Monster Mash XI: What a horrible monster to give a curse

[Inevitability]

The judgement has, inevitably, arrived.

Spoiler: Dol is Dutch for mad (12.25)

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Originality (2.25)
Slaad Brooder is not something I expected to see, an inspired choice for sure. 1/1

Some of your skills are a bit quirky, but your feats are very cut-and-dry melee with a side of grappler. 0.25/1

You do exactly what is expected of a slaad brooder: grab something, implant it with egg pellets, and occasionally melt someone's form. You do it well, mind you, but this isn't the power section. 0/1

No unexpected combinations of elements. 0/0.5

A quick quip does not a backstory make. 0/0.5

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

I'm not seeing anything out of order here, everything is very mechanically pretty, and obviously there's no playability issues. 2/2

Some minor dual uses for feats (mostly things that qualify you for PrCs but were good to use anyway), but also some minor antisynergy between your SLA-slinging and melee sides. 0.25/1

Power (2.75)
So you're swinging three times a round at higher attack bonuses than an at-level fighter, but for much worse damage. 2d4+6 is bad, adding one-handed Power Attack barely makes it better, 1d6 energy damage behind two saves doesn't really matter - the main impact from your attacks is grappling, but grappling with +25 is... really not cutting it at level 20. Even a basic humanoid martial is going to be a match for you! Sure, you get a really nasty save-or-suck at level 20, but it requires you to hit and the target must fail two saving throws. Sure, to an extent this is just an issue with slaad brooder, but it's not like it's impossible to optimize natural weapons or build a strong monstrous grappler! 0.25/1

One of your saves is incredibly high, and energy resistance and Magic Circle shore up your 'weaker' ones. Even so, a lot of the traditional melee weaknesses are still a problem for you - you can't move and attack in the same round, you'll get AoOd closing in on bigger foes, and your abilities don't work on undead and constructs. 0.5/1

So out of combat, we have some SLAs, great disguise capability but no real social skills, Track, Hide but no Darkstalker, Intimidate and Spellcraft too low to typically matter... It all feels very unfocused. 0.25/1

I really don't think this build is an acceptable melee bruiser until it gets to implant multiple eggs, and perhaps not even until it gets Corporeal Instability, and once 10d6 Lightning Bolt spam loses its luster, what do you have, exactly? Your mid- to lategame is going to be very awkward. 0.25/0.5

No reliance on limited-use abilities. 0.5/0.5

Monstrosity (3.0)
I'm incredibly confused about your choice of monster. You need to be a slaad, sure, but if you're going to fight in melee anyway, why not be a green slaad and get +4 strength, much better grappling, and Slaad Brooder's excellent capstone? If you wanted to be a grey slaad, the build you give is a decent enough path for one, but why be a grey slaad? 1/1.5

Yes, your every attack implants eggs - but this is likely to come up only as add-on energy damage or (at ECL 20) Corporeal Instability. I'd have liked to see some sort of hit-and-run capability, or some other way to squeeze more power out of your eggs. As it is, they'll often be less impactful than a moderately enchanted Necklace of Natural Attacks. 0.5/1

As mentioned, fortitude saves mean constructs and undead will be immune, and presumably things like oozes or incorporeals will be hard to affect as well. 0.25/0.5

Implant lasts for a week, then kills the host. It's technically not permanent, which is a nuance that kind of matters when considering resurrection and other monsters with self-restoration. Plus, the OP said to prefer permanent curses explicitly, so let's go with 0.25/0.5.

Ending your curse prematurely doesn't require any magic at all - a lot of monsters that don't have Remove Curse access will have access to a healer or sawbones, and with only 1d6 points of damage per attempt, the eggs shouldn't be too hard to remove. 0/0.5


FINAL THOUGHTS
In the end, I can't help but wonder about Green Dolgrim, and how he'd have done. The ability to hatch and dominate spawn would have been amazing from a power and monstrosity perspective, and the bigger size would've helped out a lot on your way to level 20. I still don't quite get why you rejected all that for bigger SLAs. I like focused yet competent builds, and I feel like Dolgrim as currently presented is neither.

