Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Deathshrieker

And today, we have the incarnation of that cliché creepy child's voice that you often hear in horror movies: the deathshrieker. That's an incorporeal undead arising from the sorrow of the last cries of the dying. Another undead with the nightshades that wasn't ever really alive. It was supposed to fill its enemies with dread with its screams to render them insane. In actual play, however, it doesn't really work as intended.

- 18 RHD, Medium incorporeal undead. Ouch. That is an awful lot of HD. We'll remove most of that. Incorporeal Undead has a few downsides, but considering it has +4 turn resistance, that's mostly very positive and will make it invincible against some encounters.
- +14 Dex, -2 Int, +4 Wis, 10 Cha, +1/3HD profane bonus to AC. Obviously no Con or Str. That's a lot of AC. The rest is expected, and really low for an 18 RHD creature, but would be worth 5 or 6 HD on its own on an incorporeal undead. You have no energy resistance. That's not good. That means you're going to be pretty weak to no-save spells, and even to regular Fireball-type spells.
- Despair. That's the big one. First time an opponent sees you, they make a will save or are paralyzed for 1d4 round (hello coup-de-grace). Really strong.
- Scream of the dying: Supposedly strong, in fact more of a liability. You have to keep screaming for 3 rounds without doing anything else, forcing saves against deafened, then stunned, then insanity. That's good and all, but it's an unmoving 30ft area. In actual play, nothing will be more than deafened by that. And you lose 3 turns for that. And it's only 1/day, because of course it needed one more restriction.

Your offense is really good, but you have almost nothing against spells. I strongly suggest going rogue if you plan on playing this. Not only will it give you a much needed Evasion, being able to efficiently hide means you can use Despair when you want for maximum effect. It also improves your currently weak incorporeal touch attack from 1d4 charisma damage to actually good DPR. With that in mind, what is the deathshrieker worth? Even without Despair, it's slightly better than a Spectre, despite its much worth incorporeal touch. With Despair, I'd say a strong 9 RHD, or maybe even 10. And as always, Undead RHD are worthless, except to give more turn resistance. DLA-6.


What do you think of that guy? Do we have enough incorporeal undead yet? Not even close! Just wait for libris mortis... Before that, next time, we'll review this book's dinosaurs, the salvageable Bloodstriker and the absolutely awful Battletitan!