caster level, and spells known (if applicable) as if you had gained a level in a spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level.


If you have trouble finding a monster with specific abilities, you might want to check the Searchable Monster Abilities Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QrhdyI_42mru5Wn7d_GYBMFEL-2hqc-Q/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114473817632993756813&rtpof=true&sd=true).

Previous Competitions:
MM1: Back to Basics (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?632644-Monster-Mash-Monstrous-Adventurer-Competition)
MM2: Scary Monsters (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?644846-Monster-Mash-II-Scary-Monsters!)
MM3: Keep your monsters close, and your enemies closer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?646125-Monster-Mash-III-Keep-your-monsters-close)
MM4: Monsters in the darkness (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?648212-Monster-Mash-IV-Monsters-in-the-Darkness#post25531590)
MM5: Crawling Monsters (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650003-Monster-Mash-V-Crawling-Monsters/)
MM6: Mysterious Monster Magic (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?651675-Monster-Mash-VI-Mysterious-Monster-Magic)
MM7: Monsters through the Snow (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?652584-Monster-Mash-VII-Monsters-through-the-Snow)


And now, time to get mashing!

[Beni-Kujaku]

Q&A for this round:

-



Monster manual 1:
Half-Celestial, LA+3
Half-Dragon, LA+2
Half-Fiend, LA+3

Fiend Folio:
Half-Fey, LA+2
Half-Illithid, LA+2
Half-Troll, LA+2

Libris Mortis:
Half-Vampire, LA+1

Non-reassigned templates:
Half-Elemental (Manual of the Planes pg. 188), LA+3
Half-Farspawn (Lords of Madness pg. 151), LA+4
Half-Janni (Sandstorm pg. 164), LA+3

[loky1109]

How is it?
I just returned to my PC and see no activity here.

[Tzardok]

Oh, sorry. I didn't even notice the competition started. :smallredface:

I've got an idea. Maybe this time will be my first participation.

[ciopo]

I'm burned out on comps, Ihtink of builds but no willpower to get to write stuff down

[Thurbane]

Just noticed this comp. I'll see how I go for time and inspiration.

[loky1109]

I have one idea of idea. Maybe it'll became something more.

[Inevitability]

I'll probably judge this one; don't have much inspiration aside from one silly half-formed idea.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I'll probably judge this one; don't have much inspiration aside from one silly half-formed idea.

Well, half-formed ideas are exactly in the spirit of this theme ^^

[Beni-Kujaku]

Well‚ the deadline is in 3 days‚ and I have exactly one entry currently. Is anybody still cooking? I am more than willing to extend the deadline if need be.

[loky1109]

Well‚ the deadline is in 3 days‚ and I have exactly one entry currently. Is anybody still cooking? I am more than willing to extend the deadline if need be.

My ideas didn't make me happy, but I'll look at them one more time, maybe found something.

[Thurbane]

Time is always an issue for me, but after checking the Half- templates that have already been rated, nothing special jumped out at me to inspire a build.

[loky1109]

Okay, I have an idea. Need a week.

[Tzardok]

I have a feeling you'd gotten more entrees for the competition if the deadline hadn't been on April 1st. :smalltongue:

[loky1109]

When now will reveal be?

[Beni-Kujaku]

The reveal will be when I next get back to a computer‚ which should be Monday night or Tuesday.

[Beni-Kujaku]

If the Mur-Zhagul that killed Tenrin Thundershield was this one, then I understand why Sigdi never did resurrect him.



Anung Un Rama
Aly "the Peanut"
https://d1nslcd7m2225b.cloudfront.net/Pictures/780xany/8/7/2/1300872_hellboy_236322.jpg

He was an experiment. Red Wizards researched potential of crossbreeding under the direct orders of Samas Kul - confidant of Druxus Rhym - Zulkir of Transmutation. They took trolls with demonic ancestry, various fairy creatures and breed them near old Jhaamdath empire ruins - power leaking from ancient psionic items should warp scions into phrenic creatures in addition to demonic and fiery powers. Most of the test subjects died, only one survived .
It was very unlucky there are no Jhaamdath ruins in the Thay itself, the nearest is on the territory of Mulhorand. And no matter how much Reds try to keep a secret, there has been a leak somewhere - a secret laboratory was discovered. Mulhorand operatives delivered a strike and seized it. Most thayans escaped, but all their research fell into the hands of mulhorandies. Including the single almost newborn survivor.
It was a difficult decision what to do with him and operatives were glad to shift it to the shoulders of the priest of Hathor who was with them. This priest named Ur-Adnan adopted an unusual child and brought him up as his own son. It wasn't an easy task. Child's chaotic ancestry was a very big problem, but Ur-Adnan managed to teach his foster son very strong discipline. "You should rule your passions, not passions rule you," - he told. And this works almost all the time. Almost. Aly, as Ur-Adnan named son, himself wanted to be disciplined, he just had not always been able, his nature took its course from time to time. And that wasn’t the only problem. Studying the Thay laboratory journals, Ur-Adnan discovered a dangerous fact - thayans knew his son's true name and this means they could take control under him if they found out he is alive! There was the sole solution for both problems - Ritual of Renaming. Ur-Adnan was a high-ranking priest enough that his petition for this was granted. But with the condition: Aly should join the monastery of the Disciples of the Free Word, an order devoted to Deneir and work off his renaming himself.

LN Fey Spirit Phrenic Half-Fey Lesser Mur-Zhagul Overwhelming Attack Monk 1/Bereft 5

Abilities Initial Mur-Zhagul Half-Fey Phrenic 4th 8th 12th Total
STR 14 14 1 1 30
DEX 10 6 2 18
CON 14 16 -2 28
INT 14 2 16
WIS 12 2 2 2 18
CHA 15 -2 4 4 1 22
Level Class BAB Fort Reflex Will Skills Feats Class Features new SLAs/PLAs
2nd Half-Fey Creature +2 LA - - - - - - Low-light vision, immune to enchantment, SLAs -
4th Phrenic Creature +2 LA - - - - - - Naturally psionic, PR, PLAs -
5th Fey Spirit +1 LA - - - - - - +10 insight bonus on Diplomacy or Intimidate, SLAs Charm monster, fear 1/day
6th Fey HD 1 0 0 2 2 36: {+4} Climb: 4; {+4} Concentration: 4; {+4} Hide: 4; {+4} Jump: 4; {+4} Listen: 4; {+4} Move Silently: 4; {+4} Spot: 4; {+4} Survival: 4; {+4 CC} Truespeak: 2; Magic in the Blood1 Acid and fire resistance 10, darkvision 90 ft., rend, regeneration, scent, SR 20, SLAs Charm monster, fear 3/day
Burning hands, darkness, detect good, jump at will; deeper darkness, invisibility, protection from good, haste 3/day
Charm person at will; hypnotism, faerie fire or glitterdust 3/day
Defensive precognition, force screen 3/day
7th Fey HD 2 1 0 3 3 9: {+1} Climb: 5; {+1} Concentration: 5; {+1} Hide: 5; {+1} Jump: 5; {+1} Listen: 5; {+1} Move Silently: 5; {+1} Spot: 5; {+1} Survival: 5; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 2.5;
8th Fey HD 3 1 1 3 3 9: {+1} Climb: 6; {+1} Concentration: 6; {+1} Hide: 6; {+1} Jump: 6; {+1} Listen: 6; {+1} Move Silently: 6; {+1} Spot: 6; {+1} Survival: 6; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 3; Boost Spell-like Ability3 Detect law, sleep or enthrall 3/day
Empty mind, mind thrust 3/day
9th Fey HD 4 2 1 4 4 9: {+1} Climb: 7; {+1} Concentration: 7; {+1} Hide: 7; {+1} Jump: 7; {+1} Listen: 7; {+1} Move Silently: 7; {+1} Spot: 7; {+1} Survival: 7; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 3.5;
10th Fey HD 5 2 1 4 4 9: {+1} Climb: 8; {+1} Concentration: 8; {+1} Hide: 8; {+1} Jump: 8; {+1} Listen: 8; {+1} Move Silently: 8; {+1} Spot: 8; {+1} Survival: 8; {+1 CC} Truespeak: 4; Protection from law, Tasha's hideous laughter or suggestion 3/day
Body adjustment, brain lock 3/day
11th Fey HD 6 3 2 5 5 13*: {+1} Climb: 9; {+1} Concentration: 9; {+1} Hide: 9; {+1} Jump: 9; {+1} Listen: 9; {+1} Move Silently: 9; {+1} Spot: 9; {+1} Survival: 9; {+5*} Truespeak: 9; Truename Training6
12th Fey HD 7 3 2 5 5 9: {+1} Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1} Hide: 10; {+1} Jump: 10; {+1} Listen: 10; {+1} Move Silently: 10; {+1} Spot: 10; {+1} Survival: 10; {+1} Truespeak: 10; Confusion or emotion crushing despair or good hope or rage 3/day
Aversion, psionic blast 3/day
13th Fey HD 8 4 2 6 6 9: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 11; {+1} Hide: 11; Jump: 10; {+1} Listen: 11; {+1} Move Silently: 11; {+1} Spot: 11; {+1} Survival: 11; {+1} Truespeak: 11; {+2} Leaping Climber;
14th Fey HD 9 4 3 6 6 9: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 12; {+1} Hide: 12; Jump: 10; {+1} Listen: 12; {+1} Move Silently: 12; {+1} Spot: 12; {+1} Survival: 12; {+1} Truespeak: 12; {+2} Swift Concentration, Leaping Climber; Supernatural Transformation (Charm person)9 Eyebite or geas, lesser 3/day
Intellect fortress, psychic crush 3/day
15th Overwhelming Attack Monk 1 4 5 8 8 7: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 13; Hide: 12; Jump: 10; Listen: 12; Move Silently: 12; Spot: 12; Survival: 12; {+1} Truespeak: 13; {+5} Tumble: 5; Swift Concentration, Leaping Climber; Improved Unarmed StrikeB, Power AttackB AC bonus, bonus feat, flurry of blows, skill bonus (intimidate), unarmed strike
16th Bereft 1 4 5 8 10 5: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 14; Hide: 12; {+3} Intimidate: 3; Jump: 10; Listen: 12; Move Silently: 12; Spot: 12; Survival: 12; {+1} Truespeak: 14; Tumble: 5; Swift Concentration, Leaping Climber; Obscure Personal Truename, syllable of detachment Dominate person or hold monster 3/day
Psionic dominate 3/day
17th Bereft 2 5 5 8 11 5: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 15; Hide: 12; {+3} Intimidate: 6; Jump: 10; Listen: 12; Move Silently: 12; Spot: 12; Survival: 12; {+1} Truespeak: 15; Tumble: 5; Swift Concentration, Leaping Climber; Thunderclap12 Syllable of affliction
18th Bereft 3 6 6 9 11 5: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 16; Hide: 12; {+3} Intimidate: 9; Jump: 10; Listen: 12; Move Silently: 12; Spot: 12; Survival: 12; {+1} Truespeak: 16; Tumble: 5; Swift Concentration, Leaping Climber; Syllable of exile Invisibility, mass 3/day
Energy current, tower of iron will 3/day
19th Bereft 4 7 6 9 12 5: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 17; Hide: 12; {+1} Intimidate: 10; Jump: 10; Listen: 12; Move Silently: 12; Spot: 12; Survival: 12; {+1} Truespeak: 17; Tumble: 5; {+2} Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Leaping Climber; Syllable of dissolution
20th Bereft 5 7 6 9 12 5: Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 18; Hide: 12; {+3} Intimidate: 13; Jump: 10; Listen: 12; Move Silently: 12; Spot: 12; Survival: 12; {+1} Truespeak: 18; Tumble: 5; Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Leaping Climber; Skill Focus (Truespeak)15 Syllable of enervation, word of unmaking Geas/quest or suggestion, mass 3/day
Psionic teleport 3/day
*- additional skill points got due Truename Training feat.