Other than that, Dolgrim is... bland. Every PC that fits the description of "Grey Slaad Slaad Brooder" will turn out approximately the same, and you've missed out on chances to give this build some character or quirky strategies. A pity: I think the slaad brooder choice was genuinely innovative, and it's a pity to see it play out so predictably.

Spoiler: Somnasculpt(R) Dream Therapy (16.50)

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Originality (4.50)
Ranger 4 and Exemplar 4 are classes that do pop up from time to time, but they weren't exactly my first thought for this round. 0.75/1

I'm seeing some solidly creative feat picks in Animal Friend, Narrowed Gaze, Exalted Spell Resistance, Flyby Attack, Astral Tracking, Combat Expertise, as well as a very creative skill choice in Lucid Dreaming. I think Vow of Poverty is really overused in this contest, so props to getting a full score here in spite of it. 1/1

Turbo-redemption through the medium of dreams: if that doesn't get max points, I don't know what does. 1/1

Ranger is very much out of the blue for an incorporeal fey lucid dreamer. 0.5/0.5

The fluff is a nice window into who Morpheus is and what he does, though it didn't tell me all that much that the build table did not already. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (4.0)
No multiclass XP penalties. 1/1

Not entirely sure how you're picking two skills for skill mastery at your second Exemplar level. Being incorporeal without Ghostly Grasp also leaves you very limited in your ability to interact with the world. Lastly, your skill point calculation is a bit confusing in places (shouldn't you spend 13 points at ECL 20?), but that's a minor problem at worst. 1.25/2

You get actual use out of your prerequisites, your ranger dip connects to your exalted feats in a few nice ways, and Vow of Poverty solves an issue for your build while also making Vow of Peace cheaper to get. Nothing here stuns me, but it's nice to see the cohesion. 0.75/1

Power (4.0)
Hoo, boy. Obviously, spring attack + incorporeality + save-or-lose touch attacks bundled with a debuffing gaze are a strong combination. Plus, you've got Calm Emotions boosted by the same gaze, and all the defensive goodness of Vow of Peace, and the occasional Brain Lock, Crisis of Breath, or technically-pacifist Death Urge. You've got 22 constitution, SR, mind-affecting immunity, your added +10 charisma to fortitude. When you're in your element, you're incredibly capable and can even bring foes to your side rather than merely subduing them. 1/1

But against undead, constructs, and other mind-affecting immune foes, I don't see you contributing at all - you can't even use diplomacy against them, because they will be utterly unable to perceive you. Against things that don't sleep, you're invisible but still dangerous, which is more interesting, but you won't be able to redeem them or kill them, which makes for some very awkward situations. Worse, anyone you put to sleep is only a single standard action away from being awakened. You've specialized to the point where you simply cannot meaningfully overcome large swatches of the game. 0/1

You fill the tracker role impressively well with Astral Tracking and Dream Travel, you're an okay scout, you have some knowledges and can sometimes spot a disguised succubus, and your face aspirations are only somewhat foiled by the awkwardness of Dream Phase. Enough for full points. 1/1

You're doing what you want to be doing by your first class level, which is about all I can ask for. 0.5/0.5

No heavy reliance on limited-use abilities. 0.5/0.5

Monstrosity (4.0)
No questions about your choice of monster: you need defenses, you need an at-will sleep effect, and you need save debuffing - this is perfect. 1.5/1.5

Your sleep touch is core to your combat strategy, and you want to apply it even to foes you've already defeated through other means. 1/1

Unfortunately, mind-affecting immunity is commonplace, and sleep immunity adds elves, elementals, and dragons to that list as well. 0/0.5

Well, technically your slumber lasts forever... 0.5/0.5

...but anyone else can end it with one standard action. 0/0.5

FINAL THOUGHTS:
My favorite build. An innovative strategy, interesting use of a monster's abilities, and unexpected yet well-justified classes. Yes, it's a one-trick pony, but what a trick! I would have liked to see you try and find some offensive option against mind-affecting immune foes - and perhaps it would have been worth looking into the druid variant that gets Track to save a few levels - but that's just me nitpicking.

Spoiler: Uniconsonants (11.25)

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Originality (3.25)
Maybe truenamer should've been on my radar for this round in particular - but on second thought it's truenamer, so I'm not blaming myself for being taken by surprise here. 1/1

I had to look up Pious Soul and Pious Defense, but your other feats are standard truenamer fare and your skills are nothing special either. 0.5/1

I don't think inviting your allies to ride on your back is actually all that practical, but it's original and a fun flavorful trick. 0/1 0.25/1

The combination of unicorn and truenamer is a bit notable, I suppose. 0.25/0.5

A barebones backstory is still a backstory. 0.25/0.5

Elegance (2.25)
No multiclass XP penalties. 1/1

Kingdoms of Kalamar is illegal material per the rules in the OP.

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.

(I was wrong about the books being dragonlance - not about them being 3rd-party and illegal for use)

This means that you need to rework your skill progression entirely and lose a lot of the social utility you were hoping to have.

The build has a huge item reliance, reaching up to 50% of WBL at times - and worse, it's a custom item reliance. Which you don't have the feats to make yourself. You're aware of all of this, you chose to be a truenamer, you knew you were going to have to get this past me - and I'm simply not interested in letting this go unpenalized.

Some table errors: your Will save progression is off by a single level, so it consistently increases late.

You're wrong about the effect of certain utterances. Reversed Moderate Word of Nurturing doesn't last for 5 rounds, it lasts for Concentration (maximum 1). You cannot apply Mortalbane to Fog from the Void, because mortalbane applies to damaging spell-like abilities. Suppress Weapon only gets rid of energy-based special abilities - y'know, Flaming and Frost enhancements. It's not killing artifacts.

All in all, I'm quite unhappy with this build as presented. 0/2

No synergy here beyond the most obvious 'truenamer feats make the truenamer better' stuff. 0.25/1

Power (3.25)
You're a truenamer, so my standards aren't especially high, but even so - what do you do that a normal truenamer cannot? Mortalbane and Quicken Utterance are factory-standard optimizations, custom skill items aren't really unique to you. I'm not going to pretending a normal level 20 truenamer is a powerhouse, but at least those are rewarded for sticking with the class all the way with the okayish SMNAIAT and the utterly busted Conjunctive Gate. What makes you take level 15 of truenamer? Suppress Item? Recitation of the Fortified State? Wouldn't an Exemplar or Marshal dip have been much better? You're an underpowered member of an underpowered class, and it is mostly out of pity that I do not assign a minimum score here. 0.25/1

You've actually got a decently diverse array of options, with some blasting, some debuffing, some support... you rely a lot on single-target effects, and certain magic-resistant foes will force you to resort to buffing your allies, but you're generally quite capable. 0.5/1 0.75/1

With only legal skills considered, you've got knowledge, unicorn powers, and a handful of utterances like Analyze Item. That's really meager as far as out-of-combat utility goes. 0.25/1

The build is broadly playable at the time of your first class level - unicorn helps with the awkward early game. 0.5/0.5

You squeeze enough uses out of your utterances per day to make me award the points for staying power. A pity your way of doing so involves that competence bonus item. 0.5/0.5

Monstrosity (2.50)
Well, I suppose that with the wackiness of truenamers, having a point of LA makes you marginally better at speaking your own true name than you'd otherwise be...

In all seriousness: I'm not seeing any meaningful points of contact between truenamer and unicorn. Like, at all. Being an unicorn does something for you, and being a truenamer does something for you, but the two do not interact, they do not complement each other, and all your reasons for being an unicorn would apply just as well if you'd chosen to be, say, a cleric. Unicorn doesn't even boost the one stat that you as a truenamer need the most!