Spoken Languages: Common, Giant, Infernal, Celestial, Draconic, Elven


Mur-zhaguls are planetouched creatures descended from the mingling of trolls and demons...

...Since such characters never have to worry about level adjustments...
It's clear. Mur-zhagul is a planetouched race and this means he is a valid target for lesser variant. And all lesser variant races have LA +0. For planetouched it costs their outsider type, but I think Aly will get over it.

Now Aly is just a child. Only single bad type HD, however, in spite of this, he is playable. His rare version of regeneration and 20 SR make him quite durable to survive this early levels. Plus, his 28 Constitution gives him some hp even with d6 HD and five levels backlog. And not to be forgotten is his variety of SLAs. Charm Monster, at will Charm Person and Darkness (and 3/day Deeper version), Invisibility, Haste, all this options could save the day or to be of service out of fight. And of course 60 ft good fly.
Thanks to Mulhorandi origin and being planetouched, Aly qualify for Magic in the Blood feat which perfectly fits into all his 1/day SLAs.
Eight more fey HDs. It doesn't sound good, does it? Well, yes, BAB is terrible, but this is offset by big Strength. Low base HD is overshadowed by Constitution. Skills and saves are good enough. And of course more SLAs as icing on top. They are useful in and out of fights. Especially with Boost SLA feat. Most of Aly's SLA have only 3/day uses and it perfectly matches with that feat. It doesn't work as well for the most useful at-will SLA - Charm Person, that's why I take Supernatural Transformation for Aly at 9th HD. This feat boosts Charm Person better than Boost SLA without any per day limitations.
Other SLAs are good enough with just Boost SLA: Tasha's Hideous Laughter is classic save-or-suck as like Confusion or Rage (for casters). Psychic Crush is even better - it's almost save-or-die or at least save-or-lose.
Aversion has some synergy with Aly's truespeech skills - if he realizes some enemy is truespeech user, too, he just Averse him to some word of true speech, it could be Aly's own name, any of Aly's allies' names, enemy's name (not personal), or name of some item - it depends.
One level of monk and full advancement of Bereft Prestige Class. Well, yes, it's truenaming. I know it isn't the best subsystem in the game especially with deep diving into LA, but... I decided to give it a chance. Using Thunderclap feat Aly could make foes deaf, and with Invisibility SLA he could try to speak truename properly until he'll succeed (if he doesn't succeed - Bereft Syllables don't work and, this means, don't break Invisibility). Or he could try to use it against charmed creatures - for everybody, but truespeekers this doesn't look aggressive and doesn't break charm. And yes of course, I want an Amulet of the Silver Tongue and all other Truespeak improvements for Aly.
Apart from classes' abilities Aly now has some new useful racial SLAs: two versions of Dominate - one works long another works against whatever creature, standard action Geas/Quest, Psionic Teleport - its usefulness is obvious and I should mention Energy current - 15d6/7d6 energy damage per round to up to three creatures is good and with Swift Concentration skill trick Aly could even go invisible right after manifesting it without breaking concentration - enemies will even not know where they need to run.

Type Name Book Page
Race Mur-Zhagul Unapproachable East 79
Race Lesser Planetouched Player's Guide To Faerun 191
Race Half-Fey Creature Fiend Folio 89
Race Phrenic Creature Expanded Psionics Handbook 205
Race Fey Spirit Dungeon Master's Guide II 158
Class Monk Players Handbook 39
Prestige Class Bereft Tome of Magic 208
Class variant Overwhelming Attack Unearthed Arcana 52
Feat Magic in the Blood Player's Guide To Faerun 40
Feat Boost Spell-like Ability Book of Vile Darkness 47
Feat Truename Training Tome of Magic 229
Feat Supernatural Transformation Savage Species 39
Feat Improved Unarmed Strike Players Handbook 96
Feat Power Attack Players Handbook 98
Feat Thunderclap Savage Species 40
Feat Skill Focus Players Handbook 100
Skill Trick Never Outnumbered Complete Scoundrel 87
Skill Trick Swift Concentration Complete Scoundrel 90
Skill Trick Leaping Climber Complete Scoundrel 87
SLA All Players Handbook Varies
PLA All Expanded Psionics Handbook Varies

[Beni-Kujaku]

Surprisingly, having a brainwashed half-Uvuudaum half-Illithid tell me that mind flayers are not all bad doesn't convince me very much...


Many call mind flayers parasites, sadists without ethics, pure evil in flesh, and all this is true, but it isn't all true. First of all mind flayers are pure intelligence, yes, it's the root of all their negative traits, but also it is a feature itself. Mind flayers are researchers, explorers, and scientists with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. But pure knowledge without embodiment... is less than nothing. Theory without practice is dead. And mind flayers try to embody their knowledge. Of course with some benefit for themselves.
That's why they all time are trying to make new breeds of slaves and new ways for ceremorphosis - researching and tests, basis of every science. That's how Sand Tentacle was made. Three illithids were experimenting with a new breed of promising slaves. They get young asherati - humanoid who could literally "swim" through sand! - and transform he into voidmind creature - remove most of his brain and replace it with special psionic substance. Then they started ceremorphosis with him, but not in conventional way. They used an unusual tadpole, which hatched from an unusual egg. Eggs are spawned hermaphroditicaly in the norm, but this time the leader of the research group acted differently. He used his psionic powers to travel to the Far Realms itself. There he found uvuudaum and mate with him. After that he spawned only few, but very powerful eggs, one of this eggs gave the start tadpole from which Sand Tentacle was originated.

Actually Sand Tentacle was a great success! Yes, the method is very dangerous and asheratis are a rare supply, but just a few such useful thralls could be enough. Alas, this discovery did not see the light of day. In the very few days after the successful experiment all three mind flayers were assassinated by the group of githyanki. But the experiment itself survived, hiding beneath the sand floor of the illithids' lair.


CE Half-Farspawn Half-Illithid Voidmind Asherati Spell to Power Erudite 7/Flayerspawn Psychic 5
https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/02/12/22/95/360_F_212229504_hZGwsI4TanKwC0drZLt4olGtgJewnf3L.w ebp

Abilities Initial Half-Illithid Half-Farspawn Voidmind 4th 8th 12th Total
STR 12 2 4 18
DEX 12 2 2 16
CON 15 6 4 1 26
INT 16 4 2 1 1 24
WIS 8 4 4 16
CHA 14 4 2 -2 18

Level Class BAB F R W Skills Feats Class Features
0th AsheratiSandstorm, p. 37 Heat EnduranceSandstorm, p. 50 (B) Body lamp, natural dryness, sandswim, water vulnerability
2nd VoidmindMonster Manual III, p. 187 LA +2 Alertness (B), Combat Reflexes (B), Great Fortitude (B) Cone of slime, constrict, DR 5/magic, improved grab, immunities (acid, mind-affecting effects, ability damage, ability drain, and energy drain), sentient tentacle, spell resistance
4th Half-IllithidFiend Folio, p. 90 LA +2 Darkvision, extract, improved grab, Mind Blast, Psionics, spell resistance, telepathy 100 ft.
8th Half-FarspawnLords of Madness, p. 151 LA +4 Acid and electricity resistance 10, Blindsight 60ft., change shape, DR 5/magic, poison Immunity, spell resistance, SLAs, true strike
9th Spell to Powerlink (https://web.archive.org/web/20150816160751/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) EruditeComplete Psionic, p. 153 1 0 0 0 2 32: {+4} Concentration: 4; {+4} Decipher Script: 4; {+2} Knowledge (arcana): 2; {+2} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 2; {+2} Knowledge (local): 2; {+4} Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+2} Knowledge (religion): 2; {+4} Knowledge (the planes): 4; {+4} Psicraft: 4; {+4} Spellcraft: 4; MindsightLords of Madness, p. 126 (1), Psicrystal Affinity (B) Psicrystal Affinity, convert spell to power, blur 3/day, detect thoughts 3/day
10th Erudite 2 1 0 0 3 8: {+1} Concentration: 5; {+1} Decipher Script: 5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 3; {+1} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 3; {+1} Knowledge (local): 3; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 5; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 4; {+1} Psicraft: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 5;
11th Erudite 3 1 1 1 3 8: {+1} Concentration: 6; {+1} Decipher Script: 6; {+3} Intimidate: 3; Knowledge (arcana): 3; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 3; Knowledge (local): 3; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 6; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 4; {+1} Psicraft: 6; {+1} Spellcraft: 6; Extended ReachSavage Species, p. 34 (3) Suggestion 3/day, touch of idiocy 1/day
12th Erudite 4 2 1 1 4 8: {+1} Concentration: 7; {+1} Decipher Script: 7; {+3} Intimidate: 6; Knowledge (arcana): 3; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 3; Knowledge (local): 3; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 7; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 4; {+1} Psicraft: 7; {+1} Spellcraft: 7;
13th Erudite 5 2 1 1 4 8: {+1} Concentration: 8; {+1} Decipher Script: 8; {+2} Intimidate: 8; Knowledge (arcana): 3; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 3; Knowledge (local): 3; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 8; Knowledge (religion): 2; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 8; {+1} Spellcraft: 8; Illithid HeritageComplete Psionic, p. 62 (B) Bonus feat, levitate 3/day, stinking cloud 1/day
14th Erudite 6 3 2 2 5 8: {+1} Concentration: 9; Decipher Script: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 9; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 4; {+1} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 4; {+1} Knowledge (local): 4; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 9; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 9; {+1} Spellcraft: 9; Illithid LegacyComplete Psionic, p. 62 (6)
15th Erudite 7 3 2 2 5 8: {+1} Concentration: 10; Decipher Script: 8; {+1} Intimidate: 10; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 5; {+1} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 5; {+1} Knowledge (local): 5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 10; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 10; {+1} Spellcraft: 10; Blink 3/day, charm monster 1/day
16th Flayerspawn PsychicComplete Psionic, p. 30 1 3 2 2 7 9: {+1} Bluff: 1; {+1} Concentration: 11; Decipher Script: 8; {+1} Disguise: 1; {+1} Intimidate: 11; Knowledge (arcana): 5; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 5; Knowledge (local): 5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 11; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 11; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 11; {+1} Use Psionic Device: 1; Illithid BlastComplete Psionic, p. 61 (I) Illithid Blast (15-ft. cone, stun 1d4 rounds)
17th Flayerspawn Psychic 2 4 2 2 8 9: {+1} Bluff: 2; {+1} Concentration: 12; Decipher Script: 8; {+1} Disguise: 2; {+1} Intimidate: 12; Knowledge (arcana): 5; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 5; Knowledge (local): 5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 12; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 12; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 12; {+1} Use Psionic Device: 2; Illithid GrappleComplete Psionic, p. 61 (9), Illithid Grapple (I) Illithid feat, greater invisibility 1/day
18th Flayerspawn Psychic 3 4 3 3 8 9: {+1} Bluff: 3; {+1} Concentration: 13; Decipher Script: 8; {+1} Disguise: 3; {+1} Intimidate: 13; Knowledge (arcana): 5; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 5; Knowledge (local): 5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 13; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 13; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 13; {+1} Use Psionic Device: 3; Illithid Blast 2/day
19th Flayerspawn Psychic 4 5 3 3 9 9: {+1} Bluff: 4; {+1} Concentration: 14; Decipher Script: 8; {+1} Disguise: 4; {+1} Intimidate: 14; Knowledge (arcana): 5; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 5; Knowledge (local): 5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 14; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 14; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 14; {+1} Use Psionic Device: 4; Illithid Grapple (I) Illithid feat, telekinesis 1/day
20th Flayerspawn Psychic 5 5 3 3 9 9: {+1} Bluff: 5; {+1} Concentration: 15; Decipher Script: 8; {+1} Disguise: 5; {+1} Intimidate: 15; Knowledge (arcana): 5; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 5; Knowledge (local): 5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 15; Knowledge (religion): 2; Knowledge (the planes): 5; {+1} Psicraft: 15; {+2 CC} Spellcraft: 15; {+1} Use Psionic Device: 5; Illithid Grapple (12) Illithid Blast 3/day


Known powers from levels.
Level Class New Powers (Level) Unique Powers per Day Maximum Power Level PP
9th Erudite 1 Detect Psionics (1), Sense Link (1), Telempathic Projection (1), Vigor (1), Deja Vu (1), Empathy (1), Bolt (1), Channel the Psychic DragonDrM (1) 1 1st 2+3
10th Erudite 2 Mind Thrust (1), Eidetic Lock (1) 2 1st 6+6
11th Erudite 3 Feat Leech (2), Identify, Psionic (2) 2 2nd 11+9
12th Erudite 4 Larval Flayers (2), Sustenance (2) 3 2nd 17+12
13th Erudite 5 Sense Link, Forced (2), Dispel Psionics (3) 3 3rd 25+15
14th Erudite 6 Body Purification (3), Solicit Psicrystal (3), Psionic Charm (1), Read Thoughts (1) 4 3rd 35+18
15th Erudite 7 Freedom of Movement, Psionic (4), Psychic Reformation (4) 4 4th 46+21
16th Erudite 7 - 5 4th 46+24
17th Erudite 8 Dimension Door, Psionic (4), Time Hop (4) 5 4th 58+28
19th Erudite 9 True Seeing, Psionic (5), Shatter Mind Blank (5) 5 5th 72+31
20th Erudite 10 Psychic Crush (5), Plane Shift, Psionic (5) 6 5th 88+35

Powers and converted Spells I want to have.
Spell Level Converted Spells & Discipline Powers
0th (8 per day) Launch BoltSC, Mage HandPHB, Detect MagicPHB
1st Blood WindSC, Deep BreathSC
2nd Mental Ragelink (https://web.archive.org/web/20151102163531/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20041029b) (Tel), Fuse ArmsSC, Fearsome GrappleSC, Extend TentaclesSC, Baleful TranspositionSC, Silver DragonmailCoV
3rd Evard's Menacing TentaclesPHB II, Water BreathingPHB, BurrowRoF
4th Wall of SandSC, Balor NimbusSC
5th Transmute Stone to SandSand

This build idea came to me several days before the current Iron Chef round reveal. My asherati is completely independent of IC entries. All the coincidences are accidental.

This is the very beginning. Tentacle now is weak Erudite. All he could do - hide under sand and scout foes via Mindsight. He also know broad variety of powers, but strong limit of 1 power of every level per day hurts much.
Erudite 7 is much better! Seven tentacles with 10-15 ft reach, Charm monster (even 1 per day), variety of powers and possibility to use them. Much much better.

If Tentacle could find Psionic Charm without taking Illithid Legacy feat, of course this feat should be replaced. For example with Psionic BodyExpanded Psionic Handbook, p. 49.
Four more tentacles, powers up to 5th level including Plane Shift, True Seeing, and Transmute Stone to Sand, plus Greater Invisibility and Telekinesis SLA, stunting Illithid Blast. Tentacle has things to surprise opponents or be useful for friends.

Tentacle swims in the sand in 5-10 ft below surface and attack with tentacles foes above him. Mindsight or Psicrystal helps with pinpointing. And due sentient tentacle SA all this eleven attacks costs no actions for Tentacle.


Forced Sense Link could be used for better aiming at surface targets.
It's hard to overestimate the value of the Blood Wind for creature with eleven tentacles.
If Tentacle needs to attack a flying enemy combination of Bolt and Launch Bolt helps him.
Deep Breath, Water Breathing, and Channel the Psychic Dragon are ways to overcome asherati's water vulnerability.
Mental Rage if tentacles for some reason aren't an option.
Wall of Sand and Transmute Stone to Sand will make sand to swim where there was none before.
Silver Dragonmail is good free light armor.
Baleful Transposition. Change places with some surface dweller being at the depth of fifty or even more feet under the sand... One of the "I win" buttons.
Extend Tentacles - obvious.
Fearsome Grapple and Evard's Menacing Tentacles give Sand Tentacle up to six more tentacles. This six, plus two hands, plus ten already existent (without Voidmind's goo tentacle), plus three times Fuse Arms (first - fuse all this into one pair, second - fuse pair into single one, third - sprout goo tentacle and fuse them one more time) and Tentacle will have Strength score of 58. Add here half-farspawn's True Strike and you have alpha strike with 15-20 reach, +49 AB, 1d6+36 damage Improved Grab and Constrict.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/movie-monster/images/3/33/SandJellyfish.jpg

[Beni-Kujaku]

A hug once a day makes your worries go away!