Why should an unicorn be a truenamer, instead of any other class? Why should a truenamer give up 5 levels to be an unicorn? Your build does not adequately address these questions at all. 0/1.5

Well, treating your utterances as a single monolithic 'curse ability', they're obviously rather essential to what you do. I'd have liked to see some comments about uttering Mortalbane Reversed Energy Negation on someone and haste-galopping away for a minute while they take 40d6 damage, but it's undeniable that when you fight, a lot of that will meet the competition's standards. 0.75/1

Nearly nothing should be resistant or immune to your utterances. 0.5/0.5

Frankly, when the requirement is that your curse lasts 'until the end of combat', I'm nothing too pleased with a duration that caps out around a minute. Combats last longer than that sometimes! But sure, I'm not going to fail a build on something that pedantic, take your minimum points in this subcategory and move on. 0/0.5

Well, it's an ongoing SLA, so a dispel should get rid of your utterances. That's not unseen on higher-level monsters. 0.25/0.5

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I genuinely don't get where this build came from. Like, I get the Ongoing Damage -> Truenamer link, but what compelled you to make it an unicorn? I don't even think unicorns are particularly bad, but truenamer is one of the worst classes to try and make work with it. This feels like it could have been two builds: one an unicorn with a bit of a more appropriate class, and one a truenamer with a more supportive race - both could genuinely have been great!

Spoiler: Boy and his master and his boy and his master and his boy and his master and his (14.0)

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Originality (3.50)
Yuan-Ti Cultist is something I had to look up, but cloistered cleric 1 is perhaps the single most commonly useful dip in the game, particularly in a curse round. 0.5/1

Divine Metamagic Heighten and its prerequisites, Ability Focus, Practiced Spellcaster, Power Attack... Holy Warrior and Blindsight help here some, though. 0.5/1

Starting with a human and progressively (and RAW-legally!) transforming him into a yuan-ti abomination is... well, it's unexpected, it's clever, and it's deserving of an originality bonus. At first I was unsure about the difference between this and simply starting as a abomination - but then I realized this trick helps with skill point allocation. 1/1

Nothing too weird about the sum of your elements. 0/0.5

This is exactly what I'm looking for in a good backstory; a concept that works great with the context of D&D rules backing it up, a little mystery that drops some hints for the reader to pick up on, potent ouroborian imagery, and a thought-provoking resolution. The whole thing reminded me a little of Dr. Who's Heaven Sent, though it's different enough that I wouldn't deduct points even if I knew for a fact you'd been inspired by it. 0.5/0.5

Elegance (3.0)
No multiclass XP penalties. 1/1

It doesn't really end up mattering, but where are you getting the idea that Tainted One is +1 LA? The Races of Faerun version seems to be +2 LA, and the most recent Serpent Kingdoms version is +3.

Props to acknowledging the ambiguities inherent in transformations - I think the best way to rule it is as you've done, where each change in base creature is treated as the sudden gain of X hit dice with skills appropriate for the new form. However, even by this standard, your halfblood transformation is illegal. Halfbloods' skill list gives us "Craft or knowledge (any two)", but you put ranks in alchemy and three knowledge skills. Hanging on to Knowledge Devotion for a bit could've saved you here (you don't actually need to make the domain feat trade the moment you obtain the domain) (idk why i said this), and there is some precedent for what you want in the pureblood player section, but still - a minor penalty. The same issue returns with the abomination HD increase.

The whole bit about turning into a human-headed snake that doesn't exist anymore is giving me a headache. There's a line in the monster manual about armless creatures getting to cast spells by moving their body, but you obviously would like to keep your hands for other reasons too. Going to assign a tiny penalty and move on.

No sources are provided for Merrshaulk's expanded list of domains; I'm especially confused about the War domain, which isn't listed in the MM or Complete Divine entries.

All in all, a lot of little issues add up to quite the penalty. 0.75/2

Not especially impressed with the build efficiency here - you make use of most Yuan-Ti Cultist features, but the class kind of makes sure you do. 0.25/1

Power (3.75)
You're a good frontliner, with Large size, 22 strength, +16 BAB and a secondary bite, plus a wide array of cleric spells for buffing. You boast far-reaching minionmancy (albeit with heavy restrictions), remarkably respectable SR, a really good wisdom score, and various odd SLAs. You're an extremely respectable gish with lots of versatility... but you were cooking with a tier 1 class, and I cannot reward you for all the power afforded by cleric spells without considering the power -lost- by not getting higher-level access. 0.5/1

Most effects you can inflict are mind-affecting or poison-based, which a host of creatures are immune to. Venomfire is a big help here, though, so you get back what it cost you earlier. 0.75/1

Some UMD, some craft, some knowledge, some diplomacy (the last only slightly hampered by the fact that you're a giant evil snake). You show a willingness to throw the cleric's huge skill boosts onto important rolls, which I cannot fault you for. You're a solid enemy radar with Detect Hostile Intent, you have some charms and suggestions that clerics don't normally get, and you can of course transform and dominate humans, which solves a subset of social encounters. Let's be nice and say 0.75/1

Actually thinking about how this build would play level-to-level is making my head hurt. At any rate you're starting as a competent character at level 1, slide off a little as you take on various sources of LA and RHD, and then reach a weird low point around mid-levels where neither halfblood SLAs nor cleric casting nor low-level Cultist features are impressing me. Not unplayable, but with some awkward progression hiccups. 0.25/0.5

Lots of reliance on at-will abilities and melee attacks, with wisdom pumping your spells per day sky-high. 0.5/0.5

Monstrosity (3.75)
Obviously, as a yuan-ti cultist there's no other race that can replicate your abilities... but a humanoid cleric can get pretty close. The extra domain is as easy as a contemplative dip, sticks to snakes and the various chants are matched pretty well by cleric spells and reserve feats, unhallow and unholy aura are obviously normal spells, and persistomancy can deliver the SR. That leaves the poison bite slash venomfire delivery mechanism, which isn't impossible to obtain, and the free domination of reptiles and yuan-ti, which is. Obviously, no humanoid is going to be able to access your exact mix of abilities, but they get closer than the race-locked PrC might imply. 1/1.5

If you're using it to deliver venomfire, the relevant part of your poison isn't the part that counts as a curse. Bestow Curse, Eyebite, Baleful Polymorph, Aversion, etc are all rather nice and flavorful examples, though. Those abilities are a part of your combat routine, but not front and center - you will often be better off casting another spell, or going for the proper save-or-die, or spraying acid. Half a point for the variety, no points for necessity. 0.5/1

Bestow Curse affects anything and lasts forever but isn't that hard to remove, Baleful Polymorph is permanent but slightly limited in its targets, and the yuan-ti transformations are hardest to remove but incredibly limited in scope. No matter which I evaluate, you get 1.25/1.5 points here.


FINAL THOUGHTS:
That story is going to stick with me for a very long while. The build itself rises to the level of 'okay', though this was probably one of the better rounds to get your idea out and I'm glad you did. Yuan-Ti Cultist is a class that I'm happy to see in an entry... but like Slaad Brooder or Truenamer, I don't think I want to see another for a while.

Four rather distinct builds. I'm a bit disappointed to nobody really cared about the duration that comes with most curse effects - no attempts to apply them and then flee combat, no strategies based around marking random commoners and getting some sort of benefit out of that, and where builds had the ability to do such things, they almost seemed to shy away from it. The final result felt like a short-term debuff round more than a curse round at times, and sometimes not even that. That said, I had a blast judging, and I hope the competitors can agree with most of what I said.

Dispute away!