Strigoel, the Bear Angel

„Be not afraid, 'cause I'll hug the bad things away!“

Once a battaillon of archons came to a woods on the Material to fight demons streaming from an Abyssal breach. One of them, the owl archon Barathor, found an unexpected comerade in battle: an owlbear female that was smarter then others of her kind, and able to control her species' rage enough to direct at the demons instead of indiscrimnately attacking any of them. Filled with compassion, he took her home to Celestia when the rift was closed and the battle over, and tought her the monk's arts to help her master her rage. During this time, affection bloomed, and she bore him a cub. And Barathor named him Strigoel.
And so Strigoel the Bear Angel walks the world. As the rage still lives in his heart, even if chained, he can empathize with those who would want to be good, but can't overcome their circumstances without help. So he swore to never harm a living being. Born of compassion, he is sure that most beings aren't bad, they just had bad things happen to them, and so he offers kindness and gentle hugs to those who need succor, and strong hugs to those who want to take out their suffering on others. He's not the smartest, but he has a keen eye for people's intentions.

LG Half-Celestial Huge Owlbear Monk 3/Paladin 5



Abilities
Initial
Owlbear
Half-Celestial
Vow of Poverty
Level Up
Huge Size
Total


STR
16
+10
+4
+6
-
+8
44


DEX
10
+2
+2
-
-
-2
12


CON
12
+10
+4
-
-
+4
30


INT
12
-8
+2
-
-
-
6


WIS
14
+2
+4
+2
+1
-
23


CHA
14
-
+4
+4
+2
-
24






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


1st
Owlbear 1
+1
+8
+4
+5
Concentration +9 (+1, CC), Diplomacy +6 (+2,CC), Listen +9 (+4), Sense Motive +7 (+2,CC), Spot +9 (+4)
Subduing Strike
Improved Grab, Scent


2nd
Owlbear 2
+2
+9
+5
+5
Concentration +9, Diplomacy +6, Intimidate +6 (+2,CC), Listen +10 (+1), Sense Motive +7, Spot +10 (+1)
-
-


3rd
Owlbear 3
+3
+9
+5
+6
Concentration +9, Diplomacy +9 (+1,CC (+2 Feat)), Intimidate +6, Listen +10, Sense Motive +8 (+1,CC), Spot +10
Sacred Vow
-


4th
Owlbear 4
+4
+10
+6
+6
Concentration +10 (+1, CC), Diplomacy +9, Intimidate +8 (+2,CC), Listen +10, Sense Motive +8, Spot +10
-
-


5th
Owlbear 5
+5
+10
+6
+6
Concentration +10, Diplomacy +10 (+1,CC), Intimidate +9 (+1,CC), Listen +10, Sense Motive +9 (+1,CC), Spot +10
-
-


6th
Half-Celestial LA 1
+5
+10
+6
+6
Concentration +10, Diplomacy +10, Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +9, Spot +10
-
Damage reduction, darkvision 60 ft., daylight, immunity to disease, resistence 10 to acid, cold and electricity, smite evil, spell-like abilities, spell resistence, +4 to saves against poison


7th
Half-Celestial LA 2
+5
+10
+6
+6
Concentration +10, Diplomacy +10, Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +9, Spot +10
-
-


8th
Half-Celestial LA 3
+5
+10
+6
+6
Concentration +10, Diplomacy +10, Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +9, Spot +10
-
-


9th
Monk 1
+5
+12
+8
+8
Concentration +10, Diplomacy +12 (Synergy +2), Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +11 (+2), Spot +10
Holy Subdual (B), Improved Grapple (B), Improved Unarmed Strike (B), Vow of Poverty
AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows, Unarmed Strike


10th
Monk 2
+6
+13
+9
+9
Concentration +10, Diplomacy +12, Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +13 (+2), Spot +10
Combat Reflexes (B)
Evasion


11th
Monk 3
+7
+13
+9
+9
Concentration +12 (+2), Diplomacy +12, Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +13, Spot +10
Vow of Nonviolence (B)
Fast Movement, Still Mind


12th
Paladin 1
+8
+15
+9
+9
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +13 (+1), Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +13, Spot +10
Ascetic Knight
Detect Good, Smite Evil, ACF: Holy Warrior


13th
Paladin 2
+9
+20
+13
+13
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +13, Intimidate +9, Listen +10, Sense Motive +14 (+1), Spot +10
Vow of Peace (B)
Divine Grace, Lay on Hands


14th
Paladin 3
+10
+22
+16
+16
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +15 (+1), Intimidate +10, Listen +10, Sense Motive +14, Spot +10
-
Aura of Courage, Divine Health


15th
Paladin 4
+11
+24
+17
+17
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +15, Intimidate +10, Listen +10, Sense Motive +15 (+1), Spot +10
Divine Justice (B, PHB2), Strength Devotion, Sanctify Natural Attack (B)
Turn Undead


16th
Paladin 5
+12
+25
+18
+18
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +16 (+1), Intimidate +10, Listen +10, Sense Motive +15, Spot +10
-
ACF: Divine Spirit


17th
Owlbear 6
+13
+26
+19
+19
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +17 (+1,CC), Intimidate +10, Listen +11 (+1), Sense Motive +16 (+1,CC), Spot +11 (+1)
Hands of a Healer (B)
-


18th
Owlbear 7
+14
+26
+19
+20
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +18 (+1,CC), Intimidate +10, Listen +13 (+1), Sense Motive +18 (+1,CC), Spot +13 (+1)
Protection Devotion
-


19th
Owlbear 8
+15
+27
+20
+20
Concentration +12, Diplomacy +19 (+1,CC), Intimidate +10, Listen +14 (+1), Sense Motive +19 (+1,CC), Spot +14 (+1)
Gift of Grace (B)
-


20th
Owlbear 9
+16
+30
+20
+22
Concentration +1, Diplomacy +20 (+1,CC), Intimidate +10, Listen +15 (+1), Sense Motive +20 (+1,CC), Spot +15 (+1)
-
Huge size




With the first level of Monk, the basic building blocks for a non-lethal grappler are laid. Against most enemies, Strigoel will use his claws to deal non-lethal damage and try to initiate a grapple using Improved Grab (against strong evil enemies, he may also stack a non-lethal Smite Evil on top of it). With his flight he has the necessary mobility to catch up with mobile or ranged enemies, and his spell-like abilities grant a certain support. As Vow of Peace hasn't come online yet, lethal damage is also on the table against enemies that can't be wrestled or beaten into unconsciousness. Finally, with his ability bonuses and skill distribution he makes a decent party face.
After three levels of Monk and four of Paladin, Strigoel's focus on non-lethal damage has grown. The Monk levels have given him greater defenses and mobility, Vow of Poverty has started giving out even more defenses and boosts, and with Aura of Courage and Lay on Hands he can support any allies he has better. Normally, Strigoel would gain spellcasting on this level, but as he would only gain two spell slots (and no other over the course of the build), I chose to trade them away for the Holy Warrior ACF. The bonus feat granted this way and the Strength devotion feat allow him to actually use his many Turn Undead uses for something worthwhile, and both feats boost his offensive power. (Sadly I found nothing worthwhile I could trade the redundant Divine Health away for.)
After a fifth Paladin level I chose to fill the last levels with racial HD. This way he grows to Huge size on 20th level, upping his grapple game and his ability to use Improved Grab even more. Also, these HD grant more skill points, which have been quite meager for Strigoel since he started taking class levels. The feats and the ACF taken (which was partially chosen because, well, what does a giant flying bear need a horse for?) during those levels allow him to branch out of his role a bit, focusing more on the healing and protecting sides of the character.


The core idea of this character was „Mr. Hugs“, the friendly owlbear who grapples people non-lethally into submission. As grappling isn't exactly well supported, adding the additional focus on exalted feats (also fitting with the Half-Celestial template) seemed appropriate. From there the character evolved.
I did consider different options for filling the last few levels. One option was to go full paladin, but many of the middle paladin levels seem kinda boring. Alternately I thought about shifting more skill points into Concentration and going into the Apostle of Peace prestige class, which would make Strigoel a lot more caster-like, but I felt doing this would muddle the original concept of grappler too much.
By the way, if Dragon Magazine was allowed, I would've added the Beast Strike feat from Dragon #355 at the earliest possible moment (propably replacing one of the Devotion feats) to ensure that claw attacks and the monk levels synergize better. Oh well.




Type
Name
Book
Page


Race
Owlbear
Monster Manual
206


Template
Half-Celestial
Monster Manual
144


Class
Monk
Player's Handbook
39


Class
Paladin
Player's Handbook
42


Alternate Class Feature
Holy Warrior
Complete Champion
49


Alternate Class Feature
Divine Spirit
Dungeonscape
11


Feat
Subduing Strike
Book of Exalted Deeds
46


Feat
Sacred Vow
Book of Exalted Deeds
45


Feat
Vow of Poverty
Book of Exalted Deeds
48


Feat
Holy Subdual
Book of Exalted Deeds
44


Feat
Improved Unarmed Strike
Player's Handbook
96


Feat
Improved Grapple
Player's Handbook
95


Feat
Combat Reflexes
Player's Handbook
92


Feat
Vow of Nonviolence
Book of Exalted Deeds
47


Feat
Ascetic Knight
Complete Adventurer
105


Feat
Vow of Peace
Book of Exalted Deeds
48


Feat
Strength Devotion
Complete Champion
62


Feat
Divine Justice
Player's Handbook 2
88


Feat
Sanctify Natural Attack
Book of Exalted Deeds
46


Feat
Hands of a Healer
Book of Exalted Deeds
43


Feat
Protection Devotion
Complete Champion
61


Feat
Gift of Grace
Book of Exalted Deeds
43

[Beni-Kujaku]

And here we have our three entries for this competition! Thanks for these nice builds and enjoy your read!

Does anybody want to judge this comp? Inevitability?

[loky1109]

And table!

Name Alignment / Race Class Levels Chef Total Place
Aly "the Peanut" (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754403&postcount=17) LN Fey Spirit Phrenic Half-Fey Lesser Mur-Zhagul Overwhelming Attack Monk 1/Bereft 5
Sand Tentacle (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754404&postcount=18) CE Half-Farspawn Half-Illithid Voidmind Asherati Spell to Power Erudite 7/Flayerspawn Psychic 5
Strigoel (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754408&postcount=19) LG Half-Celestial Owlbear Monk 3/Holy Warrior Divine Spirit Paladin 5

[Inevitability]

And here we have our three entries for this competition! Thanks for these nice builds and enjoy your read!

Does anybody want to judge this comp? Inevitability?

Yeah, I'll try and get something up this week. Haven't looked at the entries or stubs yet so I'll post judging criteria in a sec and try to determine for myself what I do/do not expect in terms of originality.

[Inevitability]

Fair and unbiased judging standards, scores to follow:

All scores start at 1.

Originality:
Half-Fey is considered good enough to take in regular optimization contexts, and Half-Illithid has shown up in this competition a few times, so I'm going to slightly penalize the originality on those. Yes, getting flight and tons of SLAs for two levels is worth it, we know. Up to 0.5 points for how much I'm surprised by your monstrous half.

How often do your class levels show up in optimization contests? I'll be looking at more than just the class you took here: druid will get a lukewarm reception no matter how many levels you take, but something like marshall or monk (where low-level dips are common and anything more unheard of) can get you between 0 and the full 1 point.

What about your other build elements? Feats, skills, spells, ACFs, whatever; can you surprise me or am I looking at handbook fare? 1 point to be gained here.

Do you do something quirky and unique on either the mechanical or practical level? Do you have a funny little core concept that I'm interested and amused by? Can I, in one sentence, sum up something that sets your build apart from others in a similar role, besides the obvious monstrosity? Up to 1 point here.

Finally, up to 0.5 points for backstory and fluff. If you wrote a backstory that amounts to more than listing off all the sources of your power, you get points here.

Power:
Whatever your build wants to do after initiative is rolled: how good is it at that? In the sort of encounter you want, how well do you perform there? 1 point for excelling at your chosen combat role. Assume that the more power you're cooking with, the more power I expect; no points for making a cleric that outperforms the fighter at tanking.

How bad are your weaknesses? Is there a common type of monster you just fall flat against? Can spellcasters identify and target your weak save? Or do you just die to a surprise round crit? 1 point to be gained here.

The out-of-combat roles are trap expert, scout, face, arcane utility caster and divine utility caster. You get 0.5 points for fulfilling one of these properly, and another 0.5 points if you can fulfill a second or have a lot of miscellaneous little abilities (tracking, knowledge, crafting).

How consistent is your build throughout your career? I'm not asking you to be perfectly playable from level 1 on, but I like to see builds come online before ECL 5, and I really don't like builds that take beyond ECL 10 to get going. A build that is unplayable at low levels because of RHD limits won't get an automatic penalty here, but you better have your concept together after taking your first actual class level. If you miss key feats like Precise Shot or Weapon Finesse for a long part of your career, you miss out on the 0.5 points to be gained here.

How consistent is your build throughout the adventuring day? Having limited abilities per day is fine, but not when they're critical to your functioning. If you can keep going for four or more encounters a day I award 0.5 points, half that for builds that run out of juice after 3.

Elegance:
Do you take multiclass XP penalties? 1 point for avoiding them.

Is your build in mechanical order? Did you remember all prerequisites, assign your skill points right, and list your sources? 1 point if so.

Do you rely on ambiguous rules, DM-approved adaptations, or known cheese that most tables will ban? 1 point for making the DM not throw books at you.

Finally, can your build see normal play? If you rely on flavor requirements, can you realistically get them? Do you need alignment shifts at specific levels? Can you use humanoid-sized loot, open a door, or climb a ladder? 1 point for making something playable.

Monstrosity:
How monstrous-feeling is your presence in the party? Whenever your turn comes up, do your fellow players get the sense that they're not gaming with Standard Human 349? 1.5 points for impressing me with your monstrous feel.

How much do you make use of the monstrous features gained from your template? Redundancy with class levels earns you deductions here, while covering your class's or monster's traditional weak points gets you points. 1.5 points for making good use of your halfhood.

Do you use the monster for anything beyond it's raw statblock? Do you use the [Evil] subtype to sneak into a Fiend of X class? Do you make use of Alter Self and an uncommon typing? Are you a kuo-toa who actually takes those kuo-toa-specific feats? 1 point here.

[Inevitability]

Rankings! Looks like we got some nice even spacing. The scores felt a bit low to me, but looking at the last round I judged, they're not that much worse.


Originality (2.75)
Half-Fey was probably the best out of the templates and certainly the one that optimizers are most familiar with, but the troll drags this back up a little. 0.25/0.5

Monk 1 for overwhelming attack? Hardly novel. On the other hand, Bereft is so obscure that I confused it with Forsaker for a moment. 0.75/1

Magic in the Blood was my first thought when I tried to optimize for this competition myself; I'm unsurprised to find it here. Boost SLA is predictable along the same lines. Truenaming is rarely seen in competitions like this, and Thunderclap is something I had to look up, but Supernatural Transformation is well-known and your other skills and feats are pretty basic. Fey Spirit is obscure enough for me to say this is about even overall. 0.5/1

You don't really have a sort of concept that I'm all that impressed by. Yes, the hellboy reference is cute, but it's just there because you're a naturalized evil outsider with True Name stuff going on; you don't fight like him, you don't go through a similar arc, it's an empty nod with no substance to it. The build feels like a pile of SLAs stapled to a troll, and little more. 0.25/1

Yeah, that bit in the criteria where I went 'your backstory must be more than listing off all your power sources'? I wrote that before looking at your build: it's just such a common structure to slap into a submission. No points for what's basically an extended justification to have psionics, fey ancestry, troll regeneration, truenaming, and mulhorand descent in one build. 0/0.5

Power (3.25)
Combat happens and you start spamming boosted-DC SLAs, while being rather hard to kill and having solid saves (plus regeneration and energy resistance to cover your weakest one), and even being able to turn invisible and render foes deaf (though that strategy has so many issues that I'm not greatly factoring it into your score). I'd give you full marks here, but let's talk about the elephant in the room: your attempt at Truespeaking.

A CR20 enemy sets a DC of 55 to affect, and your final modifier seems to be... +24. Sure, let's give you that Greater Amulet of the Silver Tongue you want, let's give you a masterwork item, let's give you an item of +6 int and a tome of +4 int... and we're up to +41, which took a meaningful chunk of your WBL and leaves your checks with a 70% chance to do nothing before considering the law of resistance. Truenaming sucks, you knew it sucked, and you went and dedicated two feats and one-fourth of your levels to it anyway: there was an opportunity cost there and you know it. With only 75% of your build meaningfully contributing to combat, I think 0.75/1 is a very poetic score here.

It seems that a really big chunk of your in-combat presence involves mind-affecting abilities, which many enemies are immune to. Casting Glitterdust on those monsters, or Mass Invisibility / Haste on your allies, or deafening foes (which undead and constructs are still immune to) is cute, but not actually an acceptable amount of power at higher levels. Modest save-or-suck effects do not a capable combatant make, and even with 30 strength and overwhelming attack, you having only +7 BAB and no weapons better than a quarterstaff leaves me skeptical about your melee capabilities. 0.5/1

Out of combat you have some social SLAs, by which I mean charm and dominate effects. Your intimidate is very respectable between the ranks, charisma, and size, assuming you also boost it with Fey Spirit (more on that later). However, all of these have the issue where they turn social interaction into an all-or-nothing gamble: either the die roll goes your way and you get what you want, or it doesn't and that NPC hates you now. You become a sort of taxicab at level 20 with 3/day Psionic Teleport, but by the time they hit level 20 a lot of parties might already be inside the final dungeon, and almost certainly picked up some means of transportation earlier. 0.25/1

Your build becomes legally playable at level 14, and your central concept is up and running by then. 0.5/0.5

Those lower-end save-or-sucks I mentioned earlier seem likely to show up at the tall end of the adventuring day. Yes, you have a lot of SLAs, but there will come a point where the Psychic Crushes and Psionic Dominates have run out and you're stuck using mediocre control spells like Hold Monster or Psionic Blast. Still, you have a lot of SLAs, so half points here still. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (4.25)
No multiclass XP penalties. 1/1

Mechanically, I find very little to take issue with. That said, I don't like how you didn't even specify the skill boost obtained from Fey Spirit (I'd assume Intimidate, but you never say that!): I expect a complete build, with all choices explicitly made. (0.75/1)

Alright, you knew this was coming. The interpretation that lesser planetouched can be applied to demon trolls is, save to say, extremely controversial, like so much about that variant. More to the point, lesser planetouched are inherently a variant rule, and can't be used without forcing the DM to make real changes to the game world and its NPCs, so using it warrants an elegance penalty. 0.5/1

Would this work in a party? Probably: you have thumbs, you have all the humanoid body slots, you're Large and can thus get by with minimal squeezing. 1/1

Monstrosity (3)
Do you feel monstrous? Not really; you feel like a psion, or an enchanter, or a very sad truenamer. Spending a full-round action to use Thunderclap is unlikely to be worth it, and where a normal troll can also waltz in and punch stuff I remain sceptical about your melee ability. Perhaps when someone hits you and you regenerate it off, it'll serve as a reminder that you're different from Bob the Telepath. 0.5/1.5

The type change caused by half-fey is usually bad, but in your case it improves on what would otherwise be nine awful humanoid HD. You get flight, which has okay synergy with SLA usage. You're immune to enchantments, which is a nasty school of magic to get hit by, but at the same time Will is your best save already. Half-fey low-light vision is largely eclipsed by 90 ft. darkvision, the ability scores work reasonably well with what your troll chassis provides (constitution penalties will never be fun, but at least you can take them rather well). Lastly, the SLAs are obviously core to your build concept. Overall I'm seeing heavy investment in one feature and acceptable use cases for the rest. 1/1.5

Well, aside from the half-fey type thing I mentioned, your monstrosity lets you easily hit the 30 STR requirement for Thunderclap, which would be tough otherwise, and being Large helps out with intimidation. You also qualify for Bereft with your innate three languages, which is pretty cool to see. Still, being a fey or a troll or a psionic creature is at most incidental throughout most of your build. 0.5/1

Final thoughts: I'm walking away with the feeling that you started optimizing half-fey and did so in a very competent (if obvious) way, and then just kinda... stopped.

You decided to grab half-fey so you could use the MitB combo, saw you had to be planetouched and grabbed the strongest available one (perhaps even looked through the planetouched handbook?), added in that one other SLA template that routinely shows up in optimization discussions, grabbed a few reasonably-known feats that made your main schtick better... and then you used the final six levels to go all in on Thunderclap + Bereft, instead of covering the very real flaws that were holding back your core concept, or working out a cool secondary trick that actually had synergy with your main one. So many of the lost points could've been reclaimed if you'd just put more thought in those last six levels, from originality to monstrosity to power.



Originality (3.5)
Half-Illithid was expected, but half-farspawn was not and neither was voidmind. 0.5/0.5

Spell to Power Erudite shows up from time to time but flayerspawn psychic is rarer, and at any rate I didn't expect this level breakdown. 0.75/1

Mindsight was the obvious thing to pick for a half-illithid, extended reach shows up reasonably often, and the half-illithid + illithid heritage tentacle-spam route is a trick I'm familiar with: I made a build around it about half a year ago (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25622623&postcount=58). I hate to say it, but I could predict most of your feats from the fact you were building with a half-illithid. Skills are par for the course for a psion. Your powers are your saving grace here: a few of them catch my eye. 0.25/1

A tentacled monstrosity swimming beneath the sand is a compelling image, and your intended tricks show creative and original thought behind them. 1/1

I'm impressed you took the bold step of putting Ambiguously Gay Illithid-Uuvuudaum Intercourse in your backstory, but also unsure why you would do it. At any rate it amounts to little more than a dutiful listing of your various power sources and thus gets zero points. 0/0.5

Power (1.75)
Assume your key trick works for a second, and you get 11-13 tentacle attacks a turn, for free. They have +8 to hit, assuming they all count as primary weapons. That's not just bad, that's dire, that's the kind of to-hit a WotC-made sample fighter would have at level four. Maybe one crits, obviously fails to confirm, hits for 1d4+3, gets to attempt a grapple, and fails, because you also have +8 to grapple. Like, if at level 20 you somehow encounter a wizard who's standing on a sandy field, unprotected, unprepared, who dumped strength, his grapple modifier is still higher than yours. You put a lot of resources into something that just... doesn't work, numbers-wise. And with the tentacles a non-factor, what else is there?

Your manifesting? 10th-level manifesting, at level 20; absolutely horrid. Your various mind blasts? You get the half-illithid and voidmind ones 1/day and the feat-based one thrice per day (except not, see below), and they have the best save DC out of your many abilities. And by 'best' I mean 'around 20': which should be what the wizard is currently hitting with his expendable mid-level spells. Your farspawn SLAs? Maybe, but note most are 1/day and none are all that impressive.

You can deliver a single big hit, after several turns of setting up, at which point you suggest you want your 12 HD psion to grapple the enemy, like getting literally tied down in melee is a good thing for you. Your listed 'alpha strike' strategy puts you immobilized within reach of every other enemy: this kills the caster.

I'm sorry for this extended treatise tearing into everything your build wants to do, but... you decided to use the notoriously powerful StP erudite, made it the centerpiece of your build, and then delivered... this. You gave up half your caster levels to fuel a trick that does not work; that's worth a power penalty. 0/1

Even with 26 constitution, your missing levels, psion HD, lack of good armor, and low Reflex combine to make you pretty frail. Sure, you can dive under the sand to protect yourself; you could also run out of the room, both these plans have the same issue. 0/1

Out of combat, you have a lot of knowledge skills and some SLAs. Charm Monster and Detect Thoughts aren't awful, but they don't make you a face. Your powers known are limited in scope, but you could get more, and I'd give you the points for being an utility caster if it wasn't all so terribly late relative to when you could (should) be getting it. So-so casting and so-so charming make for half a point in total. 0.5/1

Your frailty is much worse at low levels, where you eat a ton of LA at once and haven't gotten the benefits from compounded high constitution yet. Worse, most of your abilities are HD dependent, so all the things that look kinda-okay by level 20 are awful when you need them most. I don't know when this build becomes kind of playable, but it isn't before ECL 10. 0/0.5

Alright, so by level 20 you boast 123 power points a day, which is good enough to manifest a ML10 power four combats long thrice per combat, and perhaps covering additional rounds with a SLA or mind blast or something. Still, that puts such a strain on your resources that I'm going to express mild scepticism that you can really stay at your desired power level towards the end of the day. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (2.5)
No multiclass XP penalties. 1/1

You cannot enter flayerspawn psychic. Illithid Legacy requires Illithid Heritage and another illithid feat, but you only have Illithid Heritage. This means you don't have Psionic Charm without getting a powerstone somehow. Moreover, you need to be able to speak Undercommon to enter Flayerspawn Psychic, and it's not a bonus language for Asherati, so you're missing two skill points in Speak Language to qualify. You fail to qualify for a key PrC: this is a glaring mechanical error that invalidates a large part of your build. 0/1

(The real painful thing is that Expanded Knowledge would've worked to get Psionic Charm and keep the build mostly intact, but you overlooked a prerequisite and picked what seemed to be a slightly better feat)

Furthermore, Voidmind says:


Sentient Tentacle (Ex): A voidmind creature's tentacle attacks of its own accord. The creature can direct it to attack certain targets, but the psionic nature of the tentacle enables it to flex and move in combat without hindering the creature's other combat abilities.

Note the singular here: Sentient Tentacle applies to one tentacle attack, presumably the one granted by voidmind. I really don't see a way to read this differently, unless you're willfully interpreting it wrong. Even then, it meets the definition of 'ambiguous rules' by a wide margin.

We see another issue when it comes to your intended trick of Mindsight-sniping people through the sand.


Some powers have a target or targets. You manifest these powers on creatures or objects, as defined by the power itself. You must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target. However, you do not have to select your target until you finish manifesting the power.

[...]

A line of effect is a straight, unblocked path that indicates what a power can affect. A solid barrier cancels a line of effect, but it is not blocked by fog, darkness, and other factors that limit normal sight. You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you manifest a power on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect.

Now, maybe you can argue that a five foot-layer of sand does not form a 'solid barrier'. Perhaps your DM will even buy that! But it should be clear: there's enough issues of interpretation and DM dependence that I cannot give this build any points for elegance here. 0/1

Unlike some monstrous PCs, you have a humanoid form and can interact with the world normally. However, you heavily rely on the presence of sand on the battlefield, which just isn't something you can assume will be there. You can't create it until level 15, and even afterwards your PP and daily powers are so limited that using an action to set up Wall of Sand each combat hardly fixes the problem. 0.5/1

Monstrosity (2.5)
Here's the thing: over ten tentacle attacks per round should feel very monstrous... but if you're just looking at a handful of dice and saying 'oh, none of those hit this turn', they don't. Your most impactful powers are probably Mind Blast knockoffs (which, to be fair, is an iconic monster ability!) and the occasional successful Psychic Crush or Psionic Plane Shift. I like the mind blasts, but for the most part this is just a weird psion. 0.5/1.5

So on the half-illithid side you get good use out of Telepathy and the stat boosts. Mind Blast and Psionics aren't particularly optimized but should see some use, while Extract and Grapple will amost never work. From half-farspawn you get immunity to poison, DR/magic (which you barely grab the highest tier of), electricity resistance, and acid resistance that Voidmind supersedes. You also get the ability to change shape to make two more tentacle attacks, which I... don't think your build considered, given the number of attacks you say you make? There's some solid defensive stuff here, but your defenses just have so many holes on so many sides that I'm not sure this is enough to fix it. Both these templates give you SR... which scales with HD and thus does nothing for you. They also give tentacle attacks, which you obviously focus on.

See, I can't help but come back to the fact that so much of these templates is just made irrelevant by your own build choices. Your grapple didn't have to be +8, you didn't have to reduce your HD so much, you didn't have to take a better source of protection from acid. You're pretty clearly maxing out your number of tentacles, but you make poor use of them, and everything else those templates grant is kind of left by the wayside or kept around for incidental bonuses at best. In a round about optimizing those templates, that's not a good look! Yes, you (try to) use one feature heavily, you pay some attention to others, but in general I think it's really obvious that the focus of this build was never on half-farspawn, just on a single of its features. 0.5/1.5

Do we do anything with our monster aspects that aren't immediately obvious? I guess the fuse arms trick is neat. 0.5/1

Final thoughts:
I honestly like the ideas behind this build. There's an eagerness to it, a real 'look at this cool thing I can do' energy. As I said, I've built with tentacle spam myself, I admire the guts it takes to double down on that and throw in half-farspawn too. I like the style of optimization where you think out of the box and bypass the raw numbers: the attempt to become untargetable while hitting people with psionics is clearly aiming for that.

But well, the tricks don't work. You oversaw some rules, you didn't cut numbers out of the loop well enough, and it all comes back to bite you. That sucks, I've been there, and I'm sorry it happened.



Originality (3.5)
Half-Celestial? Owlbear? Didn't expect to see those. 0.5/0.5

Monk 3 and paladin 5 are hardly the expected breakpoints for those classes, even if the classes themselves are common dips. 1/1

A VoP build isn't exactly groundbreaking, but Ascetic Knight is basically never used and those devotion and exalted feats are not the most common ones. 0.5/1

The 'mr hugs' thing you were going for came through decently, but grappling isn't the grand mechanical innovation i was hoping for. 0.5/1

Well, at least your backstory didn't include a bit about Strigoel joining a monastry and an order of paladins... 0/0.5

Power (3.25)
You're good at what you choose to do: simple as that. 44 strength, +16 BAB, and Huge size make for a terrifying grappler, and you control a big enough chunk of the battlefield that I'm willing to say that hampers opponents. Combat Reflexes makes you a bit more relevant outside of your turn, speed-boosted flight adds to your mobility, and your saves and HP are dauntingly high. 1/1

Your build has rough matchups aplenty. Incorporeal foes, highly mobile foes, Freedom of Movement, crowds of minions, illusions, battlefield control... There's a few low-level spells like Web or Major Image that mess you up with no saving throw: that's bad! You can very easily end up irrelevant in a given battle. 0/1

When the battle is over, what do you do? You can't scout or trip traps, and Half-Celestial does not give a lot of out-of-combat spells either. You can heal, but you're hardly a substitute for wands or a dedicated healbot; a single Heal spell outperforms your entire LoH + Divine Spirit pool. 1/day you can fix a whole lot of problems by summoning a Leonal, Avoral, or Couatl... for about a hundred seconds. You want to be a face, which has its issues (see elegance), and at any rate I'm not too impressed by your social skills. Being reliably useful in one niche situation would get you half a point here; not even being that earns you a further reduction.0.25/1

From the get-go you're a big flying grappler with ascetism boosts. Sure, that gets points. 0.5/0.5

Your core combat routine does not rely on limited-use abilities. 0.5/0.5

Elegance (2.25) (2.75)
Multiclass XP penalties are an unfortunate reality of this build. Ascetic Knight does not change your favored classes, so the moment you take the fifth paladin level you get an XP penalty that persists for the rest of your build. You also take a penalty during your first paladin level, which you could've avoided by moving monk 3 back a little. Changing your levels to monk 4/paladin 4 would've fixed this, and so would taking a PrC. 0/1

Your skills look wonky to me. Did you not factor the templated intelligence boost in for your first five RHD? Because that's incorrect from a mechanical and flavor perspective both. Also, it didn't cost you points, but please don't factor your assorted bonuses into the skill and save modifiers on your sheet, or at least tell me which ones you are or aren't counting. Synergy bonuses get added to your diplomacy, but Vow of Peace's boost does not? 0.75/1

Is the DM going to take issue with anything here? Well, there's that bit where you are taking class levels and then resume advancing your RHD: I'm pretty sure that's not allowed, but I'm willing to remove this penalty if you can show me a rule backing it up. The RHD thing is legal under contest rules, so no. 0.5/1 1/1

Are there issues with your character likely to pop up during play? Well, yes. "VoPers cannot open doors" is a meme, but if you come across a normal human-sized door what can you do with it? No fine manipulators to open it with, no ability to squeeze through, no hypothetical magic gear to help. Worse, you tell me you want to become a backup face, but you can't actually, y'know, talk. Owlbear mouthparts do not support human speech, and once more you've locked yourself out of fixing that with magic loot. On top of that, your primary skillset really calls for combat, but Vow of Peace restricts your allies in how they approach fights: that's not great! 0/1

Monstrosity (2.75)
Focusing on Huge-sized grappling and natural attacks makes you quite monstrous in a 'hulk smash' kinda way, but grappling and natural weapons are still strats normal PCs can employ; merely having bigger numbers won't get you a full score here. 1/1.5

Half-Celestial gives you Flight, which is absolutely essential to the character. It also fixes your awful RHD skills. Smite Evil kind of benefits from Holy Subdual. As you yourself admit, Immunity to Disease is redundant (for future reference, several substitution levels in Champions of Valor as well as Pelor's Blessing from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft swap out Divine Health, using these would have improved your score). Worse, the DR and energy resistances partially overlap with VoP, making them less impactful than they'd have been on a normal PC. Overcoming DR as if your weapons are magic is useful, but again; VoP does it already. There's a sort of logic to taking two MAD classes to make use of the all-round ability boosts. At-will Daylight requires effort to make work, which I'm not seeing here.

The SLAs are a really mixed bag. Some are so small that I wonder if they're even relevant, others really need some kind of boost to do anything (Holy Word), and others again should be fine.

I feel weird about half-celestial: I guess it's doing something for you with the flight and SLAs alone, but did you really get as much out of it as you could have? I don't think so: at times you even made choices that actively take the spotlight away from it. 0.75/1.5

Is there anything neat you do with the fact that you're a half-celestial owlbear specifically? Any feats that benefit from being nonhumanoid or winged or an outsider? Not really; VoP having a lower opportunity cost is something, but that's not actually a good thing to reward. 0/1

Final thoughts:
When I look at this build I see a fun and memorable concept with real and meaningful dedication to your big idea: I like that! But you're also a VoP monk/paladin with lots of RHD, which is almost deliberate in how it eschews traditional optimization advice. Unfortunately, that optimization advice exists for good reason, and your build has real flaws that it can't really fix. Ultimately, this character feels like a cohort: big, memorable, with obvious support traits, but very simple and unable to contribute to many situations. I could see a cleric taking Leadership so she can fly around on this (perhaps without the Vow of Peace); I'm less sure about playing it as a standalone PC.

Ultimately, the main issue is just that you took the limitations of your concept for granted, rather than trying to find a way to overcome them. A theme throughout the build was that you were a big nonhumanoid itemless bruiser, with exactly the strengths and weaknesses that those words imply. I'd have liked to see a bit more of a focus on mitigating those weaknesses: it would have positively impacted a lot of your score.

[Tzardok]

Your skills look wonky to me. Did you not factor the templated intelligence boost in for your first five RHD? Because that's incorrect from a mechanical and flavor perspective both. Also, it didn't cost you points, but please don't factor your assorted bonuses into the skill and save modifiers on your sheet, or at least tell me which ones you are or aren't counting. Synergy bonuses get added to your diplomacy, but Vow of Peace's boost does not? 0.75/1

Sorry about that. First time participant, wasn't familiar with the whole thing. :smallredface:


Is the DM going to take issue with anything here? Well, there's that bit where you are taking class levels and then resume advancing your RHD: I'm pretty sure that's not allowed, but I'm willing to remove this penalty if you can show me a rule backing it up. 0.5/1
Normally it isn't allowed, but it's in the house rules of this competition:



Monsters with racial hit dice may gain an additional hit die instead of taking a character level. This functions as advancing a monster this way would under other circumstances. You cannot advance any monster beyond the maximum number of racial hit dice noted in its Advancement entry. You can advance that way before, after, or in-between taking actual class levels.

[Inevitability]

Ah, in the interest of anonymity disputes are typically sent to the chairman instead of directly to the judge, just a heads-up. I don't see it mattering right now, but perhaps in future competitions it will.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me towards that line, score updated.

[loky1109]

I have no disputes. I maybe have something to say, but nothing that could change points significantly.

Updated table.
Name Alignment / Race Class Levels Chef Inevitability Total Place
Aly "the Peanut" (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754403&postcount=17) LN Fey Spirit Phrenic Half-Fey Lesser Mur-Zhagul Overwhelming Attack Monk 1/Bereft 5 13.25 13.25 1st
Sand Tentacle (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754404&postcount=18) CE Half-Farspawn Half-Illithid Voidmind Asherati Spell to Power Erudite 7/Flayerspawn Psychic 5 10.25 10.25 3rd
Strigoel (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754408&postcount=19) LG Half-Celestial Owlbear Monk 3/Holy Warrior Divine Spirit Paladin 5 12.25 12.25 2nd

[Beni-Kujaku]

Well, since disputes have been handled, another big thank you to Inevitability for his judging!

Congratulations to both contestants, especially Tzardok for his first participation to an optimization competition, and also to loky1109 who earned the gold medal with Aly "the Peanut"!

Name Alignment / Race Class Levels Chef Inevitability Total Place
Aly "the Peanut" (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754403&postcount=17) LN Fey Spirit Phrenic Half-Fey Lesser Mur-Zhagul Overwhelming Attack Monk 1/Bereft 5 loky1109 13.25 13.25 1st
Sand Tentacle (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754404&postcount=18) CE Half-Farspawn Half-Illithid Voidmind Asherati Spell to Power Erudite 7/Flayerspawn Psychic 5 loky1109 10.25 10.25 3rd
Strigoel (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25754408&postcount=19) LG Half-Celestial Owlbear Monk 3/Holy Warrior Divine Spirit Paladin 5 Tzardok 12.25 12.25 2nd


I will try to find new themes for the next competition probably tomorrow. In the mean time, what did you think of this iteration, including those who didn't participate? What would you have changed?

And as always, if you have any idea for a theme, do tell, and I'll include it in the next vote.

[Tzardok]

It was certainly an experience. I'm not sure when I'll again get inspiration for something like that, but I'm at least happy that I managed to get a silver medal despite my allergy to optimization. :smalltongue:

[Inevitability]

I will try to find new themes for the next competition probably tomorrow. In the mean time, what did you think of this iteration, including those who didn't participate? What would you have changed?

And as always, if you have any idea for a theme, do tell, and I'll include it in the next vote.

For themes: I'd be interested in seeing a contest based around minerals still, I think there's a lot of earth/rock/metal/crystal themed monsters and definitely some evocative abilities relating to them, and there's a lot of ways you could interpret the theme of 'rock monster'.

Perhaps a contest based around breath weapons or gaze attacks? Quite widespread among monsters but pretty diverse in practice, with lots of different chassis options.

Alternatively, something relating to the monster's role in the party: perhaps a contest where we're supposed to build a weird monster that can serve as the party's trap expert or face?

As for my lack of participation this round... I could come up with builds that got use out of the various templates, I just couldn't make something where the template felt like the centerpiece. I think it's a bit of a theme for me: I have an easier time in the rounds based around a theme or high-level restriction than a discrete mechanical element.

[loky1109]

In the mean time, what did you think of this iteration, including those who didn't participate? What would you have changed?
This round wasn't the best. I think it was because of SI. Half templates are too limiting. Plus, at least Half-Illithid and Half-Vampire are humanoid only templates which strongly contradicts with "The base untemplated creature can of course also be monstrous" note.


And as always, if you have any idea for a theme, do tell, and I'll include it in the next vote.
I suggest one idea: "Reborn" - "You should change your type (or body? or true appearance?) during progression."


Inevitability, thank you for your judging!
I have a couple of words to say. Nothing that would deserve to be a dispute.
About Aly.

Mechanically, I find very little to take issue with. That said, I don't like how you didn't even specify the skill boost obtained from Fey Spirit (I'd assume Intimidate, but you never say that!): I expect a complete build, with all choices explicitly made.
Yes, you are mostly right here, but I looked at LA Assignment Thread and this quote threw me off:


You can make your voice either soothing or terrifying whenever you wish, getting a +10 insight bonus to Diplomacy or Intimidate respectively. No indication on whether this is a one-time choice or if you can choose each time you use it.
I should mention that if it's a one-time choice - it should be Intimidate.


and then you used the final six levels to go all in on Thunderclap + Bereft, instead of covering the very real flaws that were holding back your core concept, or working out a cool secondary trick that actually had synergy with your main one
You are totally right. It was last week (or even last few days) entry, and this is root of these flaws. Plus it was born from another totally different idea (half-fey, too).

About Sand Tentacle.

You cannot enter flayerspawn psychic. Illithid Legacy requires Illithid Heritage and another illithid feat, but you only have Illithid Heritage.
It's a shame. (((
I replaced feats in the finale update. Extended Reach was at later level, Illithid Heritage at 3rd, first Illithid Grapple at 5th. I didn't overlook prerequisite, I overcooked my entry.

Actually this entry also was born from the same another idea and it maybe made its mark here, too. I think I became too fascinated with making and really oversaw important aspects (AB, for example).

[Prime32]

I had a build in mind for this... until I realised that half-illithid is humanoid only.
(half-illithid giant octopus (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/octopusGiant.htm) druid 1/wavekeeper 3/X 6)

Actually getting the humanoid type would also open access to the LA +0 amphibious template for a simpler way of moving on land. A were-octopus in animal form wouldn't work well because they can't use all the octopus and half-illithid natural weapons at the same time.

[loky1109]

I had a build in mind for this... until I realised that half-illithid is humanoid only.
(half-illithid giant octopus (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/octopusGiant.htm) druid 1/wavekeeper 3/X 6)

I thought about were giant octopus. ;)

[Thurbane]

This is why I much prefer the Half-Illithid template from Underdark. Sadly, that one has yet to be rated in the LA thread.

[loky1109]

Another round theme idea: "Signature SLA." Like Signature Spell IC E6 round (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?627038-Iron-Chef-E6-Appetizer-Edition-Round-XXIX), but SLA.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Okay, what do you think of these themes:

The three states of monster:

Solid rock: the character must be a Construct, have the [Earth] subtype, or otherwise be constituted of a mineral, stone, metal or crystal, like a crystalline troll.

Liquid slime: the character must be an Ooze, have the [Water] subtype, or otherwise be able to change into a liquid state, like the blood elemental or the magma mephit.

Gaseous ghosts: the character must be incorporeal, have the [Air] subtype, or otherwise be able to change into a gaseous state, like the belker or alkilith.


And a bonus theme for the plasma, fourth state of matter:
The power of the sun: Your body must be physically hot, to the point of dealing fire damage to creatures and/or objects touching you, and you must be able to either move your enemies closer to you against their will (to mimic gravitation), or use "sunbursts", omnidirectional attacks affecting everyone around you (at least all the squares adjacent to you). Bonus point if you can do both.


Which one would you prefer?



It was certainly an experience. I'm not sure when I'll again get inspiration for something like that, but I'm at least happy that I managed to get a silver medal despite my allergy to optimization. :smalltongue:

You know, Power is only one of four categories. This competition is as much optimization as just showing off cool character concepts that you thought of. Anyway, if you have inspiration again, you'll always be very welcome here (and in any other comp, of course)!


Perhaps a contest based around breath weapons or gaze attacks? Quite widespread among monsters but pretty diverse in practice, with lots of different chassis options.

Alternatively, something relating to the monster's role in the party: perhaps a contest where we're supposed to build a weird monster that can serve as the party's trap expert or face?

I like breath weapons and gaze attacks, and probably suggest it for the next round, but I'm not sure about the roles. I feel like it's both too large (any monster can put skill points in Diplomacy) and too limiting (people will focus on the one role without thinking about having a well-rounded character).


I suggest one idea: "Reborn" - "You should change your type (or body? or true appearance?) during progression."

That seems like an open door for the cheesiest shapechanging imaginable. No monster that I know of can natively change its type, so it would be all up to your class levels, with little to no synergy with the monster (since type change often comes with shape change, and you lose most of what the monster brings), which is not really in the spirit of this comp. Maybe something like "the monster must have the innate ability to change its form, be it by alternate form, an elemental's whirlwind or other ways"? What do you think of that?


Another round theme idea: "Signature SLA." Like Signature Spell IC E6 round (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?627038-Iron-Chef-E6-Appetizer-Edition-Round-XXIX), but SLA.

Also interesting, maybe limiting if the SLA in question isn't present on that many monsters. I'll have to look it up.

[Inevitability]

Okay, what do you think of these themes:

The three states of monster:

Solid rock: the character must be a Construct, have the [Earth] subtype, or otherwise be constituted of a mineral, stone, metal or crystal, like a crystalline troll.

Liquid slime: the character must be an Ooze, have the [Water] subtype, or otherwise be able to change into a liquid state, like the blood elemental or the magma mephit.

Gaseous ghosts: the character must be incorporeal, have the [Air] subtype, or otherwise be able to change into a gaseous state, like the belker or alkilith.


And a bonus theme for the plasma, fourth state of matter:
The power of the sun: Your body must be physically hot, to the point of dealing fire damage to creatures and/or objects touching you, and you must be able to either move your enemies closer to you against their will (to mimic gravitation), or use "sunbursts", omnidirectional attacks affecting everyone around you (at least all the squares adjacent to you). Bonus point if you can do both.


Which one would you prefer?



Plasma > Solid > Liquid > Gaseous for me. Maybe throw in a small note to the extent of 'bonus points if you use special abilities linked to this state of matter' for the first three phases as well?

[loky1109]

That seems like an open door for the cheesiest shapechanging imaginable. No monster that I know of can natively change its type, so it would be all up to your class levels, with little to no synergy with the monster (since type change often comes with shape change, and you lose most of what the monster brings), which is not really in the spirit of this comp. Maybe something like "the monster must have the innate ability to change its form, be it by alternate form, an elemental's whirlwind or other ways"? What do you think of that?

I see your point. Actually, there is at least one monster that can natively change its type (it has no LA and unrated, iirc, but still).
"Monster must have the innate ability to change its form" could be interesting, but it isn't "Reborn."

About elements: Water > Fire > Earth > Air. And I agree with Inevitability's: "Maybe throw in a small note to the extent of 'bonus points if you use special abilities linked to this state of matter' for the first three phases as well?"


Also interesting, maybe limiting if the SLA in question isn't present on that many monsters.
Limiting isn't bad itself. And there are still enough monsters with SLA.

[Prime32]

Another theme idea: Builds must use one of the "Past Life" templates from DMG2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25179838&postcount=499).

[loky1109]

Another theme idea: Builds must use one of the "Past Life" templates from DMG2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25179838&postcount=499).

It's okay idea, but I can't say it's unused ingredient.

[Inevitability]

Another theme idea: Builds must use one of the "Past Life" templates from DMG2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25179838&postcount=499).

That'd be interesting, maybe we should specify it counts as a 'class feature' for the purpose of qualifying for things?

[Beni-Kujaku]

Another theme idea: Builds must use one of the "Past Life" templates from DMG2 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25179838&postcount=499).

May be interesting, I'll include it in the next vote, I just feel like Past Life's a good way to improve another idea rather than something to build towards, so there might be a lack of inspiration, but I guess we'll see.

Regarding the current poll, which state of matter do you prefer Prime32? What about you, Thurbane, Tzardok, or even others?

[Tzardok]

None of them inspires me, but Liquid sounds interesting to watch.

[Prime32]

Regarding the current poll, which state of matter do you prefer Prime32? What about you, Thurbane, Tzardok, or even others?
Plasma I guess?

[Thurbane]

I'd have a slight preference for rock, but any of them are fine...

[Beni-Kujaku]

Well, I didn't think the "challenge" theme with the most amount of restrictions would pull out. Okay, then, I'll start making the next theme: "Blazing (Mon)Stars